Thirty Nights (American Beauty #1)

by Ani Keating

  I pull away, more light-headed than I have ever been in Denton’s lab. “You’re a wonderful man,” I tell him.

  The V between his eyebrows deepens as though he doesn’t think he belongs in the same sentence as the word wonderful. “Did you sniff some of Cora’s cleaning chemicals, Elisa? I’ve told her to use only biodegradable materials.”

  “No, just your cologne. That’s all, Aiden.” I hop out of his arms and sprint back to the bedroom before I say something that will earn me a permanent restraining order.

  * * * * *

  Two hours later, my hair washed and dried, I pick up the knickers Aiden bought me. Actually, calling them knickers is an insult. Masterpiece fits better. My belly starts tightening as I slide on the turquoise lace-and-organza artwork and matching bra. Will the lingerie he buys me always do this? I hope so.

  I avoid the mirror until the last minute after I zip up the dress and fluff the layers. Then, with a deep breath, I turn slowly and look at myself. The woman gaping at me is not my mum. She is shiny, bright, her eyes almost lilac. She is someone I used to know—but better. I twirl on the spot, twice, three times, laughing. The turquoise layers span around me like a rose opening in time lapse. I teeter out of the restroom, careful on my new, silver Louboutin heels, wishing there was something I could give back to Aiden. What do you give the man who has everything? Hmm, I’ll have to ponder this.

  I pass by the painting room, making a note to remind Javier that his supplies are still here. We don’t want Feign thinking Javier stole them. The flickering lights precede me down the hall. With my new eyes, I stop abruptly where I am—by the piano in the living room. If Aiden needs warning even to this degree, I should be afraid. I really should, just like he told me. All it would take is barging in somewhere while he has his eyes closed. Or jumping him the next time he takes my breath away. But there is a deep loneliness behind this safety measure, a loneliness that propels my feet forward and suddenly, I’m running. Not to the front door, but to his library.

  I almost collide with the closed door in my madness but his voice inside rescues me. It’s an odd mixture of frustration and regret.

  “What is your malfunction, Cal?”

  I clamp my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing. He sounds just like Reagan.

  “I don’t know if I’m coming yet, all right?… Yes, I know it’s a tradition… Why?… As a matter of fact, that’s exactly why… You might win because I’m sure I’ll fuck it up…suck camel dick…fuck off.”

  Suck camel dick? Poor camel. He slams the phone down and I hear some mumbling, no doubt more profanities. I take a deep breath, knocking with impatience, not fear. How different I feel in front of this door now than two days ago!

  “Aiden?”

  Some scrambling of papers. “Yes, come in, Elisa.”

  I open the door, and there he is. More wit-shattering than ever in a tailored navy suit, white shirt and no tie. The defined muscles of his neck form a sculpted V that disappears beneath the open collar of his shirt. He looks like he causes wars, not fights them.

  He is stacking some papers in neat, precise angles. But the moment he looks at me, he drops them. The loose pages miss the desk and fly everywhere but he doesn’t blink. He stares at me for a good fifteen seconds, mouthing something that looks very much like “holy fuck”. I resist the urge to take a bow and hand out autographs. It’s great being a woman.

  He starts strolling toward me, eyes on fire. He stops only when he is close, so close that there is no space for air between us. Then, slowly, he dips me over his arm so that my throat is exposed and presses his lips there once.

  “You look so beautiful.” His voice is almost pained. I know the feeling—the sense that you are beholding something so wondrous that it could not have been meant for you.

  “As do you,” I whisper. I feel his smile against my skin as his lips start fluttering over my collarbones and my exposed shoulders. Suddenly, the corset is too tight. I want to rip it open.

  “Do you want me to beat up whoever was making you upset on the phone?” I start babbling so that I don’t tear off my dress and undo all my hard work.

  He chuckles against my skin and pulls back. “No, I don’t want you to beat him up. In fact, I don’t want you anywhere near him because he has a really filthy mind.”

  “Jealousy from you, Aiden?” I smile, wondering when jealousy became attractive to me.

  “Only where equally dirty-minded bastards are concerned.” His affection for the unknown dirty bastard coats his harsh words.

  “So who is this dirty-minded bastard so that I can have my skunk spray ready?”

  He laughs. “James Callahan. He was one of the Marines in my squad.”

  “Oh, is this the trip you were planning earlier?”

  “Yes.”

  “But now you’re not sure if you’re going?”

  He shakes his head. “No. I’d like to be around in case Bob needs something.” His eyes are tight, careful. The warmth of his kisses starts draining out of me. It’s not to spend time with me. It’s to see my green card through so he can let me go.

  “Is that the only reason?” My voice is too soft for the sharpness of the feeling.

  He smiles and drops his hand from my waist to my behind. He squeezes it hard.

  “That, and your ass. Although at the moment it’s quite eclipsed by this dress, I’m afraid.”

  Well, it’s something. “Thank you. A U.S. Marine bought it for me. You should steer clear of him. Jealous bloke. Descendant of dragons, that one. Ghastly big too.”

  “I’ll be on my guard. Although I hope you have better sense than to be involved with such a brute.”

  “I like brutes, I’m finding. Seriously misunderstood creatures.” I reach on my toes to kiss his scar. He looks like he is about to press his case against brutes everywhere so I move on.

  “Do you see the other Marines often?” I’m afraid of the answer. I don’t know if that would make the PTSD worse or better.

  “At least once a year. We meet at the end of May at my cabin on the Rogue River for a few days.”

  At the end of May—when he returned home. “Aiden, you should go see them. I’ll be okay with Bob,” I say, even though the idea of not seeing him for a day, let alone several, suddenly dims even the green card for me.

  “We’ll see.” He shrugs.

  “Who comes to visit other than Callahan?”

  “Hendrix and Jazzman.”

  “What about Marshall? Is he a Marine too?”

  “Once a Marine, always a Marine.” He caresses my jawline.

  “Oh, so why isn’t Marshall coming?” I don’t know why but I really want to meet his best friend.

  “Because of me,” he says evenly. He wraps his arm around my waist and starts walking to the library door, but I barely notice over the strange tightening in my chest. I want to ask him what he means but this is one line I don’t know if I can ever cross. What if Aiden attacked Marshall too? I shiver, my brain rejecting the idea. No, it’s more likely that Aiden is pushing Marshall away for his safety, like he is doing with me. How can I ever ask him about this without it being either the grossest of accusations or the most painful of reminders? I kiss his neck as I begrudgingly concede that this information has to come from him.

  “What’s with the big doe eyes, Elisa?”

  I shrug. “Just thinking about you…and your military service.”

  “What about it?”

  Hmm, what question can I ask that won’t hurt? “Why is it not in your CV?”

  He gives me an indulgent smile. “Elisa, with my dragon behavior as you call it, how long do you think it would take the world to suspect I have a defect if they knew that information?”

  “It’s not a defect, Aiden. It’s a wound. And nothing to be ashamed of.”

  He rolls his eyes. “That’s a cl
iché, Elisa.”

  “That doesn’t make it less true.”

  “Can we go now?”

  He sounds like Anamelia when she is at the dentist’s office. I kiss his scar. “Yes, although I wish you would tell me where we’re going.”

  He smiles. “It’s a surprise.”

  I’m abruptly excited. Maybe this will be a fun night for him too, away from old memories and forming new ones. For my part, I will do my best to make those memories brilliant.

  “Chemists don’t like surprises,” I pretend to grumble, even though I’m only referring to myself.

  “Then this should be an easy success.”

  Success? Success at what?

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Top of the World

  The Range Rover flies past all city exits, heading east toward Mount Hood and the airport. The moment I see the reflective green sign boasting PORTLAND INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, I shiver.

  “Aiden, you’re not flying us anywhere abroad, are you?” My voice starts trembling because this is exactly the kind of thing he would do. Hydrogen, 1.008. Helium—

  He chuckles, reaching over and squeezing my knee. “No, little refugee, I’m not. Somehow I didn’t think you wanted to leave the States just yet.”

  I slump in the leather seat, taking a deep breath. He keeps his eyes on the road, checking the back mirror every few minutes and stealing glances at me. In the few moments that our eyes meet, I notice that the blue depths are calm. Then occasionally, at no apparent trigger, they brew again. The tectonic plates seem to have three settings: shifting when he is remembering, stilling when he is thinking, and locking. Locking is rare. I only witnessed it earlier today when he talked about injuring me or his mum.

  I watch the last rays of sun fracturing on his skin with a million questions raging in my brain. How did this all start for him? What would fix it? How do I convince him to stay with me?

  Perhaps feeling my gaze burning a hole in his lovely cheek, he peers at me. “What are you thinking so hard about?”

  “All the questions I have about you.”

  I was expecting immediate shutdown but to my surprise, he nods. “That’s the point for tonight. So that you can finally question what you see and hear.”

  At the answer, I almost decide not to ask anything but as any scientist will tell you, leaving a question unasked is a bigger sin with our lot than leaving it unanswered.

  “Well?” he prompts.

  “I’m afraid of asking something that would be too hard for you to relive.” And too hard for me to hear.

  He nods. “You should be afraid of that. But don’t worry, I would stop you. I don’t want that shit polluting your head. Or mine for that matter.”

  It’s a twisted thing to give me relief but it still does.

  “Well, I was wondering why you joined the Marine Corps to begin with? I mean, with your memory…it seems like such an enormous risk to take with your life.”

  He shrugs. “We’re all invincible at eighteen. I finished college-level math by fifth grade, Elisa. What lure could academics possibly have held for me? The military, on the other hand, was knocking on our door daily. At first sergeants, then lieutenants, then General Sartain.”

  “Who?”

  He waves his hand dismissively. “He’s a big shot in the CIA. Anyway, I started having vague fantasies of being some type of James Bond.”

  “But you never went into intelligence?”

  “Started to.” His words become clipped, guarded.

  “But then?”

  He takes a deep breath, his eyes firmly on the road although with his memory, who knows if he is really looking. “But then 9/11 happened. There wasn’t a single Marine in the Corps that didn’t want to avenge it.” His voice hardens.

  I remember watching the Twin Towers, huddled on the couch between Mum and Dad in our cottage. “That’s the kind of evil science can’t explain,” Dad said.

  Aiden’s fingers brush against my cheek. “Are you okay?” he asks gently.

  I look up at him and nod. He smiles. “Good. It worries me when you’re so quiet.”

  “Would you have done it again?”

  He looks back at the road. The sun has set now, and it’s darker in the car. Minutes tick in the dashboard clock. 8:29, 8:31.

  “We all want second chances,” he says at last. His voice is a mix of anger and regret.

  I take his answer as confirmation but I cannot fathom his words. What would he have done with his second chance that would have been worth this hell twice around?

  I shiver and look out the window. We are racing through the Columbia River Gorge now, the cavernous canyon between Oregon and Washington. The sharp, craggy peaks of the Cascades pierce the skies. There are no longer lights around. Only a dark, quiet beauty.

  Aiden’s index finger comes under my chin and I turn to face him. He is smiling. “Were those all your questions? Some scientist you are.”

  “I was just thinking of what I would have done to stop you from ever joining the Corps in the first place,” I whisper, afraid of making him angry with my wish to take away all his chances, let alone the second.

  But there is no anger on his face. His smile becomes a grin. “Well, for you, it wouldn’t have taken much. Just showing up naked and being chained to my bed. Eighteen-year-old Aiden would have lost his shit over you.” He winks. “I suppose I have not changed much.”

  He shakes his head in mock horror but I am floating. Does that mean he is losing his shit over me now? Who needs poetry. “I was thinking more along the lines of lying in front of the plane that shipped you off but chained to your bed seems marginally better.”

  “You sound like my mother. Minus the bed part, of course.” He pauses as though deciding whether to say something. “She did come,” he adds, his voice now very soft.

  “Your mum?”

  He nods. “Yes. The day I was deployed to Afghanistan, she came to the airbase in Monterey where I had just finished intelligence school. How she got in, I still don’t know. She was a mess. Begged me not to go—grabbed me right here…” His hand flies to his shirt collar. “Of course, I was appalled at having to deal with a hysterical mother when all the other Marines were loading up. The rest is history—well, technically with me, nothing is history,” he adds, his voice dry. I wish I could see his eyes.

  I lean over and rest my head on his shoulder. Maybe he needs calmness now. He presses his lips to my hair. “How are things with your parents now?”

  He sits up straighter. His muscle bands almost creak under my ear. “They’re safe and set up for life. That’s what matters.”

  He doesn’t exactly answer my question but it’s there, between the lines. A chill spreads like radionuclide in my veins. I pull back and look at him. “How often do you see them?”

  His jaw ticks. “As you can imagine, I can’t afford another accident that may kill my own mother.”

  He still doesn’t answer my question but he doesn’t have to. I know.

  “Aiden, no!” I grip his arm, the words exploding before I can control them. “Sweetheart, you can’t do that. You can’t shut them out of your life!” My voice shakes and I feel moisture in my eyes. Here I am, even four years later, stumbling through continents with craters in my chest, searching for anything that can fill the void. And he still has this pure love and denies it to himself. How can he stand it?

  He doesn’t speak. His posture is changing. Inch by inch, the strain of his shoulders is seeping to the rest of him. He pries my fingers from his arm so I swirl them in the hair at his temple.

  “Aiden, it’s obvious you love them. Take it from someone who knows. Someday they will be gone and nothing will be able to take this grief away from you. Not your work, not my paintings, not Marshall—”

  “Stop, Elisa!” His voice cracks through the air like a bullet. So
sharp, so loud that I fall back against the Rover’s door. His hands turn into talons on the steering wheel, bleached from the strain. His rib cage expands and the muscles are reverberating. The Rover picks up speed as though it’s absorbing the tension through his foot. My heart starts pounding. I’m suddenly afraid, a natural instinct telling me I need to calm him. Is this anger? Or something worse?

  “Aiden, I’m sorry,” I breathe.

  His hands don’t relax—it looks like he will rip the steering wheel apart. His eyes are trained unblinking ahead, locked beyond the road. The speedometer arrow rises. Eighty now. Something sharp cracks on the windshield—a pebble maybe. The Rover veers slightly toward the I-84 rail guard. No, not a car accident. I cross my arms around me, whispering frantically.

  “Hydrogen, 1.008. Helium, 4.003. Lithium, 6.94. Beryllium—”

  He draws a deep breath and blinks. Once. Twice. His rib cage contracts and the muscles stop shaking. He scans the highway and the Rover slows down, firmly in the center of our lane. I know the trance is broken when he turns his head and looks at me. In the faint light of the speedometer, I cannot decipher his eyes.

  “I’m very, very sorry about that,” he murmurs, sounding ashamed. “I didn’t mean to—are you all right?”

  I cannot speak or look away from him. But I sense the Rover veer abruptly to the right again and he hits the brakes. Peripherally, I notice our lights blinking. He faces me, his hand caressing my cheek.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says again, his voice the softest I’ve ever heard it. “I don’t want to frighten you.”

  He didn’t. Whatever he saw in his head did. And my parents’ crushed Beetle.

  “Isa.” He uses my nickname for the first time, perhaps to comfort me. “You’re safe. This is just the…the flashbacks. A short one.”

  A short one? What does a long one look like?

  He leans closer and blows gently on my face. His delicious scent jolts me to life and I draw a deep breath. “Talk to me, Elisa. Do you want to go back?”