Poet

by A. M. Johnson

  Kelly’s smile was soft. “She would’ve answered my call, and if you’re worried, she’ll think it’s sweet you checked on her. Maybe her battery is dead, or maybe it’s nothing at all, but with the weather as bad as it is, I think you should just stop by, make sure she’s safe.”

  “I’m going to grab my shit from the breakroom.” Liam’s tone was less irritated now, knowing that he wasn’t going to have to drive up north in a blizzard.

  Kelly was busy with her phone when I lifted mine and sent one more message to Melissa.

  Me: I’m worried. Do I need to come check on you?

  Kelly walked over to the desk and grabbed a Post-it and a pen. She scribbled Melissa’s address across the paper and just as Liam reappeared she said, “Let us know if she’s safe, all right.”

  “I will,” I promised as I slipped my phone into my pocket. “Same to you, let me know you guys got home okay.”

  “I’ll send you a text,” Liam said as Kelly wrapped her scarf around her neck. “Drive safe.”

  Liam and Kelly disappeared into the storm, and I locked the front door. It didn’t take long to shut off the lights and lock up, and once I was fighting the wind and heading up to my apartment, a slow fear started to creep into my bones. I hoped that when I got inside, and looked at my phone there would be some sign from her that she was okay.

  There wasn’t.

  I didn’t waste time standing in my kitchen staring at a blank screen. I grabbed my truck keys from the counter, and shrugged into my heavier winter coat. The stairs were dangerously slick, but I hurried down each step with a new sense of urgency. The cab of my truck heated quickly, melting the ice from my windshield. I kicked the truck into four-wheel drive, punched her address into the GPS map on my phone and hit the road.

  She lived about ten miles north of Avenues and what should have been a quick trip took me almost an hour. There were at least five cars that had slid off the road and two really terrible accidents. I kept my eyes on the freeway, and recited the Lord’s Prayer about one hundred times before I pulled off the exit ramp. My fingers enveloped the steering wheel in a white-knuckle grip as I fought the ice-covered pavement and wind. The heavy snow fell past the lights of my truck creating tunneled illusions that made it hard to keep an attentive eye on the path in front of me.

  It wasn’t until I pulled into her apartment complex that I realized I was in a real shitty part of town. I laughed at my knee-jerk reaction to lock my doors. If someone was ballsy enough to rob people in this kind of weather they could have my damn truck. I circled the parking lot looking for a spot. All the cars were covered in snow, and I wasn’t sure if I’d missed her car or not. There was a parking garage attached to the building, and after coming up empty, as far as parking was concerned, I pulled into the garage. There was a spot on the second level, and before I turned off the engine, I checked my phone one last time. All I had was a text from Liam letting me know he and Kelly had gotten home safely.

  The stairwell that led to her apartment was freezing and damp, and each breath I took pulled the scent of garbage into my lungs. I hated that she lived in a place like this… alone. She deserved to feel safe, and as I stared at the cracks in the foundation, the peeling paint of her front door, I wondered if she felt safe at all.

  I knocked three times before the door swung open. Shocked eyes and parted lips greeted me. Her cheeks looked warm and her hair was wet. We stood there for a few stunned, silent seconds, the heat of her apartment sneaking past the front entryway, wrapping around my cold body. Melissa was wearing a worn looking, oversized gray sweater that hung off her right shoulder and, even though she was wearing baggy black pajama bottoms, she still looked sexy as hell.

  Sexy, safe, and totally pissed.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Her shock had thawed into anger.

  The muscle in my jaw pulsed. “You didn’t answer my texts, I was fucking worried.”

  I’d attempted to rein in my own anger, but failed miserably. What? Did she think I wouldn’t give a shit that she just fell off the planet in a snow storm?

  The furious little crease between her brows softened. “So, you just figured you’d show up at my front door.” The bite in her voice had backed off, but her shoulders were stiff, blocking my view of her apartment, keeping me in the cold.

  “Yes,” I answered too quickly and her brows started to furrow again. “And no. I was worried and when Kelly came to pick up Liam I told her I hadn’t heard from you. She got worried, too. She tried to call.”

  “I know.”

  “You know?” I asked unable to hold back the hurt in my tone.

  She lowered her eyes to the ground. “You shouldn’t be here.” Melissa’s voice was strained and there was something in the way she’d said here that made it possible for me to see past my anger.

  I lifted her chin with two fingers and she didn’t resist.

  “Why didn’t you answer my texts?”

  She released a long breath. “Come inside. It’s freezing.”

  She stepped to the side and let me enter. I removed my boots, leaving them by the door as she brushed by me. Her place was small, but seemed comfortable. A bed, a side table, and a bookshelf took up the majority of the main living space. A tiny table sat in the corner by the kitchen. I took off my jacket, hung it over one of the two chairs, and followed behind her.

  “I was just about to eat dinner,” she said as she turned down the flame on the stove. Melissa’s eyes wouldn’t meet mine. They feathered around the room nervously. “Kieran, I… I’m sorry. I should’ve texted you.”

  “But you didn’t…”

  I leaned against the doorframe that led into the narrow kitchen waiting for her to turn around, to look at me, to give me something to hold on to, some clarification.

  Her eyes locked with mine. Her stature hard as she raised her hand and waved it in front of her. “I never wanted you to see this…” Her voice cracked. “I’m fucking mortified. I’m not who you think I am, Kieran.”

  “Then tell me,” I said raising my voice, pushing off the wall to stand in front of her.

  “I’m not like you. My life… my life used to be…” She shook her head, and I noticed her brown eyes had begun to brim with tears. Her emotions fluid and begging to fall down her cheeks.

  “Used to be what?” I whispered.

  She inhaled a jagged breath and her control burned the tears away. “Fucked up. Really fucked up, and it’s taken me five years to get better.” She ran her hand through her damp hair. “But this shit, it’s me… and I’m trying so damn hard to pull myself out of the gutter. Leaving The Western was step one, and Irene’s… and you…” Melissa’s brown eyes melted. She was sinking, spilling herself, bleeding, and I couldn’t look away. “I don’t deserve someone like you. I panicked, last night was… perfect, and I’ve never had perfect.”

  I chanced a step closer and when she didn’t retreat I closed the aching space. Each breath I took was a war between fury and hope. “I’m not perfect.”

  She laughed without humor. “Kieran, you’re a fucking saint.”

  “I’m not, though. No one is Mel, no one except God, and I swear He’s fucked up a time or two, as well.” A smile formed on my lips, and the fear in her shoulders eased.

  “I never wanted you to see where I lived. I don’t want to drag you into the gutter with me.” A tear escaped the tight leash she’d held. “This morning, I almost took that last bit of good you had.”

  “I wanted to give it,” I said and framed her face with my hands. Her cheeks were hot and I loved how right her skin felt against my palms. She tipped her head back and gave me the full weight of her gaze. “I don’t give a shit about where you live or who you were before you met me, I just want you to let me in. Let me see you, Melissa, because everything I’ve seen so far is fucking beautiful.”

  A shuddered breath tickled my thumb as I dusted it across her tear-stained lips. “All I’ve ever done is disappoint people. My family, myself, and
I’m so scared that if I let you see me… you’ll see what everyone else sees, what I see when I look at myself in the mirror every day. Failure.”

  I didn’t know what she’d been through, and I wanted her to trust me enough to tell me, but we’d only just started, and I hoped over time she’d open up. But right now, she needed to know how I felt, I had to stop those tears from falling.

  “All I see when I look at you…” I lowered my hands from her face, trailing my right hand down her cheek, her neck, her bare shoulder, “is a smart, sexy, strong woman who is trying to rise above the hand she’s been dealt.” I fit my hand at her waist and held her watery gaze. “I don’t know what you’ve been through, but I know I’ve never looked at another woman like I look at you. Never touched another woman and felt the way you make me feel. You fucking light me up, and it’s not going to stop just because you live in a small apartment, or had an ex-boyfriend who overdosed, or whatever the hell is in your head. I want you, Melissa, just you, no exceptions.”

  I leaned down to kiss her tear-stained lips. She was a mixture of salt and sadness, and I devoured the bitter-sweet taste of her. Her mouth was easy and soft against mine. I kissed her until she relaxed into my arms, until all the bullshit she had to bear on her shoulders fell away, until her quiet moan began to feed my pulse. I had to pull away before I forgot how to stop.

  I rested my hands on her hips and searched her eyes for any more hesitation. They were at half mast, her cheeks splotched with red, and all I could see was desire.

  “I want to feel like every other man. I want kiss you, touch you…” My lips lifted. “I want be with you, as you are. Don’t push me away.”

  She licked her lips and her brows set into a sad line as she spoke in a low whisper, “I’m sorry.”

  “Hey…” My fingers skated up her hips and around her back as I pulled her close. “I don’t want your apologies. Next time just answer your phone.” I gave her a lopsided smile hoping to break up the darkness haunting her eyes. It worked.

  She laughed lightly. “Honestly, I stopped looking at my phone after your third text. I didn’t pick it up again until Kelly called, and I didn’t actually think you’d show up here.”

  “I told Kelly you would think I was a stalker when she gave me your address.”

  “It’s cute you were worried enough to drive over here in a blizzard. I feel like an asshole, if anything had happened, I—”

  I kissed her. The guilt had begun to resurface, spilling black into her brown eyes again. The palms of my hands fisted into the fabric of her sweater when she moaned. Her tongue swept past my lips and dipped into my mouth. It was my turn to groan as her sweet taste filled my senses. She lifted her arms and folded them around my neck. Her thumbs stroked the nape and the sensation trickled down my spine. I backed her into the counter as my hands cupped the curve of her ass.

  There was no anger left in me, only resolve. I wanted her and I wasn’t going to wait. Melissa’s insecurities weren’t enough to scare me away. I’d never felt so sure, so out of control, and I wanted to live in the feeling, in her scent, inside her. My lips found her jaw, her neck, and when my teeth nipped her earlobe, she wound her leg around mine closing off any remaining space between us.

  I wasn’t sure how long I kissed Melissa in that kitchen, or if she’d been too far gone as well, to notice the smell of burnt food, but when the smoke detector alarm made us both jump, we broke away from each other and started laughing like a couple of kids.

  Melissa was emerging. That youthful, colorful smile was painted broadly across her face as she rushed to the sink to grab a towel. She giggled as she turned off the stove and waved the rag back and forth below the smoke detector.

  I chuckled as I took the rag from her hand. “Watch and learn,” I shouted over the loud blare of the alarm.

  I quickly soaked the towel in the sink, wrung it out, and then draped it over the detector on the wall. The grating sound immediately stopped and Melissa looked at me in disbelief.

  “Holy shit…” She stared at the rag. “See… you’re perfect, you know everything.”

  My laugh echoed in the small kitchen. “Not really, I distracted you, and now your dinner is ruined.”

  She stirred the soup with the spoon that had been laying on the stove. “Nah. It’s just posole, the side’s burnt a little, but it still looks really good.”

  “Posole?”

  She repeated the word, this time with a heavier accent. “It’s a type of soup, and my favorite. I have enough...” She looked up from the pot and bit the corner of her nervous smile. “Are you hungry?”

  I was a lot of things.

  “I am, I haven’t had dinner yet.”

  She nodded, a flash of guilt in her eyes. “Then stay.”

  My smile stretched across my face as her cheeks filled with heat. “Okay.”

  “She didn’t just catch me on fire, she stayed around to burn with me.”

  Hayley Stumbo~

  The scattered pictures of Melissa’s family hung on her wall, writing me a perfect page of her life. She’d told me a little more about her family when we’d eaten dinner. She offered me small glimpses into her past. She’d told me, that even though she’d been the troublemaker, Maria hadn’t always been the responsible one either. I found myself comparing her sister to Liam, and wishing I would’ve known Melissa back then. I scanned the photographs of her father and mother as they watched their daughters grow in each snapshot. An ache formed like a knot in my chest as I realized the pictures of Melissa stopped after she’d become a teen. No prom pictures, no high school memories. Just Maria and Jordan. I couldn’t help the questions that formed on my tongue, but she’d asked for time, and I’d promised that her past wasn’t relevant, so I swallowed down my curiosity.

  I smiled as I noticed a picture with a much skinnier version of Melissa. She wasn’t a teen, maybe mid-twenties, but she was sitting in a bumper car with what looked like a six or seven-year-old Jordan.

  “That picture is terrible.” Melissa’s gentle hand linked with mine and the heat of her body surrounded me.

  “You look so different,” I noted. She didn’t agree or disagree.

  When I turned to gauge her expression, her eyes were focused on the wall ahead. Her face indifferent.

  I squeezed her hand and asked, “How old is Jordan in that picture?”

  “Six,” she answered immediately but kept her eyes forward.

  “He looks just like you.” I chuckled and turned toward the kitchen. “Need my help cleaning up?” I asked after a moment.

  “I got it all, but thanks.” She released my hand, and I met her blank stare.

  “I should’ve helped clean up.”

  “I pushed you out for a reason.” Her smile returned allowing the spark I loved to light her eyes. The ache in my chest unfurled. “Not enough room in there, you’re a giant.”

  “I’m not that big, you’re just a hobbit.”

  She huffed out a laugh. “A hobbit?”

  I nodded. “Yup, a sexy hobbit who makes awesome soup.”

  “I thought you said it was terrible?” She raised her brow.

  “It was pretty bad, but I’d eat it again.” I was kidding and she knew it. The giggle that parted her plump lips had the truth spilling from my own. “Best soup I’ve ever had.”

  Melissa’s eyes brimmed with… was it pride? My grin stretched as she leaned into me. It wasn’t something I was expecting to feel, and maybe it was some deep-rooted, caveman crap, but I really liked having her serve me—feed me. She was a damn good cook, and I could see myself sitting across from her, eating dinner with her every night.

  “It’s getting late,” she whispered and I draped my arm around her waist.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to stay. I did. But I felt the shift in the air between us, the cool burst of dismissal. “I should let you get to sleep.”

  I dropped my arm and turned toward the table where I’d left my jacket. I didn’t look at her, fearing what I
would see in her dark eyes when I asked, “When can I see you again?”

  I reached the table, but before I could even lift my jacket from the back of the kitchen chair, I felt her hot hands on the curve of my shoulders.

  “I want you to stay,” her whispered words trembled.

  Her hands skimmed along my ribcage and rested on my waist once I turned to face her.

  Melissa’s brown eyes were hooded, and I couldn’t resist lifting my hand to her face. My thumb trailed across the scorching skin of her cheek, her lips.

  “Are you sure?” I asked hoping for a yes.

  “The weather…”

  My smile crept slowly across my lips. I wasn’t sure if it made me a bad person, but I thought it was cute that she was this nervous about asking me to stay.

  “I have four-wheel drive. I’ll be fine.” My playful intentions were obvious.

  The humor in my voice put a sassy-as-fuck scowl on her lips as she shoved my chest—hard. I barked out a laugh as I pulled her against me.

  “Do you want me to stay because of the weather, or because...”

  “I don’t want you to leave,” she said. “I… I’ve never really had anyone over here before… well, besides family.”

  “It’ll be a first for both of us tonight.” The husky sound of my voice betrayed my confidence. The rapid beat of my pulse dotted every word.

  My hands rested on either side of her neck, my fingers sliding into her hair as I tipped her head back. Melissa was the perfect mixture of want and fear. The definition of desire was the curve of her mouth, the flush of her cheeks and the gold flecks in her eyes. When our mouths finally joined together it was the yes I’d needed. The invitation I’d craved.

  She was training me, pacing me, and I’d let her hold all the ropes, as long as I could have her… all of her.

  Her hands found their way under my shirt, her nails dragging along the ridges of my abdomen. A quiet hum of appreciation kick started my heart as she lowered her thumbs just below the waistline of my jeans. My shaky hands cradled her head until our slow kiss evolved into fisted hair and biting teeth. I only parted from her mouth to taste the line of her jaw, lick the beat of her pulse just below her ear, and when she shivered I smiled along the bow of her throat.