by Natalie Wrye
I shake my head. “Nothing really… Just about me being a coward, I guess.”
Carrie recoils slightly as if struck, before bending slowly toward me. “You are not a coward, Del.”
“No, I am. I take the easy way out of things; I run when the going gets too tough. I never take care of things head-on.”
She places a Chanel-perfumed hand gently beneath my chin, tilting it toward her, her brown eyes glowing as she sits beside me on the couch, a glass of wine sitting between her fingers. She takes a sip and exhales.
“I don’t think that is it at all actually.” She leans in. “I don’t think a woman who faced death and beat it, defied all lowered expectations, and ultimately followed her own path is, in any way, shape or form, a coward. In fact… I think that that woman is the bravest, most talented and driven person I may have ever known.” Her stony face breaks out into a slow lopsided grin. “If not the craziest.”
I start to chuckle at her crack, but the giggle tapers out as time stretches onward. My iron liver, made strong by many unhappy “happy-hours,” is Charmin tissue at this juncture, and I am now spilling all of the secrets that have been bottled up since I can remember.
I tap on my lip, gazing down into my wine, sighing. I don’t know how much Carrie has heard. Frankly, I don’t want to know. But I do what I do best in this situation. What I’ve always done best and mostly to myself.
I take a deep breath…and lie.
“I guess I’m just thinking about Darren. Wondering if we’re going to work through things. Him showing up like that to the police station. Leaving his assignment. You should have seen the look on his face. He wanted to apologize. I think he was going to…until his phone rang again. Some big emergency. Anyway, he’s out of town again.”
Carrie rolls her eyes. “Yeah. What a hero.”
“I know.” I trace my finger along the stem of the glass. “I know it sounds crazy…especially since our legal separation.” I tap the edge of my glass with my fingertips. “It’s like my bad dreams, the past that keeps resurfacing—the journalist job.” I turn to my best friend. “Carrie, I’ve been chasing ghosts and fairytales so long that I almost don’t know who I am without them. Life is not ‘The Notebook,’ and I’m not some movie heroine.” I take another strong swallow of my drink, hanging my head on Carrie’s living room couch. “I lost my only heroes a long time ago in that car accident.” I sigh as the blonde beside me places a hand on my back. “Darren’s not the knight in shining armor I thought he was in high school…but he’s real. Normal. Which is all I’ve ever really wanted to be. He’s not some cooked-up fantasy, which is all Javi ever was.”
Carrie looks at me. “Do you really believe that?”
I glance back at her. “I have to.” I stand to my feet, draining the rest of the glass. “Anyway, I have to go. Since Darren is out of town again, I want to make it home before he does tomorrow. My Aunt Reba has Melanie for the week while I ‘recover’ from the robbery.” I make air quotes. “Honestly? I just want to recover from this ‘hobo-chic’ look I’ve been rocking since the assault. Maybe wash my hair. Get used to the fact that I may or may not have a family again.”
I place the glass down, walking to the door, my footsteps feeling heavier than before. The attack in The Sweet Spot is behind me, a week’s worth of days away. Parts of my body are still sore to the touch, but as I trudge my way to the exit to Carrie’s apartment, it’s the hurt parts inside of me that squeeze the most, that are sore in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
I leave out of the door before she can see the lie on my face. The rain streaks down my face just as the tears come.
I’ve never been so conflicted in my life.
Caught between two men and two lives. Stuck between a rock and a hard Javier, I think about sacrificing my old life to make room for an even older one. One with Javi and all the trimmings.
On the edge of a divorce, more vulnerable than ever before, I almost believed in a happy ending to my sob story, almost convinced myself that I could make a difference in one part of my life while the others were spiraling out of control.
But I’m not a journalist anymore; I’m a baker, a business owner, a mom. And as I walk through the mist that falls over the city of San Francisco, April showers slowly rolling in, I try desperately to shed that superwoman cloak I’ve been putting on my shoulders since I was seven, taking care of my little sister and sucked into the role of the makeshift parent I was never meant to be.
Until my Melanie came along. And I wonder how my baby-girl is doing out of harm’s way and on a different coast with the aunt who raised me. I wonder if she’s warm and happy. If she knows she’s loved.
Anxiety dances in my fingertips, the panic tap-dancing beneath my breast. And when I unlock my front door, I go straight for the kitchen, grabbing the colander and pans, removing the butter and milk from the fridge to start the only thing that makes me feel sane. The only thing that makes me feel like I’m in control anymore.
Until I realize I have no cream.
Sighing, I set the boxes and cartons in my hand on the kitchen counter, listening to the rain pick up in pace outside. I leave the house dark, ignoring the living room lights, and when I grab for my keys and fling open the door, the sight of a man standing on my front step in the dark makes me scream. He steps farther onto my threshold, his head dripping wet, and my heart seizes, my entire chest constricting as he crowds my space without warning, stepping into my body.
I grip the keys in my hand tighter, the nickel silver cutting into my skin. And I can do nothing but watch as he grabs me.
Every Kind of Way
DELILAH
His mouth drips, supple and wet. And he smells like sex.
Unfiltered. Unadulterated. Unapologetic and pure.
That scent of soap and skin and rain. And Javi.
More sweet than sour, blended with more earth than spice. It’s fainter than cologne, milder than any aftershave. No artificial fragrance could duplicate this. This musk of masculinity.
It’s on me, all over me.
I don’t even realize that I too am soaking wet (on the surface and beneath) until he whisks wet strands of my brown hair from my small shoulders. He leans in, planting a kiss near my collarbone.
My heart is pounding.
He places a damp kiss on my forehead, and my knees almost buckle. He hesitates before bowing his head gently into me. And then…he puts his lips on mine.
Javi applies the softest pressure with his mouth, and then retreats ever so slightly. “This was supposed to happen three days ago. Well, fifteen years…and three days ago,” he says softly, brushing his lips against my mouth. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
He stops, keeping his lips still, barely touching my own with his.
He’s waiting…
My resistance plummets to hell. I can pretend no longer. God, I want him.
I kiss him back, parting my lips so that my tongue can slip out. I lick slyly at his upper lip; I want to taste him so badly.
The kiss takes on a new life because suddenly Javi is grabbing me underneath my jaw and angling his mouth over mine. I slide my tongue deeper into his mouth and he sucks teasingly on it, causing me to moan, the sound humming against his lips.
He whispers, a soft, low sound that makes my skin quiver with desire, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end as he runs his fingers through the strands at my nape. He rumbles slowly.
“Way too long, Del. I waited way too long…”
My arms wrap around his back, crushing me to him. In that instant, I want everything from him: his smell, his taste…his touch. I want him to overcome all of my senses.
I’m inhaling him like a drug, and with each exhale, my desire climbs. I’m a temporary addict, soaking in that salacious high.
His cock is now between us and I can feel it rubbing at the crevice between my legs. I grow wetter than I ever thought possible, and when he lowers a thumb to rub gently at my nipple, I almost explode.
My hands shift on his body, reaching upward.
It finally takes a small “Ah” to release from his throat for me to realize that I’ve grabbed his injured shoulder, the one he twisted from the fight in my shop. The small sound makes me hop backward, and I almost topple over into the living room. His strong hand grabs onto me, keeping me upright. He gazes directly into my eyes.
But now, I am embarrassed. I look away.
This is the last thing that I should’ve ever done, and somehow, I dove right into the situation without a moment’s hesitation.
Javi is supposed to be off-limits: a quintessential Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Ma’am…and not in the sexual sense. When we part ways, it should be with a “Bye. Thanks for the memories. It wasn’t fun while it lasted.”
Now, things are different. I am different. I freeze, shell-shocked, and my hand flies absently to my navel ring, an old remnant of my youth I still keep. I inadvertently play with it while my brain scrambles for excuses. I stare off into space as if my life depended on it.
But the magnetism of his stare brings my eyes back to his, and before long I am gawking nervously at them as they sit inches from my face.
Javi is now standing directly in front of me and his hand is now replacing my own. He’s circling my navel piercing gently with his thumb and index finger, his green eyes fixated unwaveringly on my lips. He leans in even closer and my eyes flutter closed.
His breath is soft and cool, minty and mixed with the smell of the salty rain. It blows gently into my face, a mere whisper. “It’s been twenty-four hours exactly now,” he drawls. “And I think you just gave me my answer.”
I hold my breath as he speaks, biting my lip in frustration. I’m afraid to breathe. Or move. Or think. No part of me seems willing to behave.
I set so many rules when it came to Javi…and my body won’t obey a single one of them.
His thumb is now on the piercing and he takes the jeweled stud and flicks it with his index finger, causing me to shudder involuntarily. He lowers the same hand, looping a finger into my waistband, nudging me toward him…and I let him.
Unconsciously, my hands start to mirror his, my fingers drifting and settling into the toned cuts below his navel. My digits descend slowly, reaching dangerously close to the area below his belt. My fingertips skim the forbidden barrier, tempted to roam into its uncharted territory.
I let one solitary finger dip below the line…until a bout of thunder rumbles over head, shocking us back into attention.
It is just what I need.
I withdraw my hands as if he were ablaze, my gaze hardening in his direction. Taking a deep breath, I tramp away, my anger an awkward attempt to cover up the shame beneath. I walk into my dark living room and back, leaving Javi in the doorway, returning only to harden my resolve and stare into his shadowed face, my eyes drifting towards his, trying not to burn under his hot stare.
It’s like a fire to my senses, a veritable flame to all of my reason. I’m an icicle turned puddle around him…and all I want is to be made whole again. Hard. Ice. Anything other than this bubbling, dissolving, doomed disaster.
I am a mess around this man…and I don’t know how to stop it.
I blink slowly as he withdraws.
“I’ll pick you up for the airport in the morning.”
Get You
DELILAH
Peabody… |
The cursor keeps blinking in front of my face. The air on the airplane is sterile, stale from the recycling of a thousand passengers.
I can’t sleep. Never could on planes.
I was one of those weird kids who fell asleep with the lights on. And even now, thirty some-odd years later, the lack of sleep still plagues me, insomnia pricking me like a thousand little needles all over my body.
It’s the panic, really. Frayed nerves as a kid turned into anxiety as a teen, and after my parents’ accident, the two merged into the onset of paranoia, attacks waylaying me at often and odd intervals, paralyzing me.
My only cures? My sister, Penelope. The ocean. Baking. And at the oddest time of all of them—long, long ago…the dark-haired man sitting beside me, a devilish Adonis with angelic looks and a stare that could open the gates to Heaven…or Hell.
And I’m not sure which one he’s taking me to right now as we cross over the state line into Manhattan.
I hear the sound of footsteps behind me, and when I look up, the blonde is standing there, her eyes unsmiling, her fingertips digging into the edge of her gray cart. Her blue eyes gaze down at me.
“Ma’am, I need you to put your safety belt on and stow your items away. We’re preparing to land now.”
Her red lips spread into a grin. Her teeth are tight though, and the expression seems frozen on her finely-lined face. Platinum hair shining, aqua eyes coated with black liner, the stewardess in front of me fans her faux lashes a million blinks per second, her grin forced as she watches me closely. Her eyes stay on me as I shut my laptop, her gaze guiding down towards my face as I return her equally fake smirk with one of my own.
I shove my computer into the bag under the seat in front of me, my eyes fixing out of the glass from my window seat. Blondie the Flight Attendant wafts those wings she calls lashes at Javi, a small frown decorating her foundation-caked face when he orders a Cranberry juice, ignoring her quiet quip about ordering something stronger. I’m almost tempted to go for the alcohol myself.
New York sure knows how to welcome a girl back.
It’s like the air is even different. The second we cross the city limits, I feel the change in the atmosphere, the sky crackling with electricity as a heavy rain beats down on our airplane like a symphony of snare drums.
The fine hair on my arms stands on end as the plane dips and I reach out suddenly, my fingers clamping on the strong forearm balanced right beside me, the muscle beneath twitching as a steady pulse beats underneath my touch. I look up at him—the face of the man the arm is attached to. Javi.
Even his eyes have changed. The green has darkened over time, the emerald shade slipping into an evergreen that never ceases to amaze me. Under dark eyelashes and even darker hair, he glances at me, his eyes filling with something indescribable as he leans into my body, whispering in my ear.
“Relax,” he rumbles. “We’re almost there.”
I sigh. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Javi narrows his eyes at me, as I close my own. I let the hum of the oversized airliner lull me into a semi-sleep, and when I open my eyes and look over to find the greenest pair of eyes I’ve ever seen staring back at me, the color deepening this time right before my very eyes.
He whispers low, “When’s the last time you’ve been to New York?”
I shiver. “Almost a year ago. Back before Darren got this new position in San Francisco. Back around the last time I saw Penelope.” The backs of my eyes start to burn with quick tears. I swallow them back.
Javi’s voice is low. A latent warning infuses its way into his tone. He licks his lips. “I have to tell you: things have changed since then. The crime has picked back up. Robberies and murder have made a comeback ever since…” he trails off. “Ever since Robert Fletcher woke back up from his coma.”
I think of the New York politician. His wide smile. A handsome face hiding a million different lies. “Tell me the truth… How bad is it now that he’s back?” I ask.
“Compared to what? The bubonic plague?” Javi lifts one eyebrow. “Robert Fletcher is only as bad as the state of New York allows him to be, and I got to tell you: they allow him just about anything.”
“I don’t understand. Isn’t there something we can do? Lock him up? Keep him out of office?”
“We can’t.” He shrugs. “He’s a slick bastard…and cheesier than some of those Romance movies you used to love.”
I nudge him with my elbow. “You mean the ones I still love.”
He cuts me a look out of the side of his eye. “Don’t tell me you’re still watching Casablanca and crying at ‘A W
alk to Remember’…for the fiftieth time.”
“Hey,” I shoot back. “‘A Walk to Remember’ is a classic. I don’t care what you say. And don’t act like you didn’t shed a tear when I made you watch it with me after school that one day.”
“I did.” Javi’s mouth turns up at the corners. “But when I did, it’s because all of my focus was on one extremely sexy girl.”
“Mandi Moore?” I mention the beautiful brunette star of the film.
“No,” he answers, his voice just as low as the thunder outside our aisle’s window. “You,” he answers. And then the plane rocks. The “fasten-your-seatbelts” light blinks on and off again, and that flight attendant shoots a look in my direction, daring me to disobey this time. I straighten in my seat, trying to ignore the butterfly that has just flown inside my belly. I keep my gaze straight, looking at anything but Javi.
“Still can’t believe some people are more infatuated with a slick smile and even slicker hair than proper policy and a sense of what’s right.”
Javi shakes his head.
“I’ve been tangled up with the government too long to not realize that the game of politics has always been fucked.”
I stare out the window. “Any way we can un-fuck it?”
“There’s a shot. I just hope it isn’t one in Hell.” From my line of sight, I watch the smile on Javi’s face wilt into a serious line. His emerald eyes grow cold, and I can feel a chill enter the air.
Fifteen minutes later, the plane lands, and we walk through the bridge connecting us to the airport, the humidity seeping through the cracks and assaulting us at every turn. Javi and I collect our luggage and we exit LaGuardia with our guards up, our shoulders hunched against the rainy cold.
