Time Mends

by Tammy Blackwell

  I tried to move away and redirect his hands to a more appropriate place, like my waist, but they just couldn’t seem to take a hint. “That’s a no touching zone,” I said as one of his hands brazenly groped my breast.

  He ignored me and slid a finger underneath the plunging neckline of my dress. You could barely hear the slap over the band, but I’m certain he felt it.

  His face was already turning red. I felt confident he would be sporting a hand-shaped mark on his cheek for at least the remainder of the night. “You bitch!” he growled, already shifting into a boxer stance.

  I attempted to do the same, but there was a reason Mike Tyson didn’t wear a dress and heels in the ring.

  “Back off,” came a command from over my right shoulder. Even with the multitude of sweaty, alcohol drenched bodies crammed around me, I could smell his familiar cinnamon flavored scent.

  Another growl, this one accompanied by a snapping of teeth. “Make me.”

  I could feel Charlie tense behind me, and then a wave of something washed over me, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. I knew the moment it hit Makya. His eyes, which were trained defiantly over my shoulder, widened and then dropped their gaze to the floor. He looked back up almost immediately, but his eyes focused on me instead of Charlie. “This is your only free pass, Wolf Girl. Cross the line one more time and there will be no mercy.”

  “But there will be more cheesy lines, right?”

  Makya swung, but I managed to get my face out of the way, making certain he accomplished nothing more than catching Kit’s attention. Less than a minute later, Kit and his tree trunk arms were asking Makya to leave and suggesting he never come back.

  When there was nothing left to see, I turned around and looked at Charlie for the first time. Most everyone in the club had on designer fashions, trying to pull off some look they found in a magazine, but Charlie managed to look sexier and more sophisticated than any of them in his plain black T-shirt and well-worn jeans.

  I stared into those green eyes I avoided for so long and almost choked on the desire welling up inside. “Dance with me,” I commanded

  The muscles in Charlie’s jaw tightened, but he grabbed me around the waist and pulled me towards him. We quickly found a rhythm, our bodies swaying as our eyes stayed locked together. I focused on the sound of his breathing, the beating of his heart, both of which matched the beat of the music.

  “Kiss me.”

  He hesitated, and I thought for a moment that he wouldn’t do it, but then his lips were on mine, hard and unmoving. I pressed against him and eventually his lips parted and began to work against mine. An onlooker might have seen raw passion as we clung to one another, but it was desperation driving our hands and tongues.

  After what could have been minutes or hours, I only knew that the band was playing a different song, Charlie pulled away. His lips were swollen and his chest rose and fell visibly with every breath. I was shocked to see tears glistening in his eyes, threatening to fall.

  “Scout…” His voice was raw with emotion, which only made my own eyes well up. I opened my mouth, but there were no words, so I did the only thing I could. I turned around and ran out of the bar.

  Chapter 17

  I woke up in a strange bed. Before I could ascertain my whereabouts, a glass of water and bottle of Aspirin was placed next to the alarm clock professing it to be 7:47. As I hefted myself up I began to understand their necessity.

  “How are you feeling?” Charlie asked, adding a small bottle of V-8 juice to the bedside table.

  “Like I just sat through an entire Justin Bieber concert.”

  “Headache and nausea?”

  “And an overwhelming desire to die.”

  Bits of the night before came floating to the surface, causing the urges to puke and perish to grow in intensity. Charlie had found me quickly since McGuire’s was conveniently located in the middle of a soybean field. I was a snotty mess as he ushered me to his truck. After that, things got a little fuzzy, but I did remember Charlie trying to scoop me up to carry me into an apartment building on the south side of town. Unfortunately, I’m way too long and gangly for him to manage it. We settled on a half-carry, half-drag type scenario, which became especially complicated on the staircase.

  “Not surprised. Goat Girl said you had five LITs. What the hell where you thinking?”

  Of course he wanted to be all chipper and talkative now that my brain was threatening to leak out my ears.

  “First, it was only three.” I think. “Secondly, the name is misleading. I don’t think there was any tea in those things at all.” I counted out three Aspirin, then added another one for posterity’s sake. “And third, I thought my Shifter metabolism would burn through the alcohol too fast to cause any damage.” I sat up further to avoid choking on my water and watched the room tilt to the left, then the right, and then back to the left again. “Turns out, I was wrong.”

  “And you couldn’t have used Jase’s performance at prom to figure that out?”

  I felt exceptionally stupid for not having thought of that. “Wolves are bigger and therefore have higher metabolism?”

  Charlie shook his head as he passed over the tomato juice. “It’s a good thing the bartender started watering your drinks way down after the first one, or you would be in a hospital with alcohol poisoning. Seriously, what made you think bar hoping with Ashley Johnson of all people was a good idea?”

  The V8 tasted as wretchedly awful as tomato juice always does, but I gulped some down assuming Charlie had offered it to me for a good reason. “Doesn’t bar hoping imply moving around to various establishments? Because we stayed at McGuire’s all night. And Ashley was the only person I could think of who would take me.”

  “Which leads back to why you wanted to be at a bar.” He looked at me expectantly, but I kept my mouth shut. “Scout…”

  “I didn’t want to be alone.” I concentrated on the juice clinging to the side of the bottle. It looked like blood, which didn’t do stellar things for my stomach. “It’s worse when I’m alone and have time to think. So, I went to a place where thinking is strongly discouraged.”

  “Half the Hagan Pack hangs out at McGuire’s.”

  “I know.”

  “If Makya had been in a different mood —”

  “I know.”

  We sat there for a long stretch of silence, me clutching the glass of tomato juice and Charlie working his Adam’s apple.

  “Do you hate me?” I asked when I could bear the silence no longer.

  Charlie didn’t even blink, much less answer. I was beginning to think he hadn’t heard me, that I was going to have to work up the courage to ask again, when he lifted his head, pinning me with those anguished green eyes. “How could you think that?”

  How could I not?

  “Everything is wrong, Charlie. Everything. And it’s all my fault. I was selfish, taking the one thing I wasn’t allowed to have, and now we’re all suffering. You should all hate me. I hate myself.”

  “This isn’t your fault.”

  “Yes, it is. I’ve ruined so many lives, hurt so many people. And I just keep doing it.” I thought about the bar, about Charlie’s face as I ordered him to dance with me, the pain in the kiss I had commanded. “It should’ve been me who died that night.”

  “Don’t say that.” His hands clenched onto my face. “Never, ever say that.” And then he kissed me. He moved in slowly, giving me a million opportunities to stop him, yet it still shocked me when I felt his lips against mine. These lips were completely unlike the ones last night. They were hesitant and gentle, coaxing mine to respond. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to be lost in the sensation, in the warmth spreading through my body.

  I don’t know who broke away first. Maybe Charlie pulled back to catch his breath, or perhaps my consciousness sent a message to my body before it screamed awareness in my brain. All I know is the moment his lips left mine, the spell was broken. I didn’t even say anything. I j
ust pushed him away and left. No crying. No running. No drama. I simply got up, walked into the living room, and nodded an acknowledgement to the guy I vaguely recognized from my afternoon shooting sessions at Randy’s. Then I promptly walked to the nearest bush and purged the entire contents of my stomach.

  For the record, Long Island Iced Teas taste even worse the second time they touch your taste buds.

  Once I could move again I had to face my next obstacle: Transportation. The keys were probably sitting in the ignition of Charlie’s truck since no one would ever even think about stealing a rusted old Ford pickup truck, but taking it would have been a bit harsh. I could’ve called for a ride, but as far as I knew my cellphone was still sitting in McGuire’s. Since phone booths only exist in old movies and there appeared to be no stores in sight, I was screwed.

  I considered turning around, but couldn’t force myself to go back into the apartment.

  I had been walking about fifteen minutes towards the general direction of home when a maroon grandma-style car slowed beside me.

  “Scout? Is that you?” Joi asked. I started to make some crack about being Scout’s long lost evil twin, but stopped myself since she might actually believe me. “Why are you walking down the street in that little fancy dress?”

  I kept trudging along. “It’s called the Walk of Shame.”

  “Is that a Baptist thing?” came the voice from the car as it kept pace with me.

  “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

  “Of course. Of course I’m kidding.” A pause. “Was it funny?”

  I stopped walking and shielded my eyes against the glare of the early morning sun.

  “Don’t give me that look. Geez, how am I supposed to know? I’m Catholic, remember?”

  “You’ve heard of a Walk of Shame before, right?”

  “I do read and watch television, Scout.” She leaned across the passenger’s seat, making no attempt to disguise her critical perusal of my face. “You look awfully pale. Like, paler than normal. Are you okay? Do you need a ride?”

  I didn’t hesitate before pulling open the passenger’s door and crawling into the wonderfully air conditioned car. The hem of my dress rose to an inappropriate level, but I didn’t waste the energy to fix it since Joi had a pair of female legs of her very own to look at if she so desired.

  Joi remained silent for a record breaking thirty seconds.

  “So, who did you hook up with?”

  I threw a hand over my closed eyes, but the sun still managed to somehow stab through to my brain. “I didn’t hook up with anyone.” Well, Charlie kinda, but she didn’t need to know that. “My Walk of Shame was a variation on the original.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Three whole breaths of silence.

  “You’re moving around really good. I guess your stomach is better.”

  “Yep.”

  Four breaths of silence.

  “John and I are back together. Did you hear?”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  “Oh yeah. That whole break-up thing was a total misunderstanding. He’s like the sweetest guy ever. He’s always sending me the sweetest text messages and leaving the sweetest notes on my Facebook wall and even bought me some of the sweetest looking daisies the other day for absolutely no reason at all.”

  “Sweet.”

  “I know, right? And you know what he’s started doing?”

  “Something really, really sweet?”

  “Totally sweet. He’s been coming to The Farmhouse and hanging out while I work every shift. Like, the whole time. Even when I have to open, he is waiting at the door when it’s unlocked at five in the morning.”

  “That’s not sweet, Joi. It’s crazy.” Who wakes up at five in the morning? “Sweetie, I think we need to have a talk about obsessive behavior and establishing boundaries in a relationship.”

  “It’s not like that.” I opened one eye and immediately regretted it. Why couldn’t I have a hangover on a cloudy day? “Stop looking at me like that,” she said. “I’m not an idiot, you know. He’s there because of this guy who keeps coming in and wigging me out. My manager thinks I’m overreacting, and I can’t afford to quit, so John has been playing bodyguard.”

  I still wasn’t sold on John’s nobility, but… “You have a creeper harassing you at work and your manager won’t do anything about it?”

  “He doesn’t actually do anything, he’s just…” Joi turned the car off the main highway. “He’s like a Disney villain. He’s got this Rasputin accent, his face is all mangled, and he does this whole evil leering thing that gives me goosebumps, and not the good kind.”

  I felt as if I’d been stabbed in the gut with an icicle. “Rasputin accent? Like Russian?”

  “Is there a non-Russian Rasputin?”

  “And his face, is there a scar that runs from here to here?” I asked, tracing a line from my temple to the corner of my mouth.

  “So you’ve seen him too? He’s got a bad aura or something, right?”

  “Or something.” I could still see the man who approached me after Alex’s funeral. Three minutes. That’s how long Stefan stood in front of me, yet he left a lasting impression, and not just because he suggested that Alex wasn’t who I thought he was. No, there was something about him - maybe that aura Joi was talking about - that made me want to turn tail and run. “Joi, do you know what he’s doing in Timber?”

  “Besides scaring the bejesus out of me? Not really. He comes in everyday, sometimes twice a day. If he’s alone, he just sits there staring at everyone as if he’s plotting their death. But most of the time there are three other guys with him. One of them is kinda cute, but they stay there forever.” The car stopped in front of my house. “It used to really bother me, but now John is always there to protect me because he’s the bestest boyfriend ever.”

  I didn’t really see what good John was going to do anyone, but I was glad Joi had someone looking out for her, even if he was a clueless redneck. Joi really wanted to hang out and chat some more, but neither my head nor teeth could handle any more sweetness. After making her promise to watch herself around the Russian creeper, I sent her on her entirely too merry way.

  The house was quiet when I entered. The parentals and Angel weren’t due to arrive home until early afternoon, and Jase and Talley were both still asleep. After throwing on some pajamas I found in the clothes dryer, I laid down on the couch and tried to think through the whole Stefan situation despite the Keith Moon solo going on in my head.

  Logic told me he was still doing exactly what he said he was doing at the funeral - looking for Liam. My gut, however, had a different opinion. It was convinced I should be worried, which was just stupid. Sure, the guy was creepy as heck, and I wasn’t inclined to believe a word he said, but what interest did he have in me? I felt certain the Hagan Pack was keeping their word about my furry condition since I hadn’t heard of any of Jase’s family members being hospitalized lately. So, to Stefan I was just another grieving girlfriend, right?

  My gut told me not to be a chump.

  My brain said to just chill.

  My gut disagreed.

  My brain disagreed with my gut’s disagreement.

  Somewhere in the middle of the long and unproductive argument which ensued I drifted off to sleep. The next thing I knew someone was pounding on the front door.

  “Hang on a minute,” I mumbled. Jase accidentally locking himself out of the house was annoying enough under normal circumstances. When he woke me up because of it, it was completely unacceptable. “You do know Dad will kill you if you’ve lost the spare again, right?” I slung open the door to reveal a grizzled old man with sapphire eyes.

  Definitely not Jase.

  “Mr. Matthews?”

  Talley’s dad didn’t bother with pleasantries. “I’m huntin’ for my girl.”

  Crap.

  “Oh, ummm…. She slept over last night.” And the night before that. And the night before that.
And the night before that… “Did she know you were coming to visit? Cause she didn’t say anything to me about it.”

  “It wasn’t planned. Now, where is she?” Mr. Matthews made a move to step around me, but I blocked his path. “Move aside, child. This ain’t none of your business.”

  “I’d love to let you in, sir,” I lied. “But, you see, my parents are out of town, and I’m not allowed to let anyone in the house when they’re not here. You know how overprotective parents can be.”

  He looked like he might go ahead and plow right past me, but then he gave a slight nod and backed up a step. “Well, then, you get Talley and tell her her daddy wants to see her.”

  I spread my lips apart, hoping the result was something resembling a smile. “No problem. Be right back, Mr. Matthews.” Then I slammed the door in his face.

  It didn’t take long to find Talley since she was standing at the top of the stairs looking as though she’d seen a ghost.

  “Where is Jase?” I mouthed, unsure about Mr. Matthews’ hearing range. At this point in the lunar cycle my hearing was just on the really good side of a normal human, but I didn’t want to risk it.

  “Still in bed,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. “Charlie?”

  “The last time I saw him was at Lanky McLankster’s apartment.” Talley’s eyebrows crinkled together but I didn’t have the time or desire to explain “What do we do?”

  “What do we do about about what?” Jase asked, stumbling out of his bedroom. His hair was sticking up in a million directions and he sported a nice t-shirt and boxer shorts combo. He took one look at Talley’s face and jerked completely awake. “What’s wrong?”

  “My dad.”

  Jase swore under his breath. “Did he call?”

  “He’s outside.”

  Jase replaced his earlier statement with a word that would have meant a whole month of extra chores had our parents heard.