Split

by JB Salsbury

  The light turns green.

  “Burgers it is. This place has the best double cheeseburgers in town.” She pulls her truck up to a building I’ve seen before. Bright red and blue sign and the parking lot has spaces where you can get service in your car by a girl on roller skates. She moves past all those and to the drive-through. “What looks good?”

  I stare at the menu but see nothing. Fear of trying something new pricks at my nerves, and although I know I’ll most likely be fine, I fear choosing something that will make me sick. “Whatever you’re having. Please.”

  She studies me for a second through narrowed eyes until the speaker crackles and a static voice comes through. “Welcome to Sonic. Can I take your order?”

  Shyann leans out the window and my eyes immediately trace the outline of her small waist as it flares into feminine hips. Her shirt slides up a little to expose a slice of olive skin that’s flawless and probably soft to the touch.

  “Two double cheeseburger meals, fries, and two Cokes.” She drops back down to her seat, robbing me of the view. “Sound okay?”

  I nod and she pulls the truck around to pay. I grab a twenty from my wallet and hand it to her.

  She waves me off. “No, it’s on me.”

  I shove the money at her. “Doesn’t feel right. Let me.”

  Her eyes narrow. “If you pay, it’ll feel like a date.” The way she looks at me with an eyebrow raised in challenge makes my heart thunder in my chest.

  I want this to be a date. I pass her the money and she takes it, a soft blush coloring her cheeks. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I turn away to hide my face as heat crawls up my neck. She clears her throat and an awkward silence fills the truck cab. I’ve never been out to dinner with a woman, nor have I ever been this close to one as pretty and caring as Shy. I’m able to relax a little around her now without a hint of threat from Gage, which is progress.

  Seconds tick by but it feels like so much longer when finally the drive-through window slides open to reveal a woman wearing a shirt that matches the sign out front and a visor she’s wearing more like a headband.

  “That’ll be fourteen-fifty— Hey, wait…” She puts her elbows on the windowsill to get a closer look. “I know you.”

  I would think she’s talking to Shyann, except her eyes are firmly settled on me. Shyann’s gaze whips back and forth between us.

  “No, ma’am.”

  Her glare is tight and she manages to lean out more so that her head is practically inside the truck. “Sure I do. You’re the new guy. Girls at the beauty salon were just talking about you the other day.” She props her chin in her palm. “Everyone’s dying to know your story. You single?”

  My heart races and I struggle for a polite response.

  “Ahem!” Shyann waves her hand in front of the woman’s face. “I’m sitting right here.” She turns her body, making herself a human barrier.

  I stare in shock at the back of Shyann’s head. She’s protecting me.

  My chest expands with a breath of relief.

  The woman waves off Shy with a smile. “No disrespect, honey. I was just asking.” She blinks a few times and grins. “Shyann Jennings, is that you?”

  She sighs and her shoulders slump. “Yes.”

  The nosy woman flattens her palm to her chest. “Mary Beth Stewart. We had history and chemistry together.”

  “Oh, yeah. You look so…different.” The way Shy said it didn’t make it sound like a good different and I have to bite down to keep from laughing.

  Mary Beth pats the ends of her shoulder-length hair. “Thank you, I’ve been trying to stay young.” She cups her breasts. “Got these last year, and—”

  “Okay, well…” Shy shoves money at the woman. “This should cover it.”

  “Oh, right!” Mary Beth smiles and takes the offered cash.

  Shy turns to me, shock painting her expression, and mouths, She grabbed her boobs!

  Battle lost. Laughter shoots from my lips, the sound so shocking, I turn away to muffle it into my hand. By the time I manage to get control, I find her looking at me in that soft way that I feel in my chest. Our gazes tangle and for a moment I’m trapped in the intensity of it.

  “You laughed.”

  I clear my throat at the emotions whirling through me and thankfully no darkness. “Yeah.”

  “Drinks? Hello?”

  Shy blinks and I suck in a breath as she turns to grab our Cokes. I take them from her to put them in the drink holder so she can get the rest of our order.

  “Shyann, how is your brother?” She rests her forearms back on the windowsill, settling in. “I always did have the biggest crush on him.”

  “He’s fine. Thanks!”

  “It was great seeing yo—” We don’t hear what else she has to say because Shyann pulls out of the drive-through and right onto the road back to our part of town.

  I turn to see the woman hanging out the window, her lips still flapping. “I don’t think she was finished talkin’.”

  “Huh?” She feigns shock and innocence. “Oh, was she talking to me? I couldn’t quite hear her through all the slut.”

  I pull down my baseball hat and hope she doesn’t see how much I’m enjoying her jealousy. “She seemed okay to me.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Of course you would say that. She practically crawled over my body to get into your lap.”

  A tiny smile ticks my lips. “You’re exaggerating.”

  “Puleaze.” She holds her palm up. “Don’t even bother defending her. Poor girl can’t help herself. Lord knows you don’t make it easy,” she mumbles.

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Besides be insanely charming and handsome? No, you’re right, you didn’t.”

  I direct my face-aching smile out the side window.

  This woman, Shyann Jennings, smart, funny, kind…She thinks I’m charming and handsome and if I’m not mistaken she implied that she and I are a couple. “Thank you.”

  She digs her hand into the bag set between us to fish out a cluster of French fries. “You’re welcome.” She smiles, then shoves the fries into her mouth.

  I gaze out the window and watch the darkness fly by, gratefully aware that the pitch-black only lingers outside of my head.

  Gage is distant for now and Shyann is safe.

  All I have to do is keep it that way.

  Seventeen

  Lucas

  The ride back to the river house is silent, which is surprising considering the woman I’m with. There’s a longing I haven’t felt before, an urge to ask her a question just to hear her voice. I don’t, though, committed to holding back and squelching urges in order to keep myself under control.

  She pulls her truck up to the river’s edge, rolls down both windows, and cuts the engine. Handing me my food just like she did with the fry bread tacos, she settles in with one fluffy boot resting in her open window.

  I stare down at the burger and fries in my lap, building up the courage to eat.

  “What’s the story behind that?”

  I turn to find her probing eyes darting between my face and my food.

  I shrug. “Already told you. Got food—”

  “Poisoning, I know, but it must’ve been pretty traumatic to turn you off food how many years later?”

  I clear my throat. “Fifteen or so.”

  She whistles. “Were you hospitalized or something?”

  “No.” My mother would’ve rather us drown in our own vomit.

  “What happened?” Her voice is so soft, and I want to tell her.

  I want to evict even this small piece of myself, purge it from my system and feel lighter with it gone. But bringing up the past could provoke Gage and I won’t risk her safety. I search the recesses of my mind, reach out with my feelings and sense nothing. No dark presence looming or fear for my well-being. Only contentment.

  “Hey…” She squeezes my forearm. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
>
  I don’t take my eyes off her long delicate fingers on my skin, something in the past that would send Gage to the surface, and I still sense nothing.

  My heart rate is steady.

  I’m not afraid.

  I lick my lips and turn to her. “When we were kids—”

  “We? As in…um”—she picks at the paper napkin in her hand and avoids my eyes—“you and Gage?”

  Surprisingly, a tiny smile ticks my lips. “No, we as in me and my brothers and sister.” Just mentioning them makes my heart cramp violently.

  She grins, as if the information brought her some satisfaction. Unease twists in my gut at the knowledge that what I’m about to tell her will wipe that smile clean off her face.

  “My mother would punish us in unconventional ways.”

  Her dark eyebrows pinch together. “What does that mean?”

  “She’d withhold food.”

  Her face twists with repulsion. “She would starve her kids? As punishment?”

  I wince at the anger in her voice.

  “I’m sorry. Go on.”

  I blow out a heavy breath and check for fear but feel nothing but relief at unloading. “We’d be so hungry that when she’d finally decide we’d been punished enough, she’d feed us. The meat would taste so good. I mean, we were starving, so we’d eat anything.” Saliva floods my mouth as I recall the variety of things she’d have me eat. I keep the details to myself.

  “Part of her punishment was our belief that the food was a reward, only to later find out it was all part of the punishment.” My gaze slides to the windshield, staring out at nothing but seeing memories in Technicolor. “She had to have left the food out for weeks. Even now, I have a hard time smelling cooked meat.” My gut tightens as I remember going from full to sick in a matter of hours.

  I peek over at Shy, her eyes light with interest. “I know it’s safe now, but it happened so many times it’s like my stomach just can’t accept the fact that I’m not being tricked again.”

  “How many times did your mother do this to you, Lucas?” Her voice shakes, but from anger or sadness I don’t know and by her expression it’s hard to gauge.

  “Too many,” I whisper. “Too many times to count.”

  “God, that’s awful. Is that when you, when Gage…um…”

  “I don’t remember life without the blackouts.” I don’t explain that he rarely showed up for the food poisoning. That was minor compared to her other punishments and I’d only black out when things became too much for me to handle.

  Gage hasn’t always been my curse. Most of the time, he’s been my savior.

  She shakes her head before dropping it back to the seat. “I had no idea, the tacos, and now…I feel horrible.”

  Why do I have the intense urge to comfort her?

  To pull her to me and hope my touch can erase the images I put in her head.

  She gazes at me with more compassion than I’ve seen from another human being, and the intensity of it threatens to unman me.

  “Don’t. I’m okay now,” I whisper, wanting to reassure her, because for some unknown reason I’d rather go through the sickness and the pain a hundred times over rather than be the cause of her discomfort.

  This is when I wish I were a stronger man. If I could lay my feelings out, be brave like the strong woman sitting next to me and just tell her I like her. That I think about her all the time and fantasize about a life with her in it. I wish she knew how much I want to be normal for her, how much she deserves and how desperately I’d try and ultimately fail to be the kind of man who could make her happy. I want her. More than I should and enough that she has the potential to destroy me completely.

  I open my mouth to speak, but slam it shut when she jumps in her seat.

  “Well, then…” She grabs the burger from my lap. “What about French fries? You cool with those?”

  I blink at the sudden change in her demeanor. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “You sure?”

  That’s it? I spill the ugly of my past and she absorbs it, then shakes it off like she doesn’t see me as pathetic or damaged? “Yes.”

  She hops out of the truck and I watch as she rounds the bed to the front porch of the house. I follow behind her and get there just as she tosses both burgers into the dog’s bowl. She wipes her hands and peers up at me. “No more meat, okay? I promise.”

  “You didn’t have to—”

  “I know. But I wanted to.” An emotion flickers behind her eyes and she schools her expression before I get a good hold on what it was. “Can you control it? I mean, have you tried to control it, him? Gage?”

  “If I stay alert, I can usually feel it coming. I’ve been able to hold off the blackout, but only for seconds. When he shows up, it’s…abrupt, like getting hit on the head. One minute I’m there, the next I’m not.”

  She steps closer, searching my eyes, and the proximity makes my pulse pound. “Can he hear me?”

  “I think so. We’re the same person. If I can hear you, he can too.”

  “But you couldn’t hear me when Gage was here.”

  I jolt at her confession. “You tried to get to me?”

  “Not at first. At first I just thought you hated me and wanted me to leave you alone, but then, after the ki—” She rubs her forehead, her eyes downcast. “Crap, maybe…never mind.”

  I pull her hand from her face, unable to bear her hiding from me. “Tell me.” My stomach tumbles and nerves make my palms sweat as I anticipate her next words.

  She exhales in defeat and fixes her eyes on mine. “It was the kiss, Lucas. That’s when I realized it wasn’t you.”

  “How?”

  “It was rough, aggressive, demanding. Everything you’re not.”

  I swallow and try to avoid dropping my gaze. “Did he hurt you?”

  “No,” she whispers, and there’s a longing in her voice.

  “Did you like it?”

  Her breath catches. “Yes.”

  My eyelids slide closed when I feel the warmth of her palm on my jaw and her fingers absently brush the scar on my neck, sending goose bumps down my arms.

  “Talk to me.”

  “But…he scared you, right? You said he kicked you out, that you walked home.” I blink, a war of emotions tumbling around in my chest. “I can’t believe you’d kiss me.”

  “Gage kissed me.”

  “But you kissed him back. I mean, you kissed me back?”

  She shivers and peers up at me with molten-blue eyes. “I did.”

  My pulse kicks wildly and I tremble as Shyann moves to erase the distance between us. She doesn’t touch me, but she’s close enough that with every inhale the heat of her breasts warms my ribs. “What are you doing, Shy?”

  She smiles softly and closes her eyes. “I like it when you call me that.”

  That wasn’t an answer, but the way she said it makes it feel like one.

  “I don’t know how.” The words rush out, a defense of some kind.

  “You do, trust me. You really do.”

  “I don’t want to disappoint you.” I blink and search the backs of my eyes, the depths of my head, hoping I don’t find Gage there waiting to come forward. Other than the quick brush of our lips in my kitchen, I’ve never kissed a woman before. I’ve been kissed, every single time against my will, but I’ve blacked out before things went further. I’ve woken to naked women lying next to me, used condoms littering the floor, and an ache between my legs, but it’s always been Gage.

  “I won’t be disappointed, Lucas. But I won’t push you into doing something you don’t want to do.” She takes a step back, but my arm shoots out to hook her around the waist.

  I didn’t think; I just didn’t want her to distance herself and reacted. She stares up at me with wide eyes, shock, which I recognize immediately because it’s exactly the way I’m feeling.

  Her expression softens and she guides my other arm around her waist so that I can interlace my fingers at her lower back. “Is this ok
ay?”

  The warmth of her body seeps through my hands and stirs my hunger. “Yes.” I want to roar that it’s better than okay. That I’ve been fantasizing about her like this since the night she showed up in the river, but every passing second where my lips aren’t on hers feels like wasted time.

  Sliding her hands up my forearms, she blazes a trail of heat to my biceps. “You’re shaking.”

  “I’m nervous.”

  “Don’t be. Just tell me this is what you want, Lucas. This is your kiss, not Gage’s. If I’m pushing you—”

  “You’re not.”

  She pulls herself even closer and my erection meets the soft flesh of her stomach. My cheeks flame with embarrassment, but she doesn’t seem to care. Instead she bites her lip and her breathing picks up.

  I lick my lips, suddenly starving for her mouth but unsure how to proceed. In my limited experience, kisses have been violent, a rough meeting of mouths and teeth. That’s not what I want with her.

  What I want is to freeze time. I want to record how she feels in my hands, the longing in her eyes, the heat of her breath. I want to slow every single moment with her down so seconds last hours until her touch is branded into my memory.

  A slight breeze carries the scent of her shampoo to swirl around me. My head dips for more, to breathe her in, absorb this little part of her. She smells so good, my mouth waters to taste her. A flash of insecurity gives me a moment of pause, but the draw is too much and I press my lips to her forehead. Her skin is like velvet against my mouth and I moan at the sensation. Her muscles go loose beneath my hold and she sighs, a message meant for only me. My breathing speeds and I lock my hands together even tighter as a tremor of nerves washes over me. I search my head and find nothing but peaceful anticipation.

  “You’re okay, Lucas.” Her fingertips sift into my hair at my nape, and her thumbs run along my neck, gently encouraging.

  Her touch brushes against my scar, shooting pulses of electricity to coil between my legs. My mouth waters and I swallow hard as I focus on her lips—plump flesh ripe with color, slick from her tongue and calling for my attention. I tilt my head, and our breath mixes as we come together.