Painted Boots

by Mechelle Morrison

  I wonder if this is another game, one he thinks I started when I took off my sweater. Maybe next we’ll pull off our socks. But after that? I stare at his increasingly bare chest, feeling nervous. Kyle doesn’t seem the forceful type, but we’re shut away in a sound-proof room. I gulp and sort of smile. My lips are dry and catch on my teeth. “Are we playing a game?” I ask.

  He shakes his head.

  “Then what—”

  “I’ve gotta do this all at once,” he says.

  “Do what?”

  Kyle shakes his head, again. “You’re brave, Aspen, you know? That day in my truck you were core-honest, and about something that hurts you, deep. I should have told you then, but that day was the first in a long while where I felt good about being alive.”

  I want to ask why, but the look in his eyes says No. He pulls one arm free of his shirt, and then the other. For a moment he’s restless, folding and refolding his shirt. Or maybe he’s embarrassed. Finally he tosses the shirt aside. He clasps his fingers together and studies his thumbs.

  The body I’ve been dreaming about for two months is right in front of me, bare and beautiful. He has great biceps and a tight chest and a shadow of hair between his pecs; his smooth skin still hints of a summer tan. But he’s not perfect, like I thought he’d be. Small scars pepper his upper arms. There are more on his stomach and a few on his shoulders, especially his right.

  I move close to him and with my fingertip, trace an angry line of pink near his elbow. “Were you in an accident?”

  He rubs his hand into his hair. “Two years ago last spring, my brother died. I don’t talk about that time much. He killed himself and I found him and it almost killed me, too.”

  I curl my arm around his back. I knew that, about his brother. Gwen told me weeks ago, over lunch. She blurted out Kyle’s story in a laundry-list kind of way, like it was old news and barely worth mentioning. But the tightness in his voice makes me feel awful, like I know something I shouldn’t. “I’m so sorry,” I say.

  “Me too.” Kyle rests his elbows on his knees. “Everybody has quirks, right? Mine is being alone. I don’t like it. I’m not good at it. And I’ve never been as alone as I was after Evan died. My parents, they were too messed up to deal with me. I didn’t know where to turn. I needed someone, and Em. She’s a flirt. I’ve known her from way back, but till Evan died I hadn’t paid her much mind. She’s cute and all, but kinda mean.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Yeah. She took to hovering round me, all sweet and understanding. I went with it. Our first date was okay, we saw a movie with a group of friends. When I took her home she pressed me to ask her solo. So we went out the next Friday. That night she burned me with my truck lighter,” Kyle touches a scar on the back of his left hand.

  I feel suddenly numb. “What?”

  “I called her things I shouldn’t have then jumped out of the truck, feeling guilty at what I’d said and more than shocked by what she’d done. She followed me. She grabbed my arm and dug in so hard she drew blood. She told me the burn marked us as together, and that if I ever stepped from her I’d be sorry.”

  “But that’s crazy! It doesn’t make sense. It’s beyond mean—it’s horrible! It’s sick! What did your parents do?”

  “They don’t know.” Kyle looks at me, his eyes soft with tears. “I don’t know why Em burned me. I don’t know why she cuts me, sometimes. But back then, I didn’t think it fair to tell my parents. Evan had just died. And as far as I was concerned, Em and I were through before we started. She’d corner me somewhere and beg me to take her back. I’d tell her to get lost. It was weird, you know? We’d never even been together. It went on like that, for weeks.”

  I rest my head on Kyle’s shoulder.

  “Then a stack of chopped wood by our house caught fire. A day later, Dad found the barn door open when he went out to work the horses. One of our saddles ended up in a field, all cut and ruined. I knew it was Em, but I didn’t dare tell. Evan’s death had made my parents fragile. They were paper floating on water. I wanted to protect them and figured the best way to do that was to stay with Em till they got better. That was two years ago.” Kyle presses his fingers and thumb to his eyes. “After that, hell. Life with her just rolled into a habit.”

  12

  I HAVEN’T LIKED Em since the day she shoved me against the lockers. I probably would have gotten past that, with time. By graduation I might have even found a way around the ‘Retro’ thing. We might have become friends. But now? I ask, “All these scars came from her?”

  Kyle nods.

  His body heaves and for a moment he seems far away, alone with his thoughts, breathing deep. “I got to where I felt empty,” he says, and my heart breaks for the sadness in his voice. “A guy learns to fight as a kid, but he learns it with other guys. I was ashamed to have a girl beating on me. I started believing something about me was wrong. Then I met you. I swear, the sight of you shattered walls I didn’t even know I’d built. I broke off with Em for good, but I’ll admit. I’m still, I don’t know. Not myself.”

  He turns toward me and touches my chin with his fingers. “We hardly know each other. I get that. And I’ve spent years now, a mess. I don’t have ground to ask you to be my friend, but I want your friendship, and a lot more. That day in my truck made me feel good about everything, about myself. I thought to give you my truth then, just like you gave me yours. First though, I had to know I could end things with Em. It took forever, and all the way through I was dyin’ inside, worrying you’d hook up with someone else. So I’ll say it straight, ‘cause I have to. Be in my life, Aspen. I’m hopin’ you’ll let me be in yours. If you do I promise. I’ll face what I have to face to make us real.”

  “You’re serious?” I ask.

  “I am.”

  “So that day, when you left to do something you needed to do.”

  “I broke up with Em.”

  Tears sting my eyes. I’m scared to ask, “Did she hurt you?” but I have to know.

  “I followed her home from school. She was still getting from her truck when I plain out told her I was done. We were in her garage and she started screamin’ and before I could blink she came after me with a shovel.” He touches the pink scar near his elbow. “It was bad for a while. I’d be somewhere, doing what I needed to do, and she’d find me and things would spiral. But I stuck to my guns.”

  I wipe at my tears, though they keep coming. Kyle drapes his arm around my shoulder and I huddle against him, needing his closeness but feeling silly. If anyone deserves comfort, it’s him.

  “I’ll admit,” he says after a while, “I’m still nervous to be alone. Like Em’ll jump out of some shadow. That girl knows how to be a ghost when she wants. But it’s two weeks without her so much as looking my way. And nothing weird has happened at our house, not in the month since I ended things with her. It feels good, knowing it’s finally over. I’m sorry I waited on asking you to hang. I’m sorry I avoided you. It’s just. Hell. I don’t want her after you, too.”

  I take a deep breath, picking at the seam of my jeans and silently agreeing with him. I’m tired enough of the clothes thing; I can’t imagine adding vandalism to the list. Let alone being attacked with shovels or cigarette lighters. But fearing Em is pointless, a speck of nothing against how much I want this chance with Kyle. I take his hand and trace the round scar bumping up against his knuckles, trying not to think of how much it must have hurt to be burned.

  “You’ve got to tell your parents. They’re better now, right? They’re stronger? They need to know. If you can’t tell them alone, I’ll help you. We’ll do it together.”

  Kyle laces his fingers between mine. “Together?”

  “I know what you’re saying, about that day in your truck. I felt better about my mom after that. About everything. I tanked when you ignored me. I thought I’d lost my chance to, you know, have a chance with you. I get why you did what you did. But let the people who care about you, help you.” Heat rushes into m
y face and my armpits feel sticky, but I look Kyle in the eye. “I’m one of those people, you know. I care. About you.”

  He brushes his nose across mine. “You serious?” he asks.

  I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him over, until I’m lying on his pillowed floor and he’s practically on top of me. He burrows one arm beneath my waist, holding me tight. He locks onto my eyes. “You’re beautiful,” he whispers.

  I suddenly feel beautiful in ways I never knew existed. A little tear wells up to burn hot against my lashes.

  “You’re the beautiful one,” I say.

  He touches his lips to the tear slowly rolling toward my temple.

  I smile. Kyle kisses my cheek, then near my nose. He’s moving for my chin, maybe, when I cup my hand against his face and slide my fingers into his hair. Gently, I guide his mouth to mine.

  Kyle becomes the only thing anchoring me to the world.

  I love the texture of his tongue. I love the warm nakedness of his back. The pressure of his weight feels just right and I give into it, clinging to him as we tangle round each other.

  His fingers scout my waist and rib cage like a hungry little mouse, caressing the flat of my stomach then brushing up and over the small rise of my breast. My entire body erupts in fireworks and I can’t help it. I make a sound; I mean, I moan.

  Between his kisses, Kyle whispers, “Sorry.”

  For a second I hear Mom’s voice telling me to Defend my territory. I hear her demand that I Stand my ground. And in the past, with other guys, that’s exactly what I’ve done. I shut down their moves. I walked away. But now I lay my arm across the pillows to my side. It’s an invitation, or at least I mean it as one. Kyle slips his hand safely beneath my neck.

  Above us, the Christmas lights flicker.

  He kisses my ear, my throat, my shoulder. I ponder the skylight. I know about sex and stuff—I mean, Mom bored me with her lectures until I thought I’d scream. And I’ve seen my share of movie-love, so it’s not like I don’t know the motions. But none of that is this. This is me alone, with Kyle touching my body and tasting my mouth and pressing against my legs. I’ve never let a guy get this far. Some inner boundary has always clicked in my head. But I’m not feeling boundaries now. I want Kyle’s hands on my bare skin. I want his touch. I want to explore him and be explored, but I should probably tell him, “I’m not ready for sex.”

  “Good,” he whispers. “I’m eighteen, last week.”

  “What?”

  “Unless you’re eighteen too, you’re not old enough to consent.”

  I laugh. I can’t help it. I mean, we’re seniors. We’re in high school. We’re the same age.

  Kyle groans and stands up. He turns out the lights then lies next to me again, groping the pillows until he finds my hand. Our fingers twine together. Slowly, my eyes adjust to the dark. A trillion stars come into view.

  “So since we’re starting out honest,” I say, “let’s be honest about what just happened.”

  “I honestly loved it.” He nibbles on my knuckles.

  “Me too. I loved it enough to say that I don’t want to fight you off or deal with guilt when I don’t. Let’s let it be real, you know? Natural. I want our relationship to go where it goes. So let’s agree that sex is out, at least for a couple of months until I’m eighteen. It gives us time to explore. I’ll tell you if I don’t like something you do. I’ll tell you if I’m uncomfortable. And you do the same, with me.”

  “When’s your birthday?”

  “December twenty-eighth.”

  Kyle shifts toward me and rests on his elbow. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying? ’Cause this is a right cruel dream, otherwise.”

  I trace his chest with my fingers. His muscles tense, turning rock-hard beneath his skin. When I pause, his heart beats fast and strong against the palm of my hand. I circle his belly button, trailing around and around. His breathing quickens.

  “My parents had a great relationship,” I say. “They were always touching each other, like they’d never evolved beyond infatuation. I lost my mom, yeah. But my dad lost more. He lost his other half, his best friend, the girl he’d been with since he was sixteen years old. It’s like I don’t know him, since Mom died.”

  “If your mom was anything like you,” Kyle says, “I guarantee your dad’s hurting.”

  “It’s hard for me to see him without her. I still think of my parents the way they were—loving and physical and fun with each other, all the time.”

  Kyle slides his hand beneath the hem of my tank top, resting his fingers on the bare curve of my waist. Goose bumps spread across my skin. He pulls at me until our bodies touch. “Any guy’d want that,” he says softly.

  I press a small kiss to his lips, my mouth as light on his as butterfly wings. “I want that, Kyle Thacker. So since we’re being honest, I’ll confess. It feels right to try for that, with you.”

  13

  WE JUMP FROM the rope ladder to the hallway floor, giggling and finger-combing our hair and tugging our clothes into place. I feel like I’m floating, like something feral lives in my blood. Kyle pushes me up against the wall and kisses me, his elbows on the wallpaper, his body warm against mine. “It’s hard not to tell you I love you,” he says.

  “It does feel hard,” I say. We both give in to a fit of laughter, the kind that would have made milk squirt from our noses when we were kids.

  Someone coughs. Kyle’s mom says, “We’re right here.”

  We lose it, laughing all over again.

  I’m still not stable when Kyle places his hand to the small of my back and guides me, giggling and stocking-footed, into the kitchen. The main lights are off but in a window seat lit by an overhead Tiffany lamp, Kyle’s mom and dad sit at a round oak table. His mom looks our way and smiles. His dad leans into the shadows and tosses a crumpled paper napkin onto his plate. Between them is a roughly gathered deck of playing cards.

  “You didn’t smell the pie,” Angella Thacker states.

  “I smell it now,” I say. Kyle stifles a laugh.

  “Dad, this is Aspen Brand. Aspen meet my dad, Ray Thacker.”

  My voice sounds small as I say, “Hello.”

  Ray Thacker nods as he gets to his feet, stretching his tall, lanky frame. Kyle looks a lot like this man. He has the same body type, the same dark hair, the same dimple winking along his jaw when he smiles.

  Walking toward me, Ray extends his hand. “A pleasure, Miss,” he says. His eyebrows rise slightly, like he’s amused. Kyle glances at me then pulls something from my hair. A feather, I think. Ray Thacker grins so wide it crinkles the skin round his eyes. It’s a look that tells me he probably knows what Kyle and I have been doing.

  My face bursts with heat.

  “You’ll join us then, for pie?” Ray points over his shoulder, toward where Kyle’s mom has pulled a half-eaten pie from the oven. She sets the pie on a cutting board and with a spatula, lifts a large wedge to a plate. Then she lifts another.

  “I . . . want to. I don’t know. I’m supposed to be home by midnight.”

  “Well it’s too late for that.” Ray digs his cell phone from his shirt pocket and hands it to me. “You go on now and dial home. I’ll talk.”

  It’s two a.m. when Kyle and I pile into the back seat of his dad’s Tundra. We cuddle against each other, quiet and happy and tired. Ray turns on the radio, punching through the stations before he feeds an Eagles CD into the player. He had a long conversation with my dad on the phone, but I don’t know what was said. As they talked, Ray had wandered off to another room in the house. I guess that’s why he doesn’t ask me where I live.

  Fifteen minutes later we pull into my drive. Dried leaves scuttle against the truck’s windshield, moving like projectiles in the late night wind. Our Craftsman-styled garage lights shine a solitary, warm welcome. A faint glow illuminates our front window.

  If it were Mom waiting up for me she’d be there, in the living room, curled on the couch with a throw over her legs a
nd watching “Close Encounters.” But Dad? I bet he’s in his office, drinking coffee and reading.

  “I’ll come in and meet your dad,” Ray Thacker says. “Assumin’ it’s fine by you.”

  “’Course,” I say.

  While the dads talk, standing in the kitchen sipping beer and laughing, Kyle and I snuggle on the couch.

  “I don’t want to go home,” Kyle says.

  “I could sneak you upstairs.”

  He laughs. “I like your dad.”

  “I like your dad. And your mom, too. I like the way they look at you, like they’re hugging you with their eyes.”

  Kyle stretches, giving into a yawn. His feet sprawl out in front of him. “For a while now they’ve been feeling things aren’t right with me. They ask me, sometimes.”

  “So tell them,” I say. “Talk to your dad. On the way home.”

  He pulls me into his arms, cradling me like he did the day I cried in his truck. I feel his heart beating against my own as he tips my face toward his and kisses me, soft and sweet. “I promise you, girl. I’ll tell him everything.”

  KyleKDTlovesyou

  10:03 AM(2 hours ago)

  To me

  Hey Aspen,

  I’m glad I thought to get your email before we went down for pie. It’s Sunday morning, about eight, and Mom’s been packing. Last night on the way home I talked to my dad, like I told you I would. The news was rough for him. I’ve only seen my dad cry once, when Evan died, but this was worse somehow because I know he was crying for me. He’s plenty furious with Em, enough to call the cops or maybe even an attorney, but I don’t know. We talked in his truck until four-thirty in the morning when my mom came to see why we hadn’t come in. So I started over and told her too.

  Right there in the truck she made me take off my vest and my shirt. Then she went crazy with tears, weeping and hanging on me and combing her hands in my hair until I broke down and cried too. She decided to take me to Salt Lake to a therapist she knows, so I can talk things through proper, which explains the packing I mentioned before. We’ll be on the road by the time you read this, seeing as she’s been hollering at me for the past five minutes to get into the truck. I guess what Mom’s doing is good, but I don’t want to leave you. My dad said he’s having coffee with your dad on Monday. He said he’d come visit you, so that I know firsthand you’re doing okay.