by Lynn Red
“What happened?” I asked. My voice was hollow and not entirely mine. “I felt like, uh, I dunno.”
“What are you talking about?” Dezzy asked. “You were sitting there, we were making dumb jokes about how hard Winter and Mitzi and half the girls in the class were staring at Graves, and then suddenly you were just straight up gone.”
“Gone?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“I dunno,” she said, grabbing her bags and pushing me toward the door. “I have no idea, but... hey, where’s Winter?”
We spent the next couple of minutes looking for Winter, but there was no sign of her, and soon, no sign of Graves. I tried to make sense of what had been rattling around in my head, but just like a dream, the further away in time I got from what had happened, the less I could grasp it until not five minutes later, the whole thing was a wobbly, almost false-feeling dream.
“Huh,” Dezzy finally announced, returning to where Mitzi and I were standing by a water fountain. “Guess she took off? I tried to call, but no answer.”
Outside, there was another blast of lightning, and a rip of thunder. “Did that happen while we were inside?” I asked. “The thunder and all that I mean.
Both girls just stared at me, and neither said anything for a second.
“Let’s go,” Dezzy said, like she wanted to avoid my question.
Probably for the best, I thought.
-15-
Rex
He wanted nothing more than to see Lilah, and her entrancing, mismatched eyes, again. It had been a week, week and a half, and his heart was hurting. She was busy, he was busy, and it always hurt to leave her, but there were times that couldn’t really be avoided.
Times like this.
The storm of Rex’s moods wasn’t always black and thundering. Usually? Yeah, usually it was, but every now and then, short lapses in the brooding came and went. For a long time, they had everything to do with Leena. She’d make him a card, or say one of those things little kids say that’s a perfect mixture of earnest love and linguistic confusion that always make even the blackest hearts a little lighter.
Lately though, his cub was only part of what got his mind off his trouble with the Edgewoods.
He sat at the kitchen table in his little house, rocking back and forth on the back legs of one of the two dining chairs, and then let it fall to the ground with a decided clomp. On the table in front of him set two things – a glass, empty, and the bandana that Lilah had insisted he keep.
Everything about her was entrancing, enchanting – even things he’d never liked in anyone else, in Lilah, he was in love with them.
His stomach clenched just thinking the word.
Love.
There it went again, tightness going through his chest like a heart attack. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He decided he didn’t have time for love, or time to try and find it. And then, like it does, love found him.
“Is that what this is?” he asked in his gruff, exhausted voice. “Love? Or is this just me seeing something and going after it because I want to prove I’m not broken?”
“You talkin’ to anybody in there daddy?” Leena’s voice came into the kitchen, followed immediately by the rest of her. “You told me that talkin’ to yourself means you’re crazy. So, you’re crazy?”
He laughed and patted his knee, motioning for her to sit down. “Sometimes I feel that way,” he said. “You know, sometimes when you are alone, do you ever feel like you’re scared?”
“You mean of the dark?” she asked, her voice innocent and eager. “Like something is waitin’ for you?”
Rex crinkled his brow in a thought. “Actually,” he said, “yeah it’s a lot like that. But you know that no matter what happens, you know you can always come to daddy, right?”
Leena got a very serious look on her face and nodded, once, decisively.
“Good,” he said, letting a grin break out on his face. “You seemed to really like Miss Lilah, huh?”
Leena cocked her head to the side. “She reads nice. And she’s cuddly. Will she play Mario with me? And you like her and she likes you.”
“How do you know all that?” The smile and the slight blush on his face told more than he wanted to let on.
“Because you both blushed when you talked about each other, and you know the thing I want most in the world is someone to be my mommy and my birthday is coming up in two months and two days and so you’re going to get me a mommy for my birthday.”
Rex just stared, open-mouthed, at his sweet little cub. “I don’t... I don’t know about all that,” he said. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up about—”
“Do you like her?” Leena asked. “Like you did mama?”
Mist went over Rex’s eyes, and a strange thickness caught the back of his throat, making him croak instead of talking when next he tried. Instead, he just nodded until he could clear his throat. “Well,” he said. “Yeah, I do. I like her a lot. She’s strong, and smart, and always has something nice to say.”
He kind of fibbed a little on that last part, but the rest of it was true. And he figured she probably did always have something nice to say, it’s just that their exchanges were all a little rushed and filled with... things that didn’t involve talking about other people.
“Good!” Leena said. “I don’t like mean people, or people who talk bad. Can I tell you a secret, daddy?”
Rex leaned closer across the table and grabbed his daughter’s hand. “Of course,” he was very serious. “You can tell me anything.”
“Okay, but this is a big secret.”
He leaned closer still and whispered. “I promise I won’t tell.”
“Greg Adams? The big blond boy in my class?”
She’d just started school and was fascinated with all the new people and friends she was making.
“He’s... he like likes Amy Slater.”
Rex leaned back in his chair, smiled, and rocked back onto the back legs. “Is that so?” he asked. “That sounds like quite a secret. I promise I won’t tell a soul.” He dragged a fingertip across his chest, crossing his heart. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“Yay!” Leena screeched, then dove into his lap.
The chair teetered, Rex shot out his arms and legs like a baby who thinks she is falling. He fell backwards, laughing as he went, and let out a huge gust of air as his daughter landed right on his stomach.
The laughing hurt, the fall hurt, but none of it hurt bad enough to stop him. He grabbed Leena tight. She squirmed, she giggled, and then finally got up.
“You better call your girlfriend, daddy,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “And make sure she comes over before bedtime because I need her to help me beat this level in Mario. Okay?”
“Okay,” he said, shaking his head slowly and rubbing the sore spot on his stomach.
It wasn’t until Leena took off to the other room that he realized she’d called Lilah his girlfriend.
The he realized that he hadn’t corrected her.
Five seconds later, he had his phone in his hand. He started to punch out a text message, but then reconsidered. Slowly, Rex stepped out onto the porch of his little house, took a deep breath and steadied his nerves.
What in the world is wrong with me? He asked himself. I’ve been in a warzone. And here I am, nervous about calling a girl. I am an idiot.
Somehow, that’s how he knew it was real. Somehow, when Rex pressed the button on his handset to dial – because he refused to use anything without actual damn buttons to push – and his stomach sank into his feet... that’s how he knew the things he was feeling were real.
When she answered, Lilah didn’t say anything for a second. Rex waited until he felt like his anxiety was going to explode his heart.
“Hi,” he said, mustering as calm and smooth a voice as he could.
The answer was a surprised gasp and then a nervous giggle. “Hey stranger,” Lilah’s voice, when it finally came, was hollow and frightened. “I
thought you forgot. It’s been so long.”
“About you?” he asked. “How could I? Why would I? Just busy, dealing with the Edgewoods and this and that.”
Rex took a step off the porch, sticks and leaves crunching under his bare feet. She didn’t respond right away, and that made him think that maybe he hit a nerve he didn’t want to hit. “I’m sorry if I said something wrong—”
“No, no,” she said, laughing. He imagined she was pulling her hair back with her free hand, maybe tucking her bandana around her head. “I’m just being dumb tonight for some reason. I was thinking things I shouldn’t have been thinking.”
“Oh yeah?” Rex’s voice was husky and breathy. “I wonder if it’s anything like what I was thinking.”
That I want to have your baby? Lilah wanted to say. That I think you’re perfect and I’m scared I’m going to come on too strong and you’re going to back away? And I’m thinking that because that’s exactly what I would do if someone came onto me the same way I want you.
“I doubt it,” is what Lilah actually said. “But... okay, we’ll go with it.”
She was easing up a little. Just a little, but the relaxation was evident in her voice. Hearing Lilah calm down in turn made Rex’s neck loosen. He rolled his neck, stretching it and steeling himself for what he was about to say.
“I have a favor to ask of you,” he finally said. It came out half hurried and half hitching. “This is so stupid,” he laughed. “I’m all nervous and I don’t even know why. It’s like I want to say things to you I’ve wanted to say to someone for years. But I don’t want to scare you.”
“Oh my God no you won’t,” Lilah said, all in one syllable. “You can’t scare me, I’m serious, ask me anything. I thought I’d done something horrible and you weren’t going to want to talk to me anymore. I’ve got a habit of... well, overstepping things and getting too serious.”
“With me,” Rex began, and then paused like he was reconsidering.
“What is it?” Lilah prodded him. “I don’t want this to be one of those things that are full of secrets that rot it to the core and then we both act all surprised when it collapses and we both knew it was but weren’t willing to admit it.”
“That was... oddly prescient,” Rex said, laughing a little. What she said hit more nerves than he was willing to admit just then. “But okay,” he said. “No secrets. I’m tired of them too. For a long time, my life was nothing but secrets. Or well, one really big one and a bunch of smaller ones.”
“What I was going to say is that with me, you don’t need to worry about that. But then I caught myself, and started to think – what do I mean ‘with me?’”
The silence was telling and also more than a little discomforting, though it didn’t last very long.
“What is this?” Lilah finally asked. “What do I want from you?”
Rex laughed at what he thought was her Freudian slip, but maybe he thought a second later, it wasn’t a slip at all. “What do you want from me?” he asked. “Because I know what I want from you.”
Rex’s lips started burning a little, the way they always did when he was afraid he’d gone one step too far. But then he heard Lilah’s sweet, sexy little giggle, and knew he’d just hit exactly the right button.
“Yeah?” she asked, her voice soft and breathy and hot with desire. “Tell me about it.”
Turning back to the house, Rex saw that Leena was curled up on the couch. He couldn’t tell if she was completely asleep, or just mostly zonked-out, but either way, she wasn’t going anywhere. He took a couple more steps away from the front door. He was still close enough to hear her if anything happened.
“I want...” he trailed off for a second, giving Lilah a little time to play with her own imagination.
Lilah somehow imagined his breath caressing her throat, his kisses soft and hot on her skin. “What do you want from me?” she asked softly. A hitch in her voice gave away how much she wanted to hear what Rex had to say.
“I want to watch you bite your lip,” he growled. “Like you did when I... when I touched you.”
She let out a soft little moan that filled him with an urge to run across town, grab his raccoon and throw her across a bed of roses, pin her down and take her right then.
“I want you to bite your lip and I want you to tremble while I kiss you. I want you to have to bite your lip because it’s the only way to keep yourself from screaming.” Rex’s voice sounded like old leather looked. Soft, but firm, gentle and hard at the same time. “And then I want you to close those beautiful eyes and lay your head back when I run my tongue down your neck, along your bra.”
“Oh... oh God,” Lilah whispered. “You’re... this I didn’t expect.”
“You’re going to lay your head back and let your mouth hang open. Your eyes will be half-open because that’s all you can manage to do. The only thing you’re going to be able to concentrate on is the way I slowly circle my fingertips on your sides.”
“Goose bumps,” she moaned. “I’ve got—”
“And then I want to slide my hand underneath you and feel all that wet heat in my palm.”
That time when Lilah tried to respond, she just whimpered. Rex’s jeans were starting to get uncomfortably tight. Hard denim clenched in all the right places, and his thickness was making the left leg of his pants twist just enough to hurt a little.
“What,” she gasped. “What next?”
He heard a whimper in her voice, and imagined Lilah’s perfect fingers swirling between her legs. “And then I’m going to run my tongue all the way down to your panties, and pull them off you with my teeth. I can imagine your perfect, intoxicating smell filling my lungs.”
“Oh God, Rex,” Lilah moaned. “I’m... I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but I think I’m doing exactly what you wanted me to do.”
Her voice grew taut, and he knew she really was biting her lip, she really did have her eyes closed, and her head back.
“I want you to relax,” he whispered. “I want you to let me take you away, take you... everywhere you’ve ever wanted to go.”
“I can’t,” Lilah said, almost like she believed it. “This is too much, too—”
“I want you to grab my hair, ball your fists up in it and then scratch me when I bury my face between your legs and swirl my tongue in just the perfect way.”
She was right back to moaning.
“How are you doing this to me?” she managed to squeak out, in between gasping groans. “I’ve never... not once in my life, I—”
“Because you’ve never met the right man,” he cut her off. “I want to put one of my fingers in your mouth so you can bite that instead of your lip, and then I’m going to...”
Her soft, desperate breathing was hard and ragged and did some really crazy things to Rex’s imagination. “What?” she begged. “What’s next? Don’t stop, don’t stop now, I’m almost...”
“I want to hold you down, kiss your neck, and your collarbones and your chest as I slide into you, as you gasp and moan,” he whispered. “You won’t be able to move.”
“I want your hands on my ass, pulling me deeper, making sure I don’t leave,” he said. “I can hear you gasping for more, hear you moaning my name.”
On cue, Lilah whispered: “Oh my God, Rex... yes, yes... I’m...”
“You’re going to get here as soon as you can,” he said. “Because I can’t take not kissing you. I can’t take not being able to touch you and smell your hair, and feel you against me. You’re not going to make me wait, are you?”
Lilah was breathing hard. He could almost hear her pulse pounding behind the words she said. She squeaked again in a way that he recognized from the last time they’d been together.
“I want to watch your face the next time you do that,” he said, his voice thick with desire and lust. “And I want you here as fast as you can manage. Aside from... well, aside from how bad I need to see you, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
Her first ‘ye
s’ was breathless, tight, and urgent; just the way Rex felt both inside and out. “Good,” he said. “Hurry.”
“I... I can’t wait,” Lilah said, obviously shaking as she hung up.
As soon as the phone was silent, Rex looked back at the house.
I guess there aren’t any questions left, he thought. I’m not going to miss this chance, no way in the world.
He could have asked himself why he was doing it, but what was the point? He already knew. He’d known the first time he say that lavender eye and that brown one fix on him that night in the cell.
There weren’t any questions left for Rex to ask – he already had all the answers.
Now, the only problem was for him to learn that sometimes, fate is a good thing.
-16-
Lilah
My knees were still shaking when I hung up the phone and I desperately needed a change of panties. I couldn’t believe what I’d just done, but let’s get real here for a sec – when I asked what he wanted with me, I was expecting, like an invitation to dinner or something.
I should’ve known better.
Ever since the first time I saw him, those burning eyes, those wild, beautiful tattoos, and the barely-kept frenzy behind them both had me gripped in a way I’d never felt before for as long as I’d been alive.
I looked for a clean pair of jeans for about fifteen seconds before I decided that I absolutely didn’t care if I was wearing once-worn jeans, and I was pretty sure Rex was going to be about four million times more excited about me than about my jeans.
The second I thought that, I froze.
“Is he really... how can he think that stuff about me?” I asked myself, pausing in front of the mirror. “But, I’m just me. I’m not anything special, I’m just Lilah.”
Staring at myself, I turned side to side and observed with more than a little irritation the parts of me that hung over my jeans just a little. Normally, I’d freeze, I’d get scared and just stop whatever I was doing to tuck and push and squeeze and whatever.
But... suddenly, I found myself not doing any of that. I can’t honestly say what snapped in my brain, but something sure did. No one would say the things he said if he thought anything about me wasn’t good enough, I thought. No one on earth would want me to go and meet...
