I did, I totally did.
“In answer to your question, I’m here…because…” He started to talk, but stopped abruptly.
“What?” I stared at my feet, realizing I was still completely dressed, shoes and all.
“Because when Mom died, I had dad. I had my aunt and uncle who flew in the week she passed. I had my cousin, Clark. Remember him? He hung out with me to try to lift my spirits or whatever. I want to do that for you.”
I took in his words, and they felt amazing to hear, especially coming from those perfect, full lips. “How long are you in town?” And because I was insecure and still jealous where Ahren was concerned, I went on to ask, “Is Sammy okay with you spending the night here?” Even though I’d just buried my family, I also thought sex with Ahren Finnegan would be a great distraction from my grief.
I hadn’t heard they’d broken up. His dad would’ve mentioned it to my dad, told mom, and she – knowing the torch I held for Ahren – would’ve spilled the juicy gossip. I assumed, if he’d been dating her for over four years, chances were, wedding bells were in his future. That particular gossip would not have been shared. Mom knew, when that day came, it would be a trip to Brewster’s Bakery, seventy-thousand calories and many, many tears.
“She moved back to Iowa or Idaho or wherever. We broke up just after you came to San Jose for your birthday.” He turned his eyes on me with an intensity I didn’t recognize in him. “You would know this if you’d read my emails, Gen.”
I’d stopped correspondence with him. I didn’t think it was healthy, and neither did Rocky. Like that part in When Harry Met Sally—men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way. We were never going to have sex, and even though I wanted his friendship, I would always want more. Knowing he wasn’t with her though, hope sprang anew in me…briefly.
He watched me as the wheels in my head turned around and around. “She took jealousy to another level, that level commonly known as crazy.”
I smiled and pulled my knees up to my chest. I knew I was probably doing irreparable damage to my new comforter with my shoes, but I was not at all concerned.
Ahren put his hands behind my legs and pulled me toward him as he removed my heels, one at a time. He set them on the floor next to my bed then came back and held my stockinged feet in his hands. His thumbs rubbed along my arches, and a small moan of pleasure escaped me. “You’ve been in those killer heels all day. Looked fantastic, but your feet must hurt now.”
I took stock of my body, Ahren’s hands on my feet, and hoped to God he wouldn’t stop touching me. The last guy I’d dated was a high school physics teacher named Tony. He wanted to marry me even though I explained we were both only twenty-four and too young. My parents married when they were twenty-two. I considered it a miracle they hadn’t divorced. But they were very much in love, that I knew for certain, which made me ask the question: Why wasn’t I jumping at the chance to marry Tony? He was good-looking, smart, funny, pretty good with his hands—and other things—he even knew how to dance, something I couldn’t do very well. He’d asked me to move in with him, play it by ear, but again, something held me back, and it didn’t take me very long to come up with the answer. That answer was rubbing my feet. All the men in my life had been compared, unbeknownst to them, to Ahren Finnegan.
They never stood a chance.
My dad had owned Greer’s Rest Realty. When he started out, he’d put his inheritance into buying the building, which had an office downstairs and a two-bedroom apartment upstairs. He and Mom met at the community college in Santa Rosa, but when my Grandpa Clare died, my parents were concerned about Granny in that big house all by herself. That’s when they’d moved into Eden Hills, a two-story, four bedroom Victorian with a wraparound porch and its very own pioneer cemetery.
Grandpa Clare had been happy to buy a house with a bit of history. He’d taken care of the grounds as long as he could. Then Granny took over, pulling weeds and raking leaves. But when Mom and Dad moved in, Dad decided Eden Hills Cemetery needed more than a little TLC. He’d hired Adam Finnegan, a landscaper and gardener and, according to his resume, a groundskeeper at Evergreen Cemetery and Mausoleum down in Marin. It was Adam who had suggested my dad contact the Santa Rosa Historical Society. He knew they had a retired stonemason as a member who specialized in monument restoration. It was always on Dad’s list of things to do, but he never seemed to get around to it.
Ahren would sometimes meet his dad on Friday afternoons. He’d walk up the long curved drive and into the cemetery where he’d grab a pair of boots from his dad’s truck then get to work. He’d mow and rake the beautiful lawn that Adam had brought to life. He tended the flowers and shrubs that now dotted the landscape. And when he was done, he’d always come to the front porch where I just happened to be doing my homework. We’d talk until his dad told him, multiple times, they had to get home.
But Ahren had rarely spoken to me at school. Four years might as well be forty when you’re eight years old. He was lanky, just starting to sprout toward his eventual six-foot-whatever height. Light brown hair and perfect, tanned skin didn’t go with the name Finnegan at all.
My dad was pale, my mom was pale, and I was pale. Dad said that, even though our Irish ancestry prevented us from getting a tan, it also protected our livers. This made absolutely no sense to me at the time. The other girls at school happily went to the river, clad in bikinis, showing off their bronzed bodies. I tried self-tanner lotions, but they only made my skin turn orange.
I understood my dad’s words of wisdom when I realized I could drink all of them under the table, then dance a jig on it and still not puke. But Ahren had been there at the river with the older kids. He would make out with those girls in bikinis and sneak off behind the holiday cabins when he thought no one was looking. Meanwhile, I sat with Rocky, also of the porcelain skin variety, under the shade of a tree, both of us slathered in sunscreen.
Then came high school. I was in eighth grade when Ahren was a senior. Different schools, different lives, different friends. I’d been christened “Genevieve Scare” at some point in my young life, because I lived next to the cemetery. The nickname lumped me into the alternative crowd, but I wasn’t, not really. I’d bought music I liked. I didn’t care if it was pop or country, metal or goth. I didn’t have a particular style. I just wore jeans and Chuck’s year round, but when I went out, I always tried to dress like a pin-up girl. I would like to have done my hair and make-up like that all the time, but there was no way I could maintain that kind of routine just to go to class or the grocery store.
The night of my eighth grade dance was the same evening as the Greer’s Rest senior prom. The Gravenstein Country Club had two large rooms they rented out for weddings, and the local schools booked them for these dance events. Guava was a chaperone, although this was totally unnecessary since eighth-graders seemed terrified to touch a member of the opposite sex. I didn’t know how to dance and spent the night standing next to Guava while Rocky burned up the dance floor. She was so impressive with her trendy moves and self-confidence, even the popular girls joined her. That night had made our four years of high school more tolerable than it would have been otherwise.
I’d told my mom I wanted a green satin dress with little sleeves so I could wear a bra; my big boobs and strapless bras did not play nicely together. The dress she had Guava make was an A-line shape, perfect for my figure, with black netting under the skirt to make it fuller. I never had a problem walking in heels; it was a gift, so mom bought me the four-inchers I asked for. Granny Clare did my hair. She styled it just as she would have in the fifties. So there I stood, dressed to kill, and no one to kill for. I hoped that Danny Miller would be my first kiss, but he was somewhere with a girl named Brandi who, it was rumored, wasn’t a virgin.
Then, a miracle occurred.
“Hello, Guava. Mind if I steal your date here?”
Ahren.
He was so handsome in a traditional black tux. He had a
pink boutonniere that matched Macey Murchison’s corsage, but she was busy with Roy Chang.
“Make sure she gets home all right, okay?” She held Ahren in a wicked smile that told him she trusted him and not to break that trust. Guava was good at “the look.”
“Of course,” he replied then turned to me and offered his arm. “Ready to blow this place?”
“Sure.” Bright-eyed and shaky, I let him drive me to the river. It was late May, and couples flocked to the riverbank to do one of two things: skinny dip or make-out.
“Did you have fun tonight?” he asked as we walked along a trail that paralleled the river.
“It was okay,” I answered.
He pulled me off the path and farther into the woods. We walked for a few minutes before he asked, “Just okay?”
I stopped and looked around. I’d lived in Greer’s Rest all my life yet never knew there was a cabin off this path. “Where are we?”
“Are you scared?” he teased.
“No, but I don’t know where I am.”
“That little cabin belongs to my dad, and I just happen to have the keys. Wanna see it?”
Was he nuts? Of course I wanted to go into a dark cabin in the woods with him. “Sure.”
There wasn’t much to see, but there was a small porch that rose above the thick leaves of the forest floor. We could sit down without ruining our clothes. He didn’t say a word. He just reached over and took my shaking hand I had curled into a tight ball.
“You’re scared.”
He actually sounded a little scared, I thought.
“No,” I replied quickly.
“Nervous?” His eyebrows rose with the question.
On the breath I’d been holding, I blurted out, “Yes.”
“Tell me, and be honest, what did you think was going to happen tonight at the dance?”
I thought he might be teasing me, but we were friends. We’d had hundreds of conversations over the last six years, and he always knew when I was holding something back. So, I answered him honestly, even as I felt heat hit my face.
“I thought Danny Miller would be my first kiss.”
“And why wasn’t he?”
“Because he was with a girl who already knew how to kiss.” I thought I just might start crying. I wasn’t embarrassed to be having this conversation with him. I just felt like I was always going to be that strange girl who lived up at Eden Hills. “What did you think was going to happen tonight?” I asked him.
He gave me a look, sighed, then looked out toward the river.
“Oh,” I said in complete understanding. He had the keys to his dad’s cabin. He was at his senior prom. He was hoping he’d have sex with Macey.
“Gen?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to college soon, and I want you to do me a favor while I’m gone.”
“Uh…” I licked my lips. “What’s that?” I would have promised him anything. He knew it. I knew it. People in the next state knew it.
“Don’t change,” he said, squeezing my hand. “Friday afternoons have always been my favorite part of the week. Did you know that?”
I shook my head, because I hadn’t known that. But they were mine, as well. He could have just been saying that to make me feel better about my bummer of a night. Even if he was, mission accomplished. He managed to make me feel beautiful, despite the fact I was probably going to be a virgin forever.
“I turn eighteen next week,” he said.
“I know. I’m not invited to your party,” I commented. “I understand though. I’m just a kid and—”
He took my chin between his thumb and forefinger and said, “You’re fourteen. That’s not a little kid, Gen. You’re beautiful, and I bet you…” he thought for a long moment, then he said, “I bet you another kiss on your eighteenth birthday, you are going to be beating guys off with a stick.”
“Another kiss?” I laughed and heard it echo back at me through the woods. “I haven’t been kissed yet. How can there be—”
Then it happened. I felt his tongue against my lips, and I panicked. What do I do? What do I do? I pulled away and exclaimed, “I don’t know how!”
He chuckled and brought my head back to his then he showed me how. And that kiss kept me going for four, long, painful years. No boyfriends, no dates.
Four years later, he called to ask if he could take me to my senior prom. All I could think about was another kiss from him. I’d made plans for our future as Mr. and Mrs. Finnegan around that fourteen-year-old kiss. But life…life is messy.
Ahren’s mom, Aine, had been diagnosed with some aggressive form of cancer. Ahren had been adamant he wouldn’t miss prom, but that morning, Aine died. No one called to tell us, and it was only after I’d sat on the front porch for two hours that dad made a call. I didn’t go to prom. Aine’s funeral came and went. Then Ahren returned to college at San Jose State. He never called or apologized, and I hadn’t expected him to. I couldn’t imagine losing my mom, and I couldn’t imagine what he’d gone through.
Until now.
“Gen?” he asked.
I stopped my trip down memory lane and gave him my full attention.
“Where’s Tony?”
I took a deep breath and replied, “On the train to Crazy Town with your ex, Sammy.”
That night, I slept curled into Ahren’s arms. He’d managed to get me into the shower then sweats and a tee. When I came out of the bathroom, he was wearing almost the same outfit. He’d packed a bag and totally planned on staying the night.
It was now two weeks later.
Ahren had let me grieve, encouraged me to cry, and, at long last, helped me go into my parents’ bedroom and start cleaning it out. Every piece of clothing and jewelry was another memory I had to mourn. But I wasn’t alone. Ahren had two weeks off from his office job in Burlingame and had been by my side every single night since.
The second week, he’d made me a nice dinner of chicken pot pies, salad, and beer. We did the dishes together each night, and I realized I was finally becoming comfortable with the idea that the house was now mine. I would never leave it, as long as I lived. I would stay right here and wash dishes in this sink. I wouldn’t change anything about it, not the little curtains with lemons and oranges stitched on them, not the matching yellow knobs on all the drawers. Nothing.
I was rinsing and smiling when Ahren asked, “Gen?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re…happy?”
I was. I was happy and felt guilty about that fact. But while I was still feeling the loss of my parents and grandmother, I knew they would want me to heal and move forward. They wouldn’t want me moping around and feeling sorry for myself. After a few days of non-stop crying, which coincided with cleaning Mom and Dad’s room, I let it all go.
“I am,” I told him.
He pulled my hands from the sink, forcing me to drop a fork which clanked to the ground as he dried my hands with a dishtowel. The towel tossed behind him, he pulled me through the kitchen and up the first flight of stairs, then the second which ran up the middle of the house, up to the attic apartment built for my grandmother. Ahren swung open the door and pushed me back until I was on top of my bed.
His brown eyes had gone dark and predatory.
“Ahren?” I asked with fear in my voice. I’d never, ever seen him like this.
“Gen,” he stalked, “I’m gonna kiss you now.”
“Huh?” I asked, confused, though his message could not have been clearer.
“Are you on the pill?” he asked as he took off his shirt and threw it across the room.
“Excuse me?”
“Answer the question…please.” He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his sweats and pushed them down and off, followed by his socks. That left him standing before me in white boxers. He had a sprinkling of chest hair that gathered in a beautiful line down his solid abs and grew in abundance just below his belly button.
“My God,” I breathed. “You are so… �
�They should have sent a poet.’” I quoted a movie we’d watched together only a few days before, which made him chuckle.
“Genevieve?” He urged me to answer his previous question.
I knew, I mean, I assumed I knew what he was referring to. “I’m on the pill. And I haven’t been with anyone since Tony, and I never told him I went on the pill, so we always used condoms.” That should cover that line of inquiry.
He was still at the end of the bed, not close enough to touch. Apparently, we were taking care of business before we took care of business. I didn’t even have to ask him. He volunteered his stats.
“Had a check-up three months ago, and I haven’t been with anyone since.”
He moved closer and that night four years ago flashed in my mind. I squeezed my eyes together as the memory of him pushing me away hit me, and he saw it.
“Talk to me, Gen,” he urged.
“You didn’t want me.” I had to tell him. It hurt me. It was the reason I hadn’t returned his emails and calls.
“Yes, I did.”
“But, you pushed me. I mean, you physically pushed me away. ‘Go home, Genevieve. Go home.’ That’s what you said to me.”
He kneeled in front of me on my bed and pulled me toward him. “Remember that kiss, the night of my prom?” I nodded. “I wanted you then. You were too young. It wasn’t right, and I asked you that night not to change. I kissed you, and I hoped that I could keep my promise and kiss you again on your eighteenth birthday. And then your prom. You were eighteen, I was twenty-one, and inside my tux pocket, ready for that night, I had a condom and the keys to my dad’s cabin. I wanted to be your first, Gen. All those years, I knew I could say anything, tell you anything, and you would’ve thought it was cool or asked me more, and we would talk. I missed you. I missed talking to you. Not the little girl you; I missed you. And after Mom, I was fucked up. I just…I couldn’t… and then you told me about Heath and then there was…”
“Sid,” I supplied and was given a glare for being helpful.
“Yeah, Sid. Then Tony. I didn’t kiss you on your twenty-first because I didn’t want to just fuckin’ kiss you. I wanted to take you back to my apartment, tell Sammy to fuck off once and for all, and be with you. Not for one night in a bar bathroom. Not like that, not with you, Gen.”
The Morbid and Sultry Tales of Genevieve Clare Page 2
