by Finn, Emilia
My face burns as a bubbled laugh bursts from my chest and I hurriedly try to hide my phone from the girl lying in her bed beside me.
Her eyes are tired, her mouth is full to the brim with painful sores. Marcie’s recovery seems to be going backwards far more often than we’d like. Her chemotherapy routine has been extended, her body is growing thinner, her skin more and more translucent.
We, she and I, have this unshakable belief that everything is going to be okay. Because I’ve already walked this road, I’ve shown her it can be done, and though neither of us are under the illusion that it’s an easy journey, we also know there’s no alternative. So she dutifully follows, and never complains about what she has to do to win.
Marcie’s working on her defense. She’s doing her best. But every now and again, she’s forced into the forest and gets lost in the thickness, unable to find her way out again without a little extra help.
She lays on her side like a small child. Balled up so her knees touch her chest and her arms wrap around them, but her eyes flip to mine. She had chemo just yesterday, and everyone knows the day after sucks, so she chooses to ball up and hold the fort while the worst of it passes. The spew bucket sits on her bedside table. Her adult diaper goes ignored by us both. I’ve been sitting on the end of her bed, reading a book out loud for hours, but then Spencer’s text came in, and when I laughed, I got the first real reaction from her all day.
She doesn’t begrudge my visits, nor does she wish I didn’t come. But today, the day after chemotherapy, she hoards what little strength she has, and doesn’t bother with the small talk or pleasantries that most who don’t know this world abide by.
She doesn’t have to laugh when the book is funny, or swoon when the hero is sweet. She doesn’t have to get up to use the bathroom if she has a diaper on, and when she vomits, I pass her a glass of water and continue reading as though she doesn’t feel the fire from the inside out.
But my bubbling laugh gets her attention, and when I furiously blush and try to hide my phone, she grins. It’s painful and slow, but she grins.
“What does it say?”
I shake my head in fast, jerky movements. “Nope. Can’t tell you.”
“Please?” With a deep, pain-filled groan, she turns in her bed and slowly works her way up so she can look at me straight on. “Tell me?”
“Marcie…” Laughing, though it’s mostly forced, I pat her knee and shake my head a second time. “I really can’t tell you. It’s super inappropriate. You’re seventeen.”
“I’m nearly eighteen,” she argues with a croaky, quiet voice. “I think I’ve earned some kind of maturity badge, right? No other seventeen-year-old has to do this shit.” She weakly waves a hand toward the machines that drip fluids into her body around the clock. She’s still expected to eat and drink on her own, but she can’t keep up with the water, and the eating is essentially nonexistent at this point. “I get points for this, right? Help a girl out, and tell me what he said.”
“How do you know it was a man?”
“Not just any man,” she croaks. “But your man. Because women don’t blush the way you did unless it’s for a man. Tell me.”
“Marcie.” My face flames anew. “I can’t tell you. It doesn’t feel proper.”
“So show me.” She reaches out and takes my phone with surprising speed.
Laying back with a grunt, she reads until her eyes pop wide and fire burns in her cheeks.
“Well alright.” She clears her throat. “He sounds cool.”
I burst out in embarrassed laughter and snatch my phone back. “I can’t believe I just let you do that. Your mother is going to kill me.”
“No she won’t.” She brings a hand up and cups her warm cheek. “Holy cheese on a cracker, he turned me on.”
“Marcie!”
“What? He did. Mitch never says anything like that. At least, not when I’m around, so my infatuation is waning. Then your big, bad soldier says things like that, and I’m ready to jump ship to your dude. Do you think he’d date an almost eighteen-year-old?”
“No!”
Her lips pull up into a sweet grin. “What if it’s like a Make-A-Wish thing? I’m dying, Abby.” She gives a fake cough that starts as a laugh, but ends with a pained groan. “He wouldn’t say no to that, right?”
“You’re not dying!” I pick up the paperback book I was reading and start again. “But he wasn’t at the–”
“No.” Marcie reaches forward and tries to take my book. “I don’t wanna read that anymore. It’s lame.”
“You don’t?” I set it down by my leg and study her sickly face. “What do you want to do?”
“I want to watch you blush some more.” She snickers. “Reply to him. You don’t have to talk dirty if you don’t wanna. But I want to see your love.”
“Marcie.” I tilt my head to the side and take her hand in mine. Hers is bony and so close to catastrophic pain if she breaks something. Her bones are brittle, her fat reserves all gone. “Honey, you’re not still pining for that jerky jock are you?”
“No.” Instead of holding my hand, she tugs and brings me to her side. It takes us a moment to get comfortable and work our way around the cords, but we easily fit, and lay side by side on her bed until I turn onto my hip and study her face.
“I don’t want him anymore. I don’t like selfish jerks, and he’s already shown his true colors.”
“I don’t think mine is selfish, nor a jerk. He likes me even without… ya know.” I gesture toward my chest.
She nods. “I know what you mean. You landed a good one.” With shaking hands, she reaches out for her glass of water and takes a small sip, then replacing it back on the bedside table, she snatches up her well used Chapstick and slides it over her cracked lips. “Okay, I’m ready.”
“Ready?” My brows knit. “Ready for what?”
“I want you to call him.”
“Call hi–” I pause. “Call Spencer?”
She nods. “I want to watch you guys for a sec.”
“Marcie!”
“Not the touching yourself thing,” she snickers. “I just wanna watch him look at you. Just one time. I want to see what it’s really like.”
“Like what is really like?”
“Love,” she sighs. “Did you know Doctor Rhett’s wife was here yesterday?” When I shake my head, she smiles. “She wanted to say hello before I went down for more treatment. I watched him watch her, and it helped me get through the afternoon. It’s nice to see the real thing sometimes.”
“Honey…”
“This is my wish,” she finishes. “This is my Make-A-Wish wish. Just call him.”
“He doesn’t have a filter. He swears a lot, and says dirty things. He’ll try to tone it down for you, but he’ll forget two seconds later, and then he’ll say something wildly inappropriate again and laughingly say sorry. He won’t mean it. He’ll just say it because it’s the right thing to do.”
“I hear cussing every single day,” she rasps. The more she talks, the rougher her voice becomes. “You don’t have to protect my sensibilities, Ab. Just make the call.”
“Okay…” I lift my phone with hesitant hands and pull up the text he just sent.
My pulse races, because I just know in my heart of hearts this is probably a bad idea. But I hit dial anyway, because he said I can call whenever I like while he’s away and he’ll never get mad. I want to talk to him too. I want to see his face and watch him watch me.
“Fuck me sideways, Priss. You want it so bad that you’re just gonna call me up in the middle of the day rather than wait till tonight?”
I press my spare hand to my face and shake my head. He’s so perfectly crass. So ridiculously insane. Marcie giggles beside me. It begins silently, breathily, until the bubbles begin and her entire body spasms from the laughter, and Spencer finally focuses on the world around me.
“Aw, fuck.”
This induces a brand new explosive bout of giggles that even make me sta
rt.
“Spencer…” My chest bounces while Marcie clutches to her stomach and probably wets herself. “Um, this is Marcie. She’s my friend, and she’s also a minor, so perhaps try to dial it back.”
He looks so handsome today, so roguishly perfect, with his tight, black t-shirt and chain dangling around his neck. He was wearing sunglasses, but now he drags them off and shows me his beautiful dark eyes, filled with something entirely different from the hunger that I expect.
He’s outside somewhere. In a field of sorts, with other voices moving behind him. But I guess it’s a safe space, and not during something important, otherwise he wouldn’t have accepted the call.
“Hello, Marcie.”
“Hello.” Her cheeks are as red as mine, but hers stand out more, considering her pale skin and lack of hair. “You’re her man, huh?”
“I sure am, kid. And I don’t share, so no double-dating while I’m gone. I don’t care how much your man begs to take you pretty girls to the movies.”
She snickers. “No double-dating here. She’s a self-diagnosed addict. And I don’t have a man.” She’s still smiling. “He didn’t like it when I lost my hair.”
Spencer’s eyes darken as they coast over her face and bald head. “He’s a fuckin’ pussy, baby girl. You’re beautiful, and he’ll be sorry when he wakes up beside his horse-faced wife and realizes he could have had you instead.”
“Spencer,” I chastise. “Cussing.”
“He called me beautiful.” She turns to me with an energy she hasn’t had all day. “He called me beautiful.”
“He sure did.” I’m so in love with him. “And he doesn’t say that to just anyone. He doesn’t speak at all unless it’s important and true.”
“How old are you, Marcie?”
Her eyes come back around to the screen. “Um, I’m seventeen. I’ll be eighteen later this year.”
“Seventeen…” He rubs his square jaw as though to think. “I know a guy. He’s eighteen and smart as a whip. He looks good, and has enough muscle, he could pick you up and toss you around.”
Marcie’s cheeks flush. “Umm… okay.”
“He’ll take you out, woo the fuck outta you. We’ll double-date when I get back. Does your ex have a job?”
She nods like a bobblehead. “Yes, sir. He works at the pizza place.”
Spencer flashes a wolfish grin. “Then that’s where we’ll eat. Fuckface will regret the day he ever tossed you aside. I’ll make sure of it. And when he runs out back to cry about his mistakes, I’ll follow him and tear out his fuckin’ fingernails.”
“Spencer! Cussing, and threats of torture!”
“I think I’m in love with you,” Marcie sighs and turns to me. “I think I’m in love with your man.”
She doesn’t give a single hoot about the cussing, or what I’m certain are real threats on her ex’s life.
“That happens sometimes.” I grin. “Jump on board. It’s fun on this train.”
“Can I have him?” She turns back to Spencer. “Can I keep you?”
“I’m partial to Miss Priss. But I’m on your side now, okay? Forever. You ever need a friend, you can find me. I’ll take care of your shit.” His eyes skim over her face. “How do feel today? Abigail has told me about you.”
“She has?” She turns to me. “You have?”
I nod. “I told him about my friend Marcie, and how you had the hots for Mitchell.”
Her cheeks fill with color as she turns back to Spencer. “Her brother is so dreamy. I wanted to marry him and make his babies.”
“Can’t say I see the attraction,” Spencer drawls. “But I won’t judge your shitty taste in men… out loud.”
She snickers. “I wanna marry you now. Mitchell-Schmitchell. He’s never called me beautiful or threatened death on my ex before.”
“Lifetime guarantee, okay?” Spencer’s eyes flicker between my face and Marcie’s. “But I’m gonna marry Miss Priss someday. I won’t be available for you, but I know guys. I know loads of ‘em, and I can find you the exact right one. The guys I know are real men, they take care of business, and look after the people they love. Any man I approve for you will have your back forever.”
Spencer continues to make my friend fall deeper and deeper in love with him. He croons about love and respect and loyalty while Marcie turns a little in the bed and snuggles in with the phone between us.
His deep voice soothes us both, but I’m still stuck on ‘I’m gonna marry Miss Priss someday’. He said it so easily, so vehemently, that it shot an arrow of adrenaline through my blood and into my heart. He makes it sound that easy. Effortless.
It doesn’t take long for Spencer’s soothing voice to help Marcie sleep. Her breathing evens out, and when she releases the phone from her limp hand, I pick it up again and look into the eyes that I’ve fallen madly, deeply, irreversibly in love with.
“I’m back.” I swipe a hand beneath my eye, because my body likes to make me cry at the dumbest times. “What you just did was special. Thank you.”
“She’s a sweetheart.” He lays back in a field of brownish grass with no care for whatever may be happening around him. He squints because of the sunlight, but he doesn’t pull his sunglasses back down. “She’s gonna be okay, right? She doesn’t look so well.”
“Yeah.” I clear my throat and lace my spare hand around hers. “She’s going to be okay. We believe it to be true. We will it to happen.”
He nods thoughtfully. “Okay. I’ll believe too. I’ll will it.”
“I love you.”
His eyes soften. “I’m so in love with you, Priss. I wanna come home.”
“You’ve been gone so long.”
He gives a sad nod. “I know. I’m sorry, baby. We’ve tracked this guy a little further north. He knows we’re on his ass, so he keeps moving. But he doesn’t know where we are exactly, so we get close before he shoots away again. Soph is trying to communicate with him. She’s offering discussions, but he’s not biting. Yet.”
“You think he will?”
He shrugs. “He hasn’t actually hurt anyone yet. He hasn’t made a single shot, hasn’t made any actual threats. He’s just… well… watching us. He tries to circle around and head toward town, so we circle around and push him away.” Spencer blows out a gusty breath. “Honestly? I’ve never seen anything like this before. The wars I fight are normally much more direct. This is like a dance. A really annoying fucking dance that keeps me away from you.”
“Do you think…” I consider my words. “What if he does this forever? Will you stay away forever?”
“No.”
Trees rustle in the wind around him, then more voices. Even a little laughter. Something is funny to Sophia, which is both irritating and satisfying. Laughter means there’s no immediate danger.
“I’m not staying away forever. I’m coming home soon, Priss, because I can’t stay away from you much longer. We’d only just begun, then I was yanked away. I haven’t seen you in eight weeks, and that’s eight weeks too long.” He pauses, then gives a little nod. “I’m gonna come home to you as soon as I can. I swear. The twin girls are probably walking and talking by now. I don’t wanna miss that. Jay is ready to vibrate through the atmosphere each time he gets a text and a picture. He’s missing out on their first months, and it’s killing him.”
“They’re doing well,” I sigh. “Jess comes into the shop every week.”
“She does?”
I nod. “I think maybe she feels bad. She knows you’re away for her, so she visits me and brings the babies to say hello. They’re so fat.” I laugh and cry in the same breath. “Seriously, the cutest balls of fat I ever saw. Poor Jess carries those baby seats, one in each hand, and nearly tears her own arms from the sockets. But she lugs them in and lets me snuggle for a bit. Luna is bigger than her sister. Not by a lot, but enough to know which one is fed first.”
“Which one is Luna?”
I burst out laughing. “The blonde one. Think of it like Luna is light
. L and L. Or Luna is from the Lenaghan side of the family. Luna, light, Lenaghan. By that theory, they should have given Rose a name that starts with B. B for black hair, B for Bishop. It would make things so much easier.”
“Yeah, well, Kane really fucked me up when he started calling them Chicken and Nugget. I’m not sure even he knows which is which.”
I snicker, but lower my voice when Marcie stirs.
“I’m sure he knows. He stares at them all day long. I love how he looks at them.” I sigh. “I love how he looks at Jess.”
“Yeah? How does he look at Jess?”
I lift my eyes and meet his. “The same way you look at me.”
24
Spence
I speak to Abigail for a full thirty minutes while Jay, Romeo, and Soph fuck around with their new toys; Soph ordered high-tech scopes for Jay’s Winchester. They were courteous enough not to shoot off any rounds while I was on the phone, but the second I hang up, it begins again.
One shot. Two. Three.
Jay hits bottles of water he lined along a log more than twelve-hundred yards away. He’s getting better at his shots. More accurate. Less problem with the wind. And he’s showing off for Romeo, a type of alpha show he’s putting on because he’s jealous of the relationship Romeo and Soph have.
There is no relationship beyond work. No sexual chemistry. No reason to feel threatened. But it’s what Jay does. It’s his way of showing love. So he challenges her muscle on everything we do.
Romeo wants to eat a burger for lunch? Jay will eat two. Romeo wants to make an eleven-hundred-yard shot? Jay will make twelve hundred yards. Romeo wants to fuck a girl in his downtime and make the walls rattle? I’m the idiot in the center room breathing through what may be the world’s bluest pair of balls.
I’m the only person here not getting laid. The only one who can’t see the person he wants to see. I’m the guy that they all tiptoe around, because I’m about to explode if they make sex noises against the wall again.
“Serrano.” A thick chest steps into my vision and blocks the bright sun from my eyes. He wears what I wear; black shirt, dog tags, combat boots, and camo pants despite the fact we’re not actually in the forest or looking for cover.
