Keep

by Rachel Van Dyken

“You kiss all strangers that way?”

  She gasped in horror as her cheeks took on an adorable red hue. “I did not kiss you, you kissed me!”

  “You liked it.”

  Fallon stiffened and adjusted her ugly as hell glasses before she reached for the handle of the door again, as if she was trying to melt her body against the side of the car so she could get away from me. Huh, that was a first. Had to admit, I didn’t really care for it. “I like cats too.”

  “And yet, you don’t have one, so by that comparison, I’d have to also draw the conclusion that you don’t have a boyfriend you kiss that way either.”

  “You have bad manners.”

  I barked out a laugh. “Sorry, I swear I’ll treat you like the lady you are.”

  She groaned and once again pushed the glasses up her nose.

  I put the truck in park and turned it off, then grabbed my stash of marshmallows and walked over to her side of the truck to open the door but she was already hopping out. And when I say hop, I was a bit nervous she was going to fall out of the truck and get a concussion. She wasn’t the most athletic girl I’d ever met, and she was short enough to need a booster seat.

  “What?” She crossed her arms protectively over her chest.

  I smiled, taking in her askew glasses and nervous lip biting. “Nothing.”

  “So, how long am I your prisoner?”

  “Three hours.”

  “You said two!”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “But,” She swallowed convulsively. “That’s kidnapping.”

  “Kidnapping would be tossing you over my shoulder while beating my chest and screaming ‘man take woman home!’”

  She wasn’t amused.

  “This,” I said as I led the way to the beach house, “is friends who kiss, driving to a house so they can kiss some more.”

  “Whoa!” She held up her hands.

  “Chill.” I winked. “Kidding. I won’t kiss you. Not unless you beg me, and even then I may hesitate on principle alone. After all, you are a lady.”

  “I’m not living that one down anytime soon, am I?”

  “I was thinking of making wall art,” I said helpfully while she groaned and followed me into the house.

  “Wow.” She did a quick turn around and then slowly walked into the open kitchen and living room. “This is yours?”

  “Negative.” I quickly pulled off my shirt and tossed it onto the couch. “It’s Jaymeson’s.” My jeans were next, I kicked them to the side and lazily made my way over to my bedroom.

  “Oh!” Fallon turned, nearly slamming into me, her hands pressed against my chest and her head lowered. “You’re missing clothes.”

  “So it would seem.”

  “I’m not sleeping with you.” Her statement was made even more ridiculous by the fact that her brown glasses kept sliding down her nose. Clearly, I’d become desperate. I’d not only kissed a girl who probably had to take her cousin to prom, but by the all-around thickness of her glasses, I was fairly confident she was legally blind.

  “Pretty sure I didn’t ask.”

  “But—”

  “Why do people always assume nakedness means sex?” I asked aloud.

  “You literally just pulled off all of your clothes, and you have me alone in your house,” Fallon pointed out, still staring at me, watching me with enough peculiar interest that my body felt the need to strut as blood pumped and coursed through every available vein until I thought I was going to explode on the spot.

  “Clothes are stifling.” I swallowed the terror building up in my chest and tried to shake it off as my hands started to shake. “I’ll grab some sweat pants and then you can work.”

  “Work.” Her big blue eyes blinked up at me. “Work?”

  “You said that.”

  “It’s because you’re still naked. It’s throwing me off. Which is weird, because normally I stutter but with you…”

  “It’s the magic of marshmallows.” I winked, trying without much success to tame the anxiety coiling in my stomach. Meanwhile, her eyes were wandering. “Fallon.” I snapped my fingers. “Eyes up here.”

  “What?” She blushed bright red. “I’m sorry I just…” Her eyes darted back and forth like she was trying to focus on anything but me being naked.

  “If you stare at something long enough, you’ll get ideas you need to claim it, and the only way to stake the claim on some things, is a simple lick, so unless you’re going to follow through…” I sighed. “You should probably go wait on the couch, after all. Ladies should never tease, Fallon. And I am, above all else, a gentleman.”

  “Y-yes.” She nodded. “I’m s-s-s-sorry.”

  Hell, and she’d been doing so well; now I had her stuttering again.

  I placed my hands on her shoulders and moved her aside then quickly went into my bedroom and grabbed a pair of Lululemon joggers, the guys always made fun of my obsession with Lulu, but their men’s section was almost as tempting as putting marshmallows in my cereal every morning.

  “Alright,” I popped my knuckles then walked back into the room and grabbed my guitar from its spot on the couch. “Time to get to know you…”

  “Why am I helping you again?”

  “Desperation on both our parts. You looked bored, lied about killing your cat Oscar, and most likely your friend thinks you need an adventure or she would have never pushed you off a five-foot ledge risking a broken ankle right as I was walking by.” I leaned in and murmured, “Or, you told her about the kiss, she saw an opportunity and took it.” I winked as I cupped her face with my left hand. “I wonder, which is it, hmm, four eyes?”

  Her spine straightened as she leaned away from my hand. “She’s obsessed with you, not me, and my guess is she’s vicariously living through me and would be extremely excited if I did a live periscope feed right now.”

  “Hmm, maybe later.” I nodded. “This right here is private. Deal?”

  A slow smile spread over her lips. “So this is it, then? Three hours with you and then…”

  “And then…” I tipped her chin. “You teach me how to make bad ass chapstick.”

  “A-alright.”

  “You only stutter when you’re nervous.” I strummed a few chords. “So let me make you a promise.”

  She gulped and nodded agreement.

  “I’ll try not to make you nervous…and I won’t attack you, strip naked without warning, or try to steal your virtue. I really just need help with this song…” It was as much honesty as she was going to get. I’d never actually kidnapped a person in hopes they would inspire me, but whatever. If it worked, then I was happy.

  Anything to chase the darkness away.

  And as much as people saw me with alcohol—I rarely drank it, if ever.

  Bad memories and alcohol never mixed. Hell, a bad life and alcohol didn’t mix, because alcohol was a poison, it lowered your inhibitions and caused you to remember, and my main goal in life—was to forget.

  Chapter Six

  Fallon

  I WASN’T ENTIRELY SURE what a nervous breakdown looked like, but I did know crazy, and Zane fit the bill. Who just walked into some stranger’s house, a house that said stranger is letting you stay in and starts pulling off their clothes?

  And he didn’t have any sort of…underthings.

  I mentally shook my fist up at my grandma in heaven. She was the reason I used weird language. Always calling bras “braziers” and underwear “underthings”, as if the word panty was too brazen to say out loud.

  It literally took me five trips to the Victoria’s Secret in Portland to finally stutter out the word “bra.” And even then, I was so exhausted and embarrassed afterward that Mags was afraid I was going to pass out.

  Then again, she was probably hoping I would so she could call in some hot paramedics. She was good at that, using my social awkwardness to further her dating calendar.

  I shoved my glasses aside to rub my burning eyes then put them back on. It was no use; the glasse
s were so old that they were probably hindering my sight more than helping it.

  Maybe that was a good thing.

  I could make out Zane’s smile, but only enough to know he was smiling, I couldn’t see any dimples, and I refused to believe he didn’t have something caught in his teeth. In fact, by the time he’d come back with his sweats and was offering his whole spiel on why I should help him, I’d decided to give him a lazy eye, no teeth, and an unfortunate amount of boils on his person.

  Like ten.

  Covering the entirety of his face.

  Gout. Also another winner.

  So really, there was no need for me to stutter.

  “Why do you keep rubbing your eyes?” Zane asked getting dangerously close to my personal space. It was as if he wasn’t aware that human beings had boundaries, little comfortable safe zones that he was constantly poking with his nearness.

  I scooted back against the couch and sighed. “My glasses were beyond repair from yesterday, so I’m wearing my old ones.”

  “Those are yours?” He sounded amused.

  “What? Yes. Why?”

  “They look like something I’d find at a retirement home.”

  I sighed.

  “In a donation box,” he added.

  “They’re tortoiseshell,” I said defensively. “Some might say they’re…vintage.”

  Zane coughed out a laugh. “Some being one. You. They aren’t vintage, they’re hideous. I feel itchy just looking at them.”

  I tried not to get offended. Tried and failed as I slumped a little further into the couch. Why did I get in the truck again? Oh, right, because my best friend hates me, and I have a cat to mourn. “The clock is ticking.”

  “Why aren’t you in college?”

  Sighing, I grabbed a pillow and covered my body protectively, I might be partially blind, but even I could see his bare chest just glistening in my direction. “My financial aid didn’t come through, so I have to wait until the spring.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Yup.”

  “So you’re stuck here…with me.”

  “Kidnapped, but yes.”

  He leaned forward; I could feel the heat from his body. “Can’t kidnap the willing, Fallon.”

  “You talk circles around me. Even if I had protested, you would have somehow convinced me the only way to save the earth would be to get in the truck.”

  He released a throaty chuckle. “Gotta admit, I’ve never actually had to go that far. Girls usually just hop on without invitation.”

  I hated that he was embarrassing me, making me turn red. Very funny, make fun of the stuttering girl with glasses who’s only sexual experience was her lab partner who now bats for the other team. I cringed.

  “What’s that look?”

  “What?”

  “That one.” He touched my face with his fingers.

  I flinched at the contact and retreated deeper against the sofa cushions, “You can’t just go around touching people and things.”

  “Yes, I can.” He touched me again. “See? It’s really easy.”

  “You’re exhausting.”

  “I’ve been told worse.”

  I shifted away from his massive presence, “You said you were desperate, so how is this conversation supposed to help?”

  “It’s making me feel better.”

  “Making fun of me is making you feel better?”

  “When did I make fun of you?”

  Sighing, I stared down at the fuzzy pillow. “Never mind. So this song, what does it need to be about?”

  “What are all songs about?” He sounded bitter. “Love and shit.”

  I tensed a bit at his grating tone. Having only spent a short time with him, it was alarming how I could tell by just one tiny inflection of his voice that he was upset. No…not upset, angry. “So maybe you should just focus on the love part.”

  “Not the shit?” He gasped. “Really? Is that what girls want? And to think all this time I had it wrong.”

  “Grandma always said that love was inexplicable, that it was the type of feeling you couldn’t express with mere words. Love transcends even the most beautiful of poems and words.”

  Zane was quiet. Too quiet. Like I’d just bored him so much in the past ten seconds that he’d taken his own life or something quiet.

  “Does she also say ‘life is like a box of chocolates’?”

  Trying not to be offended, I stood. “Alright, I’m just going to go.”

  A warm hand gripped my wrist. “But your time isn’t up.”

  I jerked away. “I don’t even know you.” I stumbled away from him and meandered toward the door just as a few strings of music floated into the air, followed by the smoothest most jaw-dropping voice I’d ever heard in real life.

  “When you can’t explain what makes you hurt—what makes you think you can explain what makes you burn? Because that’s how I feel when I look at you…”

  I reached for the door, desperate to leave, because staying meant I would be vulnerable, and who was I kidding? He was a celebrity. I might as well be a puppy from the pound that he’d decided to adopt in order to make himself feel better.

  Me helping him was about him.

  Which seemed to be a trend.

  “I watch you go…I want to follow, pride drives a man insane, like your touch or when I kiss you in the rain.”

  A mental battle occurred in that moment. Did I embrace the fact that when I was eighty, I’d be able to tell all my cats about the moment that Zane “Saint” Andrews used me, the girl with the weird stutter and tortoiseshell glasses, as a muse? Or do I run, knowing that, his magnetism would only end up hurting me in the end?

  My decision to leave should have been easy.

  It wasn’t.

  And when I heard footsteps behind me, I hung my head in irritation. Zane’s hands went to my shoulders as he very slowly turned me to face him.

  “Leaving so soon? We’re just getting started.”

  “I help you. Then we shake hands, and I go. Take it or leave it.”

  “What about me makes you want to run, Fallon?”

  Everything.

  “I hate running.” I sidestepped him, making sure to brush off his physical advances, and found a spot on the couch without running into the coffee table. “I like the second part. I think you need to slow down though, make it more romantic.”

  “Like this?” He sang again, this time, the song was slower, more methodical. The low notes spoke of pain, not love, not that I was a musical prodigy or anything, but something about the song was just…off.

  Like he was trying to sing about love.

  And instead was singing about loss.

  “Your face.” Zane stopped singing. The couch dipped as he came over and sat, then braced his hand over the back. “You look like you just swallowed a lemon. It’s a bad look.”

  “I…” I didn’t want to offend him. Then again, he’d been doing nothing but offend me since we’d met. “Okay, d-don’t take this p-personal.”

  “Stop being nervous.”

  “E-easier said than done.” I regained control of my thoughts and tried not to force the words. Geez, I’d been on a roll too! “It just, i-it s-s-seems…”

  “Fallon.” Zane laid his hand on my arm. “I won’t get mad. I swear.”

  I exhaled and counted silently to myself then took a deep breath. “It’s sad. You’re singing about love, and it makes me want to cry.”

  “Love is sad.” He said in a gravelly voice.

  “Love isn’t sad. I mean, not all love.”

  Even though I could barely make out his face since my eyes were straining too much with the large glasses, I could tell he was pissed. He wasn’t smiling, and Zane was always smiling.

  With a curse, he got up from the couch. He returned with an entire bag of marshmallows and started stuffing his face like he hadn’t eaten in years.

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” Another marshmallow found its way into his m
outh. He chewed and then clicked his tongue. “So, got a boyfriend?”

  “Yes.”

  He stopped chewing. “Seriously?”

  “Is that so hard to believe?”

  “That you got a boyfriend between today and yesterday, yes. It is.”

  “I could have had one yesterday.”

  “You wouldn’t have been so eager to stick your tongue down my throat had you had someone waiting on the side.” He offered me a marshmallow, and this time, I took it. At least it gave me something to do with my hands and my mouth.

  “Maybe I fell in love, maybe I’ve been pining over someone from high school for the past four years, and he just now finally noticed me and declared we were going to get married.” Yeah, I’d probably just taken it too far.

  “What does your grandma say about getting married at nineteen?”

  “She’s dead.”

  He froze, marshmallow in mid-air. “Sorry, I didn’t realize.”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  I shrugged and chewed off another piece of the marshmallow while Zane watched.

  Finally, I huffed out, “What now?”

  “You’re eating it wrong.”

  “There’s a wrong way to eat a marshmallow?”

  He nodded.

  “And let me guess, I’m doing it?”

  Another nod.

  “Why don’t we focus on your song?”

  “The way you’re eating makes me itch, and not in a good way, not in an ‘oh, baby right there way,’ but in a way that makes me concerned I’m going to develop a rash solely based on stress and the way you’re taking small bites of a food that by all means should be eaten whole.”

  My stomach recoiled. “Whole?”

  “Watch.” He popped one in his mouth and lifted up his hands. “Easy.”

  “I can’t believe we’re having an argument over marshmallows.”

  “Fallon…” Zane leaned in, his breath caressing my face. “Is this our first lovers’ quarrel?”

  I pressed my hand against his face and shoved him out of the way, he laughed, while I tried to tell my body to calm down, hoping like hell he couldn’t tell how deeply he was affecting me.

  “There.” I popped the marshmallow into my mouth and chewed, nearly choking since he’d gotten the large campfire ones. Once I swallowed a bit, I faced him. “Now, let’s work on your love song because I have things to do.”