Close to Home

by Nolon King

  “I could help. You know, draft a few lines for you.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that. It’s late.”

  “It’s not that late. And I don’t mind. I work late all the time. We could do it together, in bed.”

  “Really, that’s okay. I already have all my talking points from Sam. I don’t need anything more in my head.”

  “These aren’t talking points, Selena. They’re jokes.”

  “I know how to be funny, but thank you.”

  “Anna Lies is hilarious even when in mourning, but she still has no problem paying me to punch up her stuff. This is what I’m good at. Remember, I almost had a talk show.”

  She sighed. “You didn’t almost have a talk show.”

  He inhaled and exhaled. But again, Adam didn’t want to fight. Not about that, and not right now.

  He was offering to do something nice, trying to find something that the two of them could reconnect over. A marriage couldn’t survive on hate sex and murder talk alone.

  “I’m just offering to help.”

  “Thank you,” she said, like she actually meant it. “That’s very sweet. But I’m driving to L.A. for a professional interview. Turns out, I’m a professional. I know exactly what I’m doing, because this is what I do.”

  It’s what Wayne Hanger does, too. And he still hires me for help.

  But he wasn’t about to name drop. Again.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Thank you, honey.” This time Selena didn’t sound like she meant it at all. “But I’m fine. I just want to go to bed.”

  The discussion was over but far from resolved.

  Adam got into bed and waited, grabbing his tablet to read so he wouldn’t cross his arms, lifting his eyes from the screen to study Selena whenever he was reasonably sure that she wasn’t aware.

  He wanted to make sure that everything was okay before she pulled down her covers and got into bed. He wanted to fix this mess he’d made of the evening.

  And yes, Adam wanted sex.

  Unfortunately, Selena’s body language had closed and locked that door.

  He opened his EW magazine app, and started reading for real. Maybe that would ease his agitation, help to convince him that their exchange hadn’t bothered him nearly as much as it did.

  But no, whether Adam wanted to admit it or not, he was irritated. And looking at Selena was making it worse.

  Because she wasn’t looking at him. She hadn’t really seen him for days. Not like he needed her to.

  It had been days since her eyes said she wanted to fuck him. Now he was tense and in need of release. The last time had been in her office, hard and fast and just the interruption she needed, though only one of them would admit it.

  Then nothing since then. Not even after his session, and that was a first.

  They always fucked after therapy. Even if it didn’t happen in the office — in the early days it didn’t, when Selena still pretended to nurse her decorum — it happened soon after. But that day they were interrupted by a text from Sam. She’d gotten distracted, and stayed that way until well after bedtime, leaving Adam to fall asleep with cum on his stomach.

  She got into bed and looked over at Adam. “What are you reading?”

  “Something you might care about, actually.” He turned the tablet so that Selena could see the screen. “Looks like some John Treadwell project is getting picked up by Netflix. Sam still represents him, right?”

  “Yes. And apparently things are going well. More proof. Sam delivers, so we should do what he says.”

  “I’ve never had a problem believing that he’ll deliver, and from where I’m lying, we’re doing what he says all the time.”

  “Good night, Adam.”

  Selena kissed him on the cheek, then turned and flipped off her light, leaving Adam alone with one bulb burning and a cock at half-mast, and about to start hurting.

  A throbbing ache, all that blood leaving his brain to settle below.

  So Adam closed his eyes and pictured it somewhere else.

  Covering her body. The woman in the blood-red lipstick, naked in death.

  In his mind she was smiling. Like him, she loved all the blood, even if it meant leaving this earth, even if she had to become nothing to make him feel like a god.

  This time, Adam didn’t just fall into a sticky sleep while picturing the woman in lipstick lying in a lake of crimson. This time he fell into a heavy slumber while imagining his hands around her throat.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Adam hated this dream the most. The one about his first love.

  The first woman he’d ever stalked.

  A high school sophomore to his lowly freshman, Charlotte would’ve been out of his league even if they’d been the same age. Blonde curls pinned atop her head, exposing a pale and slender neck as she took notes one desk in front of him. Shiny white bra straps peeking out when she wore his favorite blouse, the silky red one that slipped him an extra inch of shoulder. Black leggings clinging to the curve of her ass — the male half of the class gave her their full attention every time the teacher called her to the board.

  And her scent … sweet, with a hint of spice. Adam spent a couple of hours pretending to shop for his mother’s birthday, demanding to smell everything at the perfume counter until he found that scent. Vivacité.

  He sprayed it on his pillow every night before jerking himself to sleep with fantasies of his lips on the back of her neck, of her turning around and kissing him back, right there in Civics.

  His little sister caught him. Threatened to tell Mom and Dad he was wearing girl’s perfume, until he paid the brat a month’s allowance for her silence.

  In the dream, he could smell her even though he hung back half a block, following her home from school after choir practice. He always walked on the other side of the street, so she wouldn’t realize that she was being stalked, even if she turned around.

  He followed her past the gas station where she sometimes stopped to buy candy — Lemonheads were her favorite.

  Past the burger joint that he’d vowed he would take her on their first date.

  Past the park where she and her friends sometimes did homework on the weekends. Where Adam had started doing his homework every Saturday, hoping to catch a glimpse of her.

  She was alone now, just like she’d been that day.

  He was trying to work up the nerve to cross the street and catch up before she passed the frozen yogurt place, to ask her if he could buy her some. Just like he’d done on that sweet afternoon.

  But he couldn’t, not yet, because the sway of her ass as she walked gave him a hard-on that wouldn’t go away, no matter how fiercely he commanded it to.

  So he kept following, hands jammed in his pockets, as she passed the yogurt place.

  And the convenience store.

  And the dog park.

  She stopped at the light, two blocks from her house. Looked over her shoulder and frowned at him.

  Why’d she have to look? That was where it all went wrong.

  Adam stepped into the deli, pretended to read the menu over the counter, like he always did. Counted to thirty in his head, then stepped outside again.

  She was crossing the street. Not heading north, toward her house. Toward him.

  She’d figured it out.

  Shit.

  He ducked into Harthrop’s Music and hurried past the racks of sheet music, grabbing something as he turned to face a wall display, appearing to contemplate guitar strings while watching her approach the store through the plate glass window. His heart raced with the fear of being caught, and goddammit if his dick didn’t get even harder.

  He ached for her to know how he felt about her, and the fact that she was probably going to think him the worst kind of creep didn’t matter one bit to his fucking hard-on.

  She’d made it halfway across the street.

  Adam couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t stop hating himself for what was about t
o happen.

  The way her hips moved as she stepped off the curb mesmerized him, just like they had that day.

  He saw the car jump the curb and his heart screamed NO, just like it had that day.

  The blue Beemer slammed into her body with a squealing of tires, catapulting the girl through the window with a horrendous crash of shattered glass.

  Just like it had that day.

  In the dream, he didn’t have to run to her; he was already there, kneeling on blood-soaked carpet beside the toppled shelf that her limp body had slammed into.

  Her dead weight in his arms.

  Her pale eyes staring unseeing into his.

  Her blood everywhere, hot and slick as it oozed over his hands, seeped into his shirt, soaked into the stiff fabric of his jeans and coated around his still-hard dick.

  He screamed himself awake, the last spasms of an orgasm sliming his boxers even as the dream left his cheeks wet with tears.

  It was his fault Charlotte had died. She never would’ve crossed the street if she hadn’t caught him stalking her like an animal.

  No, he was the animal. What kind of asshole would be hard while the woman he loved bled out all over his lap?

  Charlotte had shown him the sickness that lurked in his soul.

  He’d thought Selena would heal him.

  But what if he couldn’t be saved?

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was a beautiful spring Saturday, and summer felt seconds away.

  Corban and Kari were biking to the river, the thin gash of rock and water that separated Almond Park from the rest of Baker County. It sounded so much grander than it was. Same for the nickname given to the tiny inlet where the two of them were headed now. Gallows Point. No one knew where the name came from or why it had stuck around, but it was older than the city, and probably Baker, too.

  Corban had theorized that one or more of the seven children who originally grew up in the Wembley House called it that, because that was the sort of thing that kids were always doing, and then the name just stuck. Maybe when Reginald Wembley became the city’s second mayor.

  “Do you think your mom might stay until next week?”

  “Nah,” Corban said, jumping a scree of rocks. He landed hard on the other side and pedaled faster. “She’s been gone for two days doing interviews and taking meetings.”

  “Do you miss her?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Though it’s nice not to have my parents being all moody around each other.”

  “That’s still weird?” Kari slowed down, encouraging Corban to do the same beside her.

  “And getting weirder.”

  “Oh …”

  Kari didn’t end her sentence, because what else could she say? She’d tried, but Corban never took the conversational ball.

  She found another way to finish. “And Levi’s still being a dick?”

  “Yep.”

  He didn’t want to talk about that either.

  But that was fine. They were almost there. And if things went down like he’d imagined once they reached the Gallows, they wouldn’t be talking much anyway. It was time to start shifting the mood, and the silence was nice for that.

  “You know what the problem is,” Kari said a second later, “you won’t admit how much you care, even though you care a lot, and so the fight never ends.”

  She slowed again, and now they were barely coasting. Corban didn’t want to hear whatever Kari was about to say. He wanted to get to the Gallows and maybe undress her.

  “I get it, Corban. It’s easier to act like you don’t miss your brother. But we both know that’s bullshit.”

  “What are you trying to say, Kari?”

  “What happened between you guys? And why won’t you tell me?”

  Corban didn’t know how to answer, because although he’d expected something, it hadn’t been that. He’d already told her he didn’t want to talk about Levi. And until seconds ago, Kari had respected that.

  But now the question was sitting like a stink between them.

  He swung off his bike, now walking it down to the Gallows. A step ahead of Kari, so she couldn’t see him fight to keep control of his face.

  Kari stopped walking. “I’m serious, Corban.”

  Corban stopped walking, too. He turned back to Kari. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Why are you doing this?” She shook her head with genuine confusion. “I hate what’s happening between you guys, and not just because I feel sorry for you both. I don’t like either of you as much as I did a month ago. And I don’t want to stop liking you.”

  Kari looked like she was trying not to cry. Holding her gaze was horrible.

  But Corban did it anyway.

  “If there’s a reason, fine. I’ll support you. But I have to understand. Otherwise, I can’t be with you. Is that what you want?”

  “No.”

  “Then tell me, Corban. What happened between you and Levi?”

  Finally, begrudgingly, “My dad is cheating on my mom.”

  “What?” Then, “What does that have to do with Levi?”

  “I found something my dad wrote. I wasn’t even snooping, really, I swear — stop looking at me like that, because I didn’t do anything wrong and I wasn’t invading his privacy. I know how you feel about that, and that’s not what this is. Anyway, there was this file and there was some sick shit in it about her naked body and how he wanted to be inside it and all kinds of crap. A bunch of paragraphs like that, over and over and over and ov—”

  “I get it. What made it sick?”

  “I don’t know … the detail? That he used the word young a bunch of times.”

  “Gross. How young?”

  “I don’t think young like that, it didn’t feel that way. But it was graphic, and she’s definitely not my mom. There was just something obsessive about it. Like he’s in love, but not with her so much as the idea of her? Or her body? But it wasn’t even that. I don’t know, it was hard to explain. It just—”

  “Pissed you off. I can see that. I’m sorry. So what about Levi?”

  “I told him and he was an asshole about it. He defended our dad, of course. But then he got mad at me. Said that I shouldn’t have been snooping, and asked me how I would have liked it if Dad had been looking on my computer and reading my private shit.”

  “He has a point.”

  “Do you want to hear this or not?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Levi refused to read it. I practically begged him. I did beg him. But he wouldn’t budge. He said that was a line he wouldn’t cross, and that he couldn’t believe that I had. He asked me all kinds of questions, like whether or not Dad actually confessed to any sort of cheating, or whether it was just descriptions of naked chicks. He said it would make sense that our dad liked word porn, and made a whole joke about it. But he wasn’t getting it, and couldn’t unless he read it, which he wouldn’t do, no matter what.”

  “Look, I totally want to understand, but why are you sure that your dad is cheating on your mom? Would you have thought that if you came across his porn folder and saw a video he liked with some guy giving it to the babysitter?”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “This came from him. From his mind. This is his specific fantasy.”

  “His fantasy.”

  “It’s about a real person.”

  “How do you know?”

  Corban drew a breath. This was frustrating. “Because of the detail. It’s very first-person.”

  “Your dad is a writer.”

  “He writes jokes that aren’t even that funny, and the character in this narrative was obviously him.”

  “So maybe your dad is cheating on your mom. I’m sorry if that’s true. That really sucks. But why should that ruin your relationship with Levi? And why can’t you just talk to your dad?”

  “Because I don’t know if I want to. Even if I did, Levi forbid me.”

  “He forbid you?”
<
br />   “Yeah, I guess. He said that if I talked to our dad about it then it would only hurt everyone. But that wasn’t the worst part.”

  Kari waited for him to force the words through clenched teeth.

  “We both said a lot of shit. About how our mom prefers me and our dad prefers him and the feelings are all mutual.” Corban bit his bottom lip to keep from crying.

  Kari took his hands. “Oh, Corban.”

  They stared into each other’s eyes.

  He was hungry to make his move, and had been forever.

  But maybe now he was starving.

  Not that he wanted to take advantage of Kari feeling sorry for him. This wasn’t that at all.

  The river was gleaming, and the sun was shining, together with the clouds, and everything seemed to agree: Kiss her, Corban.

  And so he did, first taking her by the hands without daring to break away from her eyes, then slowly drifting in to kiss her.

  Kari kissed him back, wet and long and harder than he expected, pushing her face aggressively into his.

  Buzz.

  And then they were on the dirt, rolling around, their tongues tasting each other.

  Her hand was under his shirt, but only for a moment, and then it was already in his pants.

  Buzz. Buzz.

  That felt like an invitation, so Corban’s hand went up her shirt.

  She liked it there, pressed herself into it.

  Buzz. Buzz.

  Buzz.

  He could feel her trying not to react to the buzzing in her jacket pocket, but now Corban’s was buzzing too.

  Buzz. Buzz.

  She kissed him harder, wrapped her hand around his shaft.

  Corban whimpered without meaning to, then leaned back as she scrambled between his legs.

  Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

  Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

  They stopped. They looked. They had no other choice.

  Kari’s hand left his pants. His heart was pounding.

  Buzz.

  Buzz. Buzz.

  Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

  Their phones were blowing up for a reason.

  The Almond Alert. Another family found, all of them dead at their picnic.

  And the mother had a bright blue scarf with yellow bees tied around her neck.