by Mj Fields
“Black all-stars?”
“Got ‘em,” I say, stepping out with both our shoes in my hands.
“And Oliver?” I hand her the sneakers.
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry if I seemed bitchy last night. I usually save my whining for my mom.”
Sliding my feet in my black leather biker boots, I look up. “Don’t apologize. I’m glad you feel comfortable enough to talk to me.”
She smiles as she bends down to put hers on. “I hope you know you can do the same.”
“Yeah, I appreciate it.”
Before I open the door to head out, I ask her, “You sure this is something you want to do?”
Her face lights up. “Do you know how convenient it will be to have a bike in London? I mean, it’ll beat riding the Tube.”
“This is ridiculous,” she laughs but continues to push herself down the path beside the river, behind me.
I took the pedals off the bike and lowered the seat so she could get the feel of gliding without the possibility of her falling off the damn thing and getting hurt. I remember learning to ride a bike. My old man was fucking brutal and I knew the bastard got a rise out of all the fucking cuts and bruises I received. Sick fuck.
“The most important part of riding a bike is learning how to balance.”
She laughs as she says, “I don’t doubt you, Oliver, but I must look like an idiot.”
Well, I think you look beautiful.
“You’re not the one jogging in boots, jeans, and a sweater, carrying pedals and a wrench.”
“You look like GQ Joe,” she laughs.
I almost stumble at the compliment.
When you’re six foot four and two hundred and twenty pounds, covered in black and gray ink, GQ isn’t the word most used to describe you.
I’ve been complimented on things like my strength, my size, my… ability, but never on my dress. Bass is a pretty boy. He carries off the GQ look much better than most. I’m more about comfort and the ability to move. I’d rather wear a uniform than a suit any day. And a sweater? Give me a hoodie instead. But now, now I’m forced to don a suit. And the sweaters I suppose look better in a professional setting.
“Oliver?” I look back at her on the black bike. “Your ears are red, are you blushing?”
“No,” I grumble.
“I’m sure your lady friend or friends have made you aware that you’re very attractive.”
You’ve got to be kidding me. This is worse than the emotional shit.
“Never much cared if I looked good.”
“Well, you were all the buzz in the conservatory yesterday. They thought you were a personal trainer, not the acting CEO at de la Porte US.”
We’ve nearly come to the end of the path at the most opportune time, ‘cause I’d really like to outrun this conversation.
“‘Il est sexy’, isn’t all that hard to translate,” she laughs before nearly running into me. “Oh no!”
Before she can fall, I grab the handle bars to steady her and ask, “Is that so?”
“It is. I bet that’s why they stayed so late last night.”
I quirk an eyebrow.
“Tell me you didn’t notice them ogling you,” she laughs as she swings her lean leg over the bike, dismounting.
“I was more concerned with checking inventory and learning the process,” I say as I squat down. “And right now, I’m more focused on teaching you the last few things about riding a bike.”
“And what are they?”
I glance up at her. “Once I put these pedals back on, you need to remember four things, balance is still number one, control is third.”
“You skipped the second.”
I nod as I look down and tighten the first pedal. “Confidence.”
“Gotcha, confidence. The fourth?”
“Make sure you pay damn good attention to all those around you, you’re responsible for them too, even though you shouldn’t have to be, but not many people out there pay attention, they get too damn caught up in themselves.”
She lists off the four things I just told her, “Balance, confidence, control, and responsibility.”
I nod and turn the bike around. “One last thing.” She nods at me as she adjusts her helmet. “If things move too fast, you have all the power in the world to slow them down. If you need to stop immediately, move the pedals backwards to break, and keep focused on balance.”
The first time up the path, I followed her, watching as she went slow and stopped frequently, but she never fell. I only had to grab the back of the seat twice.
Each pass up and down the path after, she became more and more comfortable, confident, and I didn’t have to assist once. The last pass, she asked me to take a picture.
Christ, what is it with girls and pictures? She’d left her phone at the house, so after I took several, she took my phone and messaged the one she liked best to herself.
As we walked back to the house, pushing the bike, my mind was reeling with the fact that she only took forty minutes to learn how to ride a bike, when it took me weeks.
“Oliver?” I look down at her as we wait for the pedestrian light to change from red to white. “What are you thinking?”
I shrug and huff, “I just got my ass kicked by a girl.”
“What?” she smiles.
“Took weeks to learn how to ride a fucking bike and it took you less than an hour. If it had been a competition, I would have just got my ass kicked by a one-hundred-and-ten-pound girl.”
With a small smile on her face, she nudges me and nods to the white light and we walk across the road.
Once on the other side she asks, “Who taught you?”
I shift my glance toward her and by her reaction, my disdain is obvious.
“Well, he clearly didn’t nurture balance, confidence, control, and responsibility. But still, look at you, you’re pretty remarkable, Oliver.”
Again, with the praise.
“Do you think you got that all from Maisie or was there something from your childhood that–”
I cut her off, “Maisie planted good in me. The Army made me a man.”
“Well, maybe I should write Maisie and Uncle Sam thank you notes. Why you ask?”
I didn’t ask, but apparently, she doesn’t need me to because she continues, “Because, Oliver Josephs, I’m pretty sure you were born with all that good inside you, you just needed someone to let you know it was safe to let those seeds blossom.”
Jesus Christ, she sounds just like Maisie.
After a few minutes, she puts her hand on my forearm. Immediate heat resonates in my chest and my throat dries. I think of Grace.
I look down into her gorgeous fucking eyes; green, not blue. Eyes that are full of a deeper understanding than most. Eyes that are worldly, but innocent, and I admit to myself, fully understanding that even though she looks like her, she’s not anything like the girl I was so in love with, she’s not Grace.
“Thank you.”
She smiles. “Anytime.”
23
Oliver
I wake to the song, and the scent, that calmed my sleep for the past two nights, and I can’t move. I’m tucked in again.
“Oliver?”
And there’s the voice.
“I appreciate the gestures, but you can’t do this shit, Natasha.”
“And I can’t ignore it either.” She uses her sassy tone with me.
I had it coming, I just snapped at her and she didn’t deserve it, not really.
I take in a deep breath and try to explain in a less militant way, “I have no recollection of you burrito-ing me in like this.”
She gives me more sass, “Then maybe I didn’t.”
“Don’t be so naïve, Natasha, next time you pull this shit, I could be having a dream about,” I pause and look over at her as I try to figure out how to soften the truth, but there is no way. “I could be dreaming of the desert. I could be dreaming that I’m beating the hell out of the enemy, and regardless of t
he music, or as good as you smell.”
Shit, I scold myself inwardly.
When her eyes widen, I realize what the fuck I just said and it pisses me off. I make sure the next words sting enough to take the sweetness away.
“I could easily think you’re that enemy, and hurt you, snap your fucking neck. Do you get it now?” I yank my body free of the fucking blankets. “So, thank you, Natasha, but please get the hell out of here.”
“You think I smell sweet?” she whispers.
Fuck. Harsher, I tell myself.
“After smelling camel piss and whore snatches for the better part of eight years, a fucking outhouse now smells sweet.”
She glares me.
“I’m not sure I’ve mentioned this before, Natasha, but I’m not good at sugarcoating things.”
“No need to mention it, Oliver, I’m getting used to the whiplash.”
“Good, now get used to–”
She holds up her hand as she stands. “I won’t come in again, Oliver. But you weren’t fighting any wars in your sleep, unless there was a Grace in the desert.”
I still immediately.
She stops at the door and turns around. “Was there a Grace, Oliver?”
I can’t say shit. I just shake my head.
“Well then, whoever is she, you’ve said her name two nights in a row.”
“That’s none of your business,” I tell her.
She turns and walks out the door.
Indestructible plays in my ears and I sink into my routine. I let all my frustrations go as I beat the fuck out of my parents. Bodies begins, I beat the fuck out of terrorists. Last Resort begins, and I beat the fuck out of the black and white images that keep me awake. I Stand Alone, and I beat the fuck out of the past, one that’s no longer hidden. Man in the Box begins when I start beating the fuck out of cancer.
Two weeks ago, that was all I needed to beat the shit out of, now I have something else, I have pain that was hidden in the depths of my soul released in my sleep. Now I need to find another song to play while I beat the fuck out of that too.
An hour later my knuckles are bare and bleeding. The pain in my hands is much more bearable than the one in my chest. I toe off my sneakers and begin kicking the bag.
With my head down, earbuds in, I walk up the stairs to the first floor, keeping my eyes to the floor, pretending I don’t notice the people as I pass the conservatory on my way to the stairs toward my room.
Having showered in the basement gym, I dress quickly in what Natasha deems GQ Joe attire, and think better about it because she looked at me differently yesterday than I want her too. But then again, I want nothing more than to be back in her favor and maybe, just maybe, this will help.
When I walk into Maisie’s room with coffee in hand, Natasha is sitting with her on the bed. They both look up, but only one of them smiles.
“You’re late this morning, Ollie.” Maisie smiles and holds up a cup of coffee.
“I apologize,” I say, setting the cup I’d brought next to her on the bedside table. I step closer, bend over and kiss the top of her head. “Good morning, Maisie.”
“Good morning, Ollie.” She squeezes my hand as I sit next to her opposite Natasha.
When I wince, she lifts my hand. “What have you done?”
“It’s fine, Maisie, just worked out a little too hard.”
“Good Lord, I’d say so.” She pulls my hand up and looks at it.
I hear Natasha take a sharp breath in, but I don’t look at her.
She stands and announces, “Well, I’m gonna get going, Maisie, I’ll see you next week.”
Maisie reaches for her. “I look forward to it.”
“Me, too,” Natasha says before kissing her cheek.
As she walks out the door, without saying a word, I watch. When she’s gone, I look back at Maisie.
She holds up my hand. “This have anything to do with the fact you two didn’t say a word to each other?”
I toss my shit in my bag after telling Maisie goodbye, letting Bass know I’m going to catch a flight back today, and call to make sure the plane stalls until I get there.
When I pass her room, I see the door open, which isn’t unusual, but when I see a red leather book on the ground, I can’t help myself from grabbing it and shoving it in my bag.
In the car, I can’t stop my leg from bouncing. I have no clue what the fuck I’m doing right now, it’s fucking stupid, so what if she’s pissed at me. It’s what’s best for her. But no, I can’t leave it the fuck alone.
When I walk onto the jet, she looks up from the chair and scowls.
“Why are you here?”
I tap my ear, reminding her she has in her earbuds.
“They’re not even on.”
“Then why are you yelling?”
“Because, Oliver, I left because I needed a break from you! Why are you even here?”
Because I can’t imagine another week of you thinking of me as a giant dick, or worse, not thinking of me at all.
“I don’t know what your problem is, Oliver. But when I walked onto this plane just over two weeks ago, you looked at me with such disdain it reminded me of middle school. It made me feel,” she pauses and shakes away whatever it is she was going to say. “Then you watched me like I was something volatile. Other times, when I dared look at you, you looked at me like you’d seen a ghost. Since then, you’re so hot and cold, and honestly, I can’t handle it, Oliver, not right now. Not with so much going on.”
When she starts to walk toward the door, I move to stand between her and the exit. “Where are you going?”
“I can’t do this with you.” The first tear falls and with it my heart.
“Tell me what you want me to say!”
“I want to know why!” she yells back at me.
“I was fucking terrified of you, okay?”
She laughs haughtily, “Oh please.”
Now forced to cover my fucking slip up, I tell her, “I don’t do good with new people.”
She throws her hands in the air. “Well, I’m not new now, and still I watch you sit uncomfortably when I’m in the room. I watch you nearly run when given the chance and then other times, you’re fine. You taught me how to ride a bike, Oliver, I thought–” She stops and bats another tear away. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve put my trust in you too many times only to have you push me away. It won’t happen again.”
“It’s not my intention to–”
“I understand that, I do, but you need to understand I have lived my life pushing myself to not give a damn what anyone thinks of me. I’ve walked away from people who treat me the way you have been. One minute they are smiling at me, the next I’m an inconvenient part of their lives or a problem for them. Even my own father, stepmother, stepbrother, half-sisters, my family, Oliver, so no, I’m not dealing with that from you, and not because I don’t give a damn, but because I can’t.” Her hand covers her heart, the place the pain resonates.
I reach out to console her and she jumps back. “Don’t, don’t do that, just leave me alone.”
When she tries to walk around me again, I move to stop her. “I’ll leave you alone, okay? Just don’t leave.”
She turns on her heels and marches to the back of the plane and I let her.
Half an hour into the flight and my heart’s still beating the fuck out of my chest when I gain the courage to try to right this.
When I walk back, she’s asleep.
It pisses me off that she can sleep like that, like all is well with the world, when it’s fucking not.
I sit down and stare at her, trying to will her awake. She doesn’t wake until the plane’s landing. When those eyes open, she’s looks at me.
I ask her, “Did you sleep well?”
“Not a wink.” She sits up and unbuckles her seat belt before heading toward the bathroom.
When she comes out the flight attendant peeks in and tells us, “Please fasten your seat belts.”
As soon as
she walks back toward the cock pit, I lean in, “I apologize.”
“Don’t,” she warns.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Nothing. Just leave it alone.” She looks out the window next to her seat, away from me.
“We need to get along, Natasha, we need–”
She turns to me and smiles. “I can fake it, Ollie. Can you?”
She’s being sarcastic, and it pisses me off. “Fuck no, I can’t.”
With that bullshit smile on her face she tells me, “Well, that’s your problem. I’ll do just fine. Maisie, Bass, Mom, they’ll never know. So, Ollie, you need to figure it out.”
As the plane descends, my heart beat increases with the anxious feeling that I’m running out of time. I have to do something, say something now.
“She was a girl that lived with us.”
She looks at me with concern and confusion in her eyes.
“Grace, she lived with my family.”
“Why was that so hard?” She stops and her eyebrows raise. I swallow, hoping to dampen my dry throat. “And you cared for her?”
I nod and clear my throat. “Very much.”
The tires hit the runway as we stare at each other.
I blow out a held breath and tell her, “I don’t talk about her. Bass and Maisie don’t even know.”
She whispers, “And they won’t, not from me.”
When the plane comes to a stop, she unbuckles and stands, but doesn’t walk away.
I look up at her.
“Oliver, would you like to go get lunch?”
“Are you angry at me?”
She shakes her head.
“Good, and thank you, but I think it’s best I don’t.”
Sadness etches her face and she nods. “Well, have a good week.”
I nod back. “You too, Natasha.”
I watch her walk off the plane and allow myself to take in what feels like the first breath I’ve taken in over a year since I came face to face with my past.
I take in another deep breath hoping it won’t burn like the last, but it does.
Because she’s not Grace.
24
