Ellison
“My brother declared he loved you in front of our entire family.” Holiday’s many bracelets clink together as she moves. “And Drix doesn’t love easily. So him loving you makes us sisters.”
Holiday and I sit on top of a picnic table that the boys dragged from the back of the yard to the driveway so we could have the celebration pizza and chicken wings outside. The August night is one of those rare ones where the heat feels like a comfortable blanket. The sky is black, the stars are bright, and my parents are still in DC for two more days. Right now, they think I’m safe at home tucked away in bed.
Thor sits at my feet, his eyes glued to me, tracking my every minute movement, and a bead of salvia falls from his mouth. “I’m not giving you any.”
“Drix does,” Holiday says. “Drix gives that dog anything he wants. I’m warning you in case you guys grow up, get married and have babies. When the zombie apocalypse happens, he’s saving the dog before he saves any of us.”
I snort, drop what I’m promising myself is my last chicken wing on the plate and lick my fingers. My mother would be horribly appalled at the number of chicken wings I’ve eaten, but she’s not here, and I’m enjoying doing what I like more and more. “Guess it’s good I plan on being strong enough to protect my children, and, so you know, I’ve always wanted a sister.”
Holiday’s grin widens, and I’m on cloud nine. Drix told me he loved me, and I could have kissed him until the end of time. But then Axle cleared his throat, a subtle reminder we had company, and I separated faster than a tick to a flea collar. Drix only winked at me. Winked. Not sure what that wink meant, but it felt like a thousand promises of future plans that involve his arms around me.
Kellen and the boys are working on their version of a Beatles song. They’re gathered near Drix’s drums, and he’s trying out different beats to see what tempo they want to use. Holiday often sings with them or will play the piano, but hangs back when they get into discussions.
Tempo, as she told me, doesn’t concern her. Pitch is her thing.
Not being a music person, I have no idea what that means, but it sounded poetic.
The timer she brought out with her from inside beeps. “Are you ready for dessert?”
“Sure. What are we having?”
“Birthday cake.”
“Really? Whose?”
There’s a glint to her eye that makes me feel like I should run. “Yours and Drix’s.”
“We already celebrated that,” I say so slowly that turtles could have run past.
“We celebrated it the normal people way because Drix threatened to use all the hot water in the shower for a week if we celebrated your birthday our way, but now that he’s in love with you, you’re family, and we’re celebrating correctly.” Holiday slips off the picnic table and goes into the kitchen.
I nibble on my bottom lip and try to decide how scared I should be. “Drix?”
All of them turn their heads in my direction, and Drix pokes his head around his cymbal to see me.
“What does it mean to celebrate my birthday like your family?”
Axle chuckles, and the smile that stretches across Dominic’s face causes an anxious spiraling in my stomach. Drix mutters a curse, stands and leaves his sticks on the piano as he walks to me.
“Someone catch me up,” Marcus says. “What’s going down?”
Axle whispers something to Marcus, and he laughs a little too loud. Drix reaches me at the same time Holiday walks out of the house, once again, with two huge cakes in her hands.
“No way,” he says. “It’s not happening.”
She merely shrugs one shoulder, like her towering brother with a storm cloud for a face doesn’t faze her. Holiday drops the cakes onto the table, and instead of frosting, she takes cans of whipped cream, and one after another, covers the top of the cakes.
“I apologize,” Holiday says. “It’s not icing, but it’s the best I got at the moment. These were marked down to fifty cents each.”
Drix continues to glare at Holiday, arms crossed over his chest, big, bad brother mode. “It’s not happening. Not to Elle.”
“Well—” Holiday empties out the last can “—I say it is, so that’s how it’s going to be. Besides, this isn’t for her, it’s for you.”
And with that, my eyes practically fall out of my head when Holiday digs into the cake with her fingers as a claw, looks at me and then smashes the cake into Drix’s face.
I can’t breathe. All bodily functions cease. Drix wipes away cake and whipped cream from his eyes, and a vein pops out of his forehead. Oh my God, he’s going to kill her.
Holiday watches her brother, digs for another batch of cake, and my hand snatches out to grab on to her wrist. “What are you doing?”
“We don’t eat cake here on birthdays. We fight with it.”
“You fight with it?”
“Yeah, we—” Holiday doesn’t finish as Drix wraps an arm around her with one hand, grabs a handful of cake with the other, and she squeals as he smashes the cake in her face, then into her hair.
My mouth drops open and chaos ensues. There’s cake and bodies and screams and battle cries, and before I can even begin to comprehend what’s happening, something cold yet warm and wet slides down my scalp. My shoulders shrug up, my arms rise, and when I look left, Dominic winks at me. “Welcome to the family.”
Cake, I have cake on me. Cake in my hair. Cake on my skin. Cake on my clothes and whipped cream melts down my neck. Oh my God.
Dominic runs off and slams cake onto Axle’s neck. To the right, Holiday and Drix work together to baptize Marcus. If you can’t beat them...
With a fist full of warm cake, I duck and weave through a firefight between Dominic, Kellen and Axle. Drix is laughing as he pins Marcus with cake in the face. Holiday doubles over in laughter, and I keep my hand behind my back. When Drix spots me his smile falls. “Aw, Elle. I’m sorry—”
He reaches for me, I slip forward and slap my hand full of cake onto the back of his neck and shove the rest of it down his shirt.
Good idea? I don’t know, because in seconds, I’m in the air. My hair flopping over my face as Drix carries me over his shoulder. He nears the table, near the pan of cake, and I’m laughing and he’s laughing, and then there’s more cake in my hair.
I slide down his body and then there’s more in my face, and I’m grabbing at it. Smearing it onto Drix’s face, down his shirt and somehow there’s more cake and more people, and I’m laughing and dodging. It’s chaos and joy and freedom and everything I have ever wanted out of life without knowing this was my heaven.
* * *
Holiday, Kellen and I opted for showers, and the boys hosed off in the backyard. While the cake fight was freeing and fun, I’m not ready for a cold shower with a water hose. Yes, I am a shower diva.
The water pipes in Drix’s bathroom groaned when I turned the knobs in any direction, and there’s barely any room to stand between the tub, toilet and sink. It’s hard to believe three people share this bathroom. From what Drix has said, Marcus has been staying more nights than going home, sleeping in his room or in the recliner, and that Dominic and Kellen are constants, as well. Six people using this one bathroom. This would be my mother’s version of hell.
I’ve towel-dried my hair, ran a comb through it and have changed into a pair of drawstring shorts and a T-shirt. These are my pj’s when I travel, and this is the most down-to-earth outfit that’s left in my suitcase. After Holiday’s message that Drix had made it into the program, that they were throwing a party and she wanted me there as a surprise, I drove straight from the airport.
A quick look in the fogged mirror and I blow out a breath. For the first time in over a week, I see me staring back—except for the color of my hair, but it’s as close to me as I’ve been for too long. My hair isn’t so curled and full of product that it feels like cement, no makeup and my eyes are staring back at me from behind dark-rimmed glasses.
It’s after ten, and there’s lots of loud conversations filling the house. I step into the narrow hallway, and Dominic, Kellen, Marcus and Holiday are seated at the small table in the kitchen. Dominic deals out cards, and Thor is curled up asleep near the table on a folded blanket that serves as his bed. I turn my head, and Axle and Drix are talking in the living room.
The futon is pulled out, and Axle looks like he’s about to drop. Holiday said he and Drix had a long day on a project, and I know from the nights Drix and I have talked on the phone after those long days, he’s exhausted. I bet they’re both ready to go to bed and that Drix is dead on his feet.
Axle reaches into his back pocket, takes out his wallet and hands Drix something. The tattooed man who’s only a few years older than Drix has a serious expression as he speaks, and Drix nods with every word. They clap hands, go in for a hug, and then Axle tilts his head in my direction. “Night, Elle.”
“Good night,” I say.
Drix leaves the living room, closing the door behind him, and not a second later, the light that had been shining from beneath the door is gone. Drix is so massive that there’s no way for him to pass me in the hallway without his body squeezing against mine. He stops in front of me and lifts a lock of my semi-dried hair between his fingers. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I’m not ready for this day to end, but I spot the weariness in his dark eyes. “I guess I should be heading home.”
“I thought you said you’re going to be alone there.”
“I am, but I’m used to it.”
Drix twines the lock around his finger and gently tugs. “You can stay.”
“You’re tired.”
“I am, but I’m not ready for you to go.”
I’m not ready to go either. “Kitchen, then, or garage?” Though I’m not in the mood for cards or for music. I had hoped we’d snuggle up together in the worn recliner in the living room and watch TV, but I can’t blame Axle for wanting sleep.
“Want to see my room?”
My heart jumps out of my chest so hard, so fast that there was a bit of pain with the adrenaline rush. But then there’s a sense of confusion and emptiness. “Where is your room?”
Drix reaches up, and there’s a string hanging from the ceiling I hadn’t noticed before. He pulls, I step back and a ladder appears. “Let me go up first so I can turn on the lights. You can leave your bag in Holiday’s room.”
He climbs, and I rub my hands against my cotton shorts. I have never gone up a ladder, but I will not be a wuss, and I will not ask for help. I can do this without tripping, falling, then busting my head open. This is absolutely possible.
Drix disappears into the blackness of the attic, and I suck in a deep breath and trail after. I steady my bare feet on each wrung before hiking up to the next one. Ascending into darkness is a bit disorienting, and when I make it through the hole, Drix says, “Stay there.”
Cracking and footsteps against wood and then there is light. Christmas lights. Hundreds of them hanging along the ceiling and wall of the attic. Red and blue and green. It’s a wonderland in spite of the beams of raw wood.
Drix offers me his hand and helps me make the transition from the ladder to the attic. He then places his hands on my hips to settle me on the plywood path that leads to his bed and dresser in the corner. Heat runs along my skin with his touch.
I’m able to stand upright, but Drix has to angle to the side so he doesn’t hit his head on the ceiling of exposed sheets of plywood where the tips of roofing nails stick down toward us.
He releases my hips and takes my hand. Drix goes before me, and I walk behind on the wooden path, and when he reaches his bed, he drops down onto it.
His bed is two twin mattresses stacked on top of the other, with no box spring, and it is covered by dark blue sheets, a red-and-black-checkered quilt that appears ancient and a single pillow with no case. On his dresser is a digital alarm clock, a stack of binders from my father, guitar picks, a pair of drumsticks and the leather band he had worn the first day he came to my house.
Drix turns on a window AC unit, and it hums as it blows in cooler air. “Want to sit?”
I tuck my hair behind my ears and readjust my glasses. I do, but I don’t. I want to sit with Drix, lean into him, have his lips touch mine and get lost in his embrace. I want his arms around me. I want to tell him my deepest thoughts in the darkness. I want him to bear his soul, and I want to feel his breath along the curve of my neck as he speaks. I want him to tease me, I want to tease him back. I want us to whisper in the dark like I imagine lovers do.
Lovers. That’s the part I’m not ready for and why I don’t want to sit. Drix is experienced, and I’m not ready to be any more experienced than what I currently am.
Drix is still watching me, waiting, and I comb my fingers through the ends of my hair. “Why do you have two mattresses?”
“Because a box spring doesn’t fit through that hole, and we found two mattresses at Goodwill. We figured two would give me some support. What’s going on in that brain, Elle, and don’t tell me nothing.”
I sigh, and with it, I sag. Drix takes both of my hands and guides me to stand between his legs. When he looks up at me, those dark eyes are so full of concern that I become a puddle. All the muscles in my body that had gone rigid, relax.
“Talk to me,” he says in that smooth voice of his.
I open my mouth to speak, but it’s too dry, and my words feel too stupid. I’ve been alone with Drix in a hotel room so many times and have never felt as inadequate as I do now, but Drix told me he loved me, so is there an expectation with that declaration?
“We can go back down.” He starts to stand, and my heart picks up speed because that is not what I want.
“I don’t want to have sex,” I spit out, and Drix pauses in this weird midstate of standing and sitting, and his face is so totally screwed up that I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing.
He falls back to the bed, and his thumbs brush over the tops of my hands. “Is this because you saw Axle give me a condom?”
I choke. On what, I don’t know, and I hit a hand against my chest to stop the strange sounds from leaving my body. “He gave you a what?”
Drix yanks an orange square from his back pocket, and I swear I could cook a five course meal off my face. He tosses it onto the dresser. “Won’t lie, I’ve had more fantasies than should be legal about ways I’d like to touch your body.”
Flames. Flames are now shooting off my cheeks, and I can only stare at his hand still holding mine and I can stare at the floor, because the floor doesn’t care I’m currently a mess.
“But as much as I’m attracted to you, as much as I would love to lay you down next to me and become one...”
I swallow because that all sounded so good and so terrifying.
“I don’t want to make love to you.”
My head shoots up, my eyes find his, and there’s a stupid part of me that wonders if I should be insulted. “Why?”
“If I promise not to bite, will you sit with me while I tell you?”
He tugs on my hand, I give, and he slips up the bed to lean his back against the wall. I have a choice. To settle between his legs or sit beside him. In seconds, I run through a million pros and cons, and I ignore them all as I climb up the bed and lean my back against his chest.
Drix wraps both of his arms around me, and those strong steel bands are the best comforting blanket I’ve ever known. He kisses the side of my head, and he pulls me back until there’s no space between us. My temple is against his, and when he tilts his head, he nibbles on my ear, and my entire body comes alive.
“I thought you said you wouldn’t bite,” I whisper as my skin tingles.
“You want me to stop?”
“No.” This is what I want, what I desire. Just this—Drix and me together.
“Still want to know?” he asks.
Now that the fear has faded and I’m safe in his arms, my question doesn’t seem nearly as important, but I love listening to Drix talk, and I love it when he wants to talk to me. “As long as you still want to tell.”
“I do,” he says. “I don’t mind telling you. You might be the only person who thinks anything inside me has some worth, even the ugly.”
“Nothing about you is ugly,” I say. “Now tell me.”