Chapter Twenty-Three - Chella
It’s the most perfect day ever. And since we spend five hours fighting snow to get to the forest where Quin has a valid permit, then another forty-five minutes hiking to find the perfect Christmas tree, and then we hike back to the Suburban—which takes twice as long because we’re hauling the tree behind us using ropes and we are not sled dogs—and tie it to the roof, we’re exhausted.
“I’m too tired to drive,” Quin says, the truck idling, heat blaring on our flushed faces. His head is tipped back against the headrest, his breathing low and slow as he closes his eyes and we’re just still, out here in the forest.
I’m tired too. My arms ache and my legs are numb. But it’s a tired I haven’t felt in a long time. It’s a good kind of tired.
I take off my coat and he opens one eye to peek at me. “What are you doing?”
I blush, but don’t answer. Just scoot over and place my hand over his zipper, gently rubbing. “If you don’t want to—”
“Shit.” He laughs. “I want to.” His hand reaches down to find the controls for the seat and he moves it all the way back. “Come here,” he says, patting his thighs.
Quin is handsome in a very different way than Bric or Smith. They are both polished and serious. But he’s the fun version. The wild version. The happy version.
I know he loves Rochelle and I know I should probably not be so forward. He might want out. But I don’t think he wants out before the four of us get our chance to see what happens. So he’s still mine. For now. And I want him.
I climb into his lap, straddle his legs, and drag his coat down his shoulders. He sits forward until I get it off, and I throw it in the back seat.
“You’re very pretty, Chella.”
“Thank you,” I say, smiling down at his blue eyes.
“Even prettier than Rochelle, but in a different way.”
“I think Rochelle is beautiful,” I say. “I like her hair. I wish I had her long, straight, dirty-blonde hair. And her eyes. The hazel is so unique. And she’s so… fragile. I always felt like a giant next to her, even though I’m only a few inches taller. She’s tiny everywhere I’m not.”
He places both of his hands on my breasts. I’m wearing a loose cream-colored silk blouse with a flared ruffle at the wrists. I close my eyes when he begins to unbutton my shirt and I can’t stop biting my lip when he opens it up and pulls my bra down, exposing my nipples. I lean into his mouth as he sucks them, his hands squeezing, his cock growing bigger underneath me as I hold his head.
He stops, looks up at me and says, “Do you like me, Chella?”
I give him a slow nod. “I do. You’re so easy to like, Quin.”
“I think you’re pretty easy to like as well. I didn’t expect it. I really thought I’d hate you forever. But you surprised me that second time we were together. With your easygoing humor. Your willingness to play along. And for letting me feel my loss however I wanted. Smith and Bric just wanted me to move on. I get it, she’s gone. And like I said, I’m not going after her until I know why she left. I don’t want to be that guy, you know?”
“I don’t know why she left, but she’s crazy for leaving you behind. I think she’s gonna figure that out pretty fast, if she hasn’t already.”
“But I like this,” he says, playing with the long strands of dark hair hanging over my face. “I like what this is turning into. I was having a lot of fun already today. Even before you got horny.”
I smile and a laugh escapes. “We don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want.”
“Fuck that.” He leans up and kisses me. It starts gentle and soft, but then his hands are grabbing my hair, pulling me towards him so he can kiss me harder. “Fuck that. As long as you’re in, I’m in too.”
His hands drop to my shoulders and he slips my blouse down until I help him take it off. The heat is blasting into my back, keeping that side of me warm while Quin heats up my front. A moment later he’s unclasping my bra and tossing it in the back with his coat. I lean over into the passenger seat and unbutton my jeans as he takes off my snow boots and they join the bra.
He pulls on my pant legs as I wiggle them over my hips, dragging my underwear down at the same time. And then, when I’m naked, he opens my legs and fingers me.
“You’re always ready,” he says. “Always so fucking wet.”
My foot finds the hardness over his zipper. “I like that about you too.”
We smile, then laugh together as he opens his jeans and pulls out his cock. Fully erect. Thick and perfect.
I get up from the seat and maneuver on to my knees, then lean down to take him in my mouth, but he stops me. “Just climb on top,” he says. “I don’t want to wait.”
I lift my leg over his lap and settle on top of his thighs. We kiss for a little bit, his fingertips gently dragging up and down my spine, sending chills through my entire body as we get to know each other better through our tongues.
But eventually we can’t wait any longer. I sit up, wrap my hand around his cock, and play with my clit until he takes over and the pressure of his hands on my shoulders makes me sit down.
We both moan. I bury my face into his neck, rub my cheek on his to feel the perfect scratch of stubble on his jaw.
We fuck like that. Slow. Our hips moving just enough but not too much. Like we don’t want to rush it. Like we want to stay in this moment and savor it. Keep our release bottled up for as long as possible. Hold on to our longings, whatever they may be.
He comes inside me. I come all over him. And we sit there in the truck—in the middle of the snow-covered Arapahoe National Forest, windows steamed up with our heavy breathing, only the sounds of our hearts beating against each other to break the silence—and hug the loneliness out of each other.
By the time we get home it’s evening, we’re starved, so Quin orders room service from the kitchen and we don’t even have the strength to do anything to the tree except stand it up in front of the living room window.
We don’t have sex again, but we don’t need it. Quin pulls me on top of his chest and we pass out on the couch, still thinking about the forest, and the snow, and how we aren’t so lonely anymore.
It was the perfect day.
We wake the next morning to his cell phone ringing in his pants. He shifts me around so he can reach it, tabs the accept button, and then croaks out, “Yeah,” into the phone.
I move aside so he can sit up. I get a smile over his shoulder for my thoughtfulness.
“It’s fucking Tuesday,” he says to the person on the other side of the phone. “I told you I’m out of the office today.” His hand finds its way under my shirt and begins to rub my stomach. My bra is still in the back of the Suburban, so he finds my nipple almost immediately as he tries to concentrate on the conversation. “Why can’t Robert handle that?” Quin says. His voice is rough and angry, but he’s smiling at me as he talks.
“Fine,” he says. “I’ll be there in an hour.” He ends the call with a long, heavy sigh. Then tosses the phone onto the coffee table. “I gotta go into the office today. I hate being the goddamned boss.”
“What do you do?” I ask, kind of embarrassed that we’ve gotten this far into the relationship and I have no clue.
“Online marketing company. Private consultant, actually. I have a big account starting tomorrow and Robert is supposed to handle it, but he’s out with the flu. I’m sorry,” he says, leaning down to kiss me.
“For what? If you have to work, you have to work.”
“Yeah, but we should be decorating the tree today. And you don’t have any ornaments. I’m pretty sure Bric threw away, gave away—whatever the fuck he did with Rochelle’s things—all the ornaments and lights.”
“I can go down to Walgreens and get new ones. No big deal.”
“Yeah, fuck. I was gonna say you could go get some from your house. But you don’t do Christmas, do you?”
“I have nothing.” I laugh. “Not one twinkling light to my name.”
“That sucks. We should buy them together, but I have a conference call in an hour and I have to go to the office to get Robert’s computer because he’s got the presentation.”
“I’ll be fine, Quin. Just do your thing.”
“Sorry,” he says again as he leans down to kiss me. “If I can get out of this early, I’ll come back.”
A few minutes later he’s gone and I’m alone again.
I’ve lived alone since I was eighteen. Not always at that Little Raven house. That was a gift from my father when I completed my PhD. I had another, much smaller—and more homey—place just a few blocks from here before that. It wasn’t trendy or new. In fact, the heat barely worked in the winter and I was always wearing two pairs of socks to bed to fight the chill.
But it was my place.
The Little Raven town home has never felt like mine.
For one, my father purchased it as a surprise. A three-million-dollar surprise. Buying me things has always been the only way he’s showed me love. He was proud that day I graduated. Or maybe… he was just feeling obligated? Does it matter?
But this place came with all the same furniture they used to stage it for the sale.
So.
None of that stuff belongs to me. I have zero attachment to any of it. All of it. Whatever. In fact, the only things in that house that weren’t part of the sale contract, aside from the clothes and jewelry in the closet, are the things Smith brought along when he decided he lived there last week.
Fucking Smith.
I shake my head. I don’t want to think about Smith right now. It’s way too early in the week to think about Smith.
I reluctantly get up off the couch so I can take a shower and head down to Walgreens for leftover Christmas decorations.
“What should new Chella wear today?” I ask my closet. Almost all these clothes are new. I brought a few of my own things over so I can go to work in something that won’t start a new conversation about Elias Bricman with Michell on Thursday.
I opt for a pair of jeans and a festive red cable-knit sweater and then sit down on the floor to look over the boxes of shoes one of the guys must have purchased for me, looking to see if any have snow boots in them.
I pull out the larger boxes first. The first three are fancy boots. Not what I’m looking for. But the next ones are brand-new shearlings, like the ones I left here that very first night.
I lie back on the floor and smile at how fucking clueless I was.
That’s when I notice the attic door in the ceiling and a short pull cord, wrapped around a metal hook.
“What the fuck?”
I get up and go looking for a step stool that I saw in the foyer closet last week, and then stand on the top step and pull the cord.
I have to get down off the stool as I pull, because it’s one of those ladder things that extends to the floor. I move the stool out of the way, extend it to its full length, and then stare up into the black hole of an attic.
I’ve never been afraid of the dark, so I climb up.
There’s a small circular window up there and sunlight is streaming in, making a long stripe of yellow in the blackness. I crawl over to it and realize there’s a soft furry rug on the floor beneath my knees.
Outside I can see the Capitol building, the gold dome reflecting the sun like a beacon of hope in the snow.
I turn around and sit on my butt to take it all in.
It’s a… hideaway? Fort? I laugh as I try to find the right word. It’s a secret room.
And it’s filled with things.
On the far wall is a small Christmas tree.
I crawl around until I find a small lamp and flick the switch. Then I realize what this place really is.
Rochelle’s secret life.
She’s got a million pillows lining the walls. About a dozen small vintage carry-on suitcases stacked up in one corner. Blankets, and books, and trinkets that she so obviously loved and didn’t want to share with the men who controlled her life downstairs.
Wow.
I scramble over to the Christmas tree - it’s only about three feet tall. I find the switch for the lights and click it on. God, it’s so pretty. The whole thing is decorated with vintage cardboard images, hanging on to branches with small loops of twine, and gold garland that has definitely seen better days. There are old-fashioned glass bulbs that are too big and handmade felt ornaments that look older than I am.
Every wall is decorated with dandelions. Not the flowers. The seed heads.
I lie back on the fluffy pink rug and notice the ceiling has been decorated too. Only this time, along with the dandelion pictures, there are words written in what I can only assume is Rochelle’s hand.
I’ll fly away.
The entire gospel song—one I sang so many times growing up it makes my heart ache to think about it. The same one Rochelle was singing that day I met her down at Buskerfest. The lyrics have been scrawled in a pretty feminine handwriting over my head. More seed heads have been painted, pictures of them tacked and taped all over, so that the entire ceiling is a work of genius haphazard folk art.
It’s so… her.
So perfect with all its imperfections.
I sit up before that song gets stuck in my head and redirect my attention to the carry-on suitcases near the tree. They have the word ‘Christmas’ written on their lids in thick black marker.
I find everything I need for my tree downstairs in them. She must’ve really liked Christmas if she has this much stuff.
But then I remember—Quin took her to buy a big tree every year too. So she must've kept all this stuff—all her personal things—up here. Out of the way. Or maybe she just wanted to keep it private. Keep Bric and Smith separate from what she had with Quin in some small way.
For a second I figure I’ll just use her stuff and forget about Walgreens.
But then I shake my head. No. Not her stuff. If she was hiding it, she was doing it for a reason. It’s not mine. It’s not part of my world.
So I turn the lights off, make my way back down the ladder, and go with my original plan.
Once I’m showered and dressed, I grab my coat and head downstairs. It’s snowing again—which is highly unusual for Denver in December. But when I step off the elevator and look down the stairs, through the large revolving door, it’s so beautiful, I don’t even mind.
“Chella?”
I look to my left, up at Smith and Bric, where they are sitting at his table having a drink. “Hey,” I say, walking over to the stairs that lead up there.
They both stand as I approach the table. Am I allowed to talk to them if it’s Quin’s day? I’m not sure. But Bric called my name, so it must be OK.
“Where are you going?” Smith asks as I walk over.
“Out to buy ornaments. Quin took me up to the mountains yesterday to cut down a tree but I don’t have any ornaments.”
“Do you need a ride home to get them?” Bric asks. “We can get you a car?”
“I was just going to buy them new,” I say. I really don’t need another conversation about my lack of Christmas decorations at home. “At Walgreens.”
“Walgreens,” they both say at the same time.
“Chella,” Smith says. “No. That’s just not right. We have a ton of ornaments in the basement.”
“Oh, yeah,” I say, looking around. “This place is really decked out.” No fewer than three Christmas trees are in my line of sight right now. A huge one that appeared last week in the lobby. A small one on the bar, over in the dark corner of Smith’s room. And another largish one down in the Black Room. “I’ll take some Club decorations. If that’s OK.”
“I’ll have to go get them for you,” Bric says. “Have someone get them for you. You can’t go in the basement.”
“Right.” I say, resisting the urge to look at Smith.
“I’ll send them up later. Do you need anything else?” Bric asks.
“No,” I say, hesitating. “But I think I’ll go shopping just the same.”
“OK,” Bric says. “I’ll call for the car.”
“I’m gonna walk. There’s no place to park down here. It’s just a big hassle.”
I can tell they do not want me to walk, but they have no say in my day.
Because it belongs to Quin.