2

 

Stay with Me, Stay

Demi

 

 

Dark clouds curl in the night sky like smoke as we get a small reprieve from the storm. There always seems to be a storm brewing in my life, so the reprieve catches me off guard. Before my father died, my life was ordinary, filled with unremarkable days, bathed in a splendor that one could never appreciate while it still abounds. Even though we were wealthy, my father never spoiled me. I went to public school. He drove a pickup, and we shopped meagerly. Our home was a token leftover from the grand era of my mother. Outside of living in something the size of a hotel, my life was preciously ordinary. Then he was gone, and the dark days came. Nora pelted me with her wrath like acid rain, and soon Josh joined in on the fun. A pressing desolation sets in. Those pink walls close in on me, heavy and cloying. A distant memory of Winter Haven lingers in the back of my mind—the façade once covered with climbing roses had become blanketed with thorns.

“The storm’s taking a break—just in time to get home.” Gavin ushers me down the walk to his pickup and helps me in.

I give several hard blinks before adjusting to where I am—to Gavin. His eyes are clear as a reprieve. I’m still spinning, still drunk off his heady kisses.

“You sure you’re okay with this?” I ask as he slips in beside me. Gavin’s eyes illuminate a clear sky blue in the dark, and the mere sight of him sends a searing heat pulsating to the inside of my thighs. “I can stay in the boathouse. It’s not a big deal.”

“It’s an icebox. If you don’t mind waking up with a frozen set of lungs and the sound of an angelic choir, you’ll be fine.” He glances over with those piercing eyes that glow in the night, and my stomach detonates with heat. “Besides, I wouldn’t let you.”

“Oh, really? You wouldn’t let me?” A laugh flutters from my chest. “And what if I insist?”

“I’d have to wrap myself around you to make sure you’re warm.”

I’m amused by this man who thinks he has the power to let me do things.

“So I don’t get a vote?” I bite my lip while my eyes drift down his neck, to his shoulders the size of a doorframe. He must have played football at some point, and if not it’s a shame. Not that there’s anything blatantly shameful about him. This is Gavin, the same man who decided to pin me behind the Christmas tree and feed me his kisses—his tongue, for an hour straight. Best gift ever.

“Nope. Sorry, sweetie.” He squints into the road as if he were trying to remember a dream.

“Thank you for making your stance on women’s suffrage and feminism, crystal clear.” I run my finger over the fogged window and make half a heart. I’m not some bra-burning feminist, but I’ll wave a flag every now and again if I feel the need. Anyway, I’m just toying with Gavin. I’m still too amped up to be myself around him—with anyone really.

He examines me for a moment before smoothing his hand over the wheel.

“Is that what this afternoon was about? Women’s rights?”

“Yes.” Nora and all of her madness rush to the forefront of my mind. I blow out a breath. “More to the point—suffer-age.” In the truest sense.

“You just made up a word.”

Now I’m the one studying him. I seemed to catch him off guard with my quasi-poignant observation. If I keep serving up my brain cells on a platter, he’ll start to probe. I’ve taken a few courses at the local community college with a fake I.D. Reeva provided. If I ever do get my father’s company back from Nora, I want to have the business sense to run it. Plus, I just like to learn. I like books, the weight of them in my hand, hugging huge stacks as if they were a body, taking in their scent. I get high just walking through a bookstore. But I’m not here to let him in on any of that. The less he knows the better off we both are.

“Oh, hun”—I channel my inner Eva—“I don’t know a thing about the English language.” A dull smile threatens to bloom on my lips. “I make up words all day long for the hell of it.”

“I’m not buying it.” We drive under a lamppost, and his features illuminate a bright peach as if he were lit up from the inside. “Where’d you go to school?”

He’s determined to sodomize my gray matter with his inquisition.

“On the mean streets of Manhattan. I took a crash course in anatomy and learned how to make it rain money while down on my knees.” It takes everything in me to keep from quoting lyrics to an Alicia Keys’ song. The truth is, I’ve never been to Manhattan. My father and I planned on going for my sixteenth birthday, but he never quite saw fifteen, and my sixteenth was spent… Anyway, I’ve never made money rain while on my knees or any other position. I don’t mind the lies. In my case, they’re miles better than the truth. They taste like sugar pouring from my lips. And, the truth? Well, that’s just the vomit of yesteryear.

I squeeze my eyes shut, and I’m greeted with a thing of horror from the past. Pink walls, pink walls…

“Hey, you okay?” Gavin taps my knee, and I startle to see the road stretching, narrow as a pin. The snow peppers the landscape with a sublime silence that can only be found in quiet places like this. “I was just saying, I’ve got a fireplace you could roast a deer in. The cabin heats up pretty fast. It’ll feel like a bear has wrapped itself around you. How’s that?”

“Maybe I don’t want a bear.” It comes from me catatonic. I take a deep breath and perk up. “Maybe I just want you.” I’m not sure why but the only way to pull my head out of the Nora gutter is to pole vault onto the nearest penis I see. I graze my lip with my teeth as I study his frame. God, he’s gorgeous. There’s no way I’m letting him couch surf at a friend’s tonight. Gavin is muscular, unnaturally so—ripped into hard contours that press against his dress shirt. His chest expands as he considers the innuendo. Surely he knows who he’s bringing home. I’ve been around the block. Hell, I’ve done the block—not in the way he thinks, but nevertheless.

I force myself to avert my gaze before I end up on his lap. The smoky clouds disintegrate to nothing, revealing a patch of clear night sky like a peephole into Heaven, and I sink in my seat a moment at the thought of what my father—my mother might think. The lead weight of regret settles in my chest at what almost happened today. For some reason a monetary exchange for sex feels as if I’d be skewering both my parents’ hearts—I know it would mine. It’s the kind of thing you don’t live down or forget. You have to own something like that. Even if you beg forgiveness, deep down, you’re still the lowest kind of whore. But then again, according to Nora I’m the human equivalent of dirt.

“We’re home.” Gavin pulls into the garage and kills the engine. His eyes glint into mine with a white glossy flash. “Just so you know, I’m not taking advantage of you, Emmy. I’ll keep the cabin heated and give you all the food you want—but I promise, I’m not crossing a line.”

“Do you always play hard to get?” I ask as we get out, and he barks a laugh that echoes in the tiny chamber of the one car garage. “I bet that just whips the girls up into a frenzy.” When he said he almost denied me that kiss, my adrenaline pierced through my skull, and it was all I could do to keep from dropping to my knees.

“Does it make you want me more, sweetheart?” His voice drops to its lower register and strums its rhythm all along my quivering thighs. Gavin is a master at seduction.

“Maybe—yes.” I don’t usually dabble in the truth, but, when I do, it’s like pulling my intestines out by way of my throat.

He catches my gaze in the dim light, and I can feel the power draining from me. Men who could steal my wit, the strength that comes from the lies I feed myself, are the most potent of the species. Hell, Gavin has danger written all over his six-foot two frame.

My cheeks burn with heat, and a dull, indiscernible ache travels from the pit of my stomach to my chest, spreading like a slow-moving fire through my limbs.

“Don’t worry.” He brands his eyes over mine. “There’s not a thing you can do to turn the tables tonight. I’m keeping my distance, and so should you.”

“Wow, I feel like I’ve just been scolded. I kind of like that.” My cheek glides up one side, and I stop the smile like swatting a fly. “Is this the part where I call you, Daddy?”

He opens the door to the house, and the sound of his deep-throated laugh vibrates over me. I don’t need a fire. His laughter alone could warm me.

Gavin lets me in first. In a nutshell, the cabin is small—literally a nutshell. I’ve already been introduced to his sister’s old room where I’ve parked my duffle bag and feather duster. I don’t have anything with me but a pair of jeans and an old CU sweatshirt that belonged to my father. I’m pretty sure the French maid outfit I squeezed myself into can retire—or burn. Reeva is going to spit a bucket full of rusty vibrators when she learns of my inability to read a simple address. But, in my defense, I set my sixty-four-ounce Double Gulp right over the damn thing, and the ink bled across the page like a slow suicide.

Gavin bends over to get the fire going, and my eyes track down his well-worn, well-fitted jeans. God. This man is built for speed, and traction, and all things that involve two very naked bodies. Who knew stopping at the Circle K would set my night in such a mouthwatering trajectory? If his jeans rode a little lower, I could answer the age-old question of boxers or briefs.

“What’s on your mind?” The fireplace explodes as a brilliant blaze lights up the room.

“Nothing much.” I’m pretty sure thinking about Circle K and Double Gulps qualifies as exactly that—nothing. And I doubt he wants to hear my inner debate on boxers or briefs. Gavin seems nice, wholesome, despite the fact he oozes testosterone. I’m not sure how I got so lucky to end up in the wrong boathouse. I don’t believe in destiny, hearts, or rainbows that lead to gorgeous soul mates in lieu of prospective johns, so there’s that. In my universe fate takes a giant shit over you then sets you on fire before sending your stepbrother in for some aggressive anal sex sans the KY.

“And you?” I take a seat on the navy couch. The corduroy is worn, soft as velvet. There’s a slight squeak emanating from deep inside as if it’s been sat on one too many times, and, for a moment, I imagine Gavin buried deep inside me, making this sofa sing a song long into the night.

The entire cabin is homey, done up in dark cozy hues of forest green and deep submarine blues. An old oak table and chairs look as if they’ve been hewn right from the trees outside, and they might have been. His furniture might be dated, but it seems well cared for. The wood still holds a fresh polish. The tabletop is wiped clean. Gavin, here, sure takes care of the things under his charge. I’m sure he’d do the same for any lucky girl.

“Nothing usually means something.” He’s still trying to tunnel in, reach into my brain with his bare hands and run his fingers over my thoughts as if they were written in Braille. I’ve never had anyone so adamantly demand to know what I was thinking before. Maybe I should tell him about the couch singing us a song?

“You want a drink?” he offers.

“No, thank you.” I flick my heels off and strum my fingers over the seat beside me like a hunter trying to lure her prey.

Gavin glides in with both the obedience and enthusiasm of a Golden Retriever. His lips pull back with a grin as if he’s been waiting to do that all night. There’s a boyishness about him that makes me want to wrap my arms around his waist, strong as death. His smile, his every move—it all feels genuine.

“So now what’s on your mind?” He relaxes his arm across the back of the sofa, much too far for me to mistake as flirting.

“I was just thinking what a good boy you are. You know, you’re nice.”

His brows flex. “You say ‘nice’ like it’s a bad thing.”

Reeva comes to mind. “It can be.”

“You seem nice.” His eyes squint out a smile all their own, and that negative devil that lives inside my head, that replica of Nora, accuses him of laughing at me.

“I’m not nice, Gavin.” Any good-natured affect I may have exhibited dissolves. “I’m the opposite of nice. I’m all darkness and no light. So if you think you’ve found yourself a Christmas miracle, a sinner you can wash white as snow, you’re sadly mistaken.”

A moment of silence slices by.

He rests his chin in his hand and thumps his lips with his forefinger. He bears into me, and my skin sears under the supervision of his gaze.

“Who tells you these lies?” His jaw clenches as if he’s in pain. “You’re nice Emmy, I can tell.”

“If you really believe that, you have bad ‘people radar’ because, for one, I’m a liar. Are liars nice?”

He doesn’t flinch. Instead, he continues with the bored enthusiasm of a police interrogation, “What’s your last name?”

“What’s yours?” I’m pretty sure I don’t owe him my bio, but a part of me wants to spill it all, right from the beginning. I can start with once upon a time I killed my mother.

“Jackson.” A smile comes and goes as he continues to study me under the flickering blaze.

“Jackson. I like it. Nice, strong name for a nice, strong guy.” I shoot him a look sharp enough to threaten even the biggest testicles, and judging by the size of the rest of his body, they could put the best hung horse to shame. “Hurst.”

“Hurst?” He cocks his head. “Is that a lie?”

“Yes.” No use in sugarcoating it. “And that was a sliver of truth.”

“I see what you did there.” His eyes steady over mine as if he’s wondering what in the hell he’s gotten himself into, and he should. He should be casing the exit. I’m far more dangerous than the fire roaring at the other end of the room. A person like me with a dead heart and no soul could give it all up and take everyone around them down in a blaze of glory without giving it too much thought.

“Listen”—I dart my gaze around the tiny living room, looking for an out myself—“you don’t need to babysit me. Trust me, I’m an expert when it comes to crawling into bed.” Earlier today I was simply trying to get promoted to the pros. “If you want, I can be gone before you ever get up.” I start to rise, and he pulls me gently back to the sofa, landing my thigh just a hair from his. His fingers warm the inside of my wrist, and a heated sensation trickles straight up to my neck like a thousand shooting stars.

“Don’t go.” His lids grow heavy. “It’s supposed to storm through the weekend. You’re welcome to stick around. I promise I’m not in this for anything physical.” He swallows hard, raking over my features like maybe he is. And I sure hope so. “Stay, Emmy. I want you to.”

I scoot in close until I’m cradled in the crook of his arm, and something in me settles.

“Do you mind?” I pull his arm around my shoulder until I can feel his steely muscles conforming to my body. Every inch of me exhales as if I’ve been waiting for this moment all night, and I have. “I can’t help it. I’m addicted to human touch the way junkies are addicted to heroin. You did kiss me earlier, so, technically, this is a slight regression in the physical arena.” I press into his rock hard chest. “You’re warm, and you smell nice, like a tree.” It’s true. Somewhere some cologne company managed to bottle an evergreen, and Gavin Jackson was lucky enough to stumble upon it.

His chest bucks with a silent laugh.

“I don’t mind.” He scoots in until there isn’t a gap between us. My hormones light up a thousand times brighter than that Christmas tree tonight. “And thank you. The shower probably helped, but I spend most of my days smelling like a walking tribute to the forest.” He nods toward the fireplace. “I hack wood all day.”

The T-shirt he was wearing earlier comes to mind. “Jackson’s lumber, we hack it and stack it?” My mouth falls opens. “I get it.”

“I knew you were smart.” He gives me a squeeze as if we’re a couple. “Now that you know all about me, tell me something about yourself. Where are you from?”

He’s probing, running his proverbial fingers over my heart, feeling me out to see where all the sharp edges come from. Little does he know, he’s skating on sheet glass, and, if I let him continue on with his game, we’ll both be sliced to ribbons.

“Down the mountain.” An affluent area of Hayworth to be exact. The north end is sealed off with horse ranches as wide as the sky. My parents built our home from the ground up while I was still safe in my mother’s belly. And as a thank you for nine months of incubation, I sliced my way out of her body and left her to hemorrhage to death on a cold, steel bed.

“Who are you working for and why?” He pulls me back into the room with the hint of a smile.

“It’s such a man’s world, isn’t it?” I click my tongue. “Who am I working for? As if a woman isn’t enterprising enough to make arrangements to sell her own body.” Reeva and her mob-controlled brothel ping through my mind. “You’re right, though. It’s true. I’m not that enterprising. But since I hopped on that women’s suffrage bandwagon a few minutes ago, I thought why not hitch another ride. I’m not as industrious as I’d like you to believe. I have a boss. And if I told you who she is, I’d have to kill you.” True story.

His brows hike up an inch, amused. “I’d dodge a bullet for you. Besides, I like your Feminine Mystique.”

“Wow, Betty Friedan would be proud.” I marvel at him a moment. Gavin, the woodcutter, is just full of cerebral surprises tonight. “And”—I twirl my finger through his thick, caramel hair, soft and slippery—“I would be the one with the gun, so, technically, you’d have to dodge a bullet from me.”

Gavin leans in until my shoulder lies over his chest, and my mouth opens ready for another kiss in the event he decides to renege on his no touch policy.

“You’re also a self-proclaimed liar,” he whispers warm over my cheek. “Besides, I’m pretty sure the bullet would come from some beefed-up dude named Lefty not a sweet little flower like you.”

A full-bellied laugh escapes me as I toss my head back into the granite of his arm.

“You’re joking right?” I blink away the tears that came to the party. I haven’t laughed that hard since, well, the last time I hung out with Eva, my sister from another mister, her words not mine, but I like the concept.

He gives my arm a gentle squeeze. “I thought I’d fuel the feminist fire.” He winks. “Are you a good shot?”

“I’ll let you find out, but I suggest you run in a zigzag pattern.”

It’s his turn to laugh, but it’s short-lived as his demeanor darkens.

“Emmy”—he expires my name as if it were his dying breath—“what the heck are you doing in this line of work?” That pained look crosses his face again, makes me want to drop to my knees and beg his forgiveness. “I know we just met.” He squeezes his eyes shut a moment. “But please, let me help you.”

My mouth falls open, and, for the first time, my sharpened tongue, the sarcasm I’m fluent in, eludes me. A bout of calm and repression fills me, and I wonder if this is how the other half lives, without all the acidic comments streaming from their lips, without an entire arsenal of stabbing comebacks ready to plunge into the nearest target. I’d rather secure my feet to the floor with a nail gun than live without my bitter edge.

“Help me?” I stutter. “Why aren’t you repulsed by me?” Here I am at twenty, trading in my number two pencils for fishnets and garter belts—condoms in every color, enough to line my mother’s vintage Louis Vuitton bag with. I’m sure she’s beaming with pride from up above.

“Because I’m not that different than you.”

I glance up and catch the tears glittering in his eyes all for me.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Would I kiss you like that tonight if I did?”

“Warren Senior has a wife, and I bet he planned on doing a little more than kissing me tonight.”

Eva says half the guys she’s with don’t bother to take off their wedding rings. She should know. She’s the one who introduced me to this lifestyle.

He winces. “Not a good visual. I don’t have a girlfriend or a wife for that matter.”

“Why not? It’s pretty clear the girls love you. Everyone with working ovaries was bending toward you tonight. You were the sun, and every one of them was craving a little vitamin G. I bet girls like Brylee throw themselves at you all the time.” Brylee specifically, but I leave her out of it for now.

“They do.” He jostles me with his arm. “And I’m usually very good at catching them.”

“Knew it. You’re a player.” I pull back with a tiny spark of elation.

“A reformed player. I’m not throwing myself out there like yesterday’s trash anymore. I’m not looking to sleep with just anyone.”

“Why not? Was chlamydia the buzz kill? You can tell me. I hear it all the time.”

His eyes avert. “No, I don’t have the clap. I almost knocked the last girl up. Turns out it was a false alarm.” His brow rises on one side, and I melt a little.

“You should definitely procreate.” I trace the bridge of his nose with my finger. “A god like you should proliferate entire nations. Manifest testicular destiny. 54º 40’ or fight.”

“I like you more now that you’ve dragged the Oregon Trail into this.” His smile broadens. “Sounds like someone was paying attention in US history.”

“Sounds like you were, too.” I swallow hard. Gavin is quickly getting under my literary skin. He’s seeping into my bloodstream, snaking through my veins trying to get a hold of my heart. Little does he know I sold it to Josh in exchange for something I mistook as affection. “How many girls do you think you’ve slept with?” I’m not sure what prompted the question, but I’m curious nevertheless. I’d bet Gavin could garner a harem simply by walking through a nightclub, a sorority—a convent for that matter.

“Lost count. Double digits but not triple.” He holds up a finger. “And you?”

“Zero.” I pinch a smile. “I haven’t slept with any girls. God’s honest truth, right there.”

“Very funny.” His eyes magnetize over mine like a seal, and the heat rises around us ten times hotter than the fire. “How about boys? I bet you have to fight them off with a stick, but only because you’re beautiful.”

An inferno washes over me. It’s as if Gavin placed a magnifying glass over me, and his words were the white-hot sun.

“I’m not fighting anyone off with a stick, Gavin.” I can feel my face doing its best impression of the scarlet letter. “I’m a virgin.” I give a coy smile, trying to hijack this conversation from the unholy numerology my vagina has unwittingly found itself wrapped up in. “There I go lying again.” My eyes lock onto his, and we find ourselves in a standoff for a solid minute. “Okay, I’ll tell you a number, but you have to promise not to laugh.”

“No laughing.” He pulls back an inch to get a better look as if my face might tell him a different story.

“Two.”

“Two?” Gavin tilts his head as if waiting for the rest of the numbers to materialize.

“Two thousand.” Two thousand years ago an innocent man was hung for my sins—beaten and bruised all for me, and every day since my father died, I’ve added another blow. I sag a moment. My father raised a good girl. We went to church and prayed at night as if our lives depended on it, and then he died and it felt as if God and Jesus, the entire church were swallowed into a black hole along with him. I take a breath. “Okay, maybe a dozen. I’ve slept my way through the last few years—mostly boys at parties. Once I met a man at the beach. He was high, and I was hurting. It was a match made in beach bathroom heaven. Both my feet and heart were soaked in urine. I can still smell the stench.” My body goes rigid. “Then I slowed down. There was a lab professor in macro last fall. He was my last. And, I can’t mention my last without acknowledging my first, after all, he got the party rolling.” God, it’s going to happen. I’m going to vomit it out into this sweet, homey cabin and leave a big indelible stain over the night. “It was my stepbrother.”

Gavin’s eyes widen. His jaw tightens as if he’s going to find the son of a bitch and feed him to the fire. I like his bravado—his over achieving testosterone that demands the world know he’s a man. Someone like Gavin would be a treasure to have on your side in a fight. Sometimes it feels as if I’m fighting against the world—my frail frame shadowboxing the wind—futile as anything, and, yet, just as ironic as the meaning of life.

“He slipped into my bed.” I hike my shoulders to my neck and keep them there. “He’s older by two years. I was fifteen and in desperate need of attention. He gave me all of that and, unfortunately, more.” I close my eyes, and I’m right back at Winter Haven in my Laura Ashley bedroom, those cloying, heavily patterned walls. The scent of Josh’s spiced cologne starts to choke me out, and I gasp. I give several hard blinks, overdosing on my new reality, taking in the heavily carved bear in the corner, no bigger than a footstool. The fireplace gives a few loud pops as if celebrating this new world as I sink deeper into Gavin’s arms.

“It’s okay.” He pulls me in close and plants a sweet kiss over the top of my head. “We don’t need to go there. You’re safe, Emmy. I promise.”

His words reverberate through me. They etch themselves over my bones like a covenant written in blood.

I’m safe—right here in Gavin Jackson’s arms.

If I close my eyes I can trick myself into believing it’s seven years ago, and I’m safe in my father’s arms, too.