CHAPTER NINE
LUX
The sun’s in full swing above, the skies so crystal clear and blue even the smallest cloud looks completely abstract.
I dip the paintbrush into the can, painting the doorway a bright blue. ‘Angora’ if I recall. Deacon let me pick it.
“This is kind of relaxing,” I call out, Deacon’s on a ladder beside me doing the roof of the veranda with a roller, his bare chest so close I could reach out and touch it. It’s hot, he’s sweaty, the accordion crunch of his abs not going unnoticed.
“Good,” he says, “there’s a whole house to go”.
I cut in the corner of the doorframe with the side of the brush. “You’ve never told me what you guys do for a living, how you manage to afford all this.”
“The house? It’s big, but it wasn’t as expensive as you think.”
“But none of you work, right?”
“We worked enough in the States, made good money. If the money runs out, we’ll find work again. It’s no big deal.”
He’s hiding something. They all are. That’s what worries me. “You can trust me, you know.”
“I do.”
“They why not tell me the truth?”
He steps off the ladder. “I don’t want to put you in danger.”
“So you are a criminal?”
He nods to himself, placing the roller down. “Perhaps. Does that bother you?”
It’s a solid question. There were plenty of bad boys around growing up. California really breeds them, but I don’t think I’ve ever gotten so close to one. Not like this. “I don’t know. Should it?”
“We’re not axe murderers, if that’s what you’re asking.”
I keep painting. “Good. I like my head attached to my shoulders very much, thank you.”
“That was dark.”
“Maybe I better lighten things up then.” I turn and flick the paintbrush in his direction, specks of blue falling over his chest.
He looks down, then up. “Oh, really? That’s how you want to play it?”
He picks up a tin of paint from the floor, holding it in his hands, slowing approaching me.
I stand up against the wall. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would.” He pretends to throw the paint and I flinch.
I hold out my brush like a sword. “Come any closer and I’ll…”
He holds the tin with two hands. “You’ll what?”
“Go Picasso on you.”
He shrugs, letting down the tin. “Guess I shouldn’t then.” He turns and I think he’s done before he snaps back around the throws the tin forward, a torrent of white paint covering me around the torso and splashing all over my shoes, tee and pants, the rest of it is just dripping off the wall behind me. I drop the brush and hold my arms out. “You did not just do that.”
He places the empty tin down. “Wow, you look like a really, really cute snowman. I mean, snowgirl would be the preferred term but—”
I lunge forward and pick up the tin, tipping what’s left in it over his head. He stands there, eyes open while the paint drips off his eyebrows and chin, puddling on the plastic we laid out earlier.
He wipes paint from his forehead. “You, madam, just declared war.”
He tackles me and pins me to the floor, rolling us over in the paint and tickling me in the ribs.
I ball up, laughing, trying to get out from under him, but he’s way too strong.
“Stop,” I plead, barely able to draw breath I’m laughing so hard.
He keeps tickling, working his way up under my arms, leaning over me, dripping and wet. “Had enough yet?”
“Never,” I laugh out, squirming and wriggling beneath him, the paint sloppy and cold soaking through the back of my shirt.
I try to tickle him back, but it seems he’s immune.
Through it all I feel the bulge in his crotch pressing against my chest, the heft and size of it.
He stops and we both pause breathing hard. We look at each other and he begins to lean down, our faces drawing closer and closer.
Oh god. We’re going to kiss.
“What. The. Fuck?!”
We both look sideways to see Razor and Bo, each carrying a handle of a large ice box.
Deacon gets off me, standing and pointing. “Last time I checked we already had plenty of ice.”
Razor’s beaming. “And last time I checked, you put paint on the walls, not each other, kinky as it may be and all that. But you know, whatever turns you on. I’m fond of schoolgirls myself, short skirts, glasses, knee socks…”
Deacon crosses his arms. “Wait, wait, you’re not telling me you actually caught something today, are you?”
The boys place down the ice box and open the lid, Razor’s smile saying it all. “Rock lobster, my friends, as much as you can eat.”
*
I lean back in the deck chair staring up at the night sky, embers from the fire soaring up in spirals. “I’ve never seen so many stars.”
Deacon looks up from his deck chair beside me, beer in hand. “I don’t doubt it given the light pollution in California these days.”
“You fuckers want any more lobster?” calls Razor from the grill.
I hold my belly. “I’m completely full.”
“More for me.”
Deacon looks across to me. “You do much barbequing back home?”
Holding my food baby like this I almost look I’m pregnant for real. With Deacon’s baby. Would it be so bad? It would be hellacute. “Dad did all the cooking. We had a Weber out back that saw a bit of use, though I can’t say we ever had grilled lobster like this.”
“As we’ve discovered,” continues Deacon, “Australians love their BBQs. Any excuse to throw something ‘on the barbie’ and they’re there. I respect that, respect the dedication.”
“You don’t miss home?”
“Do you?”
Enough deflection, buddy. “I asked first.”
Something cracks in the fire at our feet, the side of Deacon’s face amber in the firelight. “Sure. I miss Girl Scout cookies and coffee to go, thanksgiving and turkey pants.”
“What the hell are turkey pants?”
“You know. Giant, oversized trousers with a slack waist you wear when eating turkey so you can stuff in as much as possible.”
We both laugh. I’m amazed at how easy it is to be around him now, how much he has softened since we first encountered each other at Shipstern. I still haven’t forgotten the way his lips pressed against mine, literally breathing life back into my body. I’m starting to think I could benefit from something else of his being pressed into my body—deep, hard, sinking right to my sopping core.
Calm down, Lux. You need two to play that game.
I pick up my beer from the grass and take a swig.
Bo and Razor stand up. “We’re heading down to the bottlo. Want anything?”
“The ‘bottlo’? I repeat, confused.
“Bottle shop, liquor store,” Razor corrects. “Fucking Australians, man. They shorten everything out here, always adding ‘o’s and shit. It’s fucking catchy.”
“Like Vegemite?” I query.
“Nectar of the gods,” smiles Razor.
“I thought that was Judie Myers’s pussy juice back in middle school,” laughs Bo, pushing his brother over.
Deacon throws a bottle at them from his chair. “Hey, there are ladies here.”
Bo pretends he’s looking around aimlessly. “Really? Can’t say I see any, not given the way everyone here surfs.”
Razor nods, looking at me. “I still think you’re packing a pair of billiard balls between those sweet legs of yours. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong. I’d show you, but somehow I don’t think you’ve ever seen a vagina.”
That gets them. They all explode with hysterics, Bo bent over slapping Razor’s back. “Only your fucking mother’s, bro.”
Deacon shakes his head. “She was your mother too.”
Bo looks up confused.
Deacon picks up another bottle, tosses it in their direction. “Just get the fuck out of here, will you?”
The two brothers go off giggling and shoving one another.
Deacon and I sit there silently watching the fire for a while.
Finally, I break the silence. “You really care for them, don’t you?”
He kicks a can into the fire. “Who, Dumb and Dumber?”
I tuck my legs up under myself. “You’re not fooling me. You’re soft as cotton candy under all that muscle and bravado.”
He glances down between his legs. “You sure?”
I push away the thought of his hard cock. “You’re deflecting again.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.” I shift in my chair again, an odd heat gathering between my legs that has nothing to do with the fire. “I dig it, you know.”
“Dig it like Samuel L. Jackson digs it?”
“I respect what you’re doing,” I correct. “It can’t have been easy.”
He takes a pull of his beer. “It wasn’t. You ask a lot of questions.”
“You told me you prefer women of action.”
He looks across. “I do.”
The air’s electric between us, charged. It would take seconds to close the distance between us, to jump into this lap and take his zipper down, kiss him while he slowly slides himself inside me.
Holy Horndog, Batman.
Why do I feel like this? Why this man? This… I don’t know what he is. A trouble-maker, someone who’s lost their way, a vagabond, family patriarch? It seems I still haven’t met the true Deacon Hunt and until I do I’m better off not allowing myself to fall for him, to take those final steps towards hot, skin-on-skin sex only a bad boy alpha male like him can deliver.
The moment passes and we resume watching the fire.
I don’t know what I see in those flames, perhaps my old life burning away, the last embers of it trying to stay alive but soon to be snuffed out. For the first time in a long time I truly don’t know what tomorrow will bring only that I’m excited to find out.
*
We train in the pool in the morning, the brothers deciding it’s too flat to head out and instead standing on the sidelines hollering and heckling.
It doesn’t stop as we head back inside. Bo and Razor decide to fight it out in darts down at the pub. I’m exhausted. It seems all I want to do is sleep these days—train all day, work all night. It’s taking it out of me.
You could have done this back home, you know?
There’s no Deacon back home, my mind retorts, my clit twitching in agreement.
“I’m going to hang here,” says Deacon. “I’ll be in my room. Oh, and Lux.” He taps a piece of paper on the table. “Someone named Jason called earlier this morning, left his number if you need it.”
Bo makes kissing sounds… before Deacon clips him in the ear.
“Keep walking, fucker.”
I watch two brothers go out the window, wait for Deacon’s door to close before dialing the number.
As before, the ringtone seems endless before Jason picks up.
“Jason, hi,” I start, sure to keep my voice as quiet as possible.
“Luxy Lux. How you been?”
“Good. Really good. What you got for me?”
He huffs. “So, I had a look into your boys.”
“And?”
“Ain’t nobody by those names ever lived in Newport, let alone California. I searched cross-checked ‘Razor’, ‘Bo’ and ‘Deacon’, but the only matches were for a Deacon Hunt in Alabama, and he died in 1977. I can’t imagine that’s who you’re looking for.”
I’m practically whispering, phone cupped close to my mouth. “So they’re ghosts. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“That’s what I’m telling you. Whoever these guys are, they’re hiding something. The problem’s what, and why.”
“Thanks. I’ll look into it.”
“Anything else I can help you with?”
“A couple of Baby Ruths would be nice.”
“They don’t have chocolate over there?”
“They don’t seem to share our fascination with peanut-chocolate treats, sadly.”
“I’ve always wanted to visit Australia, you know. Seen any kangaroos?”
I laugh. “The only furry creatures you’ll find around here live down at the pub.”
“The pub?”
“The bar.” Jesus, this place really is starting to take me over.
“Right. You stay safe, you hear.”
“I will,” but even as I say it I can’t help the small pang of suspicion that’s begun to grow inside me.