CHAPTER EIGHTEEN | DESIREE
I propped my elbows on the metal railing that surrounded the apartment balcony and I leaned forward, breathing in the warm night air.
Summer was already fading away. The weather was already starting to shift towards fall, and the days were getting shorter and shorter. Even the sun setting in the bright orange sky somehow seemed further away than it had been the night before.
I took in another deep breath, wishing that I could hold the sweet smell of summer in my lungs forever… but knowing that I couldn’t stop it from slipping away.
That’s the bittersweet thing about loving something, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter what you love, or how much you love it… it’s always bound to leave you eventually.
All good things must come to an end.
I sealed my eyes shut and thought about Rory. He had slipped away, too… just like summertime.
But now he’s back...
The sliding glass door eased open behind me, and I quickly blinked open my eyes and released the breath that I was holding in my lungs.
“Charlie is out like a light!” Rory announced as he stepped out onto the balcony and slid the glass door shut behind him. “I had to carry her to bed. I can’t even remember the last time she zonked out before 8 p.m.”
“Well, it has been a pretty eventful night!” I grinned. “Making pancakes for dinner, introducing me to her entire Barbie collection, singing Frozen karaoke… and then there was that impromptu Wii Sports Resort showdown!”
“Yeah, it got pretty intense towards the end…”
“Pretty intense?” I chuckled. “Your daughter plays Wii table tennis like she’s training for the Olympics!”
“Charlie can get a little competitive,” Rory conceded with a proud grin. “I’m just glad she finally found someone who can give her a run for her money in the Speed Slice competition. My sword skills aren’t what they used to be, and I think she was starting to get a big head from always beating her old man…”
“Wait… were you actually trying to win?” I raised my eyebrows in amusement. “I thought you were just going easy on her!”
“Hey now,” Rory made a playful tut. “Slicing food objects with a giant sword is a very specific skill…”
“A skill you need to improve, apparently,” I teased, nudging my shoulder gently into his.
My shoulder barely grazed him, but that contact was enough to ignite a spark; a bolt of white, sizzling electricity that tingled through my veins and jolted down my spine.
I shivered awkwardly and leaned forward on the balcony railing again, redirecting my eyes out towards the setting sun.
“You’ve got a great view out here,” I said, trying to make smalltalk. Rory didn’t respond. He remained silent as he eased beside me, leaning forward on the railing so that our elbows were inches apart.
“This is a really cool apartment,” I tried again. “You did a good job, finding this place.”
Rory ignored my second attempt at smalltalk. I could feel his eyes shift towards me, and the heat radiating from his giant, Wrestlemania-worthy bicep felt hotter than the sun.
“Hey,” he said softly.
“Hey,” I whispered back, turning my head so I could gaze up at him.
Those eyes… those lips… my heart was beating itself to a pulp.
“I think I owe you an explanation,” he said.
“About your Wii Sports Resort performance?” I tried to tease, but the joke fell flat.
“About Charlie,” he said. “I should have told you that I had a daughter. I didn’t plan on you finding out like this…”
‘Like this.’
My brain raced backwards, retracing the events of the last few hours like a VHS tape slowly rewinding until I found myself back at the very beginning.
When I had knocked on Rory’s front door hours earlier, I had no idea what would be waiting for me on the other side.
I had no idea that a little girl in a pink dress would greet me by name. I had no idea that our dinner date for two would become a party of three.
I had no idea that we would spend the night cooking homemade pancakes, or playing with Barbie dolls, or singing Frozen karaoke, or getting embroiled in a dramatic Wii battle…
I had no idea that Rory McAlister had a daughter…
That revelation was crazy mind-blowing all on its own. It should have hit my brain like an atomic bomb, exploding in a mushroom cloud of questions and feelings and emotions… but the night had flown by so quickly that I hadn’t had a spare second to stop and stand still. Between the pancakes and karaoke, I hadn’t had a chance to let the reality sink in.
Now we were alone for the first time, and there was nothing but silence and time standing still.
I closed my eyes and leaned into the silence, expecting the dam to break and flood my brain with all of those feelings and emotions, or an onslaught of urgent questions that needed urgent answers...
But when I closed my eyes, I didn’t find my head spinning with any of those thoughts or questions. Instead, I just saw Rory.
I saw the way Rory’s entire demeanor changed when he was around his daughter. His face lit up, his voice raised three octaves, and his eyes sparkled… he was crazy about her.
I flicked open my eyes, then glanced up at Rory.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. “Did you think you’d scare me off? Did you think I’d run for the hills if I found out you have a daughter?”
I was half joking, half sincere.
Rory’s face darkened and he stared silently out into space for several seconds before he answered,
“When I found you that day at the high school, I felt like I was fifteen years old again. All of the feelings came rushing back, like those eleven years had never happened,” he hesitated, then continued, “Like we could be us again…”
“But then I called you a ‘stranger’ in the ambulance,” I recalled, grimacing as I remembered the harsh things I had said to Rory.
He nodded slowly.
“I couldn’t bring myself to tell you that you were right,” he admitted. “I wanted to be the person you remembered… but I was just a stranger. When I left Hartford, I also left behind the person I used to be.”
“It’s been eleven years,” I reminded him. “Nobody stays fifteen forever. People grow up and change over time.”
“I didn’t just change, Des,” Rory shook his head. “I lived a completely different life in Boston.”
“That doesn’t make you a stranger. I shouldn’t have said that. I was just upset, and--”
“It was the truth. I have baggage, Des. I have a daughter…”
“Everyone has baggage!” I said. “Yours happens to be adorable and sweet.”
We were both silent for several seconds, staring out as the sun set lower and lower over the horizon and the sky slowly darkened.
“I always knew you’d make a great dad,” I said.
“Really?” he looked surprised.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “You see things that most people miss. I used to think that you could read my mind, because you always seemed to know what I was thinking or feeling. You cared… you made me feel so safe when everything else in my life was in a state of total chaos.”
Rory said nothing, so I continued,
“You were so protective, too,” I said. “You always guarded the things you cared about. Like me. You protected me from everything… you even tried to protect me from yourself.”
He swallowed heavily, glaring down at the parking lot below us.
“You never let me see the pain or the hurt you felt inside,” I continued. “You never told me about what happened inside that house. You never told me about the awful things your mother and stepfather used to do to you. You always tried to hide the cuts and bruises from me…”
“Des…”
“You thought I couldn’t handle it,” I said softly. “You thought you’d scare me off…”
I swayed gently towards Rory, letting my arm nudge against his again. This time, I didn’t sway away. His biceps and forearms were completely covered in a dense jungle of tattoos; vibrant images that were overlapping and interwoven together to conceal the scars of a previous life.
“I was poisonous, Des,” he muttered softly, his words disappearing into the night air. “I didn’t want to poison you, too.”
“No…” I shook my head. “You didn’t trust that I could love all of you; the dark pieces and the light.”
I reached my hand out and let my fingers land gently on his skin, tracing the ink lines. His skin was static to my fingertips; smooth and hot and charged with electricity that flowed out of his body and into mine.
My fingers wandered along the designs, sliding easily over his smooth skin until I hit a raised spot. Rory immediately tensed, sucking in a breath and tightening his grip on the balcony railing.
I kept my fingers over the scar, tracing it gently. It was round and raised; a tiny circle of wrinkled skin, hidden underneath a tattoo of a rose.
“You got this scar that night,” I said. “I remember asking you about it at the park… but you wouldn’t tell me what happened.”
Rory stood perfectly still, head bowed and eyes staring blankly at nothing.
“How did you get this scar, Rory?”
His jaw clenched and his breathing grew heavier. He pressed his eyes shut again.
“I came home late that night. They were already passed out on the couch,” he said, forming each word precisely. “I should have just gone to bed. I should have just kept my head down… but I couldn’t ignore the bruises he had given my mother.”
A lump swelled in the back of my throat. I eased closer to Rory, pressing myself against him as his shoulders started to sink.
“She had a black eye,” he said. “I don’t know why, but I snapped. I accused him of hitting her… and then he threw me against the wall and pressed his cigarette into my arm.”
“Your mother didn’t try to stop him?”
“She was just laughing her ass off the whole time,” Rory shook his head. “Meth is one hell of a drug, right?”
Rory opened his eyes and stared up at the sky. The sun had mostly disappeared, and the sky was fading slowly to purple.
I traced my fingers around the rose design again, feeling the soft crease of the cigarette burn.
“Too bad tattoos can only hide so much, right?” he said grimly, glancing down at the scar. “People can tell as soon as they look at me that I’m damaged goods.”
“No,” I shook my head, circling it with my finger. “You don’t need to hide anything, Rory. These scars don’t mean that you’re broken… they’re proof that you’re strong. They’re proof that you fought back.”
I held his arms between my two hands and leaned forward, pressing my lips over the raised scar.
Rory’s body didn’t tense this time. Instead, his shoulders started to ease apart and he released his white-knuckled grip on the balcony railing.
I didn’t pull back. My lips followed the trail of scars and tattoos that decorated Rory’s arm, kissing every place he’d been hurt before…
When I reached the sleeve of his black t-shirt, I felt his hands slip around my waist and guide me towards him.
Electric chills rattled through my body as I felt the firmness of his rock-hard chest press against mine. His heat spread through me like a wildfire, rushing straight between my legs. I felt myself throbbing for him; burning from head to toe with a desire I had never felt before.
I wanted him. I wanted all of him. Every cell in my body was consumed by an intense, burning need; a need that burned straight through any shyness or inhibition.
I could tell that he felt it, too. His breathing was strained and his eyes were devouring me… but still, he was holding back; still resisting.
Why?
“It’s hot out here,” he said finally. “We should cool down.”
“Oh… do you want to go back inside?”
“Not yet,” he shook his head. “Actually… I have a better idea.”