Kat
“Faínesai san pnigméno arouraío.”
These are the first words uttered by my father the moment Chase and I return to the deck. He doesn’t shout them. He waits for me to get close enough so only I can hear them. Loosely translated, he told me I looked like a drowned rat.
A rat.
That’s been drowned.
The second phrase floats into my ear as I pull Chase through the back door. “Kaneís den agapá arouraíous.” Nobody loves rats.
I seal my lips shut, knowing he doesn’t mean it when he says these things. It’s two o’clock, and he’s hammered. The bloodshot eyes had already begun to take shape when we arrived here earlier. Now, that devilish shade of red has metastasized to his cheeks and nose and is slowly spreading over the throbbing vein in his neck. That’s usually when the comments start. Tiny tidbits many people wouldn’t notice but slice like a knife nonetheless. This was the reason I wanted Chase with me. For some stupid reason, I thought my dad would behave.
The man has problems. I know this. From a very young age, I learned the difference. I’d see the veil fall over his face as he changed from caring and kind to mean and cruel. A Jekyll and Hyde transformation I hid from in my room for most of my childhood.
Mamá took the brunt of it. She’d cry and clean up the shattered shards of whatever he broke during his nightly rampage. Then in the morning, he’d wake up with no memory of the night before, sick and sorry, promising he’d never do it again. It’s an illness. One none of us were immune to. No. We all were forced to suffer the symptoms, but I’m the only one still dealing with them.
Athena cranes her neck, watching us approach. The look on her face tells me she understands the one written on mine. She and I have an unspoken connection. Our fathers were more than twins; they were the same damn person. I’ll never forget the day my uncle died. It didn’t matter that he literally drank himself to death. I was still convinced my father was next. Athena, then nineteen, sat staring at the wall while I cried on the couch next to her. Would it really be the worst thing in the world, Katarina?
At the time, I was furious. How could she say that? It would be the most heinous tragedy of my life! A girl needs her daddy. He may not be perfect, but he’s the only one I have.
I reach for another wineglass and give myself a heavy-handed pour. “We need to get out of here.”
“You just got back, Kitty. Where do you wanna go?” Athena scurries around the kitchen, filling plates with the leftover lunch. I don’t know why. It’s not like I’m going to eat any of it. She drops one in front of Chase, who looks down at it with an inquisitive gaze. Not enough lettuce, I guess.
“You don’t have to eat that.”
“No, it smells good,” Chase replies. “What is it?”’
“This” —I point at the flaky piece of pastry sitting on the dish— “is Spanakopita. Basically, it’s just spinach pie. It’s, like, spinach, cheese, and onions and shit. Might be too heavy for your delicate palate. Here,” —I slide an ancient white Pyrex dish across the counter— “have a meatball.”
I swallow a sip of wine and turn back to Athena. “Giagiá will watch the kids.”
“Kitty . . .”
“Come on; you never go out.” Our eyes lock. Get me out of this house before he gets worse.
“All right,” she concedes. “Let me go talk to Alex.”
The warbling of a menopausal woman greets us at the door of Babbling Brooke’s Karaoke Bar. The rhinestones dappling her sweatshirt and stretch pants twinkle in the Christmas lights strung over the makeshift stage. A yech sound rattles the back of my throat. “As if Alanis Morissette herself isn’t bad enough,” I add, pointing gun fingers at my own head.
“C’mon, it will be fun!” Athena shouts over the whining woman up front. “You said if we went out, I could pick the place.”
“But karaoke? Really? It’s so cheesy!”
As if on cue, the MC picks up her microphone to announce the next singer. “Next, we have Rocco singing ‘New York, New York.’”
“A guy named Rocco singing a Frank Sinatra song? That’s a new one,” I grumble, dropping onto an empty barstool. “If he’s wearing a sweat suit and a gold chain, I’m outta here.”
Chase leans in, pressing his palm against the bare skin of my upper back. “What do you want?” The crisp fragrance of his cologne and warmth of his hand sends a shiver down my spine. I take it back—I love it here. It’s my favorite place in the whole world.
The scandalous thoughts that pop in my brain are too hot for TV. They’re more like the “direct to video” type of filth. I rest my fingers on his thigh to steady myself as I move closer. “Sex on the Beach.”
He cocks his head, the corner of his wicked mouth curling into a smirk. When he bends in again, the scratch of day-old stubble scrapes against my cheek, and my thighs go up in flames. “You sure you want to mix liquor and wine?”
“Sometimes a girl just needs something stiff.”
I don’t need to hear his groan. I feel it blow across my earlobe. Another chill slithers through my body. When he pulls back, his lip ring is lodged between his teeth. It pops out slowly, a sheen of saliva glittering his bow tie lips.
“Sex on the Beach and a club soda with lime, please,” he shouts at the bartender. I see her gaze drop to his chest then slowly ascend back to his face. Skank. Who can blame her, though? Chase’s lean frame fills out a tight T-shirt with stunning precision. The thin cotton material hugs the defined muscles as if it loves them, but my favorite part is the way his sinewy bicep bursts from the sleeve in full Technicolor.
“Two beers,” Alex barks over my head. Athena’s husband is cool, but such a colossal nerd. Until you get a couple of beers in him, that is. Then he turns into Don Rickles. It drives Athena crazy.
After a few drinks, the intimate shudder becomes a full-blown pounding. Chase’s lips skim my ear every time he tries to talk to me. I’m this close to climbing on his lap and grinding out the beat to “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” against his cock. I need a distraction. “Athena! Grab me that book and a signup sheet.”
With a tipsy grin, she hands over the songbook and a blunt-ended mini pencil. I flip through the pages, knowing exactly what song I intend to request. Cupping my hand over the scrap of paper, I jot down the coordinating numbers and hand it to the bartender. This is going to be so awesome.
“What song did you put on?” Athena asks.
A devious grin rolls across my face when the MC takes the request sheet and lifts her mic. “Up next we’ve got . . . Neck Tattoo?”
Chase’s jaw drops, and his eyes widen. “Tell me you didn’t . . .”
“Singing ‘Let’s Get It On’ by Marvin Gaye!”
“No one’s gonna stop you now, dude!” I choke between gasping rounds of maniacal laughter. A little booze has a way of intensifying funny. A lot of it makes this shit hysterical.
“I’m not doing this alone!” He grasps my wrist and begrudgingly shuffles toward the stage. As the first notes boom overhead, the words appear on the screen before us. The bright, blinding light shining into my eyes doesn’t help the case of double vision that started two drinks ago.
Wow—I’m a lot drunker than I thought.
The little ball bounces over the words. I stand there trying to make sense of it, but it all flies out the window as soon as Chase opens his mouth. This is not the part of the story where I regale you with tales of secret talents and all that jazz—the boy legit cannot sing to save his life—but as the words leave his lips, they wind around me in a haze of lust that renders me stupid.
Aqua eyes shift from the monitor and land on me as he growls out the chorus. It’s not funny anymore. I lit the fuse on a bomb that blew up in my face. Or, in this case, my panties.
Chase’s knee slips between mine, his hand slides to the small of my back, all the while still mumbling into the microphone the lyrics to a song I never found quite this sensual before.
Dammit.
I said he couldn't sing, and that much is true. Dancing, however? That’s another story. The way he rolls his hips, I have no doubt in my mind that he feels the damp heat flooding my jeans.
When the song ends, he drops the mic to his side and stares down at me as if I’m the only one here. Warm wisps of breath trace my lips. He ducks his head coming mere millimeters from pressing our mouths together. “You’re up, pussy cat.”
“Huh?”
The crowd offers up some lackluster applause as Chase jumps off the stage and the MC starts announcing the next singer. “Thank you, Neck Tattoo! Next, we have Kat with ‘I Touch Myself’ by the Divinyls.”
Still drunk on desire and copious amounts of vodka, I forgot where we were. Athena sits off to the side laughing her ass off, presumably for choosing the most embarrassing song in the catalog.
Once more the little ball begins to bounce. It’s kill or be killed, and I can give as good as I get. That’s the beauty of alcohol. Feelings of shame fly right out the window because you can always blame the buzz for your questionable behavior.
My hips find the beat and rock side to side as my shaky voice mewls out the words. I look beyond the brilliant light to focus on the crowd of people, but all I see is Chase. Everyone else has disappeared. Pale irises glare at me through thick lashes. Amazing how bright they are, shining in the darkened bar like azure stars. I lose myself in the song and in Chase. My fingertips skim across my stomach and down to the apex of my thighs.
A blue flame bursts in Chase’s sober gaze. His twitching tongue fervently flicks the ring in his face. He storms the stage and grasps my wrists. The mic slips from my fingers and tumbles onto the carpeted plywood with a resonating thud.
With manic eyes, he curls his hand around my jaw. “Fuck, Kat,” he growls, pinning me against the wall with my arms above my head. “What are you doing to me?” I feel his solid arousal press into my stomach. My lips part with shallow breaths.
“You guys wanna take this outside?” The MC’s voice steals Chase’s attention. Remorse shows through the lust shadowing his face. He backs off, collecting his surroundings, before darting out the side door.
The quiet in the room is all-consuming. I don’t recall a point when the music faded out, but the sounds of my raging heartbeat and the soft murmurs of one hundred voices is all I hear.
Spinning on my heel, I stumble a bit then follow Chase’s route outside. Sky-high wedge sandals beat the pavement. “Chase!” I call, whipping my head from side to side.
“Yeah.” He steps out from between two cars, his baritone low and filled with anguish.
I stalk toward him, chucking my thumb over my shoulder. “What the fuck was that in there?”
He shrugs. “A prime example of that big old mess I warned you about earlier.”
“I don’t understand what this is, Chase.” I circle my finger between us. “Are we friends? Are we more? You tell me one thing, but your body language tells me another, and I can’t take the games. What is it you want?”
“Nothing! Everything! I don’t know!” He crouches down, his head hanging in his hands. “I’m just . . . stuck. I lost the love of my life. I lost everything.”
“Lost her?”
The destroyed look on his face is a dagger slicing my chest wide open. “When she died two years ago, she took my heart with her to the grave. It’s no longer mine to give out.”
“This is why you haven’t been with anybody.”
It’s more of a statement to myself than anything, but he nods in agreement. “I can’t move on. Because I’m not ready to say goodbye.”
“Chase . . .” There are so many things I want to say. A million questions burn on my tongue, but now is not the time. Instead, I fall to my knees and pull him close, just like he did for me when I got the call from Nikos. Quivering fingers ball the back of my shirt as his sadness crashes down around me.
When I fell apart, Chase was the one who put me back together. Now, it’s my turn to do the same for him.