Tied

What I wouldn’t do to feel her hands on me. Just once, even for sixty seconds. Fuck, I’d settle for ten seconds.

A gust of wind blows, and she hugs herself against it as we walk around the garage to the side door and step inside, but I don’t go to my workbench like I normally do. Usually, she likes to sit on a mat on the floor, play with Poppy and Boomer, and watch me work, but today I don’t have much work to do, and I’d rather be inside with the fire going, just chilling. I’m getting sick of spending all my time with her in my workshop-slash-garage, surrounded by tools, weights, lawn equipment, and my collection of horror masks. The thing is, she’s never been inside my house because she’s afraid of small spaces after being kept in a room for ten years. My house is tiny, just three hundred square feet, with only one way in and one way out. A claustrophobic’s worst nightmare.

“You feelin’ good today?” I ask her casually, leaning against my workbench.

She smiles. “Yeah, I’m happy.”

“I want to go in the house.” I say.

She stares up at me and, as usual, my eyes take a sweep of her, wearing jeans with tattered holes in the knees, black boots, a soft sweater, and a leather jacket that’s more stylish than warm. I’m struck by how incredibly beautiful and normal she looks, like any other girl hanging out with her friends, and it makes me believe she’s going to be okay out in the world. Her damage is easier to hide than mine. It’s not until the long sleeves are gone, and the sun sets, that glimpses of her reality come to light.

“Oh,” she says. “I can go home then. I can call a taxi…”

“No… I want you to come with me.” Her eyes narrow on me as she absorbs the words she’s never heard from me before. I wonder if she’s been hoping for them or dreading them.

She looks out the window toward the house, worry creasing her brow.

“Holly…it’s okay if you don’t want to. I’ll take you home. But there’s a fireplace in my house, it’s warm, you can sit on the couch and be comfortable—instead of on the ground. I’m a little tired of you sitting in the dirt every time you’re here.”

Torment flashes all over her face, the fight-or-flight instinct kicking in. Her teeth clamp on her bottom lip, her pink lipstick smudging her perfect white teeth. It only makes me want to kiss her and smudge it even more. She has no idea she makes me feel this way, and it’s real innocence, not that fake clueless act some women put on in an effort to flirt.

“How about this,” I say as softly as I can force my voice to be without it fading to inaudible hisses. “You go inside first. I’ll wait here. Look around. Leave the front door open. You won’t feel trapped. See how you feel. If you don’t like, just come back out.”

“Really? I can do that?” she asks.

I nod.

She takes a few deep breaths, her chest going up and down.

“Okay. I’m going to try it,” she finally says. “You’ll stay right here? You won’t move? You promise?”

“Promise.”

She takes two steps and turns back to me. “Is anyone in there?”

“Nobody. I live alone.”

I watch from the garage window as she walks toward my house, with the dogs following her, opens my front door, stands on the threshold for a few minutes, looks back toward the garage, and disappears inside.

She’s braver than I am, confronting her fears. Unlike me, hiding from the world like a pussy.

My cell phone rings, and I pull it out of my pocket to see Holly’s number on the screen.

“You okay?”

“Yes,” she says. “Your house is so cute and cozy. But…where is the rest of it?”

I laugh into the phone. “What?”

“The other rooms? How do I get to them?”

“There aren’t any more rooms. Just the bedroom loft upstairs. Use the stairs to go up there and look around. It’s one room with a bed, some drawers under the bed, and a small window. Nothing else.”

“I don’t think I want to go up there.”

“Then you don’t have to.”

“Where is the basement?”

“Don’t have one.”

There’s a long silence as she contemplates whether this could be true.

“You’re sure?” she asks suspiciously. “There’s no rooms under the house?”

“No lie. Cross my heart.”

Another long silence, except for the sound of her breathing.

“I think I’m okay. You can come in now.”

“You sure? You can have more time.”

“No. I’m okay.”

I end the call with a grin on my face that comes partly from being proud of her and partly from finally having her in my house and being able to smell her perfume in my personal space.

When I go inside, I find her sitting in the small leather chair right by the door with Poppy on her lap.

“I’m sorry, Ty.” She says, looking down at the dog.

“For?”

Her shoulder lifts in a slight shrug. “Being difficult.”

I take off my leather jacket and hang it on a metal skull hook by the door. “You’re not. I’m trying to help you, that’s all,” I hold my hand out to her. “Take your jacket off, I’ll hang it up with mine.”

“Are you stray catting me?” she asks, pulling off her jacket. “Is that why you asked me to come inside?” She chooses to shove her jacket behind her on the chair rather than give it to me, and I know that’s because she feels safer having it with her, in case she has to run. I’d guess she probably lifted one of my kitchen knives, too, and has it hidden on her someplace.

Shaking my head, I go to the small kitchenette and put some water in a teapot to boil. About a week ago, she told me her stray cat obligation theory, worried I’m only hanging out with her because I feel sorry for her because no one else wants to. In true me fashion, I shot back that maybe she’s only hanging out with me because I saved her life and now she has the white-knight syndrome.

Insecurity eats at both of us.

“Don’t fish,” I say.

“Fish?” Her nose crinkles with confusion, something she does that pisses me off with its cuteness. There are so many little things about her that just get to me lately, that make me smile when I don’t want to, that make me fight to focus on what she’s talking about rather than getting lost in the shape of her lips. Even the way she talks nonstop sometimes, like a song in my head that, even though I’ve heard it a hundred times, still puts me in a good mood.

“Fishing for verification.” I pull two mugs from the cabinet and put tea bags in them. “Do you like milk and sugar in your tea?” I turn to face her, and she’s staring at me like she has no idea who I am.

“Holly?” Shit, I hope she’s not going to have a meltdown and pass out in the middle of my tiny living room. There’s really no way she can fall without banging her head on something on the way down.

“You’re making tea?” Her voice is laced with surprise.

“Is that okay?” Maybe tea is a trigger, something she was poisoned with in the past. One night, during our texts, she told me all about how that asshole who had her would put something in her water to make her fall asleep. It put me in such a rage I couldn’t sleep for two days. My inner demons were begging to get high or drunk, anything to numb the feelings battling inside me.

Instead, I drove to the city, to a dirty warehouse I’ve spent a lot of my time in since my second accident. Underground street fighting, my favorite stress and violence outlet. My brothers used to fight, too, to make extra money to help support Mom and the bike shop after Pop died. They quit fighting a few years back, but I’ve secretly kept going about once a month. I don’t do it for the money, though. I do it mostly for the self-punishment. I let my opponent beat the fuck out of me until the very end, and then I take him down. Ninety percent of the time, I win. Every opponent becomes the face of karma to me first, giving me what I deserve for destroying my family, and then my opponent morphs into the asshole that kidnapped and hurt Holly, and I get to beat the hell out of him all over again. This last time I didn’t have to worry about explaining cuts and bruises all over my face when I saw Holly the next day because I chose to not even let the guy get a punch in. I just pummeled him right from the start and walked out with two grand in dirty cash that reeked of weed.

I guess the thing about Holly that makes me the craziest is how being around her is like being on an emotional train, and every stop brings something new and unexpected. Happiness, fear, anger, care, desire. Unfortunately, the train doesn’t let me get off. I’ve got a one-way ticket to places I never wanted to visit again.

Or even thought I could visit.

“Tea is good. I like milk, sugar, and honey. And you should have honey, too,” she says. “I just didn’t know you made tea. It’s so…nice.” She says it with a hint of disbelief. “And verification of what?”

I’ve been so lost in my thoughts I have to back the conversation up in my mind to remember what we were talking about.

“Verification that I like being with you.”