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if that’s what you think.”
I purse my lips, unconvinced, as I lay my cheek against my knee. “You should take this opportunity to run as far away from me as you can.”
He lays his palm on the side of my face and strokes my cheekbone with his thumb. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily. You still owe me something.” He sweeps my hair over my shoulder then lightly traces a heart on my back.
I close my eyes as he slides over to sit behind me. His legs stretch out on either side of my hips as he rubs my shoulders. I keep my eyes tightly shut as I try to ignore the tingling between my legs when his hand touches my butt as he adjusts his crotch.
“I’m… I’m thirsty. It’s really hot in here.”
He kisses the back of my neck before he scoots off the bed. “I’ll get you some water.”
As he walks out of the bedroom, Jo pops into my head. I wouldn’t have the day off today if it weren’t for her willing to switch shifts with me. I should go thank her again. No, I’m just looking for an excuse to get out of this apartment.
I tap my foot on the mattress as I wait impatiently, but after ten minutes I begin to worry. Then the smell of smoke makes my nose perk up and my body tense.
I scramble off the bed and slip on my flip-flops before I head out to the kitchen. Adam is standing in the kitchen blowing smoke out through the window above the sink. He holds a plastic blue bong in his right hand and a lighter in his left. I walk into the kitchen and he smiles at me.
“Sorry, I should have brought the water first. It’s right there.” He nods toward a tall glass of ice water on the counter, but I don’t pick it up.
He’s a pothead. That’s what he smokes every night.
He sets the bong and the lighter down on the counter and I glimpse a tattoo on the left side of his chest: Ride it out. The letters are written in dripping block text beneath a tattoo of a compass. The inner part of the compass is filled with brilliant blue waves. The water is his compass. I want to touch it, but I’m too peeved by the fact that he’s a pothead.
“I should go,” I say as I turn toward the door and, as expected, he grabs my hand.
“Hey, are you pissed that I didn’t bring your water or that I’m smoking?”
“Neither,” I say, without looking at him.
He reaches up and turns my face toward him. Even through the haze of smoke in the kitchen, he still looks beautiful.
“Don’t go.”
I close my eyes to block out the sight of his perfect lips and the slight pinkness in the whites of his eyes.
“I’m sorry, this is going to sound totally lame, but I can’t date a pothead. My mom died of a drug overdose. And I know weed is nothing like heroin, but I promised myself a long time ago that I would never get involved with someone who does drugs. I’m sorry.”
I pull his hand off my face and turn to leave once more. He clambers around me and blocks the front door. His smile is gone and I can only imagine how I must be killing his high.
“I only smoke after work and sometimes on the weekend. It’s not a debilitating addiction, but I can understand why you might feel hesitant. What if I promise never to smoke around you?”
The smell of the smoke on his breath is starting to turn me off and I instantly shake my head.
“All right, come with me,” he says, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the bedroom. “Just go sit in there and I’ll be right back.”
I sigh as I trudge back into the bedroom and sit on the edge of the bed. The faucet turns on in the bathroom and I imagine he’s probably in there brushing his teeth and gargling some minty mouthwash. He finally comes back and I can smell the mouthwash as he sits next to me without saying anything.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
He finally smiles and grabs my hand. “You wanted to know why I left Wilmington to come here.” He takes a deep breath and stretches his neck before he continues. “I almost killed someone three months ago.”
I want to pull my hand out of his, but now I’m afraid of what he’ll do. “What do you mean by almost?”
“I told you I have—had problems controlling my temper. It started after I quit competing two years ago. Instead of getting depressed, I got angry.”
He squeezes my hand tighter. Between this and the look Jo gave me when she offered to take my shift, I’m beginning to understand that we all must be walking around with secrets that eat away at us, driving us to do foolish things in the name of keeping those secrets buried.
“I caught my ex making out with some guy outside her apartment,” he continues. “I went there to surprise her when she thought I was in class and I saw her pinned against her front door with this guy’s hand in her crotch. I fucking flipped. I just kept pummeling the shit out of him. I couldn’t stop. I took court-ordered anger management classes then I moved here. Some crazy idea that being closer to the water would help.” He’s squeezing my hand too hard now and I wriggle my fingers to loosen his grip. He brings my knuckles to his lips and kisses me as he looks up. “I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to lose your mom that way.”
Something about the way his eyebrows crinkle together makes me lose it. “I didn’t know she was dead. Well, I didn’t want to accept it. I convinced myself that she was just sleeping… for more than thirty hours. The neighbor, who my mother had led me to believe was my grandmother, came by to drop off some food and found my mom. The cops found me hiding in the nook between the refrigerator and the wall. That was where my mom always told me to hide whenever her dealer came over or when she left me home alone so she could score a fix. That was where I felt safe.”
He wraps his arm around my shoulder and I slump over, burying my face in my hands. I wish I could tell him everything that happened since that day; everything up until the day I moved into this apartment. Maybe he would understand. No, he couldn’t. It’s been months and even I don’t understand.
“Every night, when I go to sleep, there’s one memory I hold onto and relive in my mind—every single night.” I look up and into his face, willing myself not to cry. “The week before she died, she invited a man over—not to have sex or anything; he was just a friend she invited over once in a while. They were sitting on the sofa talking while I was watching cartoons, pretending not to listen to their conversation, and the man said something I’ll never forget. He said, ‘Life is only as hard as you make it, Kell. You have to let go of the past or keep carrying it on your back like a fucking pile of bricks.’” I take a deep breath as I remember how seven-year-old me had smiled when he cursed. “Redneck wisdom, but I took it to heart.”
“So that’s why you moved here? To let go of your past?” I nod and he smiles at me. “I guess we both had to lose something to find each other.”
I stare at the sweet smile on his face for a moment before my gaze falls to the tattoo on his chest. Then I glance at the glass of ice water on the nightstand and back to his face. He followed the direction of his compass to the water and it brought him to me.
I don’t want to feel this way about Adam. I don’t want to move on from what happened so quickly. I’m supposed to wallow in self-pity or denial for a long time. That’s how these things work. This feels wrong and fast, like I’m barreling down a hill in a car with no brakes. I’m going to crash and body parts are going to fly—in particular, hearts. I can feel it.
But I don’t care.
I grab handfuls of his hair and pull his face toward me, mashing his lips against mine as I climb onto his lap. His tongue searches my mouth as his arms wrap around my waist pulling me against him. I reach down to pull my dress up and he grabs my hands.
“Wait,” he whispers as he rests his forehead against mine and pulls my hands together in front of his chest. “I don’t want you to do this if you’re not ready.”
“I’m ready,” I respond quickly, but he doesn’t let go of my hands.
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Claire, I’m stone
d and even I can see that you’re not ready.”
He lets go of my hands and my fists fall softly against his chest. He kisses the tip of my nose and I press my lips together to hide my smile.
“This is pretty,” I say as I bring my fingertip to the top of his tattoo and trace the circular compass.
He draws in a sharp breath as his skin prickles with goose bumps. “That’s what I was going for. I told the tattoo artist, ‘Give me your prettiest tattoo,’ and it was either this or a pink butterfly. The butterfly’s on my ass.”
“I want one.”
“You want a tattoo or a tattoo artist?”
I rake my fingers over his chest and up to his collarbone before I wrap my arms around neck. “Can you take me to get one?”
“I don’t know. I think I’ve already been a bad enough influence on you.”
“Please. You have this cool little mantra right over your heart. I have a mantra, too.”
He cocks an eyebrow as he leans in to kiss my jaw. “What’s your mantra?”
“You’re not going to like it. Nobody likes it. I got it from a book on Buddhism. Not that I’m Buddhist, I just read a couple of books and this one sentence sort of stuck with me.”
His lips trace a light trail down to my neck and I have to stop myself from grinding against him. “Just spit it out.”
I draw in a sharp breath as his tongue slides across my collarbone and he lays a soft kiss on my shoulder. “I am in training to be nobody special,” I whisper.
He freezes for a moment then looks up at me. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’m not fighting the tide trying to be something great or memorable. I am in training to be nobody special. I go with the flow or, as you might say, I’m riding it out.”
He chuckles as he shakes his head. “You’re right. I hate it.”
“Hey! I didn’t talk trash about your mantra.”
“That’s because mine’s awesome,” he says as his fingers roam over my back.
“Ride it out? Oh, how profound.”
“And aiming to be nobody special is profound? It’s not profound, it’s depressing. Besides, you could never be nobody special.”
Chapter Ten
Relentless Laughter
Adam stops by the café every single day this week on his way to work, as if to prove that ignoring me all last week was just a fluke and that he’s taking his stalker gig seriously. The best part of his visits is how much Linda and my coworkers like him. He actually convinced Linda to let him give her a lesson in how to dance Gangnam Style in front of six other customers. Watching Adam and my boss groovin’ out in the middle of the café caused major swoonage. Despite these picture perfect morning meetings, I have yet to see Adam after work.
“I’m telling you, he’s a male stripper and he doesn’t want you to see him come home covered in kiss marks and the stench of cheap perfume,” Senia says, twisting open a bottle of Coke for us to drink with the pizza we ordered.
“He’s not a stripper. He works for his dad’s construction company,” I say as I grab a slice of cheese pizza and the glass of soda Senia just poured for me. I lean back on the sofa and take a sip before I continue. “Then again, he does seem to be a good dancer.”
“You know what they say about good dancers.” She wiggles her eyebrows and I try not to blush.
