“I try to be,” I answered her, heading over to the sink because I wasn’t sure I could recover from any more finger licking. “Some things are easier to be that way with than others.”
“I wish I could be that way,” she said, leaning into the counter beside the sink where I splashed water over my face until the water ran clear. She handed me a clean towel when I lifted my dripping face. “I’m sorry. Again. They’re infantile, but I love them.”
“It’s no biggie,” I said through the dishtowel. “They had to do what they could to intimidate me from making a move on you.”
When I tossed the towel aside, I saw she was looking at me in that intent way she could, without conveying a single emotion as to what she was feeling so intensely. “Were you planning on making a move on me?” she asked quietly.
If it wasn’t obvious to her by now, it never would be, and perhaps, after recent revelations, that was for the best. “Hell, Emma,” I said, unable to look into those eyes any longer. “After everything, I’m going to have to plead the fifth on that one.”
“Yeah,” she said, turning away and tossing the dirty towels to the side. “My favorite constitutional right, too.”
There was something sad in her voice and she wasn’t trying to hide it, but I didn’t know where that sadness stemmed from. And if I didn’t know the root of it, I couldn’t fix it. I hated not being able to fix something.
Opening the refrigerator door and investigating its next to non-existent contents, she said, “The guys are staying here tonight, but I can’t stand to spend the night here anymore.” She slammed the door closed again and turned to me empty handed. “Would you mind taking me home?”
I tilted my head in the direction of the front door. “Let’s go.”
She ducked out of the kitchen like it pained her to stay a moment longer.
“Mom?” Emma said in the next room. “Patrick’s going to take me back to my room. It was good seeing you.” She paused, waiting for a reply that would never come. “Take care of yourself, okay?”
Emma was tugging on her jacket when I rounded into the living room. Mrs. Scarlett was in the exact same place with the same dead face as when I’d arrived. I didn’t doubt if I came back in a few hours I’d find anything different.
“Thanks for having me over, Mrs. Scarlett,” I said, kneeling beside her. “Let’s do it again soon, okay?”
The screen door flapped shut, an empty patch of carpet where Emma had just been. She was in a hurry to leave, and she didn’t need to explain why.
I leaned closer to Mrs. Scarlett’s petrified form, resting my hand over hers folded in her lap. “You don’t have to worry about her,” I whispered, checking over my shoulder to make sure Emma hadn’t reappeared. “I’ll take care of her.”
I don’t know why I’d said it. I didn’t have a better reason than it just felt right at the time, but while the words coming from me had been unexpected, the response it elicited from Mrs. Scarlett was unexpected on a whole other level.
Her eyes flashed to mine, unblinking, watery eyes that paralyzed me. Her hand turned under mine, her fingers grasping mine in return.
“I know you will,” she said, her voice as hoarse as you’d expect someone’s to be after a night of silence. “You’re one of the good ones.” A trembling hand lifted to my face. “Stay that way.”
Her hand fell away, clenching back into her lap, at the same time her expression smoothed away. She was a zombie again, the lights of the television flashing like ghosts over her face.
It could have been another lapse in reality, and I would have written off the whole transaction as such had it not been for the chill that was still prickling over my cheeks.
“I will,” I vowed as I turned to leave.
She didn’t hear it, I could tell that right away, but I hadn’t said it to reassure her. I’d said it to remind myself.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Okay, I can’t take it any longer,” Emma shouted, her fingers punching at the Mustang’s CD player like she couldn’t turn it off quickly enough. “Mercy, mercy, mercy,” she hollered as the second chorus of We Built This City vibrated at top volume through the car.
“Impressive,” I hollered over the music, fumbling around her spider fingers until I punched the disc skip button. “I didn’t even make it to the chorus the first time I heard that one.”
When two minutes of awkward silence passed after we’d left the Scarlett house, I proposed a game of Hell on Wheels because I couldn’t take wasting any time I had with her in silence.
It was a game devised by Joseph and me after about going mad three hours down an Oklahoma highway, facing another four more of the same, flat, scenic-impaired stretch. We loaded up a shopping cart of CDs that should have been a capital crime to record and took turns playing the most ear damaging songs known to man. There wasn’t a shortage. Whoever was the first to call mercy was a stinky tube sock. Juvenile, but fun.
I kept the storage container of abominations in the car for long journeys or, in this case, long silences.
Emma winced when the opening notes played on the next CD, her head slapping the headrest like it would keep her from yelling mercy longer.
A ring interrupted the coup d’etat of butt rock ballads. Emma shot me a victorious smile as she fished through her purse for her phone.
I punched the off button. “To be continued.”
Emma made a slitting motion across her neck before answering. “Hey, Jules. I’m on my way—” The smile was sucked from Emma’s face.
“He’s there now?” she whispered, gripping the arm rest. “Okay, okay. Tell him I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Julia’s voice raised a decibel, so I didn’t feel as guilty eavesdropping. “He’s drunk, Emma. Really drunk. Do not, and I repeat, do not come by here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Emma swallowed, glancing at me from the side. “I’m coming.”
“Listen to me, Emma, you crazy lunatic,” Julia hissed over the phone before a pounding interrupted her in the background, accompanied by a male voice that was beyond pissed. “Dammit,” Julia hissed. “This crazy mo-fo is going to take down our door. I’d swear he’s on meth right now, Em.”
“Okay, Jules, just yell at him through the door and tell him I’m two minutes away.” Emma was frantic now, no longer trying to play the whole thing cool for my sake. “Keep the door locked.”
“Emma Marie Scarlett, listen to me!” Julia screamed so loudly I wanted to cover my ears. “Go to our favorite coffee shop downtown. Chill there, and when meth-head is done decimating our door, I’ll come pick you up. Think you can manage that?”
Julia was too irritated to listen to Emma and Emma was too frantic to listen to Julia. I was going to have to be the voice of reason. Yes, that’s exactly what I just said.
I snatched the phone from Emma’s ear. “Julia? It’s Patrick.” I gave Emma a warning look when she tried to pluck the phone away from me. “I’m taking Emma back to my place for the night. She’ll give you a call tomorrow to check in.”
“What?!” Emma shouted, turning in her seat to glower at me. “I most certainly am not going back to your place with you.”
Moving the phone from my mouth, I stared her down. “Yes,”—my voice was all edge—“you most certainly are. End of story.”
Once I was satisfied she wasn’t going to throw herself from a moving vehicle or pull the steering wheel away from me, I moved the phone back into position.
“Julia, listen to me,” I said, feeling exhausted. Trying and failing to calm two women at the same time was taking its toll on me. “Tell him you’ll call the cops if he doesn’t leave, and if he doesn’t leave in ten seconds flat, call them. If he manages to bust in before the cops get there, grab the handy dandy baseball bat I saw hidden under your bed and use the opportunity to perfect your swing, slugger.” I smiled, just imaging Julia landing a bat in Ty’s gut. “Aim for the junk, but since it’s questionable he has anything there that would cause any d
amage”—I winked over at a cross armed Emma, who was crossing them tighter—“aim for the knees, stomach, or throat. Sound easy enough?”
Julia chuckled as another round of pounding sounded in the background. “Thanks for the low down on self defense, but Ty knows better than to mess with me. He’s scared I’ll cast some kind of curse that will bestow an eternally flaccid penis on him,” she said, clucking her tongue. “He’s not as dumb as he looks.”
This time it was my turn to laugh. “I’m afraid we’ll have to agree to disagree on that matter,” I said, sneaking a glance at Emma. Her unyielding glare snapped my eyes forward. “You good, Jules?”
“Positively chipper cheery,” she said in a fake sugar voice.
I was about to hang up when she said, “Hey, Hayward, in case you haven’t already, seize the moment.” She didn’t need to make any other clarification—I knew exactly what she was insinuating between the lines, and she knew I did too. “Good luck, my friend.”
The phone went dead, but I didn’t lower it for a few seconds, trying to piece together something to say that wouldn’t set Emma off more than she already was. It wasn’t me, though, that ended up breaking the silence.
“Patrick, I know you’re doing what you think is best,” Emma said, regulating her voice. “But I can’t go back to your place. I can’t,” she repeated, staring out the window.
“Why not?” I asked. “I have utter faith Jules can take care of herself if Ty dares stumble through that door, I’ve got more than enough space at my place. You can have your own end of the house if you like. What’s the big deal?”
“You know what the big deal is,” she said, all elusive and vague again, like I was a mind reader, but I could take an educated guess that the big deal included her going to my place to spend the night while her boyfriend of six years waited for her outside her dorm room. On the surface, this was a juicy rumor that would hold the campus captive for a solid week.
“Fine,” I relented, sighing. “I’ll take you back to your mom’s.” I zipped across three lanes, preparing to take the next exit. “But I am not taking you back to your dorm room.”
“No,” she whispered urgently. “I can’t go back there. I don’t spend nights there anymore.” She paused, wringing the hem of her skirt in her hands. “Too many nightmares waiting for me when I fall asleep.”
I closed my hand over her knee. “Okay, then we’ll head to my place. I promise I’ll be a perfect gentleman, and you can even call and invite your brothers to stay with us if you don’t believe me.” I meant it, but I really hoped she didn’t take me up on this offer.
She let out a breath that was long and tortured, like there was no other outcome than a lose-lose situation here.
“I feel helpless right now, Emma,” I admitted. “It’s not something I’m used to. Let me do something to help you. Please.”
She examined me for a moment, like she was making one of the most critical decisions of her life. “Okay. Take me to your place.”
“So you live in Maverick’s Point. How appropriate,” Emma said as we cruised down the last few blocks before we’d be at my place.
I was still convinced I was dreaming. She’d willingly agreed, after a push of encouragement from me, to come to my place. To spend the night.
I didn’t care if we wound up on opposite ends of the house; we’d be under the same roof. I didn’t care that she’d only agreed to come here because she didn’t have any other option, and I didn’t care that she wasn’t my girlfriend, and I didn’t care that I swore I’d be on my most gentlemanly behavior, which wouldn’t result in a long, desperate kiss on the balcony that we’d both wake up to regret, her for one reason and me for another. I only cared she was coming. She was here right now. With me.
“And since I’m getting to know you so well, I’d wager the twenty dollar bill in my wallet that’s got to get me through two more weeks that you live in an oceanfront mansion with a butler to go with every room, a pinball machine in the foyer, and a Slurpee dispenser in both the kitchen and your full sized theatre room.” She looked over at me, a smug line curved into her mouth.
“Actually, smarty-pants,” I said, turning onto my block. “Only one of your outlandish assumptions is correct.” Although in another week there would be a Slurpee machine in my kitchen. At present, it was sugary slush of heaven free.
I pulled in the driveway and killed the engine. Even with the windows up, the sound of the waves thundering against the shore below made it seem we were only steps away from them. Which we pretty much were.
“Oceanfront,” she stated, shaking her head.
“It’s not because it’s the best,” I said, guessing at her thoughts. “It’s because it’s what I like.”
“Yeah, you and every one of the other six billion people of the world,” she replied, tossing her door open. “But there’s a reason the world’s population doesn’t live at the beach.”
“Sand in your shoes isn’t for everyone,” I said, keeping a straight face as I closed my door and came around the front of the car to her.
Giving me a stern look, she said, “You’re not nearly as funny as you think you are.”
“Don’t I know it,” I said, leading her up the walkway. Turning my head over my shoulder, I said, “I’m funnier.”
She sighed, one of those never-ending ones that moms do a lot when they’re not sure what to do with their misbehaving toddler.
“Wilkommen, fraulein,” I said, swinging the front door open for her. “Minha casa es tu casa.”
“Wow, did you just welcome an unsuspecting, innocent young woman into your bachelor pad with a half German, half Spanish greeting?” she asked, shoving my stomach when she passed by. “I don’t think that’s been done in the history of mustache twirling men attempting to lure a doe-eyed virgin to their lair.”
Of course I would hear one word in her rather lengthy insult. “Virgin?” My voice cracked. It cracked. It hadn’t even cracked during puberty.
She froze to a stop. “Figuratively speaking,” she finally replied, waving a dismissive hand over her shoulder.
I flicked on the lights, only because I knew this was included in the gentleman-like behavior clause I’d verbally signed a half hour ago.
Doing a full spin in place, she looked up, down, and all around. “I guess it’s all right. Although it’s a downgrade from my super posh dorm room.”
I tossed my keys into the bowl sitting beside the door, undoing the top couple buttons of my shirt. “My apologies, Miss. I’ll do my best to make you comfortable.”
Her eyes narrowed at me, a hand creeping over her hip. Probably had to do with the sing-song voice in which I’d delivered that last comment.
“And by comfortable,” I said, keeping my tone innuendo free, “I mean fresh towels, one thousand thread count sheets, and a mint on your pillow. I do not, and I emphasize, do not mean comfortable as in me dressing down to my speedo and massaging you with hot scented oils,”—another hand joined the other on her hips—“or dipping succulent strawberries in a vat of molten chocolate and lifting it to your lips while James Brown plays in the background.”
I was grinning like the kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar and knew no amount of apologies would get him out of trouble. “That is, unless that’s what you’ve got in mind. I’ve got the speedo on right now, in fact,” I said, untucking my shirt and making a move for my fly.
I would have stopped the act before any zippers moved south, but my internal radar suddenly detected an unidentified flying object coming straight for my . . . ahem . . . fly area.
I caught it, no problem, but I didn’t catch the words that slipped from my mouth when I processed the trial sized bottle of baby oil in my hand.
“Hot damn,” I mumbled, stupefied for one of the few times in my life.
Emma burst into laughter, her body curving around the laugh it hit so deep. “You should see your face right now,” she managed between the laughter explosion. “Gosh I’m so glad I k
eep that in my purse.”
I shook my head, but that didn’t work. So I tried again, with more success. “You keep baby oil in your purse?” I said, turning the bottle over in my hands like it was a sacred artifact.
“It’s a great moisturizer,” she said like it was common knowledge.
“Of course it is,” I said, smiling tightly at her. “Now would you mind helping me find my jaw? It fell to the ground somewhere around here.” I prepared to toss the bottle back at her, hopes crushed, last hanging shred of dignity flying away into the wind of letdown, when she shook her hand at me.
“Keep it,” she said, fighting the smile on her face. “As a souvenir.”
I slid it into my side pants pocket. “I’ll treasure it forever,” I said, smirking at her as I patted my pocket.
Fighting the battle to keep a straight face, she spun away from me and meandered around the room. It was nothing elaborate: a wall of windows facing the ocean, a few pieces of furniture purchased for their comfort and not their appearance or feng shui appeal, and an array of family photos situated at random places.
“This is really great, Patrick,” Emma said. “Although I am surprised there aren’t halls labeled with the wings they lead to and a handful of staff waiting at the ready to bring you a strawberry topped funnel cake whenever the midnight craving should arrive.”
I watched her navigate through the sprawling room and, while she didn’t blend in with the setting, she fit it. I’d never been able to quite figure out why the place had never had the warmth of a home until now. I wrote it off as being void of family and, a good majority of the time, void of me, but as a radiant warmth rolled over me, I had my answer.
It was because it was missing Emma.
Okay, time to put the brakes on the philosophy bus before it time traveled its way back to Woodstock. There’d be no coming back from that free-loving acid trip.
“I didn’t buy it because it was the best by hundred thousand square foot great rooms and marble covered mini-blinds standards,” I said, stepping around the kitchen island, which was, ironically, marble. “It appealed to me because it was the best for me. By my standards.”