But I don’t want to be paid. I wanted to do something good. “No. I don’t want any money for those tattoos. I won’t take it even if you try to give it to me.” Friday has a tendency to steamroll anyone who has a dick, and I know that if I’m not firm with her, she’ll make me take the money and I won’t even notice it.
She surprises me when she says, “You’re sure?”
I nod. “Positive.”
My heart feels light and my head feels like it’s spinning. I just did something really good. And it didn’t involve bullets flying or anyone dying on the floor.
“Thanks for letting me do it. Set me up some more appointments like that, will you?” I clean up my station.
“I knew you were a good one.” Friday bends over and kisses my cheek. Paul walks around the corner right when her lips touch my cheek.
“What the fuck, Friday?” he says, throwing his hands up.
“He doesn’t count,” she says, her tone light and happy.
My heart sinks. I can see her point. The guy in the chair is never a threat, but it still stings a little.
Logan punches me on the shoulder. “Family doesn’t count,” he says. Then I understand what she was saying and my heart releases from the tight clench that had it locked there for a minute.
“I’m not family,” I protest.
He shrugs. “Same difference.” Then he grins at me and starts to pack his bag. “I have to get home. Em just texted to see where I am.”
“She over the morning sickness yet?” Friday asks.
Logan and Emily are expecting another baby.
“Pretty much,” he tells her.
“Good,” she chirps. “Tell her to call me.” She turns to me as Logan leaves. “Where are you going when you leave here?”
“Home.” It sounds good to say that, but I am well aware that none of it is mine. My job, my apartment, my newfound family—it all rests on the Reeds.
“You have a pretty brunette waiting for you there?”
I grin. I can’t help it. “I certainly hope so.”
She stops what she’s doing and stares at me. She cocks her head to the side a little. “So, it’s the real thing?”
“What does real mean?” I ask.
“Can I be frank with you?”
“I’d rather you be Friday, which is about the same thing.”
She laughs. “I guess you’re right.” Then she sobers. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
I don’t say anything, because it looks like she’s working the words around in her head before she lets them out of her mouth. “The Zero girls,” she says slowly. Then she shakes her head. “Never mind.”
“Go ahead and say it, Friday,” I tell her.
“I love them dearly, but they have some serious baggage. Each one carries a different load.”
Paul comes around the corner. “I vaguely remember you carrying a whole suite of luggage, Friday,” he says, his voice a warning. But then he kisses her on the forehead. “And I’m still glad you let me help you carry it.”
“But,” she says, worrying her lip piercing with the tip of her tongue, “I just worry about him,” she finally says on a big gust of breath. “That’s all.”
“What kind of load?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “That’s her story to tell.”
“But you know what it is?”
“Some of it.”
“And it’s bad?”
“Some of it,” she repeats, closing her eyes tightly like she’s fighting with herself. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“You shouldn’t have,” Paul agrees. “But you care. It’s okay.”
“Just be careful.” Her eyes meet mine. “Just be slow and careful.”
After what happened this morning, I’m not sure that slow is possible. But I’ll take her warning in the spirit in which it was intended. “Okay.” I look at Paul. “You want to give me any advice, too?”
“Don’t try to tear down her walls.” He pushes a lock of Friday’s hair behind her ear. “Sometimes they’re in place for a reason.” She covers his hand with hers and holds it against her cheek, and I suddenly feel like an interloper.
“I’m going home,” I tell them. But they’re locked up in one another, and I am not sure they even realize it when I leave the room.
I push myself home, and stop on the corner to get a flower for Star. I don’t even know if she likes flowers, but she did suck my dick this morning, so I feel like I need to make some sort of gesture.
I open the door to my apartment and stop short when I see Star bustling around in the kitchen. She’s wearing a pair of jeans and one of my T-shirts, and she has her hair balled up in a knot on her head. There’s smoke coming from the stove, and she waves a towel in the air and curses.
“Need some help?” I ask.
“I was making dinner,” she says, blowing a lock of hair from her forehead. She throws the towel on the counter. “But I think I messed it up.” Her eyes well up with tears and she blinks them back. “I’m sorry. I wanted to do something nice for you, but I suck at this domestic shit.”
I open the oven and look inside. Whatever she was making looks like a charcoal briquette. “I think it’s dead,” I tell her. I grin at her, and she laughs. “How about if I call for a pizza?”
She nods. I hit the speed dial and order for us, after she tells me her favorite kind. While I talk on the phone, I roll toward her and wrap my free arm around her hip. She leans into my shoulder and lets me touch her there while I talk to the pizza place. I tuck the flower into her hand and she stares at it like it’s a diamond ring or a puppy or some really good porn. It’s like no one has ever given her a flower before. “Twenty minutes,” I tell her when I hang up. “I’m going to go take a shower. Can you listen for the door?” I lay some cash on the counter and set my phone beside it.
She nods. I go and get in the shower. Not even because I’m dirty, but any time I’ve been doing tats, I feel the need to bathe before I touch anything important. And Star is definitely important.
I have soap in my hair when she comes into the bathroom. She’s holding my phone. “You have a call,” she says, her words clipped and short.
“Who is it?” I ask, squeezing one eye shut when soap gets into it.
“I don’t know, but she knows you.”
I take the phone and say, “Hello.”
The past smacks me in the face with the first words out of her mouth. “You can’t hide forever, Josh.”
“Could you give me a minute?” I ask Star.
She glares at me and stomps out of the room. I turn off the water and grab a towel to dry my face. “How did you get this number?”
“You pay the right people and you can find anyone, anywhere,” she says.
“Thanks for the warning. What do you want?”
“She wants to see you.”
My heart stops.
“Why?”
“Who knows why, Josh? She just does.” She heaves a sigh.
“How do you know?” It’s not like she can talk. “What makes you think she wants to see me?”
“I just know. When can you come and see her?”
The thought of walking back into that house after all this time…it turns my stomach. “Let me see if I can get some time off work.”
“I’ll call you later to confirm.”
Now that she has my number, she’ll call me whenever she wants. I could change the number, but she’d just find it again. Now that she knows I’m out, she’ll start to expect things of me. And they’re things I just can’t give her. I can’t give them to anyone. I’m not made like that anymore.
She hangs up on me.
I set my phone outside the shower and towel the soap off.
Fuck. What am I going to do? I can’t just show up there. Not now. Particularly not by myself.
I roll out into the living room once I have on some pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. Star is on the couch with her feet curled onto the cushions, and the
re’s an open pizza box on the table in front of her.
“Everything okay?” she asks. She nods toward my phone, which is in my lap.
“Not really,” I tell her. “I think I have to take a short trip.”
She puts her feet on the floor. “Where to? Is everything okay?”
I drag a hand down my face. “I don’t even know how to explain it.”
Her voice is soft. “You could start at the beginning.”
I nod. That might be good. But Star will hate me if I lay all my shit bare. I’m sure of that.
“Who was on the phone?” she asks.
“Someone from my past.”
She leans toward me. “A good someone or a bad someone?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. Both, I guess.” I take a deep breath. “I need to call Paul and ask him if I can take a few days off.”
“To go visit a woman?” I can see her spine straighten.
“Yes.” I close one eye and stare at her. “No.” Then I take a leap. “Do you want to go with me?”
She pulls her legs back up onto the couch. “Where?” But she’s smiling. This is good.
“I need to go home for a few days.”
“Home.”
“Yeah. Home.”
“I’ll go with you.” Her voice is soft but wary.
My gut unclenches. “Really?” I ask. “You mean it?” My heart feels lighter just having her say she’ll go with me. I don’t have to walk into it alone.
She shrugs. “I don’t have anything else to do.”
I shift from the chair to the couch. I’m pressed up alongside her and she doesn’t move away. She picks up a piece of pizza and passes it to me.
“Want to watch a movie?” she asks.
I nod. “Can we cuddle while we do it?”
She grins. “You want to cuddle with me?” She pretends to be affronted and lays a hand on her chest in mock surprise. “With me? Seriously?” She laughs.
I finish my piece of pizza while she searches for a movie. She lies down and puts her head in my lap. She looks up at me. “Is this okay?” she asks. She blinks her brown eyes at me.
“Yeah.” She wiggles and gets comfortable. I pull her hair out from under her and start to run my fingers down the silky length of it.
“That feels nice,” she whispers. Goose bumps break out across her arm.
“You feel nice,” I tell her.
She smiles and starts the movie.
I barely know what’s happening in it, because I can’t get that phone call out of my head. My worst nightmare is going back home to see the one person I hurt more anyone else by leaving the way I did. And I’m taking Star into it with me. But—God help me—I’m just not strong enough to go there by myself. I’m just not.
Star
I wake up to the feel of lazy fingers tracking from one side of my naked belly to the other. I freeze, holding my eyes closed tightly. If I pretend to be asleep, sometimes he’ll give up and go away. He’ll huff and slam the door, and then his wife will get angry at him for waking up the other kids. She never gets angry at him for coming into my room, because she thinks he’s just coming to tuck me in. But that’s not the case. Not now that I’m a little older.
“Star,” a voice says from above me. The fingers are still on my tummy, and he gives me a little shake. A finger wipes at the hot teardrop that’s sliding down my temple. “Star,” he says more insistently. “Are you all right?”
I open my eyes. Josh. It’s just Josh. I look around. The room is bright and cheerful, and Josh’s concerned face looks down at me.
It’s not dark. It’s not quiet. It’s not the middle of the night. It’s not wrong.
“Josh,” I whisper. “It’s just you.”
“Who did you think it was?” he asks softly.
I shake my head and sit up. “No one. Just a dream.”
“A bad one. I’ve been trying to wake you up for a couple of minutes.”
“I’m sorry,” I rush to say. I don’t want to be a burden to him. I don’t want to be something he feels like he needs to worry about or to fix.
“What were you dreaming about?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Liar,” he says softly.
“It’s just a bad dream,” I tell him again. “That’s all.”
“Okay.” He narrows his eyes, but he doesn’t push.
“Is the movie over?” I see the credits rolling across the screen. “I’m sorry I fell asleep.”
“It had a terrible ending. You didn’t miss much.”
“Oh, good.”
He brushes my hair back behind my ear. “What happened to you, Star?” he asks gently.
I get up. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.” He doesn’t move to his wheelchair. But his eyes follow me all the way to the kitchen. I get a drink and come back, handing him a bottle of water. “Thanks,” he says quietly.
“I didn’t get that because I think you’re incapable of getting your own,” I rush to say.
“I know,” he says, holding up a hand when my mouth opens to rush on. “Thank you for the water.”
“Are you ready to go to bed?” I rake my fingers through my hair, dragging them down my scalp. I’m still disconcerted by the dream. But Josh is here. Josh makes it better.
“Sure.” He nods his head at me and shifts to his wheelchair.
He follows me into the bedroom. I’ve had this on my mind since this morning, so I just blurt it out. “So, do you want to…do it? Tonight?”
His brow arches. “Do it?”
“Have sex? Make love?” I snort uncontrollably when I say the last one, and then I cover my mouth in embarrassment.
“Um…” He looks everywhere in the room but at me.
“What?” I ask, punching my hands into my hips. “What’s that look for?” Does he seriously find the idea of fucking me that terrible?
“What look?” He goes to the bathroom really quickly and I can hear him brushing his teeth.
I yell at him from the bedroom. “That look you had. Like you would rather eat liver than have sex with me.”
He comes out and grins. “I like liver.”
“So can we?” I ask again. “I’d like to get it over with.”
His face hardens. “No.” He pauses a beat. “Thank you for the offer, though. It’s flattering.”
I stumble to a stop. “Flattering.”
“Well, yeah,” he says. He swipes a hand down his face in frustration. “When a beautiful woman puts pussy in a man’s face, it’s flattering.” He shrugs. “Very flattering,” he mutters.
“But you don’t want to.” I’m so confused.
He transfers to the bed and pats the space beside him.
“No thank you,” I tell him.
He cocks his head to the side. “Why not?”
“Because you don’t want to do that with me,” I say quietly. I draw air quotes around do that. “I get it. I do.” I mutter to myself, “Damaged goods. I get it.”
“You were afraid when you woke up on the couch just now.” He’s not asking a question. He’s telling me he knows that’s how I felt.
“I was not,” I protest.
“You were crying.”
“It was just a dream.” Damn it. Why can’t he leave it alone?
“Do you know what I dream about?” His voice is so quiet I can barely hear him.
I don’t answer. Instead, I go to the bathroom and brush my teeth. Then I take my time taking my makeup off.
When I walk back into the bedroom, he holds up the covers and pats the space beside him. I reluctantly get in the bed, trying to keep a space between him and me. He turns off the light on the bedside table, draping the room in darkness.
But he rolls onto his side and hooks his hand around my hip, pulling me against him. “Do you know what I dream about?” he asks, his lips so close to my ear that I can feel his words.
“What?” I whisper. I turn my head and look toward where I
know he is.
“I dream about getting stinking drunk. In my dream, I keep telling my drunk self not to do it. Don’t get behind the wheel. Don’t drive. I tell myself over and over. But I don’t listen. I do it anyway. Then I see the glass breaking and the car flipping and I hear the screams of the other people in the car as it goes end over end. Then I’m stuck there, lying in the ditch in the rain, and I’m not able to move my legs. I can’t get up and go help her. I can’t do a damn thing to help her, because I’m immobile.” He clears his throat. “Then I wake up from my dream, and I find that it’s reality. I still can’t move my legs. I don’t know why I’m always surprised by that, but it still gets me every time. In my dream I was walking, and driving, and it felt so real. But it’ll never be real again.”
He unhooks his hand from around my hip and rolls onto his back. He places his palms under his neck and stares up at the ceiling.
“Is that how you lost the use of your legs?”
“More or less.”
“What happened to the other people in the car?”
He jerks his head toward me. I can see it in the dark. “Why did you wake up crying, huh?” he bites out. “Why were you scared?”
“I…I just was. I don’t know.” I start to fidget because I’m lying, and he’s fully aware of it. But I can’t stop. I don’t talk about it. Ever. If I don’t talk about it, it will never have to be real.
He lifts my hand and presses it to his cheek, right where his teardrop tattoo is. “Two people died. One didn’t. But I wish she had, every fucking day, and so does she. I wished I’d died too. I wished it hard for a really long time.”
“Do you still wish it?” I whisper.
“Not right this second.” He lifts his arm and nudges for me to scoot into my spot. I don’t. I just lie there with my chin propped in my hand and stare at him. “C’mon,” he coaxes. “You know you want to.”
I scoot forward until I find my spot and I snuggle into it.
“Can I tell you something?” he says. He jostles his shoulder so that my head bounces.
“Yes,” I say, my lips near his collarbone, almost touching him but not quite.
“I’m afraid that if you keep offering me pussy on a silver platter, one day I’ll be weak enough to take you up on it.” His fingertips start a slow drag up and down my arm.