Believe

Chapter Four Phoenix

Seeing Robin’s face freeze, I realized I shouldn’t have said it like that. I wasn’t talking about sex, but that was obviously what she heard.

It was easy to read her expressions. She wore them all on her face clearly, and what amazed me about her was everything she said seemed so honest and totally free of bullshit. The other thing I noticed was that she seemed as totally lonely as I was. I couldn’t figure out why.

“I’ll be fine on the couch,” I said. “I’ve slept in worse places, trust me.”

That eased the tension in her shoulders a little, but now the pity was back, which I hated. I didn’t want her to feel sorry for me, for my shitty childhood, or my criminal record.

“I guess so. Let me get you a blanket and a pillow.”

When she eased past me, my hand shot out before I could stop it, and I grabbed hers. “Thanks.” For the pillow. The blanket. For answering my texts. For talking to me. For the milk and the movies. I didn’t say any of those things, but I stared at her, hoping she could read it in my eyes.

“Sure.” She nodded. “It’s not a problem.”

“I got a job tonight,” I said, having no fucking clue why that popped out of my mouth, other than that I clearly wanted to impress her or at least prove I wasn’t a total loser. “I’m going to apprentice at a tattoo parlor I used to work at. Gave the owner a call and he said I can start on Monday.”

Her face softened, and her hand, so small and warm in mine, relaxed, fingers entwining with the callused ones that belonged to me. “That’s awesome,” she said, and I knew she meant it.

I also knew that I shouldn’t have stayed so long.

Because now all I wanted to do was pull her down onto my lap and taste her lips. I wanted to see how her eyes would change then, with passion or with something more.

It was dangerous but oh so fucking tempting.

That she was as chemical free as me was only the beginning of what I found amazing about her.

I hadn’t expected her to have an opinion on much of anything, but she did, and a solid one, too, every time.

I had also counted on the fact that she was a suburban college girl and I would be intimidating to her, the dude just out of jail, so it would be easy to stay disconnected. But she hadn’t been nervous, and she hadn’t been bothered by my sitting next to her. She hadn’t glanced at the clock on her phone or worried that I was going to attack her in a fit of lust or rage or both. She didn’t even ask why I was in jail in the first place.

But she wasn’t flirting either. Or just flat out going after me, the way Angel had. I had ended up dating Angel because she had decided we were going to date, and I appreciated the effort. Of course, the lesson with a girl like that was the loyalty was short-lived.

Somehow, I didn’t think Robin would be that kind of girl. The sad girl was always a loyal one. It’s why she was sad.

“I’m looking forward to it,” I said, because I was. Not only did a job mean money so I could pay my cousins back for helping me out and feeding and clothing me, but I was going to be able to draw and play around with tattooing any customers in the shop who would let me do it for free. I had worked there for just a few weeks before I’d gotten arrested, so I was seriously glad Bob, the owner, had been willing to rehire me. But why the fuck did Robin want to hear about it at five in the morning?

I let go of her hand. “Good night.” Look, don’t touch. I couldn’t afford to buy this model. I had to remember that.

“Good night, Phoenix.” For a second, she looked like she was going to say something else, but then she just went down the hall.

A minute later she reappeared with a blanket and a pillow. I stripped off my shirt and punched the pillow. She hovered in front of me for a second, then she gestured to my tattoo on my chest.

“It’s tragically beautiful,” she said, eyes on it, not my face.

Like her.

I didn’t say anything, just watching her, feeling a warning clanging loud and clear in my skull. If I had any fucking sense I would walk back to my cousins’ house, because a dark room and a girl who looked this vulnerable and pretty was dangerous.

Then she seemed to realize she was staring, because she spun on her heel and walked away, turning off the light on her way, leaving me alone in the dark. Lounging on the couch, I pulled my phone out and scrolled through it checking news headlines, the weather, social media, anything to attempt to distract my thoughts from Robin. I was too keyed up to sleep. Jail hadn’t been great for getting a solid eight hours I had felt like I had slept with one eye open most of the time, given that my cellmate was a crazy motherfucker with wide eyes and a twitch. So when I got to my cousins I had crashed for almost forty-eight hours.

But now I couldn’t. I was wide awake.

The cell phone was Riley’s old smartphone that he had dropped at a construction site, shattering the screen. It worked still, so I had borrowed a hundred bucks from him and reactivated my account. I was in like three hundred bucks easy to Tyler and Riley, and I owed them big time. Going through my contacts list, I deleted Angel. I didn’t want to hear from her ever again. Then I deleted another five people who hadn’t bothered to text or ask how I was the whole time I was away. If they didn’t give a shit, why should I?

It left my list pathetically small. But it was hard to make friends I could trust. We had moved every year or so most of my childhood, and I changed schools constantly depending on which block of the neighborhood our new apartment was in. My sophomore year in high school I didn’t even start until November because my mom kept forgetting to get my vaccines updated and the school wouldn’t admit me. I’d had a group of guys I’d hung out with until the last year or so, but with us all being out of school, some working, some not, and me spending time with Angel, we sort of lost touch. More of my contacts were girls than guys. Girls who wanted to be the one who got some sort of emotional reaction from me.

I was a challenge.

It was unintentional. I had a tight rein on my emotions. I had to.

I did have a text from Tyler. U ok, man?

I wasn’t used to having anyone notice I wasn’t there, that I hadn’t come home.

Yeah, thanks.

There was no way I was going to tell him where I was. Tyler had come home from dropping off Robin and had hinted that I was to stay the hell away from her. He would be pissed if he found out I had been texting and making plans with her while I was listening to his lecture. I wasn’t offended by his warning. He was right—I shouldn’t be talking to her.

But I couldn’t help it. Nor could I help standing up and going down the hall to see if her bedroom door was open.

Moving silently, I picked my way carefully through the dark, knowing if she woke up and saw me watching her in the dark she was going to think I was a fucking creeper. Maybe I was. Did creepers know they were creepers? I felt normal enough, but hell, maybe I wasn’t. If abnormal is your normal, you feel normal, right?

Her door was slightly ajar, and I pushed it open a little further so I could see her bed. There was a stream of moonlight coming from her window. She hadn’t closed her blinds. The light illuminated her curled up on her bed, on her side, her comforter wedged between her legs so that I could see the long shape of her calves and her thighs. She had changed into a tank top, and her hair spilled in dark layers across her white sheets.

Maybe part of me wanted her to wake up. Maybe I wanted to see fear in her eyes. Not because I wanted her to be afraid but because when someone is scared of you, you’re no longer vulnerable. They don’t have any power over you.

“What is it?” she whispered suddenly, surprising me.

She didn’t look awake. Even now, her eyes were still closed, and I wasn’t sure how she had known I was there. She definitely didn’t look afraid, and she clearly trusted me enough to keep her eyes closed.

Naive, that’s what she was.

It made me angry with her. What if I was there to hurt her? She’d be in serious trouble before she could even think to fight back. She needed to be smarter. Tomorrow I needed to talk to her about that.

“I can’t sleep,” I told her. “Sorry. I was just looking for company.” That was only half of the truth.

“Me either.”

“You look asleep.”

Her eyes finally opened, and her soft lips parted. “Am I talking in my sleep? Or dreaming then?”

I shook my head slowly. “No. I don’t think I would be the man of your dreams.” Then without waiting for permission or an invitation, I ignored the intent behind my words and went over to her bed.

She drew in her breath, startled, when I lay down next to her. How could I explain to her that I didn’t want to be alone? I couldn’t. So I just lay on my back and stilled my body so I wouldn’t scare her. “Do you mind?” I finally asked.

“No,” she whispered.

“Night.”

“Lift your head,” she said.

“What?” I turned and saw she had one of her pillows and she was offering it to me. I lifted my head and she tucked it behind me.

I looked away. God, this was so bad. Things were stirring in me, things that shouldn’t be.

Resolutely, I closed my eyes and counted backwards from one hundred. I got somewhere around fifteen when I lost consciousness.

Dreaming about Iggy, my mother’s latest piece-of-shit boyfriend, the knife in his hand when he threatened her, I felt the anxiety crawling up my spine, my fists clenching. When a hand touched my shoulder, I jerked awake and instinctively sat up, hand going out to grab the throat of my cellmate in warning to stay the fuck away from me.

Except I wasn’t in jail.

I was in Robin’s bed, and I was only inches from her throat with my outstretched hand. I dropped it quickly at the look of stunned horror on her face. “Sorry, sorry. Jesus, I’m sorry. I was dreaming. I thought I was still in jail.”

Her expression smoothed out. She was standing next to the bed, hair tumbling forward as she leaned over me.

“No, no, I shouldn’t have touched you. I’m sorry. I was just awake and going to make coffee and your phone keeps buzzing. I wasn’t being nosy, but when your screen lit up I could see that Tyler has texted you like four times.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Sorry.”

I shook my head, swallowing hard and tossing my hair out of eyes. I still felt groggy. “No, it’s cool. Thanks. I hope I didn’t scare you.” I knew I had, though. She had curled back up inside herself, and when I moved to push the sheet back, she flinched.

My thought had been that it would be easier if she was afraid of me, but it wasn’t. I despised it.

“No, it’s fine. Do you want coffee?”

“Sure. Thanks.” I searched her face. For what, I wasn’t sure. “You hungry? I could make you breakfast.”

“You cook?” Her arms dropped. “Really?”

I gave her a half smile, pleased that she seemed to have forgotten her fear. “It was either that or starve, so yes, I can cook. Sort of. I’m no Iron Chef, but whatever.”

“Oh. Cool. That would be great. I’ll start the coffee.”

Swinging my legs out of bed, I reached for my phone as she went down the hall. There were four texts from Tyler. He seemed to think I was in trouble since I hadn’t come back to the house. I appreciated the concern, but I wasn’t going back until Robin was sick of me. This might be my only chance to hang out with her.

It’s fine, bro. I’m with a girl.

He just didn’t need to know which girl.

She was in the kitchen, and now that she was wearing a tank top and tiny stretchy shorts, I could see her body much better than when she had been swimming in that T-shirt and denim shorts. It was enough to get my blood pumping without coffee. She didn’t seem to realize how hot she was though, just giving me a shy smile as she reached for two mugs, the tank riding up to expose her smooth skin.

Fuck.

I went into her fridge to see if there was any food in there at all I could do something with and to get a blast of cold air. Plus hide my hard-on.

“Do you ever eat?” I asked her, eyeing the pathetic selection in her fridge. It was mostly filled with condiments and string cheese. There were eggs, though, and a loaf of bread that when I squeezed it, felt a little stale.

“Of course I eat. I just don’t cook. I eat simple stuff.”

“Do you have syrup?”

“Yes. For my frozen waffles.”

“Those taste like cardboard,” I told her, pulling out the eggs and bread. “I’ll make you some French toast then.”

“Really?” She looked dubious.

“Sure, why not?”

As I cracked eggs into a bowl I found in the cupboard, she poured out the coffee. “Do you want cream and sugar?”

“No. Just black.”

“So do you have to do anything today?” she asked.

“No. I can find a ride home, don’t worry about it.” Even if I was making her breakfast, I had probably outstayed my welcome.

“I was just thinking that if you’re not busy, maybe we could go to Eden Park. There’s a free concert there, and I was going to go and sketch.”

My hand stilled as I was about to dip a slice of bread in the egg. “I don’t have any plans, no,” I said, my throat suddenly tight. “That sounds cool.”

She shifted a coffee mug toward me on the counter, and when I looked up at her, she was smiling. “I have an extra sketchbook if you want to borrow it.”

Oh damn, I was in trouble. If I had any sense at all, I would get the hell out of there and never come back. But a cactus isn’t going to tell a rainstorm to go fuck itself. I had never had anyone offer me this sort of innocent friendship. I wanted it like the greedy motherfucker that I was.

“Cool. Thanks.” Then I took a huge sip of my coffee, knowing I was going to scald the shit out of the roof of my mouth. I wanted to. I wanted the pain to ground me. “Shit,” I cursed, when the liquid burned tender flesh.

“Are you okay?” She looked alarmed. “Do you want some ice?”

“I’m fine.” Which wasn’t true at all. Focusing on scraping my tongue over the raw spot, I finished making the French toast, flipping it from one side to the other as it cooked, then dropping to the kitchen floor to do some sit-ups to burn off the anxiety I was feeling.

“What are you doing?” She gaped at me.

“Just some crunches.” I liked to sweat, to work out. It made me feel above my body. I pushed hard, knowing she probably thought I was a complete tool, but figuring this was the reality of it. I shouldn’t hide the fact that I was not a well-adjusted, middle-class college student like the guys she probably usually hung out.

But for some reason, she just bent over and touched my knees. “You’re moving too much. My high school track coach would make you redo all of those.”

“You were on the track team?” I asked, slowing down my crunches and sucking in some air. She was right. It was harder when you couldn’t move your legs at all.

“Yep. Distance runner.” Her hands were firm on my skin, showing the strength I didn’t expect her to have given she looked so fragile.

But as I bent up, my abs burning, I spotted using her lips, those perfect plump, cherry lips that made me want to suck on them. She was smiling, and she didn’t look vulnerable. She just looked beautiful.

“Think you can do a hundred?” she asked, the challenge in her voice unmistakable.

I would do it or die trying. “No problem.”

“Let me turn the burner off.” With one hand she reached back and turned the knob. “Okay. Go. One. Two.”

“I already did at least fifteen,” I protested.

She readily agreed. “You’re right. Okay, sixteen, seventeen.”

But somehow that meant I had a point to prove. When she reached a hundred, I was in pain and out of breath, but I pushed on to a hundred and fifteen to make up for the ones I copped an attitude about.

When I came to a stop, laying down on the cool floor, breathing hard, she eased her grip on my knees. “Wow, that was awesome. Good job.”

“Thanks.” I peeled myself off the floor, knowing I was going to be wincing every time I moved for the next two days. But at least I had proved I was badass. Mental eye roll.

Robin transferred the French toast to plates and put them on the table. I carried our coffee mugs behind her. The kitchen was huge, with one wall sporting a cutout that overlooked the stairs. Robin’s bedroom was on the third floor with the living room and a bathroom, but the kitchen and two larger bedrooms were on the second floor with another bathroom. Robin’s room was tiny, and it seemed to me that she had a lot of privacy even if the living room was down the hall from her, because how often would her roommates go out of their way to come upstairs? They would probably end up spending half their time hanging out in the kitchen.

The fact that she didn’t want to stay seemed to be a mystery to everyone and I was curious about it, but I wasn’t going to pry. She was respecting my privacy and not asking ten thousand questions about my record.. I could give her the same space.

“This tastes amazing,” she said enthusiastically as she took several bites. She ate quickly, but then seemed to fill up super fast. She was only halfway through one piece when she set her fork down and put her hand on her stomach.

“You done?” I asked her, raising my eyebrow.

She nodded. “I can’t eat too much at once, it gives me a stomachache.”

I had two pieces already, but I reached out and stabbed the remains of her piece. “I’m not letting that go to waste.”

She laughed. “Such a guy.”

“Last time I checked, yep.”

Robin’s nose scrunched up. “I’m going to take a shower if you don’t mind.”

“Nope.”

As she went upstairs I shoveled food and coffee into my mouth and tried not to think about her naked.

That worked for about five seconds then the hard-on was back with a vengeance. Five months was a long time to go without sex, and unlike some dudes, I wasn’t up for jacking off in my cell. Then the memory of prison brought a hot, metallic taste to my mouth, and I immediately lost my arousal.

A girl like Robin didn’t deserve to be tainted by me.

Which made me selfish.

But even knowing that, I still just stubbornly sat there and ate French toast.

Everyone was entitled to some fucking French toast now and then, weren’t they?

I thought so.