Slow Burn

Chapter 11

Exhausted, I top off my glass of wine, walk out into the backyard, and sit down on the chaise longue. I sink into the warm summer air, face up to the fading sun, and close my eyes. Then I let the emotions that have been warring inside me during the past week wash over me. I keep my eyes closed but lift my wine to my lips and drink the tart liquid as the tears well behind my lids.

I think of my sweet Maddie girl and how she cried and clung onto my neck earlier when I dropped her off at home. I think of the what-ifs and never-gonna-bes for her, and I’m filled with such melancholy that it’s easier to just sit here in the warm summer night with the light dwindling and the sound of kids playing beyond the fence than to go inside and face the silence.

Because in the silence, doubts creep in, memories come, and need swelters.

So instead, I sit and enjoy the sounds of life around me beyond my fenced in backyard and think what a metaphorically sad description that is of me and my heart. The wine goes down too easy, and with the comfortable warmth sliding over my skin, I slowly drift off, succumbing to the grueling aspects of my week.

I jolt awake when my wineglass is taken from my hand. I’m immediately startled, but when I snap my groggy eyes open, Dante is sitting on the side of my chair and has placed my empty glass on the table beside me. His gray eyes hold mine, and he appears both concerned and amused at my midevening nap in the backyard.

“Hey,” he says softly, his hand moving to the side of my face. My body freezes at the graze of his callused fingertips against the line of my jaw, but my heart races. I tell myself that my pulse is pounding because of being startled awake, but the simmer in my lower belly puts my cards on the table.

I rub my lips together, stalling for time to figure out what I’m thinking, what to say, but just end up staring at Dante, trying to get a read on the look in his eyes. “Hey, you okay?” I finally manage to ask.

I watch the muscle in his jaw tic and feel the tensing of his fingers, and then just as soon as I see something flicker in his eyes, it’s gone. “Yeah, I’m just not used to seeing you so sad.” He angles his head to the side for a moment. “You’re not my firecracker that I’m used to.”

I take in his hair curling over the collar of his T-shirt, and the goatee on his handsome face. When he rubs his thumb absently over my bottom lip, I sit up immediately, despite his hand still resting on the crook of my neck. The air between us shifts suddenly, and I need to put this back into comfortable territory for me.

“I watched Lex die. That kind of changes you, you know?” And I know he knows, know that he held his grandfather’s hand as he passed on from cancer too, but that was over fifteen years ago. My sister’s death feels like it happened yesterday.

He nods his head in understanding as his free hand moves from the cushion to the bare skin of my thigh, his eyes never leaving mine. Warning bells go off in my head, but I can’t figure out what is louder: the alarm or the desire. I work to swallow as his thumb rubs concentric circles up my inner thigh to the hem of my shorts.

“What are you doing, Dante?” My voice is barely audible, my warning lost in the exhale of breath that comes with it. I know I told him no sex, to not even go there … but at the same time, I’m so needy right now, so desperate to forget again.

The problem is, this time it’s not Lex I’m trying to forget.

It’s Becks.

And the flickering thoughts of forevers and tomorrows that I most definitely don’t want. Will not allow myself to have.

“You know Lexi wouldn’t want you to stop living. She’d hate that you have.” He begins to lean in, and I feel my eyes narrowing and my breath hitching as he gets closer.

“Dante …”

I know I should stop him, know I should push him away, but the minute his lips touch mine and his taste hits my tongue, I feel alive again. And I push all of the objections from my head—the ones that scream a warning about the devastation I know he can have on my heart once he gets ahold of it—and let myself fall under his spell. I want to lose myself, and the headiness I feel from his touch, his body, and his dominance doesn’t allow me to think.

Make me numb, Dante.

Right now, I just want to be taken. Transported away from my thoughts and my questions and my insecurities. And I try to lose myself in the physicality of it all to convince myself that I want this—to be pushed to the brink so hard and fast so that I can forget everything I don’t want and remind myself that this is enough for me. Will be enough for me. That this is the way I choose to live my life.

Sex with someone who wants nothing more. Someone who will be out of my life just as quickly as he came into it.

That’s safe. That’s what I can accept.

“No, no, no!” I stop Dante by pressing my hands against his very firm and tempting chest, forcing him back so that his lips tear from mine. I can’t do it. Can’t lose myself in Dante when Becks is the one I really want.

Dante stares at me, jaw clenched in frustration, eyes telling me he wants me. “Yes, you do,” he murmurs. “I can help you forget, Haddie. Make you feel alive.”

My body and heart have two different mind-sets, but I keep him at arm’s length as I try to calm myself down. He angles his head, his eyes holding mine until they glance down to where his fingers begin to untie the laced ribbon crisscrossing the cleavage portion of my shirt.

… but you’re going to find yourself all tangled up in those dangling ends you refuse to tie …

Becks’s words hit my ears again. Pull me back from the brink of making a huge mistake. Make me think of him when all I was trying to do was use Dante to forget about him.

“No!” I tell him with more determination.

Dante leans forward against my palms, his fingers untying one more lace. “C’mon, babe, you want me as much as I want you.”

I keep my hands up in defense as my heart and head win over the control of my body. I give one final shove against him and turn so that my legs fall over the opposite side of the lounger from where he is sitting, his hands still on my body. I shrug out of his touch and shove myself up out of the chair and start walking toward the house.

“Such a fucking tease.”

I hear his snide comment from behind me, and I falter in my footsteps, fingers on the handle of the sliding-glass door. “Make sure you taste your words, Dante, before you spit them back out.”

I start to tug on the door, anger firing in my veins at him, at me, at who the hell knows? “Now you’re just playing hard to get, babe. You know how hard that makes me,” he says, his voice close behind me, “and I do know you like it nice and hard.”

And Dante’s words should turn me on, but they don’t. They make me cringe, make me think of Becks—and how much more tempting the comment was from him instead. Jesus Christ. Why won’t he leave my thoughts?

“Touch me again and you’ll have to find a new place to stay,” I say with my back to him as I walk into the house.

“Is that a threat or a promise?” he asks with a chuckle.

“It’s a fact,” I shout back to him as I enter my bedroom and slam my door shut. And I just stand there. My hands fisted and my mind humming with confusion. Hell yes, I’m mad at Dante, but I think I’m mad at myself more than anything.

When did I become this woman who uses men to forget other men? I mean how fucked-up is that? Not that it’s right, but using sex—being a little festive—to help forget the grief of Lexi’s death is one thing, but to use it to forget another man? That’s taking it a bit too far even for my own standards.

I begin to walk to the bathroom and then turn abruptly and pick up my cell phone. I just need to hear her voice. That’s it. A little something to help me get a grip on my reality and remind me of that woman I used to be. Sassy and spunky. Not this whiny shadow of myself that I don’t even like.

I can’t seem to find and hold on to myself anymore.

Except for when I hear her voice.

Or that one night with Becks.

Gah! I dial my voice mail and fast-forward past the new messages I don’t want to listen to right now. There’s only one saved message I want to hear, and I don’t care how many times I replay it, my chest still constricts at the sound of her voice.

I listen to her ramble, her voice breathy from the exertion of speaking as she neared the end. She wanders in her message, inconsistency in her thoughts, but at my favorite part, my fingers clutch onto the phone. “Remember, Had. Time is precious. Waste it wisely.” She pauses while her breath rattles in her chest, the slight wheeze coming through the line that still squeezes my heart and brings those days flooding back. “I love you. To the moon and back’s not far enough, Had. I’ll always love you.”

The sob catches in my throat, and the chills race over my skin as I listen to my sister’s breaths while she fumbles to end the call. I drop to the bed, needing her in so many ways. She was my rock. The serious one so that I could be the funny, flippant one. I let a few tears fall before I wipe them away hastily, mad at myself for being sad at that lasting gift she left me in that voice mail.

The knock on my door startles me. I don’t want to talk to Dante right now. I just want to be left alone and fall into a dreamless slumber. I ignore the summons and crawl farther up onto my bed and pull the blankets up around me.

“Haddie, c’mon. … Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to …” I hear him sigh on the other side of the door and what I can assume is his forehead hitting the wood. “Who am I kidding? Of course I meant to. It’s you, isn’t it? But I apologize. I shouldn’t have. It’s just being here brings it all back, and you’re just so fucking sexy … I just … Please, babe, talk to me …”

As much as it’s a slight shock to hear the never-wrong Dante Teller apologizing, the words do nothing to me. Nothing for me. They don’t pull me from the sadness that wraps around me like a blanket. I squeeze my eyes shut and throw one arm over my face in a fruitless attempt to protect myself from everything I don’t want to feel right now.

“Had …” His voice trails off while I sit with the covers pressed to my mouth and I wait him out, wanting to be alone. Needing to be alone. After a minute or so, I hear him sigh and then the sound of his feet padding down the hallway in retreat.

I suck in a breath of air as my body shudders with the violent sobs that I prevent myself from crying. And after a bit, I calm down some to realize night has descended and find myself staring at the ceiling in my darkened room. Time passes, and I really want to talk to Rylee right now. I need the even-keeled and sound advice of my closest friend to tell me that I’m being stupid. That I should take my own damn advice: live a little. That life begins at the end of my comfort zone.

I pick up the phone and dial, not sure if I’m looking to find where my comfort zone exactly is.

My mind-set wavers from wanting to needing. From being angry to being resigned. It doesn’t really matter what I feel, though, because when his voice fills the line, I feel completely alone in this room right now but at the same time not so isolated anymore.

“Hello?”

I struggle to find the right words to explain why I’m calling. Except I can’t find anything beyond the jumbled garble that fills my head, so I revert back to my new standby, sarcasm. “So you’re a constant rule breaker now, are you?” And I’m not sure where my anger comes from. I shouldn’t direct it at him, but I do. Unabashedly.

I hear shifting on the other end of the phone, and then the sound of a television fades as he moves away from it. Wait. Why is he moving away from the TV? Is she there with him right now?

“Had? You want to help me here?”

My emotions are in such a tumult that I don’t even realize that I’d planned on taking this conversation here until it’s too late. “Your rule number one: You don’t sleep with friends. Is she a friend, too?”

And I can’t believe I just said that out loud. I don’t think he can either because the line is silent as he processes my comment. “Is Dante a friend?” There is an edge to his voice this time when he speaks, exasperation mixed with irritation that has me chewing the inside of my cheek as I try to figure out what to say next.

How can I say he’s just a friend when I was going to use him an hour ago to get over the man I’m speaking with? “We weren’t talking about him.” I force the issue, not wanting to delve into the potluck of problems I have sitting on the table.

“Then we’re not talking about her. Besides, what’s it to you Haddie? I’m giving you exactly what you asked for, right? One night, no strings. So why do you care what Deena is to me?”

Ah, Ms. Exotic has a name. Deena? I hate the name Deena. Well, not really but I do now. I immediately imagine his voice moaning it, and I instantly feel sick to my stomach.

“You don’t get to keep me at arm’s length but then call dibs when it’s convenient for you,” he continues when I’m silent, lost in my thoughts.

“I’ve never done that!” A blatant lie but if I’m reaching, then I might as well stretch as far as I can.

“Bullshit, Montgomery. Dante or whatever the fuck his name is may mollycoddle you, stroke you when you need it but leave you alone otherwise, but I’m not like that. I’m not him. You can’t fuck with people’s emotions and expect them to want to be there for you, either.” He sighs out in frustration while I’m taken slightly aback by the bite to his tone.

“Who the hell mentioned emotions? Emotions weren’t included in my rules,” I say childishly.

“You want to talk about rules, Haddie? You want to know my rule number two? I don’t play games.”

“Hmpf.” It’s a disbelieving sound followed by a roll of my eyes he can’t see.

“Yeah. That’s one way to put it. Is there something else you called for besides trying to stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong?”

I open my mouth and then shut it, unsure how calling him because I just needed to hear his voice has devolved so quickly into this. Into me scrambling for words I can’t find to fix shit that doesn’t need fixing.

Because I don’t want this. Don’t want him.

“Well, then, if you want to actually talk instead of pull this ridiculous bullshit, I’m here for you … but, Had …? Whatever this is here … this passive-aggressive crap? I don’t do too well with that. We had our one night. You made it quite clear you didn’t want anything more than that, so you don’t get to call me up and question what I might or might not be doing with anybody else. You want no strings? Then cut the ties … but frankly, I don’t think you know what the fuck you want. So until you figure your shit out, I think it’s best that we say good night before we make a bad situation even worse.”

“Wait!” Desperation rings in my voice in the single word. And I hate myself for sounding like this, but I’m so lonely, so scared, and just want the comfort I know he can bring me right now.

I wait for the sound of the dial tone to assault my ears. Wait for the incessant beep that reaffirms why I have barbed wire wrapped around my heart—painful but necessary. But there is nothing for a few moments until I hear the phone scrape against the stubble on his face.

And I wait … my throat burning with the tears I want to shed but am so sick of. The ones that no longer bring me comfort.

“I’m here, Haddie. I’m not going anywhere, okay?” The timbre of his voice carries his concern and sympathy to me through the line.

The incoherent sound I make is all I can offer to thank him for not hanging up on me. For not giving up on me.

“Talk to me. What’s going on?” he asks gently as if he’s afraid if he pushes too hard I’ll run away and hide. Just like I want to. How he has me pegged so well, I don’t know.

“I’m sorry.” My words are barely audible. I don’t even recognize my own voice, can’t come to grips with how this man I don’t want to let in has gotten under my skin.

Losing Lexi was one thing I couldn’t stop, but losing myself is something I never expected. And there’s something about Becks—his easygoing nature, his personality, his kindness—that has me reaching over my iron walls and wanting to connect. Wanting to reach for that shadow of myself that is floating away just beyond my reach.

The balloon without a string at the top of your ceiling. There. Present. But never within reach.

Until it deflates. Falls lifeless.

“Don’t be sorry, Had. Never be sorry for needing me.”

I don’t need you. The words are almost off my tongue. But the gentleness in his tone causes the pain to burn brighter.

“You want to talk about it?”

You have no idea. I want to explain this all to you. How I want you, how I’m scared, how if I give you the whys, I know you’ll give me the get-over-it speech, and that’s the one thing I’m sick of hearing. The “Lex is dead, Haddie. She’d want you to keep living, keep dreaming, keep going. Live for her. Get over it.”

And I’m not sure what’s worse to me. Him telling me that and ruining this perfect image I’m holding close of him or letting him in, allowing whatever this is to run its course and then devastate him like Lex’s death did Danny.

I hear the jingle of a dog’s tags in the background, and for some reason, the sound makes me smile. So I seize on to the idea of Becks having a fur person to keep him company at night, my mind trying to distract me from the vulnerability that is seeping from my every fiber.

“No.” The word is a soft exhale on my lips.

“Are you okay? Do you need me to come over?”

Yes.

“No,” I lie, unable to take that next step in admitting how much I want that right now. Having Becks here would be like admitting there is a chink in my armored heart. And the only problem is that I’ve let him in—past the steel walls—but he can never know. If he knows, if he lets me into his heart, into his life, then I open him up to feeling how I feel.

“What do you need from me?”

And my heart squeezes at his words. Not what can I do for you but what do you need from me? Where is the arrogance when I need it? Can’t he be an asshole so that I can cling to that, grab onto that to help me push him farther away?

Protect him and isolate me?

“Nothing … I just …” I can’t finish my thoughts because I want to tell him everything I need from him. Why I want him but won’t let myself risk the chance of hurting him. At my own fear of taking a stupid blood test. So many things but all I can do is live day to day, moment to moment.

But isn’t that part of the problem? If I’m adhering to that theory, then I should be living it up. If tomorrow is unknown, I should be living with reckless abandon, throwing caution to the wind. Driving with the top down. But I’m not.

Because I’m scared.

I close my eyes as a silent tear slides down my cheek, and I try to shove my fear away, but I get a sense that I don’t even need to speak because Becks just knows.

“I’m here, okay?”

I nod my head as if he can see it and sit there for a few seconds before realizing it. “’Kay.”

“So, uh, we never finished the other day.”

I let the silence hang, unsure of what he’s talking about and at the same time wondering if I have enough in me to care and knowing damn well that I do.

“I was born in Texas. Moved at age six to the Santa Cruz area for who knows what reason. … Hmm. I feel lame doing this, but it’s only fair, right? Let’s see, it’s just my little brother, Walker, and me.”

I smile at the comment, love that he’s giving me his turn to tell his history. “Mm-hmm,” I murmur so that he knows I’m listening and encouraging him to talk more.

“When I was twelve, I think, my dad got transferred down to Santa Monica. … He was a big wig at the bank he worked at, and their corporate headquarters was down here, so we moved. I was so mad at him for making me leave my friends and my football team that I packed a bag and ran away.” He laughs at the memory, and the sound of it lifts the veil of grief some. “I made sure I had my Nintendo Gameboy and some snacks and sat on the green electric transformer box that was just out of view of our front door for a while, pondering where to go. And then of course, my mom knew my biggest weakness—chocolate chip cookies—so she baked some and called all the kids in the neighborhood to eat them on our front lawn. She made sure she yelled loud enough to every kid within earshot about them. … I couldn’t take it, so I came home after a whole hour and a half of running away.”

“So we moved down here. Played football and baseball and wrestled in high school. Was a decent student. Became friends with a kid in high school named Smitty. His dad worked on a local race team. One day he asked if I wanted to go, and I had no interest really, but shit, two hours at the track and I was hooked. But it wasn’t the driving that was the draw. Hell yeah, there was an adrenaline rush, the pull of the speed, but it was the organization of the crew, the calculations of the gas and timing. … All of the mechanics of it mesmerized me.” He sighs as I hang on his every word, wanting to ask so many questions about that first time and about so many other things, but my acknowledgments remain soft murmurs and sounds.

“I asked if I could help, became a regular at the track and learned everything I could. I stayed out of the way initially, but then as I grew confident, I made suggestions, filled in when a crew member couldn’t make it. Then one day when I was about eighteen, I saw this cocky son of a bitch named Colton take the wheel of a car out at Fontana. Heard he was some Hollywood actor’s son, so I stayed to watch him wreck because the ones who think they’re better than everyone else always do. He looked about my age, but shit, he surprised the hell out of me because he had some real talent. I introduced myself to him, he came out a few days later and tested the car, and, as they say, the rest is history.”

I can hear the dog’s tag rattle again, and I want to ask Becks about their friendship, his love life, what his parents are like … but I snuggle into the silence, grateful for the comfort I find in him opening up and the lack of questions he aims in my direction.

It’s weird that he understands just what I need and yet I haven’t asked for a single thing from him. The thought settles into the recesses of my mind, and I wonder what exactly that means and how it fits into whatever this is here that I’m fighting so ridiculously hard.

He continues talking aimlessly about Rex, the mutt he rescued from the animal shelter, and his brother and their family house in Ojai. All safe topics. All great info but not what I want to know the most: Who is Deena? What is she to him?

And then I’m mad that I care. Furious actually, so I let him ramble. Not wanting to give in to my catty side again and make him regret staying on the line and talking.

Silence falls back across the line after a bit. “Hey, Had?”

“Hm?”

“As you can tell by my rambling, I’m kind of lonely tonight. Would you mind hanging on the phone with me until I fall asleep? You don’t have to talk or anything. … It’s just nice to know you’re there.”

I know damn well he’s not lonely, know he’s lying to take some of the embarrassment off me, and hell if it doesn’t make me want him that much more. A soft smile is on my lips, the salt on my cheeks stiff as my muscles move, his kindness weakening my resolve. “Sure.”

And I can feel it happen. That part of my heart starts to tremor with the first beginnings of a hairline fracture as he chips away at it with his hammer consisting of patience and understanding.

Minutes pass with just the even rhythm of his breathing and the thumping tail of a dog against what sounds like his mattress. I sink farther into my bed, into the silent comfort of his presence on the other end, and let it wrap around me.

“Thank you.” The murmured words are on constant rotation in my head, but I’m not sure if they ever make it out of my mouth. And if they do, Becks never acknowledges them.