Burn Down the Night (17 page)

“I don't dance.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

The music was awful. Country crap. But beside me, Joan started humming and then singing.

“Really?” I asked.

She was grinning, her eyes closed, her body swaying. “Oh, so really. I will not hear anything against the Misters Brooks and Dunn. It's my wedding reception. Let me be happy.” Another song came on and Joan gave a little squeal.

Clapped her hands like she'd won a carnival prize.

I wondered, for just a second, what Joan would be like if she allowed herself to be happy. Not just while she was drunk beside a pool. But every day.

Because despite all her thick skin and “take your best shot” attitude, the woman had some serious joy.

And that I was seeing it—and she was letting me—felt like she was showing me a secret.

Like the tattoo under my arm.

Like a fleeting and rare second chance. And I had a cold, hard knot in my stomach that had everything to do with Joan and her sister and this rescue mission she was on that had every possibility of turning into a suicide mission.

I waited until the music was over because I didn't want to ruin that joy of hers. But when the station flipped to a commercial, I got serious.

“Joan?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you going to do when you find out where Lagan is? What is your plan?”

“Get my sister back.”

“How, though? Guns blazing, flashing your fake badges?”

“No,” she said. “I'm not a total idiot. Lagan was letting Jennifer make supply runs with Gwen and I thought I'd watch the camp and when I saw them leave for town, I'd follow them. Convince her and Gwen to come with me when they were away from the camp.”

“What if they don't agree?”

“She will, Jennifer will agree. She'll come with me.” It was more prayer than surety, but I knew better than to say it.

“And this Gwen woman?”

“I'll have the gun. I can force her, and then we'll go to the cops.”

“What about the pills?”

“Jesus, Max. You got a better idea?”

That was the problem. I didn't.

“I have to believe this will work. You get that, right?”

Yeah, I got it. But this wasn't a plan. It was a wish, and sooner or later she had to see that.

I ached to touch her. To put my hand against the velvet skin of her shoulder. I ached for it so badly I could feel it like a memory.

But I knew she'd shrug away, too raw to handle kindness.

On my right side, I felt something sneak up on me and block out the sun. Out of habit, my hand reached for the gun I usually had in the back of my pants.

Habits from a life that somehow seemed long ago after only a few days.

“Sorry to bother you,” the shadow said, and Joan and I both cupped our hands over our eyes so we could make out yet another little old lady. A black woman wearing a long, flowing dress and flip-flops with huge plastic flowers on them.

And she had what looked like a bottle of champagne in a sand pail.

“You're not bothering us,” I said, my eyes on that champagne. This was an upgrade.

“I remember you,” Joan said. “Nancy. You had all the grandkids.”

“Yes! I'm Nancy.” She smiled, her heart all over her round face. “And I do have quite a few grandkids.”

“Right.” Joan sat up, her arms crossing over her bare belly as if suddenly uncomfortable with the amount of skin she was showing.

“And I remember you. You and your sister. I'm so pleased that you've come back and on your honeymoon, too.” The woman's happy gaze swept over me.

“Thank you,” I said, when Joan said nothing.

“Yes, here!” She handed me the sand pail with the champagne bottle sticking out of it. “Fern told me you eloped. Jimmy and me did that years ago, too. Both our families thought we weren't going to make it so we decided they shouldn't be a part of our day. So it was just me and Jimmy in the courthouse forty-two years ago, this year.”

“You showed them, huh?” I said, getting into my part.

“We certainly did and I figure a little champagne never went amiss.”

“Not ever,” I said. This fake marriage thing was exhausting.

Nancy smiled at me but she looked at Joan who was decidedly not looking at her. “I'm so pleased you're back. Where's that little sister of yours?”

“College. She's going to be a nurse.”

“Like Fern.”

“Yep.”

“Oh that's wonderful news. She was such a bright girl.”

“Yep. Real smart.”

“You know, she'd have my hide for saying this, but Fern was devastated when you left.”

Joan scoffed, deep in her throat, and then flinched as if she hadn't meant to make that sound out loud.

“She was,” Nancy insisted. “I know she doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve and I know that you two had your problems. But she was truly heartbroken when you left and I'm thrilled you're back to mend fences. Family should be together.”

Oh, she was barking up the wrong tree talking about that. Mending fences. Joan carried a sledgehammer for those fences that needed mending.

“Thank you,” I said. “For the champagne.”

Now move right along, nice old lady.

Nancy smiled but it did not reach her eyes. “Fern's been different since you left. I'm hoping that we'll get the old Fern back now.”

Joan nodded tightly and finally Nancy left. In the still heavy silence, I popped the champagne cork and poured half of it into her red cup. “Take this.”

“Thanks,” she said and took a sip.

I poured the second half of the bottle into my cup. I put the bottle down and lifted her arm so that her cup toasted mine. “To showin' them, baby,” I said, but she didn't smile. Not even a little.

We sat there as the sun dipped down over the other side of the building and the shadows grew long across the pool deck. The wind that blew up from the ocean was cold against my sunburned skin.

“I'm going inside,” Joan finally said. “It's cold.”

She dumped the rest of the champagne into the prickly shrubs behind us and a bunch of those little Florida lizards came scurrying out across the white concrete deck. She wrapped a towel around her body, her shoulders bright red, her back criscrossed with the marks of the plastic lawn chairs that we were sitting on.

I drank my champagne and ate the last of the hot dogs all smeared up with cheese from the cheeseball.

A group of men walked past me, their white socks pulled up over their spotty old man shins. One of them…Dean? The guy with the paper, he slowed down as they walked past, and he flipped me a cigar from his pocket.

“Congrats, son. If my wife asks, you didn't get that from me.”

“Or me!”

“Me either!” The guys all chuckled, walking with some old man swagger out to the beach where they'd smoke their cigars like they weren't hiding from their wives.

I smelled the cigar, eyed the little label. The real thing. This cigar probably cost a hundred dollars.

“Thank you.”

The last guy, a bald black man built like a boxer, ran his eyes over my tattoos and then he met mine and I saw—in the disapproving set of his chin—that he knew what I was. And what I'd been. Where I'd come from.

I gave him a mocking salute, which he returned. Months ago, that would have pulled me up and out of my chair, ready to go toe to toe with the guy.

But not today. Maybe it was the booze. Or the sun.

Or Joan.

Probably Joan, but I wasn't going to look too hard at that.

For the first time, who I was and where I came from didn't seem like the same thing.

They didn't match up like they had my entire life, like every decision I made had its roots in that club compound where I'd been raised like the weeds growing out of its cracked concrete. Like the patch on my back had soaked into my skin. My blood.

But not anymore.

Something had changed.

Because they tried to kill me? Or because I left for Arizona and would not have gone back if Dylan didn't call me?

Was the difference the boat? The woman in the white bikini?

I didn't know.

But it hurt. The difference. And I won't lie…it was fucking scary. If I wasn't Skulls, who was I? What the hell did a guy like me do?

I lit that wedding gift up and smoked the finest cigar I'd ever had in my mouth.

Fake marriage had its perks.

It was hard work ignoring the phone on the deck beside me. Hard work not thinking about how I could flip it open, press a button, and call my brother. It became so hard not to think about it, that it was actually all I could think about.

And I could blame it on the booze or the cigar. Or the conversation with Joan. In the end—it didn't matter. I picked up the phone and called my brother.

It rang three times, and I imagined it sitting on a workbench someplace in his garage. I imagined him not being able to hear the phone over the whine and burn of the engines that had built his new empire. I was so proud of him. So. Damn. Proud.

This is Dylan. Leave a message.

The beep made my heart stop and I almost hung up, but somehow I didn't.

“Hey,” I said. “It's me. I wanted to let you know I was okay. Joan told me you said I could come stay with you. Thanks. You know I can't but…thanks.” In the rush of things I wanted to say, I suddenly found I couldn't say anything. Not anything important. “Remember that time we took Carlos's boat? Took it out on the river and ran out of gas?” I felt a wild bubble in my chest and realized it was laughter. Real laughter. “We had to paddle like…God, all day to get home. You were so pissed. When we got back, Carlos chased us around his yard with that tennis racket. He would have killed us with that thing if he caught us.” I was rambling. “Anyway, I…ah…yeah. Just wanted to tell you I was okay. I'm real—”
proud of you. Jealous of you. Happy for you.
“Anyway. Good night.”

I hung up before the beep and put the phone down on my stomach, like a warm little coal. Burning me, but not bad enough to move it.

When I was in first grade, Joe Alfano pushed me down in the playground and I caught the asphalt with my face, skidding about a foot until I came to a stop against the pebbles under the swing sets.

The lunch lady gathered me and my bleeding, beat-up face and took me in to see the school secretary who also played the role of parole officer, debt collector, and unlikely nurse.

We called her Miss Ramona and she was not as nice as she thought she was.

Anyway, Miss Ramona clucked over me and cleaned me up with those scratchy brown school paper towels as best she could and she gave me an ice pack wrapped in the same crappy paper towels to hold against my chin, nose, and forehead, which were truly scraped to hell. I would have scabs for weeks.

“You know something,” she said to me, in the tone of a woman who was either trying to make me feel better or trying to make me forgive that asshole Joe Alfano, “he probably just really likes you.”

With my eyes burning with tears I wouldn't let fall and my face stinging at the slightest touch, I nodded. Like I understood. Like Miss Ramona was right.

He probably liked me, so he hurt me. Badly.

Made total sense.

And that right there was pretty much my entire introduction to men. It was my map for relationships with the opposite sex. Somehow, Miss Ramona, with that one fucked-up sentence, got into my head and pushed all my newly forming buttons so that from that moment on, I thought men hurting me meant they liked me.

Yes. I know. Fucked-up. But there you have it.

It took me years to see it as bullshit. To try and rewire myself. To unpress those buttons.

And I knew part of my attraction to Max had its roots in the raw, bloody beds of those scabs. And I told myself that wanting him like I did wasn't healthy. Or wise.

But part of me wanted me to be wrong. Part of me wanted to believe that Max was an asshole but he wasn't a dick.

That he was different—or could be different.

Part of me, the small and scared part, wanted to trust him. Trust him
not
to hurt me.

And that part of me was the really dangerous part. That was the part of me with the compass and the road map to hell and all the empathy that got me nowhere.

I lay on my side of that queen-size bed, listening to the hum of the air conditioner, and I tried to make myself fall asleep so I wouldn't be waiting for him.

But mostly—I was waiting for him.

Because I was a little bit drunk and a little bit sad. And a whole lot horny from a day spent by his side at the pool.

A fun day. Like…laugh-out-loud fun.

I couldn't even remember the last time I'd had fun.

And even that was kind of messing me up. I wasn't supposed to be having fun. Not when I didn't know what was happening with Jennifer.

You don't deserve fun, an old familiar voice was telling me.

I heard the front door open and my heart kicked up faster. I'd worn a pair of yoga pants and a long sleeve T-shirt to bed. It was as close to a chastity belt as I could find. But underneath the cotton, worn soft and smooth from a thousand washes, my body was waiting.

It was primed and ready and restless with want. With an edgy anger at myself and at the world.

The fridge door opened with a muffled pop, and I heard him fixing himself a sandwich.

“Gross,” he muttered and I smiled, imagining him trying the tuna salad.

There was no chance of sleep now; I was so attuned to him. My heart was in my throat, my ears straining to pick up every sound he made.

I heard the shuffle of his feet across the carpet to the bedroom and wished that I'd just gone to sleep on the damn love seat.

He stepped inside the room and I heard his trunks slide down his body, the rasp of fabric over skin that meant he was naked. He was naked and here. Warm and big and I couldn't catch my breath.

“Joan?” he whispered.

“Yeah.”

He got into bed, the mattress dipping with his weight, and I rolled into him, registering the hot brush of his skin. The solid strength of his body. Muscle and bone and tendon.

Quickly as we touched, I rolled away from him.

I wanted him, but I didn't want to. Because this want felt like need…like weakness…and I really didn't want that.

I hugged the side as best I could, my back to him, but I felt him there in the darkness. I could feel the glowing hot heat of his sunburned skin all along my back and side. I felt like butter left out of the fridge, my edges were melting. I shifted farther away from him, balancing on the very edge of the mattress.

Ridiculous, I told myself. But somehow I couldn't find a way to stop.

“It's freezing in here,” he whispered. “Did you crank up the air-conditioning?”

“It's because you're a chump and you got a sunburn,” I whispered into the dark of the room. I was making a study of the lamp on the small bedside table. The pink beaded fringe. Three beads on each little bit of string. One big, two small.

He grunted in response.

“And why do you smell like a cigar?” I asked, turning away from my lamp study.

“Wedding gift.”

That made me roll over. Or gave me the excuse to roll over. I didn't know anymore. I rolled over and faced him. His bruises were dark, his eyes bright. That beard. That beard made me breathless.

“Who gave you a cigar?”

“The husbands of all the women that gave us food and booze today.” He was lying on his back, wincing at the rub of the blankets over his chest. Poor chump.

“The smell bother you?” he asked, turning his head to look at me. His eyes were all liquid and wide in the dark, and I could tell he was taking in the pieces of me like I was taking in the pieces of him.

“Don't be nice,” I warned him.

“Well, it's not like I offered to go sleep on the love seat if it did.”

“Good point.” Asshole, not a dick. The distinction was becoming clear to me.

We were silent for a few moments, and I was about to roll back over, uncomfortable with the intimacy.

“I called my brother.”

“What? But you said—”

“I know.” He seemed…lighter.

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. I left a message.”

Did he see how happy he was just from leaving a message? Could he imagine how happy he'd be if they actually talked?

“What are you going to do after you get your sister back?” he asked.

“I don't know. Survive. Figure shit out.”

“Aren't you tired of just surviving?”

“What's the alternative?”

“Why don't you go back to nursing school?”

“What?” I jerked back.

“You said you had to leave nursing school. You could go back.”

“I could. Except I have no money.”

“I can give you some,” he said.

Chills rolled up and over my neck and skull. Such kindness. Such generosity from him, for a moment I was stunned.

“What is with you?” I whispered.

“I have money. You saved my life.”

“You're high.”

That made him laugh. “Maybe,” he said. “I feel a little high.” Again, I was about to roll over, because I didn't know how to handle this conversation. Just then he reached out and touched the end of my ponytail where it lay against my shoulder.

Hair can't feel, I know that. But still…the brush of his finger against my shirt moved the fabric just barely over my skin and I was so tuned up, so alive inside my body, I felt that touch everywhere. I felt him everywhere.

And I wanted more.

“I miss the blonde, it suited you.”

“It wasn't real.”

“Is this color real?”

“No.”

“Your hair, your name—you don't give anything away to anyone, do you?”

Except you, I thought. He was thinking it, too. It was there in his smug grin.

“What are you doing?” I whispered. “What about the bruises you're going to leave me with?”

“I don't know,” he said. “Maybe there's something more in me than giving bruises.”

I sucked in a breath. And another one, trying to find some solid ground. “I can't…don't be kind.” I said in a rush.

“Is that what I'm doing? Being kind?” His fingers were stroking my collarbone now, just above the edge of the shirt I was wearing. A light fingertip brush that was unraveling me. “I wouldn't know. I've never been kind before.”

He wasn't being who he was supposed to be. And he wasn't asking me what he was supposed to ask, and his touch was making me crazy. Like I didn't know who I was. So I got out of bed. “I am going to go sleep on the love seat.”

“You scared?” It was a question and at the same time, it wasn't.

I pulled the sheet and blanket with me when I stood and when I looked over at him, his whole body was uncovered. The tattoos and the lean muscles were cast in silvery shadows. A line of dark hair started just under his belly button and ran down his flat stomach to his crotch. Where his cock, ruddy and thick, lay, half hard against his leg.

As I watched, he reached down and cupped his cock in his hand, pulling it taut and then letting it go. He did it again. And then again. Fully hard now, it was huge, the tip of it reaching past his belly button.

My mouth went dry. My pussy went wet.

“You don't want kindness but you want this, right?” he asked, his voice low and quiet. He jacked himself for me again. Twisting his hand at the tip, like it was a little flourish he'd perfected. “Joan?”

“Yes. I…I want that.”

“You want me to show you what I like?” he asked. “What gets me off when I'm all by myself? Or do you want to run scared and sleep in the other room?”

Some distant alarm was ringing in my head, like a fire drill pulled by Miss Ramona.

But I wasn't listening to Miss Ramona anymore. She'd screwed me up enough.

“Go ahead,” I said.

His laughter was dark and twisty and it worked a compelling kind of magic over me. “You gotta say the words, Joan.”

“I want you to show me what you like,” I said. Because I wasn't scared of these words. These words, for all their power, had no hold over me. I could talk filth all day long. It was the other shit that wrecked me.

On the bed, spread out like a buffet of riches, Max shifted, putting an arm behind his head, revealing that tattoo. And for a moment I got lost in it, wondering what kind of tree grew from a bed of bones. What could survive with that kind of food?

But then he curled his fist around his cock. And my mind banished all dark thoughts. I was here and I was now. And I was painfully alive.

He gripped his cock so hard, the tip turned dark and a small drop of milky pre-cum leaked from the tip. He used the palm of his hand to spread the come over the head and when that wasn't enough he licked his hand.

“I'm thinking of your mouth,” he said, his eyes dark and hooded and secretive in the shadows. But they were on me and I could feel his gaze on my body, like my shirt and my pants weren't there.

“I'm thinking of you on your knees in front of me. You have your blonde hair back and you're so fucking hot and so fucking hungry for my cock.”

It was not hard to imagine.

“You lick me,” he said. “Bottom to tip, your hand on my balls, nice and firm like you know what you're doing.”

Oh, he had no idea. And I could show him. I could crawl up the bed between his legs and I could swat his hands away, replace them with my own. Suck the tip of that monster into my mouth and down my throat. All the way down. Until my nose was pressed to the hair of his groin and it hurt and I couldn't breathe.

Yeah.

I put a knee on the bed and he lifted his head. “No,” he said. All firm and hard and I could barely breathe for wanting him so badly. “Watch, remember? No touching.”

His lip curled in what looked like fondness and affection and I had to look away to get my bearings. To find my familiar self in the moment.

“Watch,” he said, pulling my focus back to him. He spread his legs, muscular and dusted with hair. His chest, just over his ribs, was still mottled with bruises. He looked fierce. He looked damaged.

He looked exactly like what I wanted.

“Show me,” I breathed. He nodded, his bottom lip caught between his teeth in what had to be the sexiest expression. Like he hurt just a little, or he wanted to. Like he was holding on to himself using all possible means. I clenched my hands into fists so I wouldn't touch him. So I wouldn't slip my hand down the front of these yoga pants and give myself a little relief.

His hand moved faster, squeezing harder, and every few strokes he gathered more come from the tip and spread it down over his dick until I heard the wet slick of his hand against his cock. Once he was good and wet he moved faster, twisting his hand at the top, squeezing until the head was purple.

“You like it hard,” I said.

“It's how I imagine fucking you,” he said.

“Tell me,” I breathed.

“I imagine bending you over this bed. I imagine your ass in my hands and my dick in your cunt. I imagine pressing as high and as hard into you as you can take. I imagine you asking me to stop, but when I ask you if you're sure you say you want more. I imagine being inside you so deep you can feel me in the back of your throat. You can taste me on your tongue.”

I had to take a step back until I was up against the wall, because my knees were weak. My pussy was on fire.
On fire.

“Every time I push into you, you say my name. You say Max and more and please. I fuck you until you're screaming.” His hand was a blur on his dick but I was barely watching. Our eyes were locked, I couldn't look away. I was a fly in his web and he was coming for me—I knew it. But I couldn't do anything to stop it. I didn't want to do anything to stop it.

“And you feel so good on my dick. So wet and so hot. And when you come…” He stopped for a second, breathing hard, his face flushing. His chest under those tattoos flushing. If I touched him now, he'd be so hot. Sweat would drip from our bodies.