Down 'N' Derby (21 page)

             
“You treat me like there’s a crown on my head,” She whispered it so I wouldn’t hear her.

             
“To me, there is.” I said.  We trekked about two miles before I saw what looked like the remains of a huge ship. 

             
“What is that,” I asked.  It was this enormous pile of a rusted away vessel. 

             
“It was the SS Dominator.  It was carrying goods South and it got stuck here.  They tried to move it but couldn’t get it afloat again.  So the crew abandoned it and the goods were sold by whoever could get their hands on it.  And here it sits.”

             
We stayed there for a few hours.  I held her hand all the time not just because I craved her touch but because there were all kind of jagged edges and rusted obstacles along the way.  The sun peaked in the sky and I heard her stomach rumble.

             
"Ok, time to feed the model.  And we still have to walk back,” I chastised her.

             
“Yes, I’m starving.  Then let’s do something normal, like go to the movies.”

             
“Deal.  Now please, please get off the rusty, sharp piece of crumbling ship and let’s go.”

             
The two miles back to the Jeep seemed like four mostly because we’d skipped breakfast and lunch had passed a while ago.  We ate at another one of her scary roadside trucks and then I drove us past Los Angeles and into Santa Monica.  We parked in an underground parking lot and headed for a movie theatre on the Promenade.  We looked up at the pickings and there were three horror movies and one romantic comedy.  I didn’t care at that point.  I just wanted to get into the air conditioned building. 

             
“Pick one.” I told her. 

             
“Romantic comedy,” She said.  I paid for the tickets.  I stood back and watched while she picked out her snacks.  It was an opportunity to know one more thing about her.  She picked out gummy worms, ordered popcorn and a Coke.  “What do you want,” she asked me.  As I watched her, the only thing I could think was that I wanted her.  Who cared about cookie dough bites or nachos when she was in front of me?

             
“Um, I’ll just share with you.” I finally answered.  I carried all her movie junk into the theater and we sat in the back.  The cliché of sitting in the very back wasn’t lost on me but we were surrounded by other people.  It was summertime after all. 

             
The movie started and I tried so damned hard not to stare at her but she kept putting gummy worms in her mouth and it just accentuated the shape of her full lips.  And they were always pink, not red like when she had lipstick on, but a deep pink, flushed like they had fever.  When she pulled one half of a gummy worm from the half in her mouth they pouted out in a kissable pucker. 

             
“It’s not a bad movie but you actually have to watch it.”

             
I tried not to smile at her.  She reached over and put the tip of her finger in the dimple of my chin.  I hated that dimple.  It was the brunt of Owen’s butt-chin jokes since I was too little to hit back all the way through middle school. 

             
“I love this dimple,” she whispered.   She brought her finger back to her lips and kissed the tip of it and replaced it in my dimple.  Opinion changed, best facial feature in the world.

             
I forced myself to watch the rest of the movie.  It was cheese to the max but she enjoyed it.  I waited after every punchline to hear the windchime laughter beside me.  It had quickly become my favorite sound in the world. 

             
She told me on the way home that she had a gig the next morning.  I told her all about Einer and the way he’d acted.  I told her about going back Saturday and she surprised me by asking if she could come with me.  I said yes but it made me nervous.  I had no clue how he would act when I went back and it scared me for Storey to be around him.  What if it was more than a little nutty?  What if he was dangerous?  I would have to watch her like a hawk while we were there.  Even if he was my father, he wouldn’t have the opportunity to think about getting near her.  But I also needed an outside opinion on him.  Maybe I had been too judgmental.  I would let her be the jury.

             
“So tomorrow, do you need any inspiration?” 

             
“It’s another early one.  But yeah, I might feign trouble with my shoe again.  Might get some more leg action.”

             
“Don’t make fun.  That was my moment of enlightenment.  That’s when I first knew that I…”

             
“That you what?” She asked and practically climbed over the console.  But I didn’t have the guts to say what I wanted to say. 

             
“I first knew that you were my miracle.  It was like your skin was made just for me.”

             
“Tell me why you can’t touch anyone without the prickles or whatever.”

             
I pulled up at her apartment and cut the engine. 

             
“Let’s go upstairs.  I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

             
We dragged upstairs.  She kicked off her shoes and put on those wretched fuzzy slippers.  She sat down on the couch and patted the seat next to her.  I sat on the edge and began to tell her.  I told her about Sela and Sylvia, my two mothers, and their pact.  I told her how my mother was already very seriously diabetic and shouldn’t have gotten pregnant at all.  But apparently one night with Einer had changed all that.  She barely made it through the pregnancy and when I was three months old she was hospitalized but checked herself out, against doctors’ orders and went home to take care of me—spend as much time as she could with me.  Two months later she died.  I told her the truth.  I’d pretty much killed my own mother.  Even when Sylvia took me in, after I was old enough, she had to go back to work because they now had three male mouths to feed instead of two.  And their three bedroom house became too small and we had to move into a bigger house—all because of me.  The tingly feeling started the day I found out I was adopted.  That my mother died because of me. I killed her. It made me set myself apart—for them and for me.  That way I couldn’t hurt them and in turn they couldn’t hurt me. 

             
“You can’t believe that Maddox,” I heard her say the words but my head was buried in my hands and at this point no one could reach me—or so I thought.

             
She got on her knees in front of me and put her hands on top of mine.  She didn’t pull them or try to make me move.  She just let me be.  After a few minutes I pulled myself out of that pity place only because of her.  I couldn’t stand her on the floor. 

             
“Get up,” I gently demanded.

             
She got up and sat away from me.  Either the weight of who I was had finally hit her—or she’d decided I just wasn’t worth it. 

Chapter 31

Storey

Words hurt feelings, but distance hurts the heart and the soul.

             
I got up and sat on the chair on the other side of the room.  He’d practically barked an order at me.  I cowered and almost instantly realized that’s not what I needed to do but more than that; it wasn’t what he needed from me.  So I got right back up and sat as close to him as possible without being in his lap.  I could see the wheels of self-depreciation churning him into the ground. 

             
“I won’t let you push me away.  You didn’t kill your mother.  She had a disease.  She chose to spend her last months with you instead of chained down to a hospital bed.  She didn’t do that so you would live your life in fear of getting close to someone.”

             
“It’s not my choice Storey.  It just happens.”  He was barely whispering now.  The toll of his life had weakened even his voice. 

             
“But it is your choice.  I don’t think you’re able to touch me because of fate or something magical.  I think it’s because you trust me and you trust yourself with me.  You trust yourself to take care of me.  This isn’t about anything other than letting go of the past and trusting yourself—period.”

             
He finally looked at me and second by second I could see the clarity develop in his eyes, the green one grew clearer and the brown one swirled to a richer hue. 

             
“I would never do anything to hurt you—ever in my life.” He spoke the truth.  Even someone who didn’t know him would be able to see the honesty in his face.

             
“And I know that.  But you wouldn’t hurt your family either, would you?”  He looked at me like I’d lost my marbles.

             
“Of course not.  How could you say that?”

             
“You did.  You said you killed your mother.  That’s just a childhood fear talking.  Somehow nine year old Maddox convinced himself that he was responsible for his mother’s death.  But you’re not an adolescent with adolescent fears anymore.  The man I love would never hurt me or his family.  You’ve got to let go of the fearful boy.  You’re not him.  That’s not who your mother would have you be.”

             
Tears formed in his eyes.  And then he collapsed against me, grabbing at my shirt, my waist, anything to get me closer to him.  His head rested against my chest.  I held onto him as tight as I could.  There were no sobbing noises, no gasps for air, no sniffling or hiccups.  The only indication I had of his weeping was the shudder of his shoulders and the wetness on my shirt.  He got up swiftly and changed our roles so that he leaned back against the couch and pulled me sitting sideways across his legs.  It was at that moment that he began his quest—a journey to touch every part of me that he could—simply
because
he could.

             
Goosebumps arose randomly following the path his fingers made.  He traced the contours of my legs, the crook of my arm, the crevice of my neck.  I turned to face him as I thought it was finally the right time.  He would kiss me and seal the silent covenant we’d made tonight.  He placed his hands on either side of my face but his eyes, those two toned windows were trained not on my face but on my own lips and I licked them in anticipation.  I felt his breath on my face.  The rise and fall of his chest gave me a rhythm to breathe to.  We closed the distance between us together, at the same speed.

             
The door was flung open loudly banging on the wall behind it.  And without regard or care for the revelation happening on the living room couch she blurted out, “Storey, I swear, the parking at this place gets worse and worse every time I come home.”

             
I looked at Maddox while I spoke to her, unwilling to give up the moment completely.

             
“What are you doing here Liza,” I questioned her.

             
“I live here.  Well, that’s actually why I’m here.  I’m coming to get the few things that I keep here ‘cause I’m moving out.  I paid the rent through August first so you don’t have to worry about it.”

             
“Okay, thanks,” I responded.  She never was my friend, she was just someone who paid half the rent and passed through once in a while.  I wouldn’t miss her.  She looked like she would take a while to pack up by all the boxes she brought in, so I detangled myself from Maddox and sat next to him.  He cleared his throat and put his arm around my shoulder.  I was thoroughly pissed and completely frustrated. 

             
“We’ve got time.” He whispered to me.  And he was right; we had all the time in the world.

             
I leaned back on the couch to get a better view of Liza’s room and the floor was now covered with clothes and bags she’d thrown out and was now taking her sweet time going through. 

             
“I guess I should drive you back to the motel,” I said. 

             
“Ok, let’s go.”  I wished we’d had time to decompress from what we’d just gone through but I
had
to have a roommate.

             
We drove back to the motel in silence.  He touched my cheek before getting out and reminded me to call him when I got home.  I called as soon as I walked in the door and went straight for the bathtub.  There were some things in life that couldn’t be cured, but a bath sometimes took the sting away.  I ran the water as hot as it would go and poured in vanilla bubble bath.  I stripped down and put my phone next to me on a towel and slunk down into the hot heaven.  I lay there for a while, long enough for the bath to go cold.  But I wasn’t ready to get out, so I drained half of the water and refilled it with scalding water.  I went through the bath routine, making sure to shave since I had a shoot the next morning. I realized I’d forgotten to seal my plans with Maddox, so I texted him.

             
You still with me for tomorrow morning?