Dream & Dare (7 page)

She handed him the picture of them with Gina. He took it, fisting it awkwardly at first and then making his fingers grip it a better way. For a long time, he stared at it, and Bibi let him, watching him. She saw something shift in his eyes, and she looked down to see him petting the picture with his other hand, his fingers moving up and down over her image.

“I know you’re with me, Hooj,” she murmured. “I know you’re here. Come on and talk with me. Please, baby.”

He lifted his eyes to hers. Lost, sad, lonely eyes. She put her hand on his face, cupping his cheek, and he leaned his head into the touch. “I love you. I’m here with you no matter what. But I’m lonely, too. And so scared.”

She had to perk this visit up. Making him, and her, feel bad was no way to encourage him to remember anything. If he’d even forgotten. It was so hard to know, with him on the other side of that glass wall.

“Blue took that picture. You remember? It was the day you proposed.”

He hadn’t exactly gotten down on one knee and held out a little velvet box. More like shouted it at her and stormed out.

But then he’d come right back and asked again.

And she’d said yes.

~oOo~

Bibi parked her stupid Dodge Colt behind the building and peeled her sticky-sweaty self off the vinyl seat. Damn, it was hot. The Colt didn’t have air conditioning, which normally wasn’t a problem in LA, but on this June day it was like she was back in Mississippi: ninety-five degrees and humid as a sauna. No breeze off the ocean, either. Just hot and muggy and disgusting.

Traffic had been horrific, too. Stop and go all the way. Quite the send-off from her suddenly former job.

Not really suddenly, she guessed. She’d known five weeks ago, when they’d announced the new policy, that she was supposed to register for the fall semester at least at a community college if she wanted to keep her job. But she didn’t want to go to college. She had no idea what she’d even want to study, and it pissed her off to think she needed a degree to keep selling makeup and giving makeovers to rich wives. She was friendly and charming and outgoing. She looked good in the product. She knew everything there was to know about everything she sold. She was good at selling and good at makeup. What college degree was going to make her better?

And it wasn’t like the company was going to pay for it, anyway. And oh boy, yeah. That five-fifty an hour she made, that was definitely going to cover life and college both. Sure it was.

She’d put her head in the sand and continued doing a good job, making her sales, exceeding her quota, hoping that they wouldn’t want to lose her.

Turned out, she was expendable. As of today, she was the jobless and less-than-proud recipient of a two-weeks’ severance check.

Two weeks. Fourteen days.

Depressed and angry, hot and sweaty, she slammed open the door leading into the apartments and then stomped up to her floor. By the time she’d forced her way through the warped door that had swelled in the humidity so that she’d almost thought she’d need to kick the thing open, she was in about the foulest mood she could remember.

Their apartment reeked of something. Chemical. She couldn’t place it. Before she could even force the door closed again and turn the locks, Gina was on her. “Oh my GOD, would you do something about your pet biker? Does he ever leave? Does he live here now? If he lives here, he should fucking pay rent. Do you know what he did? What a sap! I’ll never get my fucking deposit back. And I’m probably DYING FROM FUMES, not that he gives a fuck.”

Before she could begin to answer that barrage, something flew past her head, hitting Gina in the forehead dropping to their feet. “There. Now I’m paying rent and you can quit your endless yapping.”

Hoosier was behind her. He was around so much she hadn’t even noticed his bike, which must have been in the back.

Gina bent down and picked up what Hoosier had thrown at her: a roll of cash. A thick roll. The outside bill was a twenty. If they were all twenties, that was…a lot of money.

Yanking the rubber band so hard it broke, Gina unfurled the money. It wasn’t all twenties, but there were a lot of twenties, and bigger bills, too. Just with a cursory glance, Bibi guessed that Hoosier had thrown at least a thousand dollars at her.

“Holy shit! I take it all back,” Gina cried. “You are a prince among men, Hoosier Elliott!”

Bibi turned and frowned at him, confused and still feeling angry and gross from her shitty day. When he only grinned back and said, “Hi, Cheeks. Missed you,” she could only grunt.

‘Cheeks’ is what he called her now, since she’d told him she couldn’t stand ‘sweet cheeks.’ It had risen to the level of a nickname instead of a stupid endearment. She still didn’t like it, but it was growing on her.

“What’s that smell?”

“Come see.” He took her hand and led her back to her own room.

The smell was spray paint. Red spray paint. The walls of her bedroom were covered with it. He’d graffiti’d everywhere—right over her posters and everything: A huge heart with an arrow through it and their initials: HE + BL.
Hoosier loves Bibi
scrawled across the wall over her bed. And then just hearts. Hearts and hearts everywhere, paint running from them like drips of blood.

Down the back of her closet door, a rebus: an eye, a heart, and a sheep. It took her a second to get that one.

“What the blazes?”

Hoosier was prone to talking like a novel on occasion, and sometimes he made grand pronouncements, but this was crazy, what he’d done, and crazy was about the last thing he was.

“Don’t you like it?”

“Are you trippin’?”

“I was. Little bit. Felt creative. And there was spray paint.”

“Jesus H, Hooj.” Then she noticed a red film over her white dresser. He hadn’t covered anything. Her bedding—she hadn’t made her bed, she hardly ever made her bed these days, and all her bedding was dusted with red paint. She brushed her hand over the dresser, feeling the hard drops of painted mist. “Everythin’s ruined. God, this day is shit.”

She could feel him get defensive before he spoke. “Sorry. I thought you’d like it. I can replace everything and have somebody repaint.”

They’d only been together about five weeks, but he’d been with her almost all of her free time in those five weeks. From that very first night, he’d spent every night with her but one, when he’d done something for ‘the club,’ which was called the Desert Blades, whatever that meant. He worked, he was a mechanic—and apparently a well-paid one—but for the most part, he worked around her schedule, keeping the same hours she did. He must have had a great boss, who let him set his own hours.

Looking around her room, sighing at the red mist on everything, Bibi saw a surprising amount of Hoosier. His dirty clothes, draped over the old straight-back chair in the corner. His rings, wallet, keys, in a cigar box on her dresser. His brush and the bottle of aftershave she’d bought him at work, using her discount. Three pairs of boots tucked under her bed. A stack of his cassettes next to her boom box. He hated her music.

All if it was misted with red paint, but that wasn’t the point. Gina was right. He should have been paying rent. Without Bibi even noticing, he’d moved in.

“
Do
you live here now?”

“I don’t know. I thought—but I guess I don’t know.”

The hurt in his voice cooled her anger and general grumpiness. She took a deep breath—the room just reeked of aerosol and paint—and found a real smile. Then she turned and took his hand. “It’s okay if you do. It would have been nice if you’d asked, but I’m glad you’re here. And this”—she swept her arm out, indicating the room—“It’s sweet, Hooj. It just surprised me. I had a terrible day and I…” Her words died out as what he’d written finally sank in. The
meaning
of the words and hearts. “You love me?”

They hadn’t said those words. Bibi had known she loved him from that morning they’d first showered together, but she hadn’t wanted to say them first.

“Indeed I do. Have for a while. I figured it was time it was said.”

“Oh. Oh.”

“That okay with you?” He took both her hands and held them at his chest.

“Yeah! Oh, yes! I love you, too!” With that, she pulled her hands from his and lifted onto her tiptoes, so she could wrap her arms around his neck. “I really do love you!”

He kissed her, his mouth claiming hers, his tongue demanding that she open to him. Moaning, she complied, and then he picked her up and walked her to the bed, laying her on her ruined bedding. Still wearing her work clothes, she kicked off her pumps and squirmed, trying to get her long skirt up and out of their way.

But he stopped and leaned back. Brushing her hair from her face, he asked, “Why was your day terrible?”

“Later. I want you now.”

He lifted off of her and sat at her side. “Not later. What happened?”

“I got fired. It’s fine. I’ll figure it out.” She pulled on his t-shirt. “C’mon, Hooj.”

Leaning on his elbow, still at her side, he smiled. “You don’t have to figure it out. I love you. You’re mine. I’ll take care of you.”

That sounded so good. She wanted this man—and he was a man, a real man—to take care of her. She wanted not to worry about rent and groceries, and she wanted not to have to deal with a stupid job and a stupid company only looking out for itself. So thinking about Hoosier taking care of her felt good.

So good it made her mad and suspicious. Joel had said the exact same words—
I’ll take care of you
—and they’d been together for years. She’d given up her family for him, given up her life, everything she’d known, for him, and it had taken him mere weeks to cast her to the side. She’d known Hoosier for mere weeks. She loved him, and she believed she knew him, but she didn’t know much
about
him. How could she trust him with all that? With herself?

She sat up and smoothed her skirt down. “No.”

He sat up, too. “What do you mean, ‘no’? You said you love me.”

“I do.”

“And I love you. It’s settled.”

Just then, Gina’s voice called out, “Hooj! Your jackass is here!”

And then Blue’s voice, low but audible: “One of these days, that bitch mouth is gonna get you hurt.”

That was their game, and though Hoosier and Bibi exchanged a glance when the thumping and crashing started, neither of them lost focus on their own matter. Blue and Gina were fucking lately. Not dating, just fucking. Blue liked to fuck rough, and Gina liked to be fucked rough. Usually, something got broken.

Bibi stood. “No, it’s not settled. What happens when you decide to stop takin’ care of me? What do I do then?”

He reacted so strongly to that, he scared her. He leapt off the bed and almost charged at her, drawing up at the last minute, staring down into her eyes, looking equal parts hurt and furious. “You think I would?”

“I think I don’t know if you would or not.”

For just a second, half a second, she thought he was going to hit her. Then he swept his arm out, around the room, as she had before. “This? I never said it before. Maybe it was stupid to say it this way, but you’re the only one I ever said it to. I love you. I want to take care of you. That’s my fucking job now. If you don’t want that, then you don’t want me.”

He was almost shouting, and Bibi was stunned. Maybe she didn’t know him, after all, because the Hoosier she’d been with for the past five weeks was
calm
. Calm and measured. Wise—she thought of him as wise. She hadn’t thought him capable, tripping or not, of the kind of reckless spontaneity it took to spray paint pronouncements of love on somebody’s rented bedroom, and she hadn’t thought him capable of the naked vulnerability it took to be this angry about what she’d said.