Inside Out (7 page)

Tracey was in a rotten mood, she really was. When Moni called that morning and asked why she hadn't come down to the center, she explained that she just wasn't feeling up to it. Moni asked why. Tracey told her she didn't know. Moni invited her to a matinée movie and lunch with her and her kids to shake off her doldrums. Tracey agreed because she needed the company, anything to get her mind off things.

Tracey got to the mall way too early. She slowly wandered to the area where the theater was located and eased down onto a hard bench positioned in front of a long wooden planter. Crowded shrubs strained against each other above and around her head. She closed her eyes and envisioned the greenery reaching out to wrap around her, hiding her in its lushness. When she was little, she'd imagined this kind of thing all the time. She thought that if she closed her eyes and concentrated on being part of the surroundings, making herself small, no one would notice her. Tracey would be invisible. But that was when she was a kid. Most of her friends were white, and most black kids didn't like her anyway.

Tracey hadn't seen Rett in more than two weeks. She didn't know why or why she should care. She did, though. She cared a lot and didn't know what she could do about it. He hadn't been by the house once, nor had he so much as called or texted. She'd seen him on campus a couple of times but he hadn't acknowledged her. All kinds of things crossed her mind. Maybe he had made some sort of bet and getting her to kiss him was the end of it. Maybe he had freaked out because he'd kissed her and couldn't deal with seeing her again. Maybe he just didn't care. But, dammit, she cared! Tracey hated him right then.

So when she saw him, she felt something move all over her, making her skin crawl, making her entire body warm, making her think she was losing her mind all over again. And after all that, she felt like the proverbial fish in a barrel. Garrett. He looked alive, healthy, and well. She checked his arms. They looked completely capable of lifting a telephone receiver. He was walking in through a mall entrance behind a less than beautiful girl. She had to be his girlfriend, Kim. Tracey knew she was because he had described her. In his description he was much nicer than Tracey ever would have been, though.

She wanted to be angry instead of hurt. She didn't want to watch him. But she just couldn't help herself. A person who has been starved can't help eating. Besides, she was only doing what she had always done, really: watch him and want him. There wasn't any more denying it. Whether she would ever act on it didn't matter anymore. Tracey hadn't slept the entire time he was gone. At night when she was up studying and listening to jazz, he was on her mind. She caught herself lingering around the law library. She dialed half his number and hung up. She didn't know what to do.

Tracey wondered if he would see her, and if he did see her, what he would do. She didn't know what she wanted him to do. She didn't know what
she
would do. The worst of it was that she didn't even know when this thing had happened to her. She didn't remember getting attached. And at that point, she didn't remember much of anything, except for the fact that she had never in her life been kissed the way he'd kissed her.

Maybe her thoughts of Garrett were so strong he sensed them. He glanced toward her and her heart started to tick like a bomb. Then he glanced away and that bomb exploded. How could he not have seen her? Did he see her and just ignore her?

If that was the case, the right thing for her to do would be to just roll up on him and tell him what she thought about his behavior. Tracey was no one's dirty little secret. Oh damn, that wouldn't be right either. Even if he did see her, he wasn't doing anything different than they had done before. He wasn't doing anything she hadn't asked him to do. He wasn't treating her any different than she had treated him. She started to massage her temples. Her emotional reaction was giving her a headache.

He checked the movie listings above the ticket box, and Tracey wondered what he wanted to see. Ironically, she knew his tastes. But because they had never been out in public together, she didn't have the slightest idea how he was on a date. Would he want to see whatever she wanted to see? Probably. He was always asking what she wanted to do or eat or watch. He wasn't happy with Kim before, but was he now? Had they worked everything out? Did he love her? Tracey couldn't stand the speculation. She had lost control.

She closed her eyes and hummed but couldn't distract herself. She opened her eyes again. They were standing in the long movie line. As he stood there, worry caused a tightness around his eyes. He couldn't seem to decide whether he wanted to keep his hands inside or outside his pants pockets.

When he rested his big warm hand on the crook of Kim's neck, she did not move into his touch. Tracey wondered what sex was like between them, and she felt herself getting sick again. That one night she had barely been able to resist his touch.

Then he walked toward Tracey, or rather in the direction of the concession stand. He had to pass her to get to it. She sank back into the bench and lowered her head, concentrating on the bushes and being part of them and hoping Garrett didn't see her. He passed close enough for Tracey to smell his cologne, a scent that always reminded her of amaretto and incense. His brow was creased and he was chewing at his lower lip. He passed her again carrying sodas and Kim gave him a pretty smile when he handed her one.

Moni approached with Gary, Lena, and Tam. “Tam, go buy the tickets and take your brother and sister to get something from the concession stand. Get me and Tracey some nachos.” She handed her oldest daughter some money, then sat next to Tracey.

“So, Trace, Alex told me you agreed to go to dinner with him tonight.”

“Yeah, but that's because we were supposed to meet yesterday morning but he got tied up.”

“Uh-huh.”

Tracey watched Garrett disappear into the theater. At least she knew where she stood with Alex, even if his interest in her was completely inappropriate. She decided she wanted to look
hot
when she went out with Alex.

* * *

“Rachel's sounds good to me. You ready?”

“Yeah,” Rett answered. “Let's go.”

When he and Kim arrived at the restaurant Rett requested a table. The thirty-minute wait marked the beginning of his irritation. Irritation amplified to something like rage when Tracey McAlpine brushed right past him. He turned to look at her and noticed her stop in her tracks. But she didn't turn around. She just went on in with…with Alexander Burke! And not only was she out with that jackass, they walked up to the hostess and asked for a table and got one right away.

Tracey wore a tight-fitting short black dress and looked like a guy's first wet dream. Not the nicest analogy Rett could think of, but he was decidedly pissed she was with Burke and didn't seem to have missed him at all. It had been more than three weeks since he'd seen her, since he'd talked to her, looked at her, touched her. And
still
, seeing her was like a guy's first wet dream. A shock to the system, for sure, but something that felt so good. Damn, he was supposed to be getting over this. He was supposed to be getting over her.

But she was so
sexy
. Before, when he saw her get all dressed up for that party, he'd thought she was gorgeous, but this? Her hair hung thick and straight, teasing her shoulders, which were bare in the sleeveless dress. Her breasts, her
perfect
breasts, were pushed up high, making two perfect semicircles just above a neckline that wasn't real low, but was definitely low enough. Her legs were so long, so toned. His body tightened painfully when he thought about folding the long limbs around his waist. Why did his shy, reserved Tracey look like that? Why was she with Burke? Why did she look like that
with
Burke?

“Where are you?” Kim asked by his side.

“I was just thinking about school, that's all.”

“Oh.”

Their table ended up being on the other side of the restaurant from Tracey and Burke, but Rett could still see them. He watched her giggle and put her hand over Burke's forearm. She'd never done that with him. He watched her cross her legs and tried to recall when he'd ever seen her in heels so high. Delectable.

Someone yelled at him for not listening. And now all he wanted to do was yell at her. “Tracey!”

“Who's Tracey?”

Rett went silent. He hadn't meant to say her name out loud, especially not in front of Kimberly.

“Rett, who is Tracey?”

He could have said right then, “Tracey is in my tax study group.” He could have said it and everything would have been fine. In fact he could've said, “Tracey's a friend of my sister's. I just met her today and she really pissed me off. You know how my sister's friends are.” That would have worked real well, considering that Kim hated his sister. But Rett didn't say that, either. He didn't want to save himself from this argument. In fact, he needed this argument more than Kim needed to teach kindergarten and have a little Brownie or Cub Scout of her very own. So, he didn't say anything.

“I'm not going to keep asking you. I'm sick and tired of you treating me like I am here only when it's convenient for you. I am not your toy. You can't play with me when you feel like it and ignore me when you don't. We've been together way too long for this, and I want to know: Who is Tracey?”

Rett remained silent and focused over her shoulder at the very woman she was asking about. He waited for Kim's full fury to take over. He wondered what this same conversation would be like with Tracey. She was probably too poised and too sophisticated for hysterics.

“Rett, I'm talking to you! I want to know who Tracey is and what—”

“So where were you and Charles coming from today?” That was sure to shut her up. Maybe he didn't feel like fighting after all. She folded her hands in her lap.

“Kimberly, let's just have a nice dinner. We've been fighting a lot lately. You and I both know things have changed. That doesn't mean we have to fight.”

She nodded and said in a rush, “I talked to your mom today and she said she saw…”

At the end of the night, Kim let him out in front of his building. He leaned in the window to give her a kiss before she left. He could tell she didn't want to leave, but he slapped the hood of her car and she drove off. Up in the apartment he grabbed a six-pack from the fridge and sat watching late night talk shows featuring yelling and paternity tests.

* * *

Four hours later, still wired, Rett picked up the phone and called his sister. “Angie, get up!”

“What the hell? Rett?” a deep, sleepy feminine voice asked.

“Yeah, it's me.”

“What time is it?”

“Three-thirty.”

“In the…what?”

“Three-thirty in the morning. I woke you?”

“No, honey, it's okay. I just laid down, really. What's going on?”

“Nothing.”

“Rett, babe, you don't call me at this time of night for nothing. Can't sleep?”

“No.”

“Well, come on over.”

“No, you were in bed. ‘Sides, my car's in the shop.”

“I'll come over there. Kim's not there, is she?”

“No.”

“Good, then I'll definitely come over.” However, when Angie showed up at his door in flannel pajamas only fifteen minutes later—she lived a few blocks away—she said, “You have got to stop watching trash.”

She cracked open a beer and took a swig before plopping on the sofa next to him with her legs folded beneath her. She asked him to talk to her, but he didn't.

All Tracey knew was that the night after she went to dinner with Alex, Garrett called her. “Listen.” His voice was soft and scratchy. “I want to come over.”

“I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say to that.”

“We need to talk.”

“We needed to talk a week or so ago. We don't need to talk anymore.”

“We do.”

“Then come over.”

“I can't. My truck's in the shop. I thought they'd finish today, but it won't be ready until Monday.”

“Oh, so your SUV's been in the shop for two weeks? I suppose you left your cell phone in there all this time, too.”

“No, Tracey.”

“So you just can't make it here. Oh, well.”

“You don't understand. Tracey, baby, I need to talk to you, to be with you. I can't stay here when all I can think about is you.”

In five seconds flat he had moved her from being extraordinarily pissed to holding the phone away from her ear, clutching her stomach. He'd called her
baby. Baby.
She put the phone back to her ear. “Okay…”

“Could you come and get me?”

She drew in her breath and held it. That would mean going to his apartment. She knew he lived in one of the larger complexes in town, and she knew he had two roommates. Things were okay when it came to the privacy of her place. This was a whole new ball game. Her stomach began to sour. There was no way they wouldn't be seen. And it was only nine o'clock. But Tracey reminded herself that they hadn't done anything wrong. There was no reason to worry. They were, after all, just friends studying together. “What's your apartment number?”

She heard him expel his breath on the other end. “It's 415.”

To avoid the appearance of a girl in a rush, she took her time driving. She also didn't want to vomit, a definite possibility, so she circled the block. She finally got there and stepped out of her car. It was late October and the night was mild, though heavy wind shook the trees. The moon looked like a pearl tucked into a slit in the sky, only half of it showing. Tracey breathed in deeply, then entered the building. Students were scattered around the lobby, but no one turned to stare accusingly at her as she had imagined in her car. She knew it was silly, but the nightmare wouldn't go away. In the elevator, she rattled the keys in her hands. When the doors opened, all she saw were the big, gold numbers, four, one, and five, looming at her. She stood outside his door for a moment, then heard another door open down the hall. She went ahead and knocked, realizing she would look stranger just standing there. It opened and Tracey found herself staring at a short, frat-looking guy.

“Hi, I'm here to pick Rett up,” she said professionally. Quickly, she added, “We're studying.”

“Come on in,” he invited jovially. Inside, she immediately noticed how loud it was. The TV was loud, the stereo was loud, even the posters were loud, especially that one of Lynyrd Skynyrd. He pointed Tracey in the direction of what might have been a sofa with a camouflage tarp draped over it as a slipcover, and knocked the clothes off it before they sat down. “He'll be out in a minute. He just got out of the shower.”

“Oh, okay.” She held out her hand, not knowing what else to do. “Tracey McAlpine.”

He shook her hand. “Clay Michaels.”

Awkward silence. “So, which of Rett's classes are you in?”

That threw her. They didn't have any class together. There was no way to bluff around this. Tracey tried anyway. She started to answer, then stumbled to come up with a lie. “We don't have a class together,” she admitted reluctantly.

He raised his eyebrows, but let it go. “So which class are y'all studying for?”

“Uh, Rett is tutoring me in Employee Rights.” Such a lie. She began to wonder about her morality. Lord, she began to worry about her soul. She shrugged it off. Her mother was always praying for her soul so she figured she'd be all right.

“Oh, I get it.”

The front door opened and a very tall, very blue-eyed guy came in. Immediately, his eyes met hers, and it wasn't a nice sensation. “Hey, Big Man,” he greeted Clay. “Where's our ex-roommate?”

“Getting dressed.”

“Where's he going?” The guy was still looking at her. She resisted the urge to wave.

“To study.” Clay nodded to me. He bit the inside of his cheek and Tracey wondered at the nervous gesture.

The newcomer still didn't speak to her. “Oh.” He went to a closed door in the hallway. “Rett, boy, your daddy ain't here, so I feel I oughta—”

“Ought to what?” Tracey heard from the other side of the door.

“Give it up, man. Your study partner's here. We know you're
studying
. At least I hope to hell you're studying because if you're not—”

“Hey, man, we got guests,” said Clay, trying to smile.

“Oh, excuse me.” The Viking fixed her with a stare that made her uneasy.

“Come on, man.” Clay stood up in front of her, blocking his roommate's view.

Her heart thumped hard in her chest. But then Garrett walked towards her, and her breath caught. His yellow eyes were on her, commanding her heart to beat faster.

“You ready, Tracey?” He stood behind her and laid a hand on the back of her neck. His warm palm and fingers flexed gently on her throat. He rubbed softly, then slid his fingers down over her shoulder. She was under the impression at the time that her shoulder would fall off if he didn't stop touching her. And he didn't. Tracey looked up at him. “Yeah,” she answered, trying to read his stormy amber eyes, afraid to move. “I'm ready.” She could see his jaw twitch as he clenched his teeth and his eyes blazed at her. He was positively glowering. Tracey didn't know how to act because she had never seen him that way. He came around the sofa and offered her his hand. She took it and stood, then headed towards the door. Garrett followed her, leaving a cool silence behind him.

“Well I'll be a damn—” She heard Charles hiss behind them.

Tracey didn't hear it clearly. All Tracey knew was that he'd said something derogatory. For a split second, she was trapped between saying something to him, standing up for herself the way a proud black person would, and fear about what would happen when she did. But before she knew it, before she even had a chance to react, Garrett had turned around and was emanating anger, arms wide, fists clenched. He didn't say anything, just pointed at Charles, who turned as white as a sheet. Then Garrett said in an even, soft voice, “You show some respect when I bring a friend to this house. Especially this one. Or I swear to God I will mess you up.” Then he turned and ushered her out the door. They got onto the elevator in silence. They got off the elevator and Tracey walked ahead of him out of the building. In the car they said nothing. Back at her place, she finally caught her breath and stopped shaking. And, eventually, they spoke.

“I'm sorry about that.” He sat forward in her favorite chair. His hands were clasped and hanging between his widespread knees. His eyes on her were intense.

“Which part?” She sat back on the sofa with her legs crossed and her arms folded. She felt cold and impotent. She felt rage and devastation. What had just happened had left her world feeling ugly and raw.

“Charles is a jackass.”

“I gathered as much,” she said dryly. “So that's all you're sorry for?”

“Yes. You had to know they suspected something.”

“There's nothing to suspect, actually. But now, now that you put on that little show, there's no telling what they're thinking.”

“Do you care?”

Tracey lowered her eyes. “I don't care about your roommates, I don't. It's just…”

“Yeah?” He raised an eyebrow at her.

This was the point at which she changed the subject, revealing a little more than she wanted. “I saw you at the movies with Kim.”

“I know. I was the one trying to figure out whether it was legal to say hello to you in a mall or not!”

“Whatever, Garrett,” was her very mature response. “You didn't say anything to me because your girlfriend was there and maybe 'cause you knew you were wrong.”

He ignored this and gave her a look. It was almost “the look.” There he was switching modes in the middle again. Tracey could have sworn someone had run a feather up her spine. “Maybe I haven't cleanly cut ties because I need something or someone worth cutting them for.”

“That's ridiculous,” Tracey countered with more bravado than necessary. “If you don't want her, then you shouldn't be in a relationship with her.” He leaned over, picked up the fetish he'd been so fascinated with that first night, and began stroking it as he considered something. He was making Tracey nervous. She had thought that feeling she'd had in the pit of her stomach would go away as soon as she got home, but it hadn't, and he was just making it worse.

“Maybe so.” He put the fetish down. “I guess we're goin' to talk now.”

“Isn't that what you came here to do?” Tracey folded her arms across her chest.

He grinned at her, actually grinned at her, at a time like this. “No, but I guess we need to do that first.”

She swallowed. Tracey had been planning what she would say to him for a while. She had planned to read him the riot act, back and forth, up and down, side to side. She was going to light into him in a way he'd never experienced before, and yet here he was, grinning at her and spouting innuendo. She couldn't think of anything to say.

“I suppose I should explain why I haven't been around.”

“Do what you want.” She was proud of her nonchalance.

“Listen to me. I'm not goin' to lie to you. I spent the past couple of weeks mostly with Kim.”

“Yeah.”

“First, I want to tell you, I didn't have sex with her.”

Tracey's face burned. “That's really none of my business.”

“It is your business, and you know why, Trace,” he countered. “What I want to tell you is that I spent the past couple of weeks with Kim to see…” He didn't go on.

“To see what, Garrett? What did you spend those
celibate
weeks with Kim to see? What were you seeing that stopped you from calling me or coming by out of common courtesy?” And when did he begin owing her that? It was the first time she'd actually wondered. Tracey really didn't have any right to ask him any of those questions. She was halfway expecting him to say something to that effect.

“I was seein' if I could stay away from you.”

Wrong answer. This was the first time they had talked to each other this way, and she could actually feel the beating of her heart in all her extremities. “Well, now you know you can. So why don't you?”

“Is that what you think?”

“You seem to have managed just fine.”

“If I had managed, I wouldn't have driven by your place every night. I wouldn't have gone to the ANM every night hoping you would show up there. I wouldn't have followed members of your study group around the library hoping they would lead me to you. Hell, I wouldn't have begged you to come get me tonight.” Tracey didn't mention that he'd never actually begged her to do anything. Rett was not the begging sort. “What I'm telling you, Trace, is that I can't stay away from you. And I have this feeling that it may be the same for you.”

“That's pretty conceited of you.”

“Deny it,” he dared her. She hated when he was like this. So aggressive, so smug, so…sexy.

Tracey loved diversionary tactics. “You hungry?”

“No, but I haven't eaten all day so I guess I should have something.”

She got up and went into the kitchen. He followed her.

“Why aren't you eating?”

“I don't know, I guess I've just had a lot of stuff on my mind.”

She glanced at him, then opened her refrigerator and stared, not really seeing the contents. She just needed somewhere else to focus her attention. She grabbed a beer.

“Can I get one?”

She tossed him a bottle. He tapped the top before he opened it. He still stood there staring at her. Staring at her and drinking. “What is it?”

“What?”

“Why do you keep staring at me?”

“I can't help it.”

Tracey ignored this. “What do you want,” she hesitated, “to eat?”

He paused for a millisecond. His eyes were lazy on her. He smiled. “Doesn't matter. Like I said, I'm not really hungry.”

Tracey thought about the pre-packaged tortellini in her cabinet. Quick and easy. The problem was that Garrett was standing beneath the cabinet and she wasn't too keen on being close to him right then. The way he watched her was downright feral.

“When you asked me if that was all I wanted to apologize for—Charles, that is—was there something else you had in mind?”

“Nope,” she answered.

“Was it my absence?”

Tracey shrugged.

“Did you miss me?”

She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek.

“Was it the way I touched you?” he prodded gently. She didn't look at him. Her stomach tied itself in knots and she developed an obsessive desire to wipe the blurry spots off the side of her chrome toaster.

“No.”

“I think it was.” His voice was low, caressing. “I think the way I touched you made you nervous, the same way I'm makin' you nervous right now.”

“You're not making me nervous,” Tracey retorted. And, as if to prove it, she decided to go for the pasta. She didn't care how close she got to him because she was not one to back down from a challenge. She should have been. When she brushed against him, her breath caught for the
n
th time that night and her eyes sought his.

“You're surprised?”

She could barely speak. Her whole body sang with electricity and she thought she was going to melt into a warm puddle any second. She stared at him a tense moment and finally said, “How long have you been like that?”