Lie to Me (29 page)

“Anyway, I got stupid and told him exactly where he knew me from, and that didn’t get the greatest reaction. And I would say he didn’t approve of my personal choices since then, because he did
not
love that I’m a lady now. And one of his friends overheard, and then he had to go on about how he wasn’t really gay, and I guess prove it to his boys…”

Shantha shrugs, but Harlow looks like she’s about to cry.

“Jesus,” Brison says.

“I should have been more careful,” Shantha says quietly.

Now Harlow really does start to cry, and Shantha looks uncomfortable, like this is worse than what just happened to her. I kind of get it, in a way. Life can throw a bunch of crap at you, but there’s nothing worse than other people pitying you for it. I know that’s not what Harlow’s doing, but damn, Shantha clearly doesn’t want to cry about it, and she doesn’t want to be afraid.

And seeing Harlow cry about anything is like a knife to my heart. I kneel beside her, put hand over hers.

“Lo,” I say.

“I know,” she says. “I’m sorry. I’m just…emotional. Big week.” Lo smiles up at Shantha.

“Tell me about it,” Shantha says.

“Do you…?”

“Don’t you dare ask me if we’re going to cancel for tomorrow,” Shantha says. “No way in hell we’re canceling after all that work.”

Harlow kind of frowns but doesn’t say anything as she gets to work with that first aid kit, trying to bandage Shantha up. I look down at my fists; all that work Harlow did on me a few weeks ago is undone, my knuckles busted open, bleeding. It’s only Harlow who can patch me up, and I get the feeling that Shantha wouldn’t let anyone else near her right now, either. Harlow’s her family, too.

It’s even more obvious when I look at Brison, standing there, looking awkward as hell. I don’t know what it’s supposed to be like to have a brother, but I bet it’s not this. I don’t trust him.

And I know exactly who to blame for that.

***

So after my dad died and Alex Wolfe announced he was my natural father and my moms just checked out for Florida on Alex’s dime, like she was just relieved to go, that’s when Alex decided to take an interest in my affairs.

But that was when Harlow and I were finally starting to figure stuff out. And I was nineteen, with no real plan, working some shifts at the auto shop where my dad worked, so my affairs basically consisted of loving the hell out of my new girlfriend.

I guess it was a lot going on. If you’ve ever been in love, though, you know I was mostly thinking about Harlow. I mean I was just about crazy with happiness, like I finally understood what people got so worked up about, like it all finally made sense. I couldn’t believe there’d been this huge slice of life that I’d been missing out on, and I couldn’t imagine ever going back.

I just wanted her all the time. I wanted to be with her, to make her smile, to make her sigh, every damn second of every damn day.

And I pretty much did. I mean, I made that my mission.

The first time we saw each other after that first night we kissed had only maybe one second of awkwardness. A second of uncertainty, when I could see in her eyes and her body language that she was nervous, afraid that I’d say it was a mistake, that I wouldn’t want her anymore, or that things would change somehow. I’d come to get her at the Mankowskis’ back door the way I always did, and she stopped on that bottom step. Hesitated, tucking her blonde hair behind her ear, biting that bottom lip. And looked at me.

I just moved in and kissed her all over again, and that was that. No more room for doubt, for second-guessing. I was done with that. And after that, so was she.

Maybe what was most strange to me was how much things stayed the same after we admitted we were in love. Hanging out with Lo wasn’t much different, except, obviously, when it was.

Jesus, the sounds she made when I touched her.

Those new parts of her, the things I hadn’t seen before—the sounds, the smells, the way she felt against my hand—all of that made me fall even harder. I couldn’t explore her enough, couldn’t spend enough time getting to know what she liked, what she wanted. Harlow wasn’t totally inexperienced, but she was still just barely eighteen and had never had sex. It was all new to her, and what I realized, one day, when I asked her if she’d let me just watch her make herself come? It was all new to me, too.

I’d never been this close to anyone I’d done anything with. It had never mattered this much. I felt like a freaking virgin.

And her face? She was lying back on my bed, her lips red and swollen from where I’d been kissing her, her eyes heavy and lidded—until I said that.

“I want to see you naked,” I said. “I want to see you make yourself come, naked.”

Then they opened wide, real wide, and she went from kind of shocked to scared to turned on.

I could see it in the way she got all red for me.

I could see it in the way she tried to contain a smile.

She didn’t move at first. Neither did I.

“Only if you’re naked with me,” she finally said. Smiling at me.

Have you ever seen Superman change clothes? I could have beaten him. It got Lo laughing, giggling in my bed, and then she grabbed my hand and pulled me back over to her, on top of her clothed body. The second she felt my hard cock against her thigh I heard her gasp. I looked up, worried it was too much, but instead she looked…

She looked like she wanted me.

Now, in the end, it was Harlow who pushed for us to have sex when I was still worried that she wasn’t ready. I still remember what she said to me: “I’m not going to break, Marcus.” But there was nothing more precious to me than Lo, nothing, and I was damn careful with her.

So at the time my mind kind of blanked out. I froze, poised over her, ready to kiss her, but with everything on automatic lockdown while I got a handle on myself. Sex with Lo was like this burning, bright light somewhere on the horizon, this thing I wanted more than anything, but I wanted it the right way. If I had a fear, it was losing Lo, and a second one close behind was finally having sex with Lo and then finding out she regretted it because she wasn’t ready. I’d screwed plenty of girls, and I wasn’t going to screw her just because we were horny and impulsive. Eff that. I loved her.

Instead I grabbed two handfuls of sheets and twisted while I kissed her breathless again. Took all my strength not to move against her, knowing I could come from just her touching me, just her watching me.

Man, what I did before Lo wasn’t even sex. It was just getting off. This? This was something different.

I remember her undressing for me, that day. I remember every detail, every gesture, every movement. I remember the way she shimmied out of her bra first, pulling it out from under her shirt, looking at me like she was embarrassed, having no idea that I thought the way a girl could do that was hot. Well, she didn’t know until she saw my face. The way she started to blush as that shirt came off, the way her nipples were tiny, rosy little buds already, deep pink in the light of my bedroom. The way her breasts bounced slightly as she lay back down, her eyes on me the whole time.

It’s not even the sexual element that gets to me when I think about it now. It’s how brave she was, how willing to let me see. How much she trusted me.

How when she was finally naked, lifting her hips just slightly to let me help her get her panties off, she lay there, breathing hard, her chest shaking, gasping with nervousness and just the rawness of it. And me, I couldn’t believe the gift I’d been given. Still don’t.

I said, “I didn’t know I could feel like this.”

“Like what?”

“Happy like this.” I lay down next to her and held her face in my hands, almost scared to move. “In love like this.”

Those were the words that hit her. When I told her I was in love with her. Like it was a surprise to her, which to me seemed ridiculous. Of course I was in love with her. Anyway, I’d almost never seen Harlow look shy, but then? She closed her eyes briefly, smiling big, and when she opened them again she had tears brimming on her eyelashes, and she said she loved me, too.

That’s how perfect it was. No, it was even more perfect than that; the Mankowskis even approved. Had me over for dinner as her boyfriend, now that they knew, and now that things had changed. And Mr. Mankowski, when he made sure we weren’t doing anything he wouldn’t approve of in his house—and I wouldn’t, I respected that man, taking Harlow in like that—he thanked me.

He said, “Thank you for being there for Harlow,” clearing his throat and putting his hand out.

That man had known I’d been sneaking in to comfort Harlow for years.

It was that perfect.

And then Alex Wolfe came along.

Alex Wolfe would come by maybe once a week, sometimes more, taking me out to these dinners at restaurants he owned, drinks at clubs, wanting me to see how he did business. Asking about what my plans were, where I saw myself in five years, what I wanted to do with myself. Saying things like, “The auto shop is all right until you figure out what you want. Then we’ll get you started.”

That phrase echoed around inside my head a whole lot: We’ll get you started.

There was a “we.” Like my future, my life? It mattered to him. Alex Wolfe, my father, thought I could do something.

I have thought about this a lot. Because the only other person who believed in me like that was Harlow. So why did it matter more that my natural father did, too? I still don’t know. Maybe Harlow had just been behind me for so long that I started to take it for granted, or maybe part of me still worried that the way she felt about me had more to do with what I’d done for her than the man I was—that if I hadn’t been there for her after her parents died, I would have just been a teenage crush that she got over and she’d have been on to someone else. Or maybe I was just young and stupid. Whatever.

The point is that Alex Wolfe talking about all the things I could do with my life hit me like another kind of drug. I’d been dreaming about my dad, Juan Roma, telling me he was proud of me my whole damn life, and Alex Wolfe showed up and started talking like he already was proud of me. Like he had expectations for me because of it. It’s hard to describe what that felt like even now. It was like this doubt I carried around with me all the time, this heavy feeling that nothing would ever be good enough—suddenly it was gone. I was light. I could do anything.

So maybe I didn’t see the signs. Maybe I didn’t pick up on what Alex was hinting at quick enough. But man, can you blame me?

And then right after I told Harlow I was in love with her, I’m eating lobster with Alex at this place he owned in Manhattan, real swank, and he’s looking at me with this critical eye. The way he would get when he was asking one of his managers how business was, like he was evaluating everything.

“You getting pretty serious with that girl?” he asked.

Man, I was dumb. I smiled big. Proud of it. “Yeah,” I said.

Alex sniffed and said, “Make sure you always use protection. You don’t want to get tied to that now.”

I lost my shit.

In retrospect, maybe I wouldn’t have hulked out like that, getting up so quickly from the table that I knocked my chair over, leaning over my own father on my big boxer’s hands, feeling the muscles in my back stretch the suit jacket they made me wear, if he hadn’t called Harlow “that.”

Nah. I would have lost it either way.

“Don’t talk about her like that,” I barked. “Ever.”

I remember I felt the heat in my face. I hadn’t been angry like that since I was a little boy and was still small enough to get pushed around.

And Alex just studied me. I remember that second when he was just taking my reaction in, his face unchanged. Then he put his hands up, smiled mildly, and said, “My mistake. I apologize.”

And I was dumb enough to think that was the end of it.

***

So that’s what I’m thinking about when I look at Brison, the brother I don’t trust, while we’re standing there in Shantha’s bar while Harlow tries to take care of Shantha like she’s family. I’m thinking about how Alex Wolfe started to show what he was right around the time Harlow and I were finally finding out what we were, and how much that screwed me up in such a short time. I’m thinking about how I wanted a father so badly it made me stupid.

And I’m thinking about the choices I made.

And the choices I’m going to make.

And, if I’m honest, I’m thinking about the fact that I still want it all. I still want Alex Wolfe to give me the keys to the kingdom and I still want to know that I’m his chosen son, and I still want to make Harlow happy.

A man can only make so many choices.

I try not to think so much as Harlow and Shantha are winding down. Brison left already, made his excuses, gave me a look as he was walking out the door, like he was saying this wasn’t over. No shit it’s not over. My hands curl into fists just thinking about it.

We wait around for a few more minutes until Shantha’s roommate shows up, ready to take her home, Shantha still refusing to go to the hospital. There’s no arguing with her, though, and honestly she’s looking better already. Those drunks didn’t get much time in before Brison and I were on them, and they were drunk, sloppy, not real fighters.

How she’s handling the mental aspect—that’s beyond my pay grade. You’d think someone would be in a puddle of tears after something like that, but Shantha is a soldier, like it’s not the worst thing she’s ever seen in the world. That almost seems worse to me, but Shantha’s not going to let it break her, and I respect that.

It’s not the night anyone wanted. But we all walk out, Shantha and her roommate Billy headed to a cab, me and Harlow walking. Lo insists.

“I need to clear my head,” she says. But she puts her hand in mine and lets me hold her as close as I can. Whether that’s for her or for me, I don’t care. I’m not letting go.

By the time we get back to Lo’s house, though, I’m practically buzzing with energy. Every shadow on the street, every car that comes by—all of it has me holding her closer, thinking about what I could have lost. She notices, too, so that when we get in the door and the first thing I do is put my arms around her, she finally says something.