Quiet Angel (6 page)

Then he pulled up her leg and pushed harder against her before reaching to yank down her panties.

“Wait! Slow down!” Layla whispered, pushing him back.

Gage pulled his hand away. “Slow down or stop?” He leaned on his elbow to catch his breath. She looked towards the open window, and he knew he had his answer. “OK,” he breathed out. “Just give me a minute.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, pulled up her panties, and sat up. She fixed the buttons on her dress. “I feel like I’m teasing you, and I don’t want to.” She looked over at him, his face tight, his eyes closed, looking like he was in physical pain. “Are you mad?”

He took another deep breath. “I’m not mad.” Then he pulled her to his side. “I love you.”

Layla cupped his cheeks in her hands. “I love you, too.” She pecked him on the lips. “I think we need to talk about this. What if we don’t do it?”

Gage groaned. “How long are we talking about?”

“I don’t know. I’m only 16,” she said sweetly.

“I know. If you want to wait, then I’ll wait for you. I won’t like it, and. . . .”

“And what?”

“I’ll have to whack off a lot.”

Layla laughed. “You don’t do it a lot already?”

“It’ll be more now,” he said. “But I’ll wait for you.”

“Now say we do it. Then what?”

“We do it some more,” Gage said and tackled her back down to the bed.

“Then you leave for college.” Layla lowered her head to his chest. “Then what?”

“Are you still thinking of staying here?” he asked and ran his fingers through her hair.

“That’s my plan.”

“We’ll figure it out. I know I want you, and I know somehow we’ll be together.”

She looked out the window. “I need a little time. I don’t want to do something I’d regret the next morning.”

*

Gage lay awake
in bed, alone with nothing but her lavender scent. He so wanted to have her, and it seemed, at least for a minute, she felt the same way. Then things changed, just like the other nights. There’d be nothing below the waist, no sex, no sleepover. He crashed and burned again. He hated pushing too far, hated she told him to stop, hated to see her crawl out the window, then guiding her back to the cottage by flashlight.

But somewhere inside he understood what she was saying about her age, his college plans, the coming distance between them. He looked out the open window, hoping as always she’d come back. But she hadn’t. It had been two hours. There was nothing except the roar of the night tide. He turned his eyes to their photo, the sun shimmering off her pale skin, her chocolate braid draped on her shoulder.

He let out a deep breath He knew he wasn’t going to get any sleep with a raging hard-on. He had to find some relief, to release some tension, if he was going to get any sleep. And he didn’t feel bad about it. It’s not like he was jerking off behind her back; he told her he’d have to. Suddenly the phone rang. He ripped his hand out of his pants and grabbed it on the first ring.

“Gage?” Layla asked, her voice shaking.

“Yeah, what’s wrong?” He sat up straight, and his dick went limp.

“I’m at the hospital.”

“What? Are you OK?”

“My grandmother broke her hip.”

“Jesus, I’m so sorry. When?”

“She fell getting out of bed to get some water. Like an hour ago.”

“Do you need me? Is she going to be OK?”

“She’s going to be fine,” she said, her voice shakier than before. “It’s actually not a big deal.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Yes, but. . . .” She fought back tears, thinking back to a few hours ago, their whole summer together, memorizing his muscles, how they first met.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Just very scary.”

“What hospital? I’ll come over right now.”

“No, it’s late.”

“Let me know what I can do.”

“There’s nothing. . . .” she began, her voice trailing off. “I guess I just wanted to hear your voice again.”

“You sound weird, Angel. What’s going on?”

“I’ve got to go.”

“Um, OK. Please call me soon, and let me know how things are. And if your grandmother needs to stay in the hospital for a few days or whatever, you can stay at my house. I know my parents would be fine with that. They’d let you stay in my sister’s old room. You shouldn’t stay alone.”

Layla hesitated. “I love you, Gage.”

*

Layla returned to
the beach alone, exhausted. The night had taken a toll—from starting and stopping with Gage, to bolting to the hospital, to leaving her grandmother and returning alone, to the consequences surely coming her way. She wasn’t wearing a watch but knew it must be two or three in the morning.

It really didn’t matter what time it was. Her time was up. Of all things, a broken hip had broken her plans, smashed them into grains of sand. It was over now. Of course, nothing good can ever last.

Her white cotton sundress dangled in the water, and she breathed in the salty air. She shuddered at the darkness around her—no moon, no stars, no flashlight—the blackness a signal of what would soon descend upon her. Her grandmother’s cottage had withstood many storms, but Layla didn’t think she’d be so lucky.

She stood at a point almost equidistant between the cottage and Gage’s house. She hoped he’d flip on his bedroom light or power up his flashlight. But there was nothing, only more darkness. She kicked herself for leaving earlier. Maybe things would’ve been different. She looked towards her cottage. It was dark that way, too.

She looked back to his house and started that way, her heart pounding in her chest. She saw her footprints washed away by the tide, like she’d never even been there, like no one would remember her when the dawn came. She stroked her wings to calm herself. But it wasn’t helping.

Maybe there were no angels on duty to help right now. Perhaps they’d long since gone to bed. Or maybe all the angels had fallen out of the sky tonight. After all, there wasn’t a hint of light anywhere. Or maybe the problem was the same one as always—there are demons all around, too. And sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

She tiptoed up his patio and saw his window still open. She lifted the bottom of her dress and crawled inside, hearing Gage breathe deeply, fast asleep. The room was just as she left it. She watched him sleep for a minute, his shirt pulled up just slightly, the covers at the foot of the bed. She stepped closer and bumped the bed. He groaned and turned his head towards her.

Gage opened his eyes, finding a vision in white standing over him, her crystal blue eyes fixed on him. Layla looked different than ever before. There was an urgency about her. She brought her hands to her dress and began to unfasten the buttons down the front. He rubbed his eyes, hoping more than anything he wasn’t dreaming. He saw her hands start to tremble.

He stood up and took over for her, slowly undoing the buttons himself until he reached the last one. He stared at it for a moment, wondering if this was the right time—given their talk before she left, after whatever was going on at the hospital, how strange she sounded on the phone. He looked down at his dick poking through his boxers and unfastened the last button.

Layla slid her dress to the floor and stood before him, her angel wings dangling between her breasts. She expected him to take hold of her, but he appeared frozen, in awe, his whole body drinking in hers. She crawled into bed, as he locked his bedroom door. She reached for the covers, holding them up for Gage to join her. He slid under them and then on top of her, his body melting into hers.

*

The morning light
pouring in, Gage clenched his eyes and felt a cold metal on his chest and neck. He was too tired to care about the cold, too spent from his hot night, just needing a few more hours of sleep with Layla beside him. And he didn’t give a shit if his parents found out. They’d get over it, and if they didn’t, then that was their problem. He’d be off to college soon—and thankfully not a virgin anymore. It was great. She was great. He was glad he waited for the right girl.

He reached across the bed to pull her to him, but his hand landed on crumpled sheets. His eyes flashed open, and he sat up, naked. The cold metal hit him again. He looked down and slowly lifted her angel wings from his chest, dangling from her leather cord around his neck. He clutched the wings in his hand.
This means she really loves me
.

He smiled and looked around the room. The window was closed. The door was closed. Her panties and dress were gone. Something didn’t feel right. She’d left other times but not like this. He wondered if she regretted what they’d done. She’d thought she might. He certainly didn’t—not one bit. He looked over to his nightstand, seeing only his phone and model airplane. The photo was gone. He started to sweat, and the room began to spin.

He thought back to her shaky voice on the phone, the urgency in her eyes when she came to him. She’d come back to his room a different person. She’d come back with a purpose. He ran his hand along the sheets where she slept then touched the wings around his neck. He remembered how uncertain her plans were, how she didn’t even know where she was going to school. Something must’ve happened to her. Maybe she went back to Houston. Maybe she went somewhere else.

He knew she wasn’t coming back—not this morning, not tonight, not ever.

PRESENT DAY

TWELVE YEARS LATER

Layla needed to
get the hell out of Houston, its airport, any reference to the city. She didn’t have a problem with the city itself, though it hadn’t been home for years. And it’s not like she was excited about getting on a plane. She just needed to get away from her family—from her mother, her half-brother, and her now dead father.

The taxi pulled up to the curb, and Layla hustled inside, boarding pass in hand. She decided not to run through the airport; she didn’t want to make a scene. And she didn’t think she’d be very fast in a black dress. But she walked as quickly as she could, weaving around other travelers, young and old alike, making her way through security.

She reached the gate. There was no line at the counter. She saw the flight was on-time. Feeling her fair skin flush, she caught her breath and breathed a sigh of relief. It would be good, she told herself, to get up in the air this time. It was clear sailing home now. She approached the counter to check in.

The clerk, a woman in her fifties with a sharp pencil poking through her hair bun, greeted Layla with the sincerity of an automated robot. She proceeded to explain the flight was overbooked, and a computer glitch had given away Layla’s seat. The clerk said there was nothing she could do, except to offer a flight out tomorrow and a credit with no fewer than a dozen restrictions.

Layla tried to process the shitty news, all the hustling for nothing, regretting buying a ticket with Southern Wings. She couldn’t stay in Houston another minute, let alone spend the night. She ran a hand through her chocolate brown hair. “Isn’t there something you can do?” she pleaded, fidgeting with her useless boarding pass and plopping it on the counter.

“At this point, Miss Tanner,” the clerk said, “another passenger has the right to the seat.”