Last night she had sex with a guy she didn't even know.
It wasn't the first time. It wouldn't be the last. She didn't know
why she continued to do it. She guessed it was because she didn't
care enough. She inhaled, burning her lungs with chemicals and
nicotine as she stared at the angry red tip of the cigarette. The
smoke wafted up toward her face, stinging her nostrils and eyes. She
let it. She couldn't remember his name or his face. All she could
really remember was the smell of alcohol and sweat, the way she felt
sickened by him yet continued to let him touch her—all the things
she wished she could forget. She tried to burn the memory of the
stranger from her skin with a hot shower, but all that did was scorch
her skin.
Reese felt dirty and used—she felt like she deserved to feel that
way.
Putting the stub of cigarette out on the sole of her black Converse,
she climbed through the window and into the living room of the
apartment. It was a small room with white walls, tan carpet, bare
walls, and a mismatched couch and recliner. She didn't have a lot of
belongings and nothing in the place really coordinated, but at least
it was clean.
She got ready for work, changing from her cotton shorts and tank top
into a tight black shirt and dark stretchy jeans. A quick stop in the
bathroom had her brown eyes lined in black and her short blond hair a
purposeful mess around her face. Grabbing her cigarettes and keys,
she locked the place up and walked across the street to the tattoo
shop she worked at.
Leo glanced up from his sketchpad as she entered the shop. “Rough
night?” he asked in his deep voice.
Except for the impressive tattoos covering his body, Reese's boss was
pretty average in appearance. His voice, on the other hand, was
exceptional. It was like butter with a hint of a purr in it, the
masculine timbre sexy and dark. It caused shivers to break out on her
skin whenever he used it, which, sadly, wasn't that often. There were
times when she zoned out just listening to him talk, although the
most he ever did was when he was explaining something work related to
her.
She also had fantasies about him using his mouth and voice on her in
creative ways. Not that that would ever happen between them. She more
or less offered to sleep with him a few months ago and he declined by
completely ignoring her. The week following that was loud—mostly
from her slamming things around and snapping at everyone, including
costumers. She almost lost her job. Leo's exact words were: “Quit
with your fucking attitude or get out.” She got rid of her
attitude.
“What can I say, I like it rough,” she said mockingly, checking
the appointment book. The afternoon was full. Good for Leo, bad for
her non-productive lazy ass.
His pencil went flying and he stalked from the room, her eyes lifting
just as he turned a corner and disappeared. She smirked, knowing his
bad-ass exterior hid an uncommon chivalrous soul that frowned upon
demeaning talk and behavior, especially about and toward women, no
matter if she was talking about herself or someone else. Apparently
he was one of those guys who loved his mother. She shouldn't continue
to tease him, but it was too easy. The fact that he could fire her
ass at any time seemed to get lost in the mix of it all. Picking on
him made her feel better about him finding her undesirable, because
why else would he have said no?
No one said no.
Reese retrieved the black coal pencil from under one of the four
chairs in the waiting area across the room from the front desk,
carefully setting it beside his partial sketch. Her body froze as she
took it in, feeling a pinching in her chest as she gazed at the
indescribable beauty created by a man's hand. It was a bird, the
outline of it bold and black, the feathers lifelike, the eyes holding
intelligence. It looked on the verge of flight, strong and unafraid.
She swallowed thickly and moved away, looking up and crashing gazes
with Leo from where he stood by the doorway.
“It's...” She cleared her throat and showed him her back as she
walked toward the bar stool she habitually perched on for the
duration of her work day. “It's amazing.” Her face heated up at
her admission. Reese and compliments didn't usually work well
together. As in, she didn't give them. Keeping her eyes on the
scrawled names of the schedule, she asked, “Who's it for?”
“Not you,” he replied as he sat at his desk. The matter-of-fact
tone of his voice was grating in ways she couldn't even explain to
herself.
She glared at his lowered head for a good thirty seconds before
sighing and checking the phone messages. Her evil eye was wasted when
he wouldn't even look at her. That was another thing about Leo—he
never looked at her for long. If Reese was a less confident woman,
she would have serious self-esteem issues working with him. But she
knew she was attractive to the opposite sex, even if not to the rare
male that was him. There was no shortage of men wanting her.
That was Reese Ward: The girl all the boys wanted and none loved.
“Saw you on the roof again. Told you not to do that.”
He also had this annoying way of speaking in half-sentences a lot of
the time. Like the effort to add an extra word or two was too
exhausting for him to contemplate, or too beneath him. Reese went a
whole day speaking that way just to aggravate him back. It was a
total fail. He didn't even seem to notice.
"Were you spying on me?"
He ignored that. What a surprise.
“Are you going to kick me out?” She'd asked him this before. The
answer was always the same—silence.
The history of Leo and Reese was confusing, as was just about
anything that involved the two of them in any way or form. Their
acquaintance began about six months ago. She'd just gotten fired from
her job as a waitress at the diner next door to his shop. She'd
mouthed off to the owner one too many times and that was the day he
decided he'd had enough. Leo witnessed the whole embarrassing scene
as he stood unlocking his front door. She was jobless, and as of the
night before, she was homeless too.
It was all too much and she started crying. That he saw her tears had
always been a sore spot for her—people
didn't see her cry. It was a rule of hers. He took pity on
her, offering her a place to stay with cheap rent, and a job. She was
a stranger, nothing to him, and he was willing to give her more than
anyone ever had before. She said no at first, but an hour standing in
the cold rain eventually changed her mind.
Reese never understood why he did that and she didn't think she ever
would. It was obvious he had no patience for her and that he didn't
particularly like her either. Why did he help her all those months
ago? Why did he continue to put up with her bull shit?
“You know, I'm not hurting anyone by smoking on the roof. Would you
prefer I smoked in the apartment?”
“Not smoking at all would be good.”
“Yeah, well, it's not up to you.”
“Who's first?” he asked, not even glancing her way. He had
another habit of not acknowledging her snippy comments when he so
chose to—or a talent maybe. Being able to not always feel the need
to have a comeback was a notable gift. One she, unfortunately, did
not have.
“First timer. April Lange. Age nineteen. She wants a flower or some
goofy shit on her foot. I told her to get here around twelve to fill
out paperwork.”
She decided to pretend to earn her money and started a pot of coffee,
moving on to straighten the stack of magazines on the end table
between the chairs. Next she turned an alternative rock station on on
the stereo, keeping the volume low so it didn't distract Leo's
concentration. He immediately got up and changed the station to
classical music. It could have been Beethoven—she wasn't sure.
“Angry enough without music encouraging it more,” he told her.
Her first inclination was to tell him to go screw himself, but
instead she went with, “And you're boring enough without Bach
lulling you and me both to sleep.” She was proud of herself for
digging that name up. She hadn't even known she knew of two
classical instrumentalists.
“Mozart,” he corrected.
She debated the smartness of saying “biteme” really fast and then
stating she thought it was another classical musician's name, but
decided against it. Instead Reese did minor cleaning around the
white-walled waiting room, the back room he did the actual tattooing
in, and then checked the bathroom for supplies and overall
cleanliness.
Most of the time she felt like she wasn't really needed around the
place. So why did he keep her on as an employee? The million dollar
question. Certainly not for her sunny disposition or their really
deep, insightful conversations. Mention of a former employee had
never been brought up, so she assumed there hadn't ever been one. Of
course, it wasn't like he ever really told her anything.
Leo was more than capable of doing all of her duties—the guy was a
neat freak worse than she was, and he was painfully orderly. She
thought maybe he had a form of O.C.D., but when she mentioned it at
one point, the look he'd given her was so lethal she'd never brought
it up again. Like, death by eyes alone was possible.
The scent of strong black coffee took over the lemony smell usually
lingering in the tattoo shop. She poured Leo a cup, setting it on the
windowsill beside his desk. He nodded his thanks, zoned out in the
world of creativity. She got herself a cup as well, staying far
enough back that she didn't break his concentration, but close enough
that she could watch him work. The quick, sure strokes of his
tool against the paper, the way his hand formed what his mind
told it to, was phenomenal to see in motion—how he could take a
blank piece of paper and turn it into something unforgettable. To
give life where there wasn't a mere moment before.
Time was lost as she observed. Her eyes stared at his fingers,
wondering how they could do what they did, and then in return
wondering what they would be like on her body. The way they mastered
the pencil made Reese think they could rule and bend, even
reconstruct, anything—maybe even her. She felt the quickening of
her pulse and turned away. One would think, with the amount of action
she got, that she wouldn't have to resort to having illicit visions
about her boss.
Her boss, who was an enigma full of closed doors and secrets. Her
boss, who was seven years older than her. Her boss, who didn't even
like her. Maybe that was the appeal. He was a challenge. She liked
challenges. She also apparently liked tattooed men with plain
features, sexy voices, and abrupt conversations. Reese was learning
new things about herself all the time. Go her on the path of
self-discovery. Maybe she could even write a book about it. 'The
Screwed Up Musings of a Screw Up.' Catchy.
She was torn from her daydreaming by a steely-eyed look from Leo. She
must have been making him nervous. She backed away with her eyebrows
and palms raised, turning back to the desk by the door. She sat down
on the stool and eyed the clock. Only eight more hours to go until
she could escape from the stifling atmosphere of the room with all
the drawings on the wall near the door. She was surrounded by beauty
made with the hands across the room from her. Leo only did freehand
work—his freehand work.
At times she felt like she was sitting in the presence of someone she
wasn't worthy enough to and that at any moment he would realize it
and finally give her the boot. She even expected it on a daily basis.
She came to work thinking, Today will be the day he tells me to
go. She didn't understand why it hadn't happened yet. She didn't
understand him and she kind of thought that was the point. He
didn't want her to.
***
Loud voices, laughter, cigarette smoke, heat, and music—it all
pulsated around her. It felt like the sounds were in her ears,
shouting into her brain, the warm temperature of a room with closed
windows suffocating and inescapable. She sat in the middle of it all,
observing the people around her with the glazed eyes and foggy
awareness of someone who should have stopped drinking a long time
ago—or never started to begin with.
Her lips were numb. That was the point when she needed to be cut off.
But there was no one there to babysit her—not that she would listen
if there was—so instead she brought the drink back to her lips,
sucked its mix of artificial sweetness and biting liquor through a
straw until it was gone, and let her hand fall to her lap, ice
sloshing out of the plastic cup and onto her jeans.
She felt so heavy, the weight of remaining even partially upright
almost too much. Reese's backside was firmly planted on the floor,
but her upper half moved like her limbs were boneless, swaying back
and forth. People become disjointed entities with elongated faces,
blurry bodies, and too-bright clothing. Their voices took on a
maniacal, high timbre, and it was all so aggravatingly loud.
Reese's hand lifted to mess up her short hair that was beginning to
fall flat around her ears and neck. Instead she pitched forward, her
chin hitting the linoleum, the ice spraying from the cup and onto the
floor near her face. She stayed that way, her chest against the floor
with her ass in the air. It was surprisingly comfortable. People
laughed, ice crunched under shoes, and she began to laugh with them.
Maybe she could just sleep there. She didn't think anyone would mind.
“You okay?” a low voice asked by her ear.
She swatted at the annoyance, on the brink of passing out, and a hand
wrapped around hers, another under her arms, and hauled her to her
feet. “I was fine there,” she mumbled, seeing pieces of clothing
through the slits of her eyelids. She couldn't seem to open them
completely.
“You were, yeah, but what about everyone trying to walk around and
over you?”
“Fuck 'em,” she slurred, dipping forward dangerously fast.
The voice laughed, the hand tightening on her arm to keep her
standing. “Need another drink?”
He had to be stupid. Anyone could see she didn't need another drink,
even her. She shrugged, only one shoulder cooperating. What was one
more drink? “Sure.”
“I was joking.”
“Only assholes joke about drinking,” she informed him. He was
shuffling her somewhere and she knew she should probably protest, but
she was so tired, and his voice was nice. If he kept talking, she
could probably pass out standing up right where she was. Actually,
she could probably do that whether he continued to talk in his
lyrical voice or not.
“I'm Mick,” he told her as a door opened, cool air rushed over
them, and a door closed again. Reese's alcohol-infused brain noted
that they must be outside. Even under the influence of spirits, she
was quick like that. Also, the cold air gave it away. That, and the
water dripping onto her head from above. It was raining—misting,
actually.
She fought to open her eyes far enough to take in the man beside her.
“Reese,” she supplied, right before she threw up on him.
He sighed, moved her toward something cold and hard—a wall—and
told her to sit down. She couldn't believe he wasn't yelling at her.
Of course, if he had, she wouldn't have cared. Her throat was raw and
tasted of her drink, but with a horrible taint over it. She slid down
to the wet grass, and when that wasn't comfortable enough, she let
her body fall to the side, the pull of slumber getting too hard to
ignore.
“Hey. Don't be passing out on me now.” Gravel crunched under
shoes as he walked away. Maybe he was leaving her out there. She
didn't mind. It was quiet. “Yeah. She's here. Reese, right? You owe
me big time. I just got a shirt full of vomit. Yes.” A sigh. “Why
do you make me rat people out? Yes. They were. I'm not sure. First
floor. Okay.” At first she thought he was still talking to her, but
then she realized he was on a cell phone. The footsteps came back.
“Reese.” A hand shook her shoulder. “Let's get you up. Come
on.”
“Go away,” she moaned, oblivion tugging at her. She just needed
to rest. Just for a little bit. The world was spinning and her
stomach was flip-flopping around and she just needed to pass out.
She'd get up in a few hours.
“Which floor do you live on?”
She pointed up, rolling onto her back. It was an effort to open her
eyes and squint at the sky. Raindrops smacked her face, washing the
makeup from it, washing her shame from her. She wondered, if she just
stayed out there forever, would she eventually be washed clean of all
of her sins? It was a nice thought. She opened her mouth to catch the
moisture on her tongue, hoping it would remove some of the nasty
taste from her mouth.
“That really doesn't help me out. Come on.” Arms fit under hers
and lifted her to her feet. She swayed, fell back against a tall
frame, and let her head rest against his shoulder. The fact that she
was smashing her back into her own vomit didn't register as quickly
as it should, nor did it matter as much as it should. That was why
alcohol was nice—it dulled everything.
“Who are you?” The rain was coming down harder now, the
sound of it like millions of needles hitting glass. Reese's clothes
were soaked and clinging to her. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the
downpour.
“I'm Mick, remember?”
“Do you live here?”
“I do. Just moved in last week. I'm on the fourth floor.”
“Why were you at that party?” Her limbs were so loose, too loose
to get to work. Mick was holding her up more than she was holding
herself up.
“A friend asked me to stop on my way home.”
“Were you looking for me?” They were moving forward, but also
side to side with her uncooperative weight throwing them off.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I owed someone a favor and he made me pay up.” They were at the
door to the apartment complex. He somehow managed to get the heavy
door open while keeping her on her feet and maneuvered them both in.
He was gifted.
“Must have been a big favor.” Her rain-lodged shoes slipped on
the floor and she caught herself against the stairwell railing. The
white walls and bright lights of the interior were striking and made
an ache form behind her eyeballs.
“You have no idea. What floor, Reese?”
She turned her head and blinked her eyes into focus. She noted black
hair and kind brown eyes. That caring expression on his face abruptly
shut everything up inside her. Nice people didn't exist, not really.
The ones who seemed the nicest always wanted something in return, or
they were hiding something, or they were pretending to be nice so you
didn't realize how truly vile they were until it was too late. Or
they were being forced into it because someone was making
them—like whoever he'd talked to on the phone. She frowned. Who the hell had he been talking to?
“Reese?”
“Who were you talking to on the phone? Who asked you to see if I
was at that party and made you babysit me?”
Thin lips pursed. “I'm not supposed to tell you that.”
True, the unhealthy amount of booze she'd consumed—vodka and
cranberry juice—had dulled her motor skills and thought process,
but it hadn't completely eradicated them. She jerked her arm from his
grip and glared at him. There were two of him, so it took a lot of
concentration to keep him within her gaze.
Fucking Leo Chavez. He had
to be behind this.
He owned the apartment building. This guy just moved in. This guy
owed him a favor. Leo was the only one in this whole messed up world
who seemed to care about her even the tiniest bit and who would know
she was at that party. The little—never mind that nothing about him
was actually little—snoop—nor that he really wasn't a
snoop—probably overheard her talking about it on the phone with
Amber at work earlier. She knew he didn't care about her, not
really. She was some kind of possession, some charity case, he had to
check up on. He felt obligated, for whatever reason. Maybe she
reminded him of someone or something—a younger sister, a cat, who
knew.
“So, what, you're his personal spy now?”
“Whose?”
“Leo,” she bit out.
Mick raised an eyebrow at that. “Look, he just asked me to see if
you were okay and that if you weren't, to help you home. That's all.
Clearly, you were not.”
“Clearly, you need to get the fuck away from me. If he wants to
play babysitter to me, he can get his ass over here and do it
himself.” What was she more pissed about? That he'd had someone
check up on her, or that the person checking up on her wasn't him?
She stomped up the stairs, her breath coming out in short gasps as
she forced her body up to the third floor.
Once there, she leaned against the door as she unlocked it, falling
onto her knees as the door gave way beneath her weight, and went
about kicking off her wet, vomit-ridden clothing. She threw them in
the direction of the laundry room, which was actually a closet with a
washer and dryer inside. She didn't bother with light switches,
stumbling through the living room and veering to the right. The
lights of the bathroom blinded her, so she closed her eyes on them,
finding the shower through touch alone. She sat on the tub ledge, her
head resting against the shower stall as she turned the water on.
Body washed and teeth brushed, she sat on the couch in the dark, her
cell phone in her hands. She'd taken a handful of pain pills and
chugged three glasses of water, so whatever dehydration and ensuing
headache felt the need to form could think again. The phone screen
was resting on the number of the tattoo shop, where all calls were
forwarded to Leo's cell phone after hours. If she called him, she'd
blow up at him. If she called him, she'd probably lose her job for
real. If she called him, it meant she cared in some way about his
actions tonight. If she called him, she couldn't let the numbness
descend and she desperately craved it right now. She scrolled past
his name and ended on another.
Reese sent a text and within twenty minutes she was wrapped within
the arms of a man. Talking wasn't wanted nor necessary. Any details
of his life before this moment and after this moment made no
difference to now, or to her. In the dark his mouth loved her while
his body punished her, and then the reverse was done. She clenched
her eyes shut when the fingers touching her morphed into another's;
lean-boned and gifted. She bit his shoulder when she couldn't evade
the pale gray eyes with their reprimand. He growled low in his chest
as his body formed to hers, taking and taking.
Tears trickled from her eyes when one pair of eyes changed to
another, and the hands became another set entirely. The hands that
hurt the most. The eyes she could never fully run away from. Her
chest filled with pain, but her body overrode it with pleasure. She
became wild, moved faster against him—anything to escape her mind
where the memories lived. On and on it went, until she was lost in
the sensations, until she lost herself.
When it was over, he didn't ask to stay and she didn't ask him to. He
left and she was once again alone. She cried into her pillow, hating
herself, but hating him more—the one who was supposed to
protect her and instead hurt her in ways she had never recovered
from; ways she didn't think she ever would be able to recover
from. Bloodshot eyes greeted her in the mirror when she finally forced herself to
her feet and into the bathroom to shower and brush her teeth again.
She pulled on a shirt and shorts and crawled out the living room
window to smoke a cigarette. The roof was slippery and her butt was
wet within seconds, but she barely noticed. She let the cold and rain
seep into her, staring at the building across the street.
The building was the color of sand and rectangular in shape, nothing
overly noteworthy about it. She felt like she was watching it from a
greater distance than she was—that it was some mirage of security
that she could never really reach. Rain pelted its top and slid down
its walls, making it glisten in the dark, alight in the night as
though even dusk could not fully extinguish its bright beacon. She
didn't get her fascination with it. It was just a building. There was
no life to it, no heartbeat, no words, nothing to make it appealing
in any way.
A lone light shone in the studio apartment above the shop. She'd
never been in his living quarters, but she imagined that was the room
where Leo slept each night. She wondered if he was still awake. She
wondered if Mick had told him what a bitch she was and that Leo owed
him for hauling her drunk ass out of that party. She wondered
if he was watching her, at this very moment.
He didn't know it, but the reason she was out there so much was
because looking at the stone structure centered her. It wasn't to
smoke her cigarettes. It wasn't to irritate him by blatantly
disregarding his wishes. It was to keep a piece of her grounded when
she feared all of her was drifting away like leaves in the wind.
The cigarette was turning soggy between her fingers. She inhaled a
final puff and listened to it sizzle as she touched it to the wet
roof. She threw the butt in the kitchen waste basket and grabbed a
blanket from the closet near the bathroom. Her bed smelled like the
man she'd let into it and she couldn't sleep there again until she'd
washed the sheets and blankets.
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