After the Rain (The Twisted Fate Series Book 1) (15 page)

20

Bambi’s
mother was six feet under

Stormy and Marcus sat on the side of the road, watching the sun go down over the Kenyan landscape. The sunset was quite spectacular, and Marcus couldn’t quite remember when last he’d sat in silence, doing nothing while watching the sun go down… had he ever done this?

The landscape around them was surprisingly flat. The rich rust color of the sand that surrounded them deepened further in the fading light of the setting sun. The world looked like it was bathed in a bright orange glow. As the sun dipped further and further and the first star pierced the dark blue sky, the land around them seemed to come alive with strange noises. Unrecognizable noises. Noises Marcus didn’t particularly like. “Um… I think we should get into the car now,” he said to Stormy, standing up. He’d stolen a few glances at her over the last half hour or so, and she’d been picking on the protein bar with disgust, nibbling the edges and rolling it between her fingers. It had amused him, but now it looked like she had managed to finish the whole thing.

“Scared you might have to wrestle a man-eating lion?” Stormy teased, climbing to her feet and dusting her dress off.

“Something like that,” Marcus smiled as he and Stormy walked back towards the car. And then a thought struck him. He was shocked he hadn’t had it earlier, maybe it was all that talk of his…
well,
how the hell were they going to spend the night together? In
that
?
It would put the two of them in really close proximity to each other. Not a good idea. Marcus felt like he needed a distraction,

“So, how was the post-apocalyptic bar?”

“It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” she admitted to him with a smile.

“So what are we going to do in here?” Marcus asked.

“We could get to know each other, in a friend zone sense?” Stormy offered.

Marcus nodded, “Okay. So tell me, how did you get your name? I’ve been wondering about that since I met you.” Marcus could see, even in this dim light, that her expression suddenly changed, and she looked more solemn than he’d seen her look before. She seemed sad, even.

“Well…” she started slowly and tentatively. “Apparently, the story goes that my mother actually gave birth to me in a storm.”

“Apparently?” Marcus asked, confused. Surely everyone knew the story of how they came into the world?

“I don’t really know my mother – I’ve only met her once. So I don’t really know what’s true and what’s not,” she explained. Marcus watched as she started to do that hair-twirling thing again.

“What happened to her?” he asked, treading lightly now. He could see this was a sensitive issue.

“Um… she left me to run off with this cult. People of the Moonbeam, or something like that. Apparently, though, when she held me in her arms for the first time, the rain cleared and she saw a rainbow…”

Marcus felt a sense of pity welling up inside him, and he couldn’t help but reach over and touch her face gently, reassuringly. She reached up and took his hand in hers and held it tightly.

Stormy had often pictured the moment when she was born, and tried to imagine the perfect bliss her mother must have felt, holding her tiny baby girl in her arms as Mother Nature rewarded her labors with a riot of colors emblazoned across the sky… But somehow, her mother had still been able to walk away, leaving Stormy with nothing more than the image of a rainbow to remind her of her mother. No matter how old she was, or how many years had passed, the thought still saddened her, somewhere in her very core. It was as if the pain had been incorporated into her DNA. That acute sense of rejection. It’s unnatural for a mother to give her child away, and Stormy had often wondered if there had been something wrong with her… But she couldn’t let her mind go down this path again. It was a path that lead her to the unhappy place, where Bambi’s mother was six feet under and there were no pots of shiny gold.

“And you?” she asked. “I bet you have these perfect parents. I bet your mom wears strings of pearls and was on the PTA and went to all your rugby games and made you these awesome school lunches, and your dad went camping with you and –”

“Actually,” Marcus cut her off, pulling his hand away. “My parents were never really around. In fact, they were hardly ever on the same continent as me. They are the ultimate humanitarians…” Marcus seemed solemn now. “They went from one starving child to another, one endangered animal to the next, or a natural disaster in Nepal to some terrible human injustice in Uganda. So my sister and I were raised by our grandfather.”

“You have a sister?” Stormy asked excitedly.

Marcus nodded. “She’s great. Younger than me and a little too pretty for my liking.”

“Aaah. Protective brother!”

Marcus shrugged. “Not really.” The truth was, he hadn’t needed to be – Cadence had always been a good girl.

Stormy was quiet for a moment before speaking again. “Those are all noble causes. But being a parent is also a noble cause.” Marcus turned to look at Stormy, and in that moment, she knew that he understood everything that she had ever felt. It was etched across his face. That sense of abandonment, of not being important enough to your parents.

“See. Parent issues, another thing we have in common,” Stormy said with a slight smile, trying to lighten the mood.

Marcus nodded. “Parent issues. I’ll never be that kind of dad, though,” he said vehemently, looking away out the window at the stars again. And Stormy knew that to be a fact.

Marcus shuffled in his seat, trying to get comfortable, but space was limited and his shoulder was starting to feel stiff from sitting for so many hours. He rubbed his neck and moved it from side to side a few times, only to regret it instantly when he saw the look on Stormy’s face.

“Neck giving you issues, huh? Shoulders feeling a big tight,
mmmm
? Head hurt?” Her tone was sarcastic and Marcus knew immediately what she was referring too.

“Don’t you dare say that bloody word again.
Ever.
In fact, can we make a pact that you don’t say it for the rest of our time together?” he teased.

Stormy looked at him innocently and smiled. “What word? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“This has nothing to do with chakras, I assure you. It’s purely a logistical problem. The space is just cramped.”

“Mmmmm,” Stormy mumbled conspiratorially. “Well we’ll soon find out.” She leaned forward and started rummaging through her bag, pulling out handfuls of colored stones.

“What are you doing?”

“Remember, I owe you for the scarf, and now is as good a time as any.” Marcus stared at the stones in absolute horror. “What
exactly
are you going to do with those?”

But she ignored his question. “I need you to lie in the back seat,” she instructed him.

“There’s no space.”

“Space is what you make of it, Marcus,” Stormy said, shooting him a very meaningful look which he didn’t really know how to interpret. She indicated for him to climb into the back. This was ridiculous. Insane, even. He wasn’t going to let her do God-knows-what to him with some colored stones and deep breathing.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, glaring at him. “But I don’t care if you think it’s stupid. A deal is a deal. Scarf for healing session. So backseat, now.” Her voice was firm and at the sound of it, a thrill shot up his spine – that sexual attraction was back. Not exactly a good time for that…

The sooner this was over, the better, so Marcus climbed into the backseat and lay down. Stormy immediately closed her eyes and took a deep breath in and out before opening them again and looking at Marcus.

“Close your eyes, please,” she instructed.

“I’d rather not, thanks.” Marcus didn’t like the idea of lying there with his eyes closed while she did stuff to him. This kind of stuff, anyway…

“Fine,” she sighed, bringing her hands up to his head and makings some swooshing movements.

“What are you doing?” Marcus was sure she was making this up as she went.

“I am making the Cho-Koo-Ray Reiki symbol on your third eye,” Stormy explained, repeating the movement a few times.

“My third eye?” Marcus asked sarcastically. “Now I have body parts I didn’t ever know existed?”

“Shut up, Marcus, you’re ruining the healing vibe here.” Stormy stopped her swooshing and started running her hands up and down his body, a few inches above him. “I’m just scanning your body to check for imbalances.” Marcus sighed loudly and Stormy’s eyes flew open again, shooting him a death stare.

“Okay, okay,” he said, resigning himself to it. “Scan away.”

Stormy continued her slow scan of his body, until finally, after what felt like ages, she spoke again. “Just as I suspected,” she said as she opened her eyes and looked at him, a hint of triumph in her expression. “Your throat chakra is in need of special help, although your others are also pretty out of whack.”

“Whack? How scientific,” Marcus smiled to himself. He’d humor her, especially because she looked so damn fucking cute leaning there and swooshing her arms around.

“Relax. Breathe deeply,” she said as she placed a stone on him. “Now, I want you to imagine this red color penetrating into your lower abdomen.” Marcus chuckled. “Excuse me,” she said, a slight edge to her voice. “Now I’m going to put this rose quartz on your heart chakra, and I want you to think of the color pink washing over you as you breathe in deeply.” Stormy started doing some more strange hand gestures, as if she was swatting imaginary smoke away from him.

“And now,” she said, laying down a stone on his throat, “we come to the main event.” The stone felt cold against his skin. “I’m putting a blue Kyanite crystal here. This is going to help get the flow moving better through this chakra and that will help with those neck and shoulder pains you’ve been having. It will also help you articulate your feelings better.”

She went quiet, and he had to admit, lying there with his eyes closed, listening to her gentle breathing, feeling the cold pressure of the stone and the slight warmth from her hand that seemed to be just millimeters away from his skin… it was quite relaxing. That is until – “Hey, what are you doing?” he yelped as he felt her hand put something down way, way too low on his body.

“I’m placing a stone on your root chakra.”

“Is that what you call it these day?” Marcus squirmed as the palms of her hands settled by his pelvis and swooshed around, causing some unwelcome friction. He caught her hands in his. “That’s enough healing for tonight.” He quickly sat up, still holding her hands tightly. The last thing he needed was any body part of hers anywhere near
that
particular body part of his. “Thanks for that, Stormy. I actually do feel a little bit more relaxed.”

“Really?” Her face brightened up and she looked completely thrilled. Marcus thought that he could quite easily let her do anything she wanted to him, if he could be graced with that same bright smile at the end of it.

“Really,” he nodded at her and her smile intensified.

“See. I told you,” she said in a sweet, singsong voice.

“Yes, you did.” Their eyes met and Marcus couldn’t help but smile back at her. He realized he was still holding both her hands, and as if on cue, they both intertwined their fingers in each other’s. They stared at each other for a moment, the tension and feelings between them growing, and Marcus wasn’t sure if he could stop himself from leaning forward and kissing her. Stormy leaned forward a bit, and that was his cue – he didn’t care about lines in the fucking sand anymore. He lifted his body up, moving towards her, but the moment was suddenly broken by the sound of tens of stones crashing down onto the floor of the car and bouncing around. They both jumped back at the deafening clatter. The moment was gone.

21

From zero to sex in a split second or less

Stormy took the stones crashing all over the show as a sign to keep her lips to herself. Marcus had also obviously heeded the warning too, as he was shifting away from her in the back seat and clearing his (now unblocked) throat uncomfortably.

Stormy stashed the stones away in her bag and stared out of the window at the inky blackness, her heart rate slowly returning to normal. After a few moments of awkward silence, she suddenly felt nature calling. “I need a wee,” she announced to Marcus as her hand reached over to open the car door.

“Hey. You can’t go outside in the dark!” Marcus sounded adamant and he pulled her hand away from the door quite forcefully.

“Well, Sammy doesn’t have a built-in toilet, so unless you want me to-”

“Okay, no need to get graphic, I’ll come with you.” Marcus let her hand go and she opened the car door. “I’ll also…” He stopped himself. Stormy knew this kind of conversation would make him feel awkward.

“Kinky. I didn’t know you were into that,” Stormy said, shooting Marcus a teasing look. “All Fifty Shades of…” Stormy paused for a moment. “Of
whatever-that-color-is
.”

“Gray. And I’m into all kinds of things you don’t know about, Stormy,” Marcus smiled and teased back.
Had their conversation really
just gone there?
Again?
It seemed that they could both go from zero to sex in a split second or less.

She climbed out of the car, which she hadn’t realized had been acting as such a successful sound barrier between them and the outside world. The night was literally alive with strange, loud and sometimes frightening sounds.

“Not too far,” Marcus warned, pulling Stormy by the arm. It was pitch black outside, apart from the millions of stars that were splashed like silver glitter across the night sky. It was beautiful. Stormy loved things that sparkled and twinkled – kind of like Marcus’s eyes right now, as they seemed to reflect the pinpricks of light in the night sky. Stormy pushed the images of his eyes as far out of her mind as possible, and squatted as gracefully as she could in the dirt. It was so unfair, she’d often thought, how men had such an easy time of this, peeing standing up, whereas woman always had to get into that precarious squat position that required both strong leg muscles and expert coordination. There was something rather flawed with the whole design – sexist, even. Clearly a man had been behind it.

“Hey,” Marcus turned and covered his eyes immediately. “What are you doing?”

“You said not to go too far…” She was amused once again by Marcus’s reaction.

“I didn’t mean you should go right… right
there.
” With his eyes still closed, he waved his finger around in Stormy’s general vicinity.

“Well, don’t look if you think it’s such a big deal.”

Marcus turned around, looking highly uncomfortable. Something about the whole thing put an amused smile on Stormy’s face – the way he was kind of sighing and pretending to look at the stars and then at the ground again.

“Can I get you a tissue, or –” He stopped short. “Oh, I guess we don’t have any.” What gentleman, Stormy thought.

“It’s okay, I’ll drip dry!”

“What!” Marcus sort of half-shouted. “Did you really just have to say that, Stormy? Was it truly necessary to say that out loud, I mean…
drip dry?
”

“Hey!” Stormy retaliated while bobbing up and down, doing the requisite drip dry motion. “That is so sexist and wrong. You guys all do the three shake jiggle –”

“Whoa!” Marcus threw his hands up. “Stop talking about my…”

“I’m just saying, it’s okay for men to do a little jiggle, what about us poor women? You have it easy, just standing up and whipping it out –”

Marcus cut her off again. “You’re still talking about it.”

Stormy smiled to herself. She liked riling him up, and it was so easy. She’d figured out exactly what his buttons were – unlike his phone, he had some rather cute buttons that she liked to push. She got up and straightened herself out. “Your turn.”

“I’ll wait until you climb into the car,” he said, finally turning around with a kind of frazzled look on his face.

“Stage fright?” Stormy teased.

“No. It’s just that – unlike you – I know what’s appropriate and what isn’t,” he said indignantly.

“Well, who says what’s appropriate and what’s not?” Stormy had always been fascinated by most people’s punitive self-imposed boundaries. Their rules and regulations.

“Societal norms, and the law, usually dictates that kind of thing,” he answered quickly.

“Lucky I don’t believe in the legal system, then,” Stormy said.

Marcus shook his head. “Maybe you’ve forgotten, but I’m a lawyer. And if we didn’t have laws, we might be running around like savages doing whatever we wanted to.” He looked angry and Stormy felt bad – she hadn’t meant to attack his belief system. She knew all too well how that felt.

And he
did
make a good point – humans were just animals, after all. Maybe they did need a few rules. “You’re right. I’m wrong,” she admitted gracefully.

Marcus launched into his defense. “If the world just did…” But he paused. Had he actually heard correctly? “Did you say I was right?”

“Fully,” Stormy said with a smile. “You’re totally right. I mean, if we didn’t have rules like that, I might have knocked you over the head ages ago, dragged you into a cave and had my way with you.” She gave Marcus a big wink before striding back to the car. Marcus felt his mouth go dry again. Why did the topic of sex always have to come up between them? Even if it was in jest, it only seemed to make this thing harder (excuse the pun).

After taking care of his business in a more dignified manner, Marcus climbed back into the car, suddenly feeling pretty tired. He looked over at Stormy, who yawned widely. “So, how should we do this?” He was looking around the car, trying to figure out the best way of sleeping.

Stormy looked around casually, as though she was totally unphased by this sleeping arrangement. “Whatever works best,” she said, dazzling him with yet another Stormy smile. That specific brand of smile that only she had – that cute, friendly open smile that suddenly made everything in the car look a little brighter.
God, he knew how corny that sounded
.

“Why don’t you take the backseat?” Marcus offered.

“Always the gentleman,” Stormy responded, climbing through the gap between the two front seats. She sat down and looked up at him. Then she patted the seat next to her. “Join me?” Another dazzling smile followed.

Marcus didn’t think that was a good idea, and shook his head. “I’d rather not.”

“Marcus,” Stormy looked at him quite seriously. “I promise nothing will happen. It’s a little cold in here, and I could do with some warmth.” She patted the seat again.

Truth was, it wasn’t that cold. But – and oh God, he hoped he wasn’t making a serious error in judgment – he climbed into the backseat next to her anyway. She smiled at him and the two maneuvered around a bit until they found a comfortable position together. It felt so good to be this close to her, and he wasn’t even feeling anything sexual right now. In fact, quite the contrary.

Marcus heard Stormy sigh. “Goodnight, Marcus.”

He smiled to himself; he liked the sound of that. “Goodnight, Stormy-Rain.”