So. Long.: Bad Boy Next Door (62 page)

“Look, Arianne, I have to go. Find another place to crash,
would ya?”

I slide my finger across the screen. End call.

I only wish it meant it was the last I’d hear from Arianne
McDowell, though I have my doubts.

FOUR

I lay with my arm over my eyes. Sleep refuses to come. I
toss, turn, and flip from stomach to back, and over again.

No good.

I can’t clear my mind of the image of Buck with no shirt, his
chest all hard muscle and dripping wet, with water running in rivulets over his
washboard abs. It’s so unfair. I come home and he has to show up. It’s like the
universe conspires against my peace of mind.

Throwing the covers off, I climb out of bed. I tiptoe
through the kitchen, cringing when the floorboards squeak. I’m careful to shut
the door as quietly as I can as I sneak outside.

The trees block the stars, but the breeze is nice. This is
when I need to weed the flower beds—when it’s dark out and not so fucking
miserably hot.

The house is built on stilts to avoid flood waters, so
parking and storage are beneath the living quarters. I wade through the piles
of junk until I find the door to the storage room. I pull the chain to turn on
the single, naked light bulb. I twist my hair up into a wild knot, securing it
with a zip tie from the rusty can on the floor. Taking a lantern, my gloves, and
the spade from the shelf, I throw them into the half broke-down wheelbarrow. I
push it out to the place where I stopped.

The moon shines through the pines in patches of light, the
breeze moving the spotty nightshade in an eerie dance. I rustle the weeds and
scare away any snakes or creepy crawlies. I get to my knees and continue
working where I left off before.

I hack away at the base of a particularly stubborn
dandelion-on-steroids when a twig crunches behind me. I jump to my feet and
lurch around, hands up, ready to defend myself.

A dark figure leans against the trunk of the
hundred-year-old oak.

“You out here burying a body, digging in the dirt like that
in the middle of the night?” His deep voice calls forth memories I’ve tried to
lock away.

I cock my head. “Yours is the only body I’d like to bury.
And it’s not nice to sneak up on people.”

“Sorry. Thought you’d hear me.”

“I probably would have if I wasn’t trying to hatchet through
one of the sixty messes that need to be taken care of before the house is ready
to sell.”

“Oh? Delores is selling? Never thought I’d see that day.”

“Only
if
I’m able to talk her into selling. It’s her
best option. But she’s got a mind of her own, and this is her home, so I can’t
blame her for not wanting to leave.”

“Yeah, she and Manny were happy here. A lot of memories over
the last few years.”

Too many memories. That’s why I had to leave; they were
suffocating me.

I dig my toe into the dirt. “You didn’t come in for Manny’s
funeral.”

He pushes his hands into his pockets, turning away. “Yeah,
well, I was under contract, I couldn’t just up and leave in the middle of it.
It would’ve cost me a bundle. I’m sorry I didn’t get here.”

“Fuck that. He was practically your family. Surely you
could’ve worked it out.”

“I wanted to. I did. But you don’t get what it’s like out
there. You’re either all in or you get nowhere. It’s an ocean full of sharks,
and any sign of weakness gets you eaten alive and left behind.”

I cross my arms and stare at him, waiting for him to say
something that deserves an answer.

“Do you think it’s been easy leaving my family for so long?
Working all hours of the day and night on the whims of writers and directors?”

I shake my head. “No idea.”

“At one point, I worked part-time at four odd jobs and
shared a two bedroom apartment with three other people just to afford to eat
and not end up on the fucking street. For well over two years I lived with a
god damned boulder in my gut, afraid I’d made the biggest mistake of my fucking
life by climbing on that bus bound for Hollywood.”

The bus. That’s a feeling I can relate to. “I get that part.
I wondered the same thing a few times during boot when my feet were eaten up
with blisters and my body hurt so fucking bad it felt like I’d been run over by
the bus that took me there. But—you could’ve called.”

“I did call. I talked to Delores a couple of times that week,
and two or three more times over the next month.”

Embarrassment leads tingles up the back of my neck. “She
didn’t tell me. Sorry.”

“I left, but I still think about home all the time.” He
pushes his fingers through his hair.

“And here I’ve spent the last few years avoiding too many
thoughts about this place and all the crap it put me through. Tried to distance
myself as much as I could.”

He pushes away from the tree and steps into the dappled
light. “I hate that you had such a hard time, Lou. I only ever wanted what was
best for you. I still think about
you
all the time.”

My stomach tightens as he takes another step closer.

“Buck, I don’t know what you want, but—”

“Well, let me break this down for you, Lou. All I want is
you
.”

I stumble backward. My heart struggles to catch its balance
as much as my body does. Instinct tells me to throw myself into his arms.

Instinct is wrong.

Instinct is what got me into this ridiculous position in the
first place.

So, I do what I’ve learned is sometimes necessary. I ignore
instinct. Instead, I use my head, not the organ currently flopping around in my
chest like a dying fish.

“Too fucking bad. You can’t have me, Buck. Been there. Done
that. Even have the stupid T-shirt. Fool me once and all that shit.”

“Give me another chance, Lou. Hell, I didn’t even realize
how
much
I’ve missed you until I saw you again. Maybe you’ll find out that
you’ve missed me too.” He steps closer, his hand out as though he expects me to
take it.

And hell if I don’t
want
to take it. I do, but I
can’t let myself—I worked too hard to get over him to fall into that trap.

I pull my shoulders back, look him in the eye, and lie.
“Well, I haven’t missed you. Not since I grew the fuck up and realized you
weren’t worth the salt in my piss. You weren’t then. You aren’t now.”

He doesn’t even blink. “You’re probably right. But that
doesn’t stop me from wanting you.”

His hand snakes out and his arm circles my waist before I
can dodge him. He yanks me close. My hands go to his arms, his biceps rock hard
and flexing beneath my fingers. His heart thumps against my chest. Mine
answers, because I’ve
always
wanted him. Since the first time I became
aware of him as a man and not just my friend, I’ve craved his touch. But—

That ain’t going to work.

“Don’t you kiss me, Buck. I’m warning you.” I lean away from
him, but his arms tighten.

He lets out a little laugh and dips his head, his lips
grazing mine. His hands smooth down to cup my ass, squeezing and pulling me
tighter to his hardening groin. An overwhelming sensation of déjà vu floods my
fraying senses as his tongue sweeps in, his mouth teasing with a little nip.

It takes only the smallest taste for my body to remember
what else Buck can do with that tongue, and warm wetness slips to my pussy as
desire swamps me. But I’m not some hormonal teenager this time around. I won’t
be as willing a participant as the first time. His tongue darts in again, and I
seize the opportunity to teach him a lesson when I do more than nip.

He pulls back, a hand flying to his mouth. “What the
fuck
,
Lou? Why the hell did you bite me?”

I extricate myself from his embrace, my traitorous heart
pounding. “Next time a girl says not to kiss her, you should listen.”

He dabs the end of his tongue with his finger-tip, pulling
it away to look—for blood? Good.

“Well, I didn’t know you’d bite me. I kinda thought you
expected me to kiss you.”

I step backward, hands propped on my hips. “You’re such a
colossal asshat, Buck.
No
doesn’t mean
yes
, ever. You’re a big
boy. You should’ve learned that by now.”

He throws his hands in the air. “Well, of course, I know
that. But you said the
exact
same thing to me a few years ago, and,
that
time, when I let you go,
you
grabbed my shirt and laid one on me.”

Shit.

He’s right.

Heat rushes up and over my face. Good thing it’s dark and he
can’t see my embarrassment.

Fuck it. I don’t have the energy for this crap.

I turn toward the staircase. “Okay. You’re right. I’m
sorry—I’d forgotten about that. Oops.”

“Oops? That’s all, just oops?”

I shrug and haul my ass up the steps.

He watches me, not making a move to leave, to follow, to do
anything.

I call down to him. “Goodnight, Buck.”

Once inside, the trembling takes over as I rush to my room.
I sink onto the edge of the bed, hands covering my flushed face.

Fuck. I can’t believe I said that. What was I thinking?

It all rushes back—that moment I thought I’d successfully
stuffed so far into the recesses of my memory that I wouldn’t have to visit it
again. Guess not.

On the road heading out of town, I dragged my ratty
backpack behind me, the corner of my biology book scraping the ground where it
peeked out of the hole in the bottom. Suddenly, the strap was pulled from my
grasp.

Buck slung it onto his shoulder over his own book bag.
“Why do you look like someone kicked your puppy?”

I turned away so he wouldn’t see the tears gathered in my
eyes. “Nothing.”

He bumped my arm with his elbow. “C’mon, Lou, don’t give
me that shit.”

I dashed away the tear that managed to escape, still
avoiding his gaze. “You’ll think it’s stupid.”

“Probably, but you’ll just tell me I don’t know
shit—which is true.”

I sniff. “Well—you
don’t
know anything.”

“See? What is it, Lou?”

I veered off the road into the weeds, snatching the top off
a wild flower, picking it apart as I went. The thick air seemed a bit less
suffocating in the shade of the trees lining the blacktop road that led to our
street.

“I tried out for cheer squad.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I made the squad, but I didn’t know it was gonna
cost so much. I’ll have to tell them I can’t do it, ‘cuz there’s no way Momma
can shell out that kind of cash. Actually, even if she could, she
wouldn’t
.
So, you know…”

“Why the hell did you try out for that anyway? It’s not
like you run with that crowd.”

I cast him a wilting glance. “Because I wanted to be
normal
for a change. Be something besides Poor Little Loula Mae Fontaine, daughter of
a junkie and her pimp.”

He dropped our bags, grabbed my shoulders, and pushed me
until the bark of the nearest tree trunk pressed into my back. “Don’t ever say
that. You are so much more than that, Lou—more than all those girls rolled into
one.”

My hands pushed at his chest, but he didn’t budge. “You
don’t understand. I don’t
belong
anywhere. I’m too black to fit in with
the white girls, and I’m not black enough to hang out with the black girls.”

“Fuck them. They’re all just jealous as hell because
you’re the perfect shade of beautiful.” His eyes bore into mine, the golden flecks
dotting his turquoise irises so familiar, yet, at that moment, so foreign.

He gave my shoulders a light squeeze, sending unfamiliar
tingles into my belly. My breath caught and my gaze roamed over his features.
His left eye was swollen and bruised from his scuffle with Lonnie. The muscle
ticked in his strong jaw. His chin was set and determined with its cleft. His
lips suddenly fascinated me. How had I never noticed them before?

He leaned in.

Panic swept through me in a flash of heat colliding with
cold. “Don’t you kiss me, Buck. I’m warning you.”

As though I’d thrown cold water in his face, his hands
flew up and he stepped back. His features went through an array of emotions.
Surprise. Confusion. Embarrassment.