Something Blue (2 page)

She nods. “A little darker.”

I kiss her neck, then look over at the tub. “You want a bubble bath?”

When she first came here, that used to be her thing. I noticed, because she was using up my body wash to make bubbles. But lately, no bubble baths.

Tonight, she gives an excuse I’ve never heard. “I want to read, and I think I’ll drop my Kindle in the bath.”

I offer to draw her a bubble bath, like I have every night this week, but she says, “No. I want to read, and I think I’ll drop my Kindle in the bath.”

I nod. “Okay.” I want to kiss her again, but I also don’t want to be a clingy fuck, so I go on to bed and thumb through the
Wall Street Journal
on my phone. I can’t really focus, though. I find myself listening to her move around the bathroom, wishing I was in there with her.

Once, as she opens and shuts the drawers, I feel a flash of fear. What if she wakes up tomorrow and decides to go? The renovation is getting closer to finished…

A few minutes later, she comes through the door wearing nothing but her flawless birthday suit.

She climbs up on the bed beside me, tosses the covers off my boxer-clad self, and straddles my thighs.

“I want you inside me, Marchant. I need you.”

I’m already hard, just listening to her walk around the bathroom, picturing the way her hips sway.

“I want to be inside that pussy, too.”

She yanks my boxers down, frees my cock, and takes it in her hands. Then she sits on it.

I close my eyes and focus on the motion of her pussy on my cock, and try to stay lying down. I like it rough, but I’m trying to be gentle.

We come a couple of seconds apart, and I clean her up. She falls asleep with her Kindle in hand not five minutes after.

I take it from her hands and tuck the blankets around her shoulders. Then I lean back against my own pillows, go to the section for ‘apps,’ and smile down at the only thing that helps me breathe some days.

So fucking cute—this little dancing grape. Below it are the magic words:
nine weeks, six days.

I wonder when she’s going to tell me.

Chapter Two

MERRI

Cross is sleeping, beautiful and nude. He’s kicked the covers off, so I can see every bare contour of his bulky chest and long, muscular legs—as well as the partially shadowed bulge between them. I try not to look at him while he’s asleep because it seems wrong somehow, but I can’t stop myself; as soon as I see how big and beautiful he is, it makes me warm between the legs. He’s been trying to bulk up, I think, now that his hand works so much better…and I can totally tell.

For the last few nights, I’ve gotten up after we nodded off together, and I end up sitting in this soft chair in the corner of the room with my Bible in my lap, just watching him when I planned to be praying.

That’s the thing about Cross. When he’s around, he’s my world. My addiction. I don’t just want him; I need him—and as long as I have him, I’m not going anywhere, even when I feel I should.

And that’s the trouble. That I still feel I should.

It’s not the circumstances. It’s just me.

His Dad wrote me a letter. It was bullshit, of course, but it was also the opposite of him stalking me or trying to shut me up. We haven’t heard from him, so I should be pretty pleased.

Cross sold the house in Napa the week before we came here, and he put some of the money into an account for me. I keep telling him I’m not touching it, but it’s there, and he says it’s important that I have options.

So, I have options.

Which makes me feel guiltier for not getting out of his life.

We’ve been living at the bike shop together, sleeping in his twin bed in the loft, tangled up like the each-other addicts I’m pretty sure we are…

And I’ve been helping him with the bikes.

I’m pretty good at details—some of the stuff Cross isn’t able to do, even though his left hand works now. It’s not perfect.

In my spare time, I’d planned to start pursuing massage therapy, but I’m finding that the bike work is surprisingly fulfilling. Another thing that makes it hard to leave.

I should leave. At least I’m pretty sure I should.

Cross says he loves me, and I love him, too—that much, I know—but this isn’t the way I wanted to start out. I wish the history with his father wasn’t there. I wish my history with Jesus wasn’t there.

Since we arrived at Love Inc., we’ve been talking to the therapist here, and she says feeling guilty and unlovable—even doubting Cross’s love—is normal for “someone like me.” But Cross doesn’t seem to accept that. He wants me to be happy… Not sad. Happy.

He doesn’t tell me that in a demanding way—he never would—but I can feel the pressure from him. He’ll make me pancakes and watch me to see if I’m enjoying them. It may not be intentional pressure, but it’s pressure all the same.

I sneak over to the chest of drawers and slide the bottom one open. I reach way into the back, behind his undershirts and boxer-briefs, until I feel a little, brown leather box. With one more glance at my sleeping beau, I pull it out and open the top slowly.

It’s a diamond—huge and yellow, an old miner’s cut in a dramatic, antique band that I’m pretty sure is platinum.

Cross bought this for me. Because he wants me to marry him, I guess.

Some nights, I slide it on my finger, but tonight I put it back in the drawer and return to my chair. I open my Bible, and I try to make my wandering mind read.

He can’t really want to marry me.

It’s too good to be true.

Which is why I never let myself sleep for long beside him, and I never stop asking forgiveness for the sins of the life that brought me here.

People like me don’t deserve to be happy.

I don’t deserve Cross.

*

CROSS

She thinks that I don’t know, but I know.

How she doesn’t sleep next to me after the first hour or so. How, a lot of nights, she goes into the bathroom and cries for hours. I even know that she’s been looking at the ring. I arrange it in the box just so, and I can tell when it’s been moved. I know she’s been looking at it almost every night.

My sweet Merri.

I’m goddamned glad she’s looking at the ring.

I want her to want it.

I need her to.

I like it that she’s got that Bible in her lap and she’s pouring over it. If it puts her in touch with what she really wants, then I’m behind it. And I know she really wants me. I know she does.

I’m not perfect, and I drag all her demons with my dad behind us, just by being who I am, but Merri loves me. I can tell she does, when she thinks I’m asleep and she strokes her hand down my body. She kisses all my scars and plays with my hair.

She loves me a lot, I’m pretty sure, and Merri’s love is good. I can’t do without it.

That’s why, as she paces around the room and reads and cries in the bathroom, I almost never sleep.

I want to know if she tries to leave. I have to know, because I have to stop her.

And as long as she doesn’t, as long as she stays here, I need to know how upset she is so I can decide if I should intervene.

Right now, I don’t think so. I think she needs the space.

I lie in bed, just breathing and listening to the tissue-paper pages of her Bible turn, until she lies back down beside me. I nod off as soon as her warm body snuggles in by mine, and wake up again as she gets ready for her day. While she showers, I pull up the chaplain’s number on my phone. I don’t want to call my plans off, but Merri’s not ready.

I wanted her to be…

I want to marry her here at Love Inc., and move back to California with her as my wife. I want her to be mine and only mine. I know, maybe it’s a little over the top, but I’m like that when I’m into something.

And I’m into Merri.

After she gets dressed and before she goes to meet Suri and Elizabeth, I lay her on the bed and fuck her, long and slow and gentle. And she likes it. I know she does. I know she loves me. I can tell by the way she buries her face in my shoulder during the times that I’m on top.

And today, when I’m behind her, she lets me ram her as hard as I want. She never complains, even when she’s tossed across the bed, almost bumping the headboard. She never complains because I make sure it’s good, but I think even if it wasn’t, she wouldn’t complain.

Because she loves me.

And also because she can’t be honest with me.

I understand that.

I can be patient, until she has time to process what happened when she was in Mexico. Time to accept it all.

But in the meantime, I stay worried. I always hold her a little longer than I have to before she goes somewhere, because I know my Merri. She’s a runner.

This morning, I don’t feel so worried, because she’s going off with the girls to do some wedding shit.

A few minutes after she leaves—just after I pull on some jeans and one of my favorite, banged-up Cream t-shirts—Marchant knocks on my door. He’s wearing dark jeans and a pink button-up, rolled up to the sleeves. He looks like a businessman, sans slacks. Which makes sense, because slacks and bikes don’t really go together.

He nods at me. “You ready, dude?”

“Yep.”

I step outside and lock the door, and there it is again—that little zing, the wonder if, when I come back to this place, Merri will still be here. It would be easy to feel anger. But that’s only if I’m forgetting what Merri went through.

Of course she’s got a lot of baggage. I’ve got baggage, and I haven’t been through a tenth of what she has.

I’m shooting the shit with Marchant as I think about my girl—talking about his new car, a charcoal Bentley Continental that just got delivered this morning. We talk about its specs, and then we’re there; I’m sliding in on the passengers’ side, bracing myself with my left hand as I get into the seat. And it works out fine.

So fucking great.

Marchant and I have no trouble making chit-chat as we drive. Neither of us is like West, hanging onto our words like they’re worth cash money. And we have the bikes to talk about. He spends most of the ride telling me about an engine problem his DUU is having, and I throw out suggestions that may or may not work. I’m not a DUU expert, but we decide I’ll take a look at it when we get back.

We drive about ten miles to the warehouse where my delivery guy, Todd, is dropping off West’s wedding present from Liz—a Cross Hybrids creation Merri and I made to Liz’s specifications, after Hunter told her he was interested in one.

The warehouse is surrounded by an empty parking lot, so we stand there in the sun, looking at the remodeled, vintage Harley before I get on it and drive it to its hiding spot at the ranch. March likes it. Keeps running his hands over it, especially the detail stuff that Merri did.

He asks about the yellow stripes on the bike’s black sides, and I tell him. He strokes his chin, like a professor. Or someone puzzled. “She helping you with a lot of shit?” he asks.

I shrug. “Some.”

I swing my leg over the bike, because really, I don’t feel like talking about Merri.

He doesn’t take the hint, or maybe doesn’t care. “She gonna stay?” he asks.

I bite my cheek, and try not to let my irritation show. It’s not fair to steer it all toward him. “I don’t know,” I say.

I look up at him—his face is dark against the sunlight—and decide to punt the ball back. I’ve been wanting to ask anyway. “What about you, man? You treating my girl Suri right?”

He nods. “Of course.”

“You care about her? More than just a lay?”

His lips press into a flat line, and he looks into my eyes. “I do.”

The next question is a dicey one, but I don’t care. I’m going to ask it. Because I care about Suri. “Are you cleaned up?”

His lips press flat again, and now I know he’s irritated. He takes his hands out of his pockets and folds his arms over his chest and gives me that Radcliffe evil eye, which is surprisingly cold. “I don’t have a drug habit. And Carlson?” He shifts from one foot to the other. “She’s not your girl. You could have had her, and you didn’t.” He takes a deep breath, the kind of deep breath people take to soothe themselves, and then he rubs his head like he’s exhausted.

“You telling me you’ve never been on drugs?” I’m pretty sure I know the answer to my own question. I’ve heard the stories. I’ve been around the guy. I don’t believe he’s not into something mind-altering.

“I don’t have a drug habit,” he says again.

“Don’t lie, man. I won’t judge.” I had my own version of a drug habit after rehab. Even if I hadn’t, I’m not a judger.

Which is a good thing. Because he’s looking right into my eye, watching for my reaction, when he says, “I’m bipolar.”

“Shit. No way.” How the hell did I not know this? Fucking West. He could have told me. What am I thinking? Of course West didn’t tell me. He doesn’t talk to anyone but Liz.

“Hunter knows?” I ask.

“I told him recently.”

“You had…issues with it?”

“Yeah.” He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “The last few months.”

“You’re talking like bipolar being depressed and moody, or like the intense stuff?”

“The crazy shit,” he says. He arches his brows.

I think about how Suri pulled him up from the bottom of the pool. That’s pretty damn intense. I nod slowly, trying to come up with the right thing to say. “Things going better now?”

“Yeah, dude.” He nods.

“Good.” I rev the bike up, wanting to give him a chance to get on out of here if that’s what he wants. But he stays, so I shift my weight a little and tell him, “Adam was an asshole. Suri deserves better.”

“Yeah,” he nods, “she does.” He steps from one foot to the other, looking uncomfortable, as if an ant crawled up the inside of his pantsleg. Then he looks me in the eye again and says, “I’m gonna do my damndest to treat her how she deserves.”

I nod, affirming. “Same for me, with Merri—if she’ll let me.”