Sweet Talk Me (31 page)

“No, I didn’t know. Did they implant Einstein’s brain in your head? That would make a cool movie.”

“Out of all the combinations,” Gage spoke over him, “one leapt to mind immediately. But I didn’t tell her. I gave her one that was innocuous enough:
wagons buried
.”

“What was the other one?”

“
Bad rogue wins
. I thought I’d pass that one on to you. Good night, little brother.” He walked past Harrison without another word.

“Is this a setup?” Harrison asked him.

But Gage ignored him. He just walked into the house, the screen door slapping shut behind him. Harrison stood and looked at Ed, but in his head he was slashing through the letters in
bad rogue wins
one at a time. Sure as shootin’, it spelled
Dubose Waring
.

That was weird. That was
really
weird.

“Let’s go, Ed.” He opened the door to the house, feeling weird for a lot of reasons. But weird in a good way. Lighter. “I think we’re in the
Twilight Zone
.”

Ed leapt from his seat and took the lead inside, his tail high. It didn’t take much to make a dog happy. And they had no compunctions about showing their butts or burping in public. No wonder. All of ’em had clear consciences.

Harrison walked up the stairs and thought about his family. About Dad, who worked like a Trojan on those shrimp boats and could never get ahead. Mom, too, cleaning houses so much that the skin on her hands was permanently cracked and red. Gage, the silent follower who also held his own, hanging out in those trees, building himself a world of words.

And then he had to look at himself. He’d been scared. Always. And he’d hid it by being a leader of the boys, and then when Dad got sent to jail and Mom got sick, he’d become this aloof guy with the dry wit and the I-don’t-give-a-shit attitude.

Except when he was playing guitar. Music had saved him from becoming a total dropout from life. It was his lifeline—that and his memories of True.

Each one of the Gamble gang had tried to do their best. No one was to blame for any of their family story.

His eyes began to sting.

Not even him.

He couldn’t see the super moon from his room. But in bed half an hour later, staring at the ceiling and thinking about True next door, he remembered the moon that glowed over the Isle of Palms that long-ago night. It had been a super moon—

To match their super love.

He chuckled to himself. Corny, yes. But he wrote songs about love. And maybe he did because he was meant to. Maybe he needed to embrace that truth more. He was an artist—not just a hack. Nor was he merely a cog in the giant moneymaking machine that was his studio label.

He didn’t have to feel guilty. Out of place. Undeserving of his success.

He closed his eyes. Dreaming up songs had nothing to do with whether a body deserved anything or not. When it was good, it just came through a person, like moonlight through a window.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

That night True tossed and turned—it was the kind of sleep that felt more like a wrestling match she couldn’t win than actual slumber. At one thirty in the morning, she awoke with a start, her heart pounding.

Everything’s fine
, she told herself, and shut her eyes again.

But her heart … it was revving up, like a rollicking, fast-moving train with a wheel missing …
karump-a-thump-a-thump, karump-a-thump-a-thump
. She squeezed her eyes shut and burrowed deeper into the pillows.

But her heart wouldn’t slow down. She was alone. She couldn’t breathe.

No.

Not a panic attack. Not now. She was done with those.

Staying in bed wasn’t working. So she got up, paced the room, inhaled slow, ragged breaths. She’d made the right decision. Marrying Dubose was exactly what she should do. The insecurity—it was all gone now. Life was looking up. The bad times were over.

Why wouldn’t her heart slow down?

Her hands started trembling. A bath. She needed a distraction. Something to focus on … that’s what the doctor said. Focus on one thing—focus on her breathing. Slow down … forget everything else.

She walked swiftly, quietly to the bathroom at the far end of the hall—the one she shared with Weezie while the guys were in residence. In detached emergency mode—because her heart was still jerking hard in her chest, strident, insistent—she turned on the taps and didn’t even wait for her mother’s claw-footed, cast-iron tub to fill. She got in, fully clothed in a tank top and little shorts. She crouched, her knees trembling, eyes filling. With a shaky hand, she poured in some bubble bath and watched the bubbles blossoming all around her, felt the warm water rise and hold her, like a mother’s hug.

Stay calm
, she told herself.
Watch the water
.

The panic attack hovered like a silent, hungry shark and then after another thirty seconds or so … disappeared.

Thank God.

She turned off the tap, lay back, and closed her eyes. The only sound was the drip of the faucet, the sizzling sound of tiny bubbles popping. Her heart was quiet, her breathing even, her mind at ease again. It unfolded quietly, like a flower, and revealed one thought only:

Harrison.

He was right down the hall.

The knowledge comforted her like nothing else.

She peeled off her tank and shorts and dropped them to the floor. But the velvety bubbles made her aware of her nakedness, and the heat of the water against her softest flesh reminded her of what he’d done to her in the creek. She spread her legs, let her head loll, and remembered.

God, she wanted him. And she wanted him to see her like this. She wished he were with her right now. But he was asleep, unaware that there was a woman in the tub down the hall fantasizing about him at that very moment.

She gave a little laugh. Probably every minute of every day, a woman somewhere in the world was fantasizing about Harrison.

In just a few hours, he’d be gone. And she’d never be alone with him again. She pressed her eyes shut.
Never
. The faucet dripped.

Never
.

Maybe she shouldn’t marry Dubose.

God.

Maybe she shouldn’t.

The thought ripped through her mind like a bad car crash, demanding attention. She put her fingers in her ears and slipped all the way under the water.

No thinking allowed.

No thinking, True Maybank!

But when she came back up, she was crying.

She got out, her hair dripping down her back, toweled off just barely, tears streaming down her face. Everything sucked. Everything sucked so bad.

Blindly, she padded down the hall in a towel to go to her room, where she’d don another little T-shirt and shorts and … and what then? Go to sleep with sopping-wet hair, cry all night like a helpless fool, and pity herself for the rest of her life?

When she passed the attic door, she stopped.

This.

Inhaling a deep breath, she opened the door carefully, quietly. As she walked up the stairs, she gathered herself, step by step.

She’d marry Dubose.

But she wouldn’t be a victim. She’d made her choice, and she’d kick ass at it.

Yes, she would.

Her studio would be command central. She’d come here to fill her well. To help her get up when she stumbled.

Yes.
Yes!

Her hair was like wet rope, but she barely noticed. She dropped her towel. And from a hook on the wall, she pulled down an old buttondown cotton shirt of her father’s and put it on. The laundry label sewn on the inside of the collar said
COLLIER MAYBANK
. Sometimes she came up here just to bury her face in it. Close her eyes and think about how strong those letters looked. How reliable and predictable in an unpredictable world.

A Maybank was loyal to the end. A Maybank never gave up.

She grabbed her sketch pad. Coolly selected a pencil. Dark silver.

She knew what she had in mind. A wedding collage for Dubose, something they could hang in their bedroom for only them to see. He’d see it every day and understand why she was up in her studio. He didn’t know about it yet—she hadn’t told him, and she wasn’t sure why. She’d need to soon.

The pencil was poised over the paper. Where to begin? She waited patiently, but nothing came. With a small sigh, she put the pencil back in her cup and smoothed the paper out. Maybe right now she was too overwrought to work on that.

No problem. She’d wanted to do a birthday collage for Weezie. One for Carmela, too.

Two projects—two fun ones.

Weezie’s first. She immediately picked out a pink pencil and bit the end of it. Put it back. Maybe that was the wrong color.

Her mind was blank.

Think.

No, no, she’d just work on Carmela’s. She could do this. Just like she had the rest of her life under control. She was competent. She was a Maybank.

But twenty seconds later, she couldn’t even figure out where to begin. A minute later, she started sketching with a black pencil, but she stopped. It was wrong. All wrong.

The paper loomed before her, empty. Taunting.

She blinked and looked around. Her studio was just an old attic with a bunch of junk in it left over from an old lady’s life. And some bad art from a woman who was afraid.

True ripped the blank page out of the book and crumpled it into a ball. The more she worked it, the greater her anger grew. The greater her fear. What was going wrong? She threw the balled paper, a useless act that gave her no satisfaction. So she threw her cup of pencils. It bounced off the wall, hit the floor with a thunk, and the pencils scattered.

She didn’t care about the mess
or
the noise.

Rifling through her canvases, she saw her life: pent up, confused, angry, afraid. Apart.

When would she get to beautiful? Happy? Where was the canvas of celebration? Inclusion? Peace?

The house was as quiet as ever. For no reason at all, she opened her shirt and looked down at her breasts. She wanted to get more use out of them. She craved touch.

But when she thought of Dubose, the feeling disintegrated.

That’s because you’re stressed
, she told herself.

Huh
. All she had to do was think of Harrison, and her body sparked to life.

She had to face it: She wanted sex with him. Badly.

Join the club
, she could hear Carmela say.
The international Harrison Gamble fan club …

She picked a random pencil off the floor—red—and went back to her sketch pad and made bold arcs and lines. Ideas bloomed in her head, came together. They fit not like puzzle pieces but with flow, which she always felt when she looked down a row of tomatoes or blueberries, the line slightly undulating, leaf crossing leaf, dirt clods stationed here and there like miniature abstract statues, the scene bursting with the mayhem of growth.

No sense. But such unity.

This was the collage about her and Harrison making desperate love between the paddleboards, her bra slipping down into the dark green-brown depths of Biscuit Creek …

It was going to be a celebratory canvas if it killed her.

But she was still angry … her hand movements slowed, then came to a stop. She bowed her head. It would never be a celebration, she realized. Because there was no happy ending to their story.

The attic door opened. The hinges didn’t squeak, but a rush of air came up the stairs.

She knew it wasn’t going to be a psycho killer. The dogs would have put up a fuss. No, it was someone from downstairs. She hoped it was Weezie.

But it was Harrison who appeared at the top of the stairs in a pair of duckie boxers and a T-shirt that read,
FBI: FEMALE BODY INSPECTOR.
His hair was shaggier than usual, a little flat on one side, which only made him more adorable than ever.

“You’re kidding me,” he said in a regular daytime voice.

She put her finger to her mouth. Though why she bothered after she was throwing pencils and tossing around canvases, she didn’t know.

“Oops,” he said without changing his volume, although his voice was also thick with sleep. “You’d make a great librarian. They’re sexy. Smart. I’ve never met one that doesn’t have a sparkle in her eye.”

“You need to go.” She sent him a small warning look. Nothing too mean. She liked librarians, too.

“It’s four o’clock in the morning.” He yawned and spread his arms wide. His shirt rose, exposing his washboard abs, and stretched tight over his pecs. “Aren’t you gonna pick up all those pencils?”

Mercy
. How was a girl to behave herself around such male magnificence? She felt an unwelcome heat in her lower belly. “No. They’re there to keep intruders out. Walk across them at your peril.”

Which he did without even wincing, all the while looking around, apparently fascinated.

Something in her was shocked that she didn’t feel violated. This was her secret space. Maybe she felt she owed him. After all, he’d shown her his secret place when they were kids … the honeysuckle bower. Or maybe she was incredibly glad to see him.

That was it.

He stood just a foot away from her now. She lifted her chin at his shirt. “I see you made it to Goodwill, after all.”

“Yep.” He looked down at the naughty words. “It’s the same one I used to shop in. I paid a visit for old times’ sake. And I made a little donation.”

Little? She doubted that. “Did you hear a thunk on your ceiling?”

“Yep. And so I lay in bed wondering if you had raccoons or rats in the attic. And then I heard a couple of creaks. I decided to check it out, although it took me a second to find the door. When I saw the light, I knew it had to be you or Weezie. Good thing, because if it had been a raccoon or rat, I woulda screamed like a girl and woken y’all up.”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” she said. “You used to look for snakes under rotten logs. And I know you ate a spider.”

And he was out of her life tomorrow.

“Only once. Remember I had a thing for alligators, too? At least until I found out the Crocodile Hunter was dead. I kinda lost my gator joy after that.”