The Truth About Air & Water (Truth in Lies #2) (45 page)

“Reliability is so important,” Tally says flatly.

We are no longer talking about my truck.

“Where are your keys?” She asks.

“You are not driving. You did like four shots that I was able to count. You were swaying earlier.
I’m driving.
”

“You’re still bleeding. We should probably take you to the ER.” She looks annoyed and shoots me this angry glare as if a trip to the ER seriously messes with all of her plans.

“I’ll live.”

“Probably.”

“Don’t sound so disappointed.”

“Don't fuck with me, Prez.”

I sigh big and wince as I run my hands through my hair and discover it slicked with blood. She searches around and finds the box of baby wipes and cleans my hands with one.

“You know you call me Elvis when you’re not mad and Prez when you are. Do you know that?”

“No, I don’t,” she says haughtily. “What does it
matter
? After tonight, I won’t be calling you
anything
.” She tosses the baby wipes aside when she’s finished. Then, she looks at me intently for a few precious moments. “You ready for this?”

“Ready for what exactly?”

“The next part of the plan.”

“Okay. Sure. What’s the next part of the plan? We’ve heard Mayer’s fantastic rendition of
Free Fallin’.
Nice song choice, by the way. We’ve done the big move. TMZ as well as
Sports Illustrated
and the
LA Times
got their stories. We’ve fed the paparazzi photographs for at least the next couple of days. I landed on my face, put a gash in my head because what I really needed was another head injury. And last but not least, almost as spectacular as the big move, you set your dress on fire. What’s next,
Miss Cloves and Vanilla
? What could you possibly want to do next?”

“This,” she says gravely.

Her lips claim mine.

We slide sideways together onto the bench seat of the truck. I manage to reach over and slam the driver’s door shut and lock it only because on some sane level I know cameras and reporters still lurk all around us.

In the next short stint, the two of us lose our minds together. She’s stroking me in all the right ways and there is too much alcohol consumed and too much shared passion, remembered or not, between the two of us to stop things from progressing in any other way. My mind flashes to LA and I actually believe that’s what Tally is trying to teach me here. It happens just like this, just this fast. Mistakes. Past transgressions that can’t be reclaimed or redeemed. Redemption sucks. Atonement eludes. Sex is good and bad and everything in between. A fire we can’t always control nor want to.

It’s a few minutes before I realize she’s miraculously shimmied out of her jeans and unzipped my tuxedo pants seemingly at the same time. There is no
are-you-sure?
kind of talk between us. She lowers herself on my ready shaft, and I’m lost in the feeling of these first moments of being inside of her while she expertly slides up and down in a renewed quest for madness and ownership of my very soul. Her eyes close, and she is making all kinds of sounds that make me hot and want to give in and lose control with her.

She gets this triumphant smile as we come together battling too much angst and pent-up emotion for each other over the past several months to even attempt to try and control it or slow it down. I kiss her hard. She likes it. She kisses me back the same way and bites my lip drawing more blood from me. And I’m coming inside of her in search of elusive equilibrium within minutes. And it’s another breathless five more before we come up for air at the exact same time.

Her eyes gleam again. Her lips are partially swollen from our somewhat crazed passion.
Lovemaking. What would you call it?

“Now that was a fast fuck,” she says blazingly calm. It’s as if she’s taken a sharp blade and plunged it directly into my heart. “This next time we’ll go slower because I want you to
remember
all of it, Prez.” She sounds ominous the way she says this and looks completely ruthless.

Then it dawns on me as to what her plan has been all along. “You’re going to break my heart, aren't you?”

“That’s the plan.” She doesn’t smile or say anything else. No. She starts it up between us all over again, and I’m captured by her and too invested in her already to stop any of this from happening again. We ignore the intrusion of cameras and flashes and reporters. There's only a small part of my mind that even acknowledges what those headlines will read tomorrow. I don’t care, and I already know Tally doesn’t. She’s going to go all out. And if she’s going to flame out, it’s going to be in her own spectacular way.

Miss Cloves and Vanilla is clearly running this show and I am just the front man.

It’s another half-hour before I start up the truck and drive home in this completely sobered state in ultimately realizing I may not survive the night after all. My heart seems to have already stopped beating. She’s going to leave me or kill me, and it will feel the same either way. My spirit is already suffering in her expert hands. Sex with her has already taken me under. I am a drowning man. Our coming together seems to exact some sort of toll that will need to be paid again and again, and it appears; she remains unsatisfied with my brand of payment.

I’m too late.

“I’m sorry.” I look over at her in quiet desperation as we cruise through peaceful streets of Fresno around midnight toward home.

“Not nearly sorry enough.” The sharp edge of her despair reaches for me like an ice pick pressed hard into my side. I gulp for air, wipe the blood from my face with the back of my hand, so I can see to drive while she leans away from me as far she can get. She presses her face against the window and looks out into the dark night at the nothingness we both seem to be experiencing at the same time.

“You know what they say about air and water when it comes to fire, don’t you?” She asks.

Now, I’m curious.
She hasn’t spoken for the last ten minutes of the drive. “What?”

“Too much air blows out the fire. Too much water destroys it.”

I nod trying to determine what she’s really comparing us to. “The idea would be to keep the flame going, right. For years?” She nods. “Like a relationship. Like a marriage.” She cringes at the word
marriage.
Noted.
“So you need the air—to stay constant—to fan the flames of the fire, and you know, grasshopper,” I smile at her and catch sight of the corners of her mouth turning slightly upward in response to the endearment, “a hot enough fire will burn water, so you have to be careful with the water too.”

“
That
I do know,” she says softly. “So that’s the truth about air and water.” She sighs deep.

“Which
is
?”

“It’s hard to maintain the balance to keep the fire going. You have to fan the flames without putting it out with too much water. But too little water will burn the fire right up. Too much fire. Too much destruction. We’re out of control.”

“You’re talking in circles,” I say.

“No. That’s us,” she says with certainty.

“Maybe there’s more than one way to keep the fire going, but like you said there’s got to be a balance between air and water.”

“Maybe,” she says gently patting my hand where it rests on the steering wheel. She gets this sympathetic face.

I gather she’s trying to let me down easy.

“But maybe it’s just too hard. Maybe it’s just too impossible. Maybe the thing is you can’t control the fiery passion well enough to achieve a balance.” She tilts her looking at me intently. “You’re my air; I’m your water, but the fire between us is impossible to control or maintain. The flame is either burning too hot extinguishing us both or burning out altogether. Maybe that is the only truth about air and water. About you and me.”

“But there’s got to be a way to balance it,” I say desperate to make her understand. “Maybe the truth about
us
is simply you and me and our amazing ability to
play
with fire.”

“Is this fun for you?” She asks quietly as she moves her hand away from mine. “We’re like a circus act without a safety net. Step right up, folks. Watch Linc and Tally play with fire and spin out of control. It’s not pretty, but you won’t be able to turn away. Your satisfaction is
practically
guaranteed.”

“Now you’re mixing metaphors,” I say with a hesitant laugh. But she doesn’t laugh.

“Maybe all it ever was…was a metaphor. A metaphor of us,” she says.

I’m losing her. The realization arrives in all its fiery glory. Just for me.

“You’re breaking my heart,
Miss Cloves and Vanilla
.”

“Yes,” she says without smiling and gets this haunted look. “As I said, that's part of the plan.” She turns away from me again and looks out the dark window but after a few minutes she reaches up with the back of her hand and wipes at her eyes.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Dark Horse -TALLY

Kimberley calls him. It’s three in the morning in New York, and she still calls.

“There’s hardly any battery left,” Linc warns us both as he sets the iPhone on speaker and places it up on the truck’s dashboard. Apparently, we are both privileged to hear Kimberley Powers’ giant words of wisdom. I still lean with my face pressed against Linc’s window counting the street lights in an attempt to find some sort of solace or sanity, perhaps both.

“First, you two do the
Dirty Dancing
move in wedding attire and as if that wasn’t memorable enough. But
then
, you set the dress on fire fifteen minutes later, Tally. TMZ is running the footage on their website as we speak. The Giants are calling. Your Grizzlies’ coach is calling me.” She uses a few choice swear words that are hard to make out. “And Tally? Mikhail Rostov even managed to find a phone; he wanted to make sure you were okay. I lied and said you were and that is was all in fun and possibly just one tiny misunderstanding.”

“There is no tiny misunderstanding about Trinna Danner or what must have happened in LA and someone is
lying
.
And it isn’t me
,” I say into the dead silence. I do not look at Linc. I just hear him draw an unsteady breath and hold it.

There’s a rustling sound on her end. “Hey, Tally.” A sympathetic Dr. Bradley Stevenson gets on the line, sighing big, which causes me to smile a little at least. “Are you okay?”

“Sure. I’m fine. Thanks for asking, Brad.”

“The dress.” He sighs again. “The dress is replaceable although if one of you had been injured that wouldn’t have been good. But you’re telling me you’re okay, right?”

“I’m doing okay, but Linc fell trying to stop me with the dress thing. He’s got a pretty big gash on his head, but his buddy Doug fixed him up. But now, he’s bleeding again. I’ll put fresh bandages on it when we get home.
If
we ever get home.” I signal my impatience with Linc by glaring at him.