Between Black and Sunshine (6 page)

“What would that have done? You were too far away to help me.”

I suck in a hard breath. She’s right. I shouldn’t have ever left her. “I need to know when you’re hurting.” I would have gone home and killed that sick motherfucker.

“Don’t worry. It only happened once.”

“Once is too many times,” I tell her. Her face tightens, her jaw becomes tense. She doesn’t look at me, but out the front window. I have no right telling her to look at me, but I want to see her eyes. I reach over and gently turn her face to mine. “When did it happen?” I ask her.

“The day before I left,” she whispers. I can see the shimmer in her eyes - the tears that are sitting there that she won’t dare shed for me.

“I talked to you that night.”

She stares at me but says nothing about the fact that she was broke, beaten-down and didn’t bother to share that with me. 

I mentally go back to that conversation. It was the first time in a while she wasn’t fake-happy for me. She was herself for a moment or two. I picture her; alone and battered, holding the phone in the dark.

“I told you that you wanting me was going to push me away. I didn’t mean that. I will never leave you.”

“I know,” she says, sounding emotionless.

“I told you I would do whatever I could to keep you safe. I told you this the same day you got the shit kicked out of you. I shouldn’t have ever left you. I’ll never do it again.”

“Okay,” she says, her eyes retreating from mine.

“You told me you don’t want the fraction version of me. If I give you all of me I’m capable of hurting you worse than Arnie ever has. Do you get that?”

“No, Luca. You tell me that all the time and I tell you all the time, I don’t know what that means. The only thing that hurts worse than Arnie is not being able to have you.” She sounds exasperated. I’m sure she is.

“I’ll tell you why. Not now though. After I tell you, sweet girl, you can have me if you still want me.” She stares at me for a long while, probably trying to decide if I mean what I say. I stare back at her trying to believe it myself. Would I put her life in jeopardy just to give her what she thinks she wants… just to have what I want? I just told her that I would. I guess that’s all the answer I need.
What the fuck did I just do
?

She must see it; my confusion, because she says, “Don’t promise me anything right now. It’s your guilt talking. You’re trying to make up for the fact that I got hurt. I don’t want your pity. I don’t want you if you don’t want me.”

“You don’t get it. I want you; I’ve always wanted you…”

“But you’re not good for me,” she says, finishing the sentence I’ve fed to her a thousand times. She turns her eyes from mine. “I really do need to go to the store. Do you mind brining me?”

I look at her. She looks exhausted. I don’t want to push her anymore. “No, I don’t mind,” I say, releasing her hand and starting up the truck.

Things are not going according to plan, not at all. Within half an hour I had fucked up every damn thing on my list.

Number one was look the way I used to before I lost Jonah. I wore the dress and had the blonde hair, but none of that mattered after I admitted I only did it for him. He knows it’s not a choice I made for myself.

Number two was be pleasant and quiet. I kept that stupid act up for half a second. I lost it when Stephanie ran her brown eyes up and down Luca like she wanted to lick off his tats. I didn’t really bother with the niceties after that.

Conservative? I jumped on him as soon as he opened his arms to me. Innocent? I pulled out my skimpiest panties and asked him which ones he preferred.

Dedicated and obedient? I blew off my
mandatory
floor meeting and pizza party.

Boobs? I even managed to fuck that one up thanks to my lack of bra. I’m sure two loose boobs bobbing around under my dress wasn’t attractive.

But as I settle back into the worn cloth seats of his old truck I can’t help but feel closer to him than I have in a long time. His lips on mine, his hands on me… it feels like so much more than I remember. If he would just allow me to keep those two things I could maybe let the whole needing him to be mine thing go. Although I don’t know if he wants to let me go. He told me I could have him if that’s what I want. I told him to stop, that I didn’t want his pity, and I’m pretty sure that’s all it was. But as he guided me around the store, throwing into the cart all the things he thought I might need based on his hours spent people watching this afternoon, I couldn’t help but feel like he really loves me. Like he really wants me.

We’re headed to his place. I’m both excited and nervous as we wind through the back roads that aren’t much more than alleys. We pull up to a building made of faded bricks. There are three cars parked outside and I figure they must be his roommates; this must be his home.

“Wait here a minute,” he tells me, jumping out of the truck. I watch as he unlocks and opens what looks like a delivery door. Once inside he flips on a light, illuminating a garage-like space that’s filled with instruments and work benches.  He pulls out my bags and sets them on a tattered couch in the front of the room. He closes and locks the massive door before coming to get me out of the truck. “Can’t trust no one around here,” he tells me.

“Thanks for keeping my toiletries safe.”

He smiles at me and leads me to the door. “You ready?” he asks, unlocking it.

“Yep.”

He opens it and we head up the long staircase laid out in front of us. At the top there is another lock plus a deadbolt to open. “My god, is the crime really that excessive?”

He laughs. “It’s getting better.” Before he opens the door, he pulls me into his arms. “Does this hurt?”

It does, but I don’t want him to be afraid to hold me. “No.”

He leans into me, pulling my lips sweetly into his. I kiss back slowly, letting my lips savor the soft, pillowy flesh that is on me. Luca has the most beautiful, full lips. I’ve kissed a few guys since he’s been gone and it’s revolting to me; the stiff, hard way other lips have kissed me. My tongue finds its way into his mouth, to his tongue, to the sweet, wet crevices in his mouth. His kisses are lazy. Intimate. But they’ve never been enough, I always want more. He does too- I can feel the proof pushing into my stomach.

He pulls away, rubbing his thumb across my swollen lip. “I missed the taste of your mouth,” he says, removing his hand and opening the door.

He pulls me inside. Into his home. I look at the large living area. The back wall is made up entirely of windows. The ceiling is high with exposed beams and pipes. “Holy shit,” I mutter.

“You like it?” he asks, leading me further into the space.

“Um… yeah,” I say, looking to the right where an actual, complete, modern kitchen stands separated from the rest of the space by a bar made from one large slab of wood.  Between the bar and the windows is a pool table, flanked by miss-matched couches and chairs. The space is defined by a huge oriental rug. In the middle of the room is a massive L shaped book case that is attached to the ceiling with plumbing pipe.

“Luca, that you?” a voice bellows out from the other side of the book case.

“I have Jude with me so don’t talk stupid,” he yells out, leading me around the book case. His roommates are sprawled out on a sectional in various stages of putting down their X-box controllers. The game is paused on a massive, flat-screen TV. I always pictured Luca in a hole of a place. This is far from a hole. I’m distracted by the swagger for a minute but then I look to the three faces staring at me. I know them just from Luca’s descriptions.

“Hey, Rake,” the big guy with the killer neck piece, “Miles,” the one that looks like a hipster with his tortoise shell glasses and beanie, “Anthony,” the Latino
pretty boy
as Luca refers to him, “I’m Jude.”

“Don’t tell me this guy told you about us,” Rake says to me.

“He might have mentioned you,” I tell him as Luca brings me around the couch and gently pulls me down next to him.

“Well he sure as hell described you all wrong,” Anthony says, letting out a low whistle.

“What? Did he tell you I preferred black and wore heavy makeup and liked to pierce my face?”

“Something like that,” Anthony says. “Said you were beautiful, just a different kind of beautiful.”

“I’m trying to be the girl he wants me to be,” I admit for some stupid reason. I need to keep my mouth shut sometimes. It makes Luca seem shallow, which he isn’t.

The guys all look at me, Luca just lets out a low laugh. “She misunderstands what I want for her,” he informs them.

“We’ve watched him go through a few transformations for you, too,” Miles says, sounding irritated.

I furrow my eyebrows at Luca. What the hell does that mean? “Really?” I ask him.

“Yeah, really,” he says, brushing his hand across my cheek. “We can talk about it later if you want. You’re not going to like it.”

“So how was the dorm?” Rake interrupts my curious glare.

“Don’t really know. My roommate couldn’t keep her eyes of Luca so we got the hell out of there.”

The guys snicker and Anthony says, “Sound like you could use a drink.”

“No, I’m okay,” I tell him.

“Something harder?” Rake offers.

“What the fuck, man?” Luca asks, sitting up from his relaxed position on the couch.

“Yo, relax. Jesus…got it.”

Luca takes a deep breath and stands. “Come on, sweet girl,” he says quietly.

I stand and he starts to lead me out of the room. “I’m glad I finally got to meet you guys,” I say over my shoulder.

They nod at me, but they’re all silent, like Luca scared the crap out of them with his small
what the fuck, man.

Luca leads me to the end of the hallway and brings me into his bedroom. Again, I’m shocked by how off my imagination was. This is not the space I pictured him in during our late night conversations.

There is another large bank of windows. A pipe runs along the top holding billboard vinyls that are punched along the top with large grommets- curtains. Protruding from the center of the left wall is a large wood panel painted with an abstract dreamy scene that I recognize as Luca’s work. I walk to the middle of the room and see that the other side is a large book case. “Did you make all of this?” I ask him.

“Yeah. Couldn’t afford to buy anything, so Anthony and I get resourceful around here. We’ve actually been selling some pieces… fucking unreal, the amount of money people will pay for wood that’s nailed together.”

“Huh,” I manage to mutter, looking at his king size bed tucked in next to the book case, managing to feel intimate in this massive space. It’s covered with an array of quilts and blankets. It looks soft and comfortable. It looks like Luca.

I spin around on my heel to look at the other side of the room. There is a large metal tool chest on casters. “Tools?” I ask him

“Clothes.”

“Creative,” I tell him.

“Resourceful,” he corrects.

Another large book shelf is built between it and a massive wood desk, this one lays flat against the wall. The shelves hold his enormous collection of vinyls and c.d.s. It also holds his turntable and receiver and whatever else all the black boxes are. I look up and notice small speakers in all four corners of the room. “That’s so you,” I tell him.

“It is my room.”

“Yes. I know.”

In front of the music shelf is a large, worn armchair with a mismatched ottoman. There is a wood end table beside the chair. I can picture him here; his long legs spread out in front of him, lying back, losing himself in any one of the thousands of options in his collection.

“I love it here. This room is the best part.”

“Does that mean you’ll consider staying here, with me, tonight?”

I turn to him. “What the hell happened to my Luca? The one who spooks if I look at him the wrong way. The one who makes sure to tell me every day that I’ll never be his.”

“That’s not what I tell you. I tell you I want you safe. That you deserve someone that can make you happy. That I’m not that guy.”

“In other words, I’ll never be yours. Don’t try to sugar coat it. It’s rejection no matter how you spin it.”

“I would never reject you.”

“You do it every day. Get yourself a damn dictionary.” His sexy lips pout at me and I smile back at him. “I’ll stay. You know I want to stay.”

He comes to me and grabs a hold of the back of my thighs, picking me up and wrapping my legs around his waist. “Let’s get you in your jammies then,” he says, walking me over to the bed and gently setting me on the end of it.

He grabs a hold of one of the massive curtains and pulls it halfway across the wall before going to get the other half. When he has it closed a large beach with a sun setting into the ocean appears. The word Sol in written in the upper left corner. It’s perfect. “Someday,” I tell him looking at the large beer ad, assuming it’s Mexico; the place that Luca, Jonah and I always dreamed of escaping to.

“You and me… someday,” he agrees. 

He walks over to the doorway where I dropped my purse when I came in. “Arms up,” he says when her returns to me.

Normally I would be all for showing Luca my naked body; it always leads somewhere I want to go and he rarely lets himself look at it. But I know the reason he’s asking me to take my dress off now is not because he wants to see my body, but because he wants to see how much damage has been done. “I don’t have a bra on, Luca.”

“So turn around,” he tells me, serious now.

“Luca, please,” I plead.

“I need to see it,” he tells me.

“Fuck,” I say, turning around, lifting my arms.

He lifts my dress slowly. I haven’t seen my back but judging by Callie’s reaction and how bad it hurts, I know it’s not pretty. He’s taking it in one inch at a time. He’s quiet, but I can hear the long line of curse words running through his brain. “Just rip it off like a bandage,” I tell him.

“Give me a damn minute,” he sputters through clenched teeth, the anger very clear in his words.

“Don’t torture yourself. You’ve seen it. Now let me get dressed.”

“Shh,” he hisses.

“Ugh,” I mutter, but stand with my arms stretched into the air. When he has it up to my shoulder blades I bend my arms back until I can reach it and pull it over my head. “Are you getting all of this? Can I put my shirt on now?” I don’t wait for him to answer, I turn around and show him my front side. My untarnished side. “I wish you were as interested in these as you are in my damn back,” I tell him.

He’s shaking again, just like he was in the car. His hands and arms are vibrating with his anger. His jaw is set tight and I can see his teeth pushed together through his parted lips. His eyes don’t see me, he’s focused on nothing. The deep blue of his irises is being overtaken by his black pupils.
Damn it
. I shouldn’t have let him see me. I knew this would happen. It will prove that he has the ability to get violent and that he’s no good for me.
Shit.

I have to pull him out of this. He needs to feel me with him. I push up his t-shirt and lay my naked chest on his rib cage. I slide my hands inside his shirt and over his shoulders. I lay my head on him. “I’m okay, Luca,” I whisper over and over until I feel his hands gently lay themselves on my lower back. They are still shaking so I continue to whisper into his flesh until they stop. His head bends to cover mine and I am now safely cocooned inside of him.

Time passes as we stand like this, until he comes back to me. He holds me at arm’s length, looking so deep into my eyes, like he does sometimes, that it makes me uncomfortable; like he can see my every thought.

“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” I whisper.

His lips tremble but he whispers, “Okay.”

“I just want to lay next to you, I just want to feel you beside me.”

He lets go of half of me to reach over and pull back the blankets. He lays me down in the bed and it feels so good. It’s soft and it smells like him. Like his body. He sits on the edge of the bed and pulls his shirt off over his head and I stare at his beautiful body. His beautiful skin is covered with more tattoos now.