Color of Loneliness (23 page)

Moving his hands in front of his face to cover his eyes, he cracks open one of them and squints, peering through his fingers. “What the hell is going on?” Ray asks in a loud voice.

Dylan clears his throat and starts coughing. “What?” he manages to croak out.

“Why are you asleep on Myra’s damn couch?”

Dylan frowns as he tries to swallow, moving his dry tongue around in his mouth. Ray’s words don’t make any fucking sense.

“I can’t believe you told me you weren’t interested in her
at all
,” Ray rants, “and then I show up here and find your sorry ass on her couch.”

Dylan drops his hands from his face when he sees Myra’s face crumple and her gaze drop to the floor. The hurt look he catches sight of causes a strange achy feeling in his chest. He figures it must have something to do with his hangover.

“Excuse me,” Myra mumbles before she abruptly exits the room.

Dylan stares Ray down with his squinted-up eyes. “Get your ass outside. I need to talk to her,” he says in a gravelly voice.

“Whatever,” Ray says before he stomps out the front door, slamming it behind him, causing Dylan to flinch in pain.

He gets up slowly from the couch, the room spinning like hell, and tries not to make any sudden movements.

Hanging onto the wall as he stumbles down the hallway, he finds Myra sitting at the kitchen table sipping a cup of coffee. Another cup sits across from her along with a bottle of water, glass of orange juice and two aspirin. Silently dropping slowly into the seat, he downs the aspirin with the OJ and takes a sip of water before speaking. “Thanks,” he mutters in a low voice.

Myra nods, her eyes focused on her cup, before she takes another drink.

He sits quietly with the water bottle in his hand, staring at it and trying like hell to remember what happened last night. He hopes like hell he didn’t do anything shitty. Finally, he looks up at her. “What happened last night?”

Myra’s eyes meet his for a second before she stares down at the table. “You knocked on my door. You were drunk so I let you sleep on the couch.”

Dylan watches her face closely for any tell-tale signs to indicate that he was in any way an ass to her. He scowls when he notices a small blush start to warm her cheeks. His gaze drops to her lips for a second and his eyes widen. Leaning his elbows on the table, he drops his head into his hands and groans as a few small glimpses of some of the words his fucking mouth spewed last night come back to haunt him.

“You okay?” she asks.

He leans his temple on one hand, his elbows still on the table, and cocks his head towards hers. “Did I… did I do anything, inappropriate, last night? Or say anything?”

“No,” Myra says quickly before her eyes focus on her coffee cup again.

Dylan sighs, closing his eyes and rubbing his hand over his forehead. “Damn it. I kinda remember saying something shitty about your… lips. I’m really fucking sorry about that. I didn’t touch you, did I?”

“No. Nothing happened,” she says, her face still a light pink as she picks up her cup and dumps the coffee down the sink. “I’m going to take a shower,” she mutters as she starts to leave the kitchen.

“Wait,” Dylan says, immediately regretting the volume of his voice as it makes his head pound like shit. As he slowly gets up from his chair, Myra stops and turns around to face him. “I’m sorry. I honestly don’t remember how the fuck I got here. I have a feeling I might’ve said something I might need to kick my fucking ass over, if I could just remember what the hell it was…” His voice trails off as he closes his eyes and rubs the back of his neck.

“It’s okay,” she says, looking at the floor. “Don’t worry about it.”

He takes a step closer. “Look, uh, thanks for letting me stay. You should’ve kicked my drunk ass out.”

Her eyes meet his for just a moment. “You’re welcome,” she says quickly before she turns and walks out of the kitchen.

Dylan stands there with a frown on his face, staring after her. He watches her until she turns the corner to go up the stairs.

Sighing, he walks back into the living room and slips his boots and coat on. Stepping off of Myra’s porch, he pauses to light a smoke. Without even looking in Ray’s direction, he barks, “Get in the truck.”

Ray’s mouth starts before his ass cheeks hit the seat. “Are you going to answer my question? Because you know I’m interested in her. Are you fucking her? Is that why you tried to choke me the other day when I said something about her?” he yells.

Dylan turns and glares at him, his eyes narrowing and gleaming with hatred. “If you don’t lower your fucking voice, I’m going to pull out my pocket knife and remove your tongue.”

Ray snorts, turning his head to look out the window. “I’d like to see you try, asshole,” he mumbles.

Neither of them says a word during the short drive to Dylan’s house, which gives Dylan a couple of minutes to think. Ray will never stop running his fucking mouth if he doesn’t say something, and he needs him in order to get Myra’s roof done. Pulling into his driveway, he turns off the ignition and sighs.

“Look, I meant it when I said I wasn’t interested in her,” he says before clearing his throat, concerned about the uncomfortable feeling in it. “But you better be fucking respectful to her or I’ll kick your ass. I got drunk and I don’t know how I ended up there. Nothing happened. And nothing will happen,” he says before coughing, that uncomfortable lump feeling a lot worse now.

Ray just stares at him, shaking his head.

Reaching for the door handle, Dylan says, “I’m gonna get dressed. Then we’ll pick up her roofing shit.”

“You were supposed to already have her roofing shit.”

“Fuck off. I had a rough weekend, all right?” Dylan gets out of the truck, slams the door hard and immediately regrets it as he grabs at the stabbing pain in his temples.

* * *

Warm water glides softly down Myra’s back. With her eyes closed, she bows her head, letting the soothing spray massage her shoulders.

She can’t quit thinking about what Ray said – how Dylan wasn’t interested in her. At all. Those words hurt. They still hurt. And she wishes so much that they didn’t because she knows he loves Sabrina so of course he wouldn’t be interested in her. Sighing, she turns the water off and pulls the curtain back to face the cold air of the empty bathroom.

Grabbing a towel, she dries herself off, wrapping it around her. She sits on the toilet seat with her wet hair dripping down her back and shivers.

Her mind drifts to Trent. She can’t believe he had the nerve to threaten to hire a private detective. She wonders if she should just call him and get it over with. But just the thought of having to talk to him again makes her want to be sick. She never wants to see or speak to him ever again. Not after what he did…

Myra climbs her apartment stairs, mentally and physically exhausted from working her fingers to the bone trying to meet a rush editing deadline. She finished with just five minutes to spare.

After kicking her shoes off and throwing her bag on the floor, she makes her way to the bedroom and flops on the bed, letting out a small sigh. She wonders when Trent will be home.

Myra reflects on their relationship, noting how difficult it’s been since Trent accepted a new position at work. She wants to believe he’s simply stressed from all the increased demands and longer hours, but an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach nags at her. They haven’t had sex in weeks and have barely spoken to each other. And even though she sees him at work every day, they are both too busy to talk.

She dozes off, waking when she hears movement in the bedroom.

Propping herself up on her elbows, she stares at Trent as he slips on a pair of jeans. “Where are you going?” she asks.

“Just came home to change. I still have to put some more hours in tonight.”

Sitting up in the bed, she stares at him. “Stay home tonight,” she says softly.

“I have work that needs to be done, you know that. I can’t keep my promotion without putting the hours in.”

She swallows heavily. “I miss you. Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

He turns around, his eyes narrowing. “You were all supportive of me taking this position, but now you don’t want to support me when I have to work to keep it?”

She sits up on her knees. “I have been supportive of you. You’ve had this new job for what, two months now? And I haven’t said a word about your hours. I think you’re working too hard.”

Trent snorts loudly. “Oh, so you’re going to blame all of this on me? Why not put the blame where it really belongs.” Taking a step towards her, he raises his eyebrows.

Myra frowns. “What are you talking about?”

“While I’ve been working my ass off, what have
you
been doing, huh? Does the name Craig ring a fucking bell, Myra?”

Shivering, with a tear slipping down her cheek, Myra stands and wipes the foggy mirror. She stares for a long time at her forlorn, misty reflection.

* * *

Dylan pulls back into Myra’s driveway, his truck loaded down with roofing materials. He’s managed to recover – kind of – from his hangover and somehow survive Ray’s shitty mouth. He still can’t remember much about last night. There was something about talking to her lips. And he remembers wanting to kiss the ever living shit out of them. That thought causes an uncomfortable stirring in his jeans.

He needs to stop thinking about wanting to kiss those lips.

He unhitches the trailer from the back of his truck; he picked it up from his house to serve as a dumpster for the tear-off of the old roof. He and Ray angle it into a spot next to the house where they can easily toss the shingles into it. “Let’s unload this shit into her garage,” he says to Ray as he lets down the tailgate, “then we’ll start the tear-off.”

“Whatever you say, Big Cheese,” Ray responds in an overly cheerful voice with a big, stupid grin plastered on his face.

Dylan glares at him. He really hates that man.

* * *

Myra dials Susie.

“Hey, hon,” Susie answers in a happy voice.

“Hey. Why haven’t you cashed my check?”

“Oh, I’ve been busy, you know, with cleaning my dumpy ass house, replacing my boogered book, laundering all that shit-stained underwear…”

“Listen, if you don’t cash it, I’ll just send you the cash in the mail, and someone could steal it. You don’t want that to happen do you?”

Susie growls. “I don’t want your money.”

“You’re hurting my feelings by not accepting it. It’s a gift. I love you for coming out here to be with me like you did and I want you to accept it.”

Susie groans. “Fine. You’re one smart cookie because you know I can’t resist the Myra Mush. I’ll cash it but only because the Myra Mush melted my heart. Are you satisfied?”

“Yes. Thank you,” Myra says, smiling.

“You won’t believe what I’m doing right now.”

“What?”

“I’m on that website where they have pictures of insane people dressed all crazy while they shop at discount stores. I’m checking to see if my picture’s on there.”

“Why?”

“Well, I decided yesterday that I was going to start my diet today – since it’s a Monday and all – so late last night I got the urge to gorge. I figured I’d better consume any and all of my favorite foods that I will miss so dearly. It was almost midnight when I got this brilliant idea so I was already in my pajamas. And because I’m seriously lazy, I decided that I might as well join the rest of the crazies out there and just go looking like a bum.”

Myra snickers.

“So I had on my one-piece red Snoopy zip-up PJ’s with the feet in them, and I couldn’t squeeze my feet into my shoes with those big foot things on them because I had to buy an extra-large because of my gigantic ass. And whoever made them obviously thought that the person wearing that size must also have feet the size of Sasquatch. I swear there’s like four inches of extra space between my toes and the end of those footies. So since I couldn’t get my shoes on – especially with those rubber thingies on the bottom – I decided to wear Jeff’s Jesus sandals.”

Myra busts out laughing. “You didn’t.”

“Oh, yes, I did. And my hair was in a bun, I didn’t have a stitch of make-up on and I wore my tan suede coat with the cream fur lining. I just know somebody took my pic.”

Myra laughs uncontrollably as she gets a good visual of Susie in her head.

“But I did manage to get me a bunch of junk food. I got ice cream, cookies, candy and some chips and dip. And I stayed up until four in the morning stuffing my face. But I’m now strict on my diet. Scout’s honor.”

“You weren’t a scout,” Myra says, still giggling.

“Oh. Yeah. I forgot. But seriously, I’m on my diet now. I was too full to eat breakfast. And I might be too full for lunch and dinner too. What an awesome way to jump start things.”

“Yeah, but you probably gained ten pounds already.”

“Thank you. Thank you very much,” Susie says dryly. “I really appreciate you pointing that out.”

Myra laughs softly.

“So how’s your head?” Susie asks.