Toward the Sound of Chaos (6 page)

And
it is sure to detonate. Anything that comes from this, anything we build will be
blown to smithereens because if she is a time bomb, I am a nuclear weapon.

Jake

S
unday
came and we met after lunch just like we’d said we would. Elle bought coffee in
paper cups and Spencer threw the stick to Nuke as they walked along the beach
ahead of us. Elle talked pretty much nonstop. She mentioned before that she
rambled when she was nervous. Apparently, she was nervous a lot around me.

Throughout
the week, we continued training the pups for Olivia and come Friday, we had a
graduation party for them before we bade them farewell and Olivia loaded them
into crates in her minivan and took them to Mobile. Ellie and Spencer had gone
with her to hand them over to the foundation.

As
if by some unspoken agreement, the four of us met every morning before Spence
started school, and every afternoon too. I never said much because Elle did the
talking for both of us, but I liked it. All I had were tales of blood and war,
things far too gruesome and dark to be mentioned in the daylight if at all.

From
Elle, I learn that with the exception of Olivia and Mr. Williams, she has no
one. Her parents are alive but they weren’t on speaking terms with their
daughter, and to this day Spencer has never met them. I get the feeling there is
no love lost there, but when she talked of her Memaw, her whole face lit up,
and I found myself asking more questions so I could see her smile just a little
longer.

At
night, when the walls of my living room pressed in too tight, I’d find myself
walking by her house. I didn’t know why. Maybe it was because I wanted to be
close to her or maybe I’d finally come to care about someone other than my dog
and I wanted to make sure they were safe. All I knew was that I’d take Nuke out
for his evening walk and somehow wind up two miles away, standing in her front
yard and staring up at her living room window until Nuke pawed at me, and then
I’d move on way before I was ready.

Tonight
I didn’t bring Nuke with me because I know Williams won’t let me bring him
inside, and the old bastard watches the house like a hawk. Even now, well after
ten, I feel his eyes on me from the porch as I knock lightly on Elle’s front
door. I know she’s awake because though the lights are dim and her curtains are
closed, the living room lights up every few seconds with strobe-like flashes
from the TV. A part of me wants to flee, and another wants to barge in and take
her in my arms.

Footsteps.
Each second I wait for her to open the door feels like an hour. I smooth my
hands over the box in my hand. She mutters, “What in the world?”

A
beat passes and the door rattles as if her weight is pressed against it, and
then the lock turns, and she stands before me, damp hair, makeup free, and so
fucking beautiful it hurts. My chest aches from just looking at her.

“Jake,
are you okay? What are you doin’ here?”

I
tear my gaze away from those deep brown eyes and take in the rest of her. She
wears only a shell pink negligee and satin robe. The later slips open to reveal
the outline of her dark rose nipples beneath the sheath of fabric. She stares
down, horrified, and ties her robe closed, and I turn away, shamefaced.

“I’m
sorry.” I shove the glossy Cherrywood box toward her and she takes it from me.
Not that I gave her much choice to do otherwise. “I just came to give you
this.”

“Wait,
don’t leave,” she says, wetting her lips. Her cheeks are flushed and all the
blood rushes to my cock as I imagine her eyes fever bright, her lips full and
swollen from my kisses and her skin flushed with desire. “Let me go get changed
and I’ll be right with you.”

“No,
don’t,” I say, quickly. “I shouldn’t be banging down your door in the middle of
the night.”

“It’s
hardly the middle of the night, Jake.”

“It’s
too late for visitors with good intentions, that’s for sure,” I whisper.

“Jake,
stay.”

“I
just came to give you that.” I nod toward the box she’s holding. She unfastens
the latch and opens it. Her eyes grow wide. “To replace the one I ruined.”

“This
costs a lot more than the one you ruined.” She runs her fingers over the ivory
handle and the stamped-lettered Wade & Butcher logo on the blade, and
shakes her head, carefully closing the lid. “I can’t accept it.”

“Yes,
you can.”

“Do
you have any idea what this is worth?”

I
nod. “My granddaddy restored them; I have another just like it. It may not be
pink like the one I broke, but it should tide you over.”

“This
is . . . it’s beautiful. Thank you, but are you sure?”

“He’d
want you to have it,” I say, frowning because try as I might to be a gentleman,
I can’t keep my eyes off of her in that robe. “I want you to have it.”

That’s
not all I want you to have
.

“Well,
thank you. Now, why don’t you come in and take a seat? We might not be ready
for another close shave, but I been fixin’ to get my hands on that hair of
yours. Do you think you could handle that?”

I
hesitate for a moment, but even if it kills me I’ll do it if it means being
closer to her, so I nod and step inside. I can smell her shampoo, roses and
lavender. Good God, I am rock fucking hard. Would it be weird if I pulled her
to me and sniffed her hair?

Elle
takes a step back and sets the box on the hall table. “Why don’t you head into
the salon and get yourself situated? I’m going to put some more clothes on and
I’ll be there in just a moment.”

“Okay.”
I head down the hall and open the sliding door to the salon. I find the light
switch and flick it on, blinking as the fluorescent overhead stutters to life.
The gentle hum of the dryer and the scent of fabric softener soothe me, and I
take a seat in one of the smaller salon chairs. I barely fit. Moments later,
she enters the salon wearing an Alabama Crimson Tide T-shirt and another pair
of those teeny-tiny white shorts that she likes to kill me with. I can’t decide
if this is better or worse than the robe.

“You
ready?” she says, taking a cape from the pile. I love that she didn’t touch her
hair or makeup while she was gone, but just got dressed. She doesn’t feel the need
to appear presentable for me—and, if you know anything about southern women,
it’s that they’re always presentable. Hell, my Memaw used to say, “A good southern
woman will always leave the house like she’s about to meet the love of her
life,” and she’d been married to hers for some sixty years.

“I’m
ready,” I say, bracing myself as those metal buttons snap closed around my
neck.

“Alright
then.” She picks up a spray bottle from one of those little buggies and
spritzes it over my hair. I tense, more from the cold than anything. She combs
through all the tangles with her fingers first, and then with what looks like a
florescent pink grooming mitt. My scalp tingles from the attention.

“You
should know I still ain’t giving you a buzz-cut.”

“Give
me whatever you think I need.” I don’t mean for that to sound so suggestive,
but when she looks at me like she wants to straddle my waist and fuck me in
this very chair, I’m glad it did.

“I
can do that,” she whispers, and all bravado I feel vanishes instantly when the
first zinging snip of the scissors echoes in my ear. Panic spreads through me,
but Elle is careful not to make any sudden movements, and after a while I stop shaking
and breathe normally. Her presence is soothing, so much so that I don’t flinch
when she presses the clippers to my nape and tidies up my neck. When she moves
in front of me, my hand brushes her thigh. It isn’t intentional, the first
time. I reach out and graze a fingertip over her soft skin, wanting to feel
more of her.

She
jumps as if I’ve frightened her, as if she wasn’t aware that she’s slowly been
driving me mad every second of these past few weeks. I draw my hand away and
ball it into a fist as I rest it on my thigh.

Ellie
sets the scissors and comb down on the tiny counter behind her. She stares at
my hands and slowly reaches out to trace her fingertip over the scarred
knuckles. I want to pull away, but I don’t. Instead, my skin crawls as she
works her fingers under my hand and unfurls my fist, drawing it back to her
smooth thigh. The fingers of my free hand dig into the soft flesh over her hip
as I pull her closer. A gasp escapes her, and I roll my gaze up to meet one
filled with longing and what looks to be nervous anticipation. She stands,
straddling one of my legs, and I lean forward, pressing my forehead to the
softness of her breasts. She runs her hands through my hair, and I inhale
deeply. Never in a million years did I think I’d ever get this close to a woman
again, to her scent, her softness, or enjoy her willingness to let me put my hands
on her, but then it dawns on me. Ellie Mason, a woman that looks more angel
than human, is touching me, and my scarred hands grasp her body as if it
belongs to them, as if she wouldn’t turn away if she saw the rest of me. The dread,
the absolute horror of wanting her, of undressing in front of her and seeing
the sheer repulsion on her face as she takes me in, is too much.

“No!”
I grip her hips with both hands and push her into the counter, holding her at
arm’s length. I stand, and hurry past before she can touch me again. “I can’t.
I’m sorry.”

“Jake,”
she begins, but her words are cut short by the salon door closing behind me.

I
shake my head and turn to flee, but my feet won’t move. It’s as if they’re
glued to the spot and all I can do is sink my fingers through my freshly cut hair
and bury my face in my hands.

Jesus
Christ, I’m a fucking pussy
.

I
had my hands on a beautiful woman, giving me the fucking green light to touch
her, and the only thing I knew in that moment was fear, absolute and all encompassing.
It don’t matter that she’s a tiny little thing who couldn’t weigh more than one
hundred and ten pounds; it don’t matter that I know at least eight ways to kill
a man with my bare hands, and that any one of those options would work equally
well on her. All that matters is that my brain recognizes her as a threat to my
sanity and to the belief that when I’m with her, I’m just a regular man and not
someone who has escaped a war zone, scarred and terrified of his own shadow.

She
comes out of her house, approaching me cautiously. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to
push you into something you weren’t comfortable with.”

“Go
back inside.”

“No.
I’m trying to apologize.”

“You
shouldn’t have to apologize for touching me,” I snap. “Someone as perfect as
you shouldn’t ever have to apologize for that.”

“Jake,
come inside and we can talk.” She moves closer, and I take a step back. I wish
the look in her eyes didn’t destroy me. I wish I could take her face in my
hands and kiss her, pull her back inside and fuck her right there in the middle
of her salon floor, but I can’t do any of those things so I shake my head and I
turn away.

“We
ain’t got nothing to talk about, Elle,” I say, and I leave her standing on her
front porch step as I run and don’t look back.

Ellie

I
open my eyes to find my eight-year-old crouched beside my bed. His pretty baby
blues bore into mine. This morning, what’s reflected in them is anything but
pretty. His brow furrows and I swear if looks could kill, I’d have been
incinerated in my bed already. “Mamma, why aren’t you out of bed?”

“Well,
good mornin’ to you too, Spence.”

“We’re
gonna be late.”

I
sigh, knowing what I say next will be just the beginning of what’s sure to be
one heck of a day, so I steel my nerve and say in my best mamma-means-business
tone of voice, “We’re not going to the beach today, Spencer.”

“Yes,
we are.”

“No,
we ain’t.”

“Yes,
we are,” he yells. “It’s already eight thirty. We should be there; Jake’s gonna
be waitin’.”

“No,
Spence, he isn’t. Go look out the window.”

He
walks over to the window and yanks the curtains open, exposing the downpour and
a very wet backyard. Spencer hates rain almost as much as he hates changes to
his routine. I’d been up earlier and when I realized it was pouring, I decided
to go back to bed and indulge in a few more minutes before Spencer woke up and
I had to tackle a meltdown before breakfast on very little sleep. That was the
wrong thing to do. I should have prepared better. I should have come up with
solutions. Of course, they wouldn’t have made up for the disruption to our
schedule, but it would have been something. I was just so tired.

Resigned,
I get up and put my robe on. As I tie off the sash, I’m hit with the memory of
Jake’s eyes undressing me while I wore this same pajama-set last night. It’d
been such a long time since any man had looked at me that way, and later when
he’d reached out and touched my thigh as I was finishing off his hair, it’d
taken everything I had not to jump into his lap and ride him like a damn pony.

 “You
are being somewhere else. Don’t be somewhere else,” Spencer yells his
frustration.

“You’re
right, I’m sorry.” I shake all thoughts of Jake Tucker from my head and move
closer to my son. “I’m listening now.”

“Don’t
be somewhere else,” he shouts. His whole body tenses up—clenched teeth, balled
fists, even his little button nose is screwed up as he stamps both feet into
the ground the way a footballer does when running on the spot. “I hate it. I
hate it. I hate the rain, I hate you.”

I
crouch down on the floor in front of him, attempting to meet his gaze. “Spence,
I’m here. I’m listening.”

“The
sand will be wet; it’s not the same. It’ll stick in between my toes. It’s not
the same. I hate the rain. It’s not the same.”

“I
know.”

“You
don’t know; you don’t listen.” He slams his balled fist into the side of his
head, screaming the whole time. I reach out and restrain him with both hands,
earning a blow to the face from the back of his skull as I turn his struggling
body and pull him into me, his back to my front. He lashes out with his feet,
kicking and bucking against me, and I know I’m going to have one hell of a
bruised shin tomorrow. “Don’t touch me. You don’t know. You don’t know. You
don’t know!”

“Tomorrow
we’ll go,” I whisper.

“It’s
not the same. It’s not the same,” he cries.

“I
know, Spencer, I know.”

I
make soothing, shushing noises by his ear, and when he calms a little I pat his
tummy and hum. I have a terrible singing voice, but I think Spencer likes
feeling the resonance against his back. He frees his hands from my grasp and
snags a lock of my hair. He rubs it between his fingers, over and over. It’s a
sensory thing, and something he’s done since he was small to self-soothe. This
is the only time I’m allowed to be this close to my son and though every
meltdown destroys a little piece of my heart each time, there’s a stillness and
a oneness to being able to comfort him, to hold him and stroke his forehead
like this.

On
the carpeted floor of my bedroom with the curtains drawn and rain pounding the
roof, I find peace with my baby in my arms. I feel useful, and needed, and for
the first time in a long time, I feel like a good mother.

Even
if it is only for a little while.