It’s not bullshit, but my brain and mouth have left me so I can’t even plead my case. His voice is low and quiet in my ear. His breath ghosts along my skin, sending a shiver up my spine. He smells like whiskey and cigarettes and motor oil. It’s a combination that shouldn’t smell good, but it does. I try to keep focus on his smell and not what he’s saying because I’m not ready for this conversation. He’s been leading up to it the last few times he came by to help me on a job, but I guess he’s all about truth today. He couldn’t have picked a worse time to hop on the honest train.
“You want to trust me, but you’re not there yet, and that’s cool, because I’ve got you thinking about shit you don’t like and I like way too much. If you weren’t thinking about it, then you’d have said something by now, but you didn’t, so I’m just gonna throw this out and see where it lands. You and me, babe—we’re gonna happen. Not today, because you’ve got a heart full of hurt, but soon.”
His hands disappear from my sight, disappointing me for the briefest moment before I feel them, which is the better of the two. He skims his fingers up my side and presses his torso into my back. Stupid, old insecurities surface, making it hard for me to enjoy the moment. I wonder if he’d like it better if I weren’t so tall or if my shoulders weren’t so broad. Maybe he likes sassy little white girls, or maybe he wants a woman he has to save. Maybe I’m just convenient and he’s waiting for his very own Holly to come along. Lucky for him, I’m self-destructive enough to go with it regardless of how bad he’ll tear me up when he moves on to a woman more suited to his liking.
I should tell him this just to save myself the agony, but I don’t for the same reason people pinch the webbing between their thumb and index finger when they have a headache—because sometimes the best you can do is to redirect the pain.
“Go take a shower. I’ll clean this shit up.” He lifts my long black hair from the nape of my neck and lifts it over my shoulder. His hands find a way to my hips and he takes a step back, then turns me toward my bedroom door.
I try to take a step forward, but his grip on my hips is too strong for me to get anywhere. In an instant, his torso is back, pressed into me, and his lips fall against the back of my neck where he places a soft kiss. My throat goes dry instantly and my stomach bottoms out, but I refuse to let it show. The second his hands are gone from my hips, I’m racing toward my bedroom and escaping behind the closed door. I eye the open bathroom door on the other end of my bedroom, knowing I really do need to get cleaned up, but I’m unable to move just yet.
My eyes fall closed and I strain to take a deep breath. I can’t be falling for him. I can’t let myself get hurt like I did the last time. Not that the protesting matters.
It’s already happened.
Chapter 2
I shower quickly and don’t bother with shaving. I don’t take Diesel for the snooping kind, but then I don’t think anyone would take me for the snooping kind either, and I’m definitely a snooper. My one bedroom apartment is not only small, but it’s also sparsely decorated with few personal effects and even fewer things worth snooping through.
As I’m brushing out the knots in my hair, I admire its thickness. My dad may have been an unfaithful asshole, but he always had great hair. He got the shine and thickness from his mother, and I got it from him. I won’t ever dye it because the chemical damage would sadden me. It’s just hair, and maybe it’s dumb, but our hair has always been one of the many physical markers that show our genetic link. And he’s gone now. He can’t tell me not to get my feathers mussed up anymore, which was his way of making sure I didn’t get my hair too knotted.
You have beautiful feathers, Little Bird. Treat them well.
A smile finds its way to my face as I work on braiding my wet hair. I only got to meet my grandparents once, about twenty years ago now. I loved every minute of my time with them—mostly because my father’s mother told me stories about the man who was destined to be chief of the Southern Cheyenne but never would be. She made my dad sound so honorable and important. He could have been, I guess, had he not stolen my mother from the man she’d been betrothed to and run away with her, never to return. I still don’t know how I feel about the man he became.
And that’s where I always get stuck. All these feelings swirl inside me, confusing everything I think I know about my father. When he was alive, it was easy to hate him, but now that he’s gone, I don’t know how I feel. I deal with uncertainty on the job every day. I’m prepared for it. But in my personal life I need more stability. And my emotions are anything but stable lately.