CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The night stretched on in a blur. Once we got back to Rigby’s, we discovered Christina was gone. She had taken Rigby’s car into town, I guess trying to avoid what she knew was coming. Luckily we had come up in the Highlander and within seconds, we had crammed ourselves into the car, its comfort and familiar smell easing my heart, and we rode it all the way into town. When you lived miles away from the cops, it was usually better for you to just go to them.
It was in the car as we approached the lights of civilization that my phone sprang to life. I had numerous texts from Ada and my voice mail box was full. I texted her back quickly to let her know I was alive but I couldn’t respond to anything at the moment. All of that seemed inconsequential next to the severity of the case we were about to get involved with.
Not surprisingly, the police station in Snow Crest consisted of a couple of officers and that was it. There was only one guy in the jail cell, and he was just the neighborhood drunk who started fights at the bar.
We were prepared for the cops to laugh at us as we explained our story. Rigby went first and they knew about him and his zany ways. But when we started telling them what we saw, that’s when the cops thought we were really full of shit. The most we could do was pop the memory card into their television set and though there wasn’t much proof of the actual beast, there was proof that something terrible had happened out there.
Dex and I even had to concede that the whole thing could have been caused by a “mangy bear”, that damn bear always being used as the scapegoat when people tried to debunk Sasquatch sightings.
While we were talking – for hours and hours until our throats were sore – one of the officers had left with Rigby to go pick up Christina.
When they brought her into the station, I couldn’t even look at her. I just couldn’t believe that someone as young and seemingly innocent as her could do something so dangerous and so irresponsible. It didn’t matter that she did it in order to help her dad’s business – her actions got Mitch killed and it nearly killed us as well.
Thankfully, at that point we had explained all there was to explain. The cops wanted to keep the SD card as evidence and Dex only agreed to it if they promised to give it back. But I was beginning to wonder if it was even a good idea to air the show after all. A man died. He actually died during all of this and now that we were back in the real world, faced with real consequences, showing the scene of a murder for profit seemed downright wrong.
I voiced this to Dex as we left the station, his arm wrapped firmly around my side, trying to prevent me from going after Christina in a flurry of hateful word vomit.
“I’m thinking the same thing,” he admitted. We walked together down the darkened street to the Highlander. It sounds strange, but I wished I could have kept walking. I needed to clear my head. I was all messed up inside and I couldn’t seem to get a handle on anything. The creature, Mitch, what Christina had done. It was way too much for my tired brain to handle.
“I really don’t want to go back there,” I told him, folding my arms across my chest. Because it was so dark out, the cops were getting some extra enforcement from the town of Cranbrook and initiating a full-on search in the morning. We were going to have to go back up to Rigby’s and maybe the cabin. I hoped Rigby and a map would be able to take the team the rest of the way because there was no way we were reenacting our journey for them.
“We won’t,” he said. “This isn’t a murder investigation, this is an animal attack and if anything I’m sure we’re going to be suffering from PTSD soon. Anyway, I have a plan if they do try and make us.”
“What’s that?”
“We cross the border,” he answered and the streetlights gleamed in his cheeky eyes. He shot me a look. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?”
I shook my head and got in the car. “The hospital here is probably administered by a vet. I’m fine. I’m just sore. I’m just tired. I just want to eat, then eat some more and pass out. I want to sleep in a warm bed and I want to sleep for days.”
We turned the corner into the familiar glow of the motel.
“I can promise you food and a warm bed,” he told me. He eyed the hot tub as we pulled the car up beside it. “And it’s never too late for a dip in the hot tub.”
That was probably the best idea I had heard in days.
We checked back in, the front desk lady eyeing Dex down like a criminal. She hadn’t forgotten about the incident with the mirror and he had to promise – swearing on a random bible that she plunked out on the counter – that we weren’t going to cause any more trouble. He swore with utmost sincerity but I knew that look in his eyes all too well. He was enjoying the fuss.
Once again we got two separate rooms. And once again, my heart dipped a bit. It was the right thing to do, for both of us, but I knew it was going to be harder sleeping away from him. It had to be done, though. It’s not like we’d go back to sleeping together once we got back to Seattle. It would be me in my room and he in his. The room next door.
I plunked my bag on the springy motel bed, so tempted to just pass out on it, face down. But Dex was knocking at the adjoining door before I could. I got up and answered it.
He grinned at me and I was struck by how much I loved it when he smiled. I mean really smiled. White teeth, tanned face, black hair. It was perfect.
“Pizza is on the way,” he announced, not coming in.
“That was fast.”
“I have fast fingers.” Another grin.
My eyes shot up to the ceiling and I hoped the heat creeping up my neck wasn’t noticeable.
“It’s handy when you’re dialing for takeout,” he continued, in mock earnestness. “Should we go in the hot tub now, or wait until after we eat?”
“Can we eat the pizza in the hot tub?” I asked.
He winked at me. “That’s my girl.”
He closed the door, leaving me alone in my room. Which, at that moment, was actually a good thing. I had the vision of him saying a very similar phrase the day before, our naked bodies on the silver space blankets, him coaxing me to another orgasm.
Holy shit. That was an image that wasn’t leaving my head anytime soon. It felt wrong to be mildly turned on after everything we had been through. I began to think maybe I needed a cold shower instead of a dip in the hot tub. >
I didn’t have much time to contemplate it. I got into my black Slayer t-shirt and black booty shorts and was covering myself up with the thin motel robe when Dex knocked at my door again.
“Pizza,” he called out and opened the door, walking right in. He was dressed in the same robe, the box of pizza balancing on one hand, a 2 liter of Coke in the other.
“Hey, I could have been changing,” I warned him, wrapping the robe tighter.
“That was the idea.”
“You’re the worst pizza delivery boy ever,” I said, pushing past him through the door into his room.
“I’ve heard I’m the best.”
I shot him a wry look as he shut the door behind him and followed me back. “Don’t tell me you worked as a delivery boy once.”
“Only for a day,” he said, handing the box to me and picking up two glasses from the counter by the coffee machine.
“Let me guess, you were fired.”
He nodded at the door, for me to get going. “No, I wasn’t. I was just trying to pick up a girl who lived down the street.”
I opened the door and stepped into the cold mountain air. It was almost beautiful when you knew you had a warm place to protect you from it
“Did it work?”
He smiled at me and locked the door. “I told you. Best pizza delivery boy ever.”
We walked side by side toward the hot tub, the icy breeze blowing back our robes. Our pace quickened when we saw the steam rising from the metallic gate, the low green light of the tub.
“Is there anything you won’t do to get laid?” I asked.
A wash of sadness came across his eyes as he looked down, trying to open the gate. He cleared his throat and the melancholy was gone.
“I guess not. I’m a pig, as you say Perry.”
I smarted a bit at that comment. I felt a tad bit ashamed. I locked the gate behind us and laid the pizza at the edge of the tub, conscious that he was watching me.
“You’re not a pig, Dex,” I reassured him. “You’re just…”
“Me?”
“You’re definitely you.” And you can be wonderful.
We stood a few feet apart, both of our robes still on, waiting for the other one to undress first. So silly when you thought about it.
So I disrobed first. And Dex gasped at the sight of me. Not in lust, but in balls to the wall concern.
“Jesus, Perry. You’re hurt.” He sounded hurt as he said it.
I looked down. In the pool’s wavering glow I could see a multitude of bruises and scratches covering my legs and arms.
“I’m not hurt,” I told him quickly. “I’m cold.”
I reached for the metal railing and eased myself into the hot pool, the scalding water burning my skin wonderfully, stinging at any wounds I had until the pain was gone. A trail of shivers and sparking nerves followed in its wake, rushing up as the water rose around me.
I looked up. He was still staring down at me, like he was caught in something I couldn’t see.
“Get your ass in this hot tub right now,” I told him. “I’m fine and getting better with every second.”
It was true. Now that I was leaning back in the water up to my neck, I was overcome by extreme pleasure and a rare feeling of relaxation.
Dex continued to hesitate, then he finally dropped the robe. I swear, he had to make everything so dramatic, including getting into a hot tub. Not that I blamed him with that body. I tried not to stare at him in his grey boxer briefs. It was hard not to. It was damn hard.
He came in the water beside me, gasping at the heat as he went. Eventually he settled on the other side of the tub and leaned his head back against the edge. “Oh my God, please just leave me here.”
“That can be arranged. You’ll be really pruney though.”
He straightened up and lowered his gaze at me. “Will you go to the hospital tomorrow?”
“I told you I’m fine.”
“Will you?”
“We’ll be busy tomorrow if we have to help them with the investigation.”
“Will you?”
“Argh fine. Now give me pizza.” I knew I had no choice to comply because Dex usually asked as a formality. If he really wanted me to do something, he’d find a way to make me.
“Done,” he said and opened the box for me. I picked out a couple of slices and shoved them in my mouth, completely ravenous. I washed it down with the cold Coke that was the sweetest, most precious drink I had ever tasted.
We ate in silence for a bit. There was no talking, not with our appetites, and it wasn’t long before we both polished off the whole box. In hindsight we should have ordered two pizzas but Dex warned me that it would have been too much of a shock to our system. He was right, as usual.
With the food out of the way and there nothing else to do but talk or stare at each other, our conversation turned to more serious topics. We talked about Christina. We talked about Rigby. We talked about Mitch. And we talked about the beast.
It felt good to just lay it all out there with him, all the things I’d kept to myself about the whole ordeal. He could only hear my thoughts sometimes and it felt good to have a direct interaction with him. To know he was listening. We were in this together as we always had been and he was always going to be that person who understood. No matter what happened in the future, he had to stay a part of my life. If not for just being that one person in the world who understood what I had to go through, the things I saw, the way I felt when I was faced with something impossible. He went through all of it too. We really were cut from the same cloth.
We were both starting to get quite wrinkly from the water when I brought up the dilemma with the episode.
“Do you think Jimmy will be mad if we don’t air it?” I wondered.
“We’re not airing it, kiddo. You know that. It wouldn’t be right.”
I nodded, feeling a weird mix of disappointment and relief. “And he’ll understand?”
“Definitely,” he answered. When he saw the puzzlement on my brow, he went on, softly, “Your priorities change when you almost lose the person you need. Jimmy will be glad that we’re alive and have both our arms.”
I looked down at the frothy water. “So much for my first gig as a cameraperson.”
“You did great. You’re welcome to the job if you want it.”
I offered him a half-smile. “Don’t tell me you want to take over my position now.”
“Oh it’s your position again is it?” he finished off the rest of the Coke and wiped his mouth. “Well baby, I don’t blame you. You’re much prettier than I am.”
“It’s the boobs,” I said modestly.
His eyes crinkled softly at the corners and I gave him credit for holding my gaze and not glancing downward. A beat passed, then he looked at the gate. “Well, I think I’m going to head back. I’ll fall asleep in here if I stay any longer.”
“OK,” I said. My chest pinched. I didn’t want him to leave. I wanted him to stay in the tub with me. I wanted to keep talking to him. I wanted to keep looking at him.
Plus, he had just called me baby again. I needed to hear more of that.
He got up slowly but once out of the tub, he scrambled to wrap himself in the robe and picked up mine, holding it out for me.
It was hard leaving that heat but I got out as quickly as I could. He wrapped the robe around me, picked up the garbage and the glasses and we did a quick jog through the parking lot toward our rooms, steam rising off of our bodies, dissipating in the starry sky.
We burst through his door and I walked toward the adjoining one to my room. Every step I took felt long, felt heavy. I ran a million reasons through my head of why I should stay. I thought of a million things I could say, including “I was wrong.”
But I couldn’t say any of them.
I just didn’t have the words.
I reached for the door knob in slow motion and he called after me.
“Perry?”
I paused. A hope ran through me. I turned to look at him.
I’d never seen him look so…lost.
“Sleep well,” he said in a strained voice. “If you need me, you know where I am.”
The room next door.
I swallowed hard and gave him a grateful nod. Then disappeared into my room, the door slowly closing on his solemn eyes.
~~~
I did not sleep well. I did not sleep at all. It was 2am and I was still tossing and turning on the bed. My mind was racing and it wouldn’t stop. But it wasn’t about the beast. It wasn’t about Mitch or Christina or any of the shit that tried to kill me in the last 24 hours. As fantastical as all of that was, it no longer mattered. It had happened and we made it out alive. It was done.
And so were Dex and I. After everything I had said to him the other day, there was no way we couldn’t be done. The man opened himself up to me for the first time and I was so pig-headed, so stubborn, that I threw it away. He practically gave me his heart and I turned my back on it.
I was hurt. I was so hurt by what he did to me. But now I was just hurting myself. I was starting to wonder if this was even about Dex after all. Was it he that I couldn’t forgive? Or was it myself? For the things I had done to him?
He was right. He had been wrong to hurt me, to treat me the way he did. But he wasn’t alone. I lied to him. Right to his face. Because I was too scared to admit to him that I had been in love with him. I had lied to him, I had messed with his medication and I was acting like I could do no wrong. We were both at fault and I was starting to see the light that I apparently was.
I gripped the corner of my pillow and swallowed back tears of frustration. I had lied because I was scared. I had thrown love away because I was scared. All because I was scared. And I was still scared, no matter how deep I fell into my self-loathing, I knew there was a new chord of terror waiting to emerge. It was the fear of losing myself all over again, of letting go and never getting my soul back. It was the fear of learning to love again and having my heart broken. It was the fear of being a fool.
And it was the same fear that millions of people faced every single day. The fear of loving someone. The fear of being loved. Yet people did it anyway.
So why couldn’t I?
I rolled over and looked up at the ceiling. A pale light from the motel’s awning filtered in through the window. I was alone, lying in bed, feeling like my heart was breaking into a million pieces again, and there was no one to blame but myself. The agony slowly spread from my center out into my bones. It ached. I ached.
But it wasn’t over. It wouldn’t be over until I tried to make it right.
I had a feeling it wasn’t where I lay.
It was in the room next door.
I pulled back my covers and padded my way through the dark over to our adjoining door. My hand hovered above the knob as last minute thoughts of pride ran through my head. I decided to risk being a fool.
I opened the door, then opened the other door.
The bathroom light in Dex’s room was on, bathing it in a slant of low light. I saw his silhouette on the bed turn over and he slowly sat up.
“Perry?” he asked, the sleep clogging up his throat. “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said softly. “Maybe everything.”
He sat up a bit more and reached over for the bedside lamp but I cried out, “No. Please. Leave the light off.”
He paused then took his arm back. I could feel the bewilderment coming from him, it made the silence heavier as he thought of what to say.
“I just want you to stay there, please,” I told him.
He swallowed hard. “OK.”
I walked over so I was at the foot of his bed. I could see half his body lit in the grainy light. I knew I looked the same. Half of me in light, half of me in dark.
I stood there, staring at him, and slowly gripped the bottom of my t-shirt. I raised my arms above my head and pulled the shirt right off, dropping it to the ground beside me. I was completely topless and though I couldn’t read his face properly I could hear him take in a sharp breath of air.
I tugged at the edge of my underwear and deliberately slipped them off. Once they were at my feet I stepped out of them and crawled onto the bed.
“Oh my God,” Dex whispered as I came closer.
I didn’t let myself feel modest. I just went with it. I wanted to give it all to him.
I crawled very, very slowly, like a big cat, giving Dex time to slide forward under the sheets and lie back.
I stopped when I was hovering somewhere above his waist and with one hand I peeled the cover away from him. He was completely naked under there and when I saw just how hard he was, when I felt him pulsing hotly underneath my palm, I made sure he saw my smile.
“Why are you doing this?” he whispered.
“Because I don’t mind being a fool,” I answered slyly. “And I want to make you come so hard, you’ll be begging me to stop.”
I caught the widening of his eyes before I grabbed his cock firmly and eased it through my wet lips into my mouth.
His moan was immediate, so I took that as a good sign. I continued for a bit, sliding my mouth up and down his shaft, working my tongue along the ridge, when he gasped and grabbed me up my arms.
“Stop,” he said through his heavy breathing. “You’re always first.”
With raw passion, he flipped me over onto my back, my breasts jostling as I bobbed on the mattress. He went to town on me, eating me out until I came. I covered my face with the pillow, conscious of being in a motel, when he reached up and ripped the pillow away from my face. He continued and I cried out until I couldn’t take it anymore, his fingers digging into my ass and driving me forward into his face. >
Seconds later he was peering down at me, wild lust in his eyes. “I need to hear you. Never hide that from me.”
“Don’t boss me around,” I answered, gathering my strength. I wasn’t done yet. I sat up and pushed him back onto the bed, then I hopped on him, already wet and throbbing. I made sure I rode him until it was obvious he couldn’t hold back anymore. I bit at his neck and earlobes and when he asked me to bite harder, I obliged, pleased at the mix of pain and pleasure I was giving him. He brought his thumb to my * and started rubbing me and didn’t let go until I did.
I leaned back as he filled me up, feeling his cries, feeling everything inside me. I was whimpering, overcome with the feelings that were pouring through me and then the whimpering turned into shaking and I couldn’t hold myself up anymore. I couldn’t do anything but swim along with the current, the warmth that coated my body.
I lay forward, resting my head on his chest, my fingers tracing his tattoo. His heart was beating wildly beneath it, his breath was tired, hot and rushing out of his lungs. I tried to move so that he’d slip out of me, but he placed his arms around me and held me tight.
“Don’t,” he said gruffly. “I want to stay inside you. I don’t know how long I’ll have this.”
I raised my head and looked at him. His gaze was enthralling and I found myself lost in his eyes, lost in my feelings and in his.
“I want to be in you, be a part of you,” he went on, voice growing lower with each word until he was whispering. “Let me be that part.”
I smiled shyly and rubbed down at his chest. I wanted to reach in and soothe his heart. “You are a part of me Dex. You’re every part of me. Always have been. Always will be.”
He studied me with great intent, searching my eyes, searching my soul for signs of the truth. I returned the look. I wanted him to know that I meant every word of it. That and more that I didn’t even know how to express yet.
A smile slowly spread across his lips and I saw that glorious mix of teeth, dimples and crinkly eyes. He didn’t say anything, just smiled and held me tighter. I lay my head back down and he kissed the top of my forehead hard.
“I love you Perry,” he whispered, mouth moving in my hair. “I love you so f*cking much. And I’m losing myself. I’m losing myself to you and I don’t care anymore because there’s never been a better feeling in the whole f*cking world. I love you. So much. Too much. Always.”
My heart swelled at his words until I thought my ribs weren’t big enough to contain the feeling. I thought it might spill out of me and never come back. So I let Dex hold me as the night went on. His arms stayed wrapped around me, keeping me together, keeping me to him as we slowly succumbed to sleep.
I had never felt so safe.
I had never felt so terrified.