A lone bulb illuminated a clean room, the building housing an odd one bedroom apartment. On one side was an incredibly small kitchen, a two burner camp stove resting next to a shining, steel sink. Cabinets lined the wall behind it, curtains hanging over the spaces in place of cabinet doors. A tiny, two chair table separated the kitchen area from a small living space. There was a threadbare couch, the kind that turned into a bed, clean sheets stacked on top of it.
“My house is actually just a quick walk through the woods,” Heathcliff informed me. “This is all on my family’s property. The hooch was Paps’ man cave.” He laughed. “Mine now, I guess. No one else uses it.”
Using a concrete block, we stepped into the building, my eyes landing on a stack of interesting machinery stacked against a wall housing a gas heater and a small window, an air conditioner shoved into it. The smell of sawdust, oil, and cleanser assaulted my nostrils. It was an oddly nice odor.
“There it is,” Heathcliff said, gesturing at the machinery. “Doesn’t look like much, but I like taking extra parts from busted equipment and turning them into something useful. That small one there,” he pointed to an odd scrap of metal that had been welded together and turned into something eerily familiar, “is a toaster. Works great, too.”
I glanced at Heathcliff. “This is incredible,” I breathed.
He snorted. “Not really. I just like working with parts the same way my dad and uncles like working with wood.”
“It’s incredible,” I insisted, my gaze falling to the couch. The place was clean and well taken care of, the sheets fresh. “You stay here?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes. Started my junior year, and as long as I kept my work up and didn’t disappear too often, my parents didn’t care. I come here, do a little work with the parts, and walk through the woods to shower in the morning. It’s not every night, just off and on. All boys should have a hobby, my Mams says.”
My gaze remained on the couch. “That’s how you’ve gotten away with coming to the plantation.”
He shifted awkwardly, and I realized he’d ditched his hobby a lot lately to spend time with me.
Touching his arm, I asked, “Could I come here sometimes and watch you work?”
“Really?” His gaze found mine.
“Sure. I could bring a few books.”
He smiled. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
Releasing him, I moved further into the room, my gaze alighting on an object leaning against the couch cushions.
“Is that a guitar?”
Heathcliff stepped next to me, his hands going to his pockets. “Another habit I picked up from my grandfather. I’m really not all that good, but I like picking at it.”
For some reason, the idea that he played music intrigued me. “You’ll have to teach me.”
His eyes brightened. “I’d like that, too.” Pausing, he stared at me, his gaze roaming over my face. “Thank you,” he waved at the building, “for being interested in this. Or pretending you are anyway.”
“No,” I blurted, “I really am.”
Leaning close, he captured me by the waist. “You could bring those foreign language CDs. Probably wouldn’t hurt for me to learn some culture.”
A laugh rose up in my throat, the sound cut off by his lips. I should be getting used to his kisses by now, but they kept stealing my breath, turning my insides to liquid lava. My world narrowed to his lips, his tongue, and the feel of his arms clutching me.
When we broke apart, I gasped, “I think we’re getting better at this.”
“You know what they say about practice.”
Heat pooled in places too sore to even consider what his words implied, and I grimaced despite the wave of desire.
Heathcliff’s lips brushed my forehead. “No hurry, remember. We have to get back.”
Stepping free of the building, we stopped just long enough for him to switch off the light and lock the door before climbing back into the truck. We sped down the back roads toward the school, the wind a beast inside the vehicle, tearing at us as if it were trying to keep us in the woods. I didn’t want to go back. Going back meant returning to reality. It meant facing the future. I wanted to give in to the wind, let it pull me backward.
The walls of my heart were caving in, and they were going to crush me.
Chapter 15
Life is made up of a bunch of hurdles and a lot of routines. It’s getting up in the morning to redo what you did the day before. Occasionally, there are changes or obstacles, but mostly it’s the same. Love stories usually focus on the hurdles, leaving out the repetition because repeating something over and over again doesn’t seem necessary or entertaining enough to mention.
My relationship with Heathcliff fell into a routine, a comfortable one. He worked a lot, doing things for his father or taking jobs at the farms nearby. The only real time I had with him was at night, some afternoons, and on the weekends when we alternated between his family, the plantation, and the small building on his family’s property. But we made the most of it.