Never Have I Ever(56)

He scrubbed at his eyes, then met my gaze.

There was nothing there. Not even irritation at being jerked from sleep. Just a pleasant, mild politeness.

“Gate stuck again, or did you forget the code?” he asked, then blinked at me, as if trying to remember my name. “Do you— I’m sorry. It’s really early. Do you have a bay here?”

He didn’t know me. Not at all.

“Tig,” I said, and stopped. I just looked at him, helpless.

He blinked at the sound of my voice. It was like watching him wake up again.

“Smiff?” he said at last. “Smiffy, is that you?”

I tilted my chin up. “Hey.”

He shook his head, a little disbelieving, or maybe shaking the last sleep away. Then he stepped to me, so fast it caught me off guard. My hands came up, defensive, but he bowled into me, wrapping his arms around me, squeezing me so tight. My own arms were trapped between us, and I thought he might be laughing. I snaked them out, wound them tight around his body. He lifted me up off the ground for a second, my feet dangling, then bent, still holding me, until I touched down. My face was pressed into his chest, and he smelled the same, exactly like Tig, a little pot smoke and a little copper in his tang.

“Shit, Smiffy. Look at you. What, you need a waffle?” he said into my hair. Just as if it were a thousand years ago and we’d been up all night rocking it as Ragweed. As if dawn were nigh and we were played out and hungry and had school in half an hour.

In his arms I understood how desperately I wanted to believe that he was not in league with her. Surely if I were his mark, he would have recognized me? He couldn’t be working with her. I wanted it to be true so badly I didn’t trust myself.

“No, I’m good,” I said. My voice came out as creaky as his door.

Finally he pushed me back, arm’s length, his eyes searching my face like he was hungry for the sight of me. “Jesus. You still look just like you.”

I shook my head, old shames at war inside me. “I do not. I’m a couple of decades older. And there’s a hundred pounds or so less of me.”

“Yeah, but you still—” He stopped, seeking the words. “I don’t know how to say it. You look like you. You’re you.” He grinned, as if this were a good thing, hands still so warm on my shoulders, staring at me so long and with such pleasure that it almost got weird. He felt it, too. He must have, because he dropped his hands, laughing, and said, “Shit, come in. I shoulda— I’m sorry. I was asleep. You want some coffee? I need coffee.”

He swung the door open wide, but I stayed where I was, eyes welled up, shaking so hard I was shocked my teeth weren’t chattering.

“Why are you happy to see me?” I asked.

He blinked, shook his head. “Aw, Smiff. I’ve wanted to see you for a long, long time. So bad. I should have come to you. I know that. It was on me. Please, come in.”

He led me into a little living room, and it was a very Tig space. The Tig of old. Messy but not dirty, with books everywhere, double-stuffed into built-in shelves and in tall stacks near the fireplace and the couch. A Leatherman sat on a short stack of National Geographics, sharing the coffee table with a water pipe and two more books, both open facedown to keep their place. A single lamp gave off a mellow, golden glow. The sofa and a couple of chairs were crammed into half the room to accommodate a drum kit, two big amps and a baby one, and five guitar stands. The one on the end held Tig’s ancient Fender. I would have known it anywhere.

The kitchen was a small, dark square on the other side, separated from the den by a breakfast bar. Tig went around it, not bothering to turn more lights on, and I slid onto a stool. A Bunn coffeemaker waited on the counter with a plastic pitcher full of water, premeasured, right beside it. He poured the water, and within a couple of seconds coffee started streaming through.

“You’re serious about it, huh?” I’d only seen that kind of coffee machine in diners, never in someone’s house.

“Cut me. I bleed black,” he said.

Looking around, I didn’t think any woman lived here, least of all Roux, with her silk dressing gowns and Picasso sketches. She might go slumming here, like she was at the Sprite House, but nothing I could see was hers.

I checked his hands. No wedding ring. His knuckles were smudged with ink or grease. He saw me looking and grinned, then came close and fisted them for me, holding them up so I could see the remains of old, old tattoos. The jailhouse kind, and I felt my throat get thick. Simple block letters, one per finger, showed faintly on his fists. l o v e, his right hand said. I had to squint to read the left one.

“‘Love . . . Cake’?” I said, smiling in spite of all the history in the room.

“Yeah. It’s a joke. You know, like how bad-ass men get ‘Love/Hate’ tats on their hands.”

“But you got ‘Love/Cake’?”

“I was seventeen. It seemed funny at the time,” he said, sheepish, but then he added, “And I didn’t want my body to say hate.”

I liked that. Too much to say so. I dropped my gaze.

He turned back and opened up a cupboard. It was piled with dishes, all mismatched shapes and colors. The Bunn was already finished, so he pulled out two random mugs and filled them.

“You still take cream and sugar?” he asked. “I have milk. I think.”