In Harmony(66)

His reply came a minute later. Take care of her.

I walked Willow to my Dodge pickup and helped her inside, then climbed behind the wheel. She was already trying to dig into the bag.

“You have to wait until we get there,” I told her. “No open containers. Try not to get me arrested, please.”

Then I can spend a night in the holding tank, just like my old man. Wouldn’t he be proud?

“I don’t want you to be arrested,” she said with drunken solemnness. “That would truly suck.”

I had to chuckle, despite myself. Willow laid her head back against the seat, her eyes closed, smiling and humming to herself. Her hair was loose, falling almost to her waist in long blonde waves. She wore a black, tight-fitting, long sleeved shirt. It highlighted the swell of her breasts and the elegant curve of her neck.

She was the most exquisite girl I’d ever seen, even drunk off her ass. But she was drunk, which altered my attraction. Put any physical desire on the back burner. My job was to take care of her and that’s it.

And try not to get puked on.

“How much did you drink?” I asked. “What was it, Scotch?”

“Mm.” Her head lolled toward me. “My father, unbeknownst to him, genuinely… I mean generously let me partake in his stash.”

“How did you get downtown?”

She snorted wetly. “There’s such a thing as taxis. Even in little Harmony, you know. So many things here you don’t see.”

“I’ve lived here my entire life,” I said. “I’ve seen everything.”

“With your eyes, yes. But there’s so much more…”

She leaned forward to rummage in the back pocket of her jeans and came up with a small wad of cash. “My mother genuinely… Generously supplied me with funds for this little excursion. Here.” She peeled off three twenties and stuffed them in my jacket pocket. “Gas money, courtesy of Madame Holloway. So you can drive her daughter all over and see the sights.”

“I don’t want your money.” I tried to give it back to her and she pushed my hand away, so I left it on the seat between us.

I pulled onto the street in front of the cemetery. It had no parking lot, and only a squat, brick mortuary, closed for decades, stood in front of the plots.

Willow was opening the door before I even had the truck in park. I ran around to the other side to help her. As I put my arm out to steady her, she gazed up at me.

“You really are…so handsome.” The drunken slur of her words was changing from silly to serious. Her thoughts diving deeper. “Beautiful,” she said, “but not in a girly way. No. In a manly way. The way a man can be beautifully a man. This…?” She grazed her fingers over the stubble on my jaw, then traced my eyebrows. “And here…” Her touch gently trailed over my cheekbones, mindful of the still healing gash.

I closed my eyes under her touch; a rush sweeping through me as if I’d pounded a shot of Scotch myself.

Don’t do this to me.

“And here,” Willow whispered, her fingertip tracing my lips. “And your eyes, Isaac.”

I opened them to her, standing so close to me, so beautiful…

“Do you know what I thought the first time I saw you? That your eyes were like the stormy sea off Nantucket in winter. Cold and wind-tossed but deep. But they’re not cold now…”

She inclined her head toward me. She was going to kiss me. And if she hadn’t been drunk, it would’ve been the most perfect moment of my life.

I turned my head away and held her by the shoulders. “No, Willow. We can’t.”

“We can’t,” she echoed. Her face clouded over. “No truer words, right? I want a beer.”

“Only one.”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” she snapped. “Remember?”

I bent to pull two Heinekens out of the bag. “No, but you can get alcohol poisoning. And that’s not going to happen.”

She pouted but made no further protest.

I pointed to the small brick building. “Let’s go behind the mortuary before someone sees us.”

We took a small gravel path around the mortuary where a single light still glowed yellow, probably to keep out trespassers. Crickets chirped a never-ending cacophony in the trees that surrounded the cemetery. They were the only boundary marking this place. No gates or fences, no formal entrance or exit. Just an uneven patch of earth. A black sea where tilted tombstones bobbed on the surface. According to the small placard on the mortuary wall, some graves dated as far back as 1830.

“This is perfect,” Willow said, as I opened two beers with my keys and handed her one. She took a long pull from her beer, as if it were a potion she desperately needed.

“Drink slow,” I said. “You don’t—”

She grabbed at me then, one hand clutching her beer, sloshing it, and the other gripping my shirt. She hauled me toward her. Her lips crashed against my cheek, trying to find my mouth. Her breath smelled of expensive whiskey and cheap beer.

“This is how I can do it,” she whispered between the frantic kisses that both set my blood on fire and repulsed me. I wanted her more than anything, but not like this.

“Willow…”

“This is how it’s done, right? Drunk and delirious and you can just take me, Isaac. It’ll be okay this way.”