Missing Dixie(20)

Gavin Garrison is dangerous. Seductive and complicated and made entirely of muscles and ink and testosterone. Or at least it seems that way at the moment. Because he exudes maleness the way some women leave traces of their perfume everywhere they go.

“Can we talk?” Even his voice is a low rumble laced with the promise of dark pleasure.

I nod dumbly. “We can try.”

“Want to stay out here or can I come in?”

My thighs want to clench and give me away. I want him to come inside. Deep, deep inside. I want the dark pleasure and the pain only he can give me. I want it badly.

“Um.” I swallow and attempt to moisten my mouth as all of my bodily fluids seemed to have fled to a locale farther south. “It’s up to you. You’re the one who came by to talk, so you can decide.”

He glances at the door with a wistful expression on his face. “I should stay out here. For now.”

Disappointment weighs on my chest. “Okay.”

“Come,” he says evenly, making his demand sound more like a request for a favor while stepping backward in retreat toward the swing. “Sit with me?”

I comply, lowering myself onto the creaky old swing and groaning a little myself because it’s been a long day.

“You were right here. Right here where you are now the first time I saw you.”

I watch him remembering. His eyes glaze a little and the hint of a sad smile plays at his mouth.

“You and Dallas looked so . . . I don’t know. Clean. Perfect. Like kids from one of those black-and-white photos in the picture frames at the drugstore.”

My mind travels back in time along with his. The day of my parents’ funeral. People came, a lot of people, in and out carrying covered dishes and desserts and remarking just a little too loudly on what a shame it was our grandparents had to spend their golden years raising children who weren’t even theirs.

“It was a tough day. My aunt Sheila dressed us. She nearly tore all of my hair out trying to brush it.” Straight-haired people so do not understand the plight of those of us born with naturally curly locks. The struggle is real, people.

“You looked beautiful. And I was not the kind of kid who thought of girls as beautiful.”

“Did you think they were icky and had cooties?” I tease.

Gavin doesn’t smile back. He shakes his head. “No. I’d seen things. Seen men and women doing things. In my house. On my couch. My mom was too high to really care or pay attention. I knew how it worked, and frankly, it seemed gross and kind of terrifying and I planned to steer clear of females forever.”

A gripping sense of dread overtakes me and I forget to be upset with him or nervous around him. Gavin doesn’t talk about his childhood much and when he does, my heart aches to make it better.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, unable to imagine what that must have been like, to witness those kinds of things at such a young age.

“Don’t be. I’m not telling you to make you feel sorry for me. You know I don’t do pity or charity.”

“I know.”

“The reason I was telling you was because that day, things changed for me. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I saw a girl that didn’t terrify me, didn’t make me feel strange or confused, or slightly sick to my stomach.”

“What did that girl make you feel?” Chills break out across my skin as I wait for his answer.

“Hope.” There is so much emotion behind his answer I’m almost overcome with the need to kiss him, climb him, cover and smother him with love and kisses and whatever else I have to give. Somehow I remain still, and he continues. “I saw you and I felt hopeful. You were like no one I’d ever seen before. Wild and still all at once. Kind and selfless and beautiful. It’s a rarer combination than you realize.”

“You were hungry. Looking for food. Maybe your eyes were playing tricks on you.”

It might be the wrong thing to say or too sensitive an issue to bring up, but I have to lighten the mood or I’m going to combust. Or completely humiliate myself with a profession of undying love.

“They weren’t.” He’s smiling, and God, I love that smile. His dimples, his lips, the way his eyes crinkle at the corners. “And it wasn’t just my eyes, Bluebird. I felt different. When you ran inside, I thought maybe you were running away from me because I was a mess and I’d scared you or something. But you came back out with food and I knew it was for me, but you didn’t make me ask for it or even act like it was a big deal. You didn’t treat me like a stray dog or a charity case. You and Dallas treated me like a person when no one else did. That meant something to me.” After a beat of silence, he goes on. “It still means something to me. Which is why—”

“Which is why you and I can never be anything more than friends that are like family. Right. I got it. You made that perfectly clear a long time ago and I should’ve listened.”

He’s opening up to me and as good as that feels, this “here’s why we can never be together” speech is breaking me apart on the inside.

“That’s what you think? What you really believe?”

I almost say, “That’s what I know.”

Months. He was here and didn’t tell me. I was on the road alone and then going to bed alone night after night and he was right here. No phone call. No text. Not a single smoke signal to be seen. There has to be a reason for that. The words hang out on the tip of my tongue and new me is bolder and mouthier and says how she feels, but this feels like a lie.