Broken Wings (A Romantic Suspense) (80 page)

Shaking, I stand up and lean on the wall, pull the shower head back up, rinse myself off and hang it back up, step out of the bath tub and wrap myself in a towel.

When I open the door, Lance is in the hallway.

"What the hell are you doing in there? I need to take a piss."

He's still in uniform. He has his sunglasses on. In the house. It doesn't matter, he rakes me with his eyes anyway. The towel covers all the important parts but I feel naked anyway; all I'd have to do is bent over and I'd be indecent. I have to brush the wall to get past him, and he makes a point of craning his head to stare at my ass as I dart away from him and into my room. I pluck the bottom of my towel down but it doesn't help, and when I slam the door, a deep breath goes in and comes back out a ragged near-sob.

I hate that son of a bitch almost as much as I hate his father. Lance isn't a monster, he's just a creep. Ever since our parents married and I moved in, he's been eyeing me…

Or, as she gets older, May. One time, at our precious Sunday Dinner, Lance pointed out that May was
filling out.
That was a real Kodak moment. Ever since, I've been on edge, trying to make sure she's never alone with him. Not that there's anything I can do, other than stay on Tom's good side and put a word in his ear if I think something inappropriate might happen.

God, I want to cry. How did it come to this? We're prisoners here. No one will help us, not even our own mother.

Someone would
.

No, he left me. He left me! He left us here and fucked off to who knows where and never sent so much as a word, left me wondering if he was even alive.

I couldn't believe he'd just
leave
.

I hear May's door open.

Fuck, Lance might still be out there.

I stand up, squeeze the towel tight and open the door, and let out a slow breath as I realize he's gone.

May takes one look at me and ducks back into her room.

I dress quickly, just shorts and a t-shirt and my beaten up hiking boots. I've had them so long they feel better on my feet than sneakers. Once they're laced up I step out and knock on May's door, and she slips out with me and we start the walk back.

By the time we get back to Commerce Street everyone has started moving towards the park. The carnival has emptied out for the most part and the rides are just going through the motions. In a few minutes, they'll shut off the lights. The church will kick them off the grounds tomorrow, it's Sunday. Tonight the main event will be the fireworks display.

I know, I help set it up. Tom put everything he could spare behind it to make it the most spectacular display possible.

It’s dusk now as we walk up the street. May hums to herself, I say nothing.

I don't feel any better. I could start screaming. I want Hawk now, even more than before. A fantasy isn't the real thing, but just thinking about him makes me angry.

What if… he
wouldn't
just abandon me?

It makes me sick to think about it. That's what I thought happened to him at first- somebody dragged him out of town, did something to him. Forced him to leave. I couldn't deal with the idea that he'd tell me to dress up and just blow town. I had an idea what he wanted to say.

I wanted to say it myself but every time I tried, it just came out wrong.

We pass through the wrought iron gates into the memorial park. It's name for the big World War I memorial at the entrance, commemorating war dead from Paradise Falls. There are memorials for World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, too, and a smaller one for the wars that came after. The list of names grows up through Vietnam and then shrinks as the town got smaller. Further ahead, half the town or more is set up on the meadow, on blankets and lawn chairs while trumpeting music plays from loudspeakers and the sun dips towards the horizon.

It'll be full dark soon.

We pick up our pace and I scan the meadow for my mother and stepfather, and hope Lance isn't off duty, or he's found someone else to bother tonight.

"Hey," May says.

"Huh?"

'Hey!" she hisses, louder. "Look."

Hawk leans up against an ancient oak, arms folded, watching me. My eyes are immediately drawn to his.

He changed his shirt, at least.

"You should go talk to him," May insists.

"Why?"

"Because he likes you!"

I sigh, exasperated.

"Just do it."

"May, I can't. You know what will happen if Tom has even a whiff of me messing around with Hawk."

"So you want to mess around with him?"

"What? No. I don't. It's over."

"So he's not your boyfriend?" She sounds dejected.

"What? No. May-"

"He can help us."

"Help us how?"

She shrugs. "He's really big. Look at him."

"I've looked."

"You like him."

"I do not!"

I'm too old for this.

Well, I'm twenty-two, but that's too old for this.

"Go," May says. "I'll tell them you felt sick and stayed home."

"What if they get back before I do?"

"Are you going to be with him all night?"

I glare at her.

"Just go talk to him. Please? Nobody will know you're gone."

I sigh. I peel off from May and she walks faster, and I hope no one is going to notice me as I head for the tree line. Hawk turns and walks into the woods before I reach him. I sigh and follow, scanning the ground to keep from hooking my boot on a root and busting my ass. Behind me, the meadow lights up with the first launch, a hissing wail that shoots up and pops overhead, for a split second throwing long reaching shadows through the trees. I see Hawk waiting for me and walk to him, stopping out of arm's reach.

"Hi," he says.

"What do you want?"

"I want you."

Alexis

Then

I was sitting in the cafeteria on the last day of school when Hawk sat down next to me. As usual his tray was piled up with a double meal: Two burgers, two milks, two of everything plus a teetering pile of other stuff, including a strawberry shortcake ice cream bar he unwrapped and proceeded to eat first. I just wanted to go home. I'd have skipped but if I showed up at home my mother would have crawled down my throat and laid eggs, so there I was, marking time with the other members of the student body who had nothing better to do. Hawk was probably here because he knew I would be.

We only had morning classes together, so this would be the last time I'd see him for the day.

The thought gave me butterflies in my stomach.

Was this it? We'd known each other since third grade. Were we going to sign each other's yearbooks and drift off into the world and never see each other again? The idea terrified me and I wasn't sure why.

I think it had something to do with the wave pool.

It was May's idea. She said I should wear something
cute
and see if Hawk noticed, so I went down to Hannigan's on Commerce Street and picked up a two-piece bathing suit. I'd never really worn one before. Jenny Francis wore a bikini at the swimming hole in the game lands in ninth grade and Billy Myers pulled down her top and ran around screaming, ‘
Jenny Francis has no tits!’
until Hawk punched him in the side of the head. I can still remember the sound of Hawk's knuckles hitting that kid's skull.

My heart was pounding when I came out of the bath house. I was so nervous I had to run right into the water. Only then did I see his reaction.

He looked at me like he'd never seen me before.

When he followed me into the water, the waves threw us together and I ended up all tangled with him. I can still smell the chlorine in his hair, and the strange way his skin felt under the water. We'd been swimming together dozens of times, but it was never like this. A lifeguard was watching us, so it made me nervous, but I put my arms around him and one time even my legs, and he grabbed me back, his hands placed awkwardly on my back like he didn't know where to put them, this look of constant surprise on his face.

I don't think we said anything the whole time we were in the pool, never more than a few feet apart. Sitting in the cafeteria that day, it was all I could think about. I looked at him and he was the same, but different. Same goofy grin, same compact, lithe body, but he went from a constant fixture in my life to the center of my attention. We spent half a minute just staring at each other while he ate that ice cream bar before he finally finished it and shifted on the bench.

"Uh, hi," he said.

I can't remember a time when Hawk was ever awkward around me. This was new.

"Hi," I said, slyly. Without quite knowing why, I flipped my hair over my shoulder. I had it down that day for some reason.

"So listen, after school…"

"Yeah?"

"I can't walk you home."

"Oh," I sighed.

"I was hoping we could go out later."

I perked up. A little voice in my head asked
what, on a date?
I didn't ask, I just thought it.

"Yeah. If you could dress up a little bit…"

"I can do that," I blurted out, excited. "I have a dress."

I had exactly one dress.

Hawk blinked. "Yeah, that's perfect."

He was staring at me and I was staring at him. I shifted a little and changed the subject.

"So this is it. School's over."

"Yeah," he sighed, sadly. "It is. You're all set for UD?"

"Yeah," I nodded, and brushed my hair back. "Hawk, I'm worried we're not going to see each other anymore."

He flinched and put down his burger and rested his hand on mine. His fingers curled around my palm. I squeezed his hand and he smiled softly.

"Why wouldn't we?"

I licked my lips. The freaking bell was about to ring. The lunch period was only twenty-two minutes. I didn't feel hungry anymore. My stomach was doing backflips and setting up tables and chairs for a butterfly convention. I pushed my tray away and sat back. Hawk's eyes flicked to my chest. I was just wearing a tank top, nothing special.

Oh my God
, I thought.
He looked at my boobs. He likes me!

Hawk turned away and I could see red in his cheeks. He started powering down his food and I laughed.

It reminded me of the way he stared at me at the water park. If he thought I wasn't paying close attention, he stared right at my chest. He wasn't fooling me, I knew the whole time and I used my arms to push them together while I was splashing around in the water. I was tempted to flash him but the lifeguards were watching me, too. I don't know if they were reading my mind, or just pervs. I guess it had to be one or the other. Maybe both. I know I can look mischievous.

Or I could then. Not so much anymore.

The bell rang and Hawk ate the rest of his lunch on the way to the trash, then came back and took my tray without asking. As I stood up, he leaned really close to me, like he was going to do something, then pulled back, like he second guessed himself.

It was almost like he was going to kiss me on the cheek.

It was loud as everyone threw their trash away and left.

"Around six?" he said.

"Yeah, can't wait!"

The rest of the day was torture. Classes that weren't classes. I sat there and played on my phone and waited for the economics teacher to yell at me to take my feet off my desk, but she never bothered. She was doing something on her computer the whole time and didn't care what we did. Not that it mattered, we all knew if we were graduating or not. Something about that bothered me. I always took school very seriously, even if the squishy subjects didn't interest me at all, but the way that last day went felt like we'd been marking time to whole time, like life up to that point was just marking off checkboxes on an invisible card.

When the ending bell finally rang, I bolted from my desk, hoping to pass Hawk in the hallway and maybe get him to walk me anyway, but I ended up trudging home alone, so sick with anticipation I thought I was going to barf out my own liver. By the time I got home, I was sweating like a pig and huffing as I walked up the steps behind the shoe store to our little apartment. Mom left me a note on the table, explaining there was cheesy beef in the freezer if I wanted to reheat it for myself and May.

May was going to eat double that night. She was finishing sixth grade, and wouldn't be home for an hour after I was. I was out of the shower by the time she got back, and plopped down in the living room. She had another two weeks of school.

"How was your day?"

"Fine," she sighed, and turned on the TV.

She missed Mom, and she still missed Dad. Sometimes, living in the same little apartment felt like dragging a big hook around in my chest. The same couch where Dad taught me to read, the same TV we used to watch while Mom worked at the restaurant on Saturdays, the same table where we used to all eat together. I was escaping soon, but I felt terrible about leaving May behind. It would be another four years, almost until I was out of college, until she could leave this place herself.

May resented it, too, I could tell.

"Where's Hawk?" she asked, as she flipped channels and played with her phone.

"I'm meeting up with him later."

May's head shot up and she turned around, leaned on the back of the couch. "Omygod," she breathed, all one word. "Are you finally going on a real date?"

May had been ribbing me about Hawk since she was what, nine? When she was old enough to understand why boys and girls were together, at least conceptually. She grinned at me and hopped up off the couch.

I sighed. There was no denying it, this time.

"Yeah. I think we are. He asked me to dress up."

"When are you supposed to meet him?"

"He said he'd pick me up at six."

May looked at her phone. "Jesus, Alex! It's four thirty. We need to get you ready."

"Why? I took a shower, I just-"

"You can't go on a date with hair like that. What are you wearing?"

"A dress?"

"Show me."

I sighed, knowing there was no escape from this. May pulled me by the arm into my room, threw my closet open and started rummaging until she found my dress. It wasn't frumpy exactly but it wasn't the sexiest thing in the world.