Heartless (14 page)

Marcie was shimmying her one-piece down to her waist. She’s clearly not taking no for an answer. I feel the slightest bit of indignation. I wonder if it was an iota of the disrespect girls felt when guys push too far. Not that this would get out of control, and Marcie could never overpower me physically, so no, I’ll never truly understand what a girl might feel. So long as I don’t give in to temptation I’m in complete control of what happens here. And as much as I need the money, which I’ve earmarked for Heather’s birthday present, this is definitely a tools-down moment. I kneel to put the can and brush down on the concrete. It is time to go home.

Marcie misinterprets again, thinking I’m gettin’ the game on. She squeals, grabs my head, and pushes it between her wet legs, against the triangle of black spandex still clinging to her body.

“Oh, yeah baby, that’s a good way to start…”

I can feel her heat between my nose and upper lip and I twist my head to get out of her grasp but her fingers are entwined in my hair and tug mercilessly. She’s clearly getting aroused by my struggle, which she seems to be taking for enthusiasm. I finally break free and say, “Marcie!” Looking up at her I see her tits bouncing with laughter, her throat long and tilted back as she shrieks with glee.

I get to my feet. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

She’s laughing and pointing over my shoulder. “Was that your girlfriend?” She grabs her tits and holds them as she rocks with laughter.

What? I turn around. She’d been pointing to the waist high hedge at the edge of her driveway.

“The look on that blondie’s face was priceless!”

“What the fuck?!” I spin on my heel and race down the driveway. I hear a squeal of tires. By the time I get to the road I see a light blue convertible making a speedy right turn.

“Jesus Mother Fucking Christ up the ass of a dog!” I stomp back up the driveway, cursing all the way.

Marcie is fully naked now and still giggling. “Maybe it was just a neighbor,” she says. “Next month’s meeting will be a hoot. Now come on, baby, where were we?”

She bends over the table and spreads her legs wide. I am so fucking angry but I’m still hard, which makes me angrier. I curse again.

Marcie coos, “That’s it. Get mad. Don’t even take your jeans off. Just whip out your cock and fuck me, baby.”

I walk towards her, glaring. She gives me a wicked smile and then turns to look across the table. She arches her back a little bit more, ready for me. I slap her on the ass. Hard.

She groans, “Oh yeah! Give it to me hard, baby.”

I grab my shirt, helmet, and the tool belt I brought. “Buy yourself a fucking dildo!”

I storm out to the street to get on my bike.

I have to find Heather.

Heather

I was shaking all over. Was that normal? Is that what Josh did on weekends? That’s why Leo had such strict rules? I had tears in my eyes and snot running out my nose before I’d even realized that I was so upset and needed a good screaming cry. I was too stunned at first, my mind reeling, but my body quickly took up the motions of emotion. My stomach tightened, sickened, my breathing grew shallow and ragged, and the tears and the sobs took over. Soon Wiltshire was a blur beyond my steering wheel and I knew I’d better pull over and get myself together. But there was no way to avoid falling apart first.

I pulled over in front of an apartment block.

I had expected to find Josh alone. I had a picnic in the backseat. In Whole Foods I’d had a romantic inspiration. I was already in Beverly Hills so I drove around trying to spot his bike. It only took me about fifteen minutes to find the house. It was like he was a homing beacon for me. I thought we’d have lunch on the lawn before he got back to work…

Work! Was
that
what he got paid for? Is that how he moonlighted on weekends? Good money, he’d said. I knew he was saving up for college, but…
really
? It was like I didn’t know him anymore, and all those old fears and doubts rose up like a tsunami inside my gut.

I heard a motorcycle in the distance. Or was I imagining it? Was Josh following me? I glanced over my shoulder and sure enough I saw him cruising—way too fast—down Wiltshire. Just before he passed me he saw my car and screeched to a halt.

I didn’t want to face him right now! I felt like an idiot, and so naïve! To think I could hold this guy’s attention when he’s got women like that throwing themselves at him, when he’s got a whole life I know nothing about. I may have been living in a bubble these past three years but he hadn’t. And why would he? He was gorgeous, charming, sweet, smart, ambitious—and these were the only things I actually knew about him. He must also be good in bed, or on tables, and clearly able to cater to several women at once. Oh gosh, I felt another wave of nausea coming over me.

Josh was calling my name. I ignored him. He pushed his bike between my car and the one in front so there was no way I could pull out of my parking spot unless he pulled out first.

I got out of my car and started striding away down the sidewalk, my arms crossed, my fists clenched. He chased after me, ran past and in front of me. His jeans were paint-splattered. His T-shirt was inside out. His face looked horror-stricken.

“Heather! Let me explain!” He grabbed my shoulders to make me stop walking.

“Don’t touch me!” I shrugged myself out of his hold and kept walking, my head down, my face all splotchy from crying. People were watching us, watching me, with concern. It looked like Josh could be harassing me, forcing me to do something I didn’t want to do. It wouldn’t take much effort on my part to embellish that scenario, get him dragged away from me, maybe by the police. I was struck with a deep longing to do this very thing, but it hit me with the force of an epiphany that it wasn’t Josh I wanted to get back at, it was someone else. Someone who made me do something I didn’t want to do a long time ago. Someone I trusted…

I was lost in the past and it took me a while to return to the present, to notice Josh standing in front of me, not touching me but pleading, with his eyes, his body, his words.

“You’ve got to
trust
me, Heather.
Nothing
happened.”

I dropped my arms to my sides. Trust?

“Why should I trust you?”

His shoulders sagged with relief. “Thank you for finally talking. I thought you went comatose there for a minute. I thought you were treating me like the invisible man. Will you just hear me out?”

I looked around. I was standing on Wiltshire Boulevard. How had I gotten here? Slowly it came back to me. I had driven to Beverly Hills to find Josh. I found him. With a half-naked woman. All of a sudden, everything seemed surreal. I felt shaky.

“I want to sit down.” Josh led me a few paces back to a bench outside a swanky apartment building. A little further down the road I saw Aunt Marsha’s convertible and Josh’s motorcycle. I had been upset, I had pulled over, and Josh had followed me.

He sat down beside me and said, “Can I hold your hand?”

I nodded and offered him my hand. He took it and I felt him trembling. I didn’t know if he was angry or frightened. Maybe both. I felt oddly numb, and even though Josh was holding my hand, I felt as if I were out of my body hovering a slight distance away.

“Are you all right?” said Josh.

“I’m fine.” Though I recognized this disassociated state. That’s what Miranda would call it. I knew it was a good thing that I recognized it on my own. That proved I’d made a lot of progress. But the shock of seeing Josh with that woman had triggered a flurry of emotion, and then that memory of Pastor Guthrie, the feel of his thick fingers… No wonder I had disconnected myself.

“I’m sorry, Heather,” said Josh. “Sorry that you had to see that. Sometimes, you know, people are creeps. They take advantage of a situation.”

“Are you talking about yourself or that woman?”

“Her! She plays with me like I’m some boy toy.”
I frowned and looked away. “You seemed to be enjoying it.”

He squeezed my hand, hard. I didn’t think he meant to, because he relaxed it pretty quickly, but I could tell he was angry.

He sighed and shook his head. “Don’t you ever feel like some people are just
using
you? You know, for a distraction, or a conquest, or just to prove they have power over you? The world’s full of people like that. People who don’t like ‘no’ for an answer.”

I swallowed. I did know. I knew what it felt like to be used. And I was afraid to think that Josh might be using me.

“Are you telling me you’ve never had sex with that woman?”

He broke eye contact and looked down at his feet. Well then, I had my answer. Another surge of nausea threatened to overtake me.

“I’m not going to lie to you, Heather. I’ve done things I’m not proud of. But for the most part my mistakes have been harmless. I haven’t been with anyone since I met you. And I don’t want to be. That’s what you walked in on today. Marcie wanted something from me and I said no. I was getting ready to leave, and she was trying not to let me. She crossed a line today. I’m never going back there.”

“Because of me?”

“Yeah. Sort of. More like because of how I feel about myself since I met you. People like Marcie don’t interest me anymore.”

“But you were making extra money.” And probably earning tips, I mused.

“I’m not into selling my self-respect. I had already decided that would be my last job for her. I had hoped to finish it today when she wasn’t around but…” He shrugged. Then he turned to me, his blue eyes intent. “Please don’t let her get the last word on us. I made a mistake putting myself in that position. But trust me. I wasn’t going to let anything happen.”

The thing about trust was that it was a leap of faith, an agreement as insubstantial as a jet’s vapor trail, yet still real. A choice.

“I have no claim on you, Josh.”

He grabbed both my hands in his. “But you do! Seriously. Don’t you see? I
want
you to.”

I was still feeling rather numb. It might take a while for all this to sink in. I know I needed to talk to Miranda. Tuesday was still days away. But I wouldn’t always be able to go rushing off to Miranda for advice. I’d have to learn to make my decisions, even decisions of the heart, on my own. So for now, I looked into Josh’s beautiful blue eyes and made a decision. I let myself leap.

“Okay.”

He smiled and then wrapped me in a hug. I didn’t soften immediately, but I let him hold me. When he let go he said,

“So why were you driving around Beverly Hills? Were you looking for me?”

“I made a picnic. I thought you’d be hungry.”

“
You
made food?”

“Well, I bought most of it. But I picked it all out myself.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “Great, I’m starved. Now that I have the rest of the afternoon off, let’s go have that picnic.”

My shakiness had subsided while Josh had held me tight. I felt myself slowly returning to my body, aware that Josh’s body was right next to mine, our thighs touching. He had left that woman standing there half naked so he could run after
me
. He said he felt different with me. And I… Well, I simply
felt
.

Finally, after all these years I felt everything I had kept bottled up inside me. My feelings for Josh were unearthing everything. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Dear Moonchild, When the heart opens its floodgates it can feel as if you might drown. But remember, water is your element. If you allow yourself to ride the wild currents, you will rise to the surface and behold a new world, a new shore. Trust your heart to navigate your course and all will be well.

Trust. It’s like glass. Once shattered, it is virtually impossible to rebuild. People in the past had broken my trust, but they were long gone now, and there was nothing left to rebuild.

Josh was part of my present, and he hadn’t exactly broken my trust. He’d just been caught in a compromising position. It wasn’t really his fault. Whatever went on with Marcie before was a part of his past now, and I couldn’t hold it against him. Or rather, I could choose not to. If Josh ever found out the compromising positions of my past—not that he’d never get the chance, since the details of my past were dead and buried, quite literally—I’d want him to treat me the same way.

We had agreed, during our picnic, to put the past behind us and focus on the present. Josh even hinted at the future, but I couldn’t think beyond the summer. I could barely get past the next day. No matter how much I poked and prodded, he wouldn’t tell me where he was taking me on Sunday, but he told me to dress appropriately for riding a motorcycle.

When he roared into Marsha and Wayne’s driveway at 11 the next morning, as promised, I had already been ready and waiting for 15 minutes. I didn’t want to tell him it had been near agony not seeing him since yesterday evening. He’d had previous plans with his buddy, Rob, on Saturday night and though he’d been tempted to break them, I’d encouraged him not to. Dumb me. Because he’d agreed. And so I’d had to wait a whole 18 hours to see him again. Though I slept through eight of those hours. I was lucky enough to see him in one of my dreams, which happened to be satisfyingly R-rated. I noted it in my dream journal. I would share the gist of it with Miranda on Tuesday, but not the steamy details. She’d told me that dreams helped us work out things we experienced during the day but they could also be messages from the subconscious telling us something important or hinting at the direction we were headed in. If I was heading in the direction of last night’s dream, I had some mind-blowing pleasure to look forward to. I shivered with anticipation and reminded myself that there were differences between dreams and reality. My body didn’t seem to care either way. I felt a warmth between my thighs and my heart started beating faster. I crossed and uncrossed my legs as I waited on the couch and wondered if I should run upstairs and change my panties, even my jeans. I swallowed hard. Get a grip, Heather. He’s just a guy. But he happened to be a guy who made my heart—heck, every damn part of me—come alive. I tapped my toes impatiently until I heard the grumble of his Triumph cruising up the street.