Sidewalk Flower (17 page)

“Yes, that sounds about right and I’ll
tell him for you.”

“Okay.
 
Oh, one more thing.
 
You should
probably drop him off at the studio.
 
I’ll come get him from there.”

“Yes, sir.”
 
He hated it when she called him that.
 
“Hey, give Maryella a big kiss for me.”

“Will do.
 
Love you, Trissy.”

“Me too.
 
Bye.”
 
Hearing his forced whispers always managed to sting her tongue and
shorten her goodbye.
 
She set her phone
on the dresser and went back to her space on the bed.
 
She had almost wiggled herself into the same
perfection when she spied Lucky naked through the bathroom door.
 
He was beautiful.
 
He was strong.
 
She wished he were hers and only hers.
 

* * * *

Lucky finished drying himself and then
pulled on his boxers.
 
He hung his towel
on the rack and ran his hands through his damp hair then walked over to the
vanity and pulled it back into an elastic band.
 
He could see in the mirror’s reflection that Trista was already in bed
but not asleep.
 
Her curious gaze slowed
his steps.
 

“I’m sorry, I know it’s early but I’m not
up for much of anything right now.
 
Luckily breathing is one of those involuntary things or else I’d be in
trouble.”

Her sense of humor softened his fears of
how to approach her.
 
When she should be
closed off from the world, she’d stayed open to him.
 
He walked over and grasped her hand then
tucked it back under her covers.
 
After a
long yawn, he climbed into his side of the bed.
 
“You and me both, darlin’.”

After turning off the TV, he reached his
arm over hers and found her hand to hold.
 
Trista drew it toward her chest, and kissed his knuckles.
 
The intake and release of his breath pushed a
curl past her jaw.
 
If they’d only known
each other a little longer, he’d have asked her to be his right now.

“So, I had a dream about you last night.”

His heart sank.
 

Her dreams had been unpleasant.
 
He found it strange that she would want to
identify him as the cause while they lay there so softly together.
 

“You did?
 
I hope it wasn’t bad.”
 
The echo
of her pleadings flashed through him.

Trista paused.
 
“No, it was very nice.”

He was glad but couldn’t forget the way
she’d looked and sounded last night during her restlessness.

“Did you want to tell me about it?” he
asked, staring at Trista’s messy, tangled bun right in front of his face, and
wondering how she could sleep with a knot like that on the back of her
head.
 

With her lips resting on his hand that
she held near her face, she began, “I was sitting on Gramma’s couch, watching
TV, I think.
 
Some boring program I
wasn’t interested in. You walked up to me, got down on one knee, and bent
yourself over me.
 
Then, you kissed
me.
 
Right there in front of Gramma, you
didn’t even care that she could have gone to get her shotgun.
 
It was amazing.”

“Whoa, you knew she had a shotgun and you
didn’t try to stop me?”

“No, I didn’t want you to stop.”

“So even though my life was potentially
in danger, you let me keep at it?”

Trista smiled, a little wider now.
 
“You were so into it; Gramma could see your
tongue action and everything.
 
It was
really too good to stop. I had to see what you might do next.”

“Hopefully gain my senses back and a
shred of self-preservation.”

“I wouldn’t have let her shoot you.
 
I promise.”

“I don’t know, it sounds like you may
have been a little distracted.”

“I was,” she whispered.

Her lips came together against the skin
of his hand and he wanted to roll her into his chest, to feel her anxiety die
against his embrace.
 
If he could force
out all her pain, there’d be plenty of room for the love he wanted to make with
her.
 
His penis throbbed and grew at the image
of her pulling his hair back so he could suckle her breasts while he thrust
himself into her.
 
He wouldn’t stop until
she forgot why they’d spent the night in this room.
 
Their hands locked firmly together; he
noticed instantly when she criss-crossed and pressed them into the x-pattern
over her chest.

“Trista, you do that a lot.”

“Do what?” she asked, seemingly unaware
of the habitual motion.

“Rub your wrists together.”
  
He swallowed hard and then asked, “What else
did you dream about last night?”

“What do you mean?”

“I heard you say, ‘Please don’t’ and ‘No,
stop’, and when you said those things, you rubbed your wrists together.
 
When you said just now that you dreamed of
me, I worried I’d done something that made you uncomfortable.”

“No, Lucky, it’s not you.
 
That wasn’t about you last night.
 
That was after I had the good dream, about
our kiss.
 
And I don’t know why I’m doing
it now.
 
I’m sorry.”

“Shh, it’s okay.
  
I didn’t mean to make a big deal out of
it.”
 
Now that he’d seen her through
today, it was like he had this calling to jump headfirst, full speed ahead,
into everything where she was concerned.
 
“Do you trust me, Trista?”

“Yes.”
 
She broke the hold of their hands and rolled toward him.
 
“I do.”
 
She allowed him to place a kiss on the underside of her wrist.
 

Go on, you
can tell her
.
 

The only other souls who knew about this
were his dad, Uncle Bear and the now crippled old man who had done the
preying.
 
He pulled their entwined hands
up to his lips and kissed her side.

“I trust you, too.”
 
He hated taking himself back to that place,
but letting her know she wasn’t alone meant more to him.
 
“When I was little, I used to help my dad out
in his shop making little toys out of his wood scraps.
 
He saw that I was good at the family trade
but I think it made him sad, too.
 
I
think he felt bad, maybe.
 
I don’t
know.
 
It’s hard to judge a grown man’s
feelings.
 
But I kind
of felt like he wanted more for me.
 
Anyhow, Jaxon had just taken off and Dad had seen me playing around with
his guitar.
 
My school music teacher had
told him once that I should have lessons.
 
I guess Dad saw it as a possible way to open up some doors for me or
expose me to other stuff outside of our shop.”
 

He blinked more from nerves than anything
else,
then
began again.
 
“There was a man who helped out at the shop,
doing odd jobs and he said he could give me some lessons.
 
We didn’t have much money and the guy offered
to do it cheap.
 
So I started meeting him
at my house after school.
 
Dad and Uncle
Bear would be working in the shop.”
 

He paused again but kept his eyes locked
on Trista’s.
 
A man didn’t whisper, but
his voice became deeper when what he was trying to say was this difficult.
   

“A few weeks into these lessons and the
man started having me sit on his lap.
 
At
first it was just to teach me the proper way to hold the guitar.
 
I was too small to hold his on my own so he
would be right there behind me, helping me out.
 
He went from wearing jeans to shorts.
 
And finally one day, he didn’t have any pants on.
 
Or, um, underwear.
 
He, uh, made me sit there on his lap.”
 
He wouldn’t cry but couldn’t help coughing
out a raspy, choked cough.

“That’s why you don’t play anymore. Oh
Lucky, shh, I’m sorry, hun.
 
I’m so, so
sorry.”
 
She brushed a fingertip along
his cheek.
 
“You don’t have to say
anymore…”

He knew so much about her, and felt
guilty at what he had yet to share.
 
Of
his own will, he regained his composure and started again.
 
“One day, I was sitting there, with my own
pants pulled down on his naked lap when Uncle Bear walked in.
 
I had purposely left the money I was supposed
to give the man for the lesson on the desk at the shop.
 
I didn’t know if my dad or uncle would find
it and I was so scared they’d actually come find out what was going on.
 
But I didn’t know any other way to make it
stop.
 
Uncle Bear told me to go to my
room and wait for him.
 
I could hear each
separate thud the man’s body made up against the brick wall of our house.
 
I never saw him again but I overheard my
uncle telling my dad a few days later that he’d driven the guy out of town and
when he dumped him in the road, he’d watched the bastard crawl to get out of
the way of the cars.
 
Uncle Bear said
that man wouldn’t be walking anywhere ever again.”

Finally, he could look down.
 
He’d told her everything.
 
The room was completely silent and dark
behind its heavy curtains.
 
He trusted
that she understood what he’d gone through.
 
And now he hoped she’d feel the same comfort in confiding to him.

* * * *

Trista waited for the solemn stare of sad
blue eyes to return to her.
 
When they
did, she stroked Lucky’s hair and began with what she figured Jaxon would have
left out.

“After momma died, I stayed living with
my stepfather, in the house you found me by today.
 
After a few months, he started coming to my
room, then taking me to his.
 
At first we
just slept together but when I turned eleven, we started having sex.”
 
Her cheeks drew in as disgust swirled around
inside her. The gritty taste of dirt stained her tongue and she cussed herself
for being so weak.
 
Her eyebrows pulled
together and she didn’t know if she would make it as far as Lucky had.
 
If she didn’t feel sick over letting his
confession have been in vain, she’d have never been able to spit this out.

She inhaled so deep that the flap of skin
hanging in the back of her throat dried out and made her gag.
 

This was humiliating.
 
He shouldn’t know this part of her.
 
How could it not change the way he saw
her?
 
Her feelings hadn’t changed for him
but what happened to him hadn’t been his fault.
 
He hadn’t followed along without argument for two years.
 
How could he not be disgusted by her?

If there really was a god who answered
prayers, she’d beg him to help Lucky see past this.
 
So she could tell him about the good things
that had happened in her life and hear about his.
 
She hoped he could let this fade into the
past where it belonged.

“I just—I can’t.
 
I can’t go back there anymore.”

“I don’t want you to, darlin’.
 
I just want you right here, with me now.”

“Thank you, Lucky.”
 
She lay back flat on the mattress, worrying
less about sending him hightailing it for the door.
 
The nicest part?
 
He wasn’t running away but he wasn’t climbing
on top of her either.
 
She was able to
have a moment to herself, even though he laid right there on his back next to
her.
 

“Hey, tomorrow I’m gonna take you to one
of my favorite places.
 
It’s about half
an hour from here.
 
Okay?
 
No more sad stuff.
 
I promise.”

“Trista, I just want you to know that I’m
okay with everything.
 
I want the happy
stuff but I’ll take the bad, too.”