Zip, Zero, Zilch

I jump to my feet. “H-how d-does sh-she know th-that?”

  “She sent them a few letters.” Star avoids my eyes.

  And no one told me? My hands are flying wildly.

  “She was still locked up when she sent the letters.” Lark looks guilty.

  I can’t believe no one told me. How could you do that?

  They glare at me. “Did you really want to know?”

  That my mother was looking for me? I don’t know. I say nothing.

  Wren calls downstairs and has Henry tell security to get a car ready. Someone packs a small bag for me with necessities. Then the girls all go down and cause a disturbance so that my mother looks the other way while Sam and I sneak into the car.

  We pull away, and I can’t keep from turning, trying to get a glimpse of her. But she’s watching Lark and the others. She’s thin. Even thinner than I remember her being.

  Sam reaches across the seat, takes my hand in his and squeezes. I stare out the window, and I don’t talk to him, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He just holds my hand tightly and doesn’t let go.

  Sam

  She’s still trembling when we get to my apartment building. It’s not too far from hers, but it’s far enough. I lift her hand and press my lips to the back of it, pressing hard, trying to reassure her. She looks at me quickly, and then lowers her eyes, her cheeks pink.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  She nods, but she doesn’t say anything.

  The car stops and she doesn’t move to get out. “We’re here,” I say. She shakes her head like she’s drawing herself from a trance. She takes in a deep breath.

  The driver opens the door and she gets out. She has nothing with her except a small bag of clothes that one of her sisters hastily packed for her. I would take it from her, but I’m on crutches and it’s a little difficult to maneuver when I’m unbalanced. She doesn’t seem to mind. My doorman opens the door for us and I motion for her to precede me. She looks down at the floor and walks by me.

  My insides are at war. This Peck is nothing like the girl who I’ve seen busting the drums on stage. That girl is fearless. This one is not. And I don’t know why.

  She leans back against the wall of the elevator and looks everywhere but at me. I find myself at a loss for words for the first time in a very long time. I want to reassure her. I want to tell her everything with her mom will be all right. But I met the woman. It’s not all right. And it won’t be all right.

  I let her into the apartment and she glances quickly around.

  “It’s not much, but it’s home,” I say.

  The apartment is huge. It’s a two-bedroom in a high-rise. It’s more than I need. But I wanted some space and it had the kitchen I wanted.

  “It’s n-nice,” she says quietly.

  I motion for her to follow me and open the door to the guest bedroom. “This one is yours,” I tell her.

  She nods and steps into the room.

  “The bathroom is down the hall.”

  Her finger taps on the edge of the footboard. “Thank you,” she says. “I feel really bad about putting you out.”

  “You’re not putting me out of anywhere.” I jerk a thumb toward my bedroom. “I have a nice, soft bed in my room. It’s not like I’m going to be on the couch or anything.”

  She nods again.

  “The housekeeper just came, so I know the sheets are clean.” Not that anyone stays in this room anyway.

  She sets her bag down on the edge of the bed.

  “I’ll give you some time to settle in.” I turn and hobble my way down the hallway. I hear her door close softly behind me. I’d hoped she would come and join me in the kitchen, but apparently she’d rather be alone.

  I go to the kitchen and rummage around in the fridge. I always have a fully stocked fridge. Always. I love food. I love to cook. And I like to have ingredients at hand. I pull out some chicken and everything it will take to make some Chicken Parmigiana. It’s simple, but I like it. I wonder if she even eats chicken.

  I start to prepare dinner, and she still doesn’t come out. She stays in her room. I hear her phone ring a couple of times through the closed door, and when I press my ear against her door I can hear her murmuring softly. Not that I am pressing my ear against her door or anything. Okay, I’m totally pressing my ear against her door.

  Suddenly, the door opens, and I nearly fall into the room. I catch myself on the doorjamb. She hops back, surprised. She’s carrying a bottle of shampoo and some soap. And she has clothes folded over her arm.

  “Sorry,” I rush to say. “I wasn’t snooping or anything.”

  Her brow arches, and a smile tips the corners of her lips. Did you need something? She’s signing again, which must mean she doesn’t have anywhere to tap.

  Do I need something? Well, I kind of need her. I’ve needed her ever since I met her. But she doesn’t need me back.

  “Are you hungry?” I blurt out. “Dinner is almost ready.”

  She glances toward the kitchen. You cooked? She looks…amused? Yeah, that’s definitely amusement.

  “Real men cook,” I say defensively, and I stand a little straighter.

  You don’t have to defend your masculinity, you know? she signs, but she’s grinning.

  God, she’s pretty on a normal day. But when she smiles, she could knock me to my knees if I wasn’t held up by crutches. I lean against the doorjamb. “My masculinity is intact, thank you very much,” I say.

  Her gaze runs slowly up and down my body, and she stops at my most vital parts, her eyes lingering. Did she seriously just do that? Or am I just wishing she would?

  Your manhood is safe, she signs. Then her cheeks redden like she just realized what she said, and she looks away.

  I laugh, because good God that shit’s funny. “I made chicken,” I say.

  She looks toward the kitchen and then down the hallway. Do I have time for a quick shower? She rubs a finger beneath her eye and I can see that she’s been crying.

  “Yes, of course,” I say. I back out of her doorway. “Do you need anything?” I ask as she starts to walk down the hall.

  She turns back to me and signs: Towel?

  I point like she can see them from the hallway. “Under the counter.”

  Thank you.

  Then she disappears into the bathroom. I stand there and listen to the sound of the water as she turns it on. I walk back by her room and stop. There’s a wet spot on the ceiling. I’ll have to call maintenance about that. Maybe the apartment above mine has a leak.

  I hear a tune coming from the bathroom and stop to listen. She sings in the shower? Never would have imagined that. I linger and listen, but then I suddenly feel like a voyeur, even though I can’t see shit.

  I wish I could see shit. I can just imagine her naked. She’s in the shower now, with water sliding down her body, straight down the path where I’d love for my hands to go. Her brown hair is probably pushed back from her face and running down her back like a waterfall. Some of it may be streaming over her shoulders, the ends touching the swells of her breasts…

  I glance down. I’ve gotten hard standing here thinking about her naked. The water turns off, so I scurry like the rat I am back into the kitchen. I can’t have her catch me like this, because my jersey shorts don’t leave much to the imagination.

  I think about steaks and squid and fresh, raw tilapia, trying to get the image of her naked out of my head. I’ve almost gotten myself under control when she comes back into the room. Well, at least I thought so until I see her.

  She has brushed her hair, but it’s wet, and her T-shirt is damp where her hair is dripping. I stand there and stare at her for a minute, because I’ve never seen her in a pair of shorts.

  She glances down at her attire and stares at me. Is this a formal dinner? she signs.

  I shake my head, forcing myself to close my mouth. Her legs are long. Damn, but she’s pretty. And curvy. And she’s everything I’ve ever wanted. “A formal dinner?” I ask. “No, why?” I look at th
e plates I’ve set on my small countertop, and the glasses filled with ice.

  I was thinking I might be underdressed.

  I chuckle. “I’d like to see you in a lot less,” I say. Oh, fuck. Did I say that out loud? Apparently I did, because her face flushes. “I mean, you’re fine.” Seriously fine. Like the finest woman I have ever seen. “How tall are you?” I ask.

  I hobble with one crutch to the oven, where I had put in some cupcakes to bake before I called her for dinner. I take them out and set them on the counter.

  “Five-eleven,” she says, as she taps a fingertip on the counter. “AKA way too tall for most men.” She laughs, but there’s no joy in it.

  “You look pretty fucking perfect to me,” I say. I let my eyes drop down her body, and her nipples bead into thick pinpoints beneath her shirt. “Are you wearing a bra?”

  She looks down and pulls her shirt away from her body. “Yes, why?” she asks.

  “Because if you’re not, I was going to send you back to your room to get one, because I am not sure I could sit here across from you over dinner knowing you didn’t have one on.” Might as well be honest, right?

  “I’m wearing a bra,” she says. “I promise.”

  I try not to look at her tits, but it’s fucking hard. Yeah, that’s hard too, so I sit down and motion for her to join me. Her cheeks are pink, and I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.

  I bend over and look at her thighs beneath the table. “God, you’re going to kill me,” I say. I swipe a hand down my face.

  She tugs the length of her shorts down. “What?” she asks.

  I grin. “Nothing.” I want to wrap your legs around my neck and eat you for dinner.

  Her eyes narrow. “No, really. What is it?” She’s tapping the tabletop the whole time.

  “I’m having really inappropriate thoughts about you right now,” I blurt out. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. When I open them, she’s grinning.

  “What kind of inappropriate thoughts?”

  “The kind where you’re completely naked.”

  “And what are you wearing?”

  I stop, close my eyes, and again take a deep breath. Then I open my eyes and look straight into hers. “You.”

  Peck

  I shouldn’t let this happen. I know it’s wrong. But it’s exciting and forbidden and wonderful. And flattering.

  But it can’t go anywhere. It’s not going to go anywhere. I know that.

  I reach for my fork, but my hand shakes. I set it back down.

  “We should probably get some things out of the way,” I say, wincing as the words come out of my mouth.

  “Like dinner?” he says. He fills my plate with food. “Yeah, let’s get dinner out of the way.” He grins. He jabs his fork toward my plate. “Eat.”

  “But I feel like there’s this thing between us.”

  He nods and takes a bite of his chicken. He chews with one eye closed, and watches me with the other. After he swallows, he says, “There’s definitely something between us.” He takes another bite of his dinner.

  “But…” I sniff the dinner in front of me. My mouth is watering. But I’m afraid to take a bite.

  “But what?”

  “But while I’m here, I think it’s best if you go on with life as normal.”

  He looks around the room. “This is my normal life.” He points to his shin. “I’m injured, remember? No training for me. No football.” He makes a motion that encompasses his apartment. “This is my life.” He reaches over and squeezes my good hand. “I’m really glad you’re here. I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks.”

  “Why?” I want to bite it back right away, but can’t.

  He chokes on his food. “Why what?” he asks when he can finally get a breath.

  “Why have you been trying to talk to me?”

  “I missed you.”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “Whose fault is that?”

  I sigh. “Sam…”

  He mocks me. “Peck…” He narrows his gaze at me. “What’s your real name? And how did you get the name Peck?”

  “Emilio gave it to me,” I mutter.

  I take a bite of the dinner he made and flavor bursts across my tongue. I have to fight to keep from moaning with the simple pleasure of it. “Oh, my gosh, this is amazing,” I say. I tap on the table with the fingertips of my bad hand.

  He smiles and his cheeks go rosy. So he’s sensitive about food? “Glad you like it.”

  “I don’t like it. I love it.” I take another bite. And another. It’s seriously one of the best dishes I have ever had. “Do you cook like this every day?” A girl can hope, right?

  He shakes his head. “Only when I have someone to cook for.”

  “God, if I lived here I’d never be able to keep the weight off.”

  He grunts. “You could stand to gain a few pounds.”

  I almost choke on my pasta. “That is so not funny.”

  “I’m not trying to be funny.” He shrugs. “I like curves.” He looks down at my thighs and licks his lips. “I like your curves a lot.”

  “Stop teasing.” My heart thumps in my chest like a drum. “If your brothers heard you say that, you’d never live it down.”

  “My brothers know what kind of girl turns me on.”

  He looks very serious. But he can’t be, can he?

  “Is this why you’ve ignored me? Because you think it’s not possible for me to like you as much as I do?” He blows a breath out through his lips, almost like a razzberry. “That’s some seriously fucked up reasoning, there.” He gets up with his plate and hops to the counter, where he loads it into the dishwasher. Then he leans over and kisses my forehead as he passes by me. He goes to the fridge and takes out a bag of something.

  He fits a tip to the end of the bag, and starts to draw circles on the tops of something on the countertop. He’s engrossed in his task.

  “Why me?” I ask him.

  He looks up at me, but only for a second. He goes quickly back to his icing. “Why not you?”

  “I’m not like them,” I point out.

  “Thank God for that,” he murmurs.

  “No, I mean I’m not at all like them.”

  “Who’s the them we’re talking about? Cheerleaders?”

  “Well…yeah.” I look down and am immediately mortified to find that I’ve completely cleaned my plate.

  “I dated the cheerleader because she was nice. Not because she was petite. Personally, I’d whole lot rather kiss a chick your size.”

  I drop my fork and it clatters loudly onto the plate. Did he really just talk about my height? Right in front of me?

  “I don’t have to wrench my neck to kiss you. Short petite chicks make big guys like me feel like Neanderthals. I always worry I’m going to break them.”

  Whereas with me, he’d have to worry about the opposite.

  “I want a girl I can hold on to. With a rear end, and tits.” His face goes rosy again. “But that’s just me.”

  I’m trying to process his comments. “Rear end and tits,” I whisper to myself.

  “Rear end and tits,” he says again. “Why are you so surprised?”

  “It’s just…not…what I’m used to.”

  “What does Peck stand for?” he asks again. He’s totally engrossed in his task. But I can tell he’s listening intently.

  “Woodpecker.” I can remember the day I got the name like it was yesterday. “I was twelve, and I lived in a group home.”

  “How come?”

  I shrug. I wish I knew. “My mother wasn’t capable of being a parent. Her rights were terminated.”

  “And Emilio and Marta were looking to adopt?”

  I laugh at the thought of that. “God, no. Melio got caught with pot in his car.” I snicker when Sam drops his bag of icing. “He had to do community service, so they sent him to the group home. Marta came with him, to keep him out of trouble. She came into our room, while he went to talk to a group o
f boys.

  “She came and sat on the edge of my bed and asked me about my doll. I had been given a doll by Mrs. Derricks, my school counselor. It was the first present I’d gotten in a really long time.” I slip further into the memory and my lips tip up in an unbidden grin. “She asked me the doll’s name. And that was before I learned to sign, so I couldn’t communicate with her. But she didn’t mind my silence.”

  I drop my voice to that of a child.

  “‘She doesn’t talk,’ Wren said. Wren was one of the other girls at the group home,” I explain to Sam. “Marta admired my doll’s dress and asked ‘Why not?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Wren. ‘I think her lips are broken.’

  “Marta leaned close to me. She smelled good. ‘Her lips look fine to me,’ she said. ‘Maybe she just doesn’t have anything to say.’ I had plenty to say, all right. But no way to say it.

  Star—that was another girl— said, ‘She stammers. Stutters. Whatever. She talks to me when the monsters try to crawl out from under her bed in the dark. She comes to sleep with me because the monsters think I stink.’”

  Sam laughs. “Star didn’t believe that, did she?”

  “God, no. But she was always trying to protect us. Star was like our mom until she let Marta take over.”

  “So the five of you shared a room?” He looks up for a second.

  “Yeah.” I’m lost in those memories for a long moment.

  Melio came to the doorway and knocked. “Are you about ready to go?” he asked Marta. He looked down at his wrist. “A jackhole in the boys’ room tried to bite me.” He rubbed at the area.

  “Language,” Marta scolded.

  Melio rolled his eyes. He pointed at me. “Who’s this?”

  Marta smiled. “This is my new friend.”

  “Does she like ice cream?” he asked.

  Ice cream. We didn’t get ice cream very often. Only for a very special treat. I nodded. I nodded vehemently. But I didn’t talk. He didn’t seem to mind.

  He walked over and held his hand out to me. “Want to go get ice cream with me?”

  I nodded again. But I couldn’t go without my friends, so I didn’t put my hand in his.

  “Something wrong?” he said.

  I pointed to my friends. They looked almost green with envy.