My mouth drops open and chaos ensues. There’s cake and bodies and screams and battle cries, and before I can even begin to comprehend what’s happening, something cold yet warm and wet slides down my scalp. My shoulders shrug up, my arms rise, and when I look left, Dominic winks at me. “Welcome to the family.”
Cake, I have cake on me. Cake in my hair. Cake on my skin. Cake on my clothes and whipped cream melts down my neck. Oh my God.
Dominic runs off and slams cake onto Axle’s neck. To the right, Holiday and Drix work together to baptize Marcus. If you can’t beat them...
With a fist full of warm cake, I duck and weave through a firefight between Dominic, Kellen and Axle. Drix is laughing as he pins Marcus with cake in the face. Holiday doubles over in laughter, and I keep my hand behind my back. When Drix spots me his smile falls. “Aw, Elle. I’m sorry—”
He reaches for me, I slip forward and slap my hand full of cake onto the back of his neck and shove the rest of it down his shirt.
Good idea? I don’t know, because in seconds, I’m in the air. My hair flopping over my face as Drix carries me over his shoulder. He nears the table, near the pan of cake, and I’m laughing and he’s laughing, and then there’s more cake in my hair.
I slide down his body and then there’s more in my face, and I’m grabbing at it. Smearing it onto Drix’s face, down his shirt and somehow there’s more cake and more people, and I’m laughing and dodging. It’s chaos and joy and freedom and everything I have ever wanted out of life without knowing this was my heaven.
* * *
Holiday, Kellen and I opted for showers, and the boys hosed off in the backyard. While the cake fight was freeing and fun, I’m not ready for a cold shower with a water hose. Yes, I am a shower diva.
The water pipes in Drix’s bathroom groaned when I turned the knobs in any direction, and there’s barely any room to stand between the tub, toilet and sink. It’s hard to believe three people share this bathroom. From what Drix has said, Marcus has been staying more nights than going home, sleeping in his room or in the recliner, and that Dominic and Kellen are constants, as well. Six people using this one bathroom. This would be my mother’s version of hell.
I’ve towel-dried my hair, ran a comb through it and have changed into a pair of drawstring shorts and a T-shirt. These are my pj’s when I travel, and this is the most down-to-earth outfit that’s left in my suitcase. After Holiday’s message that Drix had made it into the program, that they were throwing a party and she wanted me there as a surprise, I drove straight from the airport.
A quick look in the fogged mirror and I blow out a breath. For the first time in over a week, I see me staring back—except for the color of my hair, but it’s as close to me as I’ve been for too long. My hair isn’t so curled and full of product that it feels like cement, no makeup and my eyes are staring back at me from behind dark-rimmed glasses.
It’s after ten, and there’s lots of loud conversations filling the house. I step into the narrow hallway, and Dominic, Kellen, Marcus and Holiday are seated at the small table in the kitchen. Dominic deals out cards, and Thor is curled up asleep near the table on a folded blanket that serves as his bed. I turn my head, and Axle and Drix are talking in the living room.
The futon is pulled out, and Axle looks like he’s about to drop. Holiday said he and Drix had a long day on a project, and I know from the nights Drix and I have talked on the phone after those long days, he’s exhausted. I bet they’re both ready to go to bed and that Drix is dead on his feet.
Axle reaches into his back pocket, takes out his wallet and hands Drix something. The tattooed man who’s only a few years older than Drix has a serious expression as he speaks, and Drix nods with every word. They clap hands, go in for a hug, and then Axle tilts his head in my direction. “Night, Elle.”
“Good night,” I say.
Drix leaves the living room, closing the door behind him, and not a second later, the light that had been shining from beneath the door is gone. Drix is so massive that there’s no way for him to pass me in the hallway without his body squeezing against mine. He stops in front of me and lifts a lock of my semi-dried hair between his fingers. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I’m not ready for this day to end, but I spot the weariness in his dark eyes. “I guess I should be heading home.”
“I thought you said you’re going to be alone there.”
“I am, but I’m used to it.”
Drix twines the lock around his finger and gently tugs. “You can stay.”
“You’re tired.”
“I am, but I’m not ready for you to go.”
I’m not ready to go either. “Kitchen, then, or garage?” Though I’m not in the mood for cards or for music. I had hoped we’d snuggle up together in the worn recliner in the living room and watch TV, but I can’t blame Axle for wanting sleep.
“Want to see my room?”
My heart jumps out of my chest so hard, so fast that there was a bit of pain with the adrenaline rush. But then there’s a sense of confusion and emptiness. “Where is your room?”
Drix reaches up, and there’s a string hanging from the ceiling I hadn’t noticed before. He pulls, I step back and a ladder appears. “Let me go up first so I can turn on the lights. You can leave your bag in Holiday’s room.”
He climbs, and I rub my hands against my cotton shorts. I have never gone up a ladder, but I will not be a wuss, and I will not ask for help. I can do this without tripping, falling, then busting my head open. This is absolutely possible.
Drix disappears into the blackness of the attic, and I suck in a deep breath and trail after. I steady my bare feet on each wrung before hiking up to the next one. Ascending into darkness is a bit disorienting, and when I make it through the hole, Drix says, “Stay there.”
Cracking and footsteps against wood and then there is light. Christmas lights. Hundreds of them hanging along the ceiling and wall of the attic. Red and blue and green. It’s a wonderland in spite of the beams of raw wood.
Drix offers me his hand and helps me make the transition from the ladder to the attic. He then places his hands on my hips to settle me on the plywood path that leads to his bed and dresser in the corner. Heat runs along my skin with his touch.
I’m able to stand upright, but Drix has to angle to the side so he doesn’t hit his head on the ceiling of exposed sheets of plywood where the tips of roofing nails stick down toward us.
He releases my hips and takes my hand. Drix goes before me, and I walk behind on the wooden path, and when he reaches his bed, he drops down onto it.
His bed is two twin mattresses stacked on top of the other, with no box spring, and it is covered by dark blue sheets, a red-and-black-checkered quilt that appears ancient and a single pillow with no case. On his dresser is a digital alarm clock, a stack of binders from my father, guitar picks, a pair of drumsticks and the leather band he had worn the first day he came to my house.
Drix turns on a window AC unit, and it hums as it blows in cooler air. “Want to sit?”
I tuck my hair behind my ears and readjust my glasses. I do, but I don’t. I want to sit with Drix, lean into him, have his lips touch mine and get lost in his embrace. I want his arms around me. I want to tell him my deepest thoughts in the darkness. I want him to bear his soul, and I want to feel his breath along the curve of my neck as he speaks. I want him to tease me, I want to tease him back. I want us to whisper in the dark like I imagine lovers do.
Lovers. That’s the part I’m not ready for and why I don’t want to sit. Drix is experienced, and I’m not ready to be any more experienced than what I currently am.
Drix is still watching me, waiting, and I comb my fingers through the ends of my hair. “Why do you have two mattresses?”
“Because a box spring doesn’t fit through that hole, and we found two mattresses at Goodwill. We figured two would give m
e some support. What’s going on in that brain, Elle, and don’t tell me nothing.”
I sigh, and with it, I sag. Drix takes both of my hands and guides me to stand between his legs. When he looks up at me, those dark eyes are so full of concern that I become a puddle. All the muscles in my body that had gone rigid, relax.
“Talk to me,” he says in that smooth voice of his.
I open my mouth to speak, but it’s too dry, and my words feel too stupid. I’ve been alone with Drix in a hotel room so many times and have never felt as inadequate as I do now, but Drix told me he loved me, so is there an expectation with that declaration?
“We can go back down.” He starts to stand, and my heart picks up speed because that is not what I want.
“I don’t want to have sex,” I spit out, and Drix pauses in this weird midstate of standing and sitting, and his face is so totally screwed up that I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing.
He falls back to the bed, and his thumbs brush over the tops of my hands. “Is this because you saw Axle give me a condom?”
I choke. On what, I don’t know, and I hit a hand against my chest to stop the strange sounds from leaving my body. “He gave you a what?”
Drix yanks an orange square from his back pocket, and I swear I could cook a five course meal off my face. He tosses it onto the dresser. “Won’t lie, I’ve had more fantasies than should be legal about ways I’d like to touch your body.”
Flames. Flames are now shooting off my cheeks, and I can only stare at his hand still holding mine and I can stare at the floor, because the floor doesn’t care I’m currently a mess.
“But as much as I’m attracted to you, as much as I would love to lay you down next to me and become one...”
I swallow because that all sounded so good and so terrifying.
“I don’t want to make love to you.”
My head shoots up, my eyes find his, and there’s a stupid part of me that wonders if I should be insulted. “Why?”
“If I promise not to bite, will you sit with me while I tell you?”
He tugs on my hand, I give, and he slips up the bed to lean his back against the wall. I have a choice. To settle between his legs or sit beside him. In seconds, I run through a million pros and cons, and I ignore them all as I climb up the bed and lean my back against his chest.
Drix wraps both of his arms around me, and those strong steel bands are the best comforting blanket I’ve ever known. He kisses the side of my head, and he pulls me back until there’s no space between us. My temple is against his, and when he tilts his head, he nibbles on my ear, and my entire body comes alive.
“I thought you said you wouldn’t bite,” I whisper as my skin tingles.
“You want me to stop?”
“No.” This is what I want, what I desire. Just this—Drix and me together.
“Still want to know?” he asks.
Now that the fear has faded and I’m safe in his arms, my question doesn’t seem nearly as important, but I love listening to Drix talk, and I love it when he wants to talk to me. “As long as you still want to tell.”
“I do,” he says. “I don’t mind telling you. You might be the only person who thinks anything inside me has some worth, even the ugly.”
“Nothing about you is ugly,” I say. “Now tell me.”
Hendrix
If only that were true. So many of the things I’ve done in life are ugly. The drinking, the drugs, my carelessness in playing with girls’ hearts. All of it baggage that weighs me down and I’ve carried it around me with me day after day and night after night.
Elle leans her body into me, and she lays her hands over my arms as if this is exactly where she wants to be. This is where I want her to be. Her soft body in my arms, her sweet scent surrounding me. Even in the forest, even on those nights that my soul would pause and take a breath, I didn’t know peace, but this—this is beyond peace. This is heaven.
“My dad had Axle at eighteen,” I say. “His mom was eighteen, too. Neither of them wanted him, but they had him anyhow. They married, stayed together for two years, then divorced and fought over who had to watch him next. Then, because my father likes making mistakes, a few years later, he hooked up with a girl after a concert, and they created me. They didn’t know each other’s names. Hell, I don’t think either of them were sober.”
That’s the true love kids want to hear about when they ask how their parents met.
“Seven months later, I popped out. Because my mom had a few personal issues and a few outstanding warrants for DUIs, Dad had main custody of me, but he split it with Mom without the courts knowing. She’d watch Axle and me, and when it was Dad’s turn, Axle watched me. Dad hooked up with Holiday’s mom, she was born, and eventually Holiday’s grandma started watching over us some, too, but she was too old to keep up with any of us—Holiday included. But she made sure we ate, and she taught us how to read music.”
Elle brushes her fingers along my arm as if that can help heal the gaping wound bleeding on my soul. “Seven months?”
“I was a preemie. Twenty-nine weeks. I was in the NICU for two months.” My eyebrows draw together as I search for the courage to tell Elle the truth. “I was born addicted to heroin.”
She sucks in a breath and sits up. I give her room to bolt, but instead she turns so she can look me in the eye. She caresses my face with a gentle touch that belongs only to Elle. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“No, but someone should be sorry.”
My mother never was. Neither was my dad. Elle’s words cut so deep that it’s hard to keep from feeling. I rap the back of my head against the wall, but Elle reaches around my head, becoming a barrier between me and the wood. She leans in and kisses my cheek. Once, twice, each one coming closer to my mouth until those sweet lips feather against mine.
“You were a fighter from the start, then,” she says.
A fighter—from the start. “That’s one way to look at it.”
“It’s the only way.”
“I don’t want to be my dad, and I don’t want to be my mom. I’m the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet that I didn’t make a baby before I was arrested. I promise you, I will explore and worship your body every way you’ll allow and how you ask, but I’ve been given a second chance, and I will not mess that up.”
Elle sits on her knees in front of me and frames my face with her hands. “I told you weeks ago we’re in control. Amazing things are going to happen. I can feel it. Can’t you?”
Baggage. It’s heavy and dark and slows me down. My doubts, my fears, my worries all jammed in and close to overflowing. All of it things I believed I needed. Carrying it with me minute to minute, second to second, crushing my back, bones and soul.
Baggage.
After a year of being away, I don’t need those bags anymore. I thought I did. I thought it all still fit, but it doesn’t. I changed—my body, my mind, my direction.
Baggage.
It’s time I leave all of that baggage at the curb. I don’t need any of it anymore. Seven months in juvenile detention. Three months in the forest. One year of therapy. One year of figuring out who I am. One year of making me a free man.
Yes, amazing things are going to happen because that’s what happens when you find your wings and finally fly.
Ellison
Drix runs his fingers through my hair, and it’s the most glorious feeling. “I want to kiss you, Elle.”
“I want you to kiss me.” So much.
“I want to touch you, too.”
I edge closer and Drix wraps an arm around me. In a heartbeat, I go from in front of him to lying beside him. My head is on his pillow, and he’s on his side staring at me like I’m the most beautiful girl in the world. Without makeup, without contacts, with glasses, a scar over my eye, with every impe
rfection that makes me, me—and he finds me beautiful.
“You say stop, we stop,” he says, and I nod. “You’re in control.”
I slip off my glasses and hand them to Drix. He takes them, reverently folds them closed and places them on the dresser. The world faraway blends together into blurs. The Christmas lights no longer single bulbs but balls of lights that merge into one another. But Drix’s face is clear, and I skim my fingers along his jaw.
There’s something magical about the moment before kissing. The excitement and seduction of the anticipation. How Drix’s dark eyes drink me in, how my every inhale is of his spicy scent. How the pads of my fingers are so sensitive that I can feel every individual blade of his evening shadow. How Drix’s hand slowly slips along the curve of my waist and every single one of my cells is filled with electricity.
My heartbeat starts off slow, but every touch, every caress, every moment that passes causes it to skip several breathtaking beats. Drix’s hand drifts up my side, along my arm, my shoulder and then lightly traces my cheek.
He leans downs. A breath in, a breath out and then Drix’s lips are on mine. A sweet taste, a pleasing pressure. A beautiful song and melody played against a steady beat building with time. Hands in hair, stroking along the back, a shifting of bodies and his lips move to my neck.
A gasp of air, sensitive skin being explored, hot breaths and Drix covers his body with mine. His shirt is gone, mine is tugged up. Some clothes still on, and hands wander for new paths. The gravitational need is for him to move closer as this new and fantastical warmth soaks into my bloodstream.
It’s a slow rhythm at first, but as we kiss, as we touch, the rhythm increases. It plays, it persuades, it coaxes me to give and explore more. My mind is a haze, my thoughts happily scattered, my body a million frayed wires. It’s too much and it’s not enough, and as our breaths come out faster, our kisses become hungrier. Then there’s this amazing pressure and then there’s release. A sweet release. It’s like floating on air, it’s like a feather in the breeze, and I hang on to Drix and he hangs on to me as if we’re both scared of falling away.