Conundrum (56 page)

Jake nodded. “But I can’t stay long. I’ve got finals this week, and I still have fifty pages of economics to read.” Just the thought made his eyelids heavy, made him yearn for sleep.

Someone pushed against her, propelling her back into Jake’s arms. He closed his eyes and drew her scent deep into his lungs, already feeling his resolve melt from the sway of her body to the music. She followed some sultry inner rhythm that rocked out of sync with the pounding bass notes blaring from the two giant speakers mounted on the wall.

Her words came out in a singsong lilt. “Economics, schmeconomics . . . You . . . are mine tonight.” She whispered heat in his ear, describing things that made his face and neck hurt with need. His body prickled with passion. He squelched that little voice telling him to pull himself together. Focus. Set your priorities. That voice used to be so sure, so authoritative. She’d done a good job dousing it. It rarely spoke up anymore. Got tired of being ignored and spurned and went and moped in a corner of his mind.

The room grew stifling. He led her into the hallway, past couples entangled in their own slow dance, then out the heavy front door of the dorm. The cool air sucked the sweat off his head as they stood under bright artificial lights, under the empty dome of pale sky that looked nothing like the bowl of dazzling stars in the foothills of the Rockies. His ears buzzed from the sudden absence of noise. Muffled music drifted down from the second-story windows.

She moved like water over him, her hands roaming. He kept trying to wrest his mind but her tentacles pulled him back. He found his voice and put some words together, although they felt smothered under her affections.

“My mother called earlier. Wants me to come home for Christmas.”

Leah raised her eyes and studied him. “You gotta be kidding.”

“Maybe I should go. They said they’d pay my way. I’ve always done Christmas with them.”

“I thought you hated your dad. And your brother.”

“I don’t hate them—”

“And you promised we’d drive down to Baja. Jake—I’ve been counting the days!”

“—I just feel it’s my duty.” His ramshackle excuse came out riddled with holes.

Leah stopped playing with his collar. “Duty to do what? Take their abuse? Listen to them cut you down another notch? Come on, Jake. You don’t owe them anything. We don’t choose our families. We get stuck with them. And that’s what adulthood is all about—leaving the past behind and creating a new life. A new beginning.”

Jake chewed on his lip. “Yeah, I know, but—”

Leah pulled the Santa hat off his head and rearranged his hair. “Let them come out and see you, if they’re that keen to spend time with you. I thought you hated the snow. And the cold.”

“I don’t—”

“Shh . . .” She put her finger over his lips and his arguments floundered in his gut. “Jake Abrams, I can’t bear to have you leave me, even for a week.”

“Oh?” He smiled and his eyebrows raised. “Since when?” Was she toying with him? The thought sent a pain through his chest. He thought about the many men she’d mentioned knowing, names thrown about in conversation, with him wondering how well or for how long she’d been with them, never daring to ask. He just figured he was her latest fancy, some new random guy she’d snagged on while trolling through her life. He was surprised she hadn’t tired of him already. How interesting could he be? All he did was go to classes, study, sketch from time to time, do a little whittling and carving. She considered him an artist, full of potential, mysterious. He couldn’t fathom how she saw him in a way so different from how he saw himself. At some point, she’d grow tired of him. He’d bore her. He wasn’t all that imaginative. She took all the initiative in everything they did, even in bed.

His head swooned as his thoughts drifted to her body, so lithe, such soft skin. He never knew, never conceived of such texture, not even in his dreams, what little skin he’d experienced in his life. One high school sweetheart, a few reluctant kisses, always clothing in the way, hands pushing him back. Being polite, well-mannered, and duly warned by his mother, he never dared ask for more. But Leah—she didn’t ask, she begged. Pleaded. He heard her frantic, desperate words fresh in his ears and he began to ache all over for her. He realized she was now speaking to him, a voice coming up from deep water. He shook off the shackles of passion and looked at her. That spiked punch had unpenned his emotions. They were running hog wild over his heart.

He saw something he’d never seen before in her eyes. As if in the midst of her rambling and running she stopped to catch a breath and saw him materialize before her. Most of the time he didn’t think she saw him. Only looked around and through him to some purpose, some other goal. But now she locked onto him, like a homing device. On target.

She flipped her hair out of her face and entwined a hand in his. She played with his fingers. “Since when? Since the first moment I saw you—stumbling out of the bus.”

He heard something needy in her voice. A different kind of needy he was used to with her. Deeper, more serious. He paid attention. For the first time since they met, he let himself taste hope, and it unfurled and took sail. He’d wrangled against his desire these last months. He saw the way she flirted, the way most guys were pulled like a magnet to her free spirit and unabashed self-confidence. Yet, he never caught her wandering into anyone else’s arms. He admitted it now—to the jury clamoring in his head. Oh, he wanted her, all his, his alone. Admitting this to himself was no different than stepping off a cliff in the dark. Standing in front of an oncoming train. Exposing a vein. Go ahead, cut me. He was already bleeding.

“You know how I much I love you,” she said.
“You love a lot of people. You love everyone—that’s what you tell me.”
“Jake, I’m not joking. I really love you. You and me—we’re happy together.” She started singing and tickled his ear as she sang in a little-girl voice. “Me and you and you and me. No matter how they toss the dice, it had to be. The only one for me is you and you for me, so happy together . . .”

Jake chuckled. “See!” she said. “You’re happy. Tell me you’re not.”

He fumbled around her challenge but ended up shrugging. “I am happy.” He also knew he was drunk. He’d never had more than an occasional beer back home. Two tall plastic cups of that punch chopped time up into little fragments. He couldn’t tell if they’d been standing there ten minutes or two hours.

“My roommate’s gone home for the holidays. Left me her Mazda. I’ve got the best idea.” She pulled on his arm; Jake let her lead him.

“Where are we going?” he asked, laughing. She was dragging him as if hauling a sack of potatoes behind her.

“First to my place, then to yours. Then . . . to Las Vegas!”

Jake dug in his heels halfway across the lawn. “Vegas? What—you want to go gamble?” She’d just turned twenty-one. He could picture her shouting at the clanging of a slot jackpot. How many times had he heard her complain how boring LA was? Not enough glamour and excitement.

She stopped and turned to him. “I don’t need to gamble. I’ve already won my jackpot.”

Jake waited for an explanation. He was missing something, with her words falling in the cracks between them.

“Come. I’m parked over there.” She pointed at a speedy-looking orange Mazda convertible coupe. Her eyes grew wide as an idea struck home. “We can ride all through the night with the top down.” She ran her finger down from his throat to the waistband of his jeans. “And if you ask nicely, I might even ride with my top down . . .”

She laughed and fiddled with his zipper. There, on the curb, under the streetlamps.

“Hey, what are you doing!”

She threw back her head and laughed. “I just love that about you—how self-conscious you are. Maybe you need another drink . . .”

“That’s the last thing I need.” He worked at zipping his pants back up, his fingers mostly uncooperative.

“Jake.” She moved in slowly and kissed him, her lips lingering on his. “Tell me you love me,” she said, unmoving, her mouth tickling him.

Her lips resting there, waiting, and her fingers playing under his shirt, fingers of fire scribbling promises on his skin, did him in. He knew he was trapped, cornered. But it was comfortable, enticing. He gave up; there was no escape. He knew he was about to fall off that cliff, and once taking the step, there’d be no way back up to that ledge where he once stood so securely, a million years ago.

“I do love you, Leah. With all my heart.” He didn’t realize how much he meant it until the words fell out of his mouth. He said them again, just to be sure. Evaluate their weight in the night air. See if they crashed hard to the ground, shattered. They didn’t. They took wing and soared through the sky.

Leah let out a long breath and sucked in another. Just like that moment when she’d dragged him into the ocean and jutted beneath the waves, watched him with glassy eyes as the shock of cold salty water stung his face and they spoke without speaking, hidden from the world above, the surge bumping him against her like two docked boats at the mercy of the tide. He recalled emerging from that tenebrous dream, his head breaking the surface into warm air and sunlight, feeling newly birthed into the world.

She stopped at the car and turned. “Let’s elope. Get married,” she whispered.

His head broke the skin of another dream, but this new terrain felt foreign, unfamiliar. He gazed around him, down the street, across the lawn back to the dorm spilling out light and indecipherable noise. He had landed somewhere strange, his footing unsure. His head fuzzed in its alcoholic haze, his skin numb. The air lacked temperature; the only heat radiating in the universe came from the body pressed up against him. Warm, so warm.

He nuzzled into Leah, burrowing into a sheltered winter den. “Yes?” she asked, her question swelling with such emotion and anticipation he thought it would burst.

Jake looked for the exit sign, finding only Leah’s emerald eyes, eyes that had trapped him the instant he stepped off that bus. No way out, only in. A one-way ticket from his heart to hers. No other stops on this freeway of life. No detours. He didn’t need any. He realized he had arrived at his destination.

Jake let his surefooted gaze wander loose into her eyes. She let him in, a wide swung-open door. He nodded.

She hugged him and squealed and in the midst of her laughter he heard his mother’s distress, saw his father’s stern disapproval. Ethan wagged his head slowly in disgust. He held Leah tightly to dispel the invading army of dissent, relishing the giddy freedom his reckless act engendered. Before his family could breech the fortress and remand him back to the land of sanity, he opened the car door for her, then went around and got into the passenger’s side.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Leah turned the key in the ignition and tore away into the night, ripping any remaining hesitancy he held into shreds, pieces that flew with abandon out the window and into the irretrievable past
.

If you would like to read more,
Intended for Harm
is available
on Kindle here
.