Falling In (12 page)

“Try the
juice,” he said and pushed her glass toward her.  “I just squeezed it
yesterday.”

She
raised the cup to her lips and let the cool fluid glide like silk down her
throat.  As it danced past her taste buds, it tasted like the sweetest nectar. 
It was so refreshing that Audrey knocked back half of it at once.

“Christ,”
she exclaimed and set the drink back down.  “That’s probably the best OJ I’ve
ever had.”

“I
know,” he said with an ornery smirk.  “It’s like this state is famous for
oranges or something.”

Audrey
playfully kicked him under the table, allowing his coarse leg hairs to tickle
the bottom of her toes.  Really, it was just an excuse for her to touch him
again.

“You
know what I meant.”

Liam
winked at her and started to work on his own plate.  For a little while, the
only sounds were a flock of distant birds and the tinkering of forks against
plates.

Audrey
ate greedily, but as good as the food was, she found that her thoughts were
elsewhere.  Between bites, she glanced up to her chiseled companion and
wondered about him.  Where did he come from?  Who was he, really?

Though
it made her nervous, she couldn’t stop herself from asking.

“So
where are you from?”

Seeming
surprised, he looked over the yellow chunk on his fork and flung the messy hair
from his eyes.

“You
really want to know the details?”

“Of
course I do.”

He set
the utensil down and folded both arms onto the small table.

“Well I
was born and raised in Colorado.  And I use the term ‘raised’ very liberally. 
My folks gave me up when I was almost 3, so I spent a lot of time bouncing
around foster homes.

“When I
was like 15, me and a couple of guys that I’d managed to maintain contact with
started dicking around with instruments in the park.  We did it for a long time
just for fun but managed to land a gig a couple of years later.  I think I was
just a hair over 18 when we played.

“Anyway,
a label manager stumbled across the bar and, well,” he took a quick bite and
swallowed it down.  “The rest is history.”

“Wow,”
she said softly.  It never crossed her mind that he had been through more hard
times than her until he told his story.  Right off the bat, Audrey was both sad
for him and intrigued.  “So what happened to the band?”

“We
lasted like 3 years and put out a couple of albums that did quite well.
Unfortunately, young people and money don’t mix.  Our drummer overdosed on
smack while we were recording our third album and things were never really the
same after that.  So I took my money and eventually ended up here.  Honestly,”
he said with a melancholy look in his eyes, “I don’t even know what happened to
the other guys.  It’s been such a long time.”

By then,
Audrey was already done with her breakfast and sat with her elbows on the table. 
She was entranced by him and his story.  It was the first time that he opened
up to her.

“I had
no idea you’ve seen so much shit.”

“It’s
not something that I like to put out there for everyone to see, you know?”

She
suddenly felt guilty.

“Sorry,
I didn’t mean to pry.”

Liam
shook his head and reached over the table, brushing a chunk of golden hair off
of her shoulder.

“I said
everyone.  I’m more than happy to talk about it with you.”

Audrey’s
cheeks and forehead blushed under his caring touch.  She was flattered by his
willingness to open up, but it also made her even more crushed by the guilt of
the life that she was hiding from him.  Still, the moment was too good to ruin.

“You can
talk to me anytime you want,” she said and finished her juice, making sure to
maintain eye contact over the rim of her glass.  When she lowered it back down,
she asked, “You want some help with the dishes?”

“From
you?  Always.”

A
familiar kind of excitement tickled the back of her tongue as she got up, took
both plates and eventually started toward the kitchen.  Just she turned her
back to Liam, she caught sight of him as he got up to follow.  Audrey could
hear the thumping of their bare feet against the wood deck.  Their differing
speeds sent distinct vibrations through the boards that she could feel with her
naked soles.

He was
getting closer and Audrey could sense him.  She struggled to force her shaking
hands to keep the plates steady.  On top of each, their empty juice glasses
started to slip and slide to one side and then the other.  It took everything
that she had to just face forward and walk.  She knew what was coming and
though she realized that she should resist, there was no more fight left in
her.  She needed him, probably more than he needed her.

As she
passed the threshold back into the kitchen, Liam grabbed her from behind and
jerked her body against his.  It forced her to stop in her tracks.

“Liam,”
Audrey said and tried to sound surprised.

He
didn’t respond; not with words.  Instead, he pushed aside her loose, golden
locks with his nose and started to kiss the side of her neck.  With both hands,
he ran down her arms, took the plates and heaved them onto the counter.  The
cups on top slipped off and shattered against the flecked marble, sending
sparkling pieces into the air.

When the
dishes were gone, he immediately wrapped his arms around Audrey’s stomach and
held her so tight that her toes started to lift off the ground.  With his
already swollen package pressed against her rear, Liam steered her forward a
little ways and then threw her over the side of his dining room table.

Audrey
hit the lacquered wood so hard that she gasped and folded forward with her
hands splayed out in front.  By that point, she was helpless to him.  Every
groping touch and caress that she felt as Liam explored her body again was like
the first, making her heart pound and her thighs shake.  She could feel him
with acute detail, even though all she could see was the tall centerpiece as it
toppled over.  Its steel-gray candles crashed down near her fingers like
boulders.

Liam put
both hands down her panties and shoved them to her ankles.  Then he quickly
pushed up the shirt that she had on--his shirt--and thrust his erection into
her delicate area.  Even through the shorts that her lover had on, Audrey could
feel his girth as it started to spread her open.

“Oh
God,” she moaned between short breaths.

After
quickly shedding his clothes, Liam leaned in again, this time allowing their
most private flesh to meet as he easily slipped in and started to thrust into
her from behind.

Audrey’s
moans quickly escalated to cries of ecstasy as their bodies rocked against the
smooth, rounded lip of the table with every powerful movement that Liam made. 
Before long, it pushed her over the edge.  Her mouth fell open against the cool
wood and sent fleeting puffs of fog over its shining surface as a powerful
orgasm forced out a scream.  In it, she let everything out at once.

It
wasn’t just a cry for the wonderful throbs of pleasure that she was gripped by,
but also for all of the pain and hurt that led up to that moment; for all of
the bullshit that, for a brief period in time, she was able to exchange for
pure bliss.

A few
seconds later, Liam jerked his cock out of her with hardly any time to spare. 
Audrey felt him spill his hot seed onto her skin as his hand ran up and down to
squeeze out every last drop.

When he
was done, he slid both hands up her back and tried to catch his breath.

“I guess
I can’t say I never use this table anymore, huh?”

Chapter
9

The less
than 1000 residents in Cedar Key never did appreciate a big storm, so there was
an understandable tension in the air on the calm Saturday morning when the
local weather man stepped up his warnings over Hurricane Margaret, which had
shifted overnight.  After dancing around the tip of Cuba, it continued into the
Gulf of Mexico, where the endless supply of warm, Caribbean waters fueled an
unprecedented explosion in her size.  Along with that came a surprising hook to
the right, which left Cedar Key and the surrounding, low-lying marshlands
around it right in her sights.

It was a
path that had been taken by a storm once before, which is precisely why
everyone in town started to get so nervous.  There was such a tension in the
air that people didn’t dare to even speak of the previous storm for fear of
jinxing it.  But superstition is--and always was--no match for Mother Nature.

---

Back in
her friend’s cozy home after she was dropped off by Liam on the back of his
motorcycle late the night before, Audrey laid on the couch with a bowl of
cereal in her hands and the TV on some random documentary channel.  Blissfully
unaware of the rising fears among the Cedar Key locals, she chowed down on the
sugary pile of golden squares like an animal.  After all, it had been a long
night.

Half way
into her ravenous scooping, a phone mounted on the wall near the kitchen rang
to life. It was the first time that Audrey ever heard the thing.  Hell, she
didn’t even know that it existed.  She thought about just ignoring it, but her
curiosity ultimately got the better of her.

Still
dressed in her pajamas even though it was pushing noon, she slid up to the
phone and snatched the handset from the cradle.

“Uh,”
she said, quickly realizing that she didn’t know what to say.  “Kim’s house.”

“Hello? 
Is this Audrey?”

 It was
an older man’s voice.  He sounded faintly familiar, but in a way that most
grandpas do.

“It sure
is,” she responded.  “Who do I have the pleasure of speaking to?”

“This is
Morty down at the general store.  My, you’re sounding much more chipper than
when we first met.”

The
comment thrust Audrey back to when she arrived and had a passing encounter with
the kind old man on the other end of the line.  When they crossed paths, she
was so star-struck by meeting her new lover for the first time that she
couldn’t remember any of the old man’s features.

“How are
you, Morty?  I think this Florida sun is finally working its magic.”

He
paused and cleared his throat before he asked, “So I take it you haven’t seen
the news?”

For
whatever reason, Audrey’s mind immediately went to Kim.  She set her bowl of
cereal down onto the counter and gripped the receiver.

“What? 
Is something wrong?”

“Not
yet,” he replied, “but trouble’s coming.”

Feeling
a small sense of relief, Audrey relaxed her shoulders and leaned against the
wall.

“What do
you mean?”

“There’s
a storm headed this way.  You might want to check it out on the television.” 
The way that he carefully pronounced the whole word harkened back to another
era.  “I’m sure Kim will call you about it soon, but I thought you would want
to know.”

Audrey
was a little more surprised than she should have been.  It was September, after
all, but with everything that was going on as her life re-shuffled its deck, it
wasn’t something that she ever took the time to consider.  Now, with another
threat bearing down, she didn’t really know what she should do.

“Well I
do appreciate it.  I had no idea.”

“Yup.” 
He sounded pleased with himself.  “That’s what I figured.  You can come down if
you need any help boarding things up.  I have three strapping young grandsons
that would be happy to help.”

His kind
enthusiasm made Audrey smile.

“Thank
you Morty.  I’ll give you a call if I need anything.”

“You got
it.  Stay safe.”

They
said their brief goodbyes and Audrey set the phone back into its holder.  She
wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with the information that she was just
given, so she shuffled back to the couch--sans cereal--and switched the TV to a
local news channel, which she promptly muted.  There was something about the
way news reporters droned on that irritated her on a personal level.  To her,
they looked and sounded like robots.

In a
smaller, offset window, the screen showed grainy pictures of small islands that
the storm blew through the day before as it tore a path toward Cedar Key. 
Audrey planted her knees into the tops of her elbows and rested her face in the
palms of her hands.

“Of
course there is,” she sighed.  “You escape the bullshit weather in Chicago only
to run right into the arms of a god damn hurricane.”

Audrey
knew that the weather wasn’t the only thing in her life that followed the same
pattern.  In reality, her torrid affair with Liam turned into a perfect storm
of its own; a storm that threatened to tear her apart. She had so many
questions for Max without the nerve to ask them.  Maybe even more so, Liam’s
motives were a mystery.  Why, of all the girls that he surely ran into in his
life, did he take a sudden interest in her?

Why
him?  Why now?

She
scratched her scalp with short nails and closed her eyes but it was too good to
last.  Someone at the front door knocked loudly, forcing Audrey from her
comfortable seat to answer it.

Waiting
with an envelope of cash, Arthur McBride stood on the porch with his hands
clasped in front of him.  When Audrey opened the door, he held out the money
that she forgot to pick up.

“Liam
said that I could find you here.”

“Oh
wow,” she took the envelope, a little embarrassed that he caught her forgetting
a cool thousand in cash.  “Thanks.  Do you want to come in?”

“Sure,
for a minute.  I’ve got Susan pulling out our storm gear.”  He walked in and
rubbed the back of his neck.  “It’s been a while since we’ve needed it, to tell
ya the truth.”

Audrey
left the door open and led him back into the living room, which allowed the
fresh, warm air outside to flood the house around them.  She patted the
opposite end of the couch as she passed by.

“Have a
seat.”

“Thanks,”
he said and flopped down.  When he looked up to the muted TV, a sigh escaped
his lips.  “That’s one hell of a storm out there.”

“So I’ve
heard.”  She paused to cross her legs in front of her and asked, “What do you
think’s going to happen?”

Arthur
propped both of his arms up on the couch’s low back and thought about her
question.

“Well,
it’s hard to say.  Hurricanes always seem to have their own personalities, some
veering one way while others hook around and double back.  That thing out
there,” he pointed to the news coverage, “could do nothing and it could do
everything.  Are you going to go home early?”

Audrey
hadn’t thought about that issue yet.

“I don’t
know.  I guess I’m going to wait until I hear from Kim.”

Arthur
nodded his head in agreement.

“I’ve
seen a storm or two in my day.  You’re in for quite the show if you don’t get
out of here in time.”

“It’s
probably still better than what’s waiting for me in Chicago,” she muttered.

“The
weather’s bad out there, too?”

“You
could say that.”

Arthur fell
silent for a little bit, like there was something that he wanted to say but
didn’t know how to say it.  As she watched from her side of the couch, Audrey
could see the struggle in the look he wore.

“What?”

He
sighed and answered, “Look, I don’t know what you have waiting for you when you
go back, but obviously you’re not too excited about whatever it is.  You might
not realize it, but you’ve changed since you first got here.  I’ve watched it
happen.”

Audrey
couldn’t argue.  She felt different, maybe even better than before.  Even so,
she wondered why the Island Hotel’s owner seemed to care so much.

“It’s
beautiful down here.  How could I not feel better?”

“No,”
Arthur replied and shook his head.  “It’s more than that.  Look, I’ve seen
people pass up a chance at happiness and I don’t want you to do the same
thing.”

“Is this
about Liam?”

“It’s
about more than that.  I know you’ve got stuff going on but sooner or later
you’re going to have to settle things.  You can’t run forever, you know. 
Nobody really can.”

Audrey
blinked a couple of times at his brutal honesty and tried to find something to
justify the way that she was living.  But as she scoured her mind for an
excuse, she couldn’t find one.

“I
know,” she said softly and glanced over to the TV, where a reporter in a rain
jacket was already stationed on a dry beach as he waited for Hurricane Margaret
to plow through.  “And I appreciate the advice, but I’d rather do that guy’s
job naked than be in Chicago right now.”

“Suit
yourself,” Arthur said as he pushed himself up from the couch and patted her on
the shoulder.  “Call me if you need any help...and I mean it.  I’ll let myself
out.”

Audrey
looked up as the old man passed and gave him a small smile.

“Thanks.”

She
listened to him leave and slid down until the length of her body took up most
of the couch.  Her feet stretched out to where the cushions were still warm and
she stared up at the ceiling.

Every
word that Arthur said struck a chord, even if it wasn’t outwardly apparent. 
Audrey knew that she couldn’t turn her back on Max forever, but hearing it from
someone else--someone who knew nothing about her actual situation--cemented a
tiny bit of resolve into her thoughts.

Audrey
took her phone out of her pocket and held it over her face.  She unlocked the
screen and eyed it, trying to carefully decide how to proceed.  Whether she
liked it or not, the impending storm forced her hand.  There was a decision to
be made.

She took
a deep breath, held it in, and dialed back the one person that she wanted to
talk to the least.

With
every unanswered ring in her ear, Audrey felt her stomach wrench up so tight
that she thought she might vomit.  The apprehension that she allowed to build
since arriving in Florida was more unbearable than she imagined and it made it
a struggle to keep the phone up to her ear.

“Hello?”

Audrey
opened her mouth to speak, but hearing Max’s voice made the words catch in the
back of her throat.

“Audrey? 
Are you there?”

“Yes,”
she croaked.  “I’m here.”

Right
away, he laid into her.

“What
the fuck is your problem?”

Though
she was expecting some nasty words, she wasn’t ready for him to jump down her
throat right off the bat.

“Excuse
me?”

“I’ve
been trying to call you all week and you’ve just been blowing me off.  I’m your
husband, for fuck’s sake.”

“My,
my,” she stammered, “my husband?  You asked me for a divorce and now you’re mad
because I don’t want to talk to you?  What the hell did you expect?”

“I expected
you to at least answer my phone calls.”

“Sorry,”
she quipped, feeling a little more brazen.  “I’m pretty sure that I don’t owe
you shit.”

Without
saying a word, Max’s anger came through the phone in the short breaths that
rattled into Audrey’s ear.  She looked down at her wrist.  Though most of the wounds
were no longer noticeable, his breathing reminded her of the night that all of
it happened.  It made the larger cuts start to throb with phantom pains.

Though
she didn’t choose to, she could still remember the vacant look in his eyes as
he tossed her against the stove and nearly knocked her out before he ran off
into the night.

“Audrey,”
he growled.  “I did everything that I could.”

“Everything,”
she exclaimed.  “You think that you did everything?   All you did was spring
this on me like a fucking haircut appointment or something.  You didn’t even
try to make things right.”

“I’ve
been trying to make things right for years,” he said.  “You made it
impossible.”

She
whispered to herself, “Years?”

Max
still heard her.

“Yes,
years.”

A
blinding rage took hold of Audrey’s petite frame.

“Is that
how long you’ve been fucking her?”

The
irony of the question after what she did with Liam wasn’t lost on her, but she
couldn’t help herself.  She needed to know the truth after all that happened. 
There were too many questions.

“Fucking
who?”