Never Been Kissed (8 page)

So she didn’t wobble. She made sure she didn’t give him any reason to touch her, because that would no doubt send her right over the edge of this terrible emotional cliff she was on. Wincing, she kept her palm to the wall, feeling the cool plaster, the occasional cracks in the paint, following it around a small corner, past an inexplicable boat motor resting on the ground—to the bathroom.

“Where are we?” she asked, looking around the tiny apartment cluttered with signs and beer kegs and boxes.

“Arkansas.”

“But …” Next to the boat motor was a stuffed fish. “What is this place?”

“The apartment above my brother’s bar.”

She looked at him. “You have a brother?”

How … mundane. How normal. He wasn’t, in fact, a military cyborg.

“I do” was all he said.

“And he owns a bar?”

“He does.”

“What’s it called?”

“The Pour House.”

“That’s a good name for a bar.”

She turned back to the bathroom and flicked on the light, thus ending the most inane conversation of her life.

Light fell across white porcelain sink and tiles, making the small room glow like an egg. There was a big claw-foot tub in the corner, painted sky blue on the outside. A faded tan striped shower curtain hung crooked from two remaining hooks.

The mirror over the sink, across from the tub, was to be avoided at all costs. She wasn’t ready for that.

“Do you—”

He was going to ask if she wanted help peeing. Pulling
down her pants. And it was just too much. Too much Brody in her life at the moment.

“No,” she said, and shut the door behind her, suddenly remembering her post-kidnapping credo.
All doors would be shut.

It had been over three weeks since she’d gone to the bathroom without knowing that a man was watching her.

It took her awhile to pull down the loose Capri pants she wore. And then situating herself over the toilet was an advanced lesson in physics and human anatomy, but she got it done.

Yay for baby steps.

Shaking, she pulled up her pants and flushed the toilet.

Brody knocked on the door and she struggled to turn the doorknob, between the slice on her arm, which stung and pulled, and her bruised ribs, which throbbed in time with her heartbeat, she was limited and apparently too slow, because the door eased open before she got the knob turned.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Fine.” She sounded mean, nasty, but he didn’t flinch.

“Would you like something to eat? There’s some fruit. A banana?”

Her stomach clenched hard at the thought of food, which made her wince and shake her head.
Ixnay on the food.

“You need a painkiller?” he asked.

A little too much enthusiasm went into her nod and her brain splintered.

“You need to eat with it.”

She glared at him, resentful that she was being handled—manipulated. He lifted his hands, shrugging, all that beautiful brown skin stretched taut over muscles and bone, gleaming like brown river stones in the light. “I don’t
make the rules,” he said. “You have to take the pill with food.”

“Fine.” She was all kinds of peevish. “Give me the food.”

She stood in the small hallway, watching him in the open kitchen, the futon he must have slept on was still down, a thin blanket bunched across the bottom.

At the sink, his back was to her so she didn’t bother not staring.

He had a scar near his spine and another at his shoulder, a long jagged slice.
Was that all from the IED blast?

Once ten years ago when she’d asked about his knee, the limp, he’d told her it had been reconstructed. She’d made a joke about being bionic but he hadn’t laughed.

Now when he crossed the room with her glass of water, pain meds, and a banana he didn’t limp.

“Here,” he said and she took the pill, drank the water, and let him peel the banana for her.

“Thank you.” She took a giant bite of the banana, managed to chew it and swallow though the smell turned her stomach.

She handed back half the banana and shuffled toward the bedroom.

“You need to eat.”

“I need to sleep.”

“Ashley …” He was concerned, which at any other point in her life would have been something to marvel at, to study and ponder, perhaps frame, but at this point she didn’t care. His concern was just one more thing between her and sleep.

“I’m not paying you to be a nurse, Brody,” she said, using her mother’s voice, and he was silent. Immediately she regretted it. She regretted everything that threw them into each other’s orbit.

“You could leave,” she said.

“I’m not going to leave.”

“I’m not a whole lot of fun right now.” Her lame attempt at a smile didn’t work. He stared at her with his level, knowing eyes and again she wanted to cry. “I’m … I’m not very good at needing people. I’m the one who is needed and it’s making … well, I’m just not myself. I’m sure you have far more important things to do than watch me sleep and walk me to the bathroom.”

“I’m not going to leave.”

“Brody.” She sighed. “I want you to leave.”

His silence, his stony gaze said it all. He wasn’t going anywhere.

In the bedroom she shut the door behind her and crawled back into bed.

Brody’s back was never going to survive the futon. It was just not made for his body. His feet hung off the edge, the bar hit him low across the spine. He shifted, trying to find a spot that wouldn’t feel as if he were being stabbed in the back, but there was no such place.

The futon wins,
he thought and sat up, the sheet falling across his lap. He ran a hand over his chest, and face, through his hair.

It had gotten hot in the night and he’d thrown off his T-shirt. He sat on the uncomfortable futon naked but for his boxers.

Through the window over the sink in the kitchen there was blue sky. Bright sunlight. He checked his watch. Noon. Nearly twelve hours of sleep, give or take the few interruptions when Ashley woke up crying. Or that last one at dawn when she had to go to the bathroom.

He turned, his muscles protesting, and looked toward the nearly shut door of the bedroom. Through the crack he saw one long tan foot poking out from the sheets.

What had seemed like a great idea during their Great
Escape from New York in the Arkansas sunlight struck him as ridiculous.

He’d brought Ashley Montgomery to a shabby one-bedroom apartment over his brother’s bar.

Yes. Great plan, Brody.

And now she was having nightmares in a saggy double bed with only him to look out for her.

I want you to leave.

As much as he wished he could take her up on that, he couldn’t leave her here in the shape she was in.

She needed something to keep her looking and moving forward. And a bath. She really needed a bath.

From the coffee table he grabbed the phone Harrison had given him and sent him a text asking for Kate’s number.

That should motivate her out of bed.

Hard to say which creaked louder as he stood, the floor, the futon, or his own body. He took a few minutes getting his knee under him; it ached hard in the joint.

Junk filled the tiny apartment, which was still and quiet like a tomb. He hadn’t opened any windows last night, and the air sat heavy on the futon, the white wooden cupboards, the rug rolled up next to what looked like part of a boat engine. Big water stains damaged the white walls and the dark hardwood floor in the corner, from the time the roof leaked during the 2001 storms.

Empty kegs were stacked against the far wall of the living space and boxes of napkins were piled on top of the old wicker rocking chair left over from his mom’s wicker phase. Old and broken neon signs sat stacked in a pile on what little kitchen counter space there was, next to some old pictures and other junk that Sean had rescued from The Pour House before he renovated.

Or, Brody corrected, before Brody and their friend Jackson renovated and Sean bossed them around. He
crossed the small room to lean over the old porcelain kitchen sink, stained brown and yellow from the iron content in Bishop’s water supply, and lifted the window.

A thin hot breeze blew in through the screen, smelling like the river and sun. The sounds of the outside world came in too, a car honked, some kids yelled. He could hear a sprinkler running in a backyard.

Next to the door into the bedroom, he pulled open another window; this one didn’t have a screen and it would only be a matter of time before they had bugs in the place, but that was the lesser of two evils. In the bathroom, he pried open the small window over the toilet with one hand.

It was still too hot.

Ashley’s sheets last night had been wet with her sweat. And no doubt the heat and humidity would bleed into her nightmares.

What they needed was a cross-breeze.

Finally he walked over to the apartment door and opened it. Only to find Sean, holding two cups of coffee and a grease-stained paper bag.

“Hey, man, I was about to knock.” Sean looked older in the harsh light of day. The years had worn away that air of perpetual juvenile delinquency. Now he was unmistakably a man and Brody had never said that about his little brother.

“You said noon. Last night? You said come back at noon.”

“Right.” Brody realized he was staring. “Just, ah … give me a second.” He was conspicuously aware of his nudity and that visible slice of brown leg in the bedroom behind him and he didn’t want Sean thinking what he was no doubt thinking.

“Let me get some clothes,” he whispered, “and I’ll meet you on the roof.”

Sean brightened at the mention of the roof, his blue eyes sparkling as if they might water bomb neighbors.

Brody closed the door. Beside the futon he’d collapsed into last night were his jeans, which he pulled on. He left the shirt on the floor, as well as his boots, and grabbed his sunglasses from the small table pushed into the corner.

Outside the door to the apartment was a small metal balcony and instead of going down the rickety staircase to his left, he turned right, pulled himself to the railing, and crawled up onto the roof.

Sean was at the peak, his back to Brody. The edge of his blue shirt had caught some wind and billowed out from his body, only to be pressed back in as the wind twisted around them.

Sean was wiry, and when his shirt pressed against his body, it revealed muscles people would never assume he had. Brody had known guys like him in the Corps. Wiry guys who could hump two times their weight for ten miles, drink him under the table, fight their way out of the bar, and go another ten miles.

Brody collapsed next to Sean, wishing he had worn his shoes.

Wordlessly, Sean handed him a coffee and shoved over the grease-stained bag, but Brody was more interested in coffee. Ashley, however, would probably like what Sean had brought. She used to have a sweet tooth.

“Thanks,” he said.

“I haven’t been up here in years,” Sean said. “Forgot about the view.”

The way Sean said it, you’d think they were staring down at the Rift Valley, the Kashmir Pass. But it was just a town. Like a million others.

To his left was the square, the town center. City Hall, the commons area, Cora’s. Trees, flowers, a playground, and now even some kind of fountain swimming thing.
All sorts of shit to make the town feel like home for a couple thousand people. To his right and in the distance was the gleaming silver snake of the river, giving the town that nostalgic stink.

And here, close to the tracks, on the wrong side of town, was The Pour House. The family dive bar Sean was trying to pull out of its dive.

“It’s nothing special to you, huh?” Sean asked, smiling as he took a sip of coffee.

“It’s fine.” Lying to his brother was second nature. Lying to just about everyone was second nature, it was something a kid learned quick in foster homes.
Always say you’re fine. Always say it’s nice. Always say thank you; eat what you’re given and don’t complain.
“I never really came up here for the view.”

As a kid, right after the adoption, he’d liked being high up and alone and watching everyone. No one knew where he was half the time, or cared, with everything that had been going on. But as soon as Sean was able, he started tagging along and Brody was never alone again. Especially up here.

“It’s hot,” Brody said, wiping sweat off his forehead. He could feel it trickling down his back.

“Rained last week, now we’re soaked in humidity. August in Arkansas, no place like it.” The back of Sean’s neck was red, he always burned in the summer, turned into a red, peeling, freckled mess.

Brody had no such problem. His mother had been Filipino, his father black.

“How is the bar doing?” he asked.

Sean shot him a wry, laughing look. “Like you care.”

“As an investor—”

“It was a loan, I paid you back.”

“I’m talking about the blood, sweat, and tears I put into the place a year ago. That makes me an investor.”

Sean kicked a pebble and it bounced across the roof,
off the edge. He couldn’t hide his grin, he loved it when Brody got involved in the bar. Feigned caring. “It’s good. Better than it’s been. Weekends are picking up. I’ve got some plans for the garage next door—”

“I’m sure you do.”

“If you stick around long enough, I’ll let you help.” Sean wagged his eyebrows and Brody smiled on cue.

“I won’t be here long enough to dig out the tool belt.”

Sean’s smile faded and Brody felt the pinch of guilt that accompanied disappointing his brother.
I’m sorry,
he wanted to say.
I’m sorry I’m not what you wanted. I can’t give you what you need.

Something somewhere in Brody was broken.

“We’re not up here to talk about the bar,” Sean said, fiddling with the plastic edge of his coffee lid.

It was always strange when Sean was cagey. Sean, as a rule, was sort of a take-me-as-I-come kind of guy. A shit disturber. A sentimentalist. But very rarely cagey.

“We’re not?”

“Don’t make jokes.” Uh-oh, Sean was angry. “It’s been three months since I’ve heard from you. Three months.”

He could feel Sean’s gaze. The sun didn’t bother him, but his brother’s eyes could burn him to the bone. “And then you show up in the middle of the night with an unconscious woman—”