“I…” I try to form words, but all I can manage is, “are you serious?”
I’m never impulsive. I don’t do things without meticulous planning and researching them to death. But, for some reason, Bowen and his invitation remind me of a time I wasn’t so structured and so…paranoid. I’m reminded of a time when I almost did do something impulsive, just because I wanted to, with someone who I just wanted to be with. And now I want to chase that feeling again.
He leans down, his nose almost touching mine, “Yes, I’m serious,” he whispers.
I just shake my head in disbelief, “Oh my god!” I blurt out, throwing my arms around his neck again.
Bowen bends down, grabs me under my thighs, and lifts me up onto the edge of the countertop, “Is this what I have to do—” he asks as he plants his hands on either side of my legs, “whenever we have a fight, I just buy you a trip somewhere?”
I shoot him a side-eye, “We’ve never had a real fight.”
“Just you wait,” he mutters, returning my look.
“We’ve also never had a real date,” I point out.
“We will on Sunday. A long one.”
He has an answer for everything, and I can’t say I mind at all. Then I pause, trying to decide how to ask the question that’s been gnawing at me since I turned around and saw him sitting next to me at Calhoun’s. And now, with what’s just happened, I need to know more than ever, but I don’t have a tactful way to ask.
Fuck it.
“Before I say anything more about this, I have to know,” I wag my finger back and forth in the space between us, “what is this?”
“What’s what?”
“What are we? Who am I to you—in regards to this trip and anything else?”
Bowen cocks his head, “You want me to label you?”
“Yes,” I say quickly, “some people don’t like labels, but I live by routines and organization and I need to know where I stand.”
And because I need a label for this new, nicely wrapped box I’ve found myself in now…
Bowen nods, running his hands up and down the tops of my thighs as he considers my request.
After a moment, he clasps his hands at the small of my back, pulling me closer, “You’re mine,” Bowen lowers his voice, “my girlfriend, my lover, my partner, whatever iteration of possession you prefer, legal or not. You told me, from your own mouth, that you’re mine,” he reaches up to hold the side of my face, “and I’m telling you now, it doesn’t matter if I’m gone for one minute or one year, I’ll always come back to you. Because I want you, I’ve chosen you, and,” he lowers his voice to a whisper, “I get what I fucking want.”
He’s definitive and aggressive and extreme and, against all logic, it reminds me of who I used to be. I feel like someone’s removed the cinderblock sitting on my chest for the past three years. I can breathe when I’m with Bowen and I’m afraid to stray too far or else I’ll drown again.
I reach up and grasp the sides of his face, “Sounds like we both get what we want.”
“Good. Because tonight—” he leans in and kisses me with painful tenderness, “I’m not leaving, and you’re not leaving.”
There’s a flash in Bowen’s eyes and, in one swift motion, he lifts me off the counter and throws my body over his shoulder. Upside down and pressed against the smooth skin of his back, I shriek at him through broken laughter as I watch the floor start to move beneath me. He carries me, one arm hooked over the backs of my knees and the other swinging at his side, through the living room and down the dark hallway.
I hear the bedroom door shut and then tumble off his shoulder, bouncing into a heap on his bed. Moments later, all I can feel is his mouth on my skin and his hands moving over me, feeling every curve and pulling each article of clothing free to be discarded over the edge of the bed. I exhale deeply against his lips, my chest heaving as he slides his hand up my throat and squeezes my jaw in the crook of his thumb.
“Tell me, baby girl,” he brushes his lips over mine, “now that you’re home, do you feel like a whore or a queen tonight?”
My cheek muscles tense under his fingers as I smile, because I am home.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Hollow Watcher
One Year Ago
My grandmother used to love watching that old TV show, Thriller. The one where Boris Karloff hosts stories about unsuspecting people befallen by supernatural phenomena or insidious conspirators getting their comeuppance. She ate that shit up, and so did I. Maybe that’s where I learned the meaning of right and wrong—how to dole out justice and retribution.
My favorite one is about a legendary scarecrow in a small town that gets revenge on those who don’t behave. The townspeople called him the Hollow Watcher.
And maybe that’s what I am, too.
I watch Brett because there’s a gaping hole inside me that only she can fill.
Like clockwork, her blue Impreza pulls into the northeast entrance of Black Ridge at 4:26. She parks in the first space, closest to an oak that always shades the first three spaces by the time she arrives. Today’s a sunny day, which means she’ll strap her bike to the rack on the hatch of the Impreza and take it to work with her. She changes clothes at the end of the day and pulls out of the parking lot by 4:13. She does this every single day as long as it’s not raining.
She likes routine, and she’s nothing if not predictable.
I watch her unlock the straps on the rack with a small key on her pink carabiner and lift her neon yellow bike off the hatch. She taps the kickstand with her pink and grey Nikes and balances the bike on the asphalt while she pulls her long, curly hair back at the base of her skull.
Her hair...
It’s red. It’s really light, so some people call it strawberry blonde, but it’s fucking red. That’s one of the first things that made me stop dead in my tracks the first time I saw her. She walked into my line of sight and I decided there was no way she’d ever leave it. I swear, it was a goddamn sign.
She grabs her pink and orange helmet from the backseat and adjusts the straps under her chin before straddling her bike. She stands for a moment, surveying the path leading down the hill to the woods.
I can’t help but smile as I watch her from the far side of the lot, unassuming and concealed in plain sight. Just like I was the first time I laid eyes on her.