Chapter 16
16
Dexter
She thinks about us?
My stomach starts to do somersaults, flipping and rolling and twisting like it’s entering some all-American gymnastics semifinals competition. I don’t have time to process this new revelation that Lucy thinks about our one-time tryst. Or three-time tryst. It’s surprising how much we were able to fit into a few hurried hours.
Lucy walks out of my spare bedroom, her steps slow and dragged while carrying the look of a guilty puppy dog on her face. I start to quietly sift through the takeout containers on my kitchen counter, gently spreading them out before opening and peeking inside to make sure everything I ordered arrived correctly.
The rustling of plastic and screech of Styrofoam rubbing against more Styrofoam fills the quiet as Lucy sidles up to my side.
She’s freshly showered, and her hair is still damp. I can smell the clean soap scent surrounding her, almost like fresh laundry with a hint of something fruity. Like lemons and cherries. She looks at me with a small smile, and I can’t help but feel protective of her. She sounded so weary and scared over the phone when she called me, and even more so defeated when I arrived at her apartment. I hate that she was in that place, where she felt so helpless. And I don’t care that this overprotective impulse makes me want to hold and soothe her. I give in a little to that impulse and place a hand at the small of her back, where I can feel the smooth skin under the thin oversized shirt she has on.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“You’re welcome,” I whisper back. I shove away the urge to place a small kiss at her temple and remove my hand before I impulsively start rubbing circles into her skin. “So did you hear back from the property manager yet?”
She nods. “He finally called me back,” she says with a tightness in her face making her look even more stressed. “He wants me to meet him back at the apartment tomorrow at eleven. I guess the super is out of town for the weekend. Probably why I couldn’t get a hold of him.”
I nod. The mere thought of her going back there runs a chill of unease through me. And those completely rational and reasonable reasons why I want her to stay with me start to float over my head again.
She would be safe.
She wouldn’t have to play cheek buddies with someone else’s ass in that fucking outhouse.
She’d never have to see that slimy neighbor again. What kind of a name is Gary anyway?
“I’ll go with you,” I tell her, knowing how serious my voice sounds. And it matches the energy drifting between us. Quiet with a hint of calm and an edge I can’t place. Like a string pulled taut, somehow pulling me to and from her at the same time.
“Back to my apartment?”
I nod .
“It’s okay, Dexter,” she objects. Her finger flicks the empty brown paper bag that held all of the to-go boxes, and the hollowness inside of it makes the sharp paper sound loud, expressing her frustration and guilt. “You’ve done enough. And I really don’t want to impose. Plus, I’m an adult. I should be able to do this on my own.”
“I know,” I say in agreement. “Just call it…moral support.”
She doesn’t argue further. Instead, a hint of a smile peeks through her bravado. Whatever mask she’s been wearing all day to hide the aftermath of one helluva welcome party to the city and what I’m sure was a pretty jarring experience slides down her face for a second.
“Um, thank you, by the way.” She taps at the aluminum tab of the Coke can I set out for her, along with a bottled water and a peach Perrier, unsure what her drink preferences are. “For coming when I called. Letting me stay here tonight.” She pauses and looks up at me. “For the food.”
“Sure,” I answer softly.
“And, um…thank you for not making things, like, super awkward.”
I feign ignorance with slightly puckered lips and a furrowed brow. “Why would things be awkward?”
A flash of disbelief and amusement swipes across her face. She rolls her eyes and purses her lips together, but it does nothing to hide the smile shouldering its way through the tilt at the corners of her mouth. “Dexter.”
“Lucy,” I mimic.
We stand there in a silent stand-off, our hands resting on our imaginary holsters. “Really?” she finally asks, obviously a rhetorical question. “You know why.”
I can’t help the wide grin creeping up my face. I try to hide it, pulling my lips between my teeth and crossing my arms at the same time I lean my hip against the counter. So she’s choosing to address the elephant in the room.
My thoughts wander a little bit, letting that elephant shine in the spotlight for a moment. They veer toward a direction they really shouldn’t be heading at this exact moment. Like the sounds of her moan when my mouth latched to the curved underside of her breast. Or her light giggle when I wrestled her against my sheets, her body molding to mine as if she were made for me. Or the harsh scrape of her nails digging into the skin on my back and shoulders.
“Oh, are you talking about the last time you saw me when you crept out of here like the Hamburglar in broad daylight?”
Her mouth gapes. “I did not sneak out of here!”
I cock my head to one side. “Really?”
“I-I…It wasn’t like that,” she stutters, and my smile grows. “I just didn’t want to complicate things. I was leaving the next day.”
“Okay,” I say, the single two syllable word sounding more like an appeasement than anything else.
“Can we just be adults and agree to not make this awkward?” she asks, slicing a hand in between us.
I raise my hands, palms facing her in surrender. “ I can,” I tell her. “Can you?”
“Are you implying that I can’t be mature and unbothered about being this…” She waves a hand back and forth between us. “ This ?”
I chuckle. “Not at all.”
Her face shifts into an angry, determined scowl. “Good,” she states, punctuating her word with a sweet, innocent smile, wiping away the animosity with a silent truce. “The food’s getting cold.” She takes the chopsticks with an affirming nod, and we start to eat in silence.
About ten minutes into our meal, when I notice Lucy hogging the pad thai, she breaks the silence. “You know I’ve never had Thai food?”
The noodles wrapped around my chopsticks stop midway to my mouth. “Never?”
She shakes her head.
“How is that possible? ”
“I don’t know,” she says casually, even adding a shrug. “I guess I’ve never really thought to try it?”
“And?”
She eyes me over the lip of the white to-go container in her hand, the thin paperboard blocking how diligently she’s working to shovel as much food into her mouth as she can. She lowers the box, revealing a thin sliver of noodle stuck to the corner of her mouth.
“It’s okay.” She casually places the box down, tapping the counter with her fingernail as she slides it toward me. “Did you want some?”
I roll my lower lip between my teeth, running my tongue over it to suppress the smile I can’t help. “No, I’m good.” I slide the box back to her. “You can have the rest.”
Her face lights up. “Yeah?”
Aw, shucks. That’s the silly little catchphrase that pops into my head. Aw. Shucks. Because her smile, with that small piece of oily noodle still tacked to the end of it, makes me blush while I look at her, all hopeful and sweet and so goddamn adorable. Aw fucking shucks.
She reaches for the box at the same time I grab a napkin. When she sees me inch closer to her, her eyes round. “What?”
I don’t say anything. Instead, my hand slowly moves closer to her while her neck stiffens and her mouth slacks open. With a quick swipe, I clean off the corner of her mouth and smirk.
“Did I have something on my face?” she asks, rubbing the spot I just wiped with the back of her hand.
I nod, looking away from her because I’m getting really, really bad at hiding this stupid grin on my face.
She laughs. “And you let me just stand here, looking all silly with food on my face?”
“Way more fun than telling you,” I say, low and playful .
She rolls her eyes, plucking the Coke can off the counter and veering toward the living room. I follow, taking my freshly opened beer bottle, and settle on the couch next to her. We get comfortable, the equivalent of a dog walking circles before lying down on a cushy spot, and I reach for the remote.
“Did you want to watch something?” I offer.
“Sure. Whatever you want.” She’s not even looking at me. Instead, she’s busy finishing the rest of her meal while she scrapes the wooden chopsticks against the now nearly empty box.
I flip through the channels on my TV, doing a bit of channel surfing before I land on an episode of Supernatural .
“What is this?”
“ Supernatural ?”
Lucy shakes her head when I sit there gesturing toward the screen, where Sam and Dean are caught in a pickle, wrapped in chains and bindings.
“It’s demon hunting. Ghosts and?—”
“Who’s that?” Lucy asks, interrupting my obscurely vague explanation of the show I’ve been watching regularly for a decade.
“That would be Sam,” I answer, eyeing the way her gaze is glued to Sam Winchester’s perfect jawline and wavy hair. “Or Jared Padalecki. He’s the actor, if that’s what you’re asking.”
She nods in approval with her eyes still laser focused on the screen. Okay , so I guess I’m just chopped liver over here.
“We could watch something else…” I point the remote in front of me.
“No, no,” she argues, lifting a hand in my direction. “No, we can watch this.”
“Are you sure? Because?—”
She snatches the remote from my hand and shoves it in between the couch cushions. When Dean’s pretty hazel eyes wink at an unsuspecting woman at a bar, I swear I see Lucy swoon.
“Who knew two fictional brothers with the genetic pool of Adonis is what would get your attention?”
“Huh?” she asks, finally giving me her attention after feeling as if I disappeared from her periphery when she discovered the Winchester brothers.
“Nothing, Lucy. Just enjoy the show.”
The large pink elephant that was in the room, the same one that blew a trumpet-level disturbance filled with our sexual past, has gone silent. As if we threw it a handful of peanuts to keep it occupied while we diverted our attention to ghosts and goblins and all the scary things that go bump in the night.