Prologue #4
“I can’t take any more rejection today. I have to go anyway, and something about the way you’re looking at me right now makes me think that if you didn’t like my voice, I might never recover. Besides, there’s people in this bar.”
“I already like your voice,” he said. “Let’s go outside. Ain’t nobody out there. It’s too cold.”
“Yeah, right. You could abduct me out there and no one would be the wiser.”
He chuckled. “Okay, how ’bout this? I’ll give the bartender my keys, my coat, and my phone.
I will be unable to abduct you then, and I’ll walk you to your car.
You gotta go. I need to get goin’ too. My dad’s waitin’ on me.
But you can sing outside, and then I’ll shut your door for you and you can be on your way.
But after everything we’ve just talked about, there’s no way I’m lettin’ you leave without hearin’ you sing. ”
Manny took his keys when Van handed them over, and he stuffed Van’s jacket and phone beneath the bar, and then Van fixed his hat back on his head as he held the door for me, and I walked out into the frigid winter night.
Was I really doing this? Singing for a complete stranger in a parking lot?
Stars hung in every corner of the dark sky, twinkling with mischief over the Teton Mountains in the distance, and snow had begun to fall lazily again. There was an inch of it already on my windshield.
Van didn’t say a word as he walked beside me to my car. I had no clue how he knew which vehicle belonged to me, but he did. Maybe because it was the only non-truck parked outside Manny’s?
I opened my door silently, reached in to start the engine, and then leaned over the console to grab the ice scraper in the back seat.
Van took it from my hand and made quick work of clearing my windows of the snow that had fallen while we’d talked.
When he was done, he came to stand next to me, and I turned to face him.
“I’m ready,” he said quietly, handing me back my scraper as he focused his hypnotizing eyes squarely on mine. “Sing me to sleep, Eli. Wipe this shitty Christmas off my mind.”
I clutched the scraper in both hands tightly, and the bedtime lullaby “All the Pretty Little Horses” popped into my head.
I used to sing it with Mama when we’d driven up to my grandparents’ mountain cabin.
The song settled itself inside me, like a foundation I could build my future on.
I planted my feet in that foundation, took a deep breath, and began to sing a children’s song to this strange, beautiful man.
How had I ended up here? But the moment felt right.
It felt perfect, and the second he heard me, Van’s whole expression changed. Sadness filled his every pore, but his mouth curved up into the smallest hint of a smile.
I sang: Hush-a-bye, don't you cry
Go to sleep you little baby
When you wake, you will have cake
And all the pretty little horses
A tear escaped Van’s eye, and it rolled down his cheek to disappear into the scruff where a beard would be in a few days.
He stepped closer to me carefully, and I backed up a step, but I wanted to throw my arms around him and hold on for dear life. I’d never felt so compulsively connected to another human being, but I’d also never felt so vulnerable.
I’d never needed to touch someone more in my life.
Gently, he took the scraper from my hand and tossed it in my open door, then whispered, “I remember you.” He said it so softly that I thought he might not have wanted me to hear. But then in his deep voice, he said, “You go follow that dream, Eli. You sing like an angel.”
He took one step closer, and then he leaned down and touched his warm lips to mine, and I pretty much lost my mind.
He closed his eyes, and I threw my arms around his neck and clung to him, to the permission he’d just given me, and silently, I vowed to do just what he’d said.
Somehow, this man, this hopeless stranger believed in me, and if Van believed in me, I would believe in me too.
The kiss was epic, all slow tenderness and wet. He tasted and teased me with his mouth, but then he tilted his head and moaned, and I climbed him like the trees I’d imagined him chopping not an hour ago.
Wrapping my legs around his hips, I glued my body to his, and he tipped his hat back with a finger.
His hand wound its way into my hair, and he gripped the back of my neck as our tongues met.
An electrical charge zapped me then, and it traveled to the back recesses of my mind and turned the heat up between us to one hundred on a ten-point scale.
Scenes of mountain meadows and roasted marshmallows swirled around my head, and I whimpered into his mouth. I could almost taste the sugary stickiness on his tongue.
He took charge. The rhythm of his kiss intoxicated me, his tongue stroking mine, going deeper with every pass, making my heart race, and soon his body followed. He pressed me against the side of my car and pushed his erection between my legs.
I gasped and felt it when his lips lifted into a smug smile.
Heat rushed to my core and… then it was over.
He pulled back and looked at me as I detangled myself from his body.
My coat squeaked and squelched from the fabric soaking up the cold condensation on my car as he lowered me to my feet.
I opened my eyes, and he leaned closer again to kiss me softly.
He’d been fixated all night on the dimple in the middle of my chin, and now he removed his hat, held it in one hand, and peppered a kiss there as he swept my hair over my shoulder with his other.
“Best kiss of my life,” he breathed, fixing his hat back on his head and lowering it over his eyes. “Go now, before I really do abduct you.”
He adjusted his hard-on beneath his jeans, and I slid into my car. Slowly, I backed away from him, laughing at myself as I realized our kiss was much more tawdry than the couple’s I’d seen earlier.
I lifted my hand to wave goodbye. I didn’t want to leave him, but I had to. Tomorrow was the first day of the rest of my life. I couldn’t risk losing my nerve. And right now? After that kiss?
I’d never felt stronger.
I had no idea what my next move would be, but if I never again laid eyes on Van, I’d just have to take him with me wherever I went. He’d already given me something I hadn’t even known I’d needed: a new identity. A new name.
Van’s belief in me had created Eli Winter.
This cold, wintery Christmas Eve would now go down in my memory as the best of my life, and I was already building my new future in my head.
So I’d take Van’s kisses, his smile, and the sparkle in his eyes with me. But I’d also take his sadness. Maybe then he could let it go.
Maybe then we both could.