17. Ryker
17
RYKER
T here are many things one could say about Sienna de la Vega. Her wrinkle of friends would probably call her a firecracker. And they would be correct… if they were referring to the illegal kind you buy from the shady guy selling them out of the trunk of his car in an abandoned parking lot behind a junkyard. There’s definitely a constant risk of getting burned when being in her proximity. Maybe that’s what makes it so thrilling. That, and the fact that any fireworks pale in comparison to her.
I look over at Sienna sitting in the seat next to mine. Her head is bouncing around, her eyes are closed, and there’s a little drool running down the side of her mouth. The view makes me smile.
Must be the alcohol.
Carefully, I maneuver her body onto the empty seat between us. Once she’s down, she adjusts herself in her sleep and places her head on my lap.
A second later, I am rock hard, and consequently somewhat filled with guilt. It’s not really my fault. There’s nothing I can do about it, it’s involuntary, unavoidable. My right arm is hovering in the air above hers, and I’m not sure what to do with it. Placing it on her side seems wrong for some reason, and I don’t want to wake her up. So I just let it float there.
After what feels like a small eternity (and a very thorough workout), the car finally comes to a stop and the partition slides down a little. Miles peeks through the gap. When he sees the two of us, his eyes grin. “We’re here,” he whispers.
I nod.
“You been sitting like this the entire time, boss?” his tiny eyes ask quietly. “Didn’t know you were this adorable.”
I try to wiggle my arm a little and am happy when my hand manages to flip my driver off.
He laughs quietly and closes the partition again.
Carefully, I slide out from underneath the drooling princess on top of me. I open the door, take her into my arms, and carry her inside. At the reception, I find the same guy I met earlier, Paul. Except now he is hunched over his desk and for a moment, I’m worried he might be dead. His steady snore lets me know that isn’t the case. I consider kicking him a little to wake him up when I see a list of names taped to the desk. Sienna’s name is written next to the number 113. That must be her apartment number. I do a little crab-walk to enter the elevator, then take us to the first floor. When we get there, I crab-walk us out of the elevator, take a left turn and, in doing so, inadvertently smash her head against the wall.
Shit.
She wails a little, balls up like a hurt little kitten in my arms, and rubs her head. Then she opens her eyes and looks up at me with a questioning expression on her face.
“What the fuck?” she mouths.
“Sorry about that.” I carefully let her to her feet. “I guess we’re lucky there’s not much in there that could break.”
Sienna looks around, obviously wondering how she got here.
“You fell asleep because you can’t hold your liquor, so I was carrying you home.”
She hiccups and yawns at the same time, then straightens her dress. “Thanks for that… and for not taking advantage of, or killing me, I guess.”
“Oh, I took advantage,” I say and follow her to her door. “I took advantage of you not talking to me the entire ride here. It was great, all that peace and quiet.”
She grins a little and lets her forehead smack against the front door. “Bumping my head over there was the murder attempt then?”
I observe as she pulls her dress up and rummages through her nether regions. She almost looks like a drunk guy trying to take a leak in an alley. A second later, she pulls a jingling set of keys from the kangaroo pocket of her hoodie, but instead of opening the door, she drops them to the ground and groans.
I think I like drunk Sienna. She hasn’t hurled an insult at me once in the last hour. Unless her last comment was supposed to be an insult. I can’t even tell anymore. Then again, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find her actual insults riveting as well.
I bend down, put her arm over my shoulder, unlock the door, and help her inside. Sienna plunges down on her bed and I get a chance to take in our surroundings. The apartment is small and full of crap. The first thing I notice is the abundance of useless decoration: pillows, plants, more pillows, blankets, and trinkets all around. It looks like a unicorn threw up in here.
“Alright,” I say, unsure of what to do next. “Do you need anything before I go?”
“Well,” Sienna sighs and spins around on the bed, “I guess not.” The dress is now covering her head. An arm and a leg are hanging off the mattress. “Wait, yes. Maybe you can help me take this off?”
“Right.” I walk the two steps back to the bed, grab the extended leg and arm, and, without hesitation, flip her back over onto her belly.
She makes a wheeee - sound like a kid on a roller coaster, followed by a little retching.
“See, told you that you’d make me puke,” she says. “It just took a while.”
I stifle a laugh and stare down at her ass. It’s being hugged tightly by her yoga pants and I don’t think I have ever seen anything more slappable. It’s round, and plump, and annoyingly perfect.
It takes all my willpower and then some for me to ignore it. But I have to. I really, really have to. Quickly, I bend down to unzip her dress, then reach my arms around her, and, careful not to actually make her puke, lift her to her feet. Sienna steps out of the dress and walks into her bathroom.
Before she closes the door, she turns around. “He—” another hiccup cuts the y off. “Hey, would it be weird if I asked you to stay and read a bedtime story to me?”
I stare back at her. By now, the beer is getting to my head too, and it takes me a moment to process her question. I nod decidedly. “Definitely. That would be very weird.”
“Right,” she says curtly and closes the door.
I remain standing among the cacophony of colors in her room and listen to her brush her teeth. It’s like I’m glued to the ground. She’s humming along to some imaginary tune that sounds a lot like a song by Rick Astley. Then the door opens back up, and she lets out a scream when she sees me standing in the middle of her room still.
“You didn’t leave.”
“I said it would be weird, not that I wouldn’t do it. Plus, I didn’t think you could hear the bedtime story through the door.”
Sienna smiles and lets out an undecipherable sound before taking off her hoodie and jumping into bed. Her sports bra is tight, but there’s still some significant bouncing that makes it hard to have a clear thought. From across the room, Gordon Ramsey is giving me the side-eye.
I turn towards the door and consider my actions for a moment. Gordon is probably right. I should probably go. Today was one big bust. I didn’t take care of my obligations. I didn’t use the opportunity to exact revenge on the person who almost made me miss my best friend’s wedding, and got me locked up. And I still didn’t really do anything about the ‘Commando Catastrophe’ as one newspaper started calling it if I can believe Bruce’s texts. On the contrary, I spent half the day having fun like some useless moron. And maybe that’s the worst part.
I did have fun. More fun than I’ve had in a while.
I close the door, take off my shoes, and walk over to Sienna’s bed. She’s tucked under her blanket. Her fingers are holding onto it, framing her little button nose and smiling eyes. Above, with slight delay, her curls follow every movement her head makes.
“Which book do you want me to read?” I ask as I sit down on the edge of the bed, looking over at the stack of books next to me.
Sienna shrugs, making her hair bop a little. “Reader’s choice.”
So I just grab the book on top of the stack, open the first page, clear my throat and begin to read: “Once upon a time —to be more precise twenty-one and two years ago— there was a… well, princess would be kind of a stretch to be honest.” I move the book into the light of the little lamp on the nightstand. The text is handwritten. Sienna’s peeking eyes have grown to twice their normal size.
“Yeah, maybe not that one.” She pulls the blanket over her head.
“Wait, did you write this?”
“Maybe,” her muffled voice replies, followed by a long yawn. “Olivia told me to do it as some sort of mental exercise. Something about working through the past and what not. I’m not a writer like her, I don’t intend to publish it. It’s just some thoughts and such. They don’t even make sense half the time, so feel free to pick another book.”
“Reader’s choice,” I grunt and continue reading. “…princess would be kind of a stretch to be honest. She didn’t have a castle, or a crown, not even a horse. And from this day on, she wouldn’t even have her parents anymore.
This fateful day started like any other day. Our little (barely a) princess got up, ate breakfast, kissed her mom goodbye, and headed out to school where she would train in the ancient arts of computer games, candy eating and trampoline jumping all day long.” I look over to Sienna and nod approvingly, which she acknowledges with another head bop.
Then I continue, “Watching over the school grounds from up high (or at least as high as a little kid could jump on a trampoline), she couldn’t see what the future was holding for her that day, and she didn’t know yet that this story would not be another fairytale about a princess. It was the beginning of a much different story. Some might argue it was the beginning of a villain origin story, some might say it was the start of a pretty cool vigilante story, but all could agree that it was a hella depressing tale. I mean a kids’ parents are about to die. That’s not the kind of story where they play the ‘Ceeee-le-brate good times’ song in the background.” I swallow and flip to the next page. Sienna has turned her back towards me by now, one arm is pulling the blanket up to her chin, the other keeps the pillow underneath her in place. I wonder if I should stop reading. I don’t know if I am crossing boundaries here that shouldn’t be crossed. Then again, it’s not like we didn’t already barrel through all imaginable boundaries the moment we met. Plus, she didn’t really try to stop me, so I guess it’s fine? “The little (not a) princess had always been a fairly good little girl. In fact, she wasn’t even that interested in being a princess. Would she have wanted to own a crown? Absolutely, but she would have sold it to give the money to her parents (after wearing it and bossing them around for a day, of course) so that they could have bought themselves a castle, or at least a little palace (assuming those are cheaper to come by). A haunted one would have sufficed , she thought. It would have been more fun anyway , she secretly added. And a horse? They seemed like a lot of work, and the little girl wouldn’t want anyone to sit on her back all the time either, so she didn’t even want to own a horse. She did think it would be nice for someone to offer her a horse at least, but only so she could explain that horses are not meant to be fenced in all their lives. Because that’s who the little girl was: a little insufferable, but kind at heart.” I look up from the book once more and over to Sienna, who is now giving off the same noises Paul down in the lobby did earlier. It would appear her own story bored her so much she fell asleep within minutes. Or maybe she was just that tired. It is fairly late by now and she had been yawning for quite a while. I close the book, consider taking it home, and then put it back on the pile. Reading it felt a little shady; stealing it would definitely be wrong.
Careful not to wake her, I get up, turn off the lamp, and circle the bed. She is fast asleep indeed; her mouth opens slightly on every exhale. Her complexion shines golden in the dim moonlight that creeps through the window. Looking at her like this, she appears delicate, almost vulnerable. I guess it’s hard to keep your guard up when you’re drunk and asleep.
I lean down and swipe a lock of hair off her eyebrow. Her steady breathing continues, although her nose wiggles around for a moment as if she is about to sneeze in my face, which is when I notice that I am much closer to her than I intended. I pull back, stand up, and straighten my shoulders. This is the problem with Sienna de la Vega. She may look like an angel, her vivacious nature might make you feel more alive than you have ever felt, and her rude comments might make you laugh (on the inside somewhere deep within) but it’s all just to hide the one thing, the real Sienna, the deceitful one, the one that can never be trusted. Given the chance, it would only be a matter of time until she’d stab me in the back. Just like Mira did.
On my way out, I take a deep breath and inhale her scent one last time. Then I put my shoes back on, discover a polaroid of Sienna and her cat, let it disappear into my pocket, quietly close the door behind me and really consider seeing that therapist. There are a lot of uncomfortable (and hard) things we would probably need to discuss.
When I exit the elevator, Paul is still fast asleep. Gently, I shake him awake, explain to him that it’s late, answer his inquiry about what year it is, and accompany him to his own apartment. By the time we make it there, he seems alert enough to get himself to bed. I stay for a little to make sure he’s actually alright and then leave for home myself.
On the way, I try really hard not to get haunted by the image of sleepy Sienna with that delicate curvature of her lips, or by the way she was lying there, calm, almost serene, and vulnerable.
I give myself a little slap. I need neither a nightmare nor a wet dream, both of which are distinct possibilities tonight.