Chapter 19 Desi
DESI
“What the heck?” I say through a laugh as we pull into the empty lot in Melville—the next town over.
The area has been transformed with a makeshift structure taking up the most of it.
Black Visqueen lines the exterior walls with caution tape as its accent.
A strobe light can be seen at the entrance, as can a person dressed in a clown costume taking tickets of mostly high school-aged kids.
“Reznor?” I ask as he pulls into a parking spot.
“Trust me.”
I don’t even get a chance to respond before he’s out of his truck and circling the hood to open the door for me.
“A haunted house?”
“Just trust me.”
I eye him, finding this completely bizarre, but I’m away from my house and it’s definitely something to distract me from the embarrassment of earlier. “C’mon, Desi Whitman. You know you’re curious about why I took you to a haunted house out of the blue.”
He looks adorable—the playful look in his eye, the off-kilter smile, the hand he has extended to me—and I know I won’t resist him.
“Are you hoping that I get scared and jump into your arms?” I ask as I take his hand and exit the truck. “Because if that’s the case, you’re no better than Jared Ingram, who dared me to go to one in ninth grade so he could try and make out with me.”
“Was he successful?” Reznor asks. The funny thing is, when he pulls his hand from mine as we fall into step next to each other, a part of me sags inside.
The part that is rebelling against my typical policy of no contact, no semblance of dating, nothing romance-y.
..because who likes that gooey shit anyway?
But I sag.
Shit. First flutters. Then swooning. And now sagging.
“Des?”
“Oh. Sorry. I was thinking about sagging.”
“What?” He barks out a laugh and mine isn’t far behind. “Sagging? Do I even want to know?”
“It’s—never mind.” I wave a hand. What else can I do tonight to make a fool of myself? But I am laughing. He’s making me laugh. That’s always a good sign. “Jared Ingram. Man, he tried, but the boy was a terrible kisser.”
“Nothing worse than that,” he says, placing a hand on my lower back as we step into the line to buy tickets.
“It’s the kiss of death,” I joke.
“Good thing you’re here with me. That’s a sign I’m not going to die the fate of poor Jared.” Reznor flashes a killer smile at me and winks before stepping up to the booth to buy our tickets.
The scent of kettle corn fills the air and the chatter of teenagers and their laughter echoes in the air around us. Muted screams of fright can be heard from the depths of the open-doored haunted house. People mill about in groups with caramel apples in hand.
But my attention turns to Reznor. To his easy charm with the woman selling tickets. To the sincerity in his smile. To the strong lines of his profile.
What are you doing here, Des? This looks like a date. It feels like a date.
But I know.
I don’t want to admit it to myself, but the man has my attention in more ways than one.
“What?” he asks when he catches me staring at him.
“I’m curious why we’re here.”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” he says cryptically as the person running the haunted house lets the next group of people enter. “We’re next.”
I take a deep breath and anticipation begins to stir to life in my veins as the group that just entered screams at something inside. I’m not a scaredy-cat by any means, but haunted houses aren’t exactly something I’d choose to go do on my own.
Don’t be a chicken.
The attendant motions for us to step forward and enter as my heart begins to pound in my chest.
“Our turn,” Reznor murmurs. He places a hand on the small of my back to usher me forward, but it does nothing to ease the sudden fear of what waits for us in the pitch-dark beyond the first corner.
“Uh-oh, you go first,” I say as I step behind him and grip his shirt on either side of his torso.
The first room is an eerie graveyard. Tombstones, body parts sticking out of dirt, and a low layer of smoke set the stage for us as my eyes flicker everywhere and anywhere to try and see what or who will jump out at us.
We make it through the room, but the minute we hit the next one full of strobe lights and zombies frozen in place, I know I should have peed before we did this.
As we reach the middle of the room, a zombie—that looks like he is plastic—jumps to life and scares the shit out of us. Then and only then that I get a clue what we are doing here.
Reznor’s screech at the top of his lungs when the character lunges at us is deafening. His body is fraught with tension, and he takes me by total surprise when he pushes me ahead of him and buries his forehead against my shoulder to hide his eyes.
“Walk, Des. Just please fucking walk,” he orders as his hands shake and his body pushes against mine to go faster.
My own adrenaline is charging through me, so I don’t question why he is throwing me into the fire when he’s supposed to be the tough guy.
But with each and every room we enter, his reaction is so extreme I can’t help but laugh at some of them.
Jumping behind me. Screaming at the character to get the fuck away from him.
The grip of his hands on my body. The command in his voice as he tells me what to do.
And just when I think the poor guy is going to have a heart attack, we push into the last room to find that we have successfully made it through the haunted house.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he swears harshly as he all but jogs as far as he can from the exit, hands behind his head, feet moving one way and then the other as he tries to shake off the rush of fear that’s coursing through him.
As I stand to the side and give him the space he needs, I wonder what the point of this whole exercise was. And what it is he’s trying to tell me with it.
He blows out a huge breath and looks back at me—there’s a line of sweat on his brow and his face is pale.
“You okay?” I ask.
“I’ll be fine. In a few minutes.” A pace one way, then the other. “I hate those fucking things.”
This time when he strides toward me, he grabs my hand without asking, forcing me to follow him.
“What—?”
“I’m hungry.”
“Whoa—okay.”
He’s silent as he proceeds to buy what appears to be one of each item from the concession stand, much to the teenage girl’s chagrin who is making googly eyes at him as she waits on him.
It’s not until we’re seated at a picnic table on the far end of the lot, where the light is dim and the crowd is sparse, that he finally looks at me.
“Have you figured it out yet?” he asks as he takes a bite of nachos.
“Yes, but…”
“But what? I’m a big, bad cop who most days deals with monsters for a living, but put me in a haunted house and I scream like a little girl?”
I laugh and take a chip of my own. “Something like that.”
He smiles and then it fades as his eyes grow serious. “We all have fears, Desi. Even the strongest of us have fears. It’s okay to have one—or many. It doesn’t make you weaker...it makes you human.”
His words hit home. The compassion in his voice more so as I open my mouth to respond and then shut it, fearful that the tears burning in my eyes will fall.
“Do you know what it’s like to feel like you’re one hundred percent vulnerable?
To wake up in your own bed and know you are at the complete mercy of someone else?
Then the utter terror of that person leaving and knowing they are still out there, and might possibly still come back?
The jumping at every shadow and being suspicious of every new person you meet who seems overly friendly?
And more than anything, questioning yourself: your judgment, whether you brought this on yourself.
..and how you reacted nowhere near how you thought you would in that situation?
” The words fall out in a rush as thoughts, feelings, doubts I’ve had for weeks finally materialize.
“Feels good to finally say it, doesn’t it?” he asks with his head angled to the side and a finger tracing lightly over the top of my hand.
I avert my eyes, suddenly shy, even though I’m never shy, and allow the smile to slide on my lips. “Yeah, it does.”
The carnival-like atmosphere carries on around us but for the moment, it just feels like it’s him and me—no one else matters.
And there go the flutters again.
Crap.
“It’s normal, you know,” he says.
“Not for me, it isn’t,” I respond, referring to the aftereffects of the prowler and the damn fluttering.
“Let me guess—tough girl, life of the party who loves the limelight and has no problem being the one who makes people at ease, the one everyone depends on when things go to shit.”
I laugh, surprised by how much he has me pegged. “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.”
He falls quiet for a moment but his eyes question and ponder something for a beat. “I thought you were okay with that.”
“God, yes,” I say with a little more enthusiasm than I should. “That sounded bad. I just mean—dogs are more loyal than most men.”
“So instead of the crazy cat lady named Jana who lives in the corner house, you’re the dedicated dog lady who lives in the yellow clapboard.”
“Pretty much.” I laugh. “And perfectly fine with it.”
“You might change your opinion someday,” he says, and I swear to God that look in his eyes right now, the one that’s part amused, part serious—but wholly invested in every single response I give—could very well make me change my answer.
The thought stuns me. Unnerves me. Makes me panic because I don’t think that way.
“So when are you heading back to San Francisco?” I ask the question because I need to remind myself he’ll be gone soon. That I can’t fall prey to the flutters and the swoons because he will be gone soon and that’s...that’s exactly how I like it.
But my mind stutters over those six words. Over my normal response that now doesn’t feel so normal. Because that’s exactly how I’ve liked it.
His eyes hold mine, the flash of surprise at my sudden change of topic there, but I appreciate that he doesn’t call me on it.
He nods his head in silent acceptance. It’s as if he knows the question can’t be avoided.
It’s valid, and truly, he doesn’t have any right to call me out on my fears when he can’t offer me anything. And somehow, that stings.
“Three weeks. Four. It could be sooner unless I find something here that piques my interest enough to want to stay.”
Three weeks. Twenty-one days. Unless something piques his interest. Not someone. So why is he here with me? Why push for something so temporary? Because he’s horny? Because I’m convenient?
Jesus, Des. Aren’t you the first person to push someone away? Aren’t you the one putting the brakes on things with a man? So why does this bug you? Why does his blasé response sting? I feel emotionally exhausted and spent, yet not ready to return home either.
And so we sit in this awkward state where I’m hurt but shouldn’t be and he doesn’t realize it. He takes a sip from his Slurpee and we turn to watch a group of teens to the left, re-enacting their reactions to their experience in the haunted house. “Do you have any family around here?”
I look back at him but he’s still watching the kids. “Nah. My mom lives in Idaho.”
“And your dad?”
“Don’t know.” I shrug. “He left when I was one, and after that my mom always had a boyfriend for a few months on, few months off...and on and on. A constant cycle of someone moving in, getting used to a new person in our house, and then just as we settled down into a routine, they’d break up.
The revolving relationship door isn’t for me. ”
“Who said it has to be that way?”
I twist my lips as I try to put my thoughts to words.
“Right or wrong, I think I conditioned myself to have fun, and when the fun starts to become something more, I shift gears and move on. I’m good with dating.
With enjoying the moment. The future’s going to happen whether I worry about it or not, so why even bother? ”
Reznor’s eyes are intense when he stares into mine.
“Makes sense. I can respect that.” There is no judgment in his tone, and there’s something about him that makes me feel comfortable being me—makes me feel comfortable telling the truth—when most of the time I say what I need to say to play the role society feels I should.
“What about you? Why aren’t you married to Mrs. Stepford?
” I ask. “Don’t think the spotlight you’re shining on me isn’t going to turn toward you and ask the same question. ”
But why am I asking? Do I really want to know his answer or am I just trying to get out from under the microscope that will magnify my hidden cracks and atypical shortcomings?
He takes a sip as his smile falls quiet and his eyes meet mine. “First off, Stepford is far from my type.”
“What is your type then?”
“Long-legged brunettes who love to wear bold colors, smell like wet dogs, and have a wicked kiss.”
I hate that with every word my body reacts more to him. The ache between my thighs. The flutter in my belly. The swooning in my mind.
“That was smooth,” I say to try and distract myself.
“You like that?” He lifts an eyebrow. “I was going to add who likes to groom Pussy, but thought that might be a bit crass.”
I throw my head back and laugh and think of that damn cat and love and hate her all simultaneously for getting us to meet each other.
“Well...it is groomed.”
What are you doing?
“Is that so?” he asks with a slight smile and a darkening of his eyes.
You swore off him.
“Yep.”
One more time can’t hurt that much, can it?
“I think you need to take me home and see for yourself.”
Reznor stands abruptly from the table, hand on my elbow, feet leading the way. “I thought you’d never ask,” he murmurs.