Chapter 9 Salt And Butter
SALT AND BUTTER
“What the fuck is wrong with you? You really have no fucking idea how to be a decent human being, do you?”
“Mmm… I love the way you say fuck.”
“You… What!?”
Randall stared at me with the devil in his eyes. His tongue flickering across his lower lip.
“It’s just so hot.”
“Randall!”
“Say it again. Please.”
“Don’t you dare, you fucki…” I quickly corrected myself, a beat too late, “You ass!”
“Those filthy words just roll off your tongue like temptation itself,” he smirked, just as a timer went off in the kitchen and Randall hopped up to attend to it.
This session was going badly. Randy was pulling out his playboy antics, and I was getting flustered by it. I needed to get him back in check before it got out of hand, but I also knew that I was secretly enjoying the attention from him.
“Randy, did you do your homework?” I asked as he came back, realizing those words had a seductive feel to them. Was it the words, or was it me?
He sat down and seemed more composed.
“Okay. So Lucy,” His blue eyes settled on me. “I want to know more about you. Tell me something, like have you ever broken any bones?”
“Hmm, I went skiing once. Broke my collarbone.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. Except, I didn’t break it skiing. I slipped on the ice outside a grocery store before I even got to the slopes.”
Randy chuckled.
“How about you?”
“Never.”
“Wait. You’re a professional athlete in a violent sport, that’s literally played on ice while standing on two tiny sideways blades, and you haven’t broken anything, I don’t believe it!”
“Wild, isn’t it? I might just be a medical marvel with an entirely unbreakable body.”
“Wow. I really did not expect to be having dinner with the future of evolution tonight,” I joked. “Also, this beef is amazing. How do you do it?”
“Ah, so now you’re asking for my deepest secrets.”
“You know, the best secrets want to be shared.”
“Well, this is a good one. I slow-cook the meat at a super low temperature first, then the trick is to put it in the freezer while it’s still warm. The surface freezes, but the center stays warm. Then when you sear it, you get that perfect crust while not overcooking the inside.”
“That’s kind of genius.”
“Also, there’s more salt and butter in there than is probably legal. That’s a cheap trick, but it works.”
I watched his casual, cool demeanor and couldn’t help but wonder more about him.
“Randy, how can you be so sure all the time?”
He sighed and looked at me.
“You really wanna know, Lucy?”
“Uh-huh,” I nodded, secretly enjoying hearing my name from his lips.
“Most of the time, it’s just, sort of… An act.”
“Go on…”
His face was serious now. No sparkle of mischief, no jokes waiting on the end of his tongue. Now, there was a weight on him that seemed to hold him down, making his head heavy and lowered to the floor.
“Y’know, things weren’t all that easy growing up, Lucy.”
A pained expression came across his face.
“I guess I was around twelve when we lived next to this single mom and her two kids. Those brothers were older, not to mention big, violent, and mean. I was terrified of them. But still, I’d get babysat by their mom a few times a week.
“Now, my dad. He lost his job and was at home a lot. Mostly drinking. Not like for breakfast or anything, but I guess life just hadn’t really worked out how he’d expected it to. Living in a decrepit house on the edge of town, the bills piling up and no way to pay them.
“My mom was a saint, she really was. She’d get back from work, and it was like all the dark clouds went away and sunshine itself had walked in the front door. But when she wasn’t there, it was like that house was rotting inside, and my father was there rotting away with it.
“It didn’t take long before those mean butch thugs of brothers were coming round to ours to play video games and bully the crap out of me while my mom was at work.
And my dad? Well, before long, he was over in the house next door.
I didn’t know or really understand what was happening.
I just knew in my guts that something wasn’t right about it all. ”
He sighed heavily and sadly. “Eventually, he got sloppy and got caught by my mom coming home from a double shift at the diner.”
“With the woman next door?”
Randy nodded ruefully.
“So, my mom threw him out. Hearing the two people who were supposed to be there to protect you giving each other hell was difficult for me to handle. And then, it got even worse.”
“Please tell me he didn’t move in next door?”
“Yeah. He fucking did. For a short while at least, until they all moved across town. Then it was just me and my mom. She was struggling to hold it all together, even with three jobs. Over the years, I just watched her… Fade.”
Randy looked heartbroken, and it made me well up a little inside as he recalled this time from his past.
“I’d still have to go and see my Dad a few times a month, when my mom couldn’t keep up. And those two monsters were meaner than they’d ever been after that. I guess they took it out on me, that my Dad was with their mum.”
“So, I didn’t handle any of it very well. By then, I was an angry, lost teenager from a broken home with no parents around and a new family with two monstrous brothers who didn’t want me there.
“My mom tried her best, but I started acting out more and more, and getting in trouble. I’m not proud of it, but I was a complete asshole.
Randy looked up at me, waiting to see if I was going to say he was still an asshole, but I kept quiet and just gave him a sympathetic look.
“Eventually, I got picked up for ‘borrowing’ a car at fourteen. Hell, I don’t even know why I did it.
I was just hanging out around a 7-Eleven when a guy hopped out of his truck and left the keys in.
I suppose I thought it would make me cool or give me some cred or something.
Next thing I know, I’m in a police cell in Jersey and I’ve got nothing to do but take a long, hard look at myself.
And honestly, Lucy, I did not like what I saw.
“The awful thing is, that happened for me again a second time, when I saw that footage from Love Villa.”
“So what happened? With the car, I mean.”
“Fortunately for me, the guy didn’t want to press any charges. I think he probably didn’t want the cops sniffing around and taking a closer look at him. Like I said, it wasn’t the best part of the city. Everyone was up to something they didn’t want folk or the cops looking at.
“When I got out of there, I knew I had to change, and I just closed the door on that kid. I put on a uniform, like it was my superhero disguise, and that Randy didn’t let anyone push him around. He was a character I made up that could deal with all the shit going on, when I really couldn’t.
“And that’s who? Randy Jackson, the hockey player?”
“Nope, that’s not Randy. When I’m playing hockey, I’m at peace. When I step out on the ice, in my head I think of myself as The King. And The King is invincible, Lucy. He’s the best. All he cares about is the game. Everything else disappears.
He flashed a look at me, “The only other time I feel like that guy is in the bedroom.”
I felt my cheeks redden just at the idea.
“So who’s the real you then, Randy?”
“The real Randy is the one who gets hives when he has to meet people, who can’t look a girl in the eye, who stutters and folds under the slightest bit of pressure.
Who feels sorry for himself and heartbroken all the time when he thinks of his mom and what he put her through.
I can’t be him, or I don’t think I could make it.
Seeing him this open and vulnerable was probably a shock to us both. His goofy expression now had color and emotion. It was real, he was real, and it wasn’t what I’d expected.
“So the Randy we all see isn’t you. The way you talk, the things you do. You’re doing what’s expected of you, playing up to what they all think you are.
“I suppose so, yeah.”
“I know you have a heart in there, you’ve just hidden it away where no one can get at it. It’s like there’s this asshole stood in the way, so no one can really get a good look at you. But Randy, I want to see you.”
He looked back at me, unsure.
“Seriously, Lucy, I don’t know how people do it. How do you make yourself that… That fucking vulnerable!? Without it all coming crashing down. The way I grew up, you show any inch of weakness and they come for you.”
“I get it. But you’re not that scared little boy anymore. You can say what you feel. It’s one thing putting on a show, but you have to be a real person when you’re not pretending to be all this.”
“Half the time I don’t know what I feel.” He took a long, sad breath and looked at me in earnest. “I mean, right now? Hungry. Horny. Maybe it’s love?”
“Hah! Randy, I don’t think you even know what that means.”
This strange jerk of a man. He was suddenly right there. Not a cartoonish caricature of a person, but an actual person. With emotions that bubbled and rippled with the pain of existence.
“You know,” he smiled. “This is odd for me. To have a normal conversation with someone. To be me. You have no idea how long it’s been since I didn’t have to put on this face. And you don’t pretend either, you just call me out on all the bullshit.”
“Oh yeah, I’m a real cold bitch,” I joked back.
“Sometimes all I really want is a hug and to hear it’s okay.”
“That’s what we all want, Randy. Someone we can show every doubt, every flaw, every mistake, knowing they won’t try and use it to destroy us. But that takes trust. And trusting you… Well, you’re not safe.”
“But you are.”
“I’m not your savior, Randy.”
“Why not?”
“Because… Because you’re, well, you.”
“Got it. An unloveable jackass that you’d probably fuck, but not love.”
I tried to ignore the fucking part. Could he possibly know about those thoughts I’d had about him?
“Well, look. You don’t get to just say the words and it’s all done. You have to show what those words really mean. Especially you. You’ve got money, fame, girls desperate to be close to you. How can you trust someone like that? The moment it gets hard…”
He snickered, and I rolled my eyes.
“…The moment it gets hard, you can just move on to the next thing that entertains you.”
He shook his head, “You’re wrong. I know hard. I never backed down.”
I swallowed down a gulp in my throat. All this vulnerable chat had made me want to move on to something more playful. As if him opening up had made him cross an imaginary line and step into my world.
I watched his thick fingers touching each other, and wondered what it was that I wanted from him. Then the words fell off my tongue before I could stop them.
“So, I’ve met Randy Jackson the asshole. I’ve heard about Randall, the terrified little boy. The only one I haven’t come across yet is The King.”
Randy raised his head, and a grin shimmered across his face.
“Allow me to introduce you.”
“That sounds like a bad idea…” I let the words linger in their uncertainty, and Randy didn’t hesitate to pounce on it.
“You know,” He leaned back with a rediscovered air of confidence brimming around him, “I could make you come without even touching you.”
“Hah! You are full of it.”
I was about to laugh, until I saw his face. His stare fixed on me with perfect certainty.
Fuck. He was serious.
There was absolutely no doubt in his expression that he couldn’t do exactly as he said.
“And how, exactly, would you do that?”
“It’s more of a show than tell, Lucy.”
Our eyes were looking more fiercely at each other now. Decisions being calculated, assessed, and made. Decisions or, perhaps, mistakes. But what did I really have to lose?
In that moment, what I really wanted to lose was myself under the spell of someone who knew what they were doing. And Randy, despite his whole thing, unashamedly did.
I found myself nodding slowly, and he smiled coolly in return. The mistake being made. Placing his drink down on the table, Randy moved effortlessly and slowly, without hesitation, easing himself out of his chair and walking over to me.
As he came closer, he casually reached out and picked up a piece of fruit from the bowl on the table between us. Then, when he stood in front of me, he held out his hand and I felt a heady quiver of excitement.
“Come with me.”