Colt
I drive the last three-inch screw into the side gable, the drill vibrating against my palm. Satisfied that it’s firmly in place, I lay the drill aside and take hold of the bookshelf, raising the eight-foot-tall beast and then sliding it until it’s flat against the wall.
The bookshelf boasts character-grade white oak that shows off its knots and mineral streaks and, more importantly, will handle the high traffic Alice is hoping for.
I grab the glass of iced tea she left me and take a few steps toward the open window, feeling a slight breeze rolling in off the river.
My mind wanders to the conversation Alice and I had about Travis.
She explained that they dated briefly in high school, and then something happened, and she distanced herself.
She didn’t seem traumatized, more like embarrassed, so I hadn’t pressed.
Still, my eyes travel down the sidewalk and up the street out of habit, searching for anything that might come between Alice and her goal.
In her parents’ old office, Alice moves quickly and efficiently.
She’s got a steamer in one hand and a putty knife in the other, fighting a layer of wallpaper that has more willpower to hold the line than kudzu.
Today, she’s wearing denim cut-off shorts, a white tank top, and pink sneakers, and I’m losing my ever-loving mind over how sexy she looks.
Finding Alice Sinclair attractive was never supposed to happen, and I’m still trying to pretend it’s a figment of my imagination—me wanting her like this.
When one tank top strap slips halfway down her shoulder, I tell myself to get back to work. But I don’t. I fixate on that damn spot, where errant fabric kisses skin. I picture pushing it back up with my thumb and putting my mouth there instead, against her shoulder. And then her neck.
Alice climbs a step stool to reach higher up the wall, and my eyes trace the backs of her firm, tanned thighs. I can almost see the underside of her ass at this angle, and that’s my cue to turn the fuck around.
I spin away and force myself to breathe, trying to suppress the impulse to run my hands up those legs.
To scoop her off the step stool and draw her against my chest. The record player we drug downstairs is playing an old country song I recognize but don’t remember the name of.
Lifting the tea once more, I glance back in her direction.
The air moving through the window brushes through Alice’s hair, and I swear I can smell her shampoo carrying on the wind.
It’s been nearly two weeks since we got the permits. Two weeks of me being in the same house as her, occupying the same space, and in that time I’ve decided something—
There are three Alices I’ve known.
There’s the one I basically lived with when we were younger.
The kid who toiled to earn her parents’ approval, then sought escape into her beloved books.
She was funny then, and she loved her brother fiercely even though he teased her the way brothers do.
The way Warren did me before he left. My last memory of young Alice is when we stood on her parents’ front porch.
My eyes cast sideways to the window as I recall the moment.
It was right there. She was fourteen, and I was nineteen.
She was just a kid to me, and I’d felt like an adult for several years by then, though I know now that’s not the way it should’ve been.
When I said goodbye, a duffel bag slung over my shoulder, she’d cried. Had begged me not to go, and I’m not sure she realizes how much that destroyed me. Because Alice had felt akin to a kid sister. And I’d have leveled anyone who looked at her the wrong way.
The second Alice arrived during my deployments, when I learned how to shove my anger into my gut and harness it against a common enemy.
In the military, I met people like me. People whose childhoods had been as fucked up as mine.
And we found our opportunity to pay the world back for the injustices we felt we’d endured.
But inflicting violence and being encouraged to hate fellow human beings was not the remedy I needed.
It sharpened my depression, made it cut deeper.
And the Alice I knew then—the Alice during my military days—was the only real hero I encountered, because sure as hell, she rescued me.
Her letters became my lifeline, even when I lost the will to respond.
Each time one arrived, often when I needed it most, I’d imagine her on the other side of the paper, writing it, tongue pressed into her cheek like she did while reading.
And in my mind, she’d be the exact same age as when I left her on that porch.
I think my brain purposely concocted that vision—kept her fourteen.
Because had I allowed myself to picture her at seventeen, and then nineteen, and then twenty and twenty-two, I might have felt something stronger than affection.
And that couldn’t happen, because she was young.
And she was brimming with possibility. And she was the daughter of two people kind enough to take me in and my best friend’s little sister.
So even when she sent those letters, and my attachment to her grew, she was Alice. Untouchable.
Now, she is something different. She is bright ideas and confident smiles. And she is also thighs and hips and breasts and hair I want to touch so badly it makes my hands clench. She is the woman who stayed when everyone else left.
After I enlisted, Grant sent emails and postcards for a while, but life pulled him away.
He had a football scholarship to maintain and then a family business to run, and I sure as hell understand that.
Alice’s parents too—I love them, despite their flaws, because they made room for me.
They sent messages and care packages, especially on my birthday.
But life came for them as well, and I’m certain I became a fond memory as Grant’s football career, and later their business expansion, took center stage.
And that’s okay. It makes sense. Responsibilities directly in front of us tend to dwarf those that aren’t within eyesight.
But Alice.
She remained. Every month, every year, her letters arrived.
Never email. Always blue ink, white paper, her careful penmanship, and my name on the envelope.
It’s this last Alice, the Alice of today, that I find myself thinking of the moment I open my eyes in the morning.
It’s that Alice I see right before I fall asleep.
I want her. I fucking want her so badly that I physically ache when she’s around.
But that ache’s got nothing on the agony I feel when she’s not around.
When I lie in my hotel bed at the end of every night, itching to return to her.
To hear her laughter and see her smiling face just one more time before I fall asleep.
My god, how I’ve tried to push these thoughts aside. But they are unshakable.
Alice climbs down the stairs and turns, wiping her forehead. My face burns when she meets my gaze, like she can somehow intuit what I’m thinking. Her eyes widen when she sees what looms behind me.
“Oh, my god,” she gasps. “Is that the first one? It’s up?
!” Alice rushes over and throws her arms around the bookshelf, pressing her cheek to the wood.
“They’re better than I ever imagined.” She turns her head and kisses the shelf, and I never anticipated being envious of a shelf, but here we are.
“You’re a genius!” she cries and throws her arms around me.
I pull her closer, fingertips pressing into her shoulder blades. When my cock swells from the proximity, I step backward, clearing my throat. “Want me to grab those books from the attic?”
She does a little dance across the hardwoods and I find myself laughing, because I adore this playful side of her. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
The attic is a furnace and smells like mothballs, but I ascend into it anyway.
One by one, I open boxes to find those housing Alice’s childhood books.
She’s decided to offer a small secondhand section and to kick off that area with her own personal library.
I open the final box to ensure it’s filled with books, and when I discover that it is, I dig through out of curiosity.
My hand stills on one book in particular, and I lift it, brushing off the cover. I recognize this book, but can’t explain why. Turning it over, I see that it’s a library book. When I flip it back, the pieces fall into place and my face splits into a grin.
I toss the book back in, grab the box, and head down. When I get back to the old living room, Alice is clearing a space on the floor. I set the box down with a thud and withdraw the library book. “Care to explain this?” I wiggle the book with a grin.
Alice’s mouth drops open, then snaps shut as a rosy color blooms in her cheeks. “Where’d you find that?”
“Uh, in the box.” I step closer, a scolding note in my voice. “This is a book from my high school library, Ms. Sinclair. I checked this out for you when I was a senior. And you said you turned it into your librarian who, if memory serves, said they’d get it back to the high school.”
Alice presses her lips together and looks toward the ceiling as if searching for something.
“Hey, eyes on me, Sinclair.” She looks at me, fighting laughter.
I am thoroughly enjoying making her squirm.
“Did you know I had to stay after school on a Friday and help the librarian to repay her for the missing book? And she was a terrifying woman, Alice. Truly terrifying.” I squint, leveling her with an admonishing look.
“Did you lie to me when you said you turned it in?”
Alice spins around and resumes gazing toward the ceiling. “Do you think we should paint up here?”
“Ali.”
She points upward. “We could even wallpaper it. Some people do that.”
“Alice Sinclair.”
“Of course, I did just spend two hours peeling old wallpaper.”