Chapter 13 Lavender
Marge closed the window in the spare bedroom at the far end of the house. “There. So you don’t get any flies in here, buggin’ ya while you sleep!” she said sweetly.
“This is so nice, you letting me stay here. Thank you. I’m so sorry I showed up unannounced and empty handed—”
“Nonsense! I’m just glad you found us! Now you get some shut-eye, you must be exhausted from all that travelling today. We will see you in the mornin’!”
“Thank you, Marge. Hey, breakfast is on me tomorrow, OK?”
“Ha! Honey, you are our guest! We never have guests! Goodnight!”
Nicki smiled as Marge shut the door.
Well, you’re about to get six more of them likely by T-minus tomorrow!
The room was tiny and quiet. The small bed had white lace bedding and fluffy pillows with frills on the sides. With the window closed, the silence was buzzing.
Nicki took a deep breath and thought about Tyler back home, probably worried sick.
The regret of leaving her phone behind continued to nudge at her.
“Tyler, baby, I’ll call you tomorrow. I just need to convince your stubborn brother to come home,” she whispered to the window.
Nicki uncovered the blankets and crawled under the down-filled comforter.
The darkness of the room and the light lavender aroma of the country aired-out bedding offered a nice respite as she rested her head on the pillow.
The scent of lavender reminded her of the oil she used on Tyler’s healing thigh.
She smiled. The stars flickered brightly through the window. One last exhale before she drifted off—
“Aaaaahhh!” Nicki screamed at the top of her lungs and jumped out of bed.
Tommy barged into the room in his white T-shirt and boxer shorts.
“What?! What is it?” he exclaimed, turning the light on.
“There’s something in the bed! I felt something!” Nicki screamed, clutching the comforter up at her neck, in the far corner of the room.
Tommy rushed over to the bed and flipped off the pillows, then burst into roaring laughter.
“What?! What is it? Is it a rat?” Nicki yelled, annoyed.
Tommy laughed even harder.
“It’s a lavender stick!” he exclaimed, holding up a really pretty hand-woven shape, braided together with dried lavender.
“It’s a what?!”
Tommy peeked his head out to the hallway. “Everything is fine! Nicki thought your lavender stick was a rat!” he shouted, to faint laughs from Ron and Marge at the far end of the hall.
“Relax, honey, look, it’s a lavender stick. Marge makes them. It’s dried lavender twigs sewn together. You put them under your pillow for it to smell nice and help you sleep.”
“Oh my God!” Nicki said, shaking it off. “Jeez!”
“Haha, you’re funny. Come here.”
Tommy approached Nicki and pulled her into a bear hug, with the clenched comforter in between them.
He directed her back onto the bed and turned the light off on the way.
Nicki climbed back in, this time laughing at herself.
Tommy wasted no time and crawled in with her.
“Uh, excuse me, what do you think you’re doing?” Nicki pressed.
“Protecting you from the lavender!” he replied, now fully under the covers and inching closer to her against the wall.
“Tommy, don’t even joke, get out of here! Thanks for saving my life from the lavender. Now go!” she instructed, pushing him away.
Tommy laughed, not moving an inch.
He commanded the tone of the room, like his brother always does. He kept still and waited until Nicki’s pushing hands gave up.
She conceded.
They faced each other, pillow to pillow and the silence crept in louder.
Tommy could smell the fresh mint toothpaste breath coming from Nicki, two inches away.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” Tommy whispered, tracing her face with his eyes in the dark.
“I can’t believe you’re here in my bed! Like a bed intruder!” she punted back.
They both giggled, like children away at summer camp. Tommy’s arm migrated over top of the comforter, and rested on Nicki’s side. His arm was heavy. Like Tyler’s.
She was just about to shove it off but instead she thought she just might be able to use this opportunity to get through to him.
“Tommy, we need you back home. Tyler needs you.”
“Do you need me?”
“Of course I do. We all do. It’s so empty without you. The guys miss you. But Tyler… he misses you so much he won’t even admit it. I know it. I feel it,” she said.
Nicki’s hand caressed the side of Tommy’s face. He closed his eyes while she did it.
Tommy took her hand and rolled away, onto his back. He placed her hand gently on his chest and covered it with his own. He looked up at the ceiling.
She felt his heart beating steadily.
“Nick, everything is so fucked up.”
“Tell me… why do you think that?”
Tommy shook his head, his thumb caressing Nicki’s hand back and forth.
“Everything. I love my brother more than anyone, Nick, more than myself. He’s the reason why I’m alive and why my life is as good as it is.
We have more money than we can count. We run the entire northwest. Well, not anymore,” he scoffed.
“And, he deserves it all. He deserves to be King, and to have you…”
“What is it, Tommy? What is it that you want that you don’t have?” Nicki asked gently.
“It’s not only what I don’t have, it’s what I can’t have.”
Tommy turned his head away from Nicki.
“What was it about that night?” she asked in a whisper.
He looked back at her perplexed. “That night in the Bahamas? With you and me?”
“Yeah! I mean, we had a lot of fun, but I don’t know that it was any more fun than you typically have with other girls where your activities are much more, uh, specific,” she attempted with a tease.
Tommy looked at her intently in the star filled night sky as their only source of light.
“You saw who I was.”
Nicki’s heart broke a little. She inched closer to Tommy and gave him a soft peck on the cheek.
“Honey, you’re going to meet an incredible girl who will see exactly who you are, and loves you just for that.
It’s not going to be Tracey or Stacey, or Bianca, or any other interchangeable girl who’s name you can’t remember.
It’s going to be someone who you can’t believe loves you, it’s that great.
Someone you would die for, and who would die for you.
Someone who sees your scars and your heart and does a deep dive into your soul and swims in it.
Wants to drown in it. Wants to burn inside of your fire.
And you will know exactly who that is when you meet her.
But I gotta tell ya, between the horse and the broken fence, it is slim pickins’ out here! ”
Tommy smiled and tickled Nicki’s stomach until she laughed her cotton-candy laugh.
“Why can’t it be you?” he asked, his smile fading again.
“Because all those things I just described; the drowning in the other person’s soul and the burning in their fire? I have that with Tyler and he has it with me. And nothing in this world could ever come between that.”
Tommy nodded looking up at the ceiling again.
“Yeah, but… he’s not here… and you ran away to find me. So, if you think about it, being out here, alone, we can pretty much do whatever—”
“Don’t even finish that sentence!” Nicki interrupted.
She pulled her hand away and used all her might to push and kick him off the bed.
Tommy fell onto the floor, right below the bed with a hard thud.
“Ow!” he exclaimed.
Nicki slid her way down on top of him, her face hovering over his, one inch away.
He was too stunned to speak.
She placed her hand over his neck, and squeezed ever so gently.
“Let us get one thing straight. I may have run away to find you. And here I am...”
Her hand began migrating down over his chest slowly.
“But if you think for a single second that you will be so selfish as to take advantage of the fact that your brother is not here, because you have a little crush on his girlfriend, then let me tell you something…”
“Nicki, I just—”
“Shhh!” Nicki hushed, with her finger over her mouth, still an inch away from his face.
He swallowed slowly.
She continued her hand’s journey south again, slowly over top of his sculpted chest and down to his chiselled abs. The pulse at the base of his neck raced.
“Listen closely…” Nicki whispered, this time getting even closer, and leaning into his ear.
Tommy’s neck prickled from the sensation.
“You may be a big, bad wolf. And your brother is most certainly a lion. But…”
Nicki rested her hand just at his boxer waist band and switched to lean into his other ear, flipping her long hair to the other side.
Tommy listened with every fibre in his body.
“Neither of you brothers know what I am…”
Just as she slithered the last word, her hand pinched the skin above his hip and twisted it sharply, making him blurt out a painful wail.
“Uuuuugh!” Tommy cried out. He got up off the floor and went straight for the door.
“You’re a ball buster! That’s what you are!” Tommy whined.
Nicki laughed, getting back into the bed, satisfied.
“Now I hope you find a rat in your bed, a big one!” Tommy shouted before he stormed out, back to his bedroom.
As he stomped angrily down the hall, a smile reemerged across his mouth.