15. Thorn
Chapter fifteen
Thorn
T he surgeon who arrives looks like one of those men who likes to be considered nondescript. He’s middle-aged and well-groomed, with an expensive, clean-cut look. He could easily be mistaken for a businessman if not for the all-black attire.
He came to the bus in black fatigues and a black Henley, similar to something I’d wear in the field and prefer at all other times. He sanitized the area, unpacked his bags, scrubbed his hands in the sink, donned fresh black gloves, and inspected my wound in no time.
He’s applying the stitches now.
Ephemeral is on the other side of the bus. I can see her trying not to wince whenever she looks this way. Right before Jack the surgeon identified himself, stepped onto the bus, I took the single sheet of white paper with the double-sided list of typed names out of my black backpack and handed it to Ephemeral.
“This is not a thing. A good half of these can’t be real.” She whips around but keeps her eyes glued to my face and not my side, where the gore cleanup is taking place. Her lips quiver, and it looks like she blinked at the sky and captured half of it in her eyes. They’re alive, shinier, and sunnier than ever.
“I assure you they’re all legitimate, well-vetted charities.”
She glances back down at the list. “Ants anonymous? Girls and Geezers for Goats? That’s not even politically correct. Who calls a senior citizen a geezer anymore? And girls? How old are we talking? Because women are not girls. The same applies to Babes for Beaks. Luckiest Cluckers? At least that one doesn’t rely on the silliest, inaccurate alliteration. People for the Protection and Prevention of Possible Scabies and Rabies? Granted, that’s important, but what a name. Save the Apples and the Alligators? Or this one. Trees and Teats. You have to be kidding me. How do they even get these registered?”
“Pretty sure I once heard of a company called Camel Towing, so I think most things go,” Jack says, tying off the line of stitches.
“I’m shocked it hasn’t made the list,” Ephemeral responds dryly.
“Because that’s a list of animal and insect charities. I want you to help me decide how we should divide up the money for this year.”
“The hundred thousand?”
Jack tidies his bag up, packing his supplies away, and then he strips off his gloves, bags them in a fresh plastic bag, and tucks them inside. I hope he burns them after. They have my DNA on them. Not that I’m paranoid. Or that he is. He could have just thrown them in the trash can in here.
“That and the million you told me to donate. Less one dollar,” I amend.
Ephemeral’s right eye starts to twitch. And not just little twitches either. “Has anyone ever told you how perfectly and insufferably precise you can be?”
“You mean logical?”
“I mean—”
“That’ll be four thousand and eighteen dollars,” Jack states as he stands up, imposing and tall as a statue. “Cash preferred.”
Ephemeral gasps. I reach into my backpack’s front pocket, take out a handful of bills, and put them on the table. “Thank you so much for the quick response time and the incredible work. It’s very much appreciated.”
He picks up the bills, tucks them into a new plastic bag from his big black bag, zips the money in, straightens himself up even taller, and lets himself out.
“What a strange man,” Ephemeral whispers, pursing her lips. “He didn’t even acknowledge Peach Lips once.”
“Maybe he’s not a cat person,” I suggest.
“He looks more like a dead doctor than a live one.”
“He was a little pale and stern, I’ll give you that.”
“I was talking more about his bedside manner. Tableside. Busside. Whatever. Do private visits always cost that much?” Ephemeral asks.
“It depends on what’s being done. I think that was quite steep, but as I said, his response time was excellent.”
She shivers. “About the list—”
“Would you possibly go on a date with me?”
She clutches the list, her knuckles whitening, her fingers digging little dents into the page. It quivers as she slowly lowers it and looks at me over the top. “Like a day and time where we allocate funding for this?”
“Not at all, although I would like to do that. A real date. Something…fun.”
“You say that word like it’s rotten fish.”
Her face says that word like it’s rotten everything.
“Rotten fish does have a taste and smell like nothing else. Am I really that bad?” I can feel the first telltale creep of anxiety clawing up my throat. I knew the answer would probably be no if I asked, so I told myself I wouldn’t. I just wanted to come and make sure Ephemeral was doing okay. It’s my need to look after everyone that I find so consuming because I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t let her go. The impulsive question came out of the locked-down part of me that fears a double rejection.
“It’s not that you’re bad. You’re not…bad at all.” She puts the list on the counter and stares me down. “Fun could include hobbies you enjoy. Like breaking dishes, throwing axes, shooting targets, uh…tasering—okay, I’m stopping.” She giggles and coughs, the sound bursting out of her. “I’m stopping. It’s not funny. But are there like, bodyguard games or something? Like the Olympics, where you compete in different events.”
“Not that I know of, but maybe I should organize it. Or maybe not. It seems like a horrible idea.”
She nods, twisting her hands in front of her cherry-red dress with bright pink cat faces all over it. Her shoes today are platform again, big and blocky with pink and orange flowers. Her hair is curled, and she has a flowered scarf in the same cheerful print as the shoes. She looks like a seventies poster child today, and my god, my breath arrests for the hundredth time since I saw her again.
“We don’t live in the same city. You’re busy, and I’m just starting out with school. I never wanted to do long distance. The right tools for the job include being in the same place at the same time and having the time to begin with.”
“I understand,” I force out while my throat closes, and my stomach gets sucker punched repeatedly by disappointment. Should I just give up? I want to respect her and not push her, but is getting up and leaving the right thing to do? “I was busy. The height of busy. But I’m taking a break.”
Her eyebrows wriggle when she frowns. It’s one of my favorite things about her. That and the adorable identical dimples when she smiles deeply. As well as about a thousand other things, physical and otherwise.
“For how long?” she reluctantly asks.
“Three months minimum. I want to spend it with my family and the people I care about. I want to look up some old friends. People from my past. You were right. There’s more to all of this than just grappling for the next foothold or trying to merge with companies that don’t want to see the amazing things we’ve done and could do in the future. I have beyond a great team, and I’m not alone in building it. We’re a sort of family, and that matters, but I want more. It was missing. I see that now. I want to learn how to do other things. Like bake cookies. I don’t just want you because you’re beautiful on the outside. I want to know you. I want to know you and understand you. I want to respect you.”
“You can’t do that from across the country,” she mutters.
“I can take a vacation, travel, and come back here often. I like those trailers, the old ones that look like elongated tin cans. I might try my hand at restoring one and making it mirror-shiny again.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
I stand. She, on the other hand, maintains her ground and doesn’t blink. “I hear you. I know you walked away and needed distance, and I want to respect that, but at the same time, I couldn’t not come here. I couldn’t just let you go. I missed you.”
She blinks at that. I don’t know why she looks surprised. Was I that shitty at communicating?
“You…you do realize I’m socially awkward as far as most things go, right?” I continue. “I have terrible anxiety. Despite on and off medications and talking to therapists over the years, it’s stuck with me. I never had it when I was…well, during that part of my life. It only got bad when I got back. Does that sound stupid?”
I’m tough, but maybe I stood up too fast. Maybe it’s the fact that the anxiety is wrapping a tight fist around my lungs, and I feel the need to bend over and put my head between my legs. Whatever it is, my hand flies out to the counter as my head empties out, and the blood rushes elsewhere.
“Oh my god!” she exclaims. I feel soft hands on my chest, and one slides down to my waist. “Sit down! You might not have lost a lot of blood, but you lost some, and don’t think I didn’t notice that tool bag not using numbing spray or giving you a shot before he stitched you up.”
“There’s an unspoken—”
“Bro code about toughness?” she snorts. “Here.” A glass of water gets placed in my hand, and her cool palms cup my cheeks. Her touch is better than heaven. Maybe I should almost get injured more often.
“I could get that trailer, and you could come over. We could bake cookies. You and me and Peach Lips.”
A humming noise happens under her breath. Her hands linger on my face just a few seconds too long, and when she pulls them away, her fingertips brush my jawline. “Bake cookies?”
“I never have before.”
My vision clears enough to see her jaw unhinge, and I look up from there to the slight flush on her cheeks, her freckles standing out on her nose, her eyes darker than they normally are, fixed on me.
“You never baked cookies before?” she gasps.
“I never have,” I repeat.
She straightens, putting space between us. She skims her hands down her dress like they’re damp, which makes the fabric cling to her soft curves. My mind totally doesn’t go straight to taking that dress off of her and caressing her skin with my lips instead, and my cock isn’t in blackout mode. He’s in full punch the front of my pants to shit mode.
“I understand why you broke up that knife fight.” The sudden softness in her voice twists my insides. I told her more that night than I’ve told anyone. With just a few sentences now, I’ve laid myself bare. “You saw yourself in those kids. Boys on the street, getting old long before their time. But will you promise that you won’t be so reckless with your life? If you’re taking a break from security, can you please not put yourself in the line of fire for at least a few months while you heal?”
“I’ll try, but that’s like asking you not to jump into the middle of a rushing river to save a drowning kitten.”
“Dude,” she scoffs. “That’s such a horrifying picture. But you’re right. I’d save that kitten. Or a puppy. Or a snake. Or spider. I’d try to be smart, but there’s no way I wouldn’t jump in.”
A lingering, charged silence fills the space between us. I didn’t open up to her because I thought it could sway her. Not that night and not now. I just wanted to tell her something about me that no one else knew because it felt like I could. Like I needed to. I wanted her to know that I’m more than just a soldier, and now, more than the money I’ve amassed.
She knows. I know she knows.
But I still wanted to tell her.
I’m pretty sure she’s going to shut me down. She steps back, but then she freezes. My stupid hopes get wild, taking up far too much room in my chest and battering each other in there such that my muscles feel painful. And not from the cut on my side.
If only she knew how hard it was to come here, to take a chance, and to battle myself for months before I did it. I guess my family’s rejection of me, even though that’s not what it was, and I know that now, still hurts like a festering wound. It’s me who hasn’t taken care of the infection. Me who let it spread. It’s me who has to fix things. And I want to. I’m going to. The jet is taking me back home tonight.
Home .
Not my home. But isn’t home where family is?
I’m just about to tell Ephemeral that it’s fine. That I shouldn’t have even asked her for this. That we can just discuss the funding distribution and call it a day. She can even email me her recommendations. I’ll get up and thank her for her time and for being someone who got under my skin in exactly the way I needed and who opened my eyes and ears and the other silent parts of me. For being patient and kind, gentle and fiery with me. For seeing me and not caring about my money, for believing that I was never going to taser a freaking child, for introducing me to the world’s best potato cat, and for being so wonderfully herself.
I just need to find my balance.
And my breath.
I down the water and realize I can’t hold the glass so tightly, or I’m going to cause another bloody incident. One a day is more than enough.
Soft fingertips slide over my scarred knuckles. In a bid for survival, how many fights have I engaged in, both before and after it was a profession?
Her feather-light touch clears the darkness from my eyes, from my soul, and from my throat, where it was squeezing too tight for a deep breath. “What kind of cookies would you like to learn how to make, Thorn?”
Joy and disbelief war inside me like sharp talons, wounding and healing me at the same time.
“Chocolate chip? Peanut butter? Shortbread?” she asks, throwing out suggestions.
“Monster, I think. The more stuff in them, the better.”
“When?” she breathes, her voice whisper thin. “If you let me know, I’ll make sure I have the ingredients. And that I make time.”
“I want to spend a week with my family. They know I’m coming. I’ll be staying at a hotel so I don’t impose. And we both need our space. But…after that?”
“Eight days.” She bites down so hard on her lip that the area turns a dark red. Her hand curls around mine, her fingers so much smaller, paler, and far more perfect. Flawless. Soft. The touch of a cat-loving, cat-dress-wearing, brightly colored angel. “Okay, I can make that work. There are seasonal open spots here if you want to get one of those tin can trailer things.” Her fingers continue to my wrist, and she strokes along it lightly, all the sensation she stirs almost an agony. “Thorn?”
“Hmm?” I feel curiously lightheaded again, but this time without the pain or the terrible shortness of breath, without the anxiety, and my heart rate skyrocketing. It’s beating hard, probably too fast, but that’s okay.
“You don’t have to buy a second chance with them. What you did the first time…I’m so sorry. It must have been so hard. They just want you. They’ve always just wanted you.”
It would be easy to argue with that, but now I know how wrong I was. I’ve wasted years on the assumption that I’m missing something vital that other people have in order to be liked and wanted. She’s right. My mom and brothers don’t want money. They want me. They just stopped asking me to be me and to come home because I stopped listening.
Her eyes trace my face and land on my lips. Then, hers part, sucking in a breath. “On an honest scale of one to ten, how bad is that wound hurting you now?”
“Honestly? I haven’t even felt it for the past ten minutes. And right now?” I fix my gaze pointedly on her parted lips. Her pulse thrashes in her neck, and the flush on her cheeks deepens. Her pupils are darker, half blown out. “Right now, what wound?”
She gets closer and closer, and then I’m pulling her into my lap.
She gasps, spreading her legs and balancing herself, taking care not to hurt me. She traces my lips so softly with her fingertip before her lips meet mine. They ghost across, sending up a shower of sparks in their wake. It’s so much hotter because it’s not intense or devouring. I get to feel all of her, and she gets to feel and taste and take all of me, just a fraction at a time. It’s not a tease. It’s the most intimate experience of my life.
“You don’t have to buy a second chance with me either,” she whispers, her breath skating across my mouth. “You never had to buy a first one.”
It hurts like hell to take a chance like this, but I welcome the pain. Ephemeral found herself here. It only took her two months to pick a spot, to make friends like she never had before, and to find out what she wanted to do with her life and make it a reality. I’m pretty sure she even started late. I have no idea how that even works, but if anyone can figure out something like that, it’s this woman. I know she’d tell me that it’s taken her years to get here, not just a few months, and that even now, this is just the start. She’d say she’s not there yet, and I’d say the same thing for myself, but maybe we’re two people who need to give ourselves the hugest break ever.
“Would you like to be my girlfriend, Ephemeral? Because if you give me a chance, I swear I’ll be the most annoying, obtuse, stubborn, make-you-crazy boyfriend that you could ever wish for. I’ll be imperfect and so flawed, probably second-guessing my own self half the time. I’ll need to be shown what love is or even how to do that. But I promise I’ll always keep you safe. I’ll never be unkind to you, and I’ll fight any battle you want me at your side for. I know there’s nothing you can’t do on your own, but if you would like a partner in crime, I’m available. I can give you a resume and everything if you want, outlining everything that would make me good boyfriend material.”
She laughs, rubbing her nose against mine. “Starting with honesty. That’s the most important part. It’s okay to be imperfect. All I’d ever ask is that one day, if it all works out, you adopt Peach Lips as your own child.”
“Done and done. For her, I’d learn to be the best cat dad that ever existed,” I say.
She wriggles against me, and wound or no wound, my blood gets hot, and my dick gets so hard that the head nearly gets bruised against my zipper as it punches it like it’s got real fists and anger issues.
“Do you know how hot that is?”
“I don’t have a clue. Maybe you should show me,” I say lowly.
“But your wound. Seriously, you’re hurt.”
I tangle my hands in her hair and kiss her like it’s been months and like I might never have gotten another chance. Both of which are true. It’s desperate and feral, but I give her all the sweet, hopeful, and brokenly healing parts of me, too, because that’s also true. I kiss her like we’re going to have a future, and it’s going to be a great one. The best one.
It will be.
Even if I never thought of myself as a boyfriend—the word is literally sickening because, seriously, how juvenile—and cat dad material, I’m the material. I’m the right tool for the job. I’m so deliriously happy and hopeful that I don’t feel like me at all. There’s never been a time in my life when I could just be this way. Not when I was a kid, not as a teen, not when I grew into an adult, and not after. Even when I had money to buy it, I didn’t know how to hope. I didn’t know how to be free.
I needed Ephemeral to show me what I was missing. Cats. Wonder. The heart. Her.
“Are you sure?” She scrapes her teeth over my lower lip, and her hands go to my pants.
“Sure as those cookies we’re going to bake. But what about the blinds? What about Peach Lips? We can’t scandalize her.”
“Hold on,” she instructs.
She scrambles up and reaches around me madly to twist the blinds at the window, then rushes across the bus to get the ones over the sink and sidesteps to get the ones at the windows in the front. A few of them have chunks missing from them, along with cracks and broken pieces. I have a pretty good idea of who the blinds wrecker might be.
Peach Lips lounges on her cat post with her legs hanging off, dreaming happy cat dreams. Ephemperal brushes past her to check that the door is locked, and then she pulls a black curtain across. I have to hand it to her. She thought of everything when she constructed this, and holy fuck, the thought of her getting her power tools on and getting handy, doing electrical and mechanical and everything else, gets me so hard that I can barely breathe. My own dick is going to make me pass out. It’s probably a thing. #penisproblems.
Ephemeral rushes back, face flushed and in such a hurry that she nearly trips. She catches herself on my knee and leaps up onto me. I steady her effortlessly, balancing her on my lap.
“How did you do all of this anyway?”
“Sheer determination, desperation, many, many internet tutorials, tool rentals, salvaged materials, thrifted things, and other great social accounts of people who have forged the way.”
“Do you know how incredible that is?”
She blinks. “I guess I do, but it’s been a while. I kind of just get used to it being here now. When it was happening, I did amaze myself daily, though. It’s remarkable what you can do when you need a home, and you don’t have one. I was sleeping on the bus, constructing it, and living out of it all at the same time. It was messy, but no more so than when people do renovations.” She presses her fingers to my lips. “I don’t want to talk about the bus right now. I want to tell you that I’ve missed you. A crazy amount. I want to taste you and kiss you and touch you. I want to take your cock out and worship it and ride you until you explode.”
I make a jumbled-up, horrible sound, but she grins at me before she kisses me.
She gets it. She always has.
Right from the start.
Even when I didn’t understand myself.