The room.
I hadn’t really had a chance to look around. Now that it seemed I had some time on my hands, I took in all of the small details that I had missed before. I started by picking up the things that had crashed to the floor with the direct hit of her heel.
A picture of the two of us that had been taken back home had fallen upright. Violet had taken it. I placed it back on the dresser. A black iron basket—a letter still sat in its stomach, ready to be mailed to Maggie Beautiful. I picked up two more beside it and placed them one on top of the other.
A black bottle of cologne that somehow didn’t break—mine.
I glared at the bathroom door, steam puffing out from underneath it, before dropping the bottle, leaving it to the floor.
What else?
Makeup, hairbrush, five more pictures—Violet and Scarlett, Peter and Violet, Mick and Violet with the boys, Maggie Beautiful and Scarlett, Elliott and Scarlett. A few more pictures, black and whites, of the different places she had been around the city.
A vintage-looking camera, which had also survived the attack, still hung from the mirror. Her camera, the one she took all of her pictures with.
The music box I had given to her for Christmas before she left took pride and place on the mantle. She hadn’t bothered with anything else. I cranked the dial and music began to play as the scene came to life.
Her bedside table held a framed picture of me, only my profile in view. Maggie Beautiful had taken it. It faced the side she slept on.
Nothing else of note—no,wait, boxes, a few open in the corner. Men’s shoes, shirts made for a man, a man’s watch,a nice watch, souvenirs of this and that, not too many of those though. A black leather box filled with lingerie and other things along those same lines. I held up two red roses, their undersides sticky with glue. Nipple covers.
Who the fuck had lied to me? I made damn sure that all of the information had been correct. I knew where she lived, who she lived with, what she did, where she went, what she ate for lunch. No other man in her life since she moved to Paris. If so, I would’ve left boot camp, swam up from the bowels of the Bering Sea to find out who.
When did this French prick show up? Did he stay here?How often?
Grabbing a pillow from the top of the bed and a thin blanket from the bottom, I staggered to the futon. Indigestion. Chest pain. The fucking flu too. I kicked my shoes off and tried to get as comfortable as possible.
The room settled in, the fireplace hissing and crackling every so often. After hours or what could’ve been minutes, a slight squeak came from the door leading to the bathroom. Her bare feet padded against the wooden floors, barely making a sound. She walked so soundlessly that it almost seemed like the antique wood was just relaxing in an old house after bedtime.
I felt her hovering over me. Then the pillow was yanked from beneath my head and the blanket ripped off.
She held her face high, her nose pointed in the air, as she slipped into bed, using the pillow for her own. I turned over on my side, fully facing her. She huffed andpfft!a few times, flipping and flopping. She took a different pillow and the same blanket and threw them at me.
Stale cologne assaulted my nose when it hit me in the face. I threw the pillow back with an audibleplop!Suddenly, any subtle noise seemed too loud.
After countless minutes of her restlessness, she finally settled in and our eyes met across the room. So many different emotions played on her face. The tender light of the fire illuminated them. My face told a similar story.
“Why are you here, Brando?” she whispered.
“You hung up on me.” My jaw clenched. Maybe a stomach virus. “I needed to see you. I needed to talk to you.”
She trembled when she sighed. “Go ahead.” Her voice floated in the room, as quiet as the natural sounds that surrounded us. “Tell me. Then go.”
The nausea had grown worse.
“Not tonight, woman.”I’m fucking dying.
I held her stare until she drifted first. Not long after, I fell into a deep sleep, the sickness deep inside bringing more nightmares.
Chapter Ten
Brando
Morning came without delay. The hours felt short but also unbelievably long. I set my feet on the chilled floor, leaning over my legs, rubbing my face, giving myself some time to catch up.
She was gone. She had left not long after sunrise, decked out in dancing gear, headed to practice. Before she left, though, she had stirred me awake without wanting to.
I had blinked at her, trying to bring the real her into focus—I had been dealing with dream-her on and off throughout the night—but she was so close that the situation felt like a fantasy. Her lips were on mine, a tingle of a kiss before she moved away.
