“I’m takin’ a self-defense class.Well, it’s not really a class.Do you remember Manny Perez?”
“Uh, yeah.You mean the guy who dragged me by my hair to the sheriff’s station when I snuck into his bar and he caught me stealin’ from the cash register?”
“Yep.That’s the guy,” I said, regretting that I’d reminded Dixon of something he probably wanted to forget.
But he laughed.“Yeah, I remember Manny.”
“He’s gonna teach me how to protect myself.”
Dixon’s stance changed.He stood straighter, and I watched as his muscles bunched and tightened beneath his threadbare T-shirt.“Why do you need to protect yourself?”
But I wasn’t about to dump my problems on him.He had enough of his own to contend with.
I waved away his concern, flapping my hand in the air between us.“Oh, no reason.It’s just somethin’ I’ve always thought about learnin’.You know, just in case.”
He relaxed, his fists loosening the grip on the imaginary balls they’d just been squeezing, and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed his sunglasses, now in pieces.
The daydream I’d had earlier floated to the surface of my thoughts, the one in which Dixon became my rescuer like I was a fair maiden held captive in a baroque tower.I shook my head, trying to wipe the daydream away.
To Dixon, I probably represented safety and good memories because I’d taken care of him when we were young, but he’d never felt the same way I’d felt about him.He’d never lain in bed at night, picturing our imaginary love story.He’d never looked at my body and thought that if he touched me once, he might combust and become a wild inferno of desire.
And God as my witness, that was ten times worse now.Just looking at him made my heart quicken, and my tongue peeked out between my lips to lick them like Fancy with a bowl of tuna in her sights.
The little boy I used to know was still in there somewhere.And the young man who didn’t know who he was, where he belonged, he lived inside Dixon too, but now, a grown-ass man stood in front of me.It was clearhewas the one leading the horse, and he wasfine.His old, used-up clothes didn’t bother me, nor did his unkempt hair, the scuffs on his boots, or the wear showing on his face.
What I saw when I looked at him now was the strength he’d fought tooth and nail for and a knowing ease, because maybe he finally did know where he wanted to belong, but there was no pretension because he still didn’t think he deserved to belong anywhere.
He was an island, and I was an idiot for thinking so, but in my view, his island was a sexy, humid hideaway in the tropics, with aqua waters and the greens of the leaves in the trees so bright and vibrant, they left me blinded and breathless.Rare flowers bloomed in deep, rogue reds and punchy purples.The air sweltered, the sun baked, andeverythingwas hot.
But there was no way in hell I was going to clue him into the fact that I’d spent the entirety of our teenage years and most of my adult ones imagining him in my bed.
“Well anyway,” I said awkwardly, “I better get goin’.Manny’s expectin’ me.See you around?”
“I expect you will,” he replied, and he smiled.He lifted the sunglasses to pop them on again, but he noticed that he’d broken off the arm, so he shoved them in his pocket instead.“See you later, AJ.”
I waved as I walked away, and when I passed his sister still talking on her phone, she nodded at me and covered the speaker with her hand.“Still have me on speed dial?”she asked.
Looking over my shoulder, I wanted to make sure Dixon was too far away to hear us.He was, but I nodded silently anyway.
“Good,” she whispered, but she looked the picture of the town protector, especially with her gun holstered to her thigh, when she said, “Call any time.”
I thought about Dixon and his sister the rest of the way to Manny’s.I wondered if Abey had gone into law enforcement because of Dixon.I wondered if she had known how sad her brother had been when we were kids, so sad that he had to make up stories about himself to get through each day because reality was so horrible for him that lies were the only way he could cope.
ChapterEight
Dixon
“You should write a book.”
How absurd was that?
Me, a fucked-up, recovering heroin, alcohol, and pain pill addict.An asshole who’d abandoned his son and his family.Who’d lied and stolen and cheated.Who had spent more nights locked in a jail cell than he wanted to admit.
Write a book?
I was no writer.I was a misfit, a ne’er do well, like my old man used to say.
I’d watched people die.I’d caused three people’s deaths.Four if you counted that son of a bitch, Noah Lee, who I hoped died as a direct result of the anguish he felt about how he’d treated me.I wasn’t sure if it had any effect on the prick ’cause I was high as a kite outside his hospital room when he took his last breath.I couldn’t have told you my name that day for all the shit coursing through my veins.
