A Year of You (8 page)

Couches and chairs formed cozy little private areas, all populated by couples making out or groups of friends having a good time. Waitresses circulated with trays full of drink orders.

West surveyed the wide open space, eyes narrowed as he looked into dark corners from a distance.

“There,” Mattie said, pointing. “By the wall.”

West took the lead, slowing down as he realized Emeline wasn’t alone. Mattie’s heart thumped in her chest. To the right, there was a guy next to Emeline, kissing her so deeply that he seemed to be vacuuming out her esophagus.

His hand was up her dress. Way up her dress.
The guy on her left was making out with her neck, one hand busy on her teeny-tiny breasts.
“God, West.” Mattie put her hand on his arm. He glared at her with enough fire in his eyes to scorch her skin. He jerked away from her and marched toward the trio.
“Might not be her,” he grunted.


“Yeah. Maybe not. Those fluorescent green dresses are pretty popular right now.”
The look he shot back at her killed all her fun. He really was hurting!
“West!” She caught his arm and stopped his onward march. “Listen, she’s not worth it. I told you. She’s only interested in whatever she can do to pleasure herself. West, come on, let’s get out of here.”

West turned broken-hearted eyes on her and nodded. All the anger was gone, leaving him deflated. Mattie took his hand and led him back down the stairs and through the crush of people, out into the night air. He walked a few feet before sitting down on a bench. He rubbed his face with his hands. For a second he looked so much older than his twenty-five years. “West?”

“Just leave me alone for a minute, Mattie, okay?”


“Okay. I’m here if you need me.”


“I’m good.”


“Yeah, I’m not sure if I believe that. Let’s at least go back to the Navigator. You don’t want her to see you out here like this.”
To her surprise he got up and followed her up to the Navigator. He climbed into the backseat and stretched out, arms over his eyes. Mattie stuck the keys in the ignition and turned the radio on, figuring music would help soothe him.

“I don’t know anymore,” he grumbled.


“’bout what?”


“Emeline. Me. Us. To be totally honest, I see everything about her that you keep bringing up.”

“Why do you put up with it? If she loves you, then she’ll change. Screw that crap about not changing for a man.”


“Would you change for a man?”


“What’s to change?” Mattie laughed. “I’m the girl any guy would love to have.”                                      “Really.”


“Really.”

“Give her the choice, West. You or...them. Although if you don’t respond to that little show in there, something’s wrong with you.”


“I don’t know what to do about it.”


“Um, idiot. You tell her you saw her, you saw exactly what was going on, and you’re done with her. She’ll either change or...not.”


“I hate ultimatums.”


Mattie had been sitting sideways in the passenger seat, looking back at him. She whipped all the way around, barely clinging to the seat with her buttocks. “You’re stupid, West! She’s in there letting guys crawl all over her. She’s going to expect you to go home with her and finish up where they left off. That is, if there’s something they didn’t do to her tonight! Come on, man, you’re better than that.”

“Don’t lecture me.”

“You are so freakin’ frustrating. You are worse than some abused woman crawling back to her husband. She’s using you, West.”

“I don’t wanna hear it, Mattie.”

“Fine. Just for the love of all that’s holy don’t sleep with her tonight. I will lose all my respect for you.”

West sat halfway up. “I don’t care if you respect me or not. You’re just some interloper in our lives.”

“Fuck you then. Screw your life up. She’s doesn’t care one bit about you. You don’t have anything to offer her.”

“Fuck you.”

“You’re the one that’s getting fucked, and not in the good way. You’ll see.” Mattie shoved herself back into the seat and turned the radio up even louder. After a second of trying to figure out the lyrics to the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s “Snow,” a thought struck her. She twisted around in the seat again. “Hey, West?”

“Fuck you,” he replied in a bored, singsong. “Don’t you know what that means?”


“Why don’t you tell me, West?”


He sat up on his elbows. “Someone needs to bend you over something and fuck you until you cry.”

Mattie raised her eyebrows. “Wow. That actually sounds pretty good, West. You volunteering?”

He groaned and flopped back down on the seat, his arm over his eyes. System Of A Down came on the radio. Mattie scanned through until she found Josh Groban singing something she couldn’t quite identify.

“Please, for the love of all that’s holy, turn it.”


“Nope. Josh is one yummy piece of man-meat.”


“Come on.”


“Bet he’d bend me over something and...” Mattie laughed at the half-disgusted sneer on his face.

“Turn it, now.”

“Nope.”

West moved forward, but Mattie wiggled in front of the radio and grabbed the dash. West tried to pull her away, but she hung on, laughing and shrieking when he resorted to tickling her. When she couldn’t take anymore, she let go and fell against him. He whooped in triumph, pulled her into the backseat, and hit the first preset on the radio, returning the radio to the rock station.

Mattie crawled up into the seat. It was still warm from his body. “Ouch. You scratched me,” she complained, rubbing her side. “Good thing I like it rough.”

West settled back into the bench seat close to her. “What were you going to say while ago?”

She turned sideways in the seat. “I was just thinking. She’s so much younger than you. There’s no way you are both on the same wavelength. Do you really love her, or have you sort of talked yourself into it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, when I was a kid, somebody told me I needed to have a favorite Looney Tunes character. I didn’t really like any of them, but I felt pressured and picked Tweety Bird. He’s an annoying little crap. But I kept telling myself that I liked him. Part of me played that part, but another part of me wanted to puke every time I wore a Tweety Bird shirt or something.”


“Em’s been part of my life since I was six. She’s your little sister. When Elaine disappeared, I swore I wasn’t going to ever let anything happen to her.”


“So you sort of made it your job to watch out for her?”


“Yeah.”


“I bet,” Mattie said thoughtfully, knowing she’d figured him out. “When she started dating and all, you couldn’t really watch out for her like you felt like you had to, you started to tell yourself you were in love with her. You know all the stuff she does. You see it, and you still can’t bring yourself to let her go, because you’re scared you’re going to fail.”

He frowned at her, but she saw the uncertainty in his eyes. “You know, maybe, but—that just sounds crazy.”

“True though. It makes sense.”


“Honey, nothing you say makes sense.”


“Bite me.” She paused dramatically. “Really. I like that.” She winked at him, laughing at the flush of his cheeks.

“Seriously, though, you can start to let go of her. I’m back. I’m not leaving. You can replace your damaged emotions and regain your identity as Brant West, rather than Emeline’s boy-toy.”

“Shut up with the psychobabble. You’re making my head hurt.”


“Anger is an entirely acceptable way to deal with this issue.”


“You don’t make any sense.”


“Sure I do. Getting mad will give you courage to do the things you know you should do but can’t do unless you’re so totally pissed you can’t see straight.” She paused. “Or drunk. Getting drunk will help, too.”

“Yeah, then I won’t feel it when she jams her five-inch-stiletto up my ass. I got your point, Mattie. Can we talk about something else, please?”

Mattie leaned her head on the back of the seat, gazing at West. “I don’t see how she can do it, West.”

“What?”

“Hurt you like she does. Why doesn’t she see the things that I see in you? I mean, me and you are just friends and you seem like a really great guy.”

West blushed again and shrugged self-consciously. “She’s used to me, I guess. Nothing’s new anymore.”

“How is she in bed?” Mattie asked.
West barked a hard, sharp laugh.

“Well, she’s...”


“A tiger? Some sort of cat?”


“No...”


“An antelope?”


“What?” West laughed. “An antelope?”


“I was going to say anteater, but they got that tongue thing going on.”


“You really have issues.”


“So I’ve been told.”
Mattie propped her arm up on the back of the seat and stared out the tinted window at the rows and rows of cars. “West?”

“Yeah?”

“What happened, the night Elaine disappeared?”
West raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Why do you want to know about that?”


“Because I don’t know anything about it. I don’t remember a thing.”


He slouched down in the seat a little, using the lever on the side to tilt it back a few degrees. “My mother and Karen used to be friends. Sort of, anyway. My mom worked for her. Me and Elaine were best friends. The McKendricks lived pretty close to my family, and your dad owned the land. We played together all day, every day. One day Elaine came over and said her parents and Justine were fighting about stuff, but I had no clue what that was, then. I finally figured out it meant money.”


“What else?” He spoke about Elaine as if Mattie weren’t pretending to be the long-lost child.
That’s a good thing. He can’t ever say you said you were Elaine. It’ll be one thing you didn’t lie about, at least!

“She was really upset about it. I remember it broke my heart, and all I wanted to do was make her feel better. I felt so helpless. There wasn’t anything I could do to make her feel better. I finally just hugged her until she stopped crying. I promised her I would take care of her forever. Even if they stopped loving her, I never would.”

Mattie squashed down a little bubble of nausea. This guy was bearing his heart to her, and her entire existence was a lie. West was too good of a guy to hurt like this. Mattie cast about frantically for a way out of this lie that wouldn’t break his heart.

I’m stuck
. She silently prayed for forgiveness for any pain she’d inflict on West.
I hate you, K. One day, I’m going to make you sorry you ever messed with me.

West mimicked her pose, elbow on the back of the seat, hand threaded through his hair. He was so close that their knees touched. “That night, I heard something outside. I could have sworn it was McKendrick, carrying Elaine. Her hair was hanging down, and I was pretty sure I saw the nightgown she loved so much. It had lots of bright red lace at the hem. My mom got it at a yard sale. It was so ugly.” He smiled at the memory, a sad smile that tore at Mattie’s heart.

Oh, God, West. I don’t want to hurt you. It’s been a week, and I’m half in love with you.

“I know whoever I saw had to be McKendrick. Besides my dad, there weren’t any other men around. He walked off into the yard, past the pond, and I lost him in the shadows.”

“What’s out past the pond?”

“Bunch of old dead orange trees. Part of a grove that a freeze killed years ago. The next morning Elaine was gone. Part of me died right then. I might have just been six, but you were my life. I told everybody what I saw, but they all said I was dreaming. Ruth Ellen believed me and paid me a dollar every day to look for Elaine. She never could accept that Elaine was just gone.”

Mattie filed the information away in her head. The dead orange grove past the pond. The landmarks meant nothing to her, but she’d find out what they were eventually. Ruth Ellen’s mystery would be solved, and Mattie would have enough money to satisfy K, and give herself a new start.

***

West watched Matte surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye. She stared down at her hand, her brow narrowed, thinking about something pretty serious. Just to be mean, he knocked her elbow off the back of the seat, catching her unawares. Her head and neck flopped downward, and she yelped in surprise.

“You jerk!” She smacked at his thigh. “Why’d you do that?”


“Bored.”
Like lightning, her hand shot forward and twisted his nipple painfully. He let out his own yelp and clutched at his chest.

“How would you like it if I did that to you?” he griped, scowling.

“Well, honestly?”


“No—never mind.”
He rubbed at his sore nipple. “That really hurt.”

“Yeah, well, it’s supposed to.”

West wondered how much longer Em would be in the club. He’d tried texting her, but he didn’t get a response to any of the messages. Well, he could use this time to talk to Mattie, try to get her to slip up in her story.

Maybe get a little closer to her.
He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since the day before, when her hot wet body was pressed up against his in the pool, writhing while he tickled her. When their eyes had met, it had been a bolt of lightening to his gut.
This is the connection I want with someone
.

“So how are you able to just give everything up in Atlanta and move down here?”


She shrugged. “I’m not really attached to anything up there.”
The way her hand moved to her chest, where she used to wear that pink crystal pacifier necklace, proved her a liar.


“What about your parents?”


“I was raised by a woman that used to work for the McKendricks. We never really had a bond. She dumped me as soon as she could. Last I heard, she’d died in a car accident.”

“What do you mean?”
From the expression on her face, Mattie realized she’d told him too much. West latched on tothat.

“Tell me, Mattie. What do you mean?”
She wouldn’t look at him.

“Nothing.”


“Uh huh. Talk. Did they know? Did whoever it was kidnap up?” His mind tried to wrap around it. Could it be possible that she was Elaine? If Ruth Ellen or James McKendrick were behind the child’s disappearance, it would be a revelation that would change lives. Suppose one of them had sent the kid away with a servant.

Why, though?
Money, obviously, but what were the specific reasons behind it?
Suddenly it changed everything. The Navigator seemed to swirl around him as he absorbed the idea that Elaine might not be dead.
The woman next to him, the woman that looked hauntingly like Ruth Ellen, might be his lost Elaine.