Ballistic (30 page)

My little sleep talker was very handsy. She had to be attached to me at all times when she sleeps. But when she’s awake, she’s reluctant to hold hands or, god forbid, hug. The way she loses touch with reality but can zero in on work or me, blows my mind. The only time that glassy look was completely gone, was when I was inside of her. As much as I’d like to be inside of her all the time, I had to find a way to switch her focus. Moving slightly, I tested my theory by loosening her grip on me. Sliding away from her, she sat straight up and reached out for me with closed eyes.

“I’m right here, pienko,” I
said, soothing her. “Go back to sleep.”

“Okay,” she
mumbled, digging her nails to keep me close to her. “Just stay.”

“I’m not leaving,” I reassure
d her. “I promise.”

Snuggling in even closer
, she kissed my chest, which was a first, and it wrecks me that she did it.

“Truth
,” she said, letting sleep take her again and never once letting go.

The internet is an amazing place. For a woman who is a loner due to circumstance, she also craves touch as most humans do. My touch specifically calms her, which pleases me to no end. While she works, I need something to do. Firing up my tablet, I research everything I can find on the benefits of touching. The results are astounding, to say the least. Every night she’s been here, she has to cuddle or she can’t sleep well without it. When we cuddle, her nightmares don’t wake her and I’ve also come to find out that I was craving the closeness as much as she was. Together we found a way to put each other at ease, even in sleep. I memorized an article that I thought was both brilliant and profound. It said:
cuddling will literally put a woman into a peaceful state of mind. It can even reduce the stress and strengthen the heart.
The second I read it, I know it is true. I knew what cuddling did for her, and this solidified it.

When the door
opens and she walks in looking exhausted and horny, I decide that tonight is all about connection by my touch. Touching her as much as possible is my goal. Showing her through touch how much she means to me, that she can trust me, always. She pulls her shirt over her head, reaches behind and releases her bra and crawls in next to me wearing nothing but panties. “Is whatever you’re reading making you smarter?” she asks, trying to hide a yawn.

“Actually, it was.”

Running her fingers over my chest, then throwing a leg over me she says, “Tell me about it.”

“I’d rather show you
,” I tell her, setting the tablet down and rolling her onto her side. The second my fingers trace the outline of heaven’s gate on her back, she breaks out into goosebumps and sighs. “Relax for me, piękno,” I instruct her and slowly she does. I trace her neck, shoulders, back and sides, all the while I can see and feel her start to relax. It’s fucking beautiful and empowering.

“That wasn’t porn was it? I’m not getting you naked tonight
, am I?” she asks, arching when I trace my fingers over her ass.

“No piękno,” I whisper
. “Not tonight.”

“You have so many names for me,” she mumbles into the pillow
. “I feel like I need to be more creative.”

Squeezing her ass in my hands, I speak into her ear
. “No one calls me Anthony anymore except you and I like that you do. When I’m buried deep, I get off on being called coach because you’re fucking excellent at taking commands. Either one of those works for me.”

“Hey
, coach?”

“Yes piękno,” I say
, rubbing her scalp.

“We need to start bagging it up,” she says
, quietly. “We don’t want this ending with the,
is the kid mine
argument.”

Reaching around to rest both of her tits in my hands, I pull her back while I move forward making us one
. “No fucking chance,” I tell her firmly. “If we make a child together that is to be celebrated, not scorned. So no, I’m not bagging it up, ever.”

I expect her to tense up
, but she doesn’t. I expect her to argue, but she doesn’t do that either. Instead, she gets quiet and looks up at me with complete terror. “What if he ends up like me?”

“I’d be the proudest fucking father you’ve ever seen.”

“Truth,” she whispers to herself.

“I won’t lie to you, Lina.”

“Do you have any idea how terrifying that is to me?” she asks, tickling my arm. “My whole life I waited and hoped to meet someone that could convince me. Now I have and I’m afraid of it.”

“You were waiting for me,” I tell her
. “Have I convinced you yet?”

Yawning again
, she cuddles in deeper. “Yeah,” she whispers. “You did.”

“Don’t ever be afraid of me,” I tell her
. “Of this, of us. This right here is the only truth you need.”

She reaches over
, grabbing my left hand, opens it up and kisses my palm, “Okay, coach.”

I want to say the words. Grab a needle and brand it into my skin as a tribute and reminder. Hell, I want the world to know, anyone
who would listen. When I lean over to check on her, she’s asleep with her mouth wide open, totally relaxed. Tomorrow, I promise myself. When she wakes up, I’ll tell her tomorrow.

Reaching behind me
, I grab my tablet and continue my research because this touch theory is the shit. I position us so she’s still attached to me, but I’m on my back. While reading an article, my free hand seeks out her back and runs up and down her smooth skin. She shivers but stays asleep. When I click for the next page an ad pops up about car insurance causing her to sit straight up. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” I tell her. “go back to sleep.”

Blinking at me I see she’s half in, half out. “You’ll stay?”

“I’m not going anywhere, piękno.”

“You make my heart beat
,” she says, looking right at me, “and it’s so loud.”

“Do you like it when your heart beats loud?”

“I do,” she says, smiling. “It only beats when you’re around. I think it beats for you. It knows you,” she says in hushed tones. Bringing her face to mine, I kiss her on the nose. Taking her hand, she watches me quietly as I place it over my heart.

“Do you feel that?
” I ask her, waiting for her response.

“Yes,” she says
, looking awe struck.

“It beats like this because of
you
.”

When she just stares at her hand over my heart
, I decide to take further advantage. First, I grab my camera and take a picture of her just as she is then, I push a little further. “Do you think you could ever love me?”

Considering
me for a moment, she loses her smile and just looks sad. “I’m not her,” she says, pulling away.

“You’re not who?” I ask
, reaching for her again.

“Her,” she says quietly
.

“You mean Venessa?”
When she squeezes her eyes shut, I close my own in shame. It’s never been Venessa for me, but she doesn’t know that. She doesn’t know because I haven’t told her how I feel but she’s forced to stare at her face every time she walks into the kitchen. Knowing I have a small window with her, I keep it simple “You hold my heart Lina, only you.”

“Anthony?” she asks
, curling back into me. “If I told you that I loved you now, would you believe me?”

My words won’t come. No one has said those words to me except for my parents. Pulling her tight to me
, I whisper in her ear, “Yes, I would believe you.” But she didn’t hear the quiver in my voice because she was already deep asleep.

Maybe she would remember this when she woke up, maybe she wouldn’t. But I needed to show her that my feelings for her are as true as my words. I hadn’t realized she thought I had feelings like that for Venessa. Putting myself in her shoes
, I suppose my wall of photos wasn’t helping my cause much. There was no simple way to explain that those pictures, that constant reminder of what she lost was to keep me on task. Venessa deserved the chance to move on. I wanted Venessa to have normal. I wanted her to smile. Until Rogan, she didn’t do that, and now she does. She was brutalized. She watched her father die. She saw her mother and sister lying there, too. I didn’t see any of it. I was spared. I was doing this for her and for myself. Those photos were a reminder of why my life took the direction that it did. Why I had made the decisions that I had. I am more focused right now than I’ve ever been, but that’s all because of Lina.

Sliding out of bed careful to not wake her, I
know what I have to do.

“Go away Halina,” she growled at me. Approaching anyway, I watched her wipe the vomit from her mouth, yet the bottle never leaves her other hand. “What in the fuck is the matter with you huh? I said go away!”

“Why are you doing this to yourself?” I ask
ed, already knowing the answer. My father did, in fact, sexually harass a woman at work and was being sued for it. I suppose beating and berating me in private was one thing. Having your misdeeds broadcasted publicly, another. In a rare form of communication, (granted she was drunk, but whatever), my mother rambled on about him like always. “He didn’t do it!” she screamed and the lie washed through me. She knew he did it and would stand by him anyway.

These two idiots deserved each other.

“If he didn’t do it, then he has nothing to worry about,” I told her, grabbing my bag to go study in my room.

“You whore,” she
spat at me “We’ll lose everything, but that probably makes you happy.”

“You have no idea what makes me happy,” I
told her, walking away. Although on this one, she was on the money. This made me insanely happy. Funny how hypocrisy works, though. In a few years I’d not only become a whore but, a whore who could seriously hold her liquor too.

Dreams are funny things. Most of my sleep is plagued with nightmares, not of
Anthony saying sweet things to me. Certainly, not of me saying sweet things back. In my dreams, I am honest and bold. I let my heart guide me and I allow myself to be vulnerable for a time. When I untangle myself from his body and sit up, the thought of saying those things aloud makes me start itching. Watching him sleep settles me some. Seeing him reach for me in his sleep makes my stomach dip. Is he thinking of me? Of us? Or did he only notice the loss of a body? Or… does he think of her?

I wish I could explain why I fear this. I’m not afraid of the broken heart. I’ve watched Jules function with one for years. I suppose I’m afraid of the downward spiral that comes with having the broken heart. Being afraid of trusting someone all over again, when trusting
, for me, is difficult in the first place. My fear is losing the sanity that I’ve come to rely on with him. He keeps me grounded and aware. If he took that away, I’d float for eternity.

Even though I know that I do it, doesn’t mean that I like it. Floating is my safety net, a coping mechanism and without it
, I can’t process basic things very well. But I’ve always feared that safety net was also slowly killing me, too. I know there will come a day when I will be forced to face my demons instead of hiding from them. Since meeting Anthony though, I’ve become better at it. He’s the reason I don’t float as far away anymore. He tethers me to reality even when reality wants to break me.

Quietly leaving his room, I make my way to the main floor restroom and then to the kitchen to make coffee. I
don’t reach for my phone like I usually do. After pouring a cup, I was content to just be still for a while. I need to call the guys today and get them to urge the captain to agree to a meeting soon. Needing my phone after all, figuring the sooner I call, the sooner I’ll get the meeting, I grab my cup to head upstairs to get my phone. It’s when I enter the living room that I just stop.

I stop and I stare.

Instantly I want to shut down and float away. My mind simply cannot process what its seeing. I lose all sense of time and place as well as the hold I have on my cup. When it crashes to the floor, I don’t spare it a glance. Taking two steps closer, I put myself in reaching distance and trace my fingers over each frame, touching her face and then his. Silently wondering who she is, how he captured her beauty and how lucky she was to have a man’s love like this. 

Tears build behind my eyes and my throat threatens to close. In my life, I’ve never seen anything so true. Not moving from my spot, I’m frozen in these photos. I feel the emotions in each shot and I allow it to flow through my body, my soul and my being.

This is me.

This is how he sees me.

This is us.

When his arms wrap around my middle and he puts his chin on the top of my head, I blink once and then the first tear falls. Followed by a stream I can’t seem to stop. “I don’t see beauty everywhere I go,” he whispers
, squeezing me. “I see beauty wherever
you
go.”

“When did you do this?”

“Last night,” he says. “Once I knew you would stay asleep.”

“It wasn’t a dream,” I say to myself more than him
, but I knew the truth, I could feel it.

“No piękno, it wasn’t a dream.”

“I was sleep talking, wasn’t I?”

“Have I told you how much I love your sleep talking?”

When I turn myself toward him and bury my face in his chest, he tips my chin up “Even the most honest of us have trouble with honesty, Lina,” he says, kissing my nose. “If you never spoke those words to me, I’d still have known. You don’t have to say it because you show it.”

“I do?”

“Yes,” he says. “It’s in everything you do.”

“Where are the pictures of Venessa?”

“In an envelope,” he says, pointing to the table. “If she’d like them, she can have them, if she doesn’t… I’ll pitch them. I did save the one of her and Eminem, though. I’m thinking she’d like that one.” I can’t even be upset she got to meet him before I did. The more I think on it, I realize I’m not sure if I’m talking about Eminem or Anthony. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly jealous of her, but I’m having trouble calling the jealousy up. It’s just white noise right now because what I’m looking at is too beautiful to ignore.

“You said she was your focus and motivation.”

“In the beginning she
was
,” he stresses. “Then I heard stories about you. In an instant you became my focus and motivation. She has Rogan, he’ll protect her now. I needed you before I ever saw your face. Do you need me to tell you you’re my reason for everything?”

“Well yes,” I mumble
. “A girl never gets sick of hearing that. Especially when no one’s ever said it to her before.”

Laughing
, he points to the photo of him and me in bed when my head is resting on his shoulder. “About eight years ago, Venessa was finished with her set and the club wasn’t the draw that it is now. All night long all she could talk about was her friend Halina. She even recited her graduation speech. I’ll admit, I was without words. She talked about her friend
a lot
. It was a commonality between us. I was captivated by every story, so much so that I would seek her out to hear more. I had to know more about this Halina girl Venessa admired so much.”

“You’re serious,” I let out in a whoosh. Totally caught off guard with
the unexpected honesty. “You wanted to know about me?”

“I didn’t want to know,” he confesses
. “I needed to know and I think she needed to tell me. Eventually she got sick of me asking. She accused me of being a creeper and that killing me would suck for her. When she described to me who you were, and what you could do, I knew when things were out of my control, that I needed your help. Everything sped up when she showed me a picture of the four of you. The first time I saw you in real time, you were in the field in Hamtramack. The scene drew quite a crowd that day. I watched you for hours.”

“I remember that case. I felt you.”

“I needed your help,” he says, kissing me. “But more than anything, I just needed you, piękno.”

“I didn’t know,” I whisper
, while he wipes my tears away with the pads of his thumbs. “I wish I knew.”

“I would have come for you sooner if I could have,” he says
. “Just know that I wanted to. Last night when you spoke to me had I not suspected and hoped, your words would have convinced me.”

“I should be pissed,” I mumble
.

“But you’re not,” he finishes
.

“I want to be pissed,” I mumble
.

“But you’re not,” he says
.

“I need to be pissed,” I growl
.

“You need
me,”
he growls in return.

“I don’t want to need you!” I yell
.

“But you do,” he whispers
, pulling me back and kissing me hard, “and I need you, too.”

When I hiccup, he smiles
, pointing at another photo. This one I don’t remember at all. My confusion has him confessing. “I took this one last night,” he says, taking my hand and placing it on his heart.

“It beats like this because of me,” I whisper
, while remembering it all and just like that my anger fades.

Looking up into his perfect face he nods “And yours beats loud.”

“For you.”

“For me
,” he says, hugging me and I lay my head on his chest so I can listen. “I feel different with you. Maybe that’s love, I don’t know. But what if I’m too afraid to say it?” I ask him,

“You don’t have to, I already know.”

“Oh,” I whisper. “Do you think you could ever, you know, maybe love me too?”

“The question is, could I ever not love you,” he says
. “And the answer is no. I waited Lina. I didn’t know she would be you, but I waited still. I’m so fucking glad I waited. I was meant to find you.”

“You want kids.”

“I want a house full.”

“A house full?” I ask
, gulping. “What else did I agree to in my sleep?”

“If I tell you
, it spoils the surprise.”

“Balls
,” I mumble as he pulls my seat out at the kitchen table.

“If memory serves, those were mentioned too
,.” he says, filling my cup. He’s focusing on talking to me while my eyes keep wandering to the photos on his wall but I do hear his words.

I’m spellbound, mystified and every other magical fucking word I can think of
right now and I want back in there. Even his wanting a house full of screaming kids isn’t ruining this for me, not right now, anyway. Give me a minute though, it’ll happen. Making a mental note to get my depo shot scheduled, I decide not to worry about procreating right now.

“Do you believe me now?”

“Huh?” I ask, blinking.

“Do you believe me? That it’s
you
that I see. That you are fucking beautiful. You see it, don’t you?”

“Uh…”

“Lina…”

“Okay,” I groan
, covering my red face. “I see it. It’s freaking me out, but I see it.”

Kissing my cheek
, he tells me he’s going to grab a shower. Personally I think he did it so I could have some alone time to process, and I was grateful. Once he exits the kitchen and I hear the water, I run right back into the living room and get lost in the photos all over again. He’s caught me working, sleeping, being affectionate, and in awe.

The crazy thing is, around him
, I realized how much awe there was to be found and I’m disappointed I missed so much of it. But since meeting him, everything’s changed. My eyes are open now and I don’t ever want to close them again. My phone ringing startles me from my haze and, looking down, I see its Rogan. Here we go.

“Lo?”

“Halina,” he says, in that super deep voice he has. “This is Rogan,” which has me fighting back a snort. Like I don’t know who it is?

“Hey
, lady killa,” I joke, but then get serious. “What do you think? Can you make it happen?”

He’s quiet for a moment but continues
. “I can make it happen, but I ain’t so sure you being there is a good idea.”

“How’s that?”

“Cap’s gonna shut down,” he says. “Can’t get him to say shit if he’s tight lipped, unless you want me to beat it out of him and I ain’t so sure Angel’s gonna go for that.”

“I just need to hear his voice,” I offer
. “Stick me in a closet or under the couch. I say couch because I actually fit as long as it’s not one of those pullouts with a bed. That shit hurts.”

“Halina?”

“Lina.” I correct him sweetly. “My mother called me Halina and she always did it with this snarling sound, drove me nuts.”