Between Octobers Bk 1, Savor The Days Series (17 page)

“Would you ever consider it?”

“I can’t imagine a circumstance that would
make me want to.”

“Not even rape?”

“That’s entirely different. Not a situation
I want to think about.”

“What about a woman who’s raped and has the
baby? Does that happen often?”

“I’ve never studied the statistics, but I
don’t think it’s common. Why so curious?”

He shrugged, “Interesting topic. What time
is it?” And looked away before I answered.

“About 10:00.” The turn of conversation felt
odd. I was annoyed by the way he prodded and withdrew. It could
have been simple curiosity, but . . . “Are you trying to tell me
something?”

He turned back to me, resting his arms on
the bar, palming his chin. Beyond his strong jaw line, in the
background, a partially obscured face came into view. At first, it
didn’t click. But then, it did. I knew him.

“What is it?”

“Gustavo,” I said, but the sound was drowned
out by banging drums. The second sound check.

“What?”

“He’s too young to be here.” I pointed to
Gus at a table near the hallway. He was only eighteen and the bar
was twenty-one and over.

“It bothers you? I’ll have the bouncer toss
him.” Evan stood, looking around for the security guard that passed
by a few minutes ago.

“No, don’t do that.”

“Do you know him?” He leaned towards me,
taking my hand to catch my attention. His eyes were large and drawn
together by a stressed line in his forehead.

“I need to talk to him.” I prayed he
wouldn’t ask why. If I had to explain, I wouldn’t be able to repeat
it. I jumped from my seat.

Evan deflated with a huge sigh. “Hold that
thought.” Taking my arm, he tugged me back as I tried to slip
by.

I pouted, “What if he leaves?”

“I don’t understand your anxiety.” He looked
away. “Grace, we’re being recorded.”

“What?” The words were lost in the mic
check.

He gestured with his chin, jerking it
towards the left. I followed his bearing to see two girls about
fifteen feet away. They were facing each other, faces favoring our
direction. Casually, and slowly gaining ground. They were dressed
in similar tops in different colors. The first one, tall and thin,
looked a little angry. She was wearing pink. The second was
shorter, decked in black and white. They both held cell phones in
their hands. Their eyes flickered between the two of us and the
screens of their smart phones. Just then, a very large gentleman
stepped in front of them. His massive frame completely blocked us
from view. Problem solved.

“He’s going to toss them. Give me two
seconds, Gracie.”

I looked to Gustavo and back to Evan.

“Please, will you wait?” Looking in his
pleading eyes, I consented easily and then wished I hadn’t. He set
me back on the high barstool, gently kissing the corner of my
mouth. “I have to see what they’ve got. Pictures mean proof.”

Our secret would be out. I had no idea what
that would be like and didn’t care to learn.

“Sherpa, hold on!” Evan stalked off.

Strange name, I thought, watching Evan
make his way to the girls that were being shown the back door. The
bouncer was an immense pile of muscle and intimidation . . . a
Sherpa.
Cute Evan, really cute.

When Evan caught up, the two men exchanged a
few words before the bouncer nodded his head and moved about three
feet to one side, scowling from a short distance. The girls’
puckered faces turned to smiles.

My stomach knotted as I turned towards the
small table where Gus was sitting all by himself. The only way to
get through what I had to do was to just do it. I had to go
straight up to him and say what I needed to. If I put too much
thought into it, everything would come out wrong and what I needed
to say was too important to foul up. From the look of the kid in
the corner, he needed to hear it. The hurt in his face broke my
heart. So forlorn. Big as he was, he seemed small, weighed down by
sorrows. My fist clenched against my chest.

The music, though much better than the last
band, was too distracting. I wished for a way to turn it down. I
was not in the mood to rock out anymore.

My focus switched back to Evan—I told him
I’d wait—and tried to concentrate on the movement of his lips as he
spoke through a pasted grin. His body language suggested he was
angry. His hands were tensed, his brow furrowed, he looks down and
to the side. He pointed towards me, moving his hands to illustrate
points I couldn’t grasp. The girls nodded their heads—yes, then no.
He shrugged, taking their phones one at a time, and took pictures
with both of them. They talked for another minute as he signed
various things, flyers, papers from their purse, an arm. One girl
tried to pull her shirt down—a move I was beginning to recognize—to
have Evan sign her chest. She was interrupted by the return of the
bouncer. Evan waved, feigning disappointment as the two girls were
shown out.

I was on my feet before he turned around.
When he got within earshot I said, “Come with me.”

I barely made out his response which sounded
like, “Right behind you.”

Impatient and somewhat befuddled, I turned
towards the table in the corner to find its crippled warden. His
large hands held a sweating, half-empty glass of beer. Gus’ eyes
were fixed on the empty pitcher. His dark brown hair was tucked
behind his ears, falling like a curtain from under his backward
baseball cap.

Gustavo Reyes was a starting defensive
tackle his senior year in high school. Noah told me he was going to
play for Cal Berkley. Last October, he was driving himself to
school when he called his mother to let her know he’d be coming
back home to pick up a binder he’d forgotten with last night’s
homework. His mother was upset because that meant he’d be late for
class. Sometime during the conversation he must have lost track of
how fast he was going. The fog was mostly patchy, but very thick in
some areas. He didn’t see the stop sign.

I could not stop the memories—the awful trip
to the junkyard to get Sol’s things from his car. Splatters of
blood on the mangled dashboard. The small piece of his long sleeve
shirt wedged into the metal on the passenger side. I tugged on it,
wishing I could keep myself from imagining how it got there. He was
struck with such force. The body I thought was so strong . . . the
seatbelt locked, the glass shattered, the metal scraped and
twisted. He was gone before the cars stopped moving. Gus lost two
teeth and broke his nose when the airbag deployed.

Setting my feet apart, I knelt alongside
Gus’ chair and placed a hand on his shoulder. The pose must have
seemed endearing, but I was only trying to keep the sudden
lightheadedness from knocking me over. Evan leaned against the wall
on the opposite side of the table, watching closely.

When Gustavo felt my touch, his head jerked
up. His eyes widened as if he’d seen a ghost.

“Why are you drinking?”

Suddenly on his feet, Gus was head and
shoulders above me. His large frame reminded me of what promise
he’d held just a year before. He’d lost his football scholarship
and now, here he was, furiously working on a beer belly.

He was trapped, just like me. Maybe what I
had to say could free us both.

He huffed, turning for the door. I stepped
to the side, blocking him and rose up on my tip-toes to get as
close to his ear as possible. I didn’t want a single syllable lost
in the blaring music. As I did, his chest puffed out. He squared
his shoulders. A menacing look appeared on his troubled face . . .
Where did the boy go?

“Listen to me. You owe me that much!” I
swallowed the lump in my throat. “I forgive you.”

He tried to walk away again, as if he hadn’t
heard. I stretched my arms out on either side, pleading with him to
stay and talk. Suddenly Evan was stepping in between us.

“He wouldn’t want—don’t you to stop living,
too.” I choked on a lump that tried to block the words. It was a
great relief to speak them, like a heaviness had lifted and
scattered. Then it clumped back together and settled on my chest.
My fingers clenched at the invisible weight.

From the corner of my eye, a wall of flesh
appeared. The bouncer. He moved to stand behind Gus and waited.

“You don’t know that!” Gustavo’s hardened
expression disappeared. Pools of regret filled his eyes.

“Yes, I do. I’m sorry it took so long to
tell you.”

As I turned away, the music stopped. The
crowd cheered at the end of another song. Evan was talking. His
words sounded garbled at first, but I caught some.

“What did you do?”

His wrath was obvious. The answer was four,
simple and terrible words. “I killed her husband.”

The gouging meaning penetrated deep,
paralyzing my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. I turned back to see Gus
being led away by the bouncer. Evan was leaning over, resting his
palms on his knees like someone had knocked the wind out of him. I
wanted to comfort him, but I had to get away from the oppressive,
stifling crowd.

I couldn’t remember getting into the car,
but that was where I was, slumped over the steering wheel, when
Evan found me. The passenger door opened and his legs slid into the
seat beside me. I kept my gaze glued to the dashboard.

Of all the nights to see Gus….

“Do you want to go home?”

“Do you think he heard me?”

“Probably. But I didn’t. What did you say
that made him want to leave?” He draped his arm over my shoulders.
My neck immediately gave way to his touch, head automatically
leaning against him. As if my body had been waiting to hear his
beating heart. It was so strong and steady.

I shrugged against his chest and told him
every ugly detail. Gus wasn’t friends with Noah, but my whole
family used to watch him play on Friday nights. I told Evan about
the accident, how I felt like I lost everything twice when I
miscarried, hoping he could understand. It was an accident that
seemed to stop time. Solomon was not the only victim. We’d all lost
parts of ourselves and it shouldn’t have taken so long for me to
talk to Gus. “It was just a stupid, senseless accident.”

“You forgave him? Just like that?” He
snapped his fingers.

“But I quit being angry a while ago.”

“How can you do that?
I’m
cross with him for what he’s
done. But if he hadn’t made that phone call….” Evan sighed. “I
wouldn’t be sitting here. Look what it’s done to you. I’m a
terrible person and you—you’re… incredible.”

I met his eyes for a moment, looked into the
obvious confusion they held, and took in his words. Yes, it was
supremely selfish of him to even bring up his feelings and the
tragedy that gave him the opportunity to sit and comfort me. But it
was also a huge compliment.

“What kind of man does it make me? I am
sorry for your children, for their losing a father, and….” His eyes
clamped shut as he shook his head. “Not that I’m not sorry you’re
alone. I am. But Grace—”

“Don’t.” I touched his lips with my fingers.
It was too much.

I clamped my own lips together and rested my
head in the crook of his neck, crying into his shirt while he held
me.

After a while, the silence gave way to a
tangible relief, though I was more than a little shocked at the
turn of events and probably looked like a clown, to boot. I used my
shirt to dry my eyes, keeping my face hidden. Evan had to think I
was a crazy, blubbering idiot.

“I’m sorry you’re still hurting. I’d take it
away if I could.” He whispered gently.

His lips touched my hair, helping to corral
courage. When I looked up, he was staring. My breath caught. The
look in his eyes . . . I was frozen, stupefied by admiration. He
mumbled something. It sounded like half of whatever he was
thinking. I thought about telling him how terrible his timing was,
but then wondered if he meant to say the L word out loud. As I
sometimes mumbled my thoughts, I wondered if Evan was doing the
same.

His hands caressed my arms, nudging me
closer. I set myself across his lap. A magnetic pull drew our
mouths together. My head was spinning, my stomach filled with
butterflies, my heart seemed to roar. I raked my hands through his
hair, holding him to me as his hands slid down my back to grasp my
bared waist. His strong fingers kneaded at the flash of my
hips.

The sensations were overwhelming and
empowering. My confession made me light. And his made me strong.
For the first time in a long time, I knew exactly what I wanted and
there was so much freedom in it. No fear in the world was powerful
enough to stop me from taking him. A new intensity arose inside;
building on the connection I felt, strengthening the tie between
us. Nothing else mattered, just him. Just us.

“We’re missing your band.” His words were
muffled as he spoke against my lips.

“Do you care?”

He shook his head, “Not if you don’t.”

Trailing light kisses down his neck I
inhaled his sweet scent. “I feel like dancing.”

He held my arms and pushed me back. “You’re
in luck. I know a great club.”

Inspired and wired, I squirmed back into my
seat and quickly re-applied a little make-up. I felt as if I might
explode with happiness.

“The rock thing really isn’t my scene,” he
shrugged, almost as if it hurt to be honest, and smiled with
heart-stopping coyness. His gorgeous face lit up the air around
us.

I followed the directions he gave to a place
in West Hollywood. It looked deserted from the outside, save a few
people smoking on the sidewalk. Evan said it was a very good
sign.

We parked in an underground lot and I
followed him down a long passage, passed a line of people, to a
large man with a velvet rope. The powerful, thumping bass surged
through the stone floor once we crossed over. The music was a
powerful force, gaining strength as we walked through a series of
doorways, past several more intimidating people with earpieces.
They all nodded to Evan, addressing him by his last name or ‘sir,’
as they granted access. I wondered if all doors had always opened
so easily for him.