Dodging Trains (23 page)

Keyon’s bed isn’t big.
It fits the two of us because I’m small and drape over him in sleep. I fit perfectly to him, a thigh between his thick ones, and his heavy arm keeping me safe along his body.

It’s still dark outside, a single star twinkling through an opening in the blinds. I’m not sure what woke me up until it happens again.

A small tremor runs through Keyon’s chest. His stomach muscles contract and release, and I skim my stare up to his face. Small twitches run over his features. A furrow of pain has settled in between his brows.

That mouth, usually so generous, has tightened into a sad groan. He looks like a small boy, one that’s on the verge of crying, and I lift my hand, afraid to wake him up. I caress the soft stubble along his jawline in a barely-there effort to soothe his dreams.

He flinches at my touch, and I jump too, startling him more. He doesn’t coil away, but the pain in his gaze doesn’t recede.

“A dream?” I say. He nods from the pillow. Closing his eyes and keeping them shut.

“You want to share?”

“Just… the same. What we’ve been talking about lately. The creep on the train, only in the dream I was fighting him in Mexico.”

“Your brain has some unfinished business.”

“I guess. Although I feel like all I do is think about it lately. Not sure what else my damn brain wants from me.” He smiles, reassuring while he says it, but I see wetness at a far corner of an eye.

“You’ll figure it out.” I lie down on his arm again, and he loops me in close.

“It’s good to have you here,” he mumbles against my hair. “It’s the best way to wake up.”

“Gasping from a nightmare?”

The ridges of his stomach contract in amusement under me. “No, with your concern for me.”

As the descent to Rigita begins,
I think about the trip Keyon and I made after visiting Markeston on the last day. I construct the film clip. It wasn’t already assembled in my mind.

“I’m not sure about this,”
I say to Keyon, who’s driving. He puts a hand on my knee as we brave the last traffic light out of Tampa.

“It’s going to be okay. If you’re supposed to find him like this, completely unprepared, then you will. If not, there’s always a next time.”

I shake my head, having regrets and second thoughts. Last night, we talked about Cugs and how I hadn’t seen him since my dad took him away. He’s a senior in a high school three hours north of Tampa, and that was all the information Keyon needed. He got the high school on the phone. Made sure it was a school day. Then he rang Dawson and let him know he’d take the day off.

Straight roads lead us through a wilderness that’s startlingly different to Rigita’s. When I’m not nibbling on cuticles and readjusting my opening line for Cugs, I let my head rest on Keyon’s shoulder and gaze out the window.

I’m anxious. I don’t know how my brother feels about me. But Keyon’s embrace holds shelter, and his arm around my shoulders keeps me composed. Without his insistence, I would not have done this.

The swamps have long since receded to some hybrid of desert and jungle. The palm trees seem shabby and short for what’s a momentous place for me.

There it is, a speck on the map in the middle of nowhere, the building where my brother spends most of his day. How can it be just a one-story slab of concrete? The high school message board spells out:
Home of the Caimans
, and even the font is unassuming.

My heart pumps fast in my chest.

“Keyon, I want to turn around.”

“No, you don’t. Cugs is yards away from you right now, and you’re not chickening out. How long has it been since you saw him last?” He adds his question in a sweeter tone, and we both know we’ve just talked about this.

Grief is a strange thing. Slowly, time snows it in and lets you live like there’s no hole in your heart. But then it flares up, disease-like, melts through the ice, and in that moment, it’s as if no time has passed at all.

I hiccup with worry and grief and missing. “I haven’t seen him since before you left Rigita. He was so little and scared of moving away.” My chin trembles, so I lift a finger to stop it. “Either way, they won’t just let strangers into the building, Keyon. We might as well—”

“You’re not a stranger to Cugs, and I’m coming with you. Let’s go.”

He manages, eventually, to coax me out of the car. He’s at my door, holding my hand and half-lifting me out like I am someone fragile.

It’s two thirty. I don’t know when school is out, but my guess is it’s soon.

“Isn’t it late?” I say. “They probably don’t have any breaks left for the day. I mean, I can’t just barge in there and say, ‘Hey, I’m Cugs’ long-lost sister, so please excuse him for the rest of the day.’”

“Hmm, that’s not a bad idea. The ladies in the front office would probably love a sibling reunion.”

Aghast, I tip my head up to study him. Of course Keyon’s eyes flicker with humor. He bites into his lip. “Can you imagine the gossip? If it’s anything like Rigita, the town would be buzzing with it.” He’s trying to make me laugh, but my nerves are breeding and trickle up my spine.

“Crap, this was the worst idea. I should have done more research. And friended him on Facebook or something instead of stalking his profile.”

“Why didn’t you? Not that I’m holding it against you, babe, but just wondering.”

A flash of anger runs through me. “You don’t think I had enough to think about before I left? Okay, so: one, I was about to board my first flight ever and go to a place I’ve never been to before—I’m not exactly a globetrotter; two, Old-Man Win completely trusted me to make these measurements and haul in the contract for Markeston’s project; and then three, there was you.”

“Love the count-up,” he praises lazily, and I don’t understand how he’s playful in such a moment. “What about me?” he adds, mirth glowing from him.

“I wanted to see you, but I was—I don’t know—unsure. We hadn’t chatted in a while.”

“Baby,” he mumbles, hooking an arm around my neck and pulling me in so he can kiss me. “I’m glad you came. Thanks for that crazy text message. And plus you saved me from a night out with Zeke and Jaden.”

I smile, wanting to think they’re “special,” that Keyon isn’t as “special” as them when I’m not around.

“Ready?” he cuts through my thoughts.

“No…”

Slowly, we approach the main entrance.

Supposedly, you can send people messages even if you’re not friends with them on Facebook. I could have done that to Cugs, I think, when we’d decided to come here. Why didn’t I? I love my little brother so much. Who knows what Dad has said to him to keep him from us.

The office lady is willing enough when we enter. She tells us to wait on a bench in the front room while she intercoms Cugs’ class.

“Charles McConnely to the front office, please. His sister is here to pick him up.”

No, no. That’s trauma-abrupt!

We wait for five minutes. Ten. When we ask, the lady assures us he’s attending class today. She assures us she doesn’t understand why he’s not coming. She assures us she’ll check personally, and I panic when she leaves the office, a finger raised in an
I’ll-be-right-back
while my heart thumps so hard it rattles its cage.

I’m afraid he won’t come. I’m scared of how I’ll feel once I learn that he’s decided to not see his sister.

Rejection is a beast.

Keyon’s arm tightens around me. “He’ll be here. Shhh, don’t worry.”

I try to swallow something that’s lodged in my throat. “Cugs never responded when Mom and I reached out to him. I bet it’s Dad. He must have made up stories about Mom and me.”

We both stand when the office lady returns with small, fast steps and no Cugs through the glass door.

“He walked out of the classroom as soon as the teacher gave him permission. We don’t know where he is,” she says. “We even had a classmate check the nearest restrooms, but nothing. I’m so sorry,” she finishes, moving her hands like she’d like to wring them.

“It’s okay, no problem,” I say, voice so bright I marvel at my own acting skills. “I’ll catch him later.”

We exit my brother’s school hand in hand, Keyon and I. We’re both quiet, staring at the ground in front of us until we’re close enough to the car for Keyon to
beep
it open. I jump in, wordless. He jumps in, wordless too. We look at each other, and then, right then, is when I start to bawl.

I bawl like I haven’t in years. Like I’m motherless, fatherless, brotherless, like I’m alone in the world and all I have left is intangible clips of film. My face is a slate with a single purpose. It showcases tears, takes them when they flood, because Cugs used to adore me as I adored him.

What happened to us?

A weak buzzing sounds as Keyon lowers his seat and drags me in over him. He holds me so tight, I should feel trapped, but there’s compassion and love in his embrace, what I don’t get anywhere else.

My father happened.

Not a Christmas card or a birthday greeting—not once—the heartless dick doesn’t care about me. All those years ago, he ripped me from their midst and never made room for me again.
What did I do?

My sobs turn to moans against Keyon’s throat, and he doesn’t stop whispering, “So sorry, so sorry, so sorry.”

His hands shift up to my face and tucks me in deeper to him. He kisses the top of my head on a long, inward sigh and whispers, “I’ll chase down that asshole father of yours and ram my fist up his nose.”

I hiccup at his anger. He hears me and pulls back to find my eyes. “You’re so amazing, Paislee. I think I’m falling in love with you, and I’m not letting ignorant fools destroy your last day in Florida.”

We go to a pie restaurant on the way home. They have “the world’s best cherry pie,” and we start with a slice of it each before we share a generous piece of pecan pie. I’m sick to my stomach, from pie and heartache, by the time we slide back into the car.

“I should have messaged him,” I say.

“Just friend him on Facebook. You’ve done nothing wrong—he has no reason to be upset with you. I bet he just chickened out. Guys are afraid of feelings, ya know.” I shoot him a glance to see if he’s joking, and he rewards me with a wink.

Keyon cranks what he calls “girl rock” in the car. He finds bands my mom listened to, like Spice Girls, the Bangles, even Hole on his phone and regulates the volume of the songs according to my mood. When I smile, he jacks it up. When I zone out and my eyes drop closed, Keyon lowers the volume.

I fall asleep in the end, with the light shake of Keyon’s shoulder under my ear as we shortcut across dirt roads. It’s dark when we park outside his duplex. Simon greets us at the door, tail majestically high and with
meows
loose in his throat. I bend down and pet him. Feel that I’m smiling again when Keyon grumbles about Simon being the biggest flirt with me.

“He’s trying to steal my girl. I’m just his sugar daddy,” he fibs, and by the time we lay our heads on the pillow on my last night in Sun Country, my heart is more at rest. After all, nothing happened. Nothing I shouldn’t have expected.

With the exception of Keyon’s words about love.

PAISLEE

I
should have anticipated
how hard it would be to return to Rigita. After five days with highs and lows in Paradise, it’s almost unbearable to be back here.

The first thing I do is request Cugs’ friendship on Facebook. I try not to check too often if he’s accepted; it’s a sliver of heartache every time there’s no change.

Markeston has accepted Old-Man’s bid for his mirror room. Old-Man isn’t stressing over the large order, because our client is in no hurry. I’m thinking that’s because he’s busy with Alliance Cage Warriors.

Old-Man is smart and has put in a buffer of a few months so we can braid Markeston’s order in between our smaller ones. He hums under his breath while he works these days, something he doesn’t often do.

Keyon and I speak almost daily. He tells me he’s on the Cage Warriors’ back room couch when he calls me on breaks between training. My heart does a skip at the gif-sized film clip I tend to run then, of the two of us together. And Keyon tells me about his stepped-up, brutal routines, of Zeke’s latest conquests at Stripes, and the hazing Jaden performed on a new fighter. It apparently landed the poor guy in the ER with a crushed cheekbone.

“Geez, is he all right?”

Keyon husks a sexy chuckle on the other end. “T’was just a small bone, but man, newbie takes punishment like a pro!”

“Which he is, right?”

“Well yeah.”

Mack is being an asshole. I don’t tell Keyon, of course. After all, we haven’t discussed wishes and futures, and Keyon hasn’t mentioned Mexico City again either. My passport arrived in the mail this morning. It made me jittery with possibilities, but I won’t tell him about it unless he asks.

Since I came home, I’ve dodged most phone calls other than Keyon’s, and I’ve overlooked my text messages. My friends need me for what they’ve always needed me for, and I can’t—don’t want them—where Keyon was last.

It’s strange. I haven’t felt this way before. It’s pain in a new gamma of colors. I’m a sexual person; I need what I need, and since I discovered what makes me feel good, I’ve had no reason to reject those needs. Now I do. Keyon’s kisses, his fingerprints on my body, they shouldn’t be erased by someone else.

Friends. I’ve lived in Rigita my whole life, but because I am who I am, I have few of them. Besides my mother, it’s only the few handfuls of men I see regularly, and right now, if I accepted their invitations to meet up, I would disappoint them. The only friend I can’t avoid is Mack.

Who’s… right: being an ass. Which I can’t tell Keyon.

“How’s Mack?” he says on the phone today, as if he’s heard my quick trail of thoughts.

“He’s good,” I lie.
Sexually frustrated and bitchy.

It’s quiet on the other end. Then he sighs. The sound travels deep into my stomach and makes me miss him more. “Have you thought more about Mexico?”

“Why? Would you want me there?” I bite my lip to squelch the happiness his question causes.

“I would. As a matter of fact, I might just
need
you there,” he says sweetly, so sweetly I bounce to the tip of my toes.

“Really?” My voice bubbles and fizzes.

“Really.”

“Really-really?”

“Paislee. Did you get your passport?”

I grab the phone with both hands and thump to my bed. Once I’m comfortable on my back, I swipe the passport off the nightstand and hold it up. “Wait…”

I snap a picture and send it to him, then put my ear to the phone again. I hear the
pling
as the photo reaches his side of the line.

“What’s going on?”

“Did you get a message?”

He fumbles. Breathes. And is really cute and boyish when he returns on the line with, “Nice! Now, all we have to do is get you some travel details.”

Wow. I might have a passport, but that thing was expensive. I twist the sheet under me in a fist. I don’t have savings. The few dimes to my name disappeared with the Florida trip, which was fine because I live cheap here. I go work to apartment, hand to mouth. Reality rushes in like I shouldn’t already be aware: it’s not just about taking vacation days on short notice. Traveling costs money, and I
have
no money.

“I can’t.” Disappointment constricts my throat. I clear it too loudly.

There’s a short silence, like he’s choosing his words. “Can you not get the time off? It’s a Friday, so it would be a long weekend.”

“No, Keyon, that’s not the issue. I’m just—” It’s a humbling thing to confess how broke you are.

“What then?”

I consider asking my mother. She’d nickel and dime something together for me, but since she doesn’t have a boyfriend to share expenses with, she can barely pay for her own life. I’m not going there.

“Paislee? Talk to me.”

I sigh a heavy sigh. What does the mayor’s son know about these things? He’s never eaten Ramen a week in a row while his mother was between second jobs. “Naw, never mind. I can’t make it. Work, you know.”

“Bull. You just said that’s not the issue.”

“Okay, fine! I’m broke. I’ve looked, and the prices are astronomical. No way I can ever go to Mexico.” As I say it, a sob squeezes out too, which sucks bad.

“Shhh, Paislee. I told you Markeston is sponsoring the flights and the hotel and everything, didn’t I?”

“For the fighter and his team, yes, but—”

“You’re part of my team.”

“I’m your groupie,” I say.

“My girlfriend.”

I swallow. He’s called me this a few times when we’ve been together, but only to prove some possessive man-point to unsuspecting males.

“Do you want to be my girlfriend? Or do you have other plans. With—other men.” He says it carefully, like he’s afraid of hurting feelings, mine, maybe his own in a different way.

“Keyon,” I start, thinking back to high school and the last time he asked me this question. It all ended in immature teasing about growing boobies, and I never gave him an answer. Neither of us broached the subject again.

“I’m sorry if I come off blunt, babe, but I don’t share girls, and if that’s a problem—”

“You don’t even know,” I cut in, feeling that lump in my throat easing. In its place, little bursts of something fizzy and bright causes me to purse back a smile. It’s a ridiculously happy feeling. “You don’t even know how much I want to be your girlfriend, Keyon,
only
yours. It will make everything I’m going through right now worthwhile.”

“Good. Wait, what are you going through?”

“Abstinence symptoms. Withdrawal. Losing friends.”

“Withdrawal? What are you talking about?”

I see what he’s thinking. “Oh no, I’m not on drugs or anything. I’m just not used to being without sex, and now I turn my friends down half a dozen times a day.”

He’s quiet, not finding the humor in what I’m revealing. “They’re not your friends if they only want to fuck you.”

My gaze goes to the shimmering egg on my nightstand for support.

“Right, but that’s my own fault. I’ve built these friendships on sex.”

“Paislee, it’s their fault as much as yours. I hope that you moving on and not wanting to remain stuck with random sex for the rest of your life doesn’t keep them from taking a simple cup of coffee with you.”

“You mean Mr. Gluckwelt should sneak away from Mrs. Gluckwelt and their snotty kids for platonic chats with me?”
I ask, brutal and instantly regretting it. Seems I’m hell-bent on chasing away the only man worth being with for more than a minute. Here he is, unreal, offering me a relationship. He has shown me respect even when I’ve done nothing to earn it. Why am I doing this to myself?

“Your girlfriend’s father? The one who got you started?” he asks.

“No, Isa and her family don’t live here anymore.”

“Well, this Mr. Gluckwelt is a first-class jerk. He needs to stay at his little house and love his little Mrs. and get out of my girl’s face. But your friend, Mack, should be mature enough to hang out with you for
you,
not for your pussy or your oral skills,” he spits.

I dampen my gasp with a hand.

Keyon must hate to think of me with someone else. If I were in his shoes, I’d be shouting unspeakable things to him too, I’m sure. I’d probably sound worse. “You’re right. Can… can you check with Markeston about that ticket?” I ask quietly.

He tries to subdue the rumble in his throat. I hope he isn’t picturing Mack and me together. “No,
I’ll
book it. Right now. Right away. Watch out for an email with the details. Talk to you tomorrow.”

“Keyon?”

“Yes.”

I speak fast because he’s about to hang up. I’m baring my soul, and he needs to hear before I chicken out. “Yours are the last fingerprints on my body.”

He takes a moment to react. Then a sigh hisses from him. “Babe. You have no idea how happy that makes me. In two weeks I’ll be leaving more fingerprints on you, okay? I cannot wait.”

KEYON

I keep having
these fucking nightmares. I wake up soaked and gasping for air. I find myself strangling my pillow when I come to.

It’s the damn creep from the train. I can’t believe how he keeps resurfacing. I wonder if Paislee’s reappearance in my life adds fuel.

We haven’t discussed her incident much since she revealed it, but my guess is her rapist is the same guy. Because what are the odds of there being two people as twisted as him in one small place over just a few years? I make a mental note to ask Paislee if she saw her abuser, for comparison.

As soon as the fight in Mexico is done, I won’t have a constant visual hanging over me in the shape of Sanchez. I’m going to destroy the guy and make a name for myself. I’ll be moving on to other and better fighters, hopefully in the US and with better rankings.

I’ve got two weeks left until the big match, and everything rides on this. I’ve told my girl I can’t be in contact until we meet up in Mexico, but that Markeston and Dawson will coordinate everything. She had no beef with it, more proof that she’s perfect for me.

I’ll have to wait until after the fight to see her, because an emotional reunion beforehand could wreck my concentration, a chance I won’t be taking. Over the last month, I’ve been training day and night. I purse my lips and exhale, pressing the air out through a narrow opening. There’s no doubt I’ll win this.

I’ve booked a hotel on the coast afterward—nothing fancy. She’s flying in Thursday, fight’s Friday night, and after it, she’s got Saturday and Sunday with me as well. Two days to luxuriate.

After the fight, I’ll indulge in everything—food, drink, sleep—and I’ll be indulging Paislee. My girl, she needs her sex, and I plan to make up for lost time until I see it in the way she walks. I want her so satisfied she squirms out of my arms, laughing with exhaustion when I offer more.

Two days only for us. We’ll be going straight to the hotel, no pit stops at all. I’m counting on no major injuries and being able to give her everything she could dream of. Sunset walks on the beach and candlelit dinners. Romantic shit that girls love. I want her beaming. I want her smiling hard, all the time.

I’ll damn well make her smile.