KNOT: A Wake Family Novel (48 page)

That didn’t keep me from daydreaming.

I’d caught two of the workers kissing on the third-floor deck one day, and I watched as they made out, unaware I could see them.

I didn’t see them. I saw
us.

His hands moving over my body. My arms around his neck.

That afternoon I’d tried for hours to climax on my own. Even with the vision of them—
us
—fresh in my mind. It wasn’t the same. I’d gotten off, but it was weak compared to the way I felt when I was with him.

Then I’d cried.

When I woke back up, looked at my phone again, and realized I hadn’t dreamt the whole thing, I sent him a reply.

ME: Toe still hurts.

As I walked through the halls, he sent one back.

REAGAN: You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. I’m not asking for anything else.

ME: I still don’t know if I’ll be able to make it. I’ll let you know.

I’d need to think about it, but having an open line of communication with him again pacified the deafening cry for him inside me.

I was so lost.

I didn’t hear much out of him for the next few weeks, even though I still emailed the fake account, and, as insane as it was, I talked to my imaginary
him
about it there.

Every once in a while, the real Reagan would ask if I knew whether I was coming or not, and I eventually said I would.

When the day came, I couldn’t get on the plane. I thought about changing my phone number. Considered hiding, but after I failed to leave, I didn’t expect him to contact me again. The whole world was my hiding spot. He wouldn’t want to find me anymore.

Weddings weren’t my thing. I’d told myself that, and a great many other excuses, while I sat at the gate as the plane filled without me on it.

My absence would say what I didn’t want to. He’d be better off.

“Last call for boarding,” a man said before he shut and locked the jetway door.

Last call.

So it painfully was.

Reggie—Saturday, August 15, 2009

I
t hurt when she didn’t show up in Seattle.

No call. No text.
No surprise
.

After the wedding, I ended up fucking the shit out of some Melanie girl who Blake worked with in San Francisco. I lost myself for a few hours, hoping it would stomp out the coals that still burned for
her
. However, every time Melanie cried out, a shockwave would fly up my spine and shred my heart even more.

When I came, I roared like the wounded animal I felt like.

I returned to Chicago and didn’t stop.

I called up a few women I knew before Nora, but they were all seeing people. So, that summer I spent many nights in clubs, drinking more than I should and bringing women home. Some were more satisfying than others, but none of them ever left me wanting more.

I fucked myself, emptier and emptier.

I ran the towel through my wet hair and stopped when I heard my phone ringing from my bedroom.

I picked it up before I missed it and saw the name as I pressed the speaker to my ear.

“Hello,” I said.

“It’s my birthday,” Nora said. I knew it was. Last year, she’d let me cook for her, and then we’d spent the night in my bed.

“Happy birthday,” I said even though there wasn’t much of it left. I looked at my watch and saw that it was nearly eight thirty, I was about to head out to get a drink with the new guy at work.

“I’m in Chicago at the Harbor,” she said. Her voice was mumbled, maybe slurred.

She sounded off.

I was off, too.

In those days, I was mad at the world. Mad at her. Mad at myself. Angry in general. Like my foolish love, my rage didn’t exclude her—even if I was to blame. Except, she’d lied, and that lie teased me. Tricked me into thinking I’d get to be with her. My stupid hope and her resistance to me played keep-away with my morals.

I took a long breath and sat on my bed, my heart hammering behind the wall I built around it. “Why should I care?”

“Are you with anyone?” The jagged lilt in her voice gave way to her vulnerability. I immediately recognized the tone. When she exposed herself to me, she always burrowed somewhere in my chest.

“Not at the moment,” I said coolly, bitten and shy.

“Can you be with me? For a while?”

I balled my fists and slammed my eyes shut, bearing my teeth. My brain knocked me up against a barricade and shouted in my face.

You know better.

I knew damn well what would happen if I went over there expecting one thing and left without it.

My soul knocked through and answered,
“Yes.”

“Room 211.” Then, she hung up.

I’d chosen to wear a suit. She could wait. I took my time and shaved, which I hadn’t done much lately. I’d lazily let my hair grow out longer, but it was manageable, and I combed it back.

I paid the cab driver and walked through the same fucking doors I’d walked through the night I met her.

The fucking Harbor Hotel was our tomb.

I strode the hall with purpose. Left foot. Right foot.

You can do this, Reggie.

My knuckles rapped on the door, and it was mere seconds before it was open.

She looked pitiful. The worst birthday girl I’d ever seen. Red nose, tear streaked face. Pink blotches on her neck and forehead.

She shuddered. “I can’t talk about it. Please, don’t ask.”

The sight of her in that shape, so eviscerated and wounded; I didn’t gain anything from making her feel worse than she looked. Stifled, my anger took a seat.

“Are you—”

Her head shook, and she tipped to the side like I’d slapped her. Her eyes blanching and locking up tight. “I…I can’t. No. Just touch me. Please,” she whimpered. “Nothing makes me feel better than you, and I need to feel better right now. Even if it is just a little. I know it’s wrong, but I need you so badly.”

When weren’t those magic words?

Nora needed me.

She shrank into her chest, choked and sobbed. “Please, Reagan?”

When you love someone, your instincts don’t always follow logic. Mine didn’t. The temptation to give her anything in my power had always been stronger than anything else I knew.

I
could
soothe her, soothe us both for the moment. Respite my pain and hers. I lifted her in my arms, then walked in so I could shut the door.

I turned off the lights, not needing any more visuals to haunt me later. I possessed a surplus of erotic ghosts.

To be honest, I couldn’t look at her poor face. She looked too broken, and I wouldn’t be able to do it. Her sorrow was abhorrent, and I’d fail to touch her like she’d asked me.

Beyond that, I didn’t want to look into her eyes, but I didn’t want her to know.

I stripped off our clothes and pulled the covers over us. She was cold against me, and I gave her refuge with my body to warm her up. I moved the hair out of her face, and I kissed her neck.

She wasn’t wearing any perfume; it was all her. The worst intoxicating torture.

I lost my train of thought, and when it came back, my face was buried between her legs in her untrimmed hair, parting her so that I could get to my favorite spot. The sweet taste of her made me forget most everything. The feeling of her aroused flesh in my mouth was never in the running for something I could resist.

I used my fingers on her like I had so many times. They spoke a language her body knew, and she fell apart over and over. She no longer sounded like she was crying from sadness, but instead from pleasure.

Her rescue turned into my peril.

I was a sleeping beast seduced awake by her ecstasy.

“Yes, Reagan,” she moaned. I wasn’t strong enough to last another minute without being inside of her. So, I held myself over her with one hand, while the other clutched her flush to me and I pushed into her.

“Ah! Goddammit, Nora.” I shouted as I thrust. It was her. Her temperature. Her fit. Her texture and wetness. The exact thing I’d been looking for in one-night stands over the past months.

I had no patience. No control. No center of gravity or manual how to deal with all of our fucked up shit.

All I had was my dick in her, and her saying yes to me. There is no defense against those variables.

When her body begged for mine, in those beautifully brief moments, I was a fucking king again.

I felt muscles in my back roll as I pushed into her, a deep slow grind that was driving me closer to the edge with every stroke. Her fingernails ran over my neck and through my hair, and I arched feeling my orgasm roar to life. Like a slow explosion, I shoved into her hard, somewhat sideways, and got as deep as I could.

Our bodies were designed for each other, she rocked back into me, seated as I was, and it was the extra purchase I needed. My dick throbbed, and she gripped me so tightly with her muscles that it felt like we shared the same pulse.

“No, fuck. No.” I barred my teeth and came so fucking hard.

We recovered on opposite sides of the bed. Then she climbed on top of me, weeping, and rode me until we both came again.

When she got up to take a shower, I left.

We weren’t talking. Nothing would be solved.