Losing It: A Collection of VCards (4 page)

UNREQUITED DEATH

By Tamara Rose Blodgett

From
The Death Series, book six

Caleb Hart

The Js were cool. John apologized for punching Jonesy and of course, Jonesy thought it was cool that John
would
. So that ended that. With guys, you could duke it out and still be friends later.

I think with girls the knife was still twisting at the twenty-five year class reunion.

John and Tiff just sort of fell together after that. It was a slow-burn romance. Like an ember that glowed, the wind had picked up and it burnt brighter, hotter as the days toward our graduation wore on.

Terran the Tender, that's what Jonesy and I called John behind his back. Not like a dis, more like a surprise. He'd taken on Tiff single-handedly and become her champion.

That kitten had teeth.

And claws.

Now Tiff smiled. She chewed gum. Not with the vigor of before but she wasn't going to be the same.

About two weeks later I came up to her and she didn't flinch. I told her about my Mom's self-defense classes and I didn't get the smart ass retort I was expecting.

“Okay, thanks... Caleb,” she said with just the edge of shyness to her words and John smiled at me.

John cupped her chin, looking deeply into her eyes. “I'll take you.”

“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath and letting it out.

Mission accomplished,
I thought, walking off to meet my girl at the end of the hall. Her eyes met mine and I saw the pride.

A guy couldn't hide a thing from an Empath girlfriend.

That was okay,
I thought,
it had its upside.

Boy, did it.

Tiff & John, graduation night

“Breathe, Tiff,” John said, one hand palming the wheel, the other on her knee, his finger flirting with the hem of her skirt.

Tiff did, slowly and deeply, the Carson Experience at John's parent's reception was still with her like an aftertaste. Tiff looked at John. “I didn't think I could pull it off.”

John nodded, not much for talking but knowing that something was expected as a response. Tiff made him feel klutzy in his responses. The whole attack by Carson against Tiff made it doubly worse. He wasn't reactive like Jonesy, but his normal control fled him when it came to Tiffany.

He didn't hold the short leash of death like Caleb.

John knew he was crack-the-whip smart, he was also a Null. But none of that shit mattered for Tiff. It was a huge responsibility.

It's what he wanted.

He carefully formulated his response.

“Say something, Terran,” Tiff said.

John smiled. She still called him by his last name when she was irritated with him. Tiff was so bossy.

John kinda liked it. They were such a contrast, but somehow fit so well.

“You did.” He flicked his eyes to hers then back at the black ribbon of road ahead of them. He turned the corners that wound closer to the Weller house.

“What?” Tiff asked, studying his expression.

John clenched his hands. “I've never wanted to kill someone so badly in my life,” he admitted without rancor or guilt.

Tiff snorted. “Yeah, well, after I did my Brain Counting that Nightingale taught me to do... I was pissed enough I wanted to pull his pathetic pecker out and run it up and down his zipper like an accordion.”

John's eyebrows lifted.

Tiff contemplated then, “About five or six hundred times.”

John guffawed. “Really?” he asked slowly.

“Really,” Tiff responded definitively. “Of course, I'd have to touch it.” She shuddered.

“You'd have to find it,” John added, playing the game, making it light.

Tiff grinned at him, her happiness was palpable and he grabbed it midair, like a species threatened with extinction, greedy for the rarity of her pleasure.

The moment passed and John pulled up in front of the Weller house.

“You don't have to walk me to the door every time, John,” Tiff said, her small hand on the door handle.

“I know,” he said quietly, pulsing off the engine.

Tiff watched the sun slant through the window and cut through his hair, making it look ablaze.

She had a disturbing premonition.

John saw her face and frowned. “What?”

Tiff stared at him a beat longer then shook it off. “Nothing,” she said, feeling kinda lame.

John and Tiff walked to the front door and she opened it. Inside there were toys strewn everywhere. John saw Legos all over and instantly grimaced at the feet mutilator those were.

“I'll pick you up tomorrow for class.”

Tiff nodded. It still made her feel uptight to go to the self-defense classes. But she was three months in and her instructor claimed she was a natural.

She hated the ultimate precept: that girls should aim for getting away. Not fighting. The focus of the class was about disarming and gaining time to get help.

Tiff was more than a runner.

She was a fighter.

It was a deep-seated need to defend her own person. That Carson had beaten and sexually assaulted her lay like a raw and open wound on the very fabric of who Tiff was.

She didn't say those things to John when he referenced chaperoning her tomorrow.

Tiff's eyes did. It caused worry to bloom instantly inside John, who had more intuition than he gave himself credit for.

He knew that she wanted a go at Carson.

John was afraid for himself.

They'd better dump him in jail and throw away the pulsekey if that fucker touched Tiff.

Because John knew he'd kill him if he touched her.

Slowly, if time allowed.

They didn't speak their thoughts to each other in that still moment of time outside the chaos of her house.

Instead, John bent and put his lips on Tiff's, palming both sides of her small face as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

He ended the kiss buried in that fragrant soft spot that all girls held between their neck and shoulder, tickling her.

Tiff pulled away with a small smile and put her hand on the side of his face, feeling a light golden red stubble there.

“I love ya, John Terran,” she said with a husky catch.

He blinked slowly, tears that burned his eyes staying put by the barest margin.

John managed to nod as he turned away, swiping at his eyes.

Tiffany Weller so had him.

He'd told her a hundred times he loved her.

Tiff had told him once.

It clicked her position into his heart with a clanging finality that echoed long after he left her stoop.

*

He quickly trotted down her steps, walking toward his car.

“Terran,” Tiff called after him softly.

He turned, the light catching him in the eye as the red ball of the sunset sunk like an ember in the inferno of the horizon.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, standing mid-way between her front door and his car, only the sidewalk lay between them.

“Pulse me.”

John thought he saw a twinkle in her eye and was sure she caught sight of his bemused expression.

“Tonight,” she elaborated and his confusion deepened.

Tiff pressed a fingertip to her lips, and John became instantly aware that with a house full of brothers, there were ears everywhere.

He nodded and walked away.

John had a feeling about what might be up. He squelched the hope before it had a chance to sprout. It wouldn't be a flower, but a weed.

There's no way that Tiff could be ready.

But the image of her face, like the cat that swallowed the canary, followed him all the way home.

Tiff

I milled around my room, tripping over my brother's toys and shit. “Ouch!” I said, grabbing a gouged toe.
God, it drew blood
, I thought, looking down at my big toe.

I sighed.

I had kicked off my sky-high pumps the instant John was out of sight and now I was paying with the toys-as-weapons fun. I scoop up Legos, superhero figurines and the occasional marble. Vintage. They didn't make glass ones anymore but they're hell on the arch of my feet.

I lowered myself to the narrow bed I use, stuffed against the wall of my closet-sized bedroom. With five brothers, I was lucky as the only girl to have my own room. My parents were probably thrilled as shit that I'd be out of here come college time. The Wellers grew up and got out. Yup.

I glanced at my dark pulse. I took several deep breaths. Thoughts of John crowding inside my skull.

Lots of firsts tonight. First time all duded up.

Of course, it
was
graduation. I could at least pretend to give a shit. I snorted to myself.

My eyes roamed to my pulse again.

First time standing up to Dickless since The Incident.

I did it.
I fucking did it
. I was so scared but I faced him, antagonized him in such a way as to call him out in front of witnesses.

I feel safer now.

So why is my stomach climbing up my throat?

I know. I'll admit it to myself.

I'm going to commit to another first. John doesn't know it but he's going to get lucky.

Really lucky.

I pick up my pulse and depress my thumb. Green characters rise to the surface of the dark screen like alphabet letters in soup, colliding with one another and forming what my mind commands.

Terran.

That's all it says. I wait. Finally, when I can breathe through my anxiety I pulse him.

I pulse all my thoughts.