Waiting for You (12 page)

“I’ve always liked what
I see.” Dylan clarified, eyes holding mine. “Now answer the question.”

“I’m scared.” I
admitted searching his eyes and finding that the teasing smile had returned.
“Of that,” my eyes dropped gesturing between his legs.

He let out an anxious
laugh, his demeanor abruptly shy. “Why?”

“Uh, cause you’re huge.
It’s abnormal or something.”

Another laugh, this
time he pulled me closer to the car where my clothes were. “It’s not abnormal,”
Standing straight, he winked, “I assure you.”

“So you say…that thing
could kill someone.” I gave him my own wink adjusting the towel higher.

Dylan turned around and
moved around the other side of the car leaving me to get dressed. Finding my
clothes, I heard the gravel crunch beneath Dylan’s feet and I knew he was
standing behind me again.

“You
wanna
find out?” I was suddenly whirled and pressed against
the side of his rammed car, praying no ramming of our own was going to take
place just yet. I needed time to adjust to this whole size thing and the concept
of actually having sex.

Dylan’s burning eyes
were glowing with the sunset, his hair flickering in the tawny light.

And then before I could
say anything, his hands slid down my sides to my thighs where he lifted and
placed me on the front fender. Next thing I knew, he was kissing me
passionately but then sighed and backed away holding me at arms-length. “I
won’t until you’re ready, and you’re not, yet.” He stepped back completely and
pulled his shirt over his head before zipping his shorts. “Get dressed before I
do something I’m going to regret.”

I glanced over my
shoulder as he gathered my clothes from the hood of his car and handed them to
me. Sighing, I got dressed while he kept busy with his iPod and then got inside
the car where he was waiting for me.

Not only was I thinking
about his penis and its size but I was also aware that Dylan had more tattoos
in places I never knew like his lower abs, his legs, his feet, arms, lots of
them and I wanted to meticulously survey all of them knowing each one held a
private meaning to him. It wasn’t like he was covered in ink but he did have a
lot of them. It made me want to get one even more. Like something that would
tie me to him, a memory of this time together. Part of me, the girly part,
wondered if he would want to get matching tattoos. It was a crazy thought and
made me think of some kind of blood brothers sacrifice.

There were these two
boys in my freshman English class that were so close that they did everything
together and one day near the end of our freshman year they came to school with
matching skull tattoos on their necks. A little strange but I envied their
friendship.

When we left, I had a
feeling that Dylan preferred to express himself through his song selections.

The song that came on
once we hit the highway heading south toward Bakersfield, Boys II Men
I’ll
Make Love
To
You
.

If I wasn’t falling for
Dylan Wade before, I was now. I was remembering exactly how the boy in him had
stolen my heart when we were kids.

When we made it to Bakersfield, the city
was thriving for a Sunday night. Lights lit the buildings and people roamed the
streets as we pulled off the highway.

We ended up getting a
room at the Travelodge around one in the morning only to find they only had one
room left with one bed. It seemed this was becoming a habit. After that kiss in
the water, I wasn’t sure how long I could keep to myself. One bed didn't help
either, nor was Dylan with his frequent teasing and needing to take his shirt
off.

Damn him.

As soon as we entered
the room, my eyes were drawn to the window as the tenth floor room with views
of the city still bursting with its nightlife. It made me want to walk the
streets. But then again I could barely beep my eyes opened so I knew that wasn’t
happening.

“Do you want to take a
shower?” Dylan asked kicking the door shut with his foot as he balanced his
guitar next to the wall to set down his bag on the bed. He refused to leave his
guitar in the car after the bull incident. He thought for sure, even in a
secured parking garage, someone was going to steal it.

Silently I was hoping
this meant he might play for me tonight. I hadn’t seen him play since he was
nine and I was sure he was better now. Even at nine-years-old, he had talent.
The word around school was that he had a full scholarship to Juilliard for that
talent but I hadn’t asked him about it yet. Jessica had heard from Landon that
he got in because Landon’s mom had applied for him. When Dylan found out they
offered him a scholarship, he wasn’t pleased and turned it down. But that could
have been all rumors for all I knew.

“Bailey?” Dylan called
out when I didn’t answer his question about the shower.

“Sorry, no, I’ll just
take one in the morning.” I sat down on the bed kicking off my flip-flops
before laying back. “I’m too tired.”

“I’m
gonna
take one.” He whispered slipping inside the bathroom.
I heard the shower turn on and that’s the last thing I remembered.

The next thing I
remembered was waking up, under the covers still clothed staring at those
fucking tattoos on Dylan’s back again. It was like they were taunting me.

It didn’t take me long
and I was examining them as he slept. The morning light filtering inside the
room provided just enough light. His back moved lightly with his breathing so I
stole my chance.

There appeared to be a
dragon that started on his chest and then moved over his right shoulder and
down his back. It was massive in length and took up most of his shoulders and
upper back.

On his left shoulder
was more detail of stars and what looked to be a cross with a name written in
the middle of it and a chain wrapped around it. When I looked closer, it was
his mother’s name surrounded by sparrows, three of them to be exact.

Dylan’s arm was tucked
under his pillow so I got a good look at the ones on his left arm too. I
couldn’t make out much just that there was a lot of detail in each one. I
wondered how long it took him to get all of these.

I remember in school
when I first noticed a tattoo on him. It was our sophomore year in PE when he
came in wearing shorts and a t-shirt and his forearms had tattoos on them. He
wasn’t the only kid in school to have them. Nowadays it was deemed abnormal not
to have them. I was in that group. The extent of my body art was pierced ears
and that wasn’t even considered art.

I’m not sure why but
one particular tattoo on his right wrist was interesting to me and I thought,
stupid me, that if he was sleeping that I could get a closer look.

If you had a camera on
me in that instant, you would have laughed because there I was, on all fours,
peeking over Dylan’s shoulder as he slept trying to decipher what kind of bird
was on his wrist and the writing that surrounded it.

Turns out, I was not
clever and Dylan wasn’t sleeping.

“All you have to do is
ask me what it is,” he said scaring the living shit right out of me as he
rolled onto his back.

With that roll, I was
basically hovering over him.

Dylan closed his eyes;
his right arm rose and rested against his forehead, the inside of his wrist
facing me for a clear view.

That’s when I noticed a
humming bird.

I had always had a
fascination with humming birds for as long as I could remember. Dylan knew that
too because for my eighth birthday he gave me a stuffed humming bird to which I
still had.

There, on Dylan’s
wrist, was a small humming bird about the size of a quarter wrapped in a chain.
Around it was a scripture that appeared to be in a foreign language.

“Why is it wrapped in
chains?”

“Why is anything
wrapped in chains?”

“Because
it’s confined?”

“Answer’s your
questions, doesn’t it?” His voice was calm, even, and you could feel the
tension rolling through him.

“What does it say?”

His eyes remained
closed as he spoke, his voice rough with sleep. “Humming birds are said to have
supernatural powers.” Then his eyes opened, and he blinked a few times focusing
on my anxious stare, waiting, deciding. “The words around it say ‘
She holds
the power to which she will never know’
.”

7.
      
Out of my head – Bailey Gray

I had no idea what to
say when I realized what Dylan’s tattoo meant―the magnitude of it at
least.

Did his tattoo have
something to do with me?

Dylan didn’t want
questions asked, that much was evident when he pushed me back and headed to his
jeans that were beside the bed to find his cigarettes.

I watched him move with
ease to the balcony dressed in those Nike shorts from the other day that hung
so low on his hips. Not only was I thinking about his tattoos, I also couldn’t
forget that kiss last night in the water and his casualness surrounding it this
morning and last night. For me
is was
the best kiss
I’d ever had, for him, it was probably just another kiss.

Outside, Dylan hunched
over the wooden railing, his elbows rested against the peeled red paint.
Drawing his hand to his mouth, smoke billowed around him mixing with the clouds
in the sky, gently, drifting, calming the mind, clouds crossed the sky in
droves.

I knew Dylan had an
emotional barrier around him. I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to
break-through it but I wanted to try. This wasn’t one of those situations where
the girl tries to save the broken boy. That wasn’t this at all. All I wanted to
do is be there for him since I hadn’t been growing up. Maybe that’s all he
needed anyway.

“You
wanna
get some breakfast?” Dylan asked coming back inside
the room after I showered.

The wind blew as the
door closed bringing with it the stench of his cigarettes. He noticed my
response to the odor. “Sorry.”

“No worries,” I said
turning to my bag next to me removing my lotion and then looking for gum.
“Let’s get some food.”

As I applied some
lotion to my face, Dylan nodded and moved to the floor where his guitar was and
picked it up setting it on the bed beside me and then gathered his clothes. His
stare found his guitar, contemplative, deciding, and then back to me, appearing
curious as to why I was watching him.

“Will you play for me?”

He didn’t respond right
away. Instead, his expression was lost as if he was in deep thought. The ice
blue hardened, he didn’t want to.
“Someday.”

“When was the last time
you played?”

Once again, his
expression appeared lost. “The morning we left.”

“You don’t want to play
around me?” I deduced finding my hands very interesting.

“No,” Dylan replied
right away, his voice even and soft, assuring me my assumptions were wrong.
“That has nothing to do with it.”

We didn’t say much else
that morning as we checked out and walked across the parking lot to Coco’s for
breakfast.

When I ordered a
cinnamon roll, Dylan laughed. “You sure do have a sweet tooth, brown eyes.”

I rolled my eyes
licking frosting from my lip. “You have no idea,” I moaned around the
sweetness. “My mom never let me have this kind of thing. She was anti sweets.”

“That’s lame.” Dylan
took a bite of his scrambled eggs and chewed slowly.

The waitress came by,
filled Dylan’s coffee cup, and winked at him. He smiled up at her with a boyish
grin and did the same to her. I kind of hated that he winked at someone other
than me.

“You like coffee?” I
asked trying not to blurt out the question my girl brain wanted to ask which
was,
“Do you think she’s pretty?”

“I spent most of my
time in Seattle.” He said this as if I should have known.

“What did you do in
Seattle?”

Dylan gave a shrug
moving from his eggs to his toast. “Music mostly,” he answered, his eyes on his
plate. “Landon had some friends up there we hung out with. Eddy was up there
too at times.”

Eddy was Dylan’s uncle,
his mom’s older brother who used to be in a band but walked away when they were
on tour.

“Is that where you
spent most of your weekends?”

“Yeah.”

Just as easily as the
conversation had begun, my mention of his music was off limits.

“So what are you going
to do about school?” Dylan asked eventually. “Still plan on going?”

We had yet to talk
about where this was all going. The thought of going to school was no longer on
my mind. What was on my mind was this summer and seeing where that took me. At
this point, I wouldn’t care if we ever went back.

“No, I’m not planning
on going to school.”

Dylan smiled around his
coffee cup, his eyes curious again and he looked up at me. “Me either.”

“You had a scholarship,
right?”

He nodded. “As did
you,”

“Things change.” I said
with my own smile around my own cup of coffee.

“Yeah.”
He leaned back relaxing in the booth, his weight settled to one side as he
rubbed his left hand over the stubble of his jaw. “Life has a way of changing.”

“So what’s our plan
then?”

The waitress came by
again, stopping briefly to fill our coffee and then scrambled to the next
table. It seemed their Monday morning was a busy one. But here we were, not
rushing and deciding things like our future.

“My brother is in
Birmingham,” Dylan said in a conversationally tone. “We could head there and
see him for a few weeks.”

“Have you talked to him
recently?”

“Yeah, we’ve talked a
few times.” I could tell Dylan wasn’t exactly comfortable talking about it,
shifting his weight and the way he started fidgeting with the handle of his
coffee mug confirmed my theory.