Evan Arden 01 Otherwise Alone (8 page)

“Sorry,” I mutter. 
“Reflex.”

Oh great – that makes it sound so much better.

She actually flinches a little, and I might not have even noticed if I wasn’t holding her hand.

“I won’t do anything,” I promise.

She nods.

“I would never hurt you,” I add.  It’s so fucking important to me she knows I would never, ever do anything to hurt her, and I have no idea why.

She nods again.

“I know.”

“Come back?”  My fingers grip hers a little tighter.  I want the words to sound like a demand, not a question
. 
“After you see your mom, you can come back here.”

I want it to be a statement…a charge…an order
…but my own bizarre
feelings of insecurity win out.

“You don’t have to-”

“I want you to come back here,” I interrupt.  I need her to understand, even if I don’t.

“Why?”  H
er voice is so soft
,
I can hardly hear her.

I don’t know how to answer.

“Because,” I finally say.
  I look into her eyes, hoping she’ll find meaning there since my words are so inadequate.

Lia
sighs and reaches up with her free hand to run it through my hair.

“How long will you be here?” she asks.

“I don’t know.  It could be days or weeks.  I just don’t know.”

“I need at least a couple of days with my mom.”

“Take them,” I tell her.  “Just come back when you’re done.”

She stares at me for some time without saying a word but finally nods her head.  I don’t know if it’s meant for me or if it’s just the way she is confirming her own decision to herself.
  I don’t care – she’s agreeing.  Nothing else matters.

“All right,
Evan
,” she says softly, “but only on one condition.”

“Anything,” I say.  Again, all brains have left me.

“Tell me your full name.”

“
Lieutenant
Evan
Nathanial
Arden
.”
  No brains whatso
ever.
  Maybe the doctor who did my psyche evaluation and said I couldn’t serve anymore was right.

Brains become completely irrelevant as she smiles at me again.

“Okay,”
Lia
says with another smile.  “I’ll come back to you.”

Odin
sits next to the open window of the truck, so I have
Lia
sandwiched between the two of us.  I like it.  I like it way too much
, actually
. 
Odin seems to have accepted her, or at least decided she smells enough like me now that it doesn’t matter.  He licks her hand when she pets him and even nuzzles her neck with his nose, making her laugh.

The
journey
is quiet, but I hold her hand
in mine and place them both on her thigh
.  It
i
s
a
two
-
hour
drive
to
Tuba City
,
and the nearest bus
station
where she can get a ride the rest of the way to Phoenix.  I want to take her
to see her mother
myself, but she makes it clear she wants to do this alone
,
and I know I can’t really leave my station for the extended trip.  At least I
will be able to
get some gas for the generator and some supplies.

I watch her legs as they move up the steps of the bus and wonder when they
will
be wrapped around my waist again. 
Lia
turn
s
back and gives me a smile that doesn’t touch her eyes, and I return the sentiment.  Then the doors close, and she is gone.

The drive back to the empty house is a blur – too uneventful to bother committing to memory.  Even if it had been more exciting, my mind is too preoccupied to bother with it. 
Every thought points to her, and it’s
more than
a little maddening.

When I walk in the door,
I am followed closely by
Odin
,
carrying his rubber bone in his mouth.  H
e tries to engage me in play,
but
all I see is the empty bed with the s
heets shoved down to the floor.
 
I take a deep breath, hoping I can still find her scent in the house, but it’s too faint, and I’m probably only imagining it.

Get your shit together,
Arden
.

I walk back outside and fire up the generator.  Dinner is grilled cheese and
half of
a bag of salad I got from the store next to the bus station.  I fire up the netbook PC as I munch on Romaine
lettuce, cabbage, and carrot strips
without any dressing
.
  All they had in the little convenient store was the brand I hate, and there wasn’t any Italian dressing at all.
  My email eventually loads as I’m on my second helping.

Pizza Hut – teasing me again.
  God, I would love a pizza right now.

I’ve won the Bank
of
Europe lottery.  Is there a Bank of Europe?

Alienware would love to have me buy their new gaming machine.

And one more message.

Sender –
Roger
Moore
.

Subject – none.

Body of message – come back.

The message was se
nt twenty-nine hours ago – I have
n’t checked messages
since early
yesterday. 
Roger
– or
rather,
Rinaldo
– w
ould
assume I had received the message and
left by now.

I swallow hard and close the PC.

A thousand thoughts run through my mind, and I can’t catalog them all into any semblance of order.  I told her to come back, bu
t when she gets
here
,
the place i
s going to be empty.  I can’t hesitate to leave and head back to the city – I just can’t.  I have no phone number or any way to contact her.  I didn’t even
consider
it, and if she
thought about it
,
she apparently didn’t think it was necessary to give me her phone number.

Ride my cock for hours, yes, but not give me her fucking number…

Even if she had given me her number, I still don’t have a phone to use in the first place.  Not until I get back to Chicago, and there
is
no way I am going to ask her to come there.  If I want to, I can have her found – there can’t be that many Lia Antonio’s with a mother living in Phoenix.  I can certainly locate her mother at the very least, but then I wouldn’t know what to say to her.

I’m trying to make excuses.  I know what I’m doing and tell myself to cut that shit out.  I don’t lie to myself.  It’s pointless and destructive.  I already know what I have decided because there really isn’t any other choice.
  I’m not going to bring that girl into my life.  No way in hell.  The very notion
is
ridiculous, and I was probably just a little bit insane when I told her to come back here.  It could never last.

There’s a small
duffle bag underneath the card table in the kitchen, which I haul out and deposit on the bed.  My clothes go into it –
the
dirty and
the
clean.  The netbook goes in there, too, as well as my spare pair of tennis shoes
and
Odin
’s bone
.  I reach over and grab the rifle, quickly dismantling it so it fits inside the duffel.  I take a quick look around the place to make sure nothing important has been forgotten, and there
they are
.

H
er panties – the ones
I nearly tore off of her
last
night – wrapped up in the sheets on
t
he bed.  I reach over and untangle them, then place them deep inside the duffle bag.

I hav
e to leave her something.

I briefly
consider leaving her my boxers
but shake that thought from my head quickly.  Her little lacy underwear is seriously sexy – boxers are not.  There really isn’t anything I have I can leave for her, so I am stuck with the ultimately lame. 
I dig around in the “catch all” drawer of the kitchen until I find some paper and a pen
.  I
sit in one of the folding chairs at the table
and
stare at the blank page.

What the hell can I even say?

I had to
leave
, but t
hanks for the great fuck?

I can’t leave her my address.  I don’t have a phone number.

I can’t tell her to come and find me in Chicago.

With shaking hands, I write a single word on the paper and then place it in the center of the bed.

SORRY

I take a step back, and a glint of silver catches my eye.

There is a quarter lying next to the pillow.

Reaching over slowly, I pick it up in my hand and hold it tightly, transferring the heat of my palm into the metal.  My throat constricts, and I swallow past the lump before I open my
fingers
and let the coin drop next to the piece of paper.

Turning quickly,
I grab a couple bottles of water for the road and head back out to the truck.
  I spend a moment dismantling the wires attached to the battery and rolling the wire up into a tight, round loop.
  I bend down to pick up the dog dish and a bag of kibble, throw them and the duffle into the back of the truck, and whistle. 
Odin
appears from around the house, races towards me
, and a few minutes later we are heading down the road.

As I steer the truck down the drive, it feels like someone
reaches
through my back and grab
s
hold of my heart, ripping it through my body and yanking it back to that tiny, hot little house. 
I keep swallowing, but it doesn’t stop the burn in my throat.

Odin
whines and noses at my arm.  I look over at him and wonder what he sees when he looks at me.  He noses my arm again, then licks my hand where it grips the steering wheel.

“
Thanks,
buddy,” I say
in monotone
.

He whines again.

“I can’t do that,” I say softly.  “I can’t do that to her.”

With my eyes staring
toward
the spanning horizon, I push thoughts of her from my mind, burying her memory in the darkest recesses of my brain.  I wish I could have explained it to her – told her it was for her own good, but there was no way.  Anything I said would either be a lie or too dangerous for her to know.

So
I drive off.

Odin
at my side.

But otherwise alone.