Page 22 of The Love You Hate
Nate smiles. “But we just went over this, didn’t we?”
“If I find a man and want to take him home, you’ll drive us then?” I ask, testing. “That’s what kind of friends we are?” I think my ability to read men has reached an all-time low. Funny it coincides when my life also has the same status.
“One hundred percent,” Nate says. “Let me go deal with Junkyard Jake and I’ll see you soon.” He closes the door. It’s a loud clanging noise, not the soft, easy close of a luxury vehicle or the smooth slide of Lambo wing doors. No, the doors of my Jeep represent pretty much everything about Presley Cohen at the moment. I drive back to my trailer and feel sorry for myself. Nate turned me down so effortlessly, like he never once thought of me in a way that wasn’t platonic.
Part of me wants him more because of it, but the other part, the one that acts out of self-preservation, tells me to give it up and not embarrass myself with him any more than I already have. Nate is so different. I can tell he cares about me; I just can’t figure out in what way and why. I slam the jalopy of a door and don’t bother locking it before I go into my tin land submarine. Unlike my Jeep, this door makes no noise, because my pinky toe weighs more.
I drop my bag on a stool in the kitchen and then open the door to my closet. It’s technically the pantry, but the hole that is supposed to be my closet in the bedroom is a joke. Kneeling down,I find the one article of my former life I managed to squirrel away. Inside the Hermes bag is a bloodred dress, the slinky material balls up easily and doesn’t wrinkle. I’ll never wear it again, but it never fails to make me nostalgic. Sighing, I throw it back into the bag, and inhale the scent of the leather. I clasp it closed, and feel contentment as something, anything, closes the way it’s supposed to. Soft, effortlessly, and smooth.
I stand, and let my hand trail over all my Gold Hawke clothes. “Back to the real world.” There are really just different variations of flannels, a few long-sleeved tops that came from Walmart and one blouse that holds any kind of potential. I take a shower quickly, and put the blouse on with a pair of jeans and dry my hair. Nate doesn’t want me. Well, maybe I’ll show him exactly what he’s missing out on. The flour-coated girl in the bakery isn’t the only person I’m capable of being.
My makeup is understated, but onpoint, I smell like a delicious combination of soap, perfume, and hair product. I resemble my former self when I’m finished. I have a few minutes before Nate is supposed to pick me up so I try the internet on the iPad they gave me. It’s so slow, I give up almost immediately, before pacing to the small window to open the plastic mini blinds. There’s a car, an older model, pulling away from my trailer.
My stomach flips, my throat tightens quickly, and all of the scary things I lie awake and think about at night become a reality in my mind. I know where every car belongs–which person drives what vehicle, and when. Especially when it comes to my road, and the neighbors who surround me. The beige, late-model sedan isn’t familiar in anyway. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. There wasn’t time to get a plate number or a description of the driver. The fact that I’m so concerned makes me even more concerned. There was a time when the only thing I worried myself with was if I had full coverage foundation on. The paparazzi use some insane telescopic lenses and if you want to look flawless in the pap shots, you need to wear thick makeup. That was my concern. The only thing I worried about while I went about my day. My father’s conviction changed everything.
My heart is racing as I sit down on the smalllove seatand focus on my breathing. I slide my hand between the cushions and pull out the small Smith and Wesson I keep there. The gun is halfway between my bed and the front door—the only place that made sense. Growing up my father taught me how to skeet shoot. By definition that’s rich-person-firing-a-gun-for-fun, not true self-defense. It was more about what outfit you wore and how much alcohol could be consumed while still remaining accurate. This gritty place I’m now a part of is again, nothing like how I was raised. There isn’t a shooting range, but I was told that maybe, eventually, I’d be able to visit surrounding towns and I know the closest gun range is seventeen miles down the freeway. I tap the gun against my leg, looking at it, and become sicker by the second. It was just a strange car, not an angry, desperate human looking to exact revenge on a family member of the master villain.
My thoughts run rampant as I let my mind focus on the scary stuff. The wild stuff. The fact that my friend, Caylee was killed by a mob in her favorite diner, midtown, in broad daylight rushes in. It was her death that made my process of going into hiding quicker. My family and a portion of hers had originally turned down protection when it was offered. We didn’t think it was needed and that the people offering it were exaggerating about how things could go down. We were clearly wrong. After she was killed, my mother and I instantly accepted the offer of protection and all of the rules that went along with it.
Caylee, like me, had no idea what her father was doing behind closed doors. She was also in the social magazines and had a familiar face. It made her an easy target. Her mother fled the country after her father was convicted, leaving her a sitting duck. I like to think my father is looking out for me in prison, because a true business man is not justsittingin prison. Mark my words, he’s scheming, planning, and trying to find a way out, or trying to find a connection to the outside world to help. My father was a criminal mastermind parading in Prada. People suspected something was amiss, but when you have money it’s easy to make things disappear. A loud pounding on my door brings me to the present.
Slipping the gun back into the hiding spot, I rush to the door and see Nate standing on the wooden steps. I open the door, relieved to see a human I actually trust. The motion happens before I can stop it. I lean in, throwing my hands around his neck. Human contact. A warm body. A beating heart against mine. Connection. This is what I need. Maybe I confused my damn lust for something else. I’m trembling, and Nate is talking, but I have no clue what he’s saying. I’m still trying to melt into his body.
When I pull back, his hands are at his side, rigid, like he’s at attention. “I thought we went over this earlier.”
“I’m so sorry. I saw a scary car and I know that’s not your problem, and I probably shouldn’t be scared of a car, but my life is all messed up. I didn’t mean to hug you.” Nate is staring at me with an unreadable expression. One of those military surveying gazes. “I would have hugged anyone mildly familiar if it makes you feel better.” He’s still staring, except he narrows his eyes.
Why are you scared of a car? What did it look like?”
I swallow hard. Part of this deal is complete and utter bullshit. I have to lie about pretty much everything. “I’d never seen the car before,” I rush. “I know all the cars around here. I’m just weird about vehicles and people I don’t know.” He nods and scans the tree line on the side of my house. “You’re not going to say anything about the hug?”
He shakes his head. “It meant nothing. I didn’t hug you back.”
I cough to cover a snarl. “Friends can hug friends. Don’t be so cold.”
Nate watches me lock the door. “Friends can’t hug friends who they were just sexually propositioned by a few hours ago.”
Great, I think. I’ve ruined this before it began with my damn libido. “You can’t hold that against me forever.”
I get into his truck, which seems to be nicer than my used vehicle at first glance, and see a package sitting on the seat between us. “Lucky for you, I don’t hold things against people. Well, good people anyway.” Nate eyes me from his perch in the driver’s seat. “The package is for you. Consider it a gift from the friend who will never, and I mean never, take off your pants.”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever been not so graciously offered a gift,” I say.
“I have never been propositioned without being dined first. There are firsts for everything, Presley.” Nate clears his throat and pulls onto the road as I tear into the brown tape, giddy, and disgusted that all it takes to make me giddy is a brown, unmarked box. “Tell me about the car you saw on your road.” That car is practically forgotten now that I feel safe with another human, especially a human like Nate. He makes me feel safe. Part of his fucking allure, I’ve realized.
Mindlessly I give him all the details I recall as I pick at the last bit of tape. Squealing when I see the box, I pull the roller skates from the tissue paper. “How did you know what color I wanted? I didn’t tell you!”
He looks over, and I swear I see a small smirk followed by the most devastatingly handsome smile I’ve ever seen. If my father had that smirk to add to his arsenal the sky would be the limit. Dad has thin Lexington lips, and gums that are too big for his teeth. Nate, I think, has the perfect mouth–actually his whole face is symmetrical and sculpted by a magic wand. He wouldn’t do plastics, I can tell, so that beautiful mug is all genetics. Getting lost in his stupid smile for a few beats is the perfect distraction from the skates, gripped in my sweaty hands.
“I guessed on the color and size. Just wanted to be a helper for your redo bucket list. Thought those might help.” His eyes soften further. “There should be some protective equipment in there too. Safety first and all that.” The knee pads and elbow pads look enormous, and very…safe.
“Look at you being thoughtful. I didn’t think you were this kind of person. What do I owe you? I don’t expect gifts this extravagant from a mere friend.”
“You don’t owe me anything. It was a gift.” The very first thoughtful gift I’ve ever received. Louis Vuitton, Chanel, YSL, that G-Wagon for my sixteenth birthday held appeal, but looking at this rubber and plastic sitting in my lap, and stinking up his car with that fresh from China smell, I know without a doubt I love this gift the most out of any I have ever received.
“Thank you. I’m not sure how to repay you. It’s not like I have internet to research a gift this fitting. You nailed it. I cannot wait to try these out.”
Nate pulls into a line of traffic waiting to get through a pass in the mountain. This must be concert traffic. “Just promise me you won’t break any bones, and we’ll call it even.”
