But my motion made the chair scratch against the roof deck and the noise brought Willow’s attention back to me, which totally threw me off, like I had been caught doing something I wasn't supposed to. Not like she noticed, but still.
“You look tired, Nash. I’m… I’m so sorry.” Willow reached for my face, like it was something she always did. She drew her fingertips along my bottom lip, a slow, steady trace, and I didn’t want her to stop.
“It’s nothing I’m not used to,” I said, voice hitting barely a whisper. “Been like this a while.”
There was something in Willow’s expression I couldn’t read. A little sadness, a little confusion, enough of something to make her look withdrawn and tight. Still, she continued to move her fingers in a trace along my lip, and even though I’d never allowed such a thing before, it felt familiar and intimate. Without stopping to think about it, I decided to crush the cautious whine in the back of my head and do more than let the moment pass.
“You should be sleeping. I can try…” She broke off, failing to stifle a yawn and moved her fingers from my face, but I grabbed her wrist, holding her palm flat against my mouth, I kissed her hand.
She was surprised, even more than I was.
“Nash?”
Her voice was soft and sweet, and without stopping to try to make sense of it, I pulled her up, tugging on her hand until she lifted from the chair.
“Come here,” I said, keeping my fingers against her wrist.
It was stupid to do. It was something I’d never been impulsive about—taking a woman I wanted, leading, demanding, but right then it’s what I did. Willow came to me, warm and wild and without hesitation.
I didn’t have to ask anything after that. She moved like the slow breeze, barely any direction, but constant, sure, and before I realized what happened, Willow was on my lap and I moved my hands to her face, my fingers in her hair and she opened her mouth, an invitation that was sweet, certain and I took it, kissing her as if I’d always done it, like my mouth, my tongue knew the contours of her lips and the taste of her breath.
It occurred to me then that the kiss was right. The scent of her breath over my face, how it warmed me from the inside, was all so damn familiar; not like it was me kissing Willow, but something deeper. Something I couldn’t place, like a memory tucked far away in my head, hidden and waiting.
It had felt too good, too right. It scared the hell out of me.
And right before the kiss led somewhere else, had gotten us moving quicker, deeper, Mickey banged open the rooftop door, letting us know he was going to replace the bulbs on the outdoor lamps, we pulled apart, not reluctantly but kinda like kids who had almost been caught in the act of misbehaving. She blushed and laughed under her breath, I cleared my throat and held the door for her as she left, without looking back, but with a little sway in her walk that I knew was just for me.
And damn, but hadn’t that seemed like the right way for the evening to end? Don’t ask me why, but it felt pretty fucking perfect. Even the way her perfume lingered.
For once I slept better than I had in a while. But when I did wake, it almost seemed like that night had been its own kind of dream, kind of like it, too, belonged to another place and time, and all the old cares and worries crowded in again.
For years I’d stayed focused, driven, disciplined, always looking ahead. I didn’t hang out and get shitty in college because I knew as a scholarship kid there was no room for fucking up. At MIT I worked to prove myself, determined to do more, be more because it was expected. Now I worked to build the best program, the most efficient means to deliver a quality product to clients, with a board of potential investors who also believed in what I was trying to do.
There was no space in my life for distractions. There was no room for anyone who’d have me deviating from the game plan. I had zero time for Willow, no matter how sweet she sounded when I kissed her. No matter how much I’d liked the way she gripped my collar like she needed to hold on to me before we fell from that moment.
So when I started out this morning and found a small white box on the floor in front of my landing, with the note Thank you for the nap and the rescue and… all the other very good stuff. Let me return the favor, I didn’t really know how to respond, or even what to think.
Up on that rooftop deck with Willow, everything had seemed so simple, so right. But this morning, reality hit me like a ton of bricks. I had no clue what Willow really wanted from me. I only knew that if the dream wasn’t distracting me, then Willow was, and I didn’t have time for any of it. I had sleep to avoid and work to do. There was no time for dreams that made no sense or for women, no matter how beautiful, who would do nothing but distract me from the life I wanted. Even if they made killer cupcakes or smelled like sweet, expensive things I could never afford.
Damn, I couldn’t even concentrate. There were too many thoughts—of New Orleans and a kid in the 20’s, of Willow and the sweet, sinful taste of her tongue, of Duncan and his needy, pestering drama that always seemed to surf around the edges of our conversations.
Noise. Nonsense. Irritation, all of it.
I thundered into my apartment, heading straight for the sofa, tugging off my jacket and tie, my shoes and belt before I crashed and gripped my headphones. Coltrane was on, that beautiful voice of God singing a sax hymnal inside of ten minutes. My neck felt tight and my shoulders ached, so I leaned back, shutting my eyes, not intending to do anything but relax. Just for a little while…
New Orleans
Joe Andres was a mean man. That seemed to be true of a lot of male folk in the city, especially the ones who paid no never-mind to the laws laid down about hooch. Most days I could get away with walking through the drunken crowds, the reckless fools who didn’t give a single thought to the policemen lurking on every corner, itching to find someone easy to stir up mess with. But that was New Orleans, not here in the swamp where mama had taken us to for keeping out of trouble since she said those Irishmen from the Channel were having a fine time celebrating St. Paddy’s Day.
I didn’t mind it so much, except for Joe Andres being up at the Simoneaux house. It was nice to be away from the trolleys and crowds, the wicked gleam in ole Ripper’s eye and the constant worry that my mama and Lulu would get found out for making drink no one was supposed to have. But having a fool like Joe Andres that close by meant I still had to keep at least one eye out for trouble.
I liked my Bastie’s farm. Chickens pecked at the ground on the side of the house, next to the shotgun building with the pale blue door and cream walls where Bastie used to store her gardening tools and the feed sacks for all her critters. That led away from the old creole cottage my granddaddy Bastien had built for her with his own two hands some thirty years ago, before the pipe he smoked festered his lungs like dry rot on a dock and killed him by the time he was sixty.
The house was cedar framed; the color of the wood had gone all dark like the belly of a rock settled on the riverbank, and Bastie kept pretty green shutters on the two windows outfitted at the front of the house. There was a porch with five-foot long steps and handrails, where she kept a whiskey barrel cut in the center to catch the water she pumped from the well. She’d use the washboard inside that barrel to beat and scrub out the laundry on Saturdays all day if the weather was right.