Pricked

Reaching down to retrieve it, my hand brushes against something hard. A book or a journal of some kind sticks out from under the loveseat. How I missed this before when I was cleaning is beyond me, but I slide it out and take a closer look.

It’s a sketch pad, the cover worn and cracked.

I flip to the first page and find a detailed drawing of an old muscle car. The next page is some elaborate tattoo design where all of the pictures blend together as one, almost like a mural. The following pages contain various sketches, each one better than the one before it. There’s a rose. A portrait of a young woman. A bejeweled skull. Practice tattoos, maybe?

I page through the rest, admiring the raw talent, when I notice something in the lower left corner of each and every page.

A name.

Dallas.

In the two months I’ve known Madden, never once has he mentioned anyone by the name of Dallas, and judging by the fact that this notebook was tucked away, hidden from plain sight, I don’t think he planned to.

I’ve known two Dallases in my life—one male and one female.

This Dallas could be anyone.

An old friend?

A former business partner?

A family member?

An ex?

With nothing but time on my hands and curiosity coursing my veins, I grab my phone and perform a quick internet search of the name “Dallas Ransom” on the off chance this person is somehow related to him … like a brother or even a former wife.

No Results.

Weird.

I close the sketch pad and place it back under the sofa exactly how I found it.

32

Madden

Sleep evades me tonight, so instead I lie here watching Brighton, her creamy skin basked in moonlight from the open window beside her, a peaceful, dreamy expression on her beautiful face.

It’s funny how life can be moving along, perfectly hum-drum and uneventful, and then you get the mail one Saturday morning and everything changes.

I haven’t heard from my father in years. In fact, the last time he wrote me, it was my twenty-first birthday, a few years after he’d been locked up. I wrote him back and told him never to contact me again.

I should’ve tossed the damn thing in the trash, but instead I opened it, curious to know what the asshole felt the need to say to me after all these years even if I knew it was going to piss me off regardless.

And of course it did.

My old man had the nerve to ask me to come visit him.

Nothing more, nothing less.

No I’m sorry or I miss you or I love you or how’s your sister … just a simple request that I come visit him.

I ripped the letter in half several times before throwing it in the garbage on top of a rotting banana peel. Brighton was still in the shower and by the time she came out, she was none the wiser and I’d had several minutes to cool down.

As far as I’m concerned, the bastard is dead to me. And that’s what I tell people when they ask about him. I say, “He’s no longer with us.” They all interpret it as if he’s dead, no longer living, but it’s all the same to me.

Brighton rolls to her side, her back to me, and she brushes her cheek against her pillow, releasing a soft moan in her sleep. She does that sometimes. Little moans here or there. It’s the cutest, sexiest thing in the whole fucking world.

Tomorrow marks two weeks since she moved in, and I have to admit that it hasn’t been as bad as I thought it’d be.

Sure, there are times when we both need our space, but we make it work. She’ll go to the coffee shop or the library and I’ll go for a drive, and at the end of the night we’re back in bed, unable to keep our hands off each other.

I roll to my back. Staring at the ceiling, my mind drifts back to my father’s letter. Sometimes I think about him. Not often. Just sometimes. And I always wonder how he spends his day. If he’s made friends. How he passes the time. If anyone’s kicked his ass yet for running his mouth.

I can’t imagine spending the rest of your life in a metal and cinderblock cage is anything but hell on earth, but at least he’s alive.

Which is more than Dallas can say.

33

Brighton

The apartment smells like Chinese takeout and Madden is stepping out of the shower when I get home.

“Took the night off?” I ask. Normally he works until nine or ten most days of the week.

He winks. “Thought you might want help celebrating your first full day in the real world.”

“Is this for us?” I point to the white bags on the counter.

“Yeah. I didn’t know what you like so I just ordered a bunch of stuff.”

I dig around in one of the bags, retrieving an egg roll and taking a bite off the tip. “I know you’re not a real boyfriend, but you’re a pretty amazing pretend one.”

He rolls his eyes.

“Stop.” Madden pulls up a chair at the table, and I take the one beside him. “So how was it?”

“I survived.”

“Never a bad thing.” He grabs a white cardboard container of rice and a plastic spoon.

“Today was mostly orientations and paperwork. Gave me a tour of the building. Introduced me to my research team.”

“Nerds?”

“No,” I correct him. “Geniuses.”

“My bad.”

“Try this.” He forks a piece of chicken and feeds it to me. “You like?”

I nod as I chew, and then I give him a thumb’s up.

“Good. It’s yours.” He slides that particular container my way before digging into the bag and grabbing another.

He’s in a good mood tonight. Not as broody as usual. More talkative too. In a perfect world I’d take the credit for it, but I’m sure it has nothing to do with me.

I watch him eat, admiring the way his jaw flexes, the way he picks the peppers out of his entrée. Ordinary things, but the way he does them is all his own. Or maybe that’s just something that happens when you’re falling for someone … you find every little thing they say or do adorable or attractive. If anyone else did those same things that same way, it wouldn’t make me bat an eye.

Pulling myself out of my daydream, I remind myself that this isn’t real and it never will be.

“My parents forgot my oldest brother in a Chinese restaurant once,” I say. “He was playing on one of the arcade games in the back and my other brother had just thrown up and they were trying to get us all back in the car so we could get Eben home. My dad drove three blocks before he realized we left Graeme behind.”

He laughs through his nose, once.

I’m sure the story isn’t as funny to him as it is to me—if he knew how anal my father is and how flustered he gets around any kind of bodily fluids, he’d understand.

“What about you? Any crazy childhood stories?” I ask. I don’t expect him to answer, but I hate to sit here and talk about myself.

“All kinds,” he says. “None that I’m going to share.”

“Okay.” I can respect that. “What about any good childhood memories? Something that makes you smile?”

He digs around in his entrée, pushing peppers and onions aside. And then he nods.

Is he actually going to tell me something?

“When Dev was one, she went through this stage where she was having night terrors. Lasted about four or five months. Most nights of the week it’d happen,” he says. “Only one of us that could calm her down was me. She didn’t want our mom. Didn’t want a bottle or a blanket. Just me.”

“Madden.” I tilt my head. “That's really sweet.”

He shrugs.

I wish I could have known this younger version of him, the softer Madden that the world hadn’t yet tainted.

I also wish I could ask him about Dallas.

I think about that sketch pad all the time, curiosity eating away at me. And part of me thinks it’s not so much the notebook … it’s more about what the notebook represents—which are all the things I don’t know about him.

And all the things I probably never will.

“Random question for you.” I clear my throat and head to the refrigerator to grab a bottle of water.

“Nothing is ever random with you. But what is it?”

“With this new job … I’m probably looking at getting out of your hair in about four weeks,” I say. “I’m just wondering what we were going to do after that. Do we keep on keeping on … or?”

“Brighton.” The way he says my name deflates any and all hope I had that he might be open to turning this into something more. “I’m not going anywhere. You can still come over. It’s not like we have to stop hooking up after you move out.”

“Yeah, but what if one of us meets someone?” I’m sure he sees through me. I’m sure he knows what I’m really getting at. But I can’t help myself.

“We’ll deal with that when the time comes.” He takes another bite of chicken.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Yep.”

I uncap my water bottle. “Why are you so anti-relationships?”

“Because people are selfish,” he says without missing a beat. “And I’m no exception.”

“So you’re just going to be single the rest of your life?”

He shrugs. It isn't a yes. It isn't a no.