Sunday, April 7, 2013

Chapter Twenty-Four










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Chapter Twenty-Four



APOV


I wished I could have taken back the last week.  Lying in bed with Tyler, my head on his chest, his arm warm and heavy on my back, the whole week that I spent avoiding him and stressing without him seemed really pointless and fucking stupid.  It was the first time in that week that I slept the whole night without nightmares, panic attacks or insomnia.  Smoking was calming, sure, but so was Tyler; and no amount of cigarettes in the world could ever add up to him or his touch.  


I was really stupid.  Or not even stupid, really.  I didn’t know what word to call it.  It felt like avoiding him had been really…high school.  Like we were teenagers.  And I never even had that experience, so it was weird for me to feel like that.  But after talking to him and everything, if I just would have been an adult and sacked up earlier, I could have saved us both a lot of pointless stress.  And it was sort of weird how I always felt like an adult, and a lot of times I saw Tyler as a big kid, and then I reacted this way instead of the adult way.  And he was left the responsible one.  


But I realized, too, that when it came to me, he was always responsible.  I never felt like he did anything with me as irresponsible; and he tried really hard all the time.  


Which kind of made me feel worse.  


And I didn’t really know how to fix that.  


I fell asleep quickly after we talked, but I woke up first.  And I was happy just to stay where I was while he slept because I missed feeling this, and my bed had been incredibly empty the whole last week.  


I had a while to think, too.  And he asked me some really important questions before we slept.  Questions that no one had ever bothered to want an answer to before.  Questions he deserved an answer to.  


What should I have done?  What could I have done differently?  What did you need?


All questions that weren’t really about him at all.  Because even the I questions were related to how he could be helping me.  


Christ.  I didn’t even know if I could answer those for myself.  What should he have done?  First I had to figure out if it was even something I could control or just more of my body and mind’s fucked up way of dealing with shit.  Was that even dealing?  Was I shutting down?  Did I know the difference?  I think it was protective; that was the only thing I was sure about.  I wasn’t sure it was me dealing or shutting down, but I knew that I thought I was protecting myself that way.  No one had ever really tried breaking through to me during one—they all just sat as still as I did, or were scared to snap me out of it or something.  I didn’t even know if there was a snapping out of it.  Jordan just always sat with me like she was on watch; to make sure I didn’t hurt myself, or just let me process or get rid of the memories.  She never tried to bring me out.  So I didn’t know what that would mean.  And what did I need?  No fucking clue what that even meant.  I think… I think I decided that I needed him.  I think I’d come to that during the last week.  I think I knew that going back to the life I had before he was in it was much emptier and colder.  I never felt like I needed anyone before, but that had to be what this feeling was.  


It was sort of like feeling sick, but deeper, deeper inside.  Like an ache that never went away, and nothing could fill it.  Like you felt hungry, but didn’t feel like eating, and no food took the feeling away.  Or like being scared, that pit in your gut that just sat there like an unmoving lump, and the waves of shivers that rolled through your body.  I just knew it was gone when I was with him, and it disappeared the minute I knew that he was still… mine.  


And if I felt like he was mine, then that had to mean that I was his, too, right?  Not an owning kind of ‘mine.’  Not like Teddy and Damon and all the others.  Mine, but I was still me, and I was still in control, but tied to him.  And I didn’t want to own him either.  I wanted him freely.  


He didn’t do it every time, but some mornings when he woke up, he somehow managed to stretch and tighten his grip on me at the same time.  This morning, I smiled when he did it because it was one of those little things that I missed.  And as he yawned through a “Morning,” for a second, I forgot the week before existed, and it was just like a normal morning.  I said “Good morning” back, and then…it sort of got weird again.  Because silence hadn’t been weird between us before, but now it seemed like it was because one of us had something to say and couldn’t say it.  And I’d never been in this kind of situation before; I didn’t know what I was supposed to do or say.  


Limbo.  That’s what this kind of felt like.  And I wasn’t sure how we got out of it.  


He cleared his throat quietly.  “Hey, I need coffee.  You want coffee?”


I nodded against his chest. “Yeah, coffee would be great.”


He squeezed me gently and then carefully slid out of bed, the space he left behind still warm and smelled like him.  And before he even left the room, I was sort of spoiling myself inhaling the scent again.  


He stood by the bed for a second, his hand scratching over the back of his head. “Why don’t you get dressed while I’m making the coffee?”  He didn’t wait for an answer, just turned and closed the door softly behind him.  I just laid there for a minute, wondering what the fuck I was thinking the time I was away from him.  Because that right there was typical Tyler.  And he was trying incredibly hard again; a kind of trying I hadn’t needed from him since we first started dating.  He was trying to make this easier for me.  


There was a quiet knock on the door.  I hadn’t even gotten out of bed.  “Yeah?”


His head poked in, and I think he was surprised to see me still in bed.  “Hey.”


“Hi.”


“Uhm…so we don’t have any coffee.  Which doesn’t really surprise me, given who I live with.”


I smiled. “That’s ok.”


He shook his head, most of his body still in the hallway.  “No, not really.  Because we don’t really have anything else either.  We have beer.”


I realized something then.  He normally suggested shit.  And he wasn’t.  He was just telling me how things were.  Which was usually my side of the relationship.  “You wanna go get some instead?” I asked, sort of terrified of the level of putting myself out there that it felt like.  I wondered if he felt like that every time he suggested something.  


His face brightened. “Yeah.  That’d be great.”


I sat up, pushing the covers back and scrambled out of bed.  “Good.”


He ducked his head, ready to close the door again. “I’ll just let you change.  Why don’t you just come out when you’re ready?”  


“Hey, Tyler?  Before we go…can we talk about something?”  I watched his head poke back in slowly, his eyes meeting mine.  He was chewing on his bottom lip, like a nervous thing.  


“Yeah, ‘course.”  He slipped back in the room, and sat down on the bed, looking up at me.  Anxious; he looked anxious.  Like he was just waiting for me to slap him with the next traumatic episode of my psyche or something.  


I nodded once, taking a deep breath.  “So…you asked me some questions last night and I’ve been trying to come up with answers.”


He looked more relieved but he didn’t need to ask what questions I was talking about.  “And did you come up with some?” he asked that quietly, like he wasn’t going to push if I didn’t have any.


“I think so.” I nodded.  I took a deep breath and let it out, meeting his eyes.  “I know that I need you.  And I think maybe if it happens again, you should try to pull me out.”


He watched me for a few seconds before he asked, “And what if that makes it worse?”


“Then I guess that wasn’t the right answer.  But I don’t know because no one’s ever tried.  Jordan just sits with me.  I think if it happens, you should give that a try.”


More thinking about it.  I could tell because he had thinking face and his eyes were trying to read mine like there was some goddamn manual there or something.  Or to make sure I wasn’t lying.  


“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said quietly.


“I know.” I nodded. “I don’t think it will.”


He shook his head, breaking eye contact for a minute. “I don’t know if that’s enough reason for me—that it’s enough assurance.”


I shrugged. “Well, that’s all I’ve got.  You asked.  That’s the answer I came up with.”


His hand went through his hair and he got up from the bed, pacing for a few seconds before he leaned against the wall and crossed his arms while considering.  He took a long, deep breath and let it out slowly.  “Ok,” he said, nodding.  “Fair enough.”


I smiled, nodding back. 


He went over to the dresser and grabbed some clothes before turning back to me.  “If you don’t want to wear your clothes from last night, you can grab whatever you want.  I’ll just…” he pointed to the bathroom, disappearing to change, and leaving me to do the same. 


~ ~ ~


Things were ok when we left to get coffee.  Or as ok as they could be.  I was really fucking happy because I had permission to wear, like, any piece of clothing of his that I wanted and I took full advantage of it.  I was currently savoring, but also swimming in, an NYU sweatshirt that I found in the bottom of his drawer.  I was busy rolling up the sleeves as we started to walk down the stairs. 


“Hey…”  He stopped two steps down and I had to stop short to make sure I didn’t smack into him and send us rolling down the stairs. 


My eyebrows rose in answer, but I didn’t say anything as I stopped walking.


His hands went in his pockets and his eyes dropped from mine, but then they snapped back and the blueness was something I missed almost as much as the gentleness that always seemed to be with them.  “Just… I need you, too.”


And before I really thought about anything else, my hands were cupping his face and my lips were pressed to his, and the goosebumps that broke out on my skin whenever we kissed were there again, and it felt like breathing again after holding your breath under water too long. 


He went completely still, like if he made any movement, I’d stop or it’d go away and get all fucking weird again.  His hands stayed in his pockets, and I missed feeling them at my waist or curling around my back when we kissed.  His lips were warm and a little chapped and once our lips were touching, I didn’t want to pull back.  Almost like I was afraid myself of what would happen when we stopped. 


I had to make sure that didn’t happen. 


Literally, I don’t even think he was breathing.  His eyes opened really slowly and when he saw mine were already open, I think he was even more afraid that it was a fluke or I made a mistake.  So I kept my hands on his face, and when I pulled back, I rested my forehead on his instead, so we were still connected. 


His eyes fluttered closed again for a few seconds and his hands moved from his pockets to circle around me, and he breathed out slowly, his eyes catching mine again.  “I’ve wanted to do that for a week, but especially since I opened the door last night and you were standing there.”


I smiled. “Me, too.”  I pressed my lips to his again.  Twice.  Quickly.  But twice. 


I grabbed his hand as we started down the stairs again, and when I watched how happy those few simple things had made him, and how much better I felt, I had another realization.  The whole suggestion thing had become much larger, and if this was any sign, he wasn’t going to be initiating much of anything.  I probably scared that out of him with my little episode.  So I was going to have to suck it up, and do some of the work.  He didn’t want to make me uncomfortable, so I had to make sure he knew what didn’t make me feel uncomfortable so we could get back to where we were before this whole thing had fucking blown up on us.  And it probably hadn’t been fair of me before to expect him to come up with everything.  It was time for it to be more balanced. 


~ ~ ~


Coffee quickly morphed into breakfast; because we were both sure there was nothing in the apartment to eat if there was no coffee to drink. 


In a sort of odd way, when we settled into our booth in the diner, it reminded me a lot of our first real date because it had that sort of weird air around it.  I was determined that it wouldn’t last.


So I asked about the stupidest question I possibly could have.  “So how was your week?” Because, of course, that was a burning reminder of what had happened, what I was trying to avoid, and what I hadn’t wanted to bring up during breakfast, so we could try to get back to normal. 


His brows pulled down, and I think he was trying really hard to be nice.  “Uh… it…” He blew out a breath. “It fucking sucked.  How was yours?” he chuckled.


It sort of broke the ice again, though.  I laughed, nodding.  “Yeah, it fucking sucked.”  I paused and then added, “Working wasn’t so bad.  Anatoly was really, really nice to me.  And when he knew something was up, he let me work behind the bar with him or work the tables instead of stripping.  So that helped.”


I didn’t really know how he was going to react to that.  I said it very matter-of-factly, and hadn’t really considered his feelings on the stripper part. 


He was smiling warmly though, like he was truly happy my week hadn’t completely sucked.  “I’m glad.”


I nodded. “Yeah, he’s a good guy.”


“Anatoly, huh?”


“Yeah.”


“Is he your boss, or…”


“No, he’s the boss’s brother.  I mean, he’s a boss, but he’s not the number one dick, ya know?”


“Yeah, he’d be dick number two?”


I laughed.  “Something like that, yeah.”  The waitress brought our drinks and I waited until she’d gone again before I continued.  “Actually, Nikolai does all of the tossing; he’s the one that tossed you on your ass that night you decided to be my knight in shining flannel.  Then there’s Misha.  He just sort of…watches.  He freaks me out.  He’s really quiet and he’s good looking, but when he looks at you, it’s just cold—there’s nothing there.”


“I didn’t know you worked for Russians.  The club is owned by Russians?  And he’s good looking?”


I laughed at the way the end of that snuck in there. “Yeah, they’re Russian.”  I tried my best not to smirk. “And yeah…he’s good looking…if you go for that kind of thing.”


“Thing as in good looking…” he clarified.


I nodded. “Yep.”


He watched me for a minute and I said nothing, letting this play out.  I didn’t bite that easily.  “So…” he started, “what makes someone ‘good looking?’  And do you ‘go for that kind of thing?’”


I shrugged. “Depends I guess.”


“On?”


“Well, someone who’s not really that cute can be really attractive if they’re really nice or something.  And the same kind of thing—someone can be really cute and be a real fucking asshole.”


“And this Misha guy is which one?”


“I don’t know.  I don’t talk to him.”

“But he’s ‘good looking.’”

I snorted. “He’s a good looking guy, yeah.  But he creeps me out.”  I paused and then added, “And I’m already dating you.”


He looked really, really pleased with that. “Oh.”


“Do you feel better now?”


He got all squirmy in his seat. “I didn’t… I mean, I wasn’t jealous or anything.  I was just…”


“Fishing for me to be nice?”


“No.” He waved me off. “I wasn’t doing that either.  I was just...getting clarification.”


“In case you run into a really cute guy, and you want to know if he’s just good looking or actually worth your time?”


He chuckled, and looked amused, but kind of embarrassed, too.  “No.”


The waitress taking our order saved Tyler from more embarrassment, but he was still smirking and not really looking at me when she left. 


“Hey.”


His eyes cut to me.


“You’re both.  For the record.”


“Both what?”


“Good looking and worth my time.”


The smile that broke out on his face was really epic.  And for quite possibly the first time since I’d known him, Tyler Hawkins seemed speechless.  


He finally just looked out the window for a few seconds before he turned back to me.  “Thanks.” 


“You’re welcome.”


He didn’t seem comfortable with more compliments, and he cleared his throat.  “So who’s the number one dick then?  If it’s not Mr. Good-Looking.  And I feel the same way about you.”


Oh, nice how he snuck that in there quickly.  “Thanks.  And Yev.  Number one dick is Yev.”


“Yev?”


“Yes, Yev.”


“What kind of name is Yev?  I mean, even in Russian.”


“It’s short for Yevgeny, but no one can pronounce that so we shortened it to just Yev.”


“How did four Russians wind up running a strip club in New York?”


I snorted. “Well, I’m pretty sure they’re Russian mob, so… That’s how.  Word on the street was they wanted in that neighborhood—the Russians.  And when Big Eddie wouldn’t sell, they bumped him off, and took over the club, and sent the Reznikova brothers to run it.  Nikolai is a cousin or something, and I’ve never asked about Misha because he freaks me out.”


We paused while the waitress came back to take our order and I could tell Tyler was impatient for her to get the fuck away from our table.


“So…wait,” he started when she left, “you’re telling me that you work for the mob?”


“No, I work for the Reznikova brothers.  If they happen to be in with the mob, that’s not my business.   They don’t run shit out of the club as far as I can tell, but I mind my own fucking business, too.  I think that’s why we get along.  I don’t ask questions.  I think they own another club uptown, but a club, club, not a strip club—it’s upscale.  That’s probably where they’re running the real shit out of—I bet that’s the front for the shit that they bankroll.  Plus, Big Eddie’s has really close access for Jersey ‘cause it’s right by the Tunnel, and there’s a ton of Russians in Jersey.”


He blinked at me several times. 


I smirked. “What?”


“I…I’m really not sure what to say.”


I snorted. “You don’t have to say anything.  I was just making conversation.”


“I think I’m kinda floored you work for the mob.”


“I don’t work for the fucking mob, Tyler.  I work for Yev and Anatoly.  They’re decent to me.  They treat all the girls ok, and they don’t have backroom shit, which is really rare for a strip joint.  They’ve been good to me.”


The waitress brought our food out, and I think it probably saved Tyler from saying more shit that would make breakfast not as enjoyable as it was currently. 


As we started to eat, he asked, “So do you know any Russian?”


I smiled. “Yeah, Anatoly was trying to teach me some this week.  I’m not sure how much I remember though.  And I can’t pronounce half of the shit.”


“Well, what do you remember?”


“Da and Nyet are Yes and No.”


He laughed. “Those are good to know.”


“Suka is bitch.”


“Moodak is asshole.”


“Piz da is cunt.”


“I see he taught you all the really important and relevant conversational Russian.”


“Actually a lot they just shout out at each other, so I ask then what it means.  Blyad is fuck.”


“So, basically, you can answer in the affirmative or negative, and you can swear at people.”


I shrugged. “He also made me remember ‘Puzhalsta’ and ‘Spasiba’—that’s ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you.’”


“Well, at least there were some manners in there.”


“He’s nothing if not polite.  His son tried to tell me how to ask and say what your name is.  It was something with a lot of voot at the end.  Min ya za voot, I think, means ‘my name is.’  And then you just had to change the first word for ‘your name is.’”


“Slim Shady.”


I burst out laughing.  “Yeah.  Only way more hardcore than a white rapper.  Although, he’s pretty badass for a white boy.”


“He’s got some good tunes.”


“I don’t think he would make it long with the Reznikovas.”


“Probably not, no.”


“And the actual language is nuts when it’s written down.”


“Yeah it is.” 


My eyebrows rose.


He smirked. “Cyrillic.  It’s called Cyrillic.”


And then fell into a scowl.  “So, you know Russian and what?  That was just for fun or something?”


He backpedaled, “No!  No, I just know what it’s called.  I don’t know Russian.  But my mother is Russian.  I’m sure she can still speak it, but her family emigrated when she was really young and so she doesn’t really have the same grasp of it anymore.  And she never really spoke it around us.  Other than sometimes at night or she’d sing this one song to Caroline sometimes.  But no, I don’t know any of it.  I wasn’t putting you on the spot or checking it or anything.  I just—”


I couldn’t help smirking at him. “Chill.  It’s good.”


He took a deep breath and let it out.  “Christ.”


I giggled. “I didn’t know she was Russian.”


He was cute when he got all rattled. “Yeah, her maiden name was Derevko or something.”


“No fucking way!”


“Uh, yeah.”


“That’s Nikolai’s last name!”


“The bouncer?”


“Yeah!  Maybe they’re related!”


“I doubt it.”


“No, Tyler, you could be, like, a mafia prince or some shit, and not even know it!”


He scoffed. “I don’t think so.  I’m not cut out for the mob.”


I shrugged. “I dunno, you’ve got certain…qualities.”


His look was close to glaring. “And what does that mean?”


I shrugged again. “Well, you’re dangerous and violent, and your father is, like, a corporate criminal the way you tell it.”


He grinned. “Yeah, there is that.  Dangerous, huh?”


I nodded. “And violent.”


“Good thing I’m cute and worth your time then, huh?”


“Good looking.  Not cute.”


He looked hurt.  “You mean, I’m not cute?”


“You are sometimes.”


“Huh.”


“This is not one of them.”


“I can live with that.”


“Good.  Otherwise I’d call you a moodak.”


“Which one was that again?  Asshole?”


“Yeah.”


“It’s sexier in Russian.”


I rolled my eyes, laughing at him.  “You’re impossible.”


“But good looking and worth your time.”


“I guess so.”


“I thought that was sealed already.  I thought we agreed on that.”


“Well, I can always change my mind.”


“I don’t like that plan.”


“Then I guess you’ll have to make sure I don’t change my mind.”


He sat quietly for a few seconds and then asked, “How am I doin’?”


I bobbed my head back and forth, thinking. “Eh, you’re doin’ ok so far.”


“Good.  If I pay for breakfast, does that get me extra points?”


“I dunno if it’ll get you points, it might get you a blowjob if you’re really good.”


I surprised him.  I should start marking this shit down, because that was twice now in the same day he was speechless.


“What?” I asked.


“I didn’t think…” he trailed off.


“I didn’t say it was gonna be today.  I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.  Not this soon.”


He nodded. “Right, ok.  No, I’m not—I didn’t think you were gonna today.  I just—”


I stopped him, “I didn’t say it was gonna be never again, either.”


“Right.”


“But I feel bad asking you to wait again.  Like you’re not really waiting for anything because I can’t ever seem to get past that point.”


Sometimes there was this shift in his eyes.  When he went from thinking and analyzing to something else.  Something that I didn’t really have a name for, or could put into words.  Like understanding or caring, but never sympathy.  Just that he was trying to be kind.  “It’s not a problem, ok?”


I watched his eyes for a while, but the intensity never changed, and he wasn’t lying to me, either.  I nodded slowly.  “Bez prablem,” I said quietly.


“What does that mean?”


“No problem.”


One corner of his mouth went up, and he nodded once. “Bez prablem, Allison.”









One (Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three) | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen | Fourteen | Fifteen | Sixteen | Seventeen | Eighteen | Nineteen | Twenty | Twenty-One | Twenty-TwoTwenty-Three  |  Twenty-Four  |  Twenty-Five  |

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