Page 33 of On the Ropes
Dean
Half an hour later, Tabitha returned to the lot, gripping a large trash bag and a pair of heavy gardening gloves. Her dark red hair was in a messy bun. Her sunglasses were giant and hot pink. She wore a massive shirt over running shorts with Bruce Springsteen’s face on it.
“I totally stole this from Aunt Linda’s closet,” she said, pointing at the center of her chest. “What do you think? Is it fashion or what?”
I held my tongue until I could trust the persistent thoughts I’d been having about Tabitha. Fantasies. Late-night ones. I was strict with my training and strict with anything decadent. That applied to sex too. The casual encounters I’d had left me unsatisfied past the basics of pleasure and relief. I had a sneaking suspicion what was missing for me beforehand was connection or conversation. Friendship. Things that I always struggled with.
I never explored what I wanted from sex. Never allowed a deeper discovery because I was too worried I’d never experience it in real life. I’d already lost so much. Could I really stifle any more of my body’s desires?
But I’d been helpless to resist Tabitha’s charms as a teenager. And as a man, sharing a wall with her had obliterated the mental lock on that door. Last night I’d finally given in, stroking myself to a reel of images I couldn’t seem to stop: this gorgeous redhead fisting my shirt in her hand and dragging me inside her house. Demanding me on my knees. Hiking up her skirt so I could bury my face between her luscious, tattooed thighs. I’d serve her eagerly—and often—if only she asked. I’d come with a strangled groan and had to bite my pillow so she wouldn’t hear.
“What I’m getting is that you’re utterly stunned by my beauty in this Springsteen shirt my aunt definitely got at a concert in Jersey in 1995?” she said.
I cleared my throat. Cleared my head. “How did you guess?”
She smirked. “Sorry it took me a second to get back out here. I checked my inbox and had a few messages from this retro hotel in Austin that’s entirely solar powered. I pitched them an idea to do a video on their sustainable design and the future of eco-conscious tourism.” She tapped the side of her temple before yanking on her gloves. “I’ve got a few story sparks about it. Anyway, where should we go first?”
“That’s a good question,” I said, still catching up to her calmly mentioning moving to Texas. “Maybe start in the back, work our way out? We’ll barely put a dent in it today, but it’ll be a start.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” she sang. Then began gingerly stepping her way through knee-high piles of garbage. “What about this corner right here?”
I followed close behind. The bare nape of her neck was elegant, a few strands of hair falling out.
Talk about a distraction.
Jaw tight, I tied my bag to the top of the metal fence and shoved the edges out, opening it wide. Tabitha pulled up an old VCR tape with the ribbons hanging down. With an amused shrug, she tossed it in.
“What’s your secret, then?” I asked.
“Coffee. Mascara. And I always wear sunscreen, of course.”
I cocked my head, confused. “What?”
She shoved her sunglasses up into her hair. “You asked me my secret, right?”
I scooped a pile of newspaper. “Yeah. You promised me one.”
She clapped her gloved hands together. “Right. Right, right. I thought you meant, like, what’s your secret to success? So I gave you the first bullshit-y, celebrity-sounding answer I could think of.”
I slid Midge’s gardening shears from my pocket and bent down to tackle a tangle of heavy vines. I ducked my head, hiding a smile. “Mascara though?”
“You can’t see, but I’m batting my gorgeous, mascara-ed eyelashes at you as we speak, Mr. Machine.”
I snipped a vine. Allowed my gaze to float up to Tabitha’s. She was fluttering her eyes at me like a princess. A tattooed princess with a nose ring. “Beautiful,” I said, then ducked my head back down again.
That was twice this morning I’d let myself flirt with Tabitha. She somehow made it easy. Both times had given my body a swift jolt of energy instead of my usual awkward restraint. I didn’t give it much thought. Ever since leaving the ring, my physical instincts were off, confusing and untrustworthy. And I’d once been known as a boxer with perfect reflexes.
“Thank you for that,” she said, with laughter in her voice. “But to answer your actual question…I’m assuming we’ll be sharing a lot of secrets with each other while on this vacant-lot journey.”
I raised a brow at her, unconvinced.
“I’ll save my juiciest ones for later.” She rolled her lips together as she balled up some magazines and tossed them into the bag. “I guess…I hated being a cheerleader. And really hated being head cheerleader my senior year.”
My hands stilled in the vines. I looked up. “Yeah?”
“God, that’s kind of a juicy one, huh?” she said, lips pursed. “I don’t even think Alexis knows how much I despised it. Absolutely no shade on cheerleading. That sport is intense. It just wasn’t for me. But I tried out the summer that my mom got remarried and my dad was so worried about us. The day I came home and told him I made the team was the first real smile he’d worn in months.” Her voice caught at the end, but she coughed through it. “He thought having a big group of friends, something to focus my attention on would help me get through the tough parts of their divorce. When I would have traded all the terrifying moments of flying through the air for spending more time working on the school paper.”
I stood and shoved the vine in the trash bag, the shape of it like the tentacles of some ancient sea monster. “Makes sense to me,” I said. “You wanted more time to tell stories.”
