UP IN FLAMES

No. She forced herself to take a breath. It wasn’t suffocating at all. Truthfully, it was relaxing and nothing like the other times she’d attempted to do a little cuddling.

“I’m sorry…. I…. I couldn’t sleep,” she said softly,

“It’s okay,” Alaric replied, “I couldn’t sleep either,”

There was silence for a while before Vanessa spoke again. “Can I ask you a question?” she asked, staring at the moonlight.

“Anything.”

Her heart sped up at his quick response. Alaric was…well, he was nothing she had expected.

“The scar on your shoulder? Were you shot?”

His thumb smoothed over her hip, and she liked the constant, idle motion.

“Yes. About four years ago.”

“How?” She winced, feeling awkward. “Sorry. That’s none of my business.”

“It’s okay. I was doing a job. A white-collar was about to turn state evidence and wanted security before he met with the police. Thought the guy was paranoid, but turned out, he wasn’t.” His chest moved in deep, slow breaths, the effect lulling. “When I was taking him to pick up his daughter at school, some bastard lit up the vehicle with gunfire. I took two bullets, but the client didn’t get scratched.”

“Christ.” She lifted her head, staring down at him. The way he said it was like it was no big deal. “You could’ve died!”This belongs © NôvelDra/ma.Org.

“But I didn’t.” His lips tipped up at the corners.

“You…you do this every day.”

“What I do is my job.” He moved his other hand, gently cupping her cheek. “It’s not every day, and what I do doesn’t come cheap.”

They hadn’t even talked about what would happen when all this was over yet, but lying in bed together didn’t seem like the right moment to bring it up. She let him guide her cheek back to his chest and his hand stayed on her cheek.

“Can I ask you a question?” he asked.

She tensed. “Yeah.”

“You grew up with your grandmother, right? You’ve said some stuff about your mom, but what happened to her?”

Unease formed little knots in her stomach. Talking about her family was hard, but she’d already gone there with him, opened the door so to speak. “I moved in with my grandma when I was seven. It became apparent that Mom couldn’t take care of me. She still visited, off and on, until I was thirteen, but then she…”

The hand on her hip started to move again. “What?”

“She died-overdosed.” She closed her eyes. “Mom…well, she was in love with being in love, you know? Went from one guy to the next and each one was ‘the one’ and none of them ever worked out. But each time she met someone, she gave away a piece of herself until there was nothing left.”

“I’m sorry.”

She sighed. “Thank you. It’s just… The thing is, I loved my mom. Even though she didn’t raise me, whenever she came around, she was happy to see me. I kept thinking that maybe I could’ve done something to, I don’t know, facilitate her need to love. That if I-”

“There was nothing you could’ve done differently,” he said passionately. “Trust me, I know. There wasn’t a damn thing my brothers or I could’ve done that changed where our parents ended up. They set their own futures. We were just along for the ride. Same with you. You had nothing to do with how your mom decided to live her life.”

They had more in common than Vanessa really ever realized. Both of them had parents who were too wrapped up in their own lives to pay attention to them. If anyone would understand where Vanessa was coming from, it would be Alaric.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

The hand on her hip stilled. “For what?”

She didn’t answer, unsure if she could put it into words. After a few minutes, Alaric started peppering her with questions and she found herself answering them with little reservation. How her grandmother always believed that Vanessa should’ve been born a man and because of her mother’s chaotic life, she was obsessed with keeping things orderly. She told him about the night she got the tattoo.

“Does the rose mean anything to you?” he asked, and she could hear the grin in his words.

“No.” She laughed softly. “It was just on TV that night and it reminded me of my mom. Like she had already started to wither, but if I could keep her in this protective vase, she would be okay.”

“Sounds like the rose does mean something to you.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Ah, good point.”

Alaric switched topics, telling her how his family spent the holidays and how everyone knew that little Racheal had been in love with his brother from the moment they crossed paths. She smiled at the childhood stories. It was obvious that Alaric had been the parental influence out of the three boys, getting the younger two out of trouble and basically taking care of them. It saddened her, because she feared that he hadn’t had much of a childhood and probably wouldn’t have had any if it hadn’t been for Racheal’s parents. Their home had been cold and sterile, but the boys had made the best of it and they supported one another above all else. One brother took over the family business, growing it in ways their father never could. The other had used all those afternoons playing ball and turned it into a stellar career. And Alaric ended up doing what he had always done: taking care of others.

Mere minutes passed after the last word was spoken and she’d already begun to drift off. Unsure of whether she was dreaming or not, she felt Alaric’s velvety soft lips brush her forehead, and she sank a little deeper into sleep and a little further into Alaric.

——-

Alaric jerked awake, slow to process what exactly had woken him up. Wasn’t his alarm or phone. The room was silent. Thin rays of early morning sunlight streamed through the blinds. Brushing the hair out of his face, he squinted and then reached out to find the warm body of-

The space beside him was empty. He jackknifed off the bed, dropping his hands to where the pajama bottoms rested low on his hips. Son of a mother’s tit, where in the hell was she? If she was sleeping on that goddamn couch downstairs, he might strangle her.