A Many Splintered Thing / Day 17: “Maybe, one day, I’ll tell you about it. If you earn it.”

Welp, things are getting tricksy, tricksy, my friends. So,  you know the drill. If you notice anything that doesn't jibe as we go along, let me know. I don't feel bad about it anymore. Even George R.R. Martin has his magical online dude who keeps track of stuff like eye color, back history etc. Man, that's the life. Someone to keep the continuity. ;)

Maybe one day when I'm rich and famous.

In the meantime, here's today bit of AMST. I didn't think you'd get it today. I fully intended to take the day off. But then Caleb started shooting his mouth off and well, you know how ignoring them when they start doing that works...it doesn't. Happy weekend!

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He told himself he wouldn’t ask. Would. Not. Ask.
But things like that become a blur when you’re working your way through a bottle of amber liquid that stings like a pissed off jellyfish as it goes down.
He distracted himself by asking other questions. “What’s your last name?”
“Richardson. Yours?”
“King,” he said.
“Any relation?” she asked.
His eyes were fixed on her painted toes. It surprised him that they were painted a delicate petal pink. He’d expected gunmetal gray or maybe a kick-ass navy blue. Even a red so red it was almost black. But the pink was unexpected.
“To…who? Or is it whom?” Caleb laughed.
“Ask me tomorrow when I’m not drunk,” she said.
“Stephen? Larry? Fred who worked the bait shop where I lived? The answer to all of them is no. No relation.”
She nodded and picked at a hole in the thigh of her jeans. “Got it.”
His mind scrambled for another question because his gaze kept returning, as if magnetized, to those scars. He couldn’t ask her about the scars. Nope. So…
“What’s the story with you and Jas?”
She let her head fall back and he watched her braids disappear behind her shoulders. He also studied the long elegant expanse of her neck and his eyes found the place where her pulse jumped. He felt warm all over, especially his face, and it had nothing to do with the booze. It had everything to do with being in such close proximity to her.
She blew out a breath and stretched. When she stretched it did amazing things for her breasts. And he saw how long her legs actually were. The thought of crawling across the floor and putting his head in her lap ambushed him and, when he realized that was the extent of it, nothing sexual—just putting his head in her lap and staying there like that. Calm. Then, it scared the shit out of him.
“I shouldn’t answer that,” she said, laughing.
“I thought we were getting drunk and getting to know one another,’ he said. “I’d sing that song but I don’t know much of it.”
She looked at him, cocked her head. “What song?”
“Getting to know you…getting to know all about you…” Caleb threw his arm up, really laying it on.
“You’re either drunk or you’re trying to amuse me.”
“I think the answer is yes. Now, tell me. I’m dying to know. How do you know Jas?”
“My family’s servitude goes back a long way.”
His mouth snapped shut. Had he hit a nerve?
“You don’t have to—“
She put her hand up to stop him. “It’s fine. My mother worked for her mother. I was around during the summers when school was out. Her mom gave me work sometimes, slipped me money where my mom wouldn’t see.”
“Why where she wouldn’t see?”  He asked. When her face grew cloudy he regretted it. He blamed the whiskey. If he’d been sober he’d have read the signs and not asked.
But he was very interested to note he actually wanted to know. A rare thing for Caleb.
“Because if she’d have seen it, she’d have taken it. But Jas’s mom, Miss Barbara, she was smart enough to get me alone and give it to me.”
He nodded. He’d only met Jasmine’s mom once before she died. It had been at some froofy wine event back east. He’d never been to their house in California. He blamed her father’s asshole-status on the death of Jasmine’s mom.
“Anyway, my mom, moved…” she paused as if deciding whether or not to go on. Finally, she did. “I was emancipated at seventeen and a half and I worked for Miss Barbara until she died. Then Jas asked me if I’d like to come here when her dad…married her off.”
“And see,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “I read it totally wrong. I read it as maybe once you two had…” He made a flourish with his hand.
She winked at him. “Only if you count that one afternoon out on her property by the man-made lake. If you count that, then yeah. But we were young and just messing around.”
His tongue became sealed to the roof of his mouth. He usually maintained his cool but Caleb had no cool when it came to the thought of this creature kissing Jasmine. It would be like watching oil and water swirl together in the sun to create a rainbow. Like oil on asphalt after a storm. Dark and light and color all mixed together.
“Dear Christ, tell me.”
She laughed. It wasn’t one of her short laughs. It was a genuine, belly laugh and he thought it did magical things to her face and her body and his soul.
“Maybe one day. That’s for over a bottle of wine perhaps.”
“We’re a couple now. You have to tell me.” He grinned.
“One day, one day…” She finished off her drink.
“If you’re not going to tell me that,” he started, nudging her with his foot. She looked surprised at him touching her, but then amused. “At least tell me what did that to you.” He nodded to the scars.
Her face went from amused to rigid. Her demeanor shifted from relaxed to on guard. It was as palpable as the air growing charged before a lightning strike. He regretted the question and its off-the-cuff nature as soon as he said it and quickly tried to back pedal. Another thing Caleb King wasn’t used to doing.
“Never mind. I retract that,” he said, moving his foot, sitting up straight.
He was unaccustomed to being so careful around someone. If you didn’t like him, fuck you. But not now. Not her.
She took a deep breath, visibly calming herself. “A monster did this to me,” she said simply. “Maybe, one day, I’ll tell you about it. If you earn it.”
Then she stood up, tipped the remainder of the whiskey into his glass, put the bottle in the sink and said, “Goodnight, Caleb. I know it’s early, I haven’t gone to bed at nine o’clock since I was a kid. But I’m drunk and I’m tired.”
And she left.
He looked at Alice. “I’ve done it again. I’m a master at this pissing people off shit.”
Then he took his glass and his dog and stepped outside. Somewhere out there in the August dusk, what sounded like thunder rumbled.

photo credit: Ben124. via photopin cc