Somewhat amused by the resilience of his lust, but mostly frustrated by it, he hung his washcloth across his stiff member while cleaning himself off. When it still refused to recede as he stepped from the shower and into his bedroom, he hung a clothes hanger from it and swiveled his hips back and forth to make it swing. Finally, he felt his blood begin to rush back, and he watched patiently as the clothes hanger slid off, clattering to the floor.
Dressing for his morning run, Damon opted against a shirt. It was proving to be an unusually hot early summer, and at his size, Damon would easily sweat through even the lightest fabric. Before leaving, he checked himself in the mirror. He'd need to trim his black, bushy beard. His hair needed a trim, too; the same midnight black as his beard, he kept it short. A shadow of sideburns completed the dark frame around his face.
He cocked his head as he flexed slightly. Until he'd gotten the call about the fight, he'd been more lax than usual in his workout, and it showed. He was still considerably massive; far bigger than his brothers, and big enough to make kids on the street look at him wide-eyed. But he had some catching up to do, it was true.
He turned and eyed his newest ink, reminding himself that Cristov still needed to finish it up. The bold-lined, bright-colored lighthouse reached down his ribcage, the tattoo a recent addition to a body full to bursting with traditional American designs. Eagles and dice and pin-up girls lounging in martini glasses, Felix the Cat drawn as a skeleton, a devil eating a melty slice of pizza, a bow-legged cowboy. He liked the strong lines, the bravado and the humor.
Outside, just as he'd known, it was already muggy and warm despite not yet being 7am. He started his run at an even pace, taking a few laps around the trailer park before hitting the road. He waved to Dago Tenniss, who was standing guard at the trailer park entrance. It was 3 miles to the start of town, 3 miles back. He usually spent his morning run going through the salient details of his upcoming day. What was happening at his cheese shop, what was happening in the kumpania, when he would go to the gym and what he would eat for dinner.
He had plenty to think about that day. He was expecting a shipment of very unique, very expensive brunost, Norwegian brown cheese, at his store, Let it Brie. He'd promised to help Ana set up for a tasting event at her store, meant to capitalize on the early-season tourism. A trip to the barber shop was in order, and there was a workout to fit in somewhere, too. And, the arts theater a few towns over was doing a one-night screening of "Wild Strawberries" with an accompanying lecture from a film studies professor down from Delaware State.
But, with all those things he could have been thinking about, he couldn't stop thinking about Tricia. She would be back any day now. Would she come to see him? Should he go to see her? She would be different. She had to be different. Would she be so different that what he saw in her, all those months ago, would be gone? Or would it be even better? Would she even want to see him – or would he be just a reminder of all she'd been through?
She'd covered for him when the police arrived to investigate the kidnapping. Damon had shot a man who wasn't posing an immediate threat to either of them. Rig, the man he'd killed, barely even had time to pull his gun before Damon's bullet met his chest. Tricia had told the police that Damon saved her life, that the man had a gun to her head. She could hate him for that.
She could hate him for being part of the reason she was kidnapped in the first place. She could hate him for knowing more about her than any human should know about someone they'd met twice. Damon had seen her the night Cristov brought her home, bruises like a necklace from what her boyfriend had done to her. And then he'd seen her tied up and shivering, had carried her through the woods as she clung to him like a child. He'd seen her at her worst. If the roles were reversed, he didn't think he'd be too eager to see himself. Not if he wanted to move on.
Six miles went by quickly, and Damon found himself back at the empty trailer, guzzling water. His phone was buzzing in the bedroom, but he took his time checking it. Cristov had texted him, presumably from Ricky's bed.
Tricia coming back next Tues, R. planning a dinner for everyone at diner on Wednesday. You in?
Who was everyone? Was it Tricia's idea, or Ricky's? He sucked in a breath. He wanted to say yes. He wanted to see her. Soon. It had felt like long enough since the last time, at the trial, when she'd been ushered in and then away so quickly that they'd barely made eye contact. But Wednesday … that was the night he planned to leave for Miami. Fate had decided for him this time.
Can't that night, he typed back. Cheese stuff.
He threw the phone on the bed and went back into the bathroom to take his second shower of the morning. He made it quick, washing off the sweat and stink. He still had an hour before he needed to be at the store, and he spent it at the kitchen counter with another cup of coffee.
He listened to the clock tick, uneven. That clock had been slightly off for as long as he could remember. It was at the half-hour; the seconds slowed just slightly, almost imperceptibly. It was only through years and years of listening that Damon could recognize it.
He'd mentioned it to Cristov, once, and been surprised when his younger brother had no idea what Damon was talking about. Kennick said he'd noticed, and always wanted to get a new clock, because it drove him crazy. But Kennick never remembered that when he was at the store. Damon urged Kennick not to replace it. He liked the inconsistency. It helped him meditate.
He supposed that was a testament to the difference between them all. Cristov couldn't sit still long enough to pay attention to minutia. Kennick paid attention to everything, wanted to fix everything, but his priorities made some things more memorable than others. Damon didn't just pay attention to the minutia, he focused on it so deeply that he accepted every flaw, every little detail, as purposeful, useful.
And then, of course, there was Mina, who had grown up in that trailer but moved out to live with her girlfriends in another trailer when she hit 16. He'd asked her about the clock, curious. She'd laughed, told him that she did notice the fact that it was a little off. And then she'd leaned in, winked, and told him that the reason it was a little off was because she'd knocked it off the wall one day when she was sneaking some cookies from the cabinet. It had never worked quite the same after she put it back up.
So Damon sat and listened to the broken clock and thought about other things that were a little off. Like dreams and women and hearts and histories. It was plenty to think about to fill an hour.
5
The sigh Tricia released as the storage unit door rolled up could have sent a dandelion's seeds scattering. Her eyes travelled over the stacked boxes, the familiar furniture, the pictures that had once lined her walls. So much stuff. So much damn stuff.
"Don't worry," Ricky said, sensing Tricia's falling mood. "I'll help you with everything. And you don't have to deal with it anytime soon. Mi casa is su casa for as long as you need."
"Thanks," Tricia said, turning to her friend with a wan smile. "I appreciate it, really. But I'm going to have to get my life back together eventually … "
"No rush, though," Kim said from Tricia's other side. "I mean, the library will definitely take you back, but no one expects you to jump right back into things."
Tricia nodded, only half-listening to her friends' comforting words. She'd arrived back in Kingdom the previous afternoon, after spending a few nights at her parents' house in Dover. She'd gone straight to Ricky's, where she'd be crashing while she looked for a new place to live and got back on her feet.
She had enough in her savings, including a generous amount that she'd won in her civil suit against the Steel Dragons, that getting back to work wasn't a huge priority. She'd only gotten the job in Massachusetts because it gave her day structure and routine, and a good chunk of time where she could focus on something other than herself. She expected the same benefits from getting her job back at the Kingdom Public Library.
But the thought of walking back into that little building, where everyone already knew everything, was daunting. She'd known her coworkers there for years, and she didn't imagine they'd be any better at making her feel normal than her coworkers in Massachusetts had been. She never liked most of those women in the first place, and they'd had plenty of time to twist and turn her story while she was gone. She expected plenty of faux-sympathetic smiles and careful questions. She wasn't looking forward to it.
Seeing all her things in storage, gathering dust, only made her more aware of how long she'd been gone, how different things were now. Even things that were exactly the same were different. Everything seemed bathed in a new light. All the old streets and stores – they were intimately familiar and yet wholly alien. The only thing that still felt real were her friends, Ricky and Kim, and even they seemed to be handling her with care.