True Heroes (62 page)

              “I was going to take you to the art museum this morning. I like their faces exhibit there, but I’ve made us sad now.”

              “Alice, I’m not sad, and I hope I can make you happy again after my mistake. When do you want to go?”

              Her hand fell on his cheek. “I always want to go, but you want to? You’re not sad or mad at me?”

              He smirked. “No, I’m just happy to be here in the morning with you.”

              “You did stay the night and the morning.” She gently edged her face forward until it was on his pillow. Caleb didn’t pull back but awaited her every next move. Alice’s final move jolted her onto his lips and back quickly in one repetition. Her eyes opened wide before she relaxed again and grabbed for his hand. “That makes me so happy.”

              “I’ll stay as long as you’ll have me.”

              “At the museum too?”

              “Of course.”

              “Only if you pick a place to go after.”

              Caleb playfully sighed. “I’ll try to think of something.”

              “Good. You do that. I change. We go. No need to shower we’ll have time before group later to clean up, and the exhibit closes in an hour.” She stood on the bed and looked down. “Your clothes are in my room by the way. Do you want to change first?”

              “It will take me more time to rummage than you.”

              She lightly pushed him with one foot. “Go time’s wasting.”

              Caleb quickly rolled out of bed and pretended to run until he was around the corner. His ear instinctively tilted as she giggled, and his mind was filled with the image around the corner. He tugged gently at an edge of power to keep it asleep as a clear satellite watched her drop to the bed again and strangle a pillow to her chest. As he walked into her room, his power was dragged through the shutting door. ‘Museum clothes…,’ his thoughts exploded the folded tops from the boxes, causing his over-grown wardrobe to float around the room for his judgment, and accidentally jolted Power awake.

              ‘What do you need of me so early?’

              ‘It’s noon.’

              ‘Some of us entertained until the moon lost its grip on the sky.’

              ‘Your choice, not mine or hers. I know I’ll get no real response from this, but what’s a good outfit to wear to a museum?’

              ‘The same outfit you would to a funeral. Why?’

              Caleb floated a dull-red T-shirt and a pair of dark blue jeans towards him and began to change. ‘I’m sure you’ll put it together.’

              ‘Why are we going to an artistic mausoleum?’

              ‘Alice wants to take me there.’

              ‘She didn’t mention that last night. Then again, we didn’t talk very much after the hand down your pants’

              Caleb didn’t smile. ‘Not a chance.’

              ‘I’m surprised her moaning didn’t wake you up.’

              ‘What’s your angle with this? You’ve never been one for unraveling from within, or trying something desperate.’

              ‘She seemed pretty desperate for it. Did you get seconds this morning?’

              Caleb stood straight with his pants unzipped still. ‘You finally see what’s going on. It’s hit your egotistic intellect that you’re losing this bet and you don’t know what to do next.’

              ‘I’ve lost nothing. That would require you changing, and you have shown nothing to that regard. You’ve pulled even with me, and I have already gained something.’

              ‘What?’

              ‘That’s for Alice and I to know and you to throw in the trashcan in the morning.’

              ‘Fine, be a jackass college frat boy all you want. The bet’s over.’

              ‘No, it’s finally beginning.’

              Caleb shook his head while fluxing his power to drop the clothes back to their boxes. His pants were zipped when the door softly slid across the carpet top. “You dressed?”

              “Yep. Your turn.”

              Caleb smiled to her as they passed, grabbed her hand, and placed a gentle kiss on the tip of her knuckles. “I’ll wait in the living room.”

              She held eye contact for only a little before zoning away and mumbling quickly into her drawers and closet. He gently pushed in the kitchen chairs as he passed and noticed the coffee pot running. “Are we drinking coffee?”

              “Oh yeah, I’d like a cup.” She emerged from the room and dashed in front of him. “I’ll get it. I must be a proper host. Have a seat; we have time for a quick cup. How do you take it?”

              Caleb pulled out the chair again and sat lightly. “Um, I don’t know. I’ve never had any.”

              “Good, it’s a bad habit. I only drink some when I have company and they want some, except now. I want some now and obviously you don’t because you’ve never tried it before, but it’s okay you seem like the type to try something new every once in a while.” He watched her pull two cups from the cabinet and add two scoops of sugar to each poured brew. As they were carried by her balanced hands, Caleb noted her blue jeans and replacement white shirt. She set it down in front of him and stepped back. “Some sugar for you and me.”

              Caleb smiled at the scratched marks surrounding the faces all over both mugs, and let his smile drag into a calm grin. He looked back to her as she was turned towards the counter. “It needs sugar.”

              She whipped around. “What? I put two scoops in.” The cup steamed alone, full of every holdable liquid droplet and vacant of Caleb’s hand, both features going noticed by her humming eyes. “You didn’t drink any…,” she looked ready to mumble incoherently again until she looked at him; his eyes carrying a conceited message over the short distance between them. Her cup was set on the table as she smiled and walked towards him with her hand out-stretched. Caleb took it up before she curled into his lap with her eyes and his ending inches from one another before they kissed; slower, with the lips of each a mimic of calm embrace that enveloped small areas with warmth and a sweetness they’d both discovered an inherent desire. They continued for a few minutes in such an embedded fashion until he pulled away.

              “Coffee’s getting cold.”

              She smiled with her eyes closed. “You can make the cups tomorrow.”   

              “No, I like the cups.”

              “I told you I like faces.”

              “I’m beginning to see the extent of that now.” He gently lifted her to her feet before standing himself. “Museum?”

              She nodded her head slightly while smiling. “Get the truck started.”

              “You know we don’t have to travel by road.”

              “It would be a little weird to see a guy carrying a girl over rooftops. We can go the slow way this time.”

              He floated the keys from across the room towards him at the door. “As you wish.”

---

              “Kissing, wow.” Alice picked up her jacket, and threw it down again. “You won’t need it you’ll be inside all day. With him. Him again. Everything I think about now can take me back to him. I live with him now. There could be more kissing for us later then…I feel like I just met him and I kissed him. I’ve never done that. That or anything like that. We kissed, why? He never pulled me in to it or pushed me towards it, and it’s not like our lives depended on us kissing, but we did it. We did it more than once. Forty-nine times I leaned in to kiss him. He only did it once. The first time last night. I feel like I needed to kiss him; I needed to be near him and beside him and touch him, and kiss him. I never needed that with David, or Benny, or anybody else ever.” She closed the door behind her. “Look at me now: I’m walking towards him. I know he’s by my car and we’re going to a place I love, and yet I’m babbling and thinking about him and his kisses and his charm and his wit and his brain and his blue center. I feel like everything that comes from inside of him comes from our kisses. He wants to kiss me, to be with me, to hold me, to help me, to be with me, and everything in his eyes tells me that.” She stopped and waited for the low rumbling truck to pull to the curb. “And he kisses me to show me that. He asks me to forget everything I’ve ever known for the chance to be happy with him. I will as he holds me gently as it all slips off my shoulders and forgotten forever, and that it’s with him will make all the difference.”

---

              He swung the driver’s side door open for her before scooting over the console and into the passenger seat. Before his body could settle into the mediocre cushion, Alice was around his neck, a loud thump resounding as her head struck the roof before she was able to fully connect with his surprised lips. Caleb laughed with her a little but still treated her tenderly by taking her into his arms. She lay on his chest groaning and laughing in a delirious mix of painful embarrassment. ‘She’ll love mumbling about this soon.’ “You poor thing what were you trying to do?”

              She grabbed at the back of his neck and pulled herself up, kissing him lightly at first before giving him several more deeply conceived embraces. “That. Time to go. I’m driving? Of course, because you don’t know where you’re going. All right. Adventure time.”

              Caleb was slow to recover from the passionate embrace. “Thank you for the kisses.”

              “Don’t thank me silly. I should be thanking you.”

              “We’ll thank each other.’

              She laughed as they pulled away. “Are you excited?”

              “Yes ma’am.” He resigned to the view out of his window for a bit, letting the world pass before his eyes. “What did you and it talk about last night?”

              “What you didn’t mention to me yesterday. About David being mean to you.”

              “Because that didn’t matter. It is trying to get us to mistrust each other the same as David. They’re both just spinning wheels in the mud.”

              “I know. I know you trust me.”

              “Do you trust me?”

              “I’ll let you know after I tell you something. David wasn’t lying.”

              “I know he wasn’t.” He looked towards her. “I can tell when he lies too, and when you lie.”

              “Be nice. Anyways, yeah, I first dated Stewart when we were still in New York, then Benny when we first came here, Andrew for maybe a week, and David for the past few months. I saw that they were alone and I know they were in some really dark places, and I wanted to help. So I actually dated them. I only held hands with them. That was as far as any of it went.”

              “Why hide that?”

              “Because it should bother you.”

              “It doesn’t bother me. What would bother me is if you were doing the same thing to me just to cheer me up.”

              “It doesn’t bother you?”

              She turned on to the highway. “No, why would it?”

              “You’re into right and wrong I thought? That’s why you threw those guys out.”

              “If you did it today I’d be opposed to it, but it’s in the past it’s irrelevant now. I’m hoping you wouldn’t do it again. To anyone.”

              “Not just to you?”

              “So you are doing it to me?”

              “I didn’t say that. I didn’t think that either.”

              “Synonyms to you.”

              “Don’t be mad.”

              He looked up to her completely turned face. “What you can tell my emotions too?”

              “Don’t distract me. Just don’t be mad; I’m not doing that to you. I’ve never actually let someone stay over my apartment, or kiss me. You do look desperate though. Well, you did.” They got off an exit and a large cathedral-type building caught Caleb’s eye. “But you don’t now.”

              “How do I look now?”

              ‘Edgy.’

              They pulled into a space quietly. ‘I don’t like being told how I feel.’

              ‘Was she wrong?’

              ‘That’s not the point.’

              ‘You can never tell when she’s happy or sad? You should become a doctor with all this Hippocratic styling.’

              Caleb went to open the door only to see Alice on the other side of it. She opened it gently and stopped him from emerging. “You look like you’re torn three different ways and don’t know how to sew yourself back again, but I know you’re whole again when it’s just me and you and you’re out of your head. So, let’s try that for a while.”

              “It’s a lie if it’s like that.”

              “Then we’ll make it the truth. You’re smart, and I’m…talkative. Between us, we’ve got it solved.”

              ‘Two defaults don’t make a right.’

              Caleb smiled and slid out of the car, but couldn’t shake Alice from his sight. “I don’t know if it works like that. If it does, we’ll find out.”