“How can you act like I couldn’t possibly love you? Is it so far-fetched? So impossible?”
“Yes!”
“Why?”
“Because—I don’t know! It just is! You shouldn’t.”
I move up behind her, stand with my front flush against her back. Wrap my arms around her waist, whisper in her ears. “But I do. Or, I’m falling that way, at least. Why is it so hard for you to let anyone get close?”
“Because I’m afraid, Ben! My dad left before he even knew me! I know it’s not rational, I know logically that it didn’t have anything to do with me, but I can’t change how I feel about it! I’ve tried, I’ve fucking tried, and I can’t—I just can’t shake it. No guy’s ever wanted me except for sex. No one’s even tried, it’s just always been…fuck once and done. Ever since I was a kid, I just wanted someone to see me. To—to want me. Even Mom, god, I loved her so fucking much, but she was always working. And it sometimes felt like—like working was more important than…me.”
She collapses to the ground, sitting down hard on the concrete of the pathway, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs, arms wrapped around her drawn-up knees. “It feels like such a betrayal of her memory to say this, but…I’ve always felt deep down like maybe she resented me, or blamed me for Dad leaving, or…that she just couldn’t love me as much as she should’ve. Why would she let me sleep around as much as I did and never try to stop me? Why didn’t she care enough to stop me? And if she didn’t love me that much, my own mother, the only person I’ve ever loved, ever really—the only person that’s ever been consistent in my life? How could anyone else love me? And you know what? No one ever has.”
“Maybe because all the guys you’ve been with, you picked them because you knew deep down they wouldn’t even try, because that was easier than having them leave? I don’t know, I’m just guessing. I don’t know, Echo.
“I don’t have any answers to all these questions. I’m not a psychiatrist or a therapist or whatever. I can’t fix you and I can’t solve all those lingering issues, and I’m not gonna try to fix you, or even say you need fixing, because to me, Echo, you are who you are, right now. And that’s the person I can’t seem to stop thinking about, can’t seem to stop wanting to be around. From the moment I met you, I’ve just been…drawn to you. Attracted to you physically, yes, and that in fucking spades. But I’m attracted to who you are, Echo. I’ve seen you at your worst, and I’m still here, waiting for you to stop fighting this, to stop fighting me, to stop fighting us and just let yourself be. Let yourself have what you want.”
“I don’t know what I want!”
“Bullshit.” I pull her to her feet, wrap her in in my arms, and she looks up at me. I can see hope finally shining through the fear. “You want what everyone wants: love, acceptance, belonging. To be taken care of.”
“And you can give me that?” Her palms rest flat on my chest, and her eyes are bright despite the skepticism in her voice.
“I can sure as hell try,” I tell her, gazing down at her, into her dark, damp brown eyes.
“Then I guess…” She inhales deeply, lets it out slowly, and then rests her cheek against my chest, melting into my arms. “I guess I can try to let you.”
I curl my arms around her waist and we stand there for who knows how long, just holding each other.
Eventually she props her chin on my chest, her hands on the backs of my shoulders, and her eyes find mine. “Now what?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. This is new for me, too.”
“How about you take me home? I have a door that closes, and I’m sure Brayden can take a hint…”
My hands wander down her back, and I finally loosen the chain reining in my libido, a little. “That sounds like a great idea.”
Her hands circle and graze lower down my back, until they rest just above the waistband of my basketball shorts. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You’re killing me in that dress, Echo. It’s been hard to stay focused.”
“Well then take me home, and you can take it off me, and see where that leads.” She digs under my shirt and touches my skin, tracing circles on my skin with her palms.
“Echo, babe. We both know exactly where it’ll lead.”
“Oh yeah? Where?” She glances up at me, her gaze coy.
I feel my skin heat and my crotch tighten. “With you naked beneath me and screaming my name.”
“Is that so?” She slides her soft warm hands under the elastic of my shorts and cups my ass.
“That’s so.” I take her hand and lead her toward my Silverado.
It’s silent as we drive and the air is tense with charged sexuality. The only words spoken are Echo directing me the few short—yet still far too many—blocks to her apartment building. I find a parking spot, and Echo is out of the cab before I’ve got the truck turned off, grabbing my hand and leading me to a nondescript, unmarked doorway sandwiched between a bistro and a head shop, dragging me up a narrow flight of stairs to a small landing with a single doorway on the left-hand side. She digs in her purse and produces a single key on a Belmont lanyard, and unlocks it. The door opens to a wide living room, the back of a battered, tattered, faded black leather couch facing the doorway, a matching loveseat on one side and an arm chair and ottoman on the other, a glass-topped, low wooden coffee table in the middle. A GoPro is set up on a short tripod on the coffee table, facing the couch, and I recognize the setting as the location where Echo and Brayden record their videos. To the right is a kitchen separated from the living room by a huge butcher’s block island. Opposite is a bathroom between two doors that lead to the bedrooms; one door is open, showing a messy bed with jeans, T-shirts, underwear and boots scattered across the floor, making it Brayden’s room; the other door, Echo’s, is pulled closed.
There’s a faint, acrid, almost sweet smell to the air, which I belatedly identify as the scent of pot. Brayden’s head pokes up from where he’d been lying on the couch, out of sight. He has a joint in his mouth, the cherry lit, smoke curling in thin gray tendrils around his face.
“Oh. Hey, you two. Get it all worked out, did you?” His voice is thick and slow, muddled, sleepy.
Echo lets go of my hand and moves to the back of the couch, brushes a wayward lock of brown hair away from Brayden’s face. “Bray? Are you okay? For real?”