Tiny Dancer Read online

  He reached out for my hand that was clutched around my forearm. Lucas Carter, the man every woman in town had mentioned at least once since I’d been there, was touching me. My breath caught in my throat. Shit, I don’t swoon over boys. He pried my hand loose and held it. Just a simple hand hold, but it felt nice.

  “Hop on, I’m headed that way.” He handed me the helmet that had been hanging on the handlebars of a pretty impressive Harley.

  “What way is that?” I choked out, watching him intently as he moved closer to me.

  “Any way you’re going,” he said, and leaned closer to me, washing my face with his warm breath.

  Okay, I must be home and dreaming, but then again he is still clothed, so maybe not.

  “Well, aren’t you a gentleman?”

  Lucas’s hand reached out and took the helmet from mine. “The unofficial welcoming committee,” he said, then placed it on my head and adjusted the straps.

  He was close, I could smell his breath. It had a wonderful scent that I assumed was mouthwash, and maybe, even a breath mint. I inhaled deeply to take it in as he straightened the helmet.

  “Now, we have that gorgeous head safe,” he said, and handed me his leather jacket.

  I couldn’t quit staring at his eyes; I’d never witnessed eyes hold with that much intensity.

  “Annie?” he said as he took a few steps back from me. He slipped the backpack off my shoulder and slung it on the handlebar. “Ready, beautiful?” he asked and threw a leg over the bike.

  I stood frozen. Every muscle in my body suddenly forgot how to work. He had called me beautiful. I'd been called beautiful more than once, but Lucas was the first to make me feel like he meant it. I was the hit-it-and-leave-it girl, not the girl someone cherished.

  He revved the engine. “Hop on, and hold on tight.”

  I shrugged on his jacket and placed my hands on his shoulders — and couldn’t help but notice his muscles twitching under my touch — then kicked my leg over the seat. Definitely dreaming, I thought when he reached back and pulled my arms around his waist.

  “Tight, babe, I would hate to lose you,” he demanded, and I obeyed.

  Not being a virgin by a long shot, I was shocked how amazing it felt to have my chest pressed up to Lucas’s back. Just the warmth of his touch made everything tingle. Each breath I took, my nostrils were flooded with him. I was thankful for the darkness that masked exactly how much my body was responding to his.

  The Harley roared under my already aroused body and we were off. The hold I had on Lucas involuntarily tightened as he raced through the streets.

  My heart pounded against Lucas’s back, accelerated by the adrenaline rush coursing through my body.

  Charles and Ruth Anne, the couple who raised me the first fourteen years of my life, would be disappointed in many of the choices I’d made, but something deep down told me they would be elated at my choice in going with Lucas. After all, girls like me didn’t often get a chance with a guy like him. He was untouchable. But for one night, I was getting to touch him.

  And as much as I needed to tell myself that this wasn’t meant to last, I just wanted to memorize the feel of his body against mine.

  “Turn that way,” I said in his ear so he could hear me over the roar of the wind and pointed to the right.

  He looked over his shoulder, bringing his face close to mine. “Nice part of town.”

  Fact: not only did Bob obtain a rental house for me but it was in one of the oldest and nicest neighborhoods in town. It might’ve been small, but it was nicer than any other home I had ever lived in.

  I didn’t respond, not knowing how to. He didn’t need to know the details of a one-night stand’s life. Lucas slowed around a curve then pulled into a service station. When he parked next to a pump, Lucas placed both legs on the ground. The image of him under the streetlights, his strong muscular body straddling his bike, was the sight I would be masturbating to for days to come.

  He turned to look back at me, letting his nose tap against mine. A smile appeared on his perfectly-shaped lips, and I lost focus on everything but his mouth. His top lip was more plump than his bottom lip, but it was so slight only someone staring at it like a maniac would notice.

  “Annie?” His voice broke through to my feeble train of thought. I shook my head. Why, oh, why is this man affecting me like this? I brought my gaze up to meet his again, and he was no longer smiling. He looked smug.

  Yes, handsome, I was ogling you.

  “I need to fill'er up then we will be on the way.”

  And what else do you plan on filling up tonight? Hopefully, maybe me. I’d never been more … quite frankly … horny.

  “Okay,” I replied, a little too eager. After all, he had just caught me checking out of all body parts, his lips. I dropped my head and stared at the oil-stained pavement. I didn’t trust myself to look at him.

  He laughed before dismounting the bike. I almost lost my balance, but he caught me. “Place both feet on the ground. I’ll be right back.”

  All it took was the touch of his hand and the deep timbre of his voice to bring my attention back to his enchanting face. No wonder he was on the tip of every girl’s lips in Carterville.

  “Got it,” I said and tried my hardest to hold a somewhat seductive smile.

  He fully laughed, then turn to head into the gas station, giving me a moment to gather my bearings.

  Annie Prieto, you have screwed more men than you care to admit, why is this guy turning you into a pile of mush?

  “How old are you?” Lucas asked, signaling to me that he was back.

  “Twenty,” I answered. “Why?”

  “You just look too innocent,” he said and stored the nozzle back into the pump.

  “Looks can be highly deceiving.”

  “Anything you say,” he said, and braced himself back on the Harley to start the engine again. “Real tight, babe,” he reminded me.

  No problem, babe.

  Once my arms were firmly around his middle, he shot out into the direction I pointed.

  When we finally got to my house, he pulled off into the front yard.

  Before he even had the engine cut off, he said, “This is where you’re living?”

  The warm tone I heard all night was replaced with an almost angry, assertive tone.

  I climbed off the bike, and answered, “Yes,” before chewing on the side of my mouth.

  “Since when?” he bit out as if it was the ugliest statement he had ever said.

  “About five weeks. Why?” I asked.

  “Maybe you’re right and not innocent,” he said, before gunning his engine and skidding out of the yard.

  That was when the rain started pouring.

  I hate rain.

  It always found the most poetic times to fall, like when some bonehead dumped you on your front lawn as if you were the day’s trash.

  Chapter 3

  Annie Prieto

  The water stain on the ceiling had grown and seemed to be extending down the wall. It didn't care. It was just there destroying the integrity of the drywall, being visually unpleasing. It had become the metaphor of my life. The boy slamming in and out of me didn’t care about my integrity and how his actions were chipping away at me. The marks left on my body made me visually unpleasing to anyone.

  “She's good. She doesn’t care what you do to her,” my foster-monster slurred from the other side of the room, and I opened my eyes to see some burly man-boy whose lack in personal hygiene was grossly apparent with a joint dangling from his lips.

  “Really, maybe I should give her a try. See if she can keep up with me,” Mr. Burly said, reaching down his hand testing the strength of the ropes they had me tied with. He smiled, and the only thing holding the joint in place was one of his three remaining top teeth.

  The screams woke me once again, and as always, they came from my own voice box.

  I bolted upright in the bed and placed my hand over my chest, feeling the familiar erratic b
eating of my heart. The screaming would always be laying just at the surface. The pain, the living nightmare would always be a part of me.

  But I refuse to cry one tear over what those monsters took from me.

  I laid in bed another hour staring out my bedroom window. The mid-morning sun filtered down through the vast amount of cedar trees. My rental was in an established neighborhood but yet, it was secluded in its own small forest. A family of squirrels were dancing from branch to branch, and I could just make out a momma bird feeding her young. I could’ve laid there for hours, forgetting the past.

  A walnut fell from a nearby tree and smashed against the window with a ding. I startled and quickly sat up, briefly knocked from the state of tranquility. Glancing out the window again, the idea of spending the day drawing the scene seemed peaceful, but work called instead.

  I scooted my feet over the hardwood floors, my muscles tensing with each step, a crushing, absent pounding in my chest erupted as the look of disgust on Lucas’s face when he saw where I lived drifted into the forefront of my thoughts.

  I inhaled three deep breaths, reminding myself why I was even there. I snapped open the shower door and turned on the water. The world around me faded away as the spray of water took on the sound of a heavy rainfall. I leaned my face back and closed my eyes, letting the water wash down my face. Another day. A day I doubted would include any Carters. A day free from any monsters from my past.

  I turned off the faucet and dried off the remaining water beading on my skin before stepping out of the shower. I picked up my uniform thrown over the edge of the tub. Good thing, I needed the money because by the image staring at me from the mirror, eight more hours of sleep was in order.

  I blow dried my hair, applied a minimum amount of makeup, then slid on my ugly, black, non-skidded tennis-shoes, and was out the door.

  Thirty-five minutes later, I’d arrived at the Downtown Cafe. I was getting faster at the walking gig.

  “Time to leave, Candy,” I said, frustrated. “You know I don’t do mornings.”

  Candice had been the last-minute hook-up after I flipped out on the one I really wanted to spend the night with. I had to get Annie out of my mind. After all, I had a pretty strong hunch she was my dad’s new sidepiece.

  I slid two slices of bread into the toaster as Candice walked up behind me in a huff, and placed her jaw over my shoulder.

  The overwhelming scent of her perfume, my shampoo, and sex began to suffocate me. I turned and leaned onto the counter but didn’t step farther away so she wouldn’t think I was insulting her.

  She knew I had a strict “no staying the night” rule, but Candice thought rules were beneath her. One of the many reasons she grated on my nerves.

  “Baby, we both know you do me any time of the day.” She licked her lips. It was getting harder and harder to do her at night. Much less mornings.

  Come to think about it, I only ever gave Candice the time of day to try and make my mom happy — to make my mom pleased with one of my choices.

  “When are you ever going to settle down? I know we’re too young for anything permanent, but I won’t stick around much longer if you don’t stop playing the part of the playboy,” she said.

  I smirked and shrugged my shoulder, letting her assume my silence was admission I agreed. My silence was clarity that not in a million years would I ever commit to her.

  “Bye, Candy.” I flipped around just as the toast popped up.

  “Grow up, Lucas, before you lose a good thing.” She grabbed her purse off the kitchen table.

  I stared out the window above the kitchen sink, not looking at her. I was a horny guy and she was hot, and I refused to give in to her and her demands. Candice had a way of making you see things her way, usually by the tricks she performed in bed.

  The sound of the door slamming caused me to let out a sigh of relief. I rubbed my hand over my face before grabbing a jug of orange juice out of the refrigerator.

  “Are you ever going to cut that damn hair? You look like a girl,” Dad said as he walked into the kitchen.

  I didn’t say anything at first, simply placed the orange juice on the counter and reached up to release my hair from its tight bun then shook my head forcibly, letting my hair fall around my shoulders.

  “If you had a daughter, would you act like she didn’t exist too?”

  Dad winced and the pained look in his eyes was more real than any emotion I’d ever witness on his face.

  Never once in my twenty years of life had I ever seen my dad truly smile. He was good at plastering on that fake smile when he was in front of a crowd, but the smile that came from somewhere deep inside and lit up the whole face never graced his lips. I asked him once if he had ever been truly happy. He told me that when he was about my age he was the happiest man in the world … then life happened.

  I couldn’t understand what life had done that was so bad. Most of the people around town would cut off their right arm to trade places with him.

  If you knew anything about Carterville, you knew who Wes Carter was.

  The Carters were the backstory to everything concerning Carterville. At one point, the whole 23.6 square miles that encompassed the town was owned by my great-great-great-grandfather, James Floyd Carter. In 1852, he donated some land, allowing the Memphis to St. Louis Railroad to have a proper station. After his kind donation of all that land, they named the train station Carterville in his honor. It beat Decherd, which was what he wanted to name the place. Decherd was the name of his prize-winning horse.

  “I’m headed off for a few days.” Dad slammed an overnight bag on the table and picked up the morning newspaper.

  What else was new? Dad was the county judge and farmed some land on the side, more as a hobby than anything else, and nothing involving his job explained the times he would leave for days. I often figured that was what kept my mom in bed, mourning a life she didn’t sign up for. I shrugged. Why should I defend my mom and their marriage if she never did? My parents never argued; in fact, they simply co-existed with each other. The only time I ever saw them touch was when they had to make a show of being the perfect family.

  Don’t get me wrong, they were never bad parents. Not once did they hit me or anything like that. At times, a beating might have been easier to deal with than the idea I was simply an object that got in the way unless they needed to take me out and parade me around to their friends.

  I didn’t say those things to get attention, either. I abhorred people that used it as an excuse for their bad behavior. I didn’t become an asshole because my dad never played ball with me. I didn’t sleep with every girl who would willingly spread her legs because I was a Carter. I did those things because that was the kind of person I was — I was a S.O.B. without any help from anyone.

  “Hey, Dad?” I said and let out a breath of relief when he acknowledged me and turned around. “The girl, Annie Prieto, that is living in your bachelor pad. How do you know her?”

  “Oh, that. Bob called your granny and said he had a girl working for him that really needed a place to live.” There was a slight hitch to his voice, and I swore at the sound of Annie’s name his eyes watered. Odd reaction for someone he didn’t know. “So, the next thing I knew, she was letting her move in. You know how your granny is.”

  My granny was that kind of person. She was the one who took me fishing when I was younger, there to cheer me on at all my baseball games, rocked me when I was sick, all that small stuff that every little child needed to grow up to be a productive adult.

  “Granny arranged it? She’s not one of your friends?”

  He shook his head and diverted his eyes. “Lucas, leave Annie alone. She’s been through enough without you hurting her more.”

  Dad grabbed his bag, took a giant gulp of coffee, and walked out without even a kiss my ass, much less a goodbye.

  That didn’t bother me; I was use to my dad by then. It was the idea that what I wanted with Annie had the capability of hurting us both.
/>   It was more of an involuntary curiosity than an actual willingness to work that had me looking up when I heard footsteps approaching. It was late afternoon, the usual downtime at work, and I found the only people working to be Bob and myself.

  The first thing I noticed wasn’t the finely-made suit the man was wearing, his red hair and thick beard, or even the slight graying around his temples, but the way the smile he had glued on his lips was betrayed by the rest of his face. He was hollow, and simply trying to keep his head held high as if every day he had to work to put on a fake face so people wouldn’t see what he truly felt inside. Nevertheless, something told me he wanted someone to understand, to recognize his loss, to be there for him. It was the kind of depression that found a way into your heart whether you wanted it to or not. He was quite possibly the most depressing man I’d ever come across.