“Well, I’m impressed with you. Most guys would have been happy to oblige her, especially if it was her first time.”
“I suppose you’re right, but I honestly didn’t want my first experience to be in the back of my Trans Am with her cheering me on to make the goal.”
I wondered for a moment if I’d heard him correctly. Did he say his first experience or hers? I stopped the rocker and stared at him, mentally reviewing what he’d said.
“Big shocker, huh?” he laughed lightly.
I still hadn’t found the speech button for my mouth. This 6’3” tattooed, Air Force bound, electric-blue-eyed, raven haired angel was exactly what I had been four days ago-virgin. Now I really heaped a huge pile of guilt upon the ashes of my life. He risked everything and ran away with someone who could never be with him the way he was hoping to experience. And, for that matter, how was he ever going to find the right girl as long as he was in my company?
“That wasn’t your-your first kiss back at the hotel, was it?” I was cringing hard.
“I’ve kissed girls before…” he said.
I took a breath.
“…but never the way you kissed me, Leese. I usually back away if a girl wants to try getting that hot and heavy.”
I rolled my eyes heavenward as they filled with tears.
“Don’t be upset about it,” he continued, “they were the best kisses of my entire life.”
“God, just send down a lightning bolt right now and fry me,” I whimpered, still looking up.
He looked up at the sky and then back down at me, “Don’t talk like that.” He grabbed my arm and made me go back inside. Yeah, he and I both knew I deserved that lightning bolt.
“We’re doing your hair,” he stated, setting down his cup of coffee and grabbing the boxes of color and frost on the table, “come on.”
I think I was still numb up until he rinsed out the first batch of dye. He was towel drying my head and had gotten a little too rough when I snapped out of it.
“Yikes, give me that towel. You’re about to remove my scalp!”
“Oh, sorry,” he said and then went for the blow dryer.
“I can do that part myself.” I handed him back the towel. It usually took me twenty minutes or more to dry my hair when it was long, now it seemed to be dry in five.
“Okay, now we’ll streak it,” he stated matter-of-factly, getting the product out on the bathroom counter with all the little foil papers. “Crap, this looks complicated.”
“I don’t have to have streaks,” I argued.
“We bought it, you’ll look good with them so you’re getting them, got it?”
“All right hair-god, but if my head goes up in flames, it’s your fault.” Why did I worry? He could work in a salon, even if that isn’t what he considered macho enough for his persona. I looked fabulous when he was done with me.
The red dye didn’t go quite as smoothly as the blonde. He just didn’t have enough hair to keep from getting it on his skin. Once the time was up and I rinsed it off his head, it wasn’t so bad, but it was certainly different. I didn’t, and I don’t think he did either, consider the shocking contrast with the red hair and the blue eyes.
“I look freaky,” he remarked as he studied his reflection in the mirror.
“We’re dying you back to black before we leave here.”
“Nah, it’s cool.”
“Ryan, it looks like your heads on fire-you’re going back to black.”
He grinned as he put himself cheek to cheek with me as we looked at the blonde and the redhead in the mirror, “Whatever you say.” He kissed my temple and walked away.
The rest of the day was spent lounging on the comfortable couches in the living room and flipping between the news and the weather channel. Ryan snoozed most of the time. He wasn’t kidding about not being a morning person. At the rate he was sleeping, I’d be lucky if he was a late afternoon person.
It didn’t surprise me there was nothing on the news about me, especially since we’d kept every detail about the wedding hush-hush from the press. I chuckled to myself as I considered we had the tightest security possible during the wedding because it was provided for us by the mob; even the most die-hard paparazzi would have been dissuaded.
D’Angelo had not been on the guest list because Micah felt having the person who hired him to kill me there, would have been like bringing Robert to the wedding. The reason for the change in our wedding date was now abundantly clear to me. Had we tried to keep it September 15th, D’Angelo would have gotten to me before Micah and I had the opportunity to experience each other. I wondered if it was possible that I might be pregnant. What a sad, but beautiful way to keep a part of him with me.
When nighttime came Ryan was fully awake and I was exhausted from not sleeping the night before. I felt bad leaving him sitting there with nothing to do, but I had to go to bed. I honestly don’t know why I even tried. Within an hour, I was awake again. I tossed and turned and finally got up and watched a late movie with him until one a.m. and then tried once again to go to sleep.
I needed my sleeping pill; he was just over six feet tall with muscles and a way of crooning my name, and wrapping his arm around my waist as I drifted off to sleep. But there was no Micah to lull me into the rest I needed, only his memory; and a memory of him could never replace what I needed.
The next morning, the effects of two sleepless nights were starting to show. Ryan was up by ten and rather chipper for having risen before noon, but he could tell immediately I hadn’t done well through the night.
“I think you need to get out and get some fresh air and exercise that way you’ll be so tired you’ll sleep tonight. I found a trail last Christmas that leads to a waterfall, wanna go?”
“Give me a few minutes to pull myself together,” I said as I stumbled to the bathroom and got ready.
He was right about the walk, I felt so much better as we took off down the mountainside. We discussed leaving perhaps by Friday and going to our final destination, final as long as there were no signs that Micah had figured out where we went. We were both pretty sure our location here had been a good choice and that was why we wouldn’t leave for another three or four days.
The waterfall was tucked off to the side of the path, but the sound of the falling water could be heard for a good distance away. It was small, but still impressive as it poured over the rocks and continued as a small stream running down the mountain. We splashed around and acted like a pair of kids for a while and then finally started the journey back up the mountain.
Okay, now I understood what he was saying about being tired enough for sleep tonight. The trip up the trail was arduous where as the trip down had been pleasant. We were both sweaty and drained of all the positive energy when we reached Harvey’s place. Ryan took a shower and flopped on the couch, passing out almost immediately. I took a shower and tried passing out, but as tired as I was, I simply couldn’t sleep. When he rolled over two hours later, he found me sitting there watching him.
“I made you some lunch,” I said as he looked at me expressionlessly.
He blinked a couple times, yawned and rubbed his sleepy face, “Did you take a nap?”
“I tried; no luck.”
“Crap, Leese, you’ve got to get some sleep before you turn into a zombie.” He sat up, putting his feet on the floor and running his hand over his shock-red stubble, “If you don’t sleep tonight, we’re going back to town and getting you some sleeping pills.”
“I don’t take pills,” I retorted.
“Well you got to do something. Did you have problems sleeping before all of this?”
“I did until Micah started staying at the house. He was my ‘sleeping pill,’” I said, smiling for once at a memory instead of crying. “Some nights he’d slip in my room and-”