In the Wake of Touch

The voices in the bar quiet down until only old Ernie in the corner is still

jabbering, telling no one and everyone about the two-foot trout he probably

never actually caught, like we couldn't all tell the story word-for-word,

anyway.

It's eerie, no voices aside from his. The country music overhead and the

TV on behind me the only other sounds in the joint. Even the crack of the

cue ball against stripes or solids has paused on the other side of the bar.

I give in to the temptation, turn my head to the right, back toward the

door to see what everyone else is staring at, what's captivated everyone's

attention so wholly. I hope someone didn't come in with a 'Bama shirt

again. I'm not really in the mood to play peacekeeper with a few dozen of

these boys tonight.

But when I look, the outside door—the one we all avoid, with the janky

handle—is wide open, and there's soft muttering coming from just outside

it.

I hear Ernie start to offer bets on what out-of-towner might've broken

down outside of Suds and needed to come in for help, but a prickling on the

back of my neck and scalp has all of my attention focused on the door and I

tune him out, a skill I've evolved over years of nights like this, and the

same six stories he's got on the tip of his tongue.

But then a body comes through.

A body I'd never not recognize, even if I haven't seen it since I was

twenty-two.

The only body I might know better than my own.

The one that belongs to the best and worst thing that ever happened to

me.

Once, when we were doing some metal work on an ancient jalopy

together, Gonzo went off on a rant about his old lady and flung his hand, the

one that was holding the heavy shrinking hammer. It pummeled into my

abdomen, knocking the wind from me and nearly cracking my ribcage to

the point I saw stars, fell to my knees, and barely retained consciousness.

This is like that all over again, but a bit further north. And maybe with

two hammers.

Struggling for breath like it's a lump of metal lodged in my chest, not

just the girl who I was always sure was the love of my life, I hear a

collective gasp as everyone else in the bar registers who just walked in,

before the whispers start up. They don't have the history we do, the one that

allows me to identify her from a split-second glance. Could prolly have told

you with a blindfold on who was at the door. They all had to study her face

for a second to piece it together. My molecules reacted to hers, telling me

who it was.

I can't decide if I'm the lucky one, or the rest of them are.

Speaking of her face, when my eyes finally make it there, fuck, she's as

stunning as my memories like to remind me she is. She looked good when

we were young, but damn, she's really grown into her looks. Oval-shaped

face, petite features, delicate nose—can't see if that constellation of freckles

is still across the bridge of it from here, but I hope it is—I think her lips

might be bigger than I remember them, and her hair is lighter, too, but fuck

me, she looks better than ever.

It only takes a second of gawking, of reacquainting myself with the

finer details of how she's aged—of realizing how far out of my league she's

gotten with time, or maybe it's me that fell out of hers—for me to see that

her face is twisted in pain. She shakes out her right hand, fingers flying as

her mouth screws up. When she stops flinging her wrist, she puts the

underside of one finger in her mouth, sucking for a second—I ignore what

that sight does to me on a visceral level—before pulling it out. She looks

back down at it again, and even from here, I know it's a filthy curse she's

muttering as she stares at it.

It's a reflex. A natural reaction, really. Before I can weigh it out, make a

conscious decision about whether to say something or pretend I never saw

her, I'm on my way over. She's hurting, and that took any question out of

the equation. No room for indecision or thought. Regardless of how much

pain she might've caused me when she left a lifetime ago, I can't not help

her feel less of it here and now.

I clear my throat as I approach and say a name I haven't dared utter in

an eon. One I wasn't sure I'd say again. "Rory."

Her head flies up, like her cells recognize me just as quickly as mine did

her.

"It's Aurora," are the first words she's said to me since she ruined things

for both of us.

Her face softens when she sees me though, the pain on her face replaced

with shock, maybe fear, and then the look of hurt is back, maybe worse than

before.

"Are you okay?"

Her eyes—still brown, still deep, still full of my favorite memories—

bounce down from mine back to her own hand at my words. She shakes her

head just a little, like she got lost in thought or something.

"I'm sure it'll be fine," she mumbles, rubbing the skin near a red spot

on her hand.

"Is that—?"

I don't think about it, I just grab her hand, still it so I can get a closer

look. Sure enough, yup, that's blood there. Bit of a nasty cut she got from

that scraggly bit of wood, by the looks of it. It's filling up rapidly, pooling

with more blood even as I stand here holding it.

"You're bleeding." I don't know why the words come out like a grunt.

There were cavemen more charming than that.

My thumb trails over her skin, just below the cut, and she shivers and

pulls her hand back.

"Sorry," I tell her.

"You shouldn't be," she whispers, and for some reason I'm reading into

it. Like she's saying she's the one who should be. I'd given up on hoping to

ever hear those words from her mouth around the time her area code

changed to 212. My turn to shake my head and clear my thoughts.

"Let's get you cleaned up. And for future reference, nobody uses the

door on the right. Now you know why." I tilt my head at her hand, still

trickling blood.

She purses her lips together and nods at me wordlessly, probably still

stunned at her fate, first with the door, then running into me. This can't be

what she had planned for her grand re-entrance into the Heights.

I turn around to lead her to the bathroom along the side wall, by the

office and the door that leads to the small kitchen, and I feel damn near

every eye in the room on us. My posture stiffens a bit and I'm tempted to

growl at Ernie, snickering on the far side of the bar, and anyone else who

makes eye contact with me on the way, but I hear Diego, another nightly

patron, loudly start conversing again, pulling a good amount of the attention

back on them and I'm thankful for it. Grab Dallas's eyes with mine on my

way past him and ask him for a first aid kit, and the way he tilts his chin

says he'll nab it.

Try to ignore whatever the sizzling beneath the surface of my skin is.

The familiarity of it. How unfamiliar, how alien the sensation is at the same

time.

I push the bathroom door open and hold it for her so it doesn't break her

nose as it snaps shut again, wait till she's fully inside the small room to let it

slam closed, and do my best to keep my distance from her in the confined

space.

"I wasn't expecting the door to be sharp," Rory—Aurora—murmurs,

like she needs to justify what happened.

"Yeah, Duke really needs to take care of that. It's been a hazard for

years. Sorry it claimed you as a victim."

The corner of her lip turns up, and my sore eyes don't want to look

away from the sight of it in the mirror, but I force them down to the faucet,

where I spin the hot tap and let it run.

"What are you doing here, Aurora?" My eyes don't leave the stream of

water.

"I think I'm cleaning out my cut." The intended levity doesn't quite

land, but I appreciate the gesture, regardless.

"And after that?"

She sucks in a sharp breath, and I close my eyes rather than let them

follow the motion of her chest with the inhale.

"I'm looking for Duke. I heard the apartment upstairs might be

available. I need somewhere to crash for the night."

Not sure my brain has had time to hazard a wager as to why she might

be here, but that wasn't even in the neighborhood of where it would've

gone, given the chance.

I've also heard the apartment is available, but I'm wondering how she

did. I've got a guess.

Raise my brows at her through the mirror, squeezing in next to her at

the sink again to test the water with a couple fingers. It's hot enough to

remove skin, so I turn the cold tap on just a little to bring it back to the

lightly-boil-and-sanitize setting.

"I just got here. Hadn't really warned anyone but my mom, but I'm …

back?" Her melodic voice raises on the last word, like she's not sure that's

what she means. "For now, I mean," she clarifies. "For a bit."

I clear my throat and gesture to the running water now that it's ready for

her.

"I hope that's not going to be weird for you. Us. Whatever." Rory

stumbles over her words but makes quick work of rinsing off her finger and

using soap to clean it off as best she can.

"Us was a long time ago, Ror."

"I know. You know what I mean. I'm sorry to spring this on you. Just.

Show up to your town like this."

Interesting. The stumbling on words is new for her. Fierce little Rory

Weiss struggling for what to say? Unheard of.

"The Heights is just as much yours—"

Her derisive snort cuts me off.

Yeah, okay, I won't go there.

She turns off the faucet and dries her hands with a paper towel, but

keeps the wad pressed to her finger as we finally have nowhere left to look

but one another.

The bare truth escapes me, as it's inclined to do.

"Fuck. This is weird, isn't it?"

She snorts and it's almost a real laugh. Her eyes crinkle at the corners.

That's also new. I bet if my eyes were allowed to run up and down that

body, they'd find a lot else that's changed too. I wonder if, underneath,

she's still the same, or if she's as jaded and hardened as I've become with

time.

"Yeah," she admits softly. "Not how I thought I'd be spending my

night."

"So why are you here, Rory?"

Her eyes bounce around the room, but I've got no clue what she's

looking for. She won't find it in here. Four wooden walls, the sink, a toilet,

and some questionable "artwork" about aiming when peeing, plus a sign

reminding staff to wash their hands before returning to work. And me. The

man, the future, she ran from all those years ago.

Nowhere to run this time. aname for this chapte