7. Stella

7

STELLA

E arly morning light filters into the motel room through the flimsy curtains. A heavy arm drapes across my hip, and Will's thigh presses into the side of my leg. Sometime in the night we gravitated toward each other, our bodies exhausted from the love-making sessions.

After he took me against the door, we ordered take out and stayed in the motel room missing the bands and the speakers.

I didn't mind. We made love bent over the chest of drawers and again in the shower. My body can't get enough of Will.

I'm sore in places I didn't know you could be sore. But it's a good sore, like how athletes must feel after running a marathon.

I watch Will sleep, noting the permanent creases in his forehead and the tiny silver hairs that streak his hairline. He's had worries in his past, concerns that have lined his face.

Will's eyes flicker open, and I close mine quickly so he doesn't catch me staring at him.

"Good morning." His voice is raspy, and it sends a delightful shiver down my spine.

When I open my eyes again he's smiling at me, causing little creases to form in the corners of his eyes. "Morning."

This is the closest we've been except for making love, and I wonder if he's going to pull away from me. But instead he stretches his arm around me and pulls me closer.

I rest my head on his chest and listen to his heart. The thumps slow and steady and I close my eyes, enjoying the solidness of having someone to hold.

Will kisses the top of my head. An intimate gesture, too intimate. I sit up before I lose myself in him completely.

"What did you do in the military?" I bunch the pillows up so I'm sitting and pull the blankets over my chest.

"I was a JAG captain."

He must see my confusion, because he explains. "An attorney, a military lawyer."

My heart skips a beat. Will is a lawyer. It doesn't surprise me with his clean-cut looks, but it's still a shock.

"Is that what you do now?"

He props himself up on one elbow and traces the line of my arm with his fingertip. "I've got a practice in Hope. It's a small town on Wild Heart Mountain near where I live. I have local civilian clients, but I also take military cases still."

He tells me about his work and I nod and smile along, but my heart is sinking. He's a good guy, a right side of the law kind of good guy, which is more than I am. It's lucky this is only a fling. That he's only mine to enjoy for a weekend.

"What do you want to do today?" he asks, oblivious to my thoughts.

My body tingles thinking about all the things I want to do to Will today, but I need to give my body a rest.

"Don't you have things organized with your club?"

Will puts his arm around me and pulls me back to his chest. "I was going to ride back today, but I think I'll stay another night."

He runs his fingers through my hair. It's soothing, and I could stay here all day listening to his heartbeat and forgetting about the different lives we lead.

"I'd rather spend the day with you."

The words make me feel warm all over even though he must just mean to have sex. "I'm a little sore…"

His fingers move to the front of my scalp and make their way back through my hair. "I mean go get breakfast, see the sights."

"What sights are there to see in the middle of a bikers festival?"

He reaches for his phone. "Let's find out. "

A few hours later, we're wandering the streets of a small town that's a twenty minute ride from where the festival is.

The streets are lined with motorbikes from festival goers who have had the same idea.

We stopped for ice cream at a local store, and I clasp my cone in one hand and Will's hand in the other.

"Have you always lived in North Carolina?"

I take a lick of my strawberry ice cream, and Will's eyes dart to my mouth. The look he gives me makes my body heat, and I lick the ice cream again just to see that look again.

"I moved there after my parents died."

I jolt to a stop, all thoughts of provocative ice cream licking fleeing my mind. I know what that loss feels like.

"I'm sorry, Will. How old were you?"

He squeezes my hand, and I start moving again. "It was a long time ago. I was seventeen. I went straight into the military."

We pass a trash can and I throw the rest of my ice cream in, no longer hungry. "Is that where you studied to be lawyer?"

He nods. "The military trained me, and I threw myself into my studies. My father was a military lawyer with the JAGs, and I wanted to do him proud. I was driven. Too driven."

The last bit he mutters and turns away as he says it. I wonder what haunts him, but I'm too caught in my own thoughts to ask.

"I lost my parents too. "

Will stops walking and turns to me. "I'm so sorry, Stella. How old were you?"

It's been a long time since I talked about this voluntarily. My therapist made me talk about my past, and I'm getting better at it. For years I kept it bottled up, and it still feels weird to talk. But Will's looking at me like he really cares, like he wants to know.

"My dad left when I was two. Mom tried to track him down. We moved around a lot, but when she finally found him, she was too late. He was dead."

I don't tell Will it was an overdose. I never knew my father, and I only know this story because Mom used to tell it to me over and over, the bitterness in her voice palpable. She said he'd OD'd to save on paying alimony.

"I'm sorry."

I wave a hand away, because from what my mother told me, my father didn't deserve anyone's pity.

"I never knew him." The only picture I have of him is one Mom kept of the three of us when I was a few months old. They're looking at each other and smiling like there's a joke they're sharing at the exact moment the picture was taken. I never saw Mom smile like that again.

"My mother passed when I was eleven."

A cool breeze whips down the main street, and I hug my arms in front of my chest. Will notices and pulls me toward him. He too discards his ice cream, and I lean into his warm embrace.

"I'm so sorry, Stella. No child should go through that."

His arms wrap around me and I breathe deep, the confused little girl in me clinging onto a place of safety .

"That must have been so hard on you and Cleo. Did you live with relatives?"

After Mom died, there was no family left, no one to take me. I was sent from foster home to foster home. Slowly, the confused little girl hardened into a mean teenager, running with the wild crowd and breaking the rules of the home. Getting sent from place to place because I was too much trouble, until I came to the Mackeys and met Cleo. I looked up to Cleo. She was the closest thing to a sister I ever had, and she kept me in line. I tried so hard after she left to be good.

But the pull of living on the edge was too strong.

I don't tell Will any of this. We've got one more night together, and I don't want him to think badly of me.

I open my mouth to explain that Cleo isn't my blood sister when there's a shout from across the street.

We turn toward the noise together to see a man collapse to the pavement. He's wearing a leather jacket with a biker's patch indicating he's from the festival. Another man, bald as a bowling ball, stands over him, shaking his shoulders and yelling at him to get up.

"Something's wrong."

I dart across the road, not noticing if Will follows me or not. The man needs medical attention, and I may be able to help.

"What happened?" I crouch next to the biker on the ground and feel his pulse. He's alive, but his breathing is shallow.

"He just collapsed," wails the bald man. His pupils are small pinpricks, and he wavers on his feet .

I lift the biker's arm, and his skin is clammy. When I let go, his arm drops limply to the ground.

"Call an ambulance," I say to Will who's followed me across the street. "He's ODing."

Will gets his phone out and makes the call.

"No ambulances, man." The friend looks panicked. "The police can't get involved."

"Your friend is going to die if we don't get him help."

My training kicks in and I do what I can, rolling him into the recovery position and checking that his airway is clear.

I give him a hard tap on the cheek. "Hey, you need to wake up."

The man gurgles but doesn't respond.

"An ambulance will be here in ten minutes." Will crouches next to the man. "What do you need me to do?"

"If his heart rate drops, we'll need to do CPR."

Will nods. "We need to find out what he's taken." He stands up, but the friend has slunk off. He hasn't gotten far on his unsteady feet, and Will strides up the road to find him.

He catches up with the guy, and I hear raised voices. But I have to concentrate on the man on the ground.

I keep checking his pulse and trying to get him to wake up until the ambulance arrives.

But when it pulls in, I stand up and fade into the background, letting Will give an account of what happened.

I don't want to be associated with a person ODing either, even if it has nothing to do with me. I can't afford for it to get back to my parole officer.

The paramedics administer Naloxone then load the man into the ambulance. They take off with sirens wailing and I watch with my hand to my chest, hoping the man's going to be okay.

"That was pretty impressive."

I turn at the sound of Will's voice, and the sight of him helps calm my nerves. "I did some volunteer work with a War on Drugs street team."

I leave out the fact that it was part of my community service. Will doesn't need to know about that.

The man's friend comes stumbling back from wherever he was hiding when the ambulance arrived.

"Is he going to be all right?"

Will turns to him, and there's fury in his voice. "What were you thinking, bringing gear to a family festival? There are kids around."

The man holds up his hands, but Will doesn't back down. "It's irresponsible. You want a kid to see that happen?"

"Chill out, bro."

"I'm not your fucking bro. You're lucky I don't know any cops around here, or I'd have them take you in."

The man's face goes red. "You need to relax, smoke a joint or something."

"You need to get the fuck out of my face."

The man backs off, and Will strides up the street. I've never seen him so angry, and I have to jog to keep up with him .

"Are you okay?"

He shakes his head. "If there's one thing I can't tolerate, it's drugs."

He strides off up the street, and this time I let him go. It's lucky this is only for the weekend, because if Will knew about my past, he wouldn't want anything to do with me.