Page 41

Chapter 13

Addie

Ihad gotten very good at reading people. At understanding each minuscule tick in their facial features. At watching and categorizing the way they moved their hands. Bodies told a story, and a lifetime of avoiding and fearing them made me an avid reader.

Lust. Anger. Fear. Sadness. Each emotion was carefully crafted on an individual no matter how hard they tried to hide it. The slightest tightening of eyes here. The smile brewing there. The hair flip. The clenched fist. The Adam’s apple bobbing. I sometimes wondered if it would be possible to decipher a person’s entire life story based solely on their expressions and gestures.

Were they abused as children?

Were they unloved?

I prided myself in my ability, in my power to see past apathetic fronts.

But Tamson? I couldn’t read him.

His posture was noticeably relaxed, but at the same time, his hand was clenched into a fist. Not a tight fist, but a fist all the same. His eyes were wide and sincere, earnest, almost, but his lips were pulled down. His body was an epitome of contradictions, each one prohibiting me from getting an accurate read on him.

All I could do was watch from my position in his lap as he joked and conversed with the men before us. Conversation steered from girls to sports and from sports to lives before and after. I listened with rapt interest as they divulged their life stories. Doc, no surprise, was an actual surgeon they picked up a few days ago. According to Shawn, they were on their way to Paradise.

A place where the monsters and storms couldn’t reach those inside.

A place where we no longer had to live in fear.

A place where we could not only survive, but live.

I could see curiosity pique in Tamson’s eyes as he listened to their rant of the supposed holy grounds. I, too, filed the information away for later.

“So…” Greg took a long drag of his cigarette, eyes once again focusing on me. I fidgeted at the intrusiveness of his stare, and Tamson put his hands on my hips to steady me. For some undefinable reason, tiny licks of pleasure erupted where he touched me. I knew that he wasn’t entirely unaffected as well, if the hardness pressing into my back was any indication. “What are your specialities?”

Specialities?

“Well, Flower here-” Tamson began, but cut off when Greg raised a fist.

“I think the girl can speak for herself.”

I was suddenly aware that I had every eye on me. I met Tam’s impassive gaze, and the only indication he sensed my unease was the slightest nod of his head.

Specialities.

As a sex worker.

So you see, this is where I ran into a problem. I was horrible under pressure and had a tendency to babble when at a loss for words. Verbal train wreck.

“Wow. That’s a loaded question. Okay...um...I’m very good at DP. And I just learned that it’snota fizzy drink. Imagine my surprise when I asked for a DP and I get freaking beads shoved up my hole - and not the good hole. Who needs to prepare anyways? And why do guys even like it? What if I were to take a shit or fart while the dick was in there? It would turn into a dip-shit. Oh and I’m also good at licking, apparently. Like if you have blue, icicle balls, I can lick them for you. And I’m-”

Tamson, who had been pinching me to get me to shut up, finally put a hand over my mouth. I knew my face was as red as his hair.

Damn it, Adelaide.

Why do you have to go and open up your big mouth?

“Well damn,” Greg huffed out in a laugh. Tamson indolently draped an arm over my shoulders. The other was still wrapped snugly around my waist.

“This is why we don’t have the girls talk.”

Though I knew his words were for Greg’s benefit, they settled in my stomach heavily. It was an equivalent statement to what my dad had always told me. Girls were made to be seen, not heard. I repeated to myself that Tamson didn’t actually feel that way, that he respected my opinions and enjoyed my sometimes crazy rants. He wasn’t my father. He was merely a character at this moment.

My mind, unbidden, drifted to a day only a few weeks earlier.