Devil's Despair: Travis's Stand Part 26

She gets up, not bothering with clothes and I watch her walk out of the bedroom.

It isn't until then that I realize I haven't stopped smiling since we got here.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Sarah THE EVENING SUN blinds me, causing me to blink. Lifting my head from the pillow, I use my hand to shield against the evening rays.

It's seven o'clock in the evening. I must have dozed off after my shower. My skin is tight from the early afternoon sun and my body is spent from Travis's attention.

Looking over to where he was lying before I fell asleep, I find he's gone. The music from the other room is soft, and I can't place what it is. It's not anything I've ever heard.

We're going home tomorrow and as much as I hate leaving, I'm looking forward to coming clean and telling our friends what's happening between us. Even if Ace loses his mind, and we face unfair judgment, it'll be better as we move forward with whatever this is.

Pulling Trav's shirt over my head, I walk to the living room of the house. The music gets louder the closer I come to Hayden's father's den.

In the fading sunlight coming through the window, I find Travis sitting on a piano bench. He's without a shirt and his eyes are closed. His blond hair is completely out of place, even as short as it is. His green eyes are concentrating in a stare, but he's not looking at a sheet of music.

He's playing another song from memory. He looks as though he's at peace with the universe, but I know him better.

Like me, Trav has internal struggles he's dealt with, but for far longer than I have.

His admission of not finding peace with his father's death struck me hard. Before all this started I'd asked Hayden to fill me in on the details I had missed, since I was a teenager when it happened. I cried inside for the loss Travis suffered.

Travis and his dad were tight. They were close like brothers, shared their lives like friends, but it's been the missing paternal influence that's left Travis feeling the most alone.

Now that Bean's gone, I understand exactly what he's going through.

Hayden told me the house Trav and his dad lived in before he died is still sitting vacant and un-kept. It's about thirty minutes from here. I googled the address on the ride up to map it in case Trav, by chance, was willing to drive by and share whatever childhood story he wanted with me.

"Why are you not over here already?" Trav asks with hooded eyes as he takes in my appearance. It causes me to shiver, even from where I'm standing.

"You got out of bed and didn't tell me," I explain. "Are you okay?"

"I still like my time alone, Sarah. It won't change and it's nothing to do with you."

Walking to him, my hands at my sides, Travis scoots over slightly on the bench for me to sit. We're both looking at the beautiful black grand piano Hayden's dad bought, but I doubt he's ever played. The walls in his den are lined with what look to be old hardcover books. I've never noticed this room until Trav's presence filled it.

"What was that song?"

His smirk in place, he raises his eyebrow and mocks me. "Spying on me again?"

"Any chance I get. You should know this now by."

"Nothing you'd know," he answers, looking in my eyes then removing a piece of hair from my face and placing it behind my ear.

"I don't recognize it."

"'Gravity,'" he states.

"As in the female version?"

His eyebrows furrow, not getting that I'm making fun of him.

"As in Sara Bareilles," he affirms.

"The female version, then."

"I didn't f.u.c.kin' sing the d.a.m.n thing, did I?"

I try to ignore how badly I want to make fun of him. I'm careful and don't want to p.i.s.s him off. Instead, I change the subject. "What do you want to do tonight?"

"I'm hanging here with you."

I lean my head on his shoulder and he wraps his arm around my waist. He uses his free hand to play small, quiet notes on the piano.

"I don't want to go back," I admit.

"Neither do I," he replies, kissing my temple.

I close my eyes to savor the moment. "We have to tell Ace."

"I'm telling him tomorrow, you're not."

I sit up. My pulse quickens and I feel fear racing through my veins. "He'll take the news better if it's coming from me," I argue.

"The f.u.c.k he will."

"He will!"

Travis sighs, pulling me up then over his lap so my bent knees rest on either side of him. My hands rest on his shoulders and his are on my thighs. "I'll tell him."

"What about the others?"

"They don't matter."

He's so certain.

"Can we go somewhere tonight?" I ask carefully, trying to gain a sense of his mood. Trav's been alone a long time, rarely taking others into consideration for plans.

"Go somewhere as in . . . back to the bedroom?" he asks, smiling. I f.u.c.king love that smile.

"Do you always have to have s.e.x in a bed?"

His eyes, just jovial and fun, are now blazing. I've struck a nerve.

"Want me to bend you over the piano?"

f.u.c.king h.e.l.l, he didn't say that.

"Umm. . . ."

"Want me to go at you in the kitchen while you're making me dinner?"

The visual killed me-in a good way. I swallow hard and he watches my throat carefully.

"Want me to f.u.c.k you in my Jeep, with the seat folded down in the back?"

If he doesn't stop, I'll lose focus!

"Another time?" I utter ridiculously, trying to remain seated.

His eyes, still blazing, have started to narrow. "Another time, she says."

"Later," I answer again, digging my nails into his wrists, which are now holding me in place. "I want to go somewhere out of the house tonight. And I want to drive."

His eyebrows rise in surprise and his eyes start to calm. "You want to drive my f.u.c.kin' Jeep?"

"I'll be careful!" I exclaim loudly.

"No f.u.c.kin' way. I've seen how you drive," he whispers, drawing his face closer to mine and kisses my nose.

"I'll be good!"

"I like my Jeep, Sarah."

"I'll do you a big, Travis kind of favor later if you let me," I promise, unsure I could go through with something I've never done to a man.

His smile widens as he thinks it over. "I like that."

"Good!" I pat his shoulder and start to stand. I don't get far before he grabs my waist and pulls me back down, then stands with me in his arms.

"Bed first. If I die in my Jeep tonight, I want to f.u.c.k you one more time, in bed, before my funeral."

"That's sick," I return.

"Maybe, but it's me."

Clinging to his body as he stands with me cradled in his arms, I reply, "It's definitely you."

Travis Sarah is up to something. She's nervous and quiet. It's not because she's driving my Jeep like a grandma headed to church, either. It's something else. Something big.

I've stayed quiet and focused on the road, resisting the idea of where I think we're headed.

"Do you know where you're going?" I ask, watching her body tense. She's gripping the steering wheel forcefully.

"Yes," she whispers, without looking at me.

The sun is gone and it's dark, but the roads are still so familiar. I let Sarah continue down the narrow street that my dad and I used to live on before he died. I haven't been back since the day we buried him and even then it was only to get my stuff and get out. I was too emotionally broken to risk feeling his presence there. I've kept him with me all these years, but it's been at a careful distance.

"Sarah," I say out loud, still unsure how I feel about this.

She slows the Jeep and turns to me. I feel her eyes a.s.sessing my mood so I don't look at her.

"I just want to see where you grew up. Hayden told me the house is still vacant."

"Hayden tells you too f.u.c.king much."

"It wasn't like that, Trav."

"Oh yeah?" I hear the accusation in my question before the brown and white house comes into full view and my heart beats hard against my chest.

My heart feels heavier than I remember it feeling the day he died. Although so much time has pa.s.sed, I can't look at this place without remembering him. There was a period in my life when I truly thought I had everything.

f.u.c.k, I miss him so much.

My hands start to shake as we pull into the driveway. The neighborhood hasn't changed at all. The house hasn't either. The trash cans set against the garage are old and discolored but still in place. The trees are still bare from winter and the windows and doors look tainted and pale with time.

Snapping out of the trance of the past, I turn to Sarah, now almost annoyed. She's biting her bottom lip with worry.

"This was your brilliant idea for spending our last night together? You're taking me to an old house?" I ask with limited patience. "I could think of a few better ways."

She sees through my feigned indifference. "You know where we are, Travis."

"Why here?"

Why are you doing this?

"'Cause I wanted to see it." She puts the Jeep in park and doesn't make a move to get out.

We're both staring at what was once my happy life before the happiness in my life became a nightmare. A reality I'm still struggling through.

"What happened to your mom?" Sarah asks quietly, breaking me from the darkness of my memory.

"Another time I'll tell you."

"I want to know."

"It's nothing you want to hear."

"Maybe not, but I want to know anyway."