99 Percent Mine: A Novel

Moments like these make me certain that Loretta is lying facedown on a cloud, stuffing popcorn into her mouth, nudging Vince’s car a little faster down Marlin Street. Two minutes later, I’d be gone, and Vince would be just cruising past.

Vince rounds the hood of the car, sees me and Tom, and stumbles a little in surprise before recovering. He sits on the hood of his car. Speak of the devil.

“You still have no phone.” That’s Vince’s way of saying: I haven’t seen you for a while, I wanted to see you, and this is tough on my ego.

I’ve got new eyes now, looking at him. Tom’s straightforward gorgeousness has spoiled me for my usual type. Vince is whipcord lean, pale and dark haired, dressed in head-to-toe black. Tattoos galore. Dark circles and an air of tortured artist. He cups his hands around a cigarette, there’s a flick, and now he’s exhaling plumes of gray.

“Thought I’d drop by.” Vince clearly hates these sorts of moments where he’s got to justify his actions or give a shit. I’ve never required it from him. Another drag, and his blue eyes look anywhere but at me. “But you’ve still got company. Tom Valeska, right? Haven’t seen you for years, man. How’s it going? Cute dog.”

“Just great,” Tom says on a half laugh, Patty straddling his forearm. She’s got a toadlike expression. Cigarettes make her sneeze. “I’m fantastic.”

“And I’m fine,” I aim sarcastically at Vince. He just grins at me, looking at my body in my clothes.

“No argument here.” Vince narrows his eyes at Tom’s face, assessing him. “Are you here to start on the house?”

“Yep,” Tom says.

“About time. What a dump. And you’re staying here?” Vince is looking at the truck, and thinking about what opportunities may be impacted by this.

Tom would cross his arms if he weren’t holding a Chihuahua. “I’ll be here. Every day for the next three months. She’s working on it with me.”

Vince mulls this over. “Heard you were out looking for me last night. Lenny sent me a text, said he saw you at Sully’s.” He jingles his key ring at me. “Let’s go out.”

“I wasn’t looking for you. I’ve got other plans tonight. Beat it, shithead.” I point at the road.

“Wow. Way to make me feel used and abused.” Vince adds with a sly smile to Tom, “She only wants me for one thing.” He’s technically correct. Tom raises his eyes to the sky like he’s praying for strength. At this rate, I’m going to have to dig a small, thin grave.

For the last few years, Vince and I have used each other repeatedly in the little gaps of time when I arrive back in town. I don’t even bother telling him when I leave, because who cares? Not him.

Sex with Vince is like going to the gym; I feel slightly better after having done it as the sweat cools on my body, but I make a lot of excuses to myself as to why I shouldn’t go.

Tom’s dealt with enough of my boys to know that the best response is to be infuriatingly polite. “Where are you working these days, Vince?” You’d never guess he called him a little piece of shit two minutes ago. Butter wouldn’t melt in that perfect mouth.

Vince looks sideways at the decal on Tom’s truck. “I’m between gigs at the moment. I’m trying to get Darcy to hook me up with a job at the bar, but she’s holding out on me. I could get into construction, though.” A lingering, job-offer-sized pause is left here.

I shake my head. “Like I’m going to babysit your ass at the bar. You can work there when I leave.”

Tom stares at Vince. “And what do you think of the fact she’s come home with a bruise from working there? From a guy?”

Vince looks me all over but can’t see anything amiss. “She handles herself. I bet she fucked him up.” He falters under Tom’s eyes and adds awkwardly, “Are you okay though, Darce?”

“Fine. And you’re correct. I can handle myself.” I like how Vince sees me. Unquestionably tough and with no need of saving.

“Who did it?” Vince is more curious than outraged.

I huff. “Keith. The big dumb dipshit.”

“Shiiiit.” Vince whistles. “He’s got a thing for you, you know. Pretty obvious. The boys all laugh about it.”

“Well, you could have given me a heads-up. Did a barrel of Viagra roll into the water supply? Because last time I checked, I wasn’t irresistible.”

I scuff my boot around in the gravel. I’m still embarrassed every time I think about how I’d joke around with no thought of keeping my guard up.

“He was trying to tell me something I didn’t want to hear. He grabbed my arm to make me listen. That’s all it was. It wasn’t some violent thing. It was an annoying thing.” I’m telling all of this to Tom.

“It was a grabbing-someone-at-work thing. A bruise thing. Absolutely not okay.” Tom’s eyes are Valeska orange. In my black and white world, it’s the only color. For one deep throbbing instant, I want to be in his arms, those big hands cradling my head. No one could put a bruise on me.

“You don’t want to take him on, man,” Vince advises Tom. “That guy is huge.” He’s noticed Tom’s expression and looks away with a grin, half obscured by smoke. “Well, you might do all right. You’ve been hitting the gym.”

“Nope.”

“This here is a hard-work body,” I tell Vince. I’m starting to get annoyed at him and his light, snarky, sexy banter. A conversation with Vince is like trying to thread a live worm onto a hook.

Then I realize something, and it’s enough to stop my heart. Vince is the same as me. How does Tom even deal with me? Oh shit. I’ve got a type all right: It’s me. His tongue stud winks in the dusk light. My variation winks back from the dark cup of my bra. We’re so similar we could be twins.

“I’m serious, I’ve got to leave.” I unlock my car. “You’re blocking me in.”

“She sure is good at leaving, huh?” Tom says to Vince in an unexpected moment of kinship.

“She’s a pro. So what else is up, man? I heard you’re marrying that hot brunette. Congrats.”

Vince heard about it during one of my drunk sad Sully’s booze fests. I didn’t think he was properly listening. Who knows what I said.

I’m starting to get a hot, embarrassed face. My key ring is being an asshole, every key twisted and caught on the next. I’m shaking them in fury and I cannot bear to hear even one piece of wedding news.

Tom’s voice cuts through everything. “No, we broke up.”

I turn on the point of my boot and frown at them both. He never lies. Why would he feel the need to?

“Oh. Sorry.” This seems like bad news to Vince. He looks between me and Tom, sizing things up, and then decides something. He detaches his butt from his car, treads on his cigarette butt, and saunters over in boots that are very similar to mine.

He puts a hand around my waist. In a nauseating nicotine exhalation he whispers, “You’re a bit irresistible. Come over later. I’m gonna fuck you so good.” His bottom lip brushes my earlobe.

I hope Tom doesn’t have good hearing.

Vince has told me far worse, and with much more detail, but I recoil and push him away. “Pass.”

A pizza delivery car pulls up against the curb. “I’ll get it,” Tom says shortly, digging in his pocket for his wallet, Patty deposited into the violets.

“Aw, come on. Let me convince you.” Vince likes when I’m a challenge. He’s just another one of those bar guys, being treated like dirt and loving it. If I went all soft and mushy with Vince, I guarantee I’d never see him again.

“See you later, Darce,” Tom says, walking inside with his pizza. Patty follows him, her nose turned up like a snob. I brace for the door slam, but he closes it quietly.

“Don’t come driving around here,” I say to Vince with a threat in my voice. “It pisses him off.”

Vince nods and puts a piece of gum in his mouth. “I remember him from high school, and what he was like around you. Got a little pushy with me once.” Vince seems to have surprised himself. He looks at me with a new expression. “Hey, we’ve known each other a long time.”

“No, you’ve got it wrong. Jamie was the pushy type.”

“Nope, definitely Tom. Watch out he doesn’t fall back in love with you,” Vince says in a voice that sounds like he’s joking. Words that sound serious. “You’d wreck a guy like that when you leave. See ya.”

Before I say anything, he’s getting into the car and revving the engine unnecessarily. He reverses without checking his mirror, swings back in a showy loop, and screams off. I stand there for a long moment, trying to settle myself.

How did I not notice that I have been casually screwing my male doppelgänger? Does the whole thing count as a weird kind of masturbation?

Something about the soft sound of the front door closing bothers me. I bet he thought I’d cave in, forget Truly, and get in Vince’s car. I’ve gotten into countless black cars. He stays home. It’s what we do. If leaving were a sport, I’d be a Hall of Famer.

Back in love.

Back in love with you. Was I blind? Even dumbass Vince knew it?

My key slides into the front door like Loretta’s hand is steadying mine. I walk through the house with no thought in my head except that I need to find Tom and tell him that I’m going to do better. Be better. I’m cutting the shit.

This house feels like a tuning fork. There’s no sound, but there’s vibration in here now, a deep bass line that I feel in my stomach. Tom is standing in the kitchen with his back to me, a hand on each side of the old, deep sink. My personal life is clearly sickening.

“Sorry about that,” I say, and he jumps in surprise, hitting his head on the cupboard above him with a crack. He howls in pain.

“Shit. Sorry, sorry.” I run to him and pull his head down. I rub my hand on the top of his head. “Oh, poor Tom. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it, I was careless.” The words run together and I’m not talking about his head now. It’s a relief to be able to say it.

“Normally I can hear you walking a mile away.” Tom rolls his shoulders, agony in his voice, and when he straightens back up to his full height my hand slips to his shoulder. “Don’t sneak up like that.”

He’s leaning back on the sink now, and I’m leaning on him. He doesn’t seem to notice, lost in his private world of pain, his hand on his head. I try to push free, but his other hand tightens on my waist.

From this new perspective, I’m looking up at the curve of his throat and the heavy slab of his bicep. White perfect teeth biting into his bottom lip. Pain looks so much like pleasure. How can he be elegant despite his brute bulk? Michelangelo would be hollering for a fresh block of marble.

Me? I want my camera. And that’s something I haven’t wanted in a long, long time.

If this were my regular view, and I could stand between his knees whenever I wanted, I’d be a permanent fixture. What the fuck is wrong with Megan? A big throb of frustration goes through me. She’s making the same mistake I did. She doesn’t know what kind of heart she has. I wonder if I should try to explain it to her, somehow. And how would I do that without seeming like a psycho?

I feel the exact moment that his pain recedes and he realizes that our bodies are together. He’d step back, but he’s got nowhere to go. I’d step back, but his hand curls into a squeeze.

I’ve sat shoulder to shoulder with this kid on car trips, but we’ve never been this close face-to-face. I can see everything now, the candy-crystal facets in his eyes and the brown-sugar stubble on his jaw. He’s so delicious my throat aches.

The look he gives me makes me wonder if I’m in trouble. “I thought you were going out.”

“I wanted to come back and say I’m sorry,” I tell him, and I put my arms around his waist and hug. “You shut the door in a way that made me sad, and I wanted to tell you that I’m going to do better.”

“Do better at what? How’d I shut the door?” His other arm wraps around my shoulders. He crosses his feet behind my heels, and now his entire body is hugging me. Warm, soft, hard. I thought my mattress was heaven, but that’s before I laid myself on this person. How am I going to ever peel myself off?

I inhale his birthday-candle pheromones. I want to know what his goddamn bones smell like. Let me start down in his DNA structure and work my way back out.

I speak into his muscles. “You shut the door like you’ve just accepted that I don’t come back. I’m going to start being like you. Completely, one hundred percent honest.” I hover on the precipice and decide to try. “This is the best hug of my life.”

His heart below my cheekbone is diligent and regular, and I need it to beat forever.

“Yeah, it’s pretty good,” he agrees, amused, and I can’t see how I’m pulling my weight in this. He’s the one doing all the work. I tighten my arms and press closer. That gold-bubble feeling expands around us again. I’ve never felt this with another man. I know what this is: joy. The weight of his arms is the only thing stopping me floating off the floor. I have to tip my face back to see if he feels it, too.

He smiles at the wonder he sees in my expression.

“Complete honesty from Darcy Barrett? I can’t handle that. And I’m not as honest as you think I am.” Some of his pleasure fades.

I pull back a fraction. “Why are you always trying to convince me that you’re not perfect? To me, you are. Completely perfect. Believe me, I’ve undertaken a worldwide census. No one else measures up.”

His hand slides up my back. “How could I possibly deserve Darcy Barrett’s total honesty, as well as her blind faith? I’m not perfect. I don’t know what I’ll do when you realize that.” He swallows and tries desperately to change the subject. “Oh hey, your new neck. I still can’t get used to your hair.”

On my nape, that warm hand clasps down, and I light up.

Hands on my skin are how I recharge. It’s always been this way for me. Is it a twin thing? Is it because I slept in an incubator for a week? I don’t know. It’s a Darcy thing. To feel another human resting against me just clears out the crazy inside me, and Tom’s leathery big palms are next level.

I know my eyes probably go black and crazy, but I press back into his palm and exhale a weird purr. His reaction is instant. I’m bumped away and my skin goes cold. He looks shocked, like I’ve just coughed up a furball.

“Sorry, sorry.” I put my hand where his was and rub it vigorously. “That’s my thing.”

“Necks?” He says it faintly.

“I’ve got hungry skin. All I ever want is someone touching me.” Do I have a phantom bruise against my stomach? Did his body give mine a low-down, hard press? Surely not. Look what I’m doing. Ruining a beautiful moment. “I’d better go to Truly’s place now.”

I flip open the pizza box and take out a slice. Pizza is an excellent recalibration tool. I bite, chew, and he says nothing. He’s completely frozen.

“Say something,” I say on a swallow. “Tell me I’m a freak and get it out of the way.”

“Is that why you need Vince?” He tries to clear his throat but it’s just a growl. “Your skin is hungry? What does that mean?”

I bite my pizza, holding his eyes. “He’s better than nothing.”

“How’d you get from Loretta’s romance novels to ‘better than nothing’?”

“While you’ve been with one person, living your best life, I’ve been getting disappointed a lot. And probably disappointing others, if I’m being truthful.” It does help my ego that he looks like he doesn’t believe me. “Vince isn’t that bad.”

Tom chooses his words carefully. “You want my opinion on your fuck buddy? I’ve got a sledgehammer in the truck. I’d be glad to show him how it works.”

A spiky thrill unfurls inside me. “See. You always tell the truth. I’m going to do the same. How the fuck isn’t Megan just hugging you permanently? You’re one hell of a hugger.” Her name aloud brings me back to the scene on the footpath. “Why’d you bother lying to Vince before?”

He knows exactly what I mean. “I didn’t lie.”

“Of course not. You never lie. Except . . . Megan. You haven’t broken up.” I pull apart the pizza crust with my fingers. “He’s hardly going to feel threatened, or care, if you live here with me.”

“We did. We broke up.”

“Hilarious. Really funny. Quit fucking with me.” I offer a corner of crust to Patty and dust my hands on my pants. I wait, and he doesn’t say anything. He just stares at me. “But you’re going to force me to be your wedding photographer. You’ll ask, and I’ll say yes. You’ll both be sickeningly photogenic.” I put a hand on my hip. I glare at him but he doesn’t crack. Is he serious? “Exactly how long has my phone been in the toilet?”

“We broke up about four months ago. I told your family that I’d tell you in person.”

“But it’s just a break. You’ll get her back.”

“No,” he says gently. “I won’t.”

“But you want her back. I’ll help you.” He just shakes his head. And I briefly lose my mind.

I dodge sideways toward the back door—I need air. I need sky and stars and cold; I need to sit on the rings of Saturn dangling my boots into the black universe to be alone, but he steps easily around me, and now I’m the one leaning on the sink.

“Stay here.”

“Are you okay?” I want to grab him by the shoulders and check for physical damage. I’ll crack open his chest to check how bad his heart looks.

“Me?” He thinks for a second. “Everyone just asks if she’s okay.”

“Yeah, because she’s just lost you. Are you okay? Do I need to go and beat the shit out of her?”

I notice one of the cabinets above me is ajar. For something to do, I put a hand up to close it. When my fingers hook into the tiny handle, the web-thin hinge breaks. Now I’m standing here with a broken door in my hand. I lean it against my leg and try to look cool, but I’m practically auditioning for SmackDown.

Unwillingly, he laughs.

I am going to beat Megan with this door until she realizes what a fuckup she’s made. He knows exactly what I’m thinking.

“You’re always so vicious, DB.” A smile quirks at the edge of his mouth as he looks at the damage I just inflicted. My viciousness thrills him. “How do you know it’s not me that deserves the beating?” He takes the cupboard door from me. More to himself, he says, “This is going roughly how I thought it would.”

“Is your heart broken?” I reach up and yank off the next cupboard door along with a satisfying crack. I hand it to him.

“It’s . . . sore. Not broken.” He looks up at the next cupboard door along. Something like fuck it crosses his mind, and he breaks off a door himself.

“Who ended it?” Crack. Another door gone.

“Well . . . I’ve been trying to work it out. After eight years, it was kind of a joint decision, like most things. I’m sorry. I know you really liked her. Actually, no. I never could tell if you liked her.”

I pull off one of the lower cabinet doors and try to break it in half over my knee. I can’t do anything else with this energy. He’s single. The first time in eight years. And I need carpet burn on my knees and a wall against my back, and to lick the shower spray off him and feed him cold pizza in the middle of the night so he keeps up his strength.

Megan is a red stain behind my combine harvester, and that’s the extent of my pity for her.

He tries to ease me with a hand on my shoulder. “Why are you doing this?”

“If I don’t do this, I’ll do something else.” Something so deeply irreversible we won’t be able to make eye contact when we pass each other in the nursing home hall. Fuck it. That complete honesty I pledged? Here it comes. Up my throat and out loud. One big terrifying blurt.

“Are you going to put your hands on me, or what?”