Hawke

Even in the midst of chaos, the propulsive rhythm of the train deep within our beings drives us together with cataclysmic force. Is it human nature to constantly fear losing what you’ve so recently found?

The world around us is crumbling, yet it’s hard to decipher where one of us ends and the other begins. Hands on bodies, touching, feeling, melting into one.

The intrinsic need to immerse ourselves into one another, the fear of a future being stripped of us, has our mouths memorizing the curves of each other’s lips, writing endless love letters with our tongues.

I find it odd how it can be so silent in the surrounding room, while the loud, thunderous crashing of my heart beats just beneath the surface, the deafening noise filling every part of me, so echoic, concealed by a body so suppressing. The need to translate the feeling reverberating through me into a tangible form is my only mission.

“I need you,” I moan as he spreads sweet, wet kisses along my neck. “I can’t be in any form of existence without you. I won’t survive.”

Our time is precious because we don’t know what we have left. I have to head into the bar, and Hawke needs to hit the road. The plan is for me to go to work as normal, potentially drawing Patrick off his tail, while he hides out by riding into the city until he can get a hold of his parole officer to inform her of the situation.

He’s not happy about it. It literally kills him to think of Patrick being able to find me. I had to force the seriousness of the issues, and the fact that if the cops found him, he wouldn’t stand a chance. They’d detain him immediately, without question, more than likely finding something to charge him with, tearing him away from me for an indefinite amount of time. That scenario I can not handle.

He faces me from above, his green eyes littered with specks of aqua, illuminating in the most spectacular way. His dark, thick locks of hair, freshly damp from our shower, hang down over those breathtaking eyes. He looks at me with the kind of look that would make any girl melt into a puddle of love. The one that says my survival depends on you. The kind that echoes, you are the most interesting thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.

His elbows encase me on the bed, our legs intertwined as I gaze up at him. We’re hiding in the tiny motel a few towns over, collecting ourselves before we part. With Patrick’s resounding message clear as day, we know our clock is ticking yet we keep stretching the time, savoring pulling every second until the next catches us.

I reach up and touch his lip ring, then run my fingers over his eyebrows and down the side of his face. His eyes close at the sensation and he breathes a sigh of comfort, then opens them again to focus on me.

“You’re making me nervous, Cole,” he whispers softly, his face now holding nothing but angst.

Anxiety is written all over my face. I swallow, knowing what he’s talking about. I can’t help the sick gut feeling I hold deep within me. There’s an ending coming, but to which story, I haven’t quite discovered.

“Don’t memorize me like you won’t see me again,” he says, frowning. “I know that look. I’ve made that same face.”

Tears rim my eyes again as I turn my head to look away from him, the direct eye contact too much for my heart.

“I’m just so…I just can’t, I can’t bear the thought—”

He stops me with his lips, ending my useless worrying for things that haven’t happened yet.

Our kiss quickly intensifies, clothes being stripped from our bodies while our lips stay locked on one another’s, needing each other to breathe.

He settles himself between my thighs, pushing inside of me slowly, every inch becoming more pleasurable than the last, until we are fully connected again like we were never meant to be apart.

Our breathless pants are met with kisses, our fingers intertwined as he holds my hands at the sides of my head, connecting every possible part of our bodies as if it’s never enough.

His forehead rests on top of mine, eyes studying mine as he continues the fluid motion, pulling out, then driving himself deeper and deeper, to the place I ache to be filled.

“Nothing can take me away from you. Do you understand that?” His breathy tone echoes his seriousness.

I screw my eyes closed as he thrusts into me again, opening them to find his still on mine. I nod, feeling emotional, as he closes his eyes, dropping his head to the space between my shoulder and neck.

“Nothing,” he whispers, lips against the skin beneath my ear.

I want to believe him, desperately I do, but life doesn’t generally work out to be like a fairy tale. Fairy tales were made to be an escape from the unfairness of this world. An escape for the broken, the used. An escape from mortal reality. The reality we keep trying to avoid.

We hold each other in the aftermath of our lovemaking, coming down from the high of what our touch can make us forget.

“You have to go,” I whisper, brushing his hair back off his forehead, feeling the inevitable.

His jaw flexes as his brows furrow together.

“I’ll ride up towards the city, call my P.O. on the way, explain everything that’s happening.”

He hops up off the bed, throwing on a pair of his black jeans. Finding a t-shirt, he quickly throws it over his lengthy torso as the material melts to his muscular figure. Pulling a snap-back hat out of his bag, he throws it on backwards over his hair.

“We’ll navigate this, Cole, we’ll do it. We will,” he reiterates, giving me a tiny, yet hopeful, grin.

I bite the corner of my lip, my heart swelling at the sight of him, still in disbelief that we are here, together, like this. I never thought I could fall for anyone the way I have for him. Sometimes it takes being with the wrong person to show you how truly amazing it can be with the right one.

Our love started in the dark. It was planted in the deepest part of the ground, watered with secrets, nourished through infidelities. And yet, somehow, our attachment grew into something real, reaching the edge of the surface until we pierced through the darkness of the dirt that held us, into the light of a new day. The sight of a future we had never anticipated, now recognized, is ever so fragile.

“I’ve already called to have Kid watch the bar tonight, so if anything happens, he’ll be right there to call the guys, alright?”

“Really?” I ask, cocking a brow, impressed with the fact that he’s already got his crew of guys watching me, protecting me. “Okay.”

He approaches my position on the bed where I’m clutching the sheet to my naked body, nodding, attempting to appear confident and strong rather than as worried as I feel internally.

“Keep your stuff here for now, and call me as soon as you’re done with your shift, got it?”

His thumb and forefinger gently pinch the bottom of my chin, tilting my face to his as he waits for my answer.

“Yeah, I will.”

He cups my face, rubbing my bottom lip with his thumb, as he tilts his head to the side, licking his lips, clearly anxious to leave.

“I’m just going for a ride. I’ll be right back.”

He says the words as if he needs to hear them himself to set the course of the unforeseeable future. The rate at which my heart is racing is uncontrolled. It’s screaming internally, begging for all of this to finally be over, needing that fairy tale to be our reality.

He leans down to kiss me, pressing his lips to mine, when there’s a pounding at the door.

I gasp, pulling away, my eyes filling with panic as I clutch the sheet higher up on me. Hawke screws his eyes closed tightly, sagging his head. It’s clear we’ve been found, but by who? Helping me find my clothes as I quickly get dressed, the pounding on the door continues.

“Police! Open up!”

“Fuck!” Hawke curses, tossing his hat to the corner of the room, running his hands through his hair.

“What’s happening?! What do we do?!” I question in a panic.

The pounding continues as my entire body shakes, the terror inside me radiating out. Our plans are being derailed from the tracks faster than our train can catch wind.

“We open the door.” He sighs, looking defeated.

Hawke approaches the door, waiting to make sure I’m fully dressed before opening it.

Immediately, two officers barge into the room, weapons drawn, as Hawke assumes a submissive position with his head down and his hands raised in the air before him.

“Get against the wall!” the officer yells, pointing at Hawke with his weapon. “Hands on your head!”

He walks to the wall, putting his hands on his head as the officer approaches him, holstering his weapon. The other chubbier officer standing watch over me directs his weapon towards Hawke, asking me if there are any weapons or illegal substances in the room as my eyes dart wildly back and forth between them.

“No. No weapons, no drugs,” Hawke answers, turning his head slightly.

“He didn’t ask you!” The officer hits him in the back of the head, causing me to become irate, standing up off the bed.

“Let him go! He didn’t even do anything!”

“Sit down!” the other officer yells, redirecting his weapon towards me, forcing me to sit again.

“Cole, baby, please stay calm,” Hawke instructs with a soft voice, his forehead against the wall.

I swallow down my tears, watching the officer peel each hand off his head, slapping the cuffs on him, placing his hands behind him.

“Got a call that there was a disturbance. Gotta take you in. You know the rules.”

Hawke sighs, banging his forehead against the wood-paneled wall, making an old painting of a sunny day in a flowery field fall to the ground abruptly. Fitting.

“There’s been a mistake. He didn’t do anything. He was with me…” I begin calmly explaining to the officer near me, hoping in some strange world he’ll listen and understand and make this right.

“Sorry lady, your boy is to be detained until we can contact his parole officer.”

“Cole, call Kid and tell him to call Julie for me,” Hawke instructs as they guide him out to the police car.

Kid, call Julie.

I make a mental note, tripping over my own feet as I follow them, trying to breathe through the panic attack I’m currently facing.

Tears escape me as I watch them put him in the back of the car, the officer roughly ducking his head, messing up that same hair I was feeling against my neck in a calmer moment just minutes ago.

I can’t bear to watch this anymore.

Racing back into the room, I grab Hawke’s phone off the table in the corner, finding Kid’s number with shaky fingers and calling it immediately. I wait as it rings and rings, the wait, a slow and painful torture in and of itself.

“Waddup, bruh?” he answers nonchalantly.

“Kid, it’s Cole,” I spit out breathlessly. “Call Julie. Cam’s in trouble.”