Page 7 of My Rose

Briggs: Fuck no.

Clarissa: Ugh, you’re no fun anymore. Pick me up at 7. See you then, Briggsy!

I groaned, lolling my head to the side and tossing my phone to the rug on the floor. Sleep came over me soon after, the same haunting, recurring dream just as unrelenting as it had always been. I’d woken up and gone back to sleep more times than I could count, but that dream always seemed to find me.

And something told me it was about to get a lot worse.

Chapter 4

Rose

“...indiscretion has its charms; it's boring to fit one's face to reputation.” ? Sulpicia

Abell rang above my head as I walked through the swinging glass door. Jim, the man who owned the gas station and notoriously sold alcohol to minors because he couldn’t be bothered to check an ID, stood idly behind the counter, flipping through a comic book that had a half-naked woman on the cover. He inclinedhis head, pulling his gaze from the pages momentarily as I waved at him. The entire store could be robbed, kegs thrown into trucks and hauled away and the register depleted of all funds and the man still wouldn’t budge an inch. Maybe it was the shotgun that hung along the wall behind him that granted him such confidence—believing those things would never happen as he ignored the world.

But I knew for a fact that if it was my store I’d at least mop the floors once a day.

The soles of my shoes made clicking sounds each time I lifted my feet from the sticky floors as I made my way toward the freezer doors along the back wall. It was still dark outside, the tell-tale signs of winter settling in, and in another week or so the stores in Shuster Springs would have limited operation hours. But Jim would still be here, making his store one of the most reliable even if the milk had to be inspected thoroughly before I’d settle on a half-gallon from the shelf.

“Does it smell okay?” I pulled the milk away from my nose, turning my head slowly over my shoulder. Briggs was two freezer doors down from where I stood sniffing the caps of milk jugs to make sure the dates weren’t altered on the sides. I was so deep into analyzing the dates of each jug that I hadn’t heard the bell ring again after I’d entered the store. Or did he get here before I did and I just hadn’t noticed?

I made some weird noise between ayeahand auhuhand nodded, my cheeks heating in embarrassment as he pulled out a water bottle. Briggs’ white shirt clung to his skin along his chest, his cut-off sleeves dipping down to his waist where more tattoos peeked out fromunderneath the fabric as they continued from his arms down the length of his back and sides. I glanced over to Jim, head still bent down over his comics, and lowered my voice. “Honestly, I don’t really trust the stuff here.”

“You mean, you don’t trust Jim’s Stuff?” The corner of his mouth tilted up, revealing the hint of a dimple on his left cheek. The store was, in fact, called ‘Jim’s Stuff.’ It resembled the amount of effort Jim gave towards life, which was minimal at best. Why he kept the store open during the winter time was truly the oddest thing. Almost as odd as the way Briggs’ entire appearance didn’t exactly scream,I can tell a joke,yet he’d done so more than once now.

I giggled. “Was that a joke?” I settled on the jug I was holding and closed the glass door, making the beer bottles along the bottom shelf rattle. Briggs ran his fingers through his damp hair, then opened the water bottle and lifted it to his lips. His Adam’s apple bobbed along with each sip and I tried not to stare, but not many guys looked quite as…defined, as Briggs Andrews. Every curve and angle of his body appeared sculpted like a piece of ancient Roman artwork, even down to the edges of where a sharp line of muscle cut from his waist down to the top of his shorts. If I didn’t know for a fact that he was real, I’d reach out to try to touch him just to see if he had, in fact, been sculpted to perfection out of a skin-tone clay or cut from some tan stone. It was something I didn’t notice entirely at the theater the other night because it was dark, and he had more clothes on. August was at the forefront of my mind that night, not Briggs, whom I hadn’t seen since the early years of high school. But standing in frontof him, watching as a small bead of water escaped his mouth and moved down his neck was almost…pornographic.

My throat turned dry like every cell in my body decided I needed that drop of water he let escape his lips. The one that I was still watching as it fell slowly to meet the collar of his shirt.

He capped the bottle and chuckled faintly. “Yeah, I guess it was.” He lifted the bottle in the air towards Jim, who through some form of psychic connection lifted his head and gave him a thumbs up from behind the register. Jim put his comic down and pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen, jotting something down quickly before returning to his comics. Was that a tab?Briggs had a tab with Jim?

I ignored it, because it wasn’t my business, whateverthatwas. I gave a very weak, very delayed laugh, and he raised his brow as he took another sip. Then, he took a step back. “Right, well.”

I don’t quite know why I wanted to keep talking to him, but something about him was different, yet also familiar beyond having shared the one class that might as well have been ages ago. Briggs’ heel started to turn until I blurted, “Aren’t you cold in that? Do you want my jacket?”Does he want my jacket?My hands worked like I was on fire, unzipping my jacket until he held up his hand, making me stop and zip it back up again. I looked down at the zipper as it grazed up past my breasts, realizing I only had a lacy bra on underneath the jacket. More heat flushed along my cheeks and spread down my neck.

Really hope he didn’t see that.

“Thanks, but I’ll be okay.” He pinched his shirt, snapping the fabric away from his chest. “I’m actually kind of hot at themoment.”Yeah, I’d say.I let my eyes drift slowly down over the length of his arms, paying too much attention to the images that were inked over the sharp cut of his muscles. His arms crossed over his chest, drawing my attention back to his face, which was now smirking knowingly right at me.

My voice was weak as I asked, “Was that another joke?”Oh fuck.More word vomit. I didn’t want him to think I was hitting on him, but that’s exactly what it sounded like I was doing. But that wasn’t what I was doing at all. Nope. I was only interested, pathetically enough, in my best friend. Right?

I mentally scorned my raging hormones as his eyebrows furrowed together in confusion like he wasn’t sure if he should keep talking to the girl who took everything he said as a joke. I looked nervously over at Jim, whose head was so bent over his comic that his nose almost touched the open pages.

“Me being hot? Oh, um…no. I just ran five miles.” He took another sip of water, then inclined the bottle towards me. “Makes me a little…”thirsty.He hesitated, appearing to contemplate yet another innuendo I didn’t need running through my depraved head. “I needed water,” he answered definitively.

“You just ran five miles for no reason?” Of course, he had a reason. Which was more than I could say about my incessant rambling to a guy I shared one class and one movie with. But my closest friend that wasn’t August had gone off to college, and August continued to ignore me. Maybe my grandfather was right. Maybe I did need new friends.

“Exercising helps me think. Clears my mind when…well”—His eyes darkened and fell to the freezers behind me for a split second—“it just clears it.” I knew that look, even if it only lasted for a few moments. It was grief—the deep agony of wishing others were still with you, wishing they were still around to talk to or be with. A memory of a news article in our high school paper flashed through my mind, one about the twin brother I saw maybe once in the hallways before…oh shit.

It wasn’t just an article. It was an obituary.

Another memory took root and spread, one of ash and smoke that clawed into my throat. My gaze fell to my shoes which were glued to the floor in more ways than one as I tried to push the memory back into the tightly woven box I learned to construct in therapy and only unpacked late at night when everything could be analyzed properly. By the time I lifted my head again, Briggs was gone.

I frowned.

I couldn’t blame him. I was rambling too much and he saw an out when I looked down at my shoes for what was probably two whole minutes.

I made my way to Jim and paid for the milk, not at all expecting him to open a tab for me as I walked up to the counter and fished out a few dollar bills. I didn’t necessarilyneeda tab. We weren’t poor, but we weren’t rich, either. I wondered exactly how well-off or well-liked Briggs had to be to get a tab under his name—if that was what that exchange with Jim was earlier. But as I pushed my few bills toward Jim along the counter, he pushed themright back.

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