Read Online Club Storyville by Riley Lashea - Free Book Online Page A

“Maybe I could write to you. There are so many things I can’t tell them, and their letters always make me feel kind of sad. It would be nice to have someone else to write to, someone who is funny and clever. Like you. Would that be too much bother?”
    It was a rather ridiculous question, if it was too much bother for me to pick up a pen when he was going off to a war. It was what lay beneath the simple request that made things more complex, my own feelings that made it feel like a betrayal.
    Glancing to Ariel, though, I found her eyes locked on her glass where it sat on the table, wanting nothing to do with me. So, why I felt like I had to consider her, I wasn’t entirely sure.
    “Of course, it’s not a bother,” I responded to Jackson, watching his lips curve upward. “You can write to me if you want.”
    “And when I write,” he returned, “you’ll write back?”
    “Yes, of course,” I said, and, those white teeth on brilliant display, Jackson reached for my hand and pulled it to his lips.
    Smiling with discomfort as his lips pressed to my skin, soft and gentle, they were neither as soft nor as gentle as Ariel’s lips had been when I kissed her, or as stimulating as they had been when Ariel kissed me back. Not just unable to imagine Jackson kissing me that way, not wanting to imagine it, my eyes skittered over the table again as Ariel’s eyes rose from my hand at Jackson’s mouth to finally meet mine.
    Though her gaze was right on me, Ariel still didn’t seem to see me, but to look through me, as if my presence, my existence, mattered little to her. Her gaze falling away as my hand fell to my lap, there was a grunt of surprise from Jackson when Ariel pushed back suddenly from the table.
    “I’m sorry,” she said when Jackson reached for his shin, and I could tell it was an honest accident when Ariel looked truly embarrassed.
    “It’s all right,” Jackson assured her with a pained laugh. “I’d better be able to handle more than one kick from a lady.”
    “If you’ll excuse me,” Ariel declared. “I’m going to go to my room.”
    “Are you all right?” Nan asked her, and I didn’t know what I wanted her answer to be. If Ariel was all right, it meant she wasn’t hurting, and that was good, but if she wasn’t, it meant she was hurting, and that was good too.
    “Yes,” Ariel returned, looking more composed as she laid a consoling hand on Nan’s shoulder. “I’m just a little tired, and I certainly don’t need any dessert. Please, make my apologies, and call me if you need something. Scott,” she finally looked up from Nan, “welcome home. And Jackson,” her eyes were different, like they were lying. Or maybe it was my imagination. “It was nice meeting you.”
    “You too,” he stood up next to Scott as Ariel made her departure, and I wanted to get up too, to follow her, to ask Ariel if it bothered her, seeing Jackson’s lips on me, as I knew it would bother me if I had to see anyone else’s lips on her.
    I wanted to kiss her again, to do more than kiss her, to make it up to her, to make her remember how it felt when we touched that way. I wanted to tell her I loved her, that I needed her, that I was hers and could be nobody else’s, but I knew those were only symptoms, and, if I waited long enough and fought hard enough, they would pass.

 
    Chapter Seven
    J ackson was in Richmond only three days before he drove on to his parents’ house in West Virginia. It was so hard having him there, though, it felt like much longer.
    Each smile, each compliment, each passing touch reminded me I was wired wrong. I was like a radio that didn’t come on when the knob was turned, but started to play when someone touched the speaker by accident. Of course, if a radio behaved that way, people would think it an interesting quirk. When a person did, they were scarcely thought a person.
    It would be easier, I thought, once Jackson was gone, more like things used to be. No longer would I have to