Sunbound

☀ Concrete Jungle (Where Dreams Come to Die)

C H A P T E R  2: Concrete Jungle (Where Dreams Come to Die)

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    Skylar used to have fourteen years of Michigan in his veins, and two years of California in his arteries, but, now, he's just full of an all-consuming nowhere; a black hole of vacancy beneath his scar-mapped skin. He hoped to change that sometime soon, and he thought New York City could be it.

    He spent the week following that snowy Michigan night driving around aimlessly over the lines that distinguished Michigan from Ohio from Pennsylvania. He would only stop for gas, restaurants, or bathroom breaks. He rarely slept these days. He guessed that was why he could not remember the drive to New York City or the events that resulted in him wrapped up in the threads of white, cotton sheets in a room he vaguely remembered from a provocative night some time last year — that night, of which, he decided he liked New York City; it was the only place he had ever been to that actually felt absolutely aware of its existence, and it was the only place he had been to that bloomed wildly and radiantly with life, from the thespians gliding across the vast stages to the thugs that crept out at night to all the hardworking blue-collars that seethed with pride at whatever professions it was that colored their neckbands; and, oh, how Skylar loved the lights.

    When he woke up that morning in those cotton sheets with the warm bursts of the sun flooding in through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the cozy apartment, he was in agony. His sockets felt too tight for his eyes. Anything louder then the motion of oxygen molecules in the air rubbing passed one another was too loud to bare. His back ached, and he thought that the pounding in his head was liable to knock him unconscious. He felt like he spent the last few days on a binge, and he was finally coming down from the high. Really, he had not been high on anything in three years. So, he chalked it up to exhaustion.

    Skylar opened his eyes and was blinded by the corpulent morning sun. He closed them, and sunk further into the mattress. He was perfectly content spending as much time as possible nestled in the sheets that still radiated in the scents of the previous night's sex and sweat and bad intentions. That was, until the mattress shifted beneath him.

    He popped an eye open to drink in the blurry vision of last night's conquest. He silently admired the peaks and valleys of her bronze, ethnic skin as she shimmied her naked body into his T-shirt. She pulled the dark hair that trailed down to the middle of her back away from her face. Her lips were smudged and cracked with last night's lipstick, and her eyeliner had bled beneath her bottom lashes, but she was beautiful. Tall, dark-eyed and beautiful.

    She spared a glance in the mirror beside the bed and sighed. Skylar had left a trail of violet bruises up her neck. She could almost feel his lips there still, and could not stifle the fond smile that swept across her face. He had never been one to hide his affection.

    She knew he was watching her. She could feel his gaze as intently as the warmth from the sun.

    "Good morning," she chuckled, turning around to find his eye closing quickly. "I know you're awake."

    He groaned, rolling off of his muscled back and on to his side. His eyes remained shut. "Of course you do, Delta."

    She — Delta — laid down beside him. She tenderly traced the outline of his jaw with the soft pads of her thin fingers. "I never thought I'd see you again," she whispered.

    Quite honestly, he never thought she would see him again either. It wasn't that their whirlwind, summer affair — or "travel companionship," as Skylar liked to call it — ended on a sour note. It was just that she expected too much out of him. When he picked up the beautiful hitch-hiker with the vibrant smile on the wayside of a South Dakota interstate, he thought she would be nothing more than an experience. An experience that went from one night of intense, frenzied sex to three-months of courtship. He thought she understood his intentions — her being a well-versed traveler across the United States, all the while racking up her own lengthy list of experiences, — but she was looking for more than he could give her. So, when he finally dropped her off at her apartment in New York City, and spent one last provocative night with her, he was sure that was the last time she would see him. But, apparently, his exhausted, half-functioning conscience had another idea when he found himself knocking on her door at two o'clock in the morning.