Return To Me. Shannon McKenna

Either she faced him like this, tits to the wind, or she risked letting him see her scurry up the stairs like a rabbit. Dignity won out over panicked impulse. She shook her hair forward so that it covered her chest just as the door opened.

      She ambled down the steps, and smiled at him. Just a woman wandering around her house. Minding her own business. Getting something cold to drink. The picture of casual nonchalance.

      “Hey,” she said. “You’re back early.”

      “Is it early?” His dark eyes had an inscrutable gleam. He held his helmet under his arm. His black hair was rumpled, straggling out of his thick ponytail and dangling around the chiseled line of his jaw.

      “Only eleven-thirty,” she said.

      His eyes brushed over her. His gaze was like a physical touch against her skin. “Were you figuring I’d be out all night?”

      She shrugged, and regretted it when his eyes flicked to her chest. “I didn’t figure anything,” she said. “Why should I?”

      He pushed his hair back off his forehead. “Well, I’m back.”

      She descended the stairs as smoothly as she could, trying hard not to bounce. She checked to make sure that her tight, tingling nipples were hidden by her hair and walked by him towards the kitchen. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. It’s none of my business.”

      “So you’re not interested?”

      The hard note in his voice made her turn. “You know very well that you interest me, Simon,” she said quietly. “You’re my friend.”

      “Your friend,” he repeated.

      “Yes.” She pushed open the swinging door to the kitchen. “Would you like a glass of iced tea?”

      “The perfect hostess, huh?” His voice had a bitter edge.

      “Stop being difficult,” she snapped. “I came downstairs for a cold drink. Don’t feel obligated, if you’d rather be alone. It’s not like I—”

      “Yeah, I’ll have some of that iced tea.”

      She floundered for a moment, and blushed. “Well?” She beckoned to him. “Come on, then.”

      He followed her into the kitchen and watched as she pulled a pitcher of iced tea out of the fridge. “This is mint-flavored green tea. No caffeine. It won’t keep you awake,” she assured him.

      His short, dry laugh annoyed her. She whirled around and glared at him. “What? What’s that about? The mighty Simon Riley isn’t affected by caffeine? Is that it? Am I silly to concern myself?”

      He shook his head. “Nah. I’m just not sleeping lately. Caffeine, no caffeine, it makes no difference. Nice of you to worry, though.”

      She dropped a handful of ice into his tumbler, poured the tea and handed it to him. “There you go. It’s good for you. Full of antioxidants.”

      They stared at each other for a long, awkward moment. Ellen nodded towards the kitchen table. “Do you want to sit down?”

      “There’s a full moon tonight,” he said. “Have you seen it?”

      “No. I suppose we could sit out on the back porch and look at it, if you prefer.” Something inside her was waving its hands in frantic negation as the words came out of her mouth. Simon plus moonlight equaled incredible danger to her emotional equilibrium. Such as it was.

      “Yeah, I prefer,” he said.

      It’s just a glass of iced tea, you big sissy, so act like a freaking grown-up. She pushed the screen door open. They took their places on the top of the steps, a decorous couple of feet of space between them.

      The moon floated high and brilliant in the sky. Gus’s roof was a square of reflected moonlight lost in a sea of moving leaves. Crickets chirped. The wind rustled and sighed. Ice cubes rattled. The butterflies in her belly fluttered so desperately, she could feel the frantic roar of their wings in her chest, her legs, her face.

      Simon gestured towards Gus’s house. “Hank Blakely told me in his letter that you found him after…” He trailed off.

      “Yes. I was heading over with a loaf of banana bread,” she said. “I brought him goodies every week or so. I got halfway through the meadow, and…saw him.”

      “Christ,” he muttered. “I’m sorry that happened, El.”

      “I kept my cool,” she said. “I just turned around, went home and called the police. They told me later he’d been dead for almost a week by then. He was lying in the meadow, about ten feet from the house.”

      The wind had picked up, tossing and bending the branches.

      “Thanks for doing that,” Simon said.

      “For what?” she asked. “For calling the police?”

      “For the goodies,” he said. “For being nice to him.”

      “I’m surprised that you would feel grateful on his behalf.”

      He shrugged. “And I’m surprised that you would bring him banana bread.”

      Ellen set her glass down and hugged her knees. “I felt sorry for him. He was so alone. He was always polite, but I wouldn’t say we were friends. I could never be friends with anyone who had ever hit you.”

      Simon let out a sharp sigh, and hunched down between his shoulder blades. “Whatever,” he said wearily. “I’m still glad that you were nice to him. I don’t know why.”

      “Probably because you loved him,” El said.

      Simon made a sharp gesture with his hand. “I don’t feel any need to analyze it.”

      His curt tone silenced her for a moment, but curiosity prodded her on. “Were you in touch with him after you left?”

      “Not until a couple of months ago. I got this weird e-mail. Out of the blue. He’d sent it care of a news magazine that had run some of my photo spreads. It got forwarded all over the place until it found my inbox.”

      “What did it say?” she asked.

      Simon stared out into the moonlit night. He took a final swallow of his iced tea, drained the glass and set it down on the step. He pulled his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans.

      He fished a slip of folded paper out of it, and handed it to her.

      Ellen unfolded it. Simon had torn off the unused half of the page with all the forwarding e-mail addresses. She held it up to catch the light that shone through the window in the kitchen door.

      Not a word, not a keystroke wasted. She could hear Gus’s laconic, whiskey-roughened voice in her mind as she read the terse message.

      To: whom it may concern:

      From: augustus riley

      pls forward this private email from a close family member 2 any address u may have in yr files for Mr. Simon Riley, Photojournalist.

      Simon

      i send u this c/o the mag where i saw yr photos. will be brief.

      today i got proof that i am not crazy. now i can tell the truth 2 everyone, including u.

      can’t say more as this forum is not private.

      pls contact me at above address. will tell u the story if u want 2 hear.

      if something happens 2 me, yr mother guards proof.

      am sorry i was not a better uncle 2 u.

      have seen yr fine work in magazines.

      yr mother would be proud.

      i am 2.

      yr uncle, augustus riley

      The letters blurred. She bent forward so her