Run To You

“if onlys.” With childish hopes and forgotten dreams. Hopes and dreams of a warm and fuzzy future that would never happen. Especially now. Now that her father was dead.
    Stella squirted shampoo in her hand and lathered her hair. Two months. He’d been dead two months, and she hadn’t shed a tear. She stepped beneath the warm water and let it run down her head and face. She’d been at work when one of her father’s lawyers had called with the news. Her mother had given out her phone number and she’d been more upset about that than about the death of her father. She’d told the lawyer she didn’t care. And she didn’t.
    So why did she suddenly feel so alone and hollow? It was beyond ridiculous. Her father had never wanted her in his life. Had never even told Sadie about her. If Clive had lived to be a hundred and ten, he still wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with Stella. So why did she suddenly feel like a piece of her was gone? Missing? Gone forever. A piece she’d never had to begin with.
    Stella finished her shower and dried her hair with a towel. She stepped into a pair of white panties and wrapped a thick white hotel robe around herself. The robe felt like a nice warm embrace, and she brushed her palm across the bathroom mirror. Through the steam and smear her hand left behind, she stared at her face. She looked more like her mother than her father, but her eyes were his eyes. Blue like the Texas sky he’d lived beneath all his life.
    A hairbrush lay on the counter and she grabbed it on her way out the door. Cool air flowed from open vents and brushed her bare legs as she moved from the room and down the stairs. She ran the bristles through her hair and opened the French doors to the balcony. The sultry Louisiana night wrapped her in red and gold shadows as the last few moments of the setting sun lit heavy clouds from above. Below, Bourbon Street was fired up with glowing tubes of neon and storefronts selling anything and everything from porcelain masks and Hurricanes to lap dances.
    Stella sat in a wrought-iron chair as she brushed the tangles from her hair. Three floors down, tourists crowded the old city, and their laughter and chatter mixed with the streams of jazz and zydeco and the smells of food and ancient plumbing. Two balconies over, a couple shared a bottle of wine beneath the red and gold streaks in the dusky sky, the clink of their glasses and lowered voices barely audible. Stella curled her feet up beneath her and pulled her robe tight as a hotel door opened and shut. She didn’t know whether it was the door to her room or not until she felt a warm tingle up her spine as a darker shadow spilled from the doorway and over her.
    “Are you hungry?” he asked.
    “A little.” She looked over her shoulder at Beau. At his big outline lit from behind like he was a saint. All he needed was a bright red sacred heart. “Are you?”
    “Kasper fed me, but I can always eat.” She couldn’t see his face, but she could feel his gaze. A gaze too hot, too earthy for a saint. “Give me ten minutes to shower. I know a little place a few blocks from here that serves great alligator sausage and dirty rice.”
    “Sounds good,” Stella said, even though there was no way she was going to eat alligator. He turned to go, taking his hot, earthy gaze with him.
    Stella stood and ran her fingers through her damp hair. She moved to the railing and looked down at the crowded street. She couldn’t go upstairs and get dressed until Beau was finished. She supposed she could listen for the shower then run upstairs, grab some clothes, and dress downstairs. But she’d prefer just to wait until she could put on a little makeup, too. She looked at the crowded street. At friends, families, and lovers. The hollow loneliness she’d felt earlier pressed in on her heart. Why now? In one way or another, she’d always been alone. If not exactly alone, different. Her father had paid her to stay away from his family, and she’d never really fit into her mother’s family. Which was probably more her fault. She’d never bothered to really learn the language and embrace the Hispanic culture. She’d been raised in it, but never really bothered to learn why a girl couldn’t wear red fingernail polish. She’d just thought it was stupid. She’d had a traditional quinceañera, complete with big white dress and mariachi band, when what she’d really wanted was a sweet sixteen with a red sequined mini and Britney