by Piper Rayne
He holds up his three fingers.
“Do they have Boy Scouts in Sandsal?”
“We sure do.” He lowers his hand. “But I was kicked out in Webelos.”
I laugh. “How does the prince get kicked out of a group?”
“Because I was a terror. I’ve never been good at following rules.”
“Still, I thought the prince would get special treatment.”
He closes the door and puts change in the dryer. “Not always.”
“Ice cream?” I change topics because I need to get out of here and into the fresh, crisp air before I suffocate and make a bad decision by sleeping with Adrian again.
“My treat for you helping me.” He takes my hand.
The old lady winks at him when she sees our physical contact.
We’re not even a week into this thing and I’m already halfway to convincing myself that I’d be fine with sleeping with him for two months and saying goodbye.
It’s been three weeks since Adrian moved in. I come home from work, exhausted from the game of who will get Georgia’s position. I passed Kay getting coffee for Jack once again, then I spotted them returning from lunch in his car.
Probably went to make out somewhere.
Gross.
I hear the television as I put my key in the door, which puts a smile on my face because I forgot this was Adrian’s day off. He’s really become used to normal life lately. We frequent the laundromat together every week. He even baked a cake with Rian the other day. It might’ve been lopsided and a little dense, but he gets an A for effort.
I open the door to find Blue Bloods on. Adrian isn’t alone.
My stomach sinks as the two of them turn around to face me.
“Blanca?” I ask.
“Hey, I caught Adrian on my way home from work this afternoon. I took a half day because it’s… you know.” She looks down at herself. Her period. Got it. “And we were talking about how we both need to catch up, so we figured an afternoon of watching Blue Bloods was in order.”
There’s a pizza box on the coffee table, and they’re both dressed in sweatpants and T-shirts. I close my eyes for a moment to quiet the jealousy. She has Ethan. This is a friends things. I wouldn’t care if she was here with Dylan, Seth, or Knox.
“Oh, that’s nice. How far did you get?” Acting as if I’m not freaking out isn’t working.
“Not far.” Blanca comes over to the kitchen. Adrian pauses the television and picks up the pizza box. While he’s distracted, she runs her hand down my arm. “We were just watching television.”
“I know,” I whisper, not looking at her.
And I do, don’t I? I can’t be jealous. The man flirts every chance he gets. I’ve had to stop myself so many times from kissing him, knowing he’d kiss me back.
“Okay. I should get home anyway. I had a fun day, Adrian.”
He waves goodbye. “Me too. Next hooky day, me, you, Donnie Wahlberg.”
“Definitely!” She slips out and shuts the door.
“I didn’t mean to spoil your day,” I say, grabbing a water from the fridge.
He puts the pizza box on the kitchen table, a puzzled look on his face. “You didn’t.”
“Make sure you clean up after yourself. You’ve been leaving stuff around lately and Rian is getting annoyed.”
He stops all movement and looks at me. “Did she tell you that?”
I turn and walk to my room. “I can tell. We’ve been friends a long time. I have to lie down.” I shut my bedroom door and flop onto my bed.
Better to lock myself in here before he gets an upfront view of my jealousy.
A soft knock on my door tells me I was too transparent out there.
“I’m going to lie—”
“Talk to me,” he says, coming in and shutting the door.
Me, him, and a bed is not a good idea. Not right now.
“I just had another bad day. I think I need to quit, honestly.”
He sits down beside me on the bed.
Bad idea.
“What’s with the attitude?” he asks.
“I don’t have an attitude.”
“You do realize that I don’t want anyone but you and that if I can’t have you, I’m not going to resort to being with someone else?”
I didn’t.
“Why do you keep putting it out there like there’s some hope for us? If we sleep together and then get annoyed with one another, we have to stay living together. Not good. And if we try to make a go of it, you’re leaving anyway and going back to a life in a completely different country with a million obligations that don’t include me.”
“Save me the speech. I’ve heard it a million times.” The irritation in his voice is clear. “I’m just saying that I’m not going to fuck your friend, okay?” He heads toward the door.
I hate that he’s angry. “Why are you mad?”
He faces me and I notice his hands are clenched into fists. “Because I want you so badly. Every night when I go to bed, I beat off to the memories of the one night I had you. I beat off to images of me taking you on every surface in this apartment. And you seem to just take it in stride like it doesn’t bother you until you see me with your friend.”
I pop up off the bed. “You think I don’t want you? My body physically aches for you. I lie in bed and imagine you beating off with the hope it’s to me. But in a little over a month you’re going to walk out that door and I’ll never see you again. I can’t risk it.”
He crosses the room, his finger landing under my chin and bringing my face to his. “Who hurt you?”
I close my eyes, trying to hide the tears building.
It was just a bad day at work. Shut it off. Push down the emotions.
“Sierra, open your eyes.” When I don’t open them, he leans closer. “Open your eyes, baby.”
I open them and two fat tears roll down my cheeks. “Let’s go for a walk.”
Chapter Sixteen
Sierra
* * *
“I thought we would walk around downtown Cliffton Heights,” I say after we step off the train in Manhattan, only to hop into a taxi.
“We got to know each other so much the night we met in Manhattan that way. The apartment is great, and I thank you and Rian for letting me stay there, but it’s crowded. I get no alone time with you.”
“You want alone time with me?” My chest feels buoyant from his words.
He quirks his eyebrow at me and shakes his head. “Who told you you weren’t important.” He isn’t asking it as a question, but more a statement to himself.
Pain and sadness seep into all those wounds that are exposed like the parched desert floor.
Not because anyone told me I don’t matter. Quite the opposite actually. But wounds don’t always come from words; they also come from actions.
We arrive at the Brooklyn Bridge and I laugh. “We’re heading back down memory lane, huh?” I climb out, and he joins me after paying the cab driver.
“Shall we revisit our first date?” He holds out his hand.
“I’d love to.”
We walk hand in hand, but the weather is colder and it’s not quite as enjoyable as that perfect fall night the first time we were here. There are fewer pedestrians and the ones who are braving it are wrapped up in scarves and gloves.
“I feel unprepared,” I say.
“Yeah, I’m used to my servants telling me if I need extra attire,” he says so convincingly. He checks me out from the corner of his eye. “I’m kidding. I didn’t realize the weather would be so much colder here.”
“It’s the river,” I say but snuggle closer to him for warmth.
“Listen, we made a deal to be friends and that won’t change when it’s time for me to return home. I wanted to talk to you about something… I’ve noticed these past weeks that you hold a lot in.”
“Please don’t say you brought me here for some Psych 101 discussion to discover the hidden secrets of Sierra Sanders?”
He chuckles. “I have a shit-ton of secrets and I need a confidant, so I figure we should dish all our crap to one another, promising to never repeat it.”
“So, what? Neither one of us can tell anyone else how screwed up we are?”
“Pretty much.” He stops us midway over the bridge and we look over the railing at the dark water below that matches the blanket of dark sky above us. “So talk. Blanca made an off-the-cuff comment about your mom passing away when you were young. And when I looked at her like I didn’t know what she was talking about, she shut up quick.” He pauses, I think to give me time to digest what he said.
If I tell him, he’ll know. I’ll no longer be the woman he slept with and lived with. I will forever be the girl whose mom died in war.
“She’s a good friend, you know? Shitty what happened, but she’s definitely got your back.”
I nod. I’ve known that my entire life. Even when I was upset that she went to a different college. I knew it was what was best for her future, but instead of being happy for her, all I saw was that she was choosing to leave me.
Maybe Adrian is right. If I vomit out all my problems, maybe I’ll feel better. Worst case scenario, he’s not attracted to me anymore afterward. Maybe that will help relieve some of the sexual tension we’ve been living with.
“I was born to Sergeant and Sergeant Sanders.” I turn to him. “Is this what you expected?”
His smirk says he enjoys my sense of humor. “Military parents?”
I bite my lip and nod. I want to get this over with quickly so I can tell him my mom died and he can give me the sad eyes and we can move on. “Yep. Both fought in the Iraq War, but only one sergeant returned home.”
He releases my hand and touches my forearm. “I’m sorry.”
He’s sincere.
Of course he is. Everyone always is.
I glance at him. It’s like the moonlight was made to cast down on Prince Adrian Marx. He’s beautiful and sexy and kindhearted. Nothing like I thought he’d be when I stalked him in those magazines and online gossip blogs.
“I know.”
There it is, the moment when the eyes grow even sadder because losing a mother is thought of as worse. I lost the nurturer, the caregiver. The woman who was to teach me how to put on eyeliner, to talk about womanhood, go prom dress shopping.
Turning on my heels, I walk down the path, but coming closer to the Brooklyn side after talking about my parents only makes it harder for me to breathe. “Everyone is always sorry.”
He catches up to me. “What’s it like?”
I glance at him, not understanding what he’s asking.
“I don’t mean to pry. Sorry.” He stuffs his hands into his pockets because I’ve opted to wrap my arms around myself.
I’m sure he feels the rapid chill coming off me. It always happens when I talk about my mom.
“It’s fine. I was ten. The government allowed my parents to be deployed at different times. My dad went first, and my whole family hoped the war would be over quickly and he would return safely. The war continued, so one month after my dad returned, my mom went. Six months later, she died when her Humvee was ambushed.” Repeating the details is easy. It’s like a speech I’ve rehearsed a million times.
When someone hears that my mother died when I was ten, there are questions in their eyes. Some pry and others try not to, but I can tell they want to know how because they want her to have died in a way that they can’t. After they hear the details, it’s like they think they’ll be safe as long as they don’t become a soldier and go to Iraq.
He remains quiet as we walk.
“Anyway, my dad raised me, but truth is when they say it takes a village, in my case it truly did. I owe a lot to the families who took care of us. Afterward, my dad didn’t reenlist, and he fell into a depression for a few years.”
“Are you close?”
He probably assumes we would be. Wouldn’t the shared grief over the woman we loved most in the world bond two people together? Maybe in some families, but not mine.
“Not really.”
“So he’s not depressed anymore?” His voice sounds almost hopeful.
I laugh from thinking about the last time I had to witness his new girlfriend making herself comfortable in our kitchen. The one where my mom would make us meals with love. “Not at all.”
We reach Brooklyn.
“Let’s go.” He raises his hand for a taxi, and one stops for us. I can’t imagine he would ever have a problem getting one with the authority he exudes.
“Where are we going?” I ask after I crawl in.
“We’re in Brooklyn. Let’s go to your childhood house. Show me where you grew up.”
My eyes narrow as I wonder why he wants to know so much about me. “Why?”
“I’m curious how the other half lives.” He laughs and knocks his shoulder to mine in the back of the cab.
“Okay, but it’s not that interesting. We don’t have gold plates and a servant to make us a late night snack.”
He shakes his head, but his smile says he’s amused.
We arrive in Carroll Gardens before I’m prepared. The taxi asks for a specific address, but I instruct him to pull over.
“We’ll walk,” I say.
My footfalls on the pavement of my old neighborhood while Adrian pays the taxi driver.
“Which way?” Adrian asks when he joins me on the sidewalk.
Although it’s getting later, there are still a lot of people out on the streets, coming from dinner or wherever they were. We walk down the sidewalk, and I point out the bakery that has the best black and white cookies, wishing they were open for me to share one with him, then the cafes and small Italian restaurants. The neighborhood has evolved, with Brooklyn becoming a more popular place to live, but there’s still a sense of the neighborhood I grew up in. The people who care for and look out for one another.
“Where did you live? Does your dad still live there?”
I point forward. “Four blocks and a left.”
He tugs at my sleeve. “Show me.”
“Unless you want to be stuck in a conversation with my father, I suggest we stick to the common areas.”
He shrugs. “I’ll talk to your father.”
Just the thought has my heart constricting. “And tell him what?”
“How enamored I am with his daughter. Come on.” He tugs my sleeve. “Are you embarrassed of me?”
“No, but—”
“Then come on.” He walks backward in front of me, almost taunting me. Unfortunately, nothing good comes from when people challenge me.
“You asked for it.”
We walk the four blocks, stopping at a liquor store to buy a bottle of wine because Adrian doesn’t believe in showing up empty-handed. This entire thing seems weird and awkward and I’m thankful I never lied to him about my childhood. I might have omitted some things, but my dad won’t talk about my mom anyway. That’s a taboo subject in our house.
Turning down my street, the same feeling that washes over me every time I visit envelops me. My heartbeat races, but at the same time, my heart feels as if it weighs as much as an elephant. After my mom died, I lost my sense of home. The house became walls and floors and a roof—shelter.
I see a sign in the distance that looks as though it could be in front of our house, but I squint, unable to tell through the darkness.
There’s no way.
My feet move a little faster, though Adrian’s able to keep up with his long strides.
“You have to be fucking kidding me.”
Chapter Seventeen
Sierra
* * *
We stop, and my eyes zero in on the For Sale sign. All the reluctance to come to my childhood home and introduce my dad to a man he’ll never see again is replaced with anger, heating my veins until my skin burns and I’m stomping up the walkway, digging in my purse for my keys.
I was here last month, and he said nothing. So help me God, if this is his new girlfri
end’s idea, there’s going to be a hair-pulling girl fight.
Adrian is oblivious, waiting for me to get my key—I half wonder whether it will still work—into the lock and open up the door. “Did you not know your dad had it up for sale?”
Guess he’s not oblivious.
“No,” I say, seething.
The door opens and it’s complete darkness inside. My dad’s been an insomniac since my mother’s death, so I’m pretty certain he’s not sleeping. When I flick on the lights, my footsteps stop and Adrian runs right into my back, his large hands on my biceps to prevent me from falling forward.
New furniture, new paint. Where are all the pictures? Adrenaline pumps through my veins and I step out of Adrian’s hold, flicking on light after light, inspecting every room and every surface.
He’s erased her.
He’s erased me.
Every picture is a flower or a destination he’s never been to. All the army signs and “proud to be a soldier” stuff has been stripped away too.
“Sierra?” Adrian calls when I open the basement door and pound down the steps. “What’s going on?”
He follows me, but my search only becomes more frantic. Where did he put them? He doesn’t deserve them anymore if he’s going to stuff them in a box in the basement.
Then I spot them. Three boxes filled with pictures of our family. The only remembrance of my mother is her folded flag that’s still on the mantel upstairs.
The vault I’ve locked up so securely cracks as if someone pounded it with a sledgehammer, and a tear falls down my cheek. Part relief that they’re here, part pain that they are.
“Take this one.” I pick up a box and shove it into Adrian’s arms. Picking up the second one, I put it on top of the other one in his arms. He staggers for a second to handle the weight but gets a hold of the boxes. I pick up the third. “Let’s go.”
“Sierra, let’s talk to your father.”
I shake my head. “He doesn’t deserve to have these anymore. They’re coming home with me.”
Adrian doesn’t move, so I pass him and go up the stairs.