by Jessica Roe
Nothing Like Him
Jessica Roe
Other titles by Jessica Roe
The Guardians:
Undone
United
Fortunate:
Because of Him
Something Real
Falling For Him
Something True
NOTHING LIKE HIM
JESSICA ROE
Copyright © 2016 Jessica Roe
Smashwords Edition
ISBN: 9781370041404
All rights reserved
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
For my three favorites
Who were with me every step of the way for this one
Prologue
Ophelia
October
POPPING THE LID on a beer bottle, I slide the drink across the bar counter to one of my regulars. He tips an invisible cap to me and takes a long drink. “Thanks, Ophelia. You always treat me right.”
Wiping my hands on my black jeans, I lean back against the cash register behind me and grin. “You know you're my favorite.”
Laughing, he says, “You tell that to every schmuck who walks in this joint.”
I waggle my eyebrows at him in response and smile widely, because he's right.
A sudden hush falls throughout the bar as the musician we have here tonight takes to the little stage set up on one side of the room. IKSY isn't a well-known guy, but the second I heard his stuff I knew we had to have him in the bar.
I'd been right when I'd thought my customers here at Shark would love him. As he begins to perform his first song, Missing Pieces, there's not a single person in the room who can keep their eyes off him. People are so busy watching that a lull falls at the bar, so I grab the opportunity to catch my breath and take a break – it's been a busy Friday night.
This right here is one of my favorite parts of the job – seeing an unheard musician up on my stage and knowing they have the talent and potential to really go somewhere with their music, and watching the rapt faces of their audience as they all realize it too. It's why I've always loved music, for its ability to really make people feel.
Whipping out the Polaroid camera we keep behind the bar for this very purpose, I snap a picture of IKSY as he performs and remind myself to get him to sign it for me later before he leaves so I can pin it up on the Wall of Fame. The Wall of Fame is filled with pictures of every band and musician that's ever played here since we opened the place a couple years ago. Pretty much every artist we have up on that stage is unknown when they perform here, but there have been a few up on that wall who have gone on to find varying levels of musical success since then. It fills me with pride, and knowing I was one of the first people to give them a break means more than anything ever could.
“Hey girl!” Nellie calls, popping up on the other side of the bar. Nellie always seems to pop up from nowhere; it's a strange and unpredictable talent of hers. Hoisting herself up on the counter, she spins her long legs until she's sat facing me. “How's it going, my darling Ophelia? Loving the act tonight by the way. A freak in the most awesome of ways.”
Nellie is my best friend, my roommate and the general other half of my soul. We met rooming together in college where her wild ways got the pair of us into trouble more times than I can count, but though she can be unpredictable, she has the best head for business of anyone I've ever met. With my love of music and her savvy head for business, opening up a live music bar quickly became our dream; a dream that came into fruition a few years after college. Shark is hard work, harder than we'd ever imagined, but the place is our baby and we've never looked back.
“Right!” I agree enthusiastically, pushing my light brown hair back over my shoulder. It's getting way too long – practically half way down my waist. “I'm pretty sure he’ll be one of the ones who make it big.”
“You say that about every single person who steps up on that stage,” she teases with a playful smirk – Nellie’s the kind of woman who says everything with a playful smirk. “You have more faith in you than a nun jacked up on shrooms seeing Christ in the flesh right before her very two eyes.” Nellie also has a smart ass mouth on her the size of the Grand Canyon. She likes to blame it on the Mexican in her, but being a loud mouth is just in Nellie's nature. It's one of those irritating traits that make her all the more loveable to me. I know for sure that in Nellie, I'm always gonna get it given to me straight.
Nellie's the wild half of our pair, the one who comes up with crazy ideas and actually makes us follow through. I'm more reserved, always thinking through every action before I even consider taking it. But despite our differences, the two of us fit together well. We make an awesome team, and a successful bar is proof of just that. A lot of people would balk at the idea of both living and working together with the same person, but we've always managed just fine. I mean sure, we fight like sisters, but in the whole world, there's no one I'd rather fight with more.
“Well if it isn't my two favorite ladies.”
I glance up in surprise at the sound of a familiar voice, my face breaking out into a soft beam as my fiancé leans against the bar, grinning – probably because he managed to sneak up on me. Not many people sneak up on me.
“Seth!” I exclaim, moving forward to take his outstretched hands over the counter. “I didn't think I’d see you tonight – I thought you were working the late shift at the hospital.”
He nods, pulling back a hand to smooth away the blond hair from his forehead. A couple of women sitting not far away watch him move with interest – with his classic, wholesome, all American good looks, he gets attention from swooning females pretty much everywhere he goes – but Seth doesn't even notice them sitting there, too busy focusing sweetly on me. “Just on my way now, but I wanted to see you so I took a detour. Missed you, Ophelia.” Leaning all the way across the bar counter, he tugs my hands forward and kisses me, sweetly but chastely; Seth and I have never been the kind of couple big on PDA's. He lifts up my left hand and kisses my knuckle just below where the engagement ring he gave me ten months ago rests on my finger. “So've you thought any more about getting a start on our wedding plans yet?” he asks happily, like this isn't a subject I've been avoiding for way too long.
Instantly flustered though I really shouldn't be by now, I pull back and smooth down my black vest and jeans – standard Shark uniform. My uniform needs smoothing just about as much as Hell needs a match, but it gives me an excuse to avert my eyes from his. “I've definitely thought about it,” I lie, because to my secret shame it's a subject I've pushed to the very back of my mind. “We'll get started real soon, I promise.”
I can practically feel Nellie's disbelieving gaze on me from where she still sits – she knows me far too well.
It's not that I don't love Seth – I do love him, a lot. He's sweet and caring and loving and one of the most genuine people I've ever met in my entire life, but. . .there's something holding me back from taking this gigantic step with him, even after I said yes to his proposal. I like to pretend to myself I have no idea what that something is, but I do. Deep down I
do. My heart has never quite fully been in this with Seth because it still remains broken from memories of him, of my first love, the boy I adored with every inch of my soul. The only person I have ever loved that way. It's been almost ten years since I've even seen him yet he still manages to have a hold over me, even now.
The moment my thoughts start heading down that irritatingly dangerous path again, I mentally shake myself out of it right the hell away. I do not allow myself to think about him anymore, or the pain he caused me all those years ago. That was a completely different life, a completely different Ophelia.
With a new sense of determination, I smile at Seth and take his hand once more. “We'll sit down this weekend and make a to-do list. Sound good?”
His answering grin is so wide and joyful that I immediately get a pang of guilt right in the gut for not doing this sooner. He's such a good man; a good man who doesn't deserve to have my issues holding us back.
My cell buzzes in my back pocket, interrupting anything else he'd been about to say. I pull it out; about to switch it off since I'm working, when I see my dad's face on the screen. For a few moments I consider ignoring it – the relationship between me and my parents has been strained at best for almost a decade now – but phone calls from my father are rarer than monks on crack, so I know whatever it is he wants from me must be important. And no matter what happened between us in the past, he's still my father and I'd never turn him away.
“You okay?” Seth wants to know, reading the expression on my face.
“You've gone whiter than a sorority girl tryna dance to R&B,” Nellie adds helpfully.
I shrug, not really listening to either of them as I stare down at the picture of my dad's grumpy face. “I have to go take this. Keep an eye on the bar?” I ask one of the other bartenders. “I'll be back in ten.”
He nods and returns to cleaning glasses as I leave the music filled room and head in the back to Nellie's much quieter office. One of the first things we did when we got the place was to ensure this room was soundproofed. It was necessary.
The phone has already rung out by this point, but it starts going off again just seconds later.
“Hey, Dad,” I chirp in a fake as crap cheerful voice. I perk my ass on the edge of the desk and stare at a photo of Nellie and I wearing matching sombreros on the far wall. “What's up?”
He's silent for a moment. It's a small moment as far as moments go, but it seems to last an eternity. There's something strange in that moment of silence; something heavy, something foreboding. “It's your mother,” he finally replies. His voice is even gruffer than usual.
I wait with a sick feeling right to the very pit of my stomach until he speaks again.
“She has cancer.”
Chapter 1
Ophelia
January
“HOW’RE YOU FEELING, sweet?” Aunt Ellie asks quietly, reaching over the armrest to take hold of my hand. She's always been able to sense when I need her comfort most. She likes to say it's because she's psychic. I like to say it's because she knows me too damned well.
Aunt Ellie is one of my favorite people in all the world. It was to her house my parents sent me away to live when I was seventeen and they'd decided they couldn't handle me anymore, it was her who pulled me out of my deep, dark pit of despair back then and made me see that the world wasn't such a bad place after all, and it's her who I pretty much owe everything to. If not for her patience, support and care, who knows where I'd have ended up in life. She's my rock, and one of the reasons I work so hard. I'm determined to make Shark so successful that one day I can pay for her to retire. She can live out her life on some hot, sandy beach, ogling surfers in board shorts and giving psychic readings to people relaxing on the sand. It's a dream of hers. A fantasy, she says, but I'm going to make it her reality. I owe her that much and more.
She was what my grandparents always liked to affectionately call a pleasant surprise. Born fifteen years after my mom, she was a happy. . .accident. The age difference between the two sisters is maybe what made them such opposites. My mom's always been sensible, level headed, strict but fair. Aunt Ellie likes to call herself spiritual. Before she opened up her new age gift store she was always off on adventures around the world, determined to learn all she could about culture and magic and life and death and spirituality. She's kooky as hell, and I love her more than anything.
“Like I'm about to puke in my mouth,” I reply. I try out a grin to ease her worries, but her lifted brow shows she ain't accepting my oddly formed grimace anytime soon.
“You'll be fine,” she assures me, squeezing my hand before peeking out the airplane window. At this time in the evening, the sun is casting a pinky orange glow over the clouds and the view is breathtaking. I can't enjoy it for even a moment. “I'm right here with you. We need to be strong for your mother.”
The flight from where Aunt Ellie and I live in a town in LA to New York has been smooth sailing so far. Annoyingly so. I almost wish there had been problems – delays or turbulence so bad we have to land the plane for a couple hours. Anything to slow this journey down. Because all too soon we'll arrive at JFK airport, and then after that we'll have to make the journey to Norson Lake, my hometown, a town I haven't stepped foot in since I was seventeen years old.
Originally I'd wanted to go home as soon as soon as my father had given me the devastating news of my mother's breast cancer diagnosis, even though the idea of returning there filled me with a sense of dread so cold I was genuinely surprised when I looked in the mirror only to find my lips hadn't turned blue. But Mom insisted I stay in LA; had said despite her illness, she was doing surprisingly fine and it wasn't so bad that she needed my help. My return was unnecessary, she'd assured me. I suspect she'd been just as afraid at the idea of me coming home as I'd been. I should have gone home anyway; it would have been the right thing to do. But I'd been a coward so I'd taken her at her word and pretended like that was an okay thing to do even though it really wasn't and was probably one of the most selfish moves I'd ever made in my whole life.
And then last week Mom admitted that in the three months it'd been since she was diagnosed, the treatments hadn't been working as hoped and the cancer had started to spread. She needed me and Aunt Ellie to come and run the thrift store for her while she was too ill to do it herself. The thrift store has been her life for the past thirty years and she couldn't bear the thought of closing it down, even temporarily.
The idea of returning home to Norson Lake is just. . . It's terrifying on so many levels I can't even begin to count them. But there was absolutely no way I was saying no to Mom. Our relationship may have been beyond strained at best ever since she and Dad sent me away to live with Aunt Ellie all those years ago, but she's still my mother and she's ill and she needs me. I could never refuse her. I've already mentally berated myself so many times for not disregarding her earlier insistence and going home as soon as I'd found out about the cancer. I should have been there for her these last three months, but I let fear rule me in the worst way possible.
All she needs is for Aunt Ellie and I to help her out for a little while, just until the cancer is gone and she's better again and she can go back to work, resume her normal life, be the tough as nails woman she always has been once she's beaten this crap down. Because she will. My mom is too stubborn to do anything else but win. She has to be.
“Your hand is shaking,” Aunt Ellie tells me softly, giving it another squeeze. “You should take some deep breaths, calm yourself. Close your eyes and picture yourself in your happy place with your spirit animal guiding your way to the peace you need.”
I give her a bemused look, because she knows I'm no believer when it comes to her frigging spirit animals, but she just grins at me in response, because she does know it full well. “I'm fine,” I promise her, putting on a tough face even though I'm a quivering wreck inside. And not just about seeing my mom, but about going home. Home to Norson Lake.
I'd always been a happy child, mo
re than content to live in my own little world of fun and adventure and absolute mischief. My mom had always liked to tell anyone who would listen that she was sure I'd been born with an ever present, exuberant smile upon my chubby face. As a child, nothing ever got me down. I was the kind of kid who ran headfirst at top speed through life, constantly falling over, but always picking myself back up with a giggle at the ready.
My family wasn’t rich by any means; between my mom's thrift store and my dad's job at the construction site we were comfortable at best. But we were happy and we loved each other to the moon and back and to me, that made us perfect.
More than anyone else in the whole world, I loved and positively worshipped my older brother, Micah. He watched out for me, adored me, and spent time with me in a way most big brothers would never bother with. I'd seen what the brothers of my school friends were like; they didn't have time for their annoying little sisters or their games and tea parties, not like Micah did.
And so when I was thirteen and Micah seventeen and he started to lose himself in a way he never had before, started growing cold, distant, moody, and completely awful to be around, I didn't know what to do. None of us knew what to do. Where had my big brother gone?
When it turned out his complete shift in attitude was down to his new experimentation with drugs, we were at even more of a loss as how to help him. I was just a kid, and my parents had no experience with things like that. They hadn't been the kind of people who'd gone wild in the seventies, had never even been tempted to give it a go, to pop some pills, to smoke a spliff. We didn't know a thing about any of it, and we were clueless as to what we could do to get our Micah back; not the angry, aggressive Micah with the bloodshot eyes and the wide pupils and the constant come downs. How were we supposed to help him when he didn't even want our help at all?