by Hughes, Maya
Let yourself get too close and this was what happened. Let your guard down with Colm and now you’ve banged (without protection) an emotionally unstable hockey player who was eight women deep last night. Perfect.
A shiver shot down my spine at how perfect it had been. There were no kid gloves last night. There was a raw, visceral kind of explosion that had threatened to consume me.
There was a reason I’d kept him at arm’s length since that night on the beach. Why I’d avoided sitting beside him when the Kings had dinner or we got together for a game night. It was the way my skin tingled when I remembered those fingertip brushes from when I’d sat beside him in the sand.
He didn’t look at me with pity in his eyes that made me want to curl up into a little ball and weep, but with a burning light of desire. I’d longed to feel that heat against my skin.
And that’s why I’d run that night. How could I trust myself to get close to someone again after what happened with Preston?
My hand hovered over the door knob. Was I really just going to run out of here? He’d been ready to take home ten women last night. I was sure he’d probably done the same thing before. Lifting my head, I squeezed my eyes shut and took a breath.
Dropping my hand, I tiptoed back to the bedroom. Colm was still asleep, and the slight mussed look he’d rocked last night had turned into bed head. The blankets had dipped down low to his hips, showing off a hint of that V guys only got when they’d dedicated hours to the gym. Even after an injury like his, he’d put in the work. The power of those hips sent another shiver through my body.
I could leave a note. Maybe we could meet up later, somewhere public where I wouldn’t want to climb him like a tree and stay in bed all weekend when I was slammed with work. But a note was a good place to start. I was going to message myself with his phone, but it was locked. I looked around the room for something to write on.
Somehow getting caught trying to sneak out seemed a hell of a lot worse than sneaking out. I backed up. Maybe there would be something out in the living room. My foot crossed the threshold and my phone blared in my hand. I nearly chucked it down the hall, before muffling it against my chest and silencing it.
Colm rolled over, dragging the sheets even lower.
I darted out of the room and answered the call in a whisper.
“Imogen! Are you there?” Her tone of motherly concern ratcheted even higher.
“Hi, Fern, I’m here.” My whispers sounded like screaming through a megaphone in the quiet of Colm’s house.
“Are you okay? Are you on your way?” Her voice had an edge of panic to it.
Shit. The guilt was back with a vengeance, nibbling away at the edges of my memories from last night. “I’m fine, just running a little late.” In my Colm-induced, no-alcohol-needed hangover, I’d forgotten. My night of wild and crazy sex with Colm felt tainted. Fern and Charlie were counting on me to help them open the Surf Shack this weekend, and were worried about me, and here I’d been getting my rocks off and sleeping in. Since Preston had died, they were my only tether to that old life I had with him. I’d been taken in by them as my surrogate parents and never wanted to let them down.
“We were worried when you weren’t here in time for breakfast.”
“I’m so sorry.” I tiptoed down the hall. “I’m on my way. Is everything okay?”
“We’re having a bit of an emergency down here. Do you know where the warranties are for the walk-in freezer? It’s on the fritz. We’re scrambling to salvage everything we can after our delivery last night.”
“I’ll be there in an hour and a half, and I’ll call to have a freezer truck arrive until we can figure it out.” Rushing out, I closed the door behind me and darted down the street, throwing my arm up for a taxi.
* * *
Complete and total crisis averted. Charlie, Fern and I managed to save thousands of dollars of meat. My day included hauling giant boxes of it out to the refrigerator truck, stepping in for a waitress who broke her foot on the way to work, and playing hostess and seating people until the dinner shift hostess arrived.
The bright blue, white, and yellow Surf Shack was a Jersey Shore staple. It had survived downturns, hurricanes, and Preston’s death, and still kept chugging.
In those first few summers Charlie and Fern needed a lot of help to keep the diner going. Both of them sometimes slipped into a daze of sorts, and it was all any of us could do to get them into the office to close their eyes for a bit. And I’d been back in school, so I’d had summers off.
It was trickier to juggle helping them on the weekends with work during the week now, but I could never abandon them.
I collapsed in the back office with a filled to the brim cup of lemonade, some fish tacos, and a salted caramel chocolate chip cookie. I devoured the food so quickly, I barely tasted it, but the cookie deserved to be savored. As I was lifting it to my mouth, the office door swung open and I froze.
Charlie startled when he spotted me. “Imogen, what are you doing here? I thought you left. You’ve been here almost twelve hours.”
“I’d never go without telling you I was leaving.” I cringed a little at the runner I’d pulled on Colm this morning. A busy mind had also helped me push aside the complications that would invite. What had he thought when he woke up and I was gone? I was tempted to call one of the Kings and ask for his number, but that would only invite more questions. What if he had only been looking for a way to blow off steam? If he wanted to follow up as more than fun, he could easily hunt down my number.
“I figured you were probably running off to hang out with your friends or something. We didn’t need you to stay all this time. We just needed a little help with the hand we were dealt this morning.” He collapsed in the chair in front of the desk.
“Charlie, sit here.”
He waved me off. “God knows, half the time in the past few years you’ve been running this place more than we have.” The corners of his eyes crinkled as his cheeks lifted. “Still can’t believe it’s been almost thirty years.” He looked around at the walls. Pictures of famous visitors framed beside those of well-known locals and his family.
“The plan was someday we’d pass that onto the kids.” Some of the light in his dark eyes dimmed. “But you know what they say about best laid plans.” He chuckled to himself, resting his arms on the chair and clasping his hands across his chest.
“I’ll keep coming down on the weekend.”
He made a dismissive sound. “That was a good excuse when you were in college, but it’s not a good one now. You don’t need to spend your weekends down here with us. Even Becca has put in her notice.”
“I can’t leave you shorthanded.”
“You also can’t use this place as your hide out.” His gaze swung from the walls and met mine.
“I’m not hiding out.”
“Sure you are. What twenty-five-year-old wants to spend all her summer weekends cooped up in a restaurant after working a full week?”
“Do most twenty-five-year-olds have access to unlimited salted caramel chocolate cookies like these?” I took a huge bite out of the cookie. The mixture of sweet, salty, chewy, and crunchy staged a deliciously hostile takeover of my mouth.
“We’ll mail them to you. Besides, those ones your friend makes from that Bread & Butter aren’t anything to sneeze at. They certainly put these to shame.”
“You don’t want me to come down.” That thought turned the cookie stale in my mouth. Had I finally overstayed my welcome? I dropped my hand to the desk.
Charlie shot forward and covered my hand with his, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Never, Imogen. Never. Of course we want you here. You’re welcome anytime, but burning the candle at both ends isn’t going to help you move on.” He squeezed my hand again and the words came out thick and heavy.
I turned my hand over in his and gave it a squeeze back. “I miss him.”
“I know, sweetheart. I know.” We sat there, staring up at the pictures. The ones where
I’d joined in on the annual family picture. There hadn’t been an updated one added since Preston died.
“There you two are.” Fern came in and corralled us both out of the office. We finished closing up, and then it was time for me to head back to the city. Even though I usually stayed, I had an interview to prepare for. Charlie’s words stayed with me. I hadn’t shared the news of the position when it came up. A practice in Philly was opening a new office ten minutes from the Shack. I’d made sure my application was in the second it was posted. How would they feel if I moved closer? Did they want me there?
The drive back to the city was quiet. Not many people left the shore on a Friday night. Stopping to fill up along the way, I grabbed a cup of coffee from the Wawa at the rest stop before getting back on the road. I got back to my apartment and collapsed into my bed. Hour-and-a-half trips down the shore were taking their toll on me. I was so beat it took everything I had not to fall asleep in my shoes and clothes that smelled like—well, a Jersey Shore restaurant.
What would Fern and Charlie think if they knew what had happened last night? I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. One second I’m trying to help Colm and cheer him up, and the next it was like he’d tapped into something deep down in me I’d thought was long dead and buried.
I blinked quickly, refusing to let the tears fall. How many had I shed at this point? So many I’d have thought that at some point my tear ducts would have run dry. There were so many emotions all mixed together when it came to Preston. Once the dull ache had receded, there was the keen, slicing pain of loss, the terrifying uncertainty of what would come next, and then the waves of guilt that grew with each passing day.
Every patient I worked with did their best to cope with a debilitating diagnosis and relearn the basics. One client with a knee injury made the transition from pounding the pavement as a marathoner to hitting the pool and building up to 10 kilometer swims instead. It seemed I needed to learn that as well, but how?
Rolling over, I grabbed my phone and texted Emmett, asking for Colm’s number. He was the least likely to run around blabbing or give it a second thought, especially if he was anywhere near Avery. When he was near her, nothing else existed. With any luck, he’d forget within minutes that he’d even given it to me.
I typed and retyped the message to Colm. Running out on him this morning had been a dick move, but I’d had a reason. Also, why the hell was his house so clean? There hadn’t been a scrap of paper anywhere.
But last night had been…I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About him. Everyone at the Garfall Center is always saying I need to put myself out there. And Colm’s the only person who made me want to try the whole moving on thing.
I hit send before I could second guess myself.
Me: Sorry about this morning. Something came up. Are you okay?
The phantom buzz caught me at least twenty times over the next hour before I banished my phone to the living room so I’d stop obsessively checking. No response. That was my answer. Colm deserved better than my jumbo jet’s worth of baggage. Just leave last night as it was: a perfect night filled with so many emotions that I could ride that high into the next decade.
In a few weeks, I’d be forgotten in the long line of women ready and willing to help him with anything he needed. A small burst of jealousy shot through me. Get over it, Imogen. You’ve got no right to be possessive, and things are better as they are right now. You barely have time to get a solid night’s sleep; there’s no time for a love life right now. Maintain the status quo.
6
Colm - 3 Months Later
A pin prick of light broke in through a gap in the curtains, perfectly positioned to blind me through my eyelids. I sat up, and a cold sweat prickled my skin. The dreams of my fall wouldn’t stop. A bottle of gin sat beside my bed: a nightcap to beat back the inter-cranial replay and keep it at bay until I plunged into a fitful sleep.
Time had become a more fluid thing over the past few months. My alarm clock had been ejected from the room and my phone had met the same fate after my last talk with Bailey. Every call or message was another hole gouged into the sinking ship that was my life.
Liv wanting to talk.
Ford wanting to talk.
Declan, Heath, or Emmett wanting to talk.
And the one person I’d actually wanted to talk to had gone radio silent. I’d seen her apology text after I’d been released from the hospital, but I could read between the lines: Sorry, you were such a fucking mess that night that I gave you the pity sex you so obviously needed. I hope it cheered you up, but we’re not doing that again.
No, I didn’t need to have that conversation face to face.
My stomach rumbled. How long had it been since I’d eaten? Days? Rolling over, I groaned. I wasn’t exactly the athletic specimen I’d once been.
Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I paused, staring down at my leg. It had betrayed me more than once. My leg brace sat on the nightstand, taunting me.
Standing, I braced myself for the shooting pain that had been my constant companion right after the injury, but there wasn’t any. Only a dull ache from unused muscles.
Clothes littered the floor of my bedroom and the sheets were pulled up from the corner of the bed.
How long had it been since I’d washed them?
Opening the door, a shout and space blaster gun fire echoed up the stairs. My jaw clenched and I headed downstairs. I’d do exactly what I did every other time they came over and tried to coax me out of the house. Ignore them.
“Look at sleeping beauty, finally ready to join us.” Heath didn’t look away from the TV screen, jamming his fingers into the buttons on the controller.
“And in his good bath robe. Someone’s watched The Big Lebowski one too many times.” Emmett chuckled.
“With the beard, I can definitely see that. But the smell…” Declan waved his hand in front of his face. “You are ripe, man. When did you shower last?”
I opened the fridge, ducking my head behind the door and sniffing at my pits. Shit, was I nose blind? When had I last showered? Whatever, if they didn’t like the smell, they could leave.
The takeout boxes I’d shoved in there were moved to the bottom shelf to make room for catering trays of pasta, sauce, and meat on the top shelves.
“How much longer until the doc gives you the okay to come back? We haven’t been able to play like the Kings yet.” Heath jumped up and thumped his fist into the center of his chest.
“Why are you being so secretive about the doc giving you the green light? Did he say it’s going to be an even longer recovery?” Declan hung over the back of the couch.
I’d had the all-clear for over a month, but they didn’t need to know that. No one did.
“We brought some food since your selection was…lacking.” Emmett set his controller on the table. “You need strength for your recovery.”
“Avery’s got a connection at this Italian place called Tavola. Their food is freaking magic. Grab some of the fettuccini alfredo and the chicken parm, you’d give your left—” Heath stopped with his cup halfway to his mouth. “It’s killer. Almost as good as this sixteen-year-old whiskey.” He held up his glass, ice clinking against the sides, and drained the last of it.
I gritted my teeth. Whatever, it had been meant as a gift for Ford anyway.
Even though they were all acting like this was a casual conversation, I could feel their eyes on me, boring into me like they were waiting for me to snap so they could cart me off somewhere. I grabbed the carton of milk out of the fridge and banged around the cabinets for a bowl.
Snagging a box of cereal off the top shelf, I dumped half the contents into the bowl and poured out the milk. At least, I tried to pour it. The clumps hit the top of the cereal, mocking me.
I slammed down the carton, sending a few small chunks plopping onto the counter.
“We were going to throw that out for you, but we figured you might want to do that yourself. Or that it was a
science experiment.” Declan had his tongue clenched between his teeth, slamming his fingers into the controller, trying to take out Heath from his elevated position.
“Remember this combo, Colm? Kicked your ass with this so many times back in our Rittenhouse Prep days.” The campaign end flashed up on the screen, and Heath, Emmett and Declan stared at me. A part of me expected Ford to come sauntering down the hallway ready to wipe the floor with everyone in the game. And then it hit me. The lies. The betrayal. The loss. I felt them all over again like it had happened yesterday.
“You just going to glare at that chunky milk until it de-curdles and becomes edible?” Heath got up from the couch and rounded the kitchen island.
“Why the hell are you all here?” My voice came out scratchy like an old door’s hinges in an abandoned house, but snapped through their chatter like a shattered glass. When had I last talked to someone? A week ago? Maybe longer. Had it been when Bailey had called to chew me out about flaking on my last physiotherapist appointment? After all, why keep going when no amount of exercises would make it possible for me to get back on the ice?
Heath’s eyes widened and his smile dimmed.
Damnit, why couldn’t they all just go? I shoved my fingers through my hair.
“We never got to give you a house warming. Plus, Mak’s studying for her exams and I think if I bug her one more time about sneaking off with me into her study room, she’ll remove my balls and bring them into class for dissection.” Declan rummaged in the fridge, coming back with a whole six pack of beer.
“And Avery’s taking on ten new projects at the bakery and not getting home until four every day, so…” Emmett shrugged and picked up another bottle.
“What about you?” I stared at Heath.
“Kara’s always happy to see me, I don’t know what the hell these clowns are doing.” Heath laughed and grabbed a beer. “But I won’t turn down a chance to hang out. How much longer before things change and we won’t get to?”