What a fool I was.
My laugh echoed off the dingy subway tiles, and I peeled myself off of the tub floor to turn off the water. My hair was matted to my head, but I couldn’t find the energy to care. Any concern aside from surviving had leaked out of me in the torrent of tears and had seeped down the drain.
The twins still had another couple of hours at school. Mom was probably off with whatever bum she’d hooked up with over the weekend, and my father, who didn’t seem to care who she slept with, was no doubt glued to a barstool down the road at his favorite haunt.
I was alone.
I doubled over as the implication stabbed through me.
I was alone.
I had my family, but they were more of a responsibility than a comfort. I’d get through this for them. I had my friends, but they had their own lives, and I didn’t want to burden them–not yet. It wasn’t in my nature to lean on others. I provided for my family, working myself to the bone without any help from my deadbeat parents. I would survive this, even if it didn’t feel like it at the moment.
For now, it felt like the pain encapsulated everything, blotting out my surroundings until it contracted to a dull ache in my chest. I staggered to my bedroom with a towel wrapped loosely around my body and water dripping from my saturated hair onto the worn wood floors. I didn’t care. I couldn’t scrounge up the energy to do more than throw myself onto the bed and pull the mussed covers around me.
My phone was hauntingly silent, which only made the tears fall harder. There were no social media notifications. No emails. I knew, somewhere deep down in my soul, that he wouldn’t try reaching out that way.
He’d found someone else.
I’d supported him through his father’s death the year before. When he didn’t think he could pass his finals after the funeral, I stayed up after two double shifts and helping the twins through a stomach virus to quiz him. For his birthday, I’d driven down and taken him to his favorite restaurant, even though I was barely making enough money to pay rent and support my sisters.
I would have done anything for him.
I did do anything for him.
Was that where I went wrong? Had I made it too easy? Was I one of those women who got boring in a relationship because I wasn’t exciting or sexy enough?
My thoughts spiraled down a black hole, and I covered my face with a pillow until I’d cried myself dry. I must have dozed off at times because a sudden realization would jerk me awake, and then it would start all over again.
One day, I told myself. I’d give him one day of being upset, and then I’d push it away, bury it deep, and never think of this—or him—again.
It was wishful thinking, considering we’d been together for a long time. But the thought of feeling this way forever, of giving in to the temptation to give way to a despair so all-encompassing, was overpowering. I was afraid I wouldn’t survive it.
The front door slammed, and pattering feet bounded into the apartment. The twins were home. I shot to my feet and winced as a headache throbbed insistently behind my eyes.
“Ember!” one of them called.
“Shh!” said the other. “What if she’s sleeping?”
The first scoffed. “She’s never sleeping.”
It made me laugh. They always made me laugh. Raising them never should have fallen on my shoulders, but it had. Even with the burden of taking care of my sisters, they were the lights of my life. The sound of their innocent debate drew me from the shelter of blankets, and I glanced at my phone to find it blinking 3:24 p.m. I must have fallen asleep after my crying jag.
“Do you think we should check on her? What if she’s sick?” the second asked.
“Maybe we should get the therbombiter, Tillie.” Which meant it was Molly speaking.
“Do you know how to use it?” Molly asked with clear interest.
“Sure. All you do is stick it in her mouth and push the button. I’ll get it from the medicine cabinet. You get a glass of water and the throw-up bowl in case she’s stomach sick.”
Matilda Leanne was the oldest of my twin sisters—by a whole twenty minutes. It may as well have been twenty years for how she bossed around her younger sister, Molly Elizabeth.
The patter of their feet echoed down the hall, and I decided to wait for them to return to see what they would do. Besides, I didn’t have the energy to get back to my feet quite yet. As I contemplated getting up, I heard them return.
“You knock, Tillie,” Molly said.
“No, you knock,” Tillie replied.
“You always tell me what to do,” Molly whined, but a rapping sound followed anyway.
“Ember, are you ‘kay? It’s us.”
My face felt like I’d been repeatedly punched as I smiled and raised my voice to say, “Come in.” I wiped away any evidence of tears and tried in vain to straighten my hair and look like I hadn’t been crying for hours.
Two orange-headed girls of six bounded into my room. Tillie’s curls were soft waves that floated around her shoulders. Molly’s were tight ringlets that bounced with each step. They were both the terrors and the lights of my life.
“We brought you some water and a therbombiter. Are you sick?” Tillie asked as she sat on the side of the bed. Molly climbed up and around to my other side.
“Just a little tired,” I said, edging around the truth. “The water will help.”
I took the glass Molly offered, amazed she hadn’t spilled it during her climb up. The water was tepid, but wet, and after crying for hours, I felt like a wrung-out rag. I was probably a little dehydrated.
The girls stared at me, expectantly. “Thank you, babies,” I said with a squeeze. “This is perfect. Do you have homework?”
Tillie wagged her finger at me, and Molly giggled. “No work until you feel better. You always let us watch TV when we don’t feel good.”
I didn’t have it in me to argue. Homework could wait. I pulled the girls close, sighing as their little bodies fit into my side.
Who needed a man when I had them?
Chapter Two
Tripp
Freshmen Year
“Hey, hotshot,” a voice called out.
Looking up, I glowered at the source and then felt a jolt go through my body. A beat-up sedan was stopped behind the car of the girl I was hitting on. The driver leaned out, her glossy red hair tumbling over her shoulders. Her eyes were spitting fire, even over the short distance. They made me forget my original goal—the pretty little brunette sorority chick I’d been eyeing for weeks.
“There are other people in the world, you know,” said the redhead. “Do you mind?”
Red gestured to the sorority girl’s car, which was blocking her way in the parking garage.
I straightened and sent Red a winning smile. “Not at all, angel. Why don’t you come and join us?”
“In your dreams,” Red retorted. “All I want from you is for you to get out of my way. I’m kind of in a hurry here.”
“Do you know that chick?” the sorority girl—I think her name was Gemma—asked, attitude on full display.
“Not yet,” I said under my breath.
Red must have heard. “Not ever.”
I heard a thin wail that sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. She turned to the backseat, and I saw through the windshield two tall backed car seats strapped in on either side. This caused me to straighten. She was a mother? That certainly made me do a double take. The sound I’d heard was a kid crying.
“Great,” I heard Red mutter when the second kid’s ear-piercing cry joined in. “You think you could take your seduction routine somewhere else?” she snarled.
“I should get going,” Gemma said. “You wanna call me later?”
“Sure,” I said absently. My eyes were all for Red, who was still turned around, comforting the writhing bundles in the backseat.
“Don’t you need my number?” Gemma asked.
“Right,” I answered, shaking my head. I passed her my phone, and
she put in her contact info with a sultry smile. Returning it, I winked and watched as she drove off.
“About time,” Red said as her car sailed by and pulled into a parking spot.
I jogged to catch up, my leg muscles still loose from afternoon practice. She was unloading the babies from the car by the time I came to a stop by her side. Red looked up and frowned at me. It made me wonder what it would take to make her smile.
“What?” she asked pointedly. She had to raise her voice over the little screaming machines she was now loading into a stroller.
As a freshman athlete, hooking up with a woman who clearly came with strings attached didn’t seem like the best idea, yet I couldn’t walk away. Not even the squalling kidlets in the back seat could deter me.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
She snorted. “That’s the best you got? Look, I’ve had a long night here, and I’ve got a long morning ahead of me. I honestly don’t have time for your bullshit. So, if you don’t mind, I’m going home. If you aren’t a creep, you won’t follow me. Got it?”
Red locked the second kid into the stroller and strode off with a toss of her hair. It must have been the hair that drew my dumb ass after her. I followed it through the parking garage entrance and down the hall to the elevator. When we arrived, she scowled at me.
“I’m not following you. I live here, too. Third floor.”
“No, you don’t.”
I smiled. “Yeah, I do. You just move in? I haven’t seen you around here before.”
The elevator opened, and she pushed the stroller inside, heaving with the effort from the heavy contraption. Red-faced and with a lung capacity to rival my team’s best sprinters, the kids hadn’t stopped screaming since they’d woken in the car. I winced a little, but even that didn’t dull my curiosity.
I was a goner.
“Are you for real?” she asked. Being so close to her, I could see her eyes were dark, mossy green—the color of leaves deep in the forest where sunlight struggled to reach.
“I seem to be,” I answered when I remembered her question.
“I don’t really have time right now to entertain whatever delusions are cropping up inside that head of yours.”
The elevator dinged, and the sound of the discontented children echoed off the walls in the hall. I hurried after her. When I caught up, she caught sight of me and growled under her breath, causing the twins to jerk in surprise and cut off mid-scream.
“Didn’t I tell you not to follow me? I don’t have time for this right now. Stop following me!”
At her shout, the twins began screeching again, and I winced.
I pointed to my apartment. “I’m not following you.” Well, not really. “That’s my place right there.” I held out the key and shook it. “I’ve even got the key if you don’t believe me.”
Red glanced from me to the door and then back again. Her face crumpled, and she rested her back against the door, crumpling into a heap. I peered around the stroller and found Red’s face buried into her knees, her shoulders shaking.
Two kids, I could deal with. After all, kids cry…I wasn’t sure much, but I was pretty positive it was often. Not much I could do about that, but a grown woman in a crying fit? Left me feeling like I had two left feet.
I crouched in front of her and placed a hand on her knee. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Please don’t cry.”
Patting her back like I would a puppy was about the extent of my soothing abilities. After a second, she blew out a hot breath and looked up at me with bloodshot eyes, her nose running.
She was beautiful.
“You alright?” I asked with half a laugh. Clearly, she wasn’t alright, but I was at a loss for words.
Red rolled her eyes. “I’m fine. I was just…overwhelmed for a second.”
She accepted my hand to help her back to her feet. The ringing in my ears had me glancing back at the toddlers, who’d cried themselves to sleep. Studying them warily, I asked, “Are they okay?”
“They’re just overstimulated. They hate riding in the car seats. Not that I blame them.” She placed a hand on each of their chests and gazed at their slumbering faces.
“How old are they?” I asked to fill the silence.
Glancing up at me, she said, “Two years.”
“I don’t mean this the way it sounds, but you look amazing for having two-year-old twins.”
“Am I supposed to take that any other way than how it sounds?”
Thank God she was smiling.
I sputtered to defend myself, but she laughed. “Don’t sweat it. I’m not their mom. They’re my baby sisters.”
“Ah, right. Sorry again.”
“Since you’re here, you can bring them in for me while I get their snack ready.” When I did nothing but stare, she waved me inside. “Come on. They aren’t going to bite. If we’re going to be neighbors, we might as well get to know each other. Besides, I feel shitty for yelling at you. I’ll get you a soda as a friendly gesture.”
With exaggerated care, I wheeled the stroller into the apartment as Red bustled around the kitchen, opening cabinets and cutting up bite sized pieces of fruits and veggies, ‘cause I had no clue. The toddlers slept in their car seats, but I didn’t trust them not to wake up and turn into air raid sirens again, so I didn’t make a sound as I waited.
She looked up, and her eyes danced with laughter. “You look like you’re going to set off a bomb or something. They aren’t going to bite you.”
“They might start screaming again,” I whispered.
“What’s your name?” she asked after shaking her head. “I guess I’d better know it if we’re going to be neighbors. This probably won’t be the first time you hear them screaming at all hours of the night.”
“Tripp. Tripp Wilder.”
She paused mixing the bottles. “That can’t really be your name.”
“It really is.”
“Is that short for something?” she asked.
“John Thomas III,” I answered. “Tripp, as in triple or the third.”
“That makes more sense.” She capped the bottles, tucked them under her free arm, and then opened the fridge and got a soda, which she handed to me. “Tripp suits you better than John, that’s for sure.”
“I get that a lot.” It was part of the problem.
“I’m Ember. These little boogers are Matilda, Tillie for short, and Molly.”
Ember.
God, her name couldn’t have been more perfect. It matched her hair, her fiery attitude, and how her presence seemed to heat me from the inside out.
Ember.
“I’m sorry for being a bit of a bitch earlier. I was in a hurry to get home because these two were fussy, and I knew they’d be hungry soon.”
She was a natural with them. I wouldn’t have had a clue how to take care of a kid, let alone two at once. But she sat the plates of food on the coffee table, unhooked the car seats, and lifted them out. Once she was settled, she situated one little girl on one side of her and the other in the crook of her arm. It was like some sort of kid-style Tetris. I was fascinated. The girls woke up in increments, but thankfully they didn’t start crying again. Food seemed to placate them. I needed to remember that.
“You don’t have to apologize,” I said. I scrubbed a hand over my neck as one started talking gibberish. “Do you need some help?”
Amusement danced lively in her eyes. “You? You want to help?”
“How hard could it be?”
She shrugged a little and said, “If you want to. Tillie says she wants some juice.”
I got up and found some apple juice in the fridge. Two sippy cups were on the counter next to it. I filled them up and brought them back. “You must be Tillie,” I said to the little girl, who smiled shyly. “Nice to meet you.”
The little girl happily took the sippy cup and babbled something back.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be chasing that girl you were talking to?” Ember
asked with an amused smile.
I sent her a sly look. “What? Why be with one when I’ve got three right here?” She tried and failed to hide her smile. “So, where are your parents? Shouldn’t they be taking care of the kids?”
Ember merely looked down at the toddler in her arms. Molly was smiling around her sippy cup. “They aren’t what you would call involved parents. My dad’s at the bar, and who knows where my mom is.”
“Don’t you have school or a job?” I asked.
“I’m an EMT, but I only work three times a week, so I take care of the babies on my day off.”
“I thought this was only university housing?”
“Technically, it is, but I’ll keep a secret if you can. I don’t think the twins will rat us out.”
I could only stare down at Tillie who’d taken a seat next to me, momentarily shaken, when I realized she was staring up at me as she sucked back her juice. She blinked owlishly, and her throaty little grunts made me smile.
“You’re pretty good with her,” Ember said.
“The ladies love me,” I cooed to Tillie.
“Whatever you say, hotshot.”
“What’s up with the hotshot?”
“You play ball, don’t you?” She nodded toward the hoodie wrapped around my waist. “I’ve gotten used to reading people. You seem like the cocky sports type.”
“I can’t argue with that. I’m a pitcher.”
“Naturally,” Ember said, lifting Molly onto her lap for a cuddle. She pulled out baby wipes from a basket under the coffee table and began wiping Molly’s sticky hands.
Tillie was already fighting sleep again as I picked her up to do the same. I copied Ember as she patted Molly on the back. Both girls fussed a little, and Ember showed me to her room, which she shared with the twins. She put Molly down in one of the cribs and then Tillie in the other.
Friend Zone Series Box Set Page 37