by Katie Cross
“How much did you tell her it cost per night?”
“I didn't.”
My eyes scrunched close. They'd cross permanently with my heightened vexation at this rate. How had he survived this long? Suddenly, I was catapulted back to our initial days working together, when I frantically tried to find a different accountant that would be a better fit, but felt so bad for him that I didn't have the heart to pawn him off.
Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to calm again.
“Mark, we need to know how long she plans to stay because we still have to find other people to book it, right?”
“Right.”
“So you didn't capture payment yet and we don't know how long she's staying?” I asked, poorly hiding the irritation in my voice. Now I had no way of getting an accurate accounting until Seiko arrived. Seemed pretty unprofessional to say, 'Hi, thanks for coming! Please give us your money for a previous undisclosed amount. Oh, how long will you be here?'
Mark didn't seem to notice. “No payment yet, but I'm not concerned. Seiko will pay.”
“And if she doesn't?”
Now he sounded tense. “She will.”
“That cannot happen going forward, Mark. We—”
A knock on the door interrupted me, and I glowered at his back as he crossed behind me to answer the door. Seiko's bright voice entered the room before her, and the melodic tint made it abundantly clear she was a musician. Mark wrapped her in a big warm hug with his thick arms and I lost all my patience then. Seiko would think of me as some psycho woman that couldn't stay in a room, but I had to get away.
While Mark greeted her, I ducked out the back door and headed toward the kitchen. One more second in that room with Mark and I would absolutely explode.
Justin stepped out of the kitchen door as I approached, the screen slamming shut behind him. Atticus trotted behind him, tongue lolling. I'd saved a cheese stick in my jacket pocket just for this moment. Atticus, the wise dog that he was, sidled right up next to me. While Justin waved and headed back toward his little cabin back in the trees, I slipped Atty another treat.
“Good boy,” I murmured and rubbed him behind the ears. He finished the cheese, then bounded off when Justin whistled.
With a sigh, I stopped, turned, and headed for the lake. I needed to work through this frustration before I saw Mark again. Mark and I had been working together for years now. This sort of annoying back-and-forth wasn't new to either of us. Why I'd expected him to go through a cost-analysis report with me before he'd even had coffee, I had no idea.
It likely meant something else was bothering me, and if I didn't sort it out, I'd keep being annoyed with Mark and that wasn't fair. Mark was Mark. I accepted that.
Because heaven help us all, we lived together now.
The lake rippled quietly at my feet as I sat on the edge of the pier and let my toes dangle in the water. The cool water was a soft kiss on the tips of my skin. A bright blue sky unfurled overhead, and the gentle whisper of a breeze wafted by. It smelled like the gentle decay of leaves, and crisp air, and it made me think of pumpkins.
While my toes played with the water, my mind jumped back to the conversation at the restaurant when I'd panicked about my parents. I hadn't been in the car with them when they died. They were on their way home from a weekend together, celebrating their tenth anniversary.
It was the happiest they'd ever been, Grandma had always said.
Then tragedy struck—and wasn't that just like life? You finally find a happy spot, but forget that black ice always lingers beneath happy spots. So the moment you focus too much on feeling good—BAM.
Happy feeling over.
The chill that wrapped around my heart told me something lay there. I put a hand on my chest, as if I could warm my heart back up. Unable to bear the lurking question a moment longer, I grabbed my new phone, dialed grandma, and pressed the speaker to my ear. She answered two rings later.
“Hello?”
Her bright voice brought tears to my eyes. “Hey! It's me. Sorry, I had to buy a new phone with a new number.”
“You're crying.”
I laughed, but it was thick. “I said like fifteen words!”
“And I know you better than anyone on this planet. What's wrong?”
A big, fat tear plopped down my cheek and splashed my jeans. My throat tied together, unable to work for a moment. So much! I wanted to say. Everything has fallen apart. I'm in a world I don't understand anymore and I'm afraid for my life. I think I feel something for a guy that's only supposed to be a friend, but I don't know what that feeling is.
She waited patiently until I was finally able to croak out, “Did my parents struggle before they died?”
If the question startled her, she gave no sign. “What do you mean?”
“You told me that before they died they were so happy. That it was the best their life together had ever been. I just . . . I was thinking about them today and remembered what you said. I guess I just wanted to know what it meant.”
Two empty mom-and-dad-sized holes had always existed in my heart. Over time, they ached less. I didn't think about my parents much, except at the big moments. Getting my period. Prom. High school graduation. College graduation. The moments when I wanted them to be proud of me or comfort me or explain the world to me. While I missed what they would have brought to my life, I didn't actively mourn them anymore. I'd been so young, time had forced me to move on.
But fear lingered within me still.
“Of course they struggled. Your Mom had a hard time getting pregnant before and after having you, so that put a lot of pressure on the marriage. But it seemed like a few months before their death, she had come to terms with it more. Had accepted that they wouldn't have more kids and threw herself into loving you. It was the brightest I'd seen them together.”
The momentary storm of tears passed. I wiped them off my cheeks. Grandma had said the same things before years ago, which was probably the last time we'd really spoken about them. But such a truth hadn't affected me the way it did now. Hadn't tied me up in knots.
“Why?” she asked softly.
I blinked, my gaze on the far side of the lake where a thick band of brushes and trees occluded the bank. Gentle ripples moved across the top of the water. My toes had turned cold, so I dragged them out and pulled my knees to my chest, then wrapped my free arm around them.
“I had a moment today.”
“A moment?”
Robotically, I relayed what happened with Mark, careful not to tell her where I was. I played Mark off as a friend, but felt as if she could still hear the truth in my words. The slowly dawning realization that I kept mentally pushing aside to deal with later. Repeating what I felt in that storm helped pull the thoughts out of my head so I could make sense of them again.
“I can't help but think I've been living quietly because I'm afraid to be happy.” I sighed, my breath heavy. “Like . . . if I allow myself to be happy, I'll die, just like them.”
The words sounded ridiculous outside my brain but were terrifying inside it. Grandma didn't laugh, and I didn't pull them back.
Nonsensical or not, they were exactly how I felt.
Happiness meant misery.
“Oh.” She breathed the word, as if it were delicate glass. With it came a new tone of understanding. “You are afraid to be happy. You're right. I can see it.”
I nodded, then realized that was absurd because she couldn't see it. Tears streamed down my cheeks again and I wiped them free, unable to respond a second time. Across the way, a mournful bird call released from the bushes. The echo of it seemed to ricochet through my chest.
“That makes sense, Stell.” Her words were calm, factually stated, but still filled with compassion. “They were happy. You were happy. Then it was all taken away from you and you had to start over. Maybe you associated happiness with loss in your mind because you don't want to go through it a second time.”
My nostrils flared as I sucked in anoth
er breath, but failed to speak again. Instead, a little sob peeped out of me.
“Is that why you live so softly?” Grandma asked. “You've lived and breathed your job for a while. You stopped talking about your favorite movies. You just seemed to . . . fade into the machinations of your life. Like you hid from something. It's why I've nagged you to get married for so long,” she tacked on with a wry laugh. “I've been able to tell that you haven't been happy for a long time, but I couldn't put a finger on why.”
Hearing those words from her made me visibly wince. How could something be so obvious to everyone else, but not to me?
“Why didn't you say something?” I cried. “Why didn't you ask?”
“I didn't realize it until this moment, honey. I'm sorry.”
“No, it's not your fault. I'm sorry, Grandma. I just . . . I'm sad that I've lived the last four or five years trying to hide from something as silly as happiness. I mean . . .”
I trailed away, unable to articulate just how strange it sounded, even to my own ears. Yet how right I knew it to be.
She fell quiet, and I was glad for a moment to pull my ragged thoughts back together. A headache had started to collect behind my eyes and I felt emotionally wrought after the last two days. Exhausted, but better.
“I'm sad for you too, Stell. But now you know, and that means you can choose something better. Every day is another chance, isn't it? You make it what you want it to be. Dreams don't happen. Dreams are made.”
The bright words struck a deep chord within. A chord that had been dissonant for years and suddenly came back into harmony when I realized she was right. I had been hiding behind an understandable, but powerful, subterranean fear that I could lose everything all over again. The rocking of my five-year-old world had ripples that still reached me today, as an adult. But they didn't have to frighten me anymore.
Hadn't my worst fears just happened anyway? Hadn't I lost my apartment, my job, my clients, and for the time being, any supposed friends?
And yet here I stood.
Alive.
Alive and well. Happiness wasn't out of my reach after a great loss. In fact, I was doing better than I would have ever thought. More joyful than I had been before.
That meant something.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Anytime, my love,” she said. “Are you going to be all right?”
Pounding headache notwithstanding, I felt more unburdened than I had in years. Like the clearing of a storm.
“Better now than ever,” I said in a throaty response. Life had taken away so much of what I cared about again but had given me a second chance. A new start. Now, I had the insight I needed to choose to be happy and not be afraid.
After a few more minutes of checking on her, her Bunco club, her stocks, and feeling reassured that nothing out of the usual had come into her world—namely Joshua—I ended the call with a deep-seated relief. My thoughts whirled around each other, but this time in a good way. Cleansing. Removing the debris of the past.
It forced me to stare at the future in a way I normally never thought about. The future would come and I'd be in it. That had always been the extent of my thoughts.
But now I could make that future.
I lay back on the pier, my freezing toes back in the water, and I closed my eyes to enjoy the sweet taste of fall sunshine. A languid half-sleep slipped over me until the slow, gentle tread of shoes on the pier interrupted the silence. Then the rustle of fabric and a weight settled next to me.
When I opened my eyes, Mark sat next to me. He leaned back on his hands and stared out at the lake. His profile was silhouetted against a perfect sky.
“I talked to Seiko.” He chewed on his bottom lip. “She's fine paying $175 a night, plus $200 for the dining hall for a day. I upped it from $150 because you had wanted to pad the numbers a bit, but I couldn't remember how much. She's going to send it to me on the same app that our HomeBnB people pay, but she said she doesn't need to sign a contract. She's doing this as a friend because she knows it's our first time trying it. She also said she'll let me know if anything is missing or needed so we can do it better next time.”
Relief filled me. “Thank you.”
“I'm sorry.”
He sounded like a little boy, a bit lost. I frowned.
“For?”
“Not being organized. For frustrating you. I could be better at details. It's a habit of mine to pawn them off on other people and not follow up, and the follow-up is my responsibility. So . . . I'm sorry. It can be hard to work with me.”
Slowly, I straightened up until our shoulders nearly touched. I pulled my knees back into my chest and mimicked his gaze on the other side of the lake. The gentleness of this moment was at odds with the riotous feelings in my chest now that he sat next to me.
“I was being too sensitive,” I said. “I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and I'm sorry too. I think I need to redefine my expectations or . . . just be more malleable. I get too deep into the details that I become obsessed when sometimes the details don't matter as much as I like to think.”
“What can I do to make this easier for you?” he asked. “I'm not afraid of criticism or feedback. I can change things about myself if needed—or I can at least try.”
He paused as I thought his question out. The vulnerability I heard masked within it created a little fissure in my heart. Yes, Mark could be hard to work with. Yes, he had so many ideas and things running through his mind like wild squirrels that he missed things, and those missed things were important. But he was willing to take the truth. He would change what was needed in order to make my life easier. He'd even apologized when I was the one that should have done it first.
And I held a deep-rooted loyalty to him I'd never be able to explain.
Perhaps it was my new outlook on life, or maybe just a letting go, but I reached over to put my hand on top of his, then threaded my fingers through his and squeezed.
“Nothing,” I whispered. “I don't think you should change anything about yourself, Mark. We'll figure out how to communicate better and this won't be a problem. You save me, I save you.”
He sucked in a sharp breath. My stomach curled with heat when he flipped his hand over so our palms touched in an oddly intimate gesture. The feeling of his fingers wrapping around mine sent fire through my arm.
He turned to look at me and frowned. The beat of his heart pulsed through his throat as he gently whispered, “You've been crying.”
I nodded.
His gaze narrowed. “Why?”
“Because,” I murmured, “I think I'm . . . happy.”
He didn't pause to contemplate the absurd dichotomy of my response. Didn't realize how at-odds it sounded, even in my ears. Instead, he put a hand around my neck, pulled me into his space, and pressed his hot lips to mine.
I folded like a house of cards.
His other arm snaked around my waist, softening my collapse against his chest. I twined my arms around his neck, ran my fingers through the soft hairs at the back of his head. When he deepened the kiss, I felt it all the way to the edge of my body like a shot of fire.
Mark yanked me closer until my legs straddled his lap and there was no space between us. Both of his hands found my hair, tugged on it. His arms wound around my waist in a locked embrace that took my breath away. Nothing existed in the gap between us except a fiery passion that I'd never felt.
Not once.
When my breath ran out and reasoning blurred, Mark pulled away. Both of his hands framed my face. His fingertips scrubbed my scalp and his thumb brushed across my cheek. My stomach flipped over and over as I stared into his hazy gaze, thick with passion.
Instead of speaking, he pressed one last, lazy kiss to my lips. Then he wrapped me in his arms, pulled me into him until my face was buried in his neck, and I breathed deeply for what felt like the first time in my life.
18
Mark
My brain stopped functioning.
&n
bsp; When Stella and I finally untangled ourselves from the end of the pier, I felt fuzzy around the edges. She didn't protest when I wrapped her hand in mine and we wordlessly walked away, the quiet lake at our backs. Neither of us spoke—not sure I'd be capable of it—as we stepped back into my cabin and the silence there. She resumed her place at my desk but blinked at her laptop.
I sat on the couch and ran a hand through my hair, ignoring my phone as it rang.
My mind was too busy as it replayed that kiss to hear the obnoxious ringtone. The sparkle of tears that had lingered in her eyes when I first arrived. A mixture of vulnerability and chaos in her gaze. The way she'd slid onto my lap and kissed me back like we were about to die.
Maybe I had.
Because that is how I'd want to go.
The stupid phone rang again, but I ignored it. Lost in thoughts of the hint of spearmint that lived on her breath and what else I wanted to do with her now.
“Mark,” Stella drawled, drawing me from my thoughts. “Are you going to answer that?”
With a jerk, I pulled myself from my thoughts and scrambled for my phone. Heat rose to my cheeks as she quietly chuckled. An unknown number flashed across the screen, so I rejected it.
There was just one thing I wanted to do.
With a low growl, I tossed the phone on the couch, stalked to the desk, and pulled her back into my arms. Stella melted against my chest like butter, her lips instantly on mine as I yanked her to me. For what felt like an eternity, Stella let me kiss her. Let me realize that what happened out there wasn't a fluke, and it wasn't an imagined hope.
No, the heat between us was real.
Before I let it go too far, I pulled away. Stella blinked as I held her at arm's length, a note of confusion in her expression.
“I want to keep kissing you for the rest of my life,” I said before she could misjudge my intent, “but until we save Adventura, that's not feasible. And I think I need to take a moment and make sure you're okay with this.”
For half a breath, I feared she'd run away screaming. Realize that she'd made a mistake and now she had to fix it. Instead, a warm smile filled her eyes. Whatever changed in her, I had no idea. But the Stella that walked away from the pier was different than the one that went out there.