by Eva Chase
The walls were still the same standard white they’d been painted right before I moved in. Not a single picture hung on them. I didn’t want to have to be worried about being chased down for damage deposits. The furniture was a mishmash of styles, whatever I’d been able to grab quickly and cheaply, with my main priority being comfort. I’d have to leave it all behind if I needed to up and leave in a hurry like I had from Chicago.
At least I’d cleaned up the kitchen after the last time I’d cooked. The warm breeze trickling through the half-open window smelled like the fresh bread from the bakery next door. The place wasn’t totally unappealing.
Grace meandered to the open shelves where my dishes and cups were stacked haphazardly. “You don’t go much for organization, do you?” she said.
“I know where everything is,” I said. Everything important, anyway. “That’s all that matters.”
She reached for a couple of stacks and started sorting out the large plates from the small. She’d gotten through several before her hands stilled and her face flushed. “Sorry. I just—I see a mess and I want to tidy it up. How can you think with everything scattered around?”
She motioned toward the rest of the room. The books strewn on the coffee table. Papers and print-outs heaped on the desk around my laptop.
“Everything is clean,” I said, in case she was worried about that. “It’s just… a little scattered. Neatness has never seemed like a very valuable use of my time.”
I had a couple of emergency bags in my closet that were totally organized. The rest of this stuff? It was the same as the furniture. Why bother to take that kind of care with a home you could never completely settle down in?
I couldn’t explain that to Grace, of course.
“Well,” she said with a coy smile, “let me take the time to do it, then, so I can think.”
I’d never seen anyone get so enthusiastic about dishes. It was charming in an odd sort of way. I leaned my elbows onto the kitchen island. “Is it really that important to you?”
“Oh, yes. Very.” And then she fucking winked at me.
Yeah, I was hooked now. Reel me in and filet me.
I motioned for her to continue. “Far be it from me to deny you, then.”
She giggled and clapped her hand over her mouth as if to stifle it. The gesture made my chest tighten. When had she learned that she wasn’t allowed to laugh? That wasn’t the kind of question you could ask anyone. I needed more small talk practice.
I cleared my throat as she went back to her plate sorting. “Can I get you anything to drink?”
“What do you have?”
I pictured the—completely disorganized—contents of my fridge. “Beer. A little vodka. Iced tea. Orange juice.”
“Hmm. Make me a screwdriver?”
“I can do that.”
I mixed the vodka and orange juice, stealing glances at Grace. She finished with my plates and started shuffling the cups so the mugs and the glasses were separated on the shelf. They did look more appealing when they were more thoughtfully arranged, I had to admit. But I was more interested in looking at the cascade of her light brown hair over her shoulders, the curves of her waist and ass. And in receiving the little glances she shot back at me with her coy smile.
She practically glowed. How had someone that bright slipped into my life?
How was I going to get over the fact that I couldn’t keep her in it?
I needed to keep my head as clear as possible—that was for sure. No alcohol for me. I poured myself a glass of iced tea and nudged the screwdriver toward her. “One screwdriver, on the house.”
She laughed, and this time she didn’t try to smother it. “Are you going to charge me for the next one?”
“You can earn it with your mad cabinet-sorting abilities.”
“Oh, well in that case, I think you owe me at least five.” She picked up the glass and took a sip, then a bigger gulp. “That’s good. Thank you.”
“No problem at all.”
She set the drink down for a moment as she surveyed the room again. Maybe wondering what else she could get away with tidying for me. Her gaze settled on the laptop.
“Oh!” she said, pointing. “Do you have your photos on—”
Her elbow knocked the glass. It slid on the slick condensation right over the edge of the island.
I was five feet away—too far to catch it. At least, to catch it with my hands. I sprang forward, my mind leaping ahead of me. My focus locked around the glass. It jerked to a stop just a few inches below the edge of the counter.
Shit. I smacked my hands around it a second later, my breath lurching. With a forced smile, I lifted the glass and set it back onto the island. Only a little of the liquid had splashed onto the floor. From the abrupt halt when I’d stopped it with the power of my mind.
Had she noticed? I was almost afraid to meet Grace’s eyes. But I had to check her reaction.
“Whoops!” I said casually, lifting my gaze. “Good thing I’ve got fast reflexes.”
Grace wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at the spot where I’d caught the glass. Her brow had knit. My stomach clenched.
She had noticed something.
She shook herself and smiled at me again, but hers looked a little forced too. “Sorry about that. I promise I’m not usually this much of a klutz.”
“No judgment here,” I said, holding up my hands. My mouth had gone dry. Bringing her here had been a bad idea from the start. There was a reason I didn’t get close to anyone. Let down my guard, and slips like that happened. And if they happened around the same person enough times...
I tipped some of my iced tea down my throat. Grace touched her glass but didn’t pick it up, as if she were uncertain of it somehow. I groped for something to say to divert her attention.
“You were going to ask about my computer?”
“Oh, right. Yeah. I wondered if you have an archive of your photos on there. I’d love to see some of your other work. All those exotic locales you talked about.”
The smile she gave me next was more relaxed, but it didn’t relax me at all. At least she’d given me the perfect opening to put an end to this disaster. I rubbed my mouth. “You know, I actually have a couple of projects I really should get back to work on. I should have thought of that before I asked you up.”
“Oh.” She considered me with an intentness that made my heart thump harder. “So it’d be better if I took off then?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. Just a busy time.”
She nodded, but the light in her eyes dimmed. It killed me, seeing that. She hadn’t said anything, not in words, but it was obvious from the things she hadn’t said that she’d been disappointed by a lot of people in her life.
But what was I supposed to do? If I screwed up much more, it could be my whole family’s lives on the line.
Grace drained the rest of her screwdriver and set down the glass with a clink. I walked her over to the door. As I put my hand on the doorknob, she looked up at me. She was so close the smell of her perfume, like amber and vanilla, reached my nose. I breathed in, dragging it into my lungs.
“Is everything okay?” she said. “You’re not upset about me messing with your things, or...?”
My chuckle came out stiff. “Of course not. And I’m pretty sure what you were doing was the opposite of ‘messing.’ Like I said, I’ve just got a ton of client work to get through.”
Grace ducked her head for a second. Then she raised her chin, fixing me with a steady gaze. Her voice came out calm but firm. “Jeremy, I hope you know you really don’t have to lie to me. If I’m being too pushy and you’re just not that into me, that really is okay. I’d rather know than keep hoping for something that’s never going to happen. I’ve done enough of that before.”
Despite her matter-of-fact tone, the pain of past wounds came through underneath. I saw it in the nervous twitch of her jaw and the tensing of her shoulders. The sight wrenched at my heart, and every other concern I’d had fle
d my mind. I couldn’t leave her thinking I was rejecting her.
“It’s not that, Grace,” I said. “I promise you, it’s not that at all. You have no idea how much I want you.”
Her lips parted. The only thing I could think to do was to show her I meant it. I teased my fingers into her hair and pulled her mouth to mine.
A stutter of breath escaped her lips, and then she was kissing me back. Her scent was all around me now, her hands sliding up to my shoulders to tug me closer, and I was lost. Lost in the feel of her body, the softness of her mouth, the heat of her tongue tangling with mine as I kissed her harder. Nothing existed in that moment except her, me, and that kiss.
A little moan reverberated in her throat, and just like that I was half hard. Hell yes, I wanted her. Against the door, in my bed. In my fucking kitchen, rearranging my cutlery. Anywhere I could have her.
The intensity of that thought was what woke me up. Because I couldn’t have her, not really. Not anywhere.
I kissed her once more, gently. Then I eased back, my hand coming to rest on her waist. Hers lingered on my shoulders. She gazed up at me, the sparkle back in her eyes.
“Okay,” she said. “You’ve convinced me.”
My mouth twitched with a smile. “Look, I— My life is complicated, Grace. That’s the best way I can explain it. The way things are, sometimes I need to take off at the drop of a hat. At some point I’ll probably need to up and leave the whole city without any notice. I can’t offer you what you obviously deserve. When it comes to long-term, I’m the worst bet there is.”
The furrow on her brow came back, but her face stayed bright. “That’s fine,” she said. “We just met. I’m not looking for promises. We could just... have fun and see how it goes, no expectations of commitment?”
Lord, that was the most tempting offer I’d ever gotten in my life. I hesitated, trying to think through the rush of emotion—and hormones—urging me to say yes and then immediately carry her to the bedroom.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. An alert. Fear surged up over the smolder of lust. I stepped farther away from Grace and fumbled for the phone.
One of the search terms I’d programmed in had gotten a hit. A video. My skin chilled as I opened it up.
The image had been shot on a phone, obviously. The shot wavered in someone’s hand. They were standing on a street corner, talking with a friend. And in the side of the frame I could make out a familiar wrought-iron gate down the street. A familiar figure jogging toward it. The woman standing in front of me now coming out of the gate.
The screech of tires. A burst of motion.
The video stopped and replayed from the moment before the crash, zooming in on the truck. The resolution was grainy and you couldn’t see more than the back of my head anyway, but my heart all but stopped.
Because what you could see, if you were paying even the slightest bit of attention, was my hand thrusting out and shoving the entire truck two feet to the side without even touching it.
8
Grace
The color drained from Jeremy’s face as he stared at his phone. I blinked at him, feeling even more confused. He’d been all over the place in the last ten minutes—flirty and then cold and then scorching hot as he’d kissed me. Now, suddenly, he looked terrified. This guy was a mystery, that was for sure.
“What’s wrong?” I said, scooting closer to take a look.
I caught a brief glimpse of the image on the screen—that gray truck I was never going to forget barreling toward me and the cemetery fence. Then Jeremy jerked the phone away. He clicked it off, his knuckles white as he gripped it.
“I’m really sorry,” he said. “You need to go. Now.”
I couldn’t argue with the urgency in his voice. I didn’t understand why seeing some video that had captured the accident would have freaked him out, but he clearly was freaking out. “Okay,” I said. “I can do that. But if there’s anything I can do to help—”
He shook his head with a snap. “It’s done now. Nothing can change that.”
I didn’t understand what that meant either, but he obviously wasn’t interested in explaining. He opened the front door to usher me out. I’d just stepped into the hall, my head spinning, when he grabbed my elbow.
“Wait. You should go out the back way. Just to be safe.”
I stared at him. “Safe? What’s going on, Jeremy?”
“It’s— It’s probably nothing yet. There hasn’t been time for— I just want to be careful. All right?”
He looked into my eyes with that bright green gaze. Damn, how could I say no to him?
He walked with me down the hall to the fire exit with clipped strides. Our feet thudded on the carpeted floor. The aftertaste of that screwdriver had turned even more sour in my mouth. My thoughts tumbled back to that internet search. His evasiveness about his online presence.
Maybe he was in some form of witness protection. He was worried someone who knew him from before would see that video? But he’d hardly been visible in the bit that I’d seen. Not enough that even I would have recognized him if I hadn’t recognized the rest of the scene.
I guessed I couldn’t blame him for being on guard if he’d gone underground for his own protection, though. Walking out the back was no big deal if it put his mind at ease.
It wasn’t much of a walk. Jeremy’s apartment was on the third floor. We hurried down the steps to a beige door that led out into the back alley. Jeremy grasped the handle, but I stopped and touched his arm. All that talk about taking off at a moment’s notice came back to me. Was he seriously about to dash right out of town right now?
“Promise me you’ll tell me if this is so bad, or gets so bad, that you’re leaving San Jose. Please? I don’t want to be wondering what might have happened to you.”
His eyes softened even though the rest of his expression stayed tense. “All right,” he said. “If I head out, I’ll text you a picture of your incredible kitchen organizational skills in honor of today.”
It couldn’t be that big a problem if he could still joke around, right? But then he tugged me to him for one last kiss, so swift and hungry it left me reeling. Like the kind of kiss you’d give someone when you didn’t know if you’d ever see them again.
“Jeremy,” I started, but he shook his head and shoved open the door.
I hustled out into the alley and down it, past the garbage bins, my heart thudding. None of this made sense. My hand dropped to my purse, where I had my phone, but my data plan was way too limited to stream videos on the go. I’d have to check the video of the crash when I got home. Maybe there’d been more to it that would explain Jeremy’s reaction.
A bus was arriving at the stop right when I reached it. I hopped on and sank into one of the seats in the back. On a whim, I shot a quick glance over my shoulder out the window. No one was lurking on the street behind me. No one followed me onto the bus.
Jeremy’s paranoia was infecting me.
Of course, who knew if it was paranoia or a totally valid fear. I had no idea what he might have been through.
I wished he’d been willing to tell me. There had to be something I could do. But he’d hardly known me a week. Why would he trust me with all his secrets?
I’d thought I felt a connection between us. Not just sparks and chemistry, but a deeper understanding, as if we were on the same wavelength in some way. Had that only been wishful thinking?
I couldn’t keep stewing over it. I’d get home, dig up that video, and then at least I’d know more than I did now.
“Grace?”
My head jerked up. The bus had made a couple more stops, and I hadn’t been paying attention to who’d gotten on. Lloyd, my banker ex-boyfriend, was leaning against the pole beside my seat, smiling down at me. That vague, distant smile that had always made me feel as if half his mind was somewhere else the whole time we were together.
He ran a hand over his smooth black hair, slicked to the side with a little too much gel. “It’s been a wh
ile since I ran into you. How’s it going?”
He could act all casual because I’d been the one to break up with him, never mind that he’d strung me along for months before I’d finally found the spine to do it.
But as I opened my mouth I found I didn’t feel any anger about that. A lot had happened since then. Lloyd really didn’t matter.
I cared more about a guy I’d met a week ago than I did about this dude.
“Not bad,” I said, matching his casual tone. “Busy with work and looking after the house.” I didn’t ask how he was doing, because frankly I didn’t care about that either.
Not that it stopped him from telling me. “Good, good,” he said, nodding. His gaze had already drifted away from me. “I got a promotion at the bank last month. Brilliant times.”
“That’s nice.” I resisted the urge to add a yawn for good measure.
“Yeah, I just put down a deposit on a house. It’s the perfect place. My fiancé and I can’t wait to move in. Oh, hey, there’s a seat. Good seeing you.”
“Yeah,” I said dryly. Had he always been that self-centered and I’d just managed to overlook it, or had he gotten worse in the last three years?
I didn’t know what the hell was going on with Jeremy, but I couldn’t imagine going back to dating someone who treated me with that kind of blasé indifference after being kissed with the passion I’d felt just a few minutes ago. He’d better not take off. Apparently in the course of one afternoon, he’d ruined all other men for me.
When the bus finally reached my stop, I dashed from there to my front door. I tossed my purse on the table and sat down with my laptop. Time to dig up that video and figure out what Jeremy was so afraid of.
I narrowed the search results by location and date, and after that it was easy. Here it was. Crazy car crash stunt – check this guy out! What kind of stunt? Was Jeremy pulling me out of the way really that exciting? I mean, to anyone other than me.