by Hart, Eve R.
She got into her car and drove away without so much as a glance back at me.
Yeah.
I definitely fucked that up.
What the hell was I going to do now?
“The fuck you do?” Sketch said out of nowhere.
“I fucked up,” I said with a hint of desperation in my tone.
“How?”
“Didn’t tell her who I was when I went to see her at the diner.”
He hummed like he didn’t know what to say back to that.
“Well, at least it wasn’t the sight of your dick that had her hightailin’ it outta here,” he eventually said and slapped me on the back while laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world.
“You’re an asshole,” I grumbled.
“Don’t I know it, brother.” There was a lingering pause and I didn’t care enough right now to fill it. “I’ll go check on her in a bit,” he said in a more serious tone.
“Thanks.”
I went back into my room and closed the door. This had not turned out like I’d hoped. I wanted to blame Sketch but really it was all on me. I hadn’t been honest when I talked to her in the diner. I may have had good intentions behind it but that wasn’t a good enough excuse.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Claire
I heard Lavinia’s key in the door but I didn’t move off of the couch. My mind was still in a daze and I was starting to think that I didn’t have it in me to process everything.
I couldn’t tell you how I felt.
It was a range of emotions all at once and none of them seemed to go together.
“Whoa,” Lavinia said as she dropped her keys in the bowl next to the door. “What happened to you?”
She plopped down on the couch beside me.
“You remember that guy that came into the diner a few weeks back?”
“The sexy man that made you sigh?” she asked with a giggle.
“Yeah, that one. Well, turns out you were right about him,” I said and shook my head. “We both kind of were, actually.”
“Okay, I’m lost. Did you see him again? I thought you were going over to Sketch’s place so that one of his friends could show you how to use your laptop or something. Right?” She sounded genuinely confused.
Which I couldn’t blame her, I was sort of coming at her mid-story.
“Oh, I did,” I said with a small smile. “And the guy that Sketch set me up with for that… he’s the guy from the diner.”
“Oh, really?” she asked and her eyebrows nearly touched her hairline.
“Yes,” I said with a nod. “I walked up the stairs like Sketch directed me and found the room that Sketch told me to find. The door was half open and since I heard Sketch’s voice inside, I just stepped right on up in the space. Get this…”
I paused for dramatic effect.
“What? What! Woman, you’re driving me crazy. Tell me!”
“He had a sign on his door that said ‘I’m naked in here, deal with it’ and I asked if it was for real and then I saw that it was.” I tried to hold back a giggle.
“He was naked?” she asked, shock clear as day on her face.
“Yep,” I said and popped the P. “As the day he was born.”
And now she was giggling uncontrollably.
“It’s not funny!” I screeched. “I saw it all.”
“Oh, it’s hilarious. And I bet it was glorious.”
“You don’t even know. I mean, it’s clear he is built, but just… oh, wow.” I could feel my cheeks getting red.
“Well,” she said and tried to calm her hysterics. “So he has a weird thing. Actually, it’s not that weird. It could be worse.”
“I know. But it’s not even that.”
She snorted as if she just couldn’t hold her laughter back any longer.
“You said butt.”
“Oh my God. Really?!” I broke into laughter right along with her.
“Okay, okay, okay.” She fanned herself like it would stop her from busting out laughing again. “But seriously. What’s the problem?”
“Do you remember that night?” I asked even though I hated to.
Neither one of us wanted to remember that time in our lives let alone that night.
And as her face went stone flat and her eyes looked away, I knew I’d killed our fun vibe.
“Some of it,” she said in a whisper.
I didn’t keep anything from her. We had become best friends. I guess going through something that traumatic together kind of linked you for life. So, she knew about Sketch and how he was connected to me and how he was also connected to the men that saved us that night.
“He was there that night. And I think I remember him.” I blindly touched my fingertips to the tattoo on the inside of my wrist. “I’m pretty sure he was the one that carried me out of that place. He saw me, Lavinia. Saw it all.”
“Oh,” she said like she finally got it.
We didn’t say anything for a long time. I didn’t think there really was anything you could say to that.
It changed things. He went from this dream guy that in the back of my mind, I hoped to see again to something real. Too real. Like now I knew that he’d seen me at my worst. He probably knew more about me than Lavinia did because he was friends with Sketch. He had been there on the worst night of my life and had seen the things that had been done to me.
How could he even look at me knowing all that?
And then all my mind wanted to do was run away with all the bad things.
Like, did he envision all the scars on my body as he sat there and talked to me? Did he just see me as some kind of strung out junkie that got herself into some trouble? Did he think I was trouble?
I shook my head but it didn’t clear the thoughts from my head.
A tear slipped down my cheek and I quickly wiped it away.
“Don’t cry,” Lavinia said as she wrapped her arms around me.
And because she was my rock, I let all those thoughts flow out of my mouth as I bawled my eyes out.
“How can I even face him again? How humiliating was that? I mean, I was forced into all of those things but he doesn’t know that. He probably just thinks I’m some junkie homeless girl that was desperate for someone to take care of me.”
I sucked in a jagged breath but it didn’t stop the snot and tears from flowing down my face.
“He saw what they did to me.” I closed my mouth and pressed my lips together. Only, I quickly realized that I couldn’t breathe through my nose at the moment and so I let my jaw go slack.
“Honey, no,” she said as her hand ran down my arm trying to soothe me back to calm. It wasn’t working but I let her continue to do it anyway because I was needy like that. “You don’t know that. Sure, Sketch is… well, I don’t really have a word for Sketch. But my point is, those guys rushed in and saved us. They could have gotten themselves killed but they still did it. They have to have some kind of softness in their hearts to do something like that.”
“Yeah, but still…”
“No,” she said firmly. “No, but still. End all those thoughts right now. I say you should talk to him. Who knows, maybe there is something there. Or maybe you gain a big, sexy, protective friend. Either way, it can’t be that bad. And besides, it sounds like you two are even. He saw you naked. You saw him naked. You know?”
I choked out a laugh.
“His naked is so much better than mine,” I said trying to sound like I was joking around.
“To you, maybe. But what if he doesn’t think so. I mean now, not from back then. You know what I mean.”
“I think so,” I replied with a hint of confusion in my tone. I was pretty sure I got what she was trying to say, but it didn’t really make me feel any better.
I couldn’t imagine getting naked in front of someone now. I didn’t even get naked in front of Lavinia. I always locked the door whenever I changed or showered because I didn’t even take the chance that she might see them.
I
was… quite ugly now. Though they stitched me up, I still had noticeable scars all over. Nasty reminders of that night every time I looked at myself.
“You know what we need?” she asked as she patted my leg and hopped up off the couch.
“What?”
“Pizza, ice cream, and a funny movie,” she said with a wide smile as she retrieved her phone from the side pocket of her purse.
I looked at my phone then and saw I had a missed text from Sketch.
“We got room for a skinny, tattooed asshole?” I asked with a laugh.
“There’s always room for Sketch,” she said with a smile. “I’ll order a couple of extra.”
“Good idea,” I said knowing that Sketch could put some food away. I had no idea how the hell he was still so skinny. I wanted to curse him but couldn’t. I kind of loved him like a brother.
And that was how the three of us spent the night, laughing at stupid things while trying not to throw up all the food we gorged ourselves on.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Claire
“Okay,” Lavinia called out from the front of the apartment. “I’m off to work. See you in twelve hours. Enjoy the day off.”
“Bye!” I yelled out just before she closed the door behind her.
You bet your sweet bottom I was going to enjoy my day off. I had grand plans of doing absolutely nothing. I had been looking forward to this day for three weeks now.
I had found that I liked to work and so I did it as often as possible. I was always picking up shifts and I was first on the list of who to call when they needed someone. I almost always went in.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to work before. I think it was that I didn’t know what I would be good at. Or there was that thing of having a hard time whenever I did try to look for a job. No one wanted to hire a girl without a work history or sometimes even an address.
For the first time, I felt good about my life. I felt proud to be where I was. Yeah, it kind of sucked— no, really fucking sucked, that I had to go through all that shit to get here. But now that I was here, I was determined to keep climbing my way to the top of the mountain. I wanted this life. I wanted to wake up every day and know that I did all this. I paid for the roof over my head. I paid for the lights that I used. Well, half of it because Lavinia and I split the bills, but that was not the point.
I was in charge of my own life.
Me.
And I was going to make the most of it now that I’d found a path that I could walk on my own.
Now, onto my relaxing time that I so desperately deserved.
But first, I told myself that I was going to clean the kitchen.
There was something about having a neat and orderly kitchen that made every day better. I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t even want to try.
I grabbed my phone, picked a playlist that would keep me pumped, and then got to work.
Thirty minutes later, the kitchen was spotless and I was ready for a shower.
As I walked by the cute little table Lavinia and I picked out together, I caught sight of the laptop that Sketch had gotten me.
I really needed to get him to stop doing things for me. While it was nice and I was grateful, I really wanted to do things on my own. I needed to make him understand that he didn’t need to take care of me anymore. But that was something he was having a hard time grasping. Old habits and all that, I guessed.
Of course looking at the thing only reminded me of the man I had been trying hard to get out of my mind.
I shook my head and walked on without giving the laptop another thought for now.
I was toweling off my hair when I thought I heard a knock at the door. I paused and listened but didn’t hear another one. With a shrug, I went back to my hair.
Nope, there it was again. Yes, someone was at the door.
I grabbed a sweatshirt and threw it on over my tee because I was still self-conscious about my arms. The marks were small but they were there and the last thing I wanted was for people looking at them and only seeing a drug addict.
I checked my phone really fast just to make sure Sketch hadn’t sent me a text letting me know he was heading over like he always did. There wasn’t one. And with Lavinia at work, I had no clue who it was.
“W-who is it?” I asked and I knew I sounded shaky. I didn’t know anyone else, not really.
“It’s Cable, Claire.”
His voice filtered through the door sounding calm and smooth. It made me weak in the knees and I gasped so loud I was sure he heard it. I almost didn’t trust myself to open the door.
But when I did I was met with a wide but almost shy smile.
“Hi,” he breathed out like he’d been holding his breath to see if I would open the door.
“Hi,” I said a little starstruck as I got lost in his dark brown eyes. So dark they almost looked black. Which should have been terrifying but oddly, there was a warmth in them. Like a little twinkle shining so brightly that it chased the darkness away. I cleared my throat and shook my head trying to clear my thoughts. “What are you doing here?”
“I, um,” he said and then paused. He bit the inside of his cheek and I wondered if he was nervous. That was kind of cute. “Wanted to apologize for not telling you who I was at the diner. I just… uh, I guess I just wanted to see how you were doing without bringing back those memories for you.”
Oh, shit. Now I was crying. Not hysterically, but there definitely were hot tears rolling down my cheeks.
“Shit,” he breathed out looking a little panicked. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. I’m sorry, Claire.”
I shook my head because I couldn’t make the words come out.
“Can I hug you?” he asked and damn if it didn’t make me cry harder.
“Please,” I choked out and before I could even inhale, his arms were around me and my nose was smashed into his hard chest.
“I’m coming in,” he said and then he was lifting me up, bridal style, and carrying me over to the couch. I heard the door click softly closed and I realized that we were in my apartment alone.
He didn’t loosen his hold on me even after he sat down.
And I kind of didn’t mind one little bit being cradled by him while I sat on his lap.
He smelled so nice. And his beard was surprisingly soft against my forehead. If I had the option to stay here forever I would be tempted to take it. No, that was a lie, I would definitely take it.
“What are your plans today?” he asked after he gave me a long moment to just take in his warmth.
“It’s my day off,” I said excitedly as I pulled back just enough so I could see his face. “I have a bunch of nothing planned. I was going to watch a movie. Maybe do my toenails. Definitely eat some junk food. You know, relax.”
“I can do that,” he said with a smile and I couldn’t even be mad that he’d sort of just crashed his way into my plans.
“You can do my nails?” I asked with a laugh.
“Oh, well. Sure, why not. I’ve never done nails before but I can try. Just don’t judge me, okay?”
“You’d do that?” I asked completely shocked that he didn’t turn it down right away. Hell, I had been joking but if he was offering…
“For you,” he said, his eyes boring into mine. “I would. I’d probably do anything to keep that smile on your face.”
I ducked my head to hide my blush.
“Come on,” he said softly and patted my thigh. “You get… whatever it is you need to do nail things and tell me where the movie stuff is.”
I jumped up like an excited kid, smile wide across my face.
“We have all the channels,” I said grabbing the remote and handing it to him. “And Sketch bought me one of those gaming system things. Netflix is on there.”
“Sounds like we have a lot of options.”
“I’ll be right back,” I said as I dashed off to the bathroom to grab my nail polish.
As I stood there trying to pick out what color I felt like
, I realized that I was way too comfortable around him. I couldn’t figure out why. It felt like I’d known him for like forever. But I didn’t know a damn thing about him.
I mean…
I knew he was nice. Sweet. He seemed really caring. He was big and hella sexy. He was strong and soft at the same time.
But I didn’t know know anything about him.
I couldn’t decide if that mattered or not.
I thought back to what Lavinia had said to me.
I was going to take this opportunity to get to know him. Yes. And I was going to look past my insecurities and negative thoughts so that I could let him see me. The real me.
“You okay in there?” he called out.
“Oh, yeah,” I yelled back. I shook myself out of my daze, grabbed the first color my eyes landed on, and dashed back to the living room. “Sorry, I couldn’t pick a color.” I held up the bottle with a shrug.
“Green’s my favorite color,” he stated but for some stupid reason, it made me smile.
So then we watched a movie. It took twenty minutes to find something but then we settled in. The polish sat there untouched and I wasn’t going to make the first move. I really hadn’t expected him to do it but I was curious to see him try.
We sat there on the couch, a half a cushion of space between us. He was so big he took up most of our small, dainty couch, but I was doing my best not to crowd him.
Halfway through the movie, he reached over and picked up the nail polish. I pretended like I didn’t notice but I could see him examine the bottle out of the corner of my eye. Without a word, he reached down and brought my foot up to rest in his lap. I turned and leaned my back on the arm of the couch to make it less awkward for us both.
Then he was hunched over and concentrating too hard as he began to paint my toenails.
I died!
Yep.
I melted and floated up to heaven right then.
I turned my head so I could watch him with all my attention because I sure as hell didn’t want to miss a second of this.