It was Jason who suggested he go stay in New York for the week, essentially reversing places with me. Even though he worked remotely in Crystal Brook, he had insisted that I take the week off and not answer so much as one email.
As much as anyone probably could, he understood what I was going through.
And Gwen did too.
That was so much more than I could say for nearly everyone back in New York. “But you only dated for two months,” was what my co-worker Thea had said. The way the words slipped from between her lips had made it sound like that was a good thing — like I had less of a reason to grieve simply because mine and Peter’s time had gotten unexpectedly cut short.
She’d meant no harm by the words, I know. She’d actually been trying to uplift me. But what Thea didn’t know was all the things that had gotten stolen away from me prematurely. The chances I never took. The things I didn’t say.
And all because I thought there would be time.
Time to fall in love with him. Time to build a future I thought I’d never have. Time to finally trust someone enough to let them into my life in a significant way…
“…and you know that’s the case,” Gwen was saying in between bites of eggs.
I stared at her. “Huh?”
She chewed, swallowed, and was probably about to say something else, but the doorbell rang.
Gwen’s nose crinkled. “Dang, that was fast. And on Saturday too.”
I dropped my fork on the table and stood. “I’ll get it.”
“I’ll text Mom and tell her the repair guy is here.”
I trudged down the hallway and to the front door. Without bothering to look through the peephole, I grabbed the handle and yanked.
And then lost my breath. The man standing on the front stoop looked familiar — too familiar. With his dark brown hair, hazel eyes, and triangular jaw, he was everything that had been on my mind for the last two and a half months.
Peter.
But of course it wasn’t him. It was just some random guy who looked like him. This man was a little taller as well as more broad shouldered. He also looked slightly younger. He wore a black t-shirt and jeans, and his eyes went a little wider upon seeing me.
“Hi,” he said in a smooth, velvety voice.
“Hi. Come right in.”
“Um… all right.”
The man looked slightly put off but came in when I stepped aside. He glanced around the hallway, a slight smile on his face.
“I don’t know what the problem is,” I said, shutting the door. “My mom woke me up and said it was broken.”
His dark eyebrows bunched together. “What was broken?”
Footsteps sounded, and Gwen popped out of the kitchen. “Hey,” she said before stopping.
“Hi,” the man answered, still sounding slightly off.
Gwen stood there and looked at him while he just looked back.
“Gwen,” I said. “Do you know anything about what’s wrong with the freaking AC?”
She shook her head. “No.”
I sighed. “Well, whatever. You wanna see it?” I asked the man while managing to not look directly at him.
“I can take a look, sure.”
“Great. It’s right over here.”
I started walking, leading him down the long hallway to the back of the house where the main unit was near the downstairs guest room.
“I’m not really the best at this kind of stuff,” he said from behind me.
I tried not to scoff. His statement seemed like a weird thing for someone to admit while on the job, but whatever. “All right.”
I stopped at the large vent and waited. The man bent down and peeked through the vent.
“So is that your twin?” he asked, surprising me with his change of subject.
“Gwen? No. I’m a year and a half older. But everyone thinks we’re twins.”
“I’ve seen her around town,” he said, still peering at the vent. “But you don’t look identical, of course. More like fraternal.”
“Ah.” I wasn’t really interested in small talk. On top of that, I was already considering just climbing the stairs and going back to bed. Gwen, I was sure, would understand and not pressure me to go out and have a “fun day” with her.
The man scratched his head. “Do you have a screwdriver?”
“Yeah, my Dad’s got plenty in the garage. You don’t bring that stuff with you?”
He straightened up and looked at me. A whiff of mint mixed with something else — maybe bergamot — wafted in my direction. Unexpectedly, my stomach flipped.
“Why would I do that?” he asked.
I snorted. “I don’t know. Maybe because air and heating is your profession?”
One of his eyebrows twitched, and he looked even more confused. After a couple seconds, his expression softened, and an amused smile grew across his lips, exposing dimples high on each cheek.
“I’m not a repairman,” he said. “Is that what you thought I was?”
I stared at his dimples. “Eh…”
He chuckled. “I just came here to see if you’ve seen a gray cat anywhere.”
“Um,” I answered, still unable to form real words.
“My friend’s cat got out,” he explained. “She lives right down the street from you.”
“Oh.”
There. At least “oh” was close to an actual word.
“Dharma,” the man said.
“Everything happens for a reason.”
He grinned wider. “It’s a little more complicated than that. It depends on which religion you’re asking. But sure. The principle of cosmic order. That’s probably it in a nutshell.”
“Why are you mentioning it?” I slowly asked, a scary realization dawning on me as I spoke. First of all, the man I’d just invited into my parents’ house was a literal stranger. He claimed to be looking for a lost cat, but who knew if that really was the case. He could have been looking to rape someone — kill, maim, rob — that’s what he could have been looking for.
Although with looks like the ones he possessed, he probably had more trouble keeping women off of him.
Gwen. Her name was like a lifeline. Hopefully, if Cat Boy made any funny move on me, she’d have enough sense to figure out what was going on in the hallway and call the cops.
“Dharma is the cat’s name,” he answered, drawing me out of my frantic thought-stream.
“Oh.”
Gwen appeared over his shoulder in the kitchen doorway. “The repairman just called,” she said. “He’s on his way.”
“Right,” Cat Boy said before I could so much as draw a breath. “I apologize. I should have realized you thought I was someone else. I’m just looking for a cat.”
Gwen leaned against the doorway. “Which cat?”
“A gray one. With a pink collar that has a bell on it.”
Her eyes went wide. “Dharma? Is she okay?”
“Probably. She just didn’t come home yesterday, and her owner is freaking out.”
Gwen nodded. “Yeah, I know Whitney. I’ll keep an eye out for her.”
“Thanks.”
Gwen straightened up and took a step towards the guy. “I’m Gwen. That’s Claire.”
“Owen Burke.” He turned to face Gwen straight on. Seeing my opportunity, I slid sideways towards the staircase. So the man who I’d welcomed inside wasn’t a rapist. Great. That meant Gwen would be fine on her own. Which meant I could sneak away upstairs and disappear back into darkness.
If I were lucky, Peter would be in some of my dreams.
And if I were even luckier, my sleep would be dreamless.
“Claire,” Gwen nearly shouted. “Where are you going?”
I grabbed the end of the banister. “Just, uh, upstairs for something.”
“I should go,” Owen said, turning and looking right at me. His hazel gaze pierced my face and traveled to the soles of my feet, pinning me in place. “It was nice to meet you both. Sorry about the mix up.”
Owen laughed. “I really can give it a go if you want.” He still faced me as he spoke, even though Gwen was the one who was more interested in the conversation.
“No,” Gwen smiled. “Someone will be here soon. Thanks. It’s just ridiculous that we need AC this early in April.”
“Agreed.” He clapped his hands together. “Well, I’ll see you around, I’m sure. It was nice to meet you both.”
I lifted my hand in a half-ass wave.
“Nice to meet you too,” Gwen said. “Bye.”
Owen left, shutting the front door gently behind him.
“So,” Gwen cheerily said, turning to me. “What do you want to do? Mom’s gonna be back any minute, so if we want to bust out of here, we should go soon.”
“I don’t know. I’m feeling pretty tired.”
Gwen’s lips twisted, but she didn’t say anything. I stood still and just stared back at her. Out of anyone in my life, Gwen understood what I was going through the most. She had, after all, had her heart broken not too long ago. She hadn’t lost someone in the exact same way I had, but she’d spent a crazy number of months walking around with the pain of heartbreak dangling like a chain from her neck. Meeting Jason had helped her break free from that chain.
“I, uh…” I struggled to think of something else to add to the excuse.
“It’s all right.” Gwen smiled. “I’ll be down here if you need me.”
My heart cracked down the middle — this time out of gratitude and not from pain. “Thanks,” I rasped, emotion clogging my throat.
Desperate to not spend any more time conscious than was necessary, I turned and fled back up the stairs.
CHAPTER TWO
Claire
The rain came in waves, falling on the rooftop and street outside like there was a brigade of Gods tossing down buckets of water. I closed my eyes and listened to its heavy drumming combined with the other sounds around me. The softly playing jazz in the other room. A car going down the street, water flying up from underneath its wheels. Peter’s breath, rising and falling next to me.
His inhale and exhale came out evenly, slipping into an odd rhythm with the noises outside. The bed creaked, and before I even knew he was moving, I felt his hand on my waist. His fingers trailed along the bare space between my shirt and pants, lightly sweeping across my warm skin.
His lips brushed across the nape of my neck, so gentle that his breath was the harsher touch. They moved along my jaw and across my cheek, coming to rest on my lips.
Our mouths hovered together there, not kissing, just being. Existing in the same space. Breathing the same air. Having the same experience in every way possible.
A lightness washed over my body, and it felt like I was being lifted up by my heart. I became less and less solid, more and more gaseous. No. Not that… I became more like light.
I was the light shining down from the sky, and I was the light beaming out of everything. I was the up and the down of it all, the awesome and the insane. For the first time, I saw things clearly. I saw the miraculous in each and every moment, each blade of grass, and each supposed catastrophe. I saw the blessings cloaked beneath it all, saw how everything — whether it happens or doesn’t happen — as a gift.
I became one with God… and I knew that no matter what happened, I would never lose that knowing.
*
Voices woke me up. It was Mom and Dad, but they were far enough away that their voices were muffled. I let out a whimper of pain and sat up, rubbing my head. Apparently sleeping too much can be just as bad for you as sleeping too little. My temples pulsed, pounding out an aching rhythm. I’d drawn the curtains in the hopes of being able to fall back asleep, so the exact time was impossible to know. It could have been twenty minutes since I’d escaped back to bed and it could have been the next day.
The thin hum and the refreshing crispness in the room said the air conditioner had been fixed. Presumably not by Cat Boy — although maybe someone looking for a missing dog had come by and gotten it taken care of.
I swung out of bed and grabbed the jeans I’d dropped on the floor.
Mom and Dad’s voices were coming from behind their cracked bedroom door. I peered at it as I grabbed the banister and hit the first step towards the downstairs. Secret conversations taking place in my parents’ bedroom were never a good thing — unless it was Christmas time. My family was about as open as it went, and Mom and Dad had brought us kids up to not keep secrets from each other. If they had locked themselves away in order to have a conversation, it meant the matter was serious.
Were they talking about me?
If so, I didn’t want to know.
“Hi!”
I nearly tripped over the next step.
Gwen grimaced. “I’m sorry. I thought you heard me.”
“No,” I gasped. “What time is it?”
“Um, I think it’s almost, uh… five.”
“Jesus.” I rubbed the side of my face. “My head is killing me.”
“You need some coffee.”
“That’s your answer to everything.”
Her eyebrows wiggled “And sometimes it’s true.”
I smirked. “Right now it is.” I went past her and down the rest of the steps. “I don’t think coffee is going to make everything better though.”
“What if there’s Bailey’s in it?”
I turned to look at her still perched up on the steps. “Okay, you’ve got me there.”
I waited outside for Gwen while she informed the rest of our family where we were headed. The sun slanted down through the tree branches across the street, elongating not just shadows but the whole world. I felt as if I’d walked onto an alien planet. The last time I’d slept all day I’d been sick from a crazy sunburn. Even then it hadn’t been a real sleep, just a kind of sporadic half dazed existence.
Presumably — since I hadn’t actually gone outside yet that day — the earlier heat had been stifling, but now it was hovering around the simmering point. August — every single August in North Carolina — would bring it up to a ferocious boil. Though it felt hot at that moment, I knew the temperature was only a hint of what was to come.
Gwen came out, a light green army jacket draped over her arm.
“Why do you need that?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Just in case we stay out late. It could get cooler later.”
“Are you planning on getting crazy and pulling an all-nighter?”
“You never know.”
“You wake up at, like, three in the morning,” I bluntly stated. “Twenty dollars says you’ll be yawning by seven o’clock.”
Instead of answering, she looped her arm through mine and led us down the sidewalk. We were quiet as we ambled down the street towards the local watering hole. The dream I’d only just awoken from swirled around inside of me, gaining momentum. It churned deep in my stomach, at one point making me feel as if I might throw up.
“Oh,” Gwen said. “Before I forget. Danny wants us to bring him back some spicy wings.”
“Okay.”
Spicy wings. Damn cock sucking spicy wings. I hated them simply because they existed. In a world of tragedy and loss, how could my brother even be thinking of bar food?
Oh, that’s right. The world was still turning. Some people were still getting up and doing the same things they did every day, going to the same jobs, having the same conversations, thinking the same thoughts, and eating the same food they always ate. Honestly, sometimes I forgot.
Downtown was only a few minutes’ walk from the house. When Gwen and I were teenagers, we regularly snuck out of our bedroom and climbed down our mom’s trellis in order to scurry downtown to meet our friends in the courtyard there. In some ways, I missed those days. Being a teenager meant that I was full of hope. Not only did I believe everything in the world was
possible, I believed it all belonged to me. Loss and disappointment were never possibilities. When you’re that young and you look to the future, for some reason you can only see all the things you’re sure will go right, not any of the parts that could ever possibly go wrong.
But there I was. Less than a year shy of thirty and feeling nothing like what I thought I would.
The top of the bell tower peeked between the trees’ canopies. Lush and green, the trees were practically singing with joy over the early arrival of Spring. I stared at the bell tower, intuitively feeling that if I only gazed at it long enough, it would dissolve and be replaced with something that could actually comfort me.
Gwen cleared her throat. “Do you… want to… talk about anything?”
I let my eyes fall from the bell tower. Inches away, Gwen gazed at me with anxious eyes. Surely she knew I’d been caught crying in the bathroom at work. Thea had found me, which led to her calling our boss, who then insisted I take a break. And I was sure our boss told his fiancée about nearly everything, because Jason and Gwen were that kind of couple. Even if they weren’t, it would probably have been Jason’s duty to get in touch with my family and let them know I was on the verge of a breakdown.
And most of my existence took place right dab in the middle of that couple. Sometimes it was like a really weird and awkward love triangle — one involving my sister and no romantic feelings whatsoever on my part.
I took a deep breath and tried to express my thoughts the nicest way I could.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
I hadn’t meant for the words to sound so bitter. I exhaled sharply through my nose and tried again. “I mean, I’m fine. Thanks.”
“Wow. I didn’t expect you to say that.”
I snapped my eyes at her. A little breeze kicked up and lifted the hair around her shoulders. “Huh?” I asked.
“You’re not fine. Don’t even try lying to me, Claire. I’m not a dumbass. If you were fine, you wouldn’t be here, sleeping the entire day away.”
I pursed my lips. She had me there.
We stopped at the corner and waited for the light to change. Ahead and down the block to the right lay our destination, Pit Stop. Nearly every seat out front was occupied. My insides curdled at the sight. For some weird reason, I had just assumed it would be a quiet night downtown.
Crushed (Crystal Brook Billionaires) Page 2