This Point Forward

by Katrina Abbott

  He shook his head. “I can’t. I have stuff to do. I just thought I’d stop in and say hi.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling like I’d just somehow made all of this a thousand times more awkward than it would have been if it had just been me and Dave. “I’ll walk you out,” I glanced at Dave over my shoulder. “Back in a minute.”

  He nodded and I followed Rob out of the room, closing the door behind me. Two steps later, Rob stopped abruptly, causing me to bash into him with an “Oof.” But before I could even catch my breath or tell him to stop doing that, he whipped around. “What was that in there?”

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I looked back toward the study room, as though the answer to his question was printed on the door. It wasn’t. I turned back to Rob. He lifted an eyebrow, waiting.

  He sighed and shook his head. “Emmie, I told you, we can’t do this. Though I think what happened in there was about something else.”

  I blinked.

  “Wasn’t it?”

  I blinked again.

  “Em?”

  “Maybe,” I admitted.

  “Were you using me to try to make him jealous?”

  I was about to play cute, but the way he worked his jaw told me he was pretty pissed already and doing that might make him angrier. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Not to make him jealous...” Not exactly.

  “What then?”

  I looked down at my hands. “I...he moved on so quickly. And I guess...”

  “What, Em?”

  I shrugged. “I guess I wanted him to think I’d found someone. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have attacked you like that. I’m so sorry.” The last part came out as a whisper as my throat tightened around the words.

  He exhaled, making me look up at him so I could see just how mad he was, but the anger seemed to have dissipated. “I get it. No, really. Sorry, you just freaked me out there and...well, I didn’t know what was going on, that’s all.”

  My heart lurched in relief. “Thank you. I’m such a...” Before I could finish my thought, he pulled me into a hug, his big arms coming around me and pressing me into his chest. I took a deep breath, pulling comfort from his embrace, his scent, the steady heart beating under my cheek.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice muffled against him.

  “It’s okay,” he rumbled and then pulled back from me, making me want to weep from the loss of his strength and warmth. “We’re good,” he said, giving me a smile.

  “You’re a good guy,” I blurted, looking up into his chocolaty eyes, feeling myself melting a little under his gaze. I wanted to be back in his arms, but I needed to back off a little—I’d totally spooked him today. “Thanks for understanding,” I said, keeping my hands to myself.

  He nodded.

  “I should go back in there,” I said.

  “I did want to tell you, though,” he began, the smile dissolving from his face.

  “What?”

  “That guy—the one who fixed the dean’s window—you don’t need to worry about him.”

  My stomach rolled at the mention of him. “What do you mean?”

  “Just like I said. You don’t need to worry about him.” Which told me exactly nothing, but for some reason he looked conflicted, like he didn’t want to tell me.

  “What did you find out?”

  He looked at me for a long moment. “I spoke with Mike Doyle and he just told me he’s had a rough go, but he’s not dangerous or anything.”

  “What about the tattoo? The part about killing someone?”

  “Mike wouldn’t say.” But the way he looked away, I knew he was lying, I just couldn’t figure out why.

  “You know,” I said. “Why won’t you tell me?”

  He took a breath. “Mike says he was persecuted by the whole town because of what happened and is just now starting to get his life together. He wouldn’t tell me much of what happened. Anyway, I feel like it’s not my story to tell. Just know that no one was at risk because of him being here. Okay?”

  Persecuted by the whole town and then I called the cops on him. Ugh. I may as well have chased him off with a torch, pitchfork and a mob of angry villagers. No wonder he was so mad at me. I suddenly felt like bashing my head against the wall for being so stupid.

  But I still had to know: “Did he kill someone? He told me himself that he did.”

  Rob looked at me again for a long moment and must have realized I wasn’t going to give up. He sighed and said, “Yes.”

  “And he did time?”

  He nodded. “But that’s all I’m telling you. You’ll just have to trust me that he’s not dangerous.”

  I stared at him for what felt like an eternity, but I knew he wasn’t giving anything else up. As it was, I’d probably pushed him more than he was comfortable with. I didn’t even dare ask for the guy’s full name. Resigned to accept his answer, I thanked him.

  “I’d better go back,” I said again, nodding my head behind me toward the study room.

  His eyes drifted down to my mouth. I knew what that meant. “One for the road?” I said.

  His eyes darted back up to mine. “We can’t keep doing this.”

  “I know,” I said as I stepped closer and kissed him anyway, knowing he wouldn’t stop me.

  Before it got heated, I pulled back. “I’ll text you later,” I said before I turned and left him.

  “Em?”

  I looked over my shoulder.

  “Let it be. You don’t need to know everything.”

  It said a lot that he knew me well enough to know I wasn’t satisfied with what he’d told me. But it also told me that he really didn’t know me if he thought I could let it go.

  If at First You Don't Succeed...

  Googling in the dark in the middle of the night feels kind of illicit and a little bit CIA, but really all it meant was that I was wide awake at three a.m. and knew I wasn’t getting back to sleep anytime soon. Especially when my mind was whirring with thoughts of kissing Rob, and also thoughts of the window guy, desperate to know his back story. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to know what had happened to him so badly, nor did I want to think too much about why, but I needed to know more than I needed anything at this precise time. Even sleep. Though I was pretty desperate for that, too.

  But Googling wasn’t turning up anything and I was starting to wonder if his name wasn’t actually Danny or Daniel or if his crime(s) had even happened locally. There were a lot of little towns around, but it would take me forever to look up each one and search from there.

  I glanced at the clock and snorted when I thought that all I had was time, but I realized there was a good chance even those searches would be fruitless and I was better off finding out his name first.

  After a while, I came up with the perfect way to get his name, but it wasn’t going to work in the middle of the night.

  Turning off my screen, I crawled back into bed to at least try to rest, though the window guy’s eyes haunted what little restless sleep I managed to get.

  ~ ♥ ~

  “A1 Windows,” a deep voice said after picking up on the second ring. Good customer service, I thought in the point two seconds I had before I spoke.

  “Oh hello,” I said, trying to sound professional and confident. “It’s Emmeline Somerville calling from the Rosewood Academy. We found a wallet on campus and it obviously wasn’t for one of our girls. You sent someone over on Monday to fix a window, and the security guard on duty that day is off sick, so I don’t have access to the sign-in sheets. I just wanted to check and see if it belongs to your worker. What’s his name?”

  “Oh, uh, sure...let me check the roster and find out who it was.”

  He put me on hold, forcing me to listen to the local elevator music station. My nerves rattled around in my chest, but I was relieved it hadn’t been the guy I was calling about who had answered the phone—that was the one weak part of my plan.

  I didn’t have to wait long before the music clicked off. “Hi yeah, that was
Danny, but he’s here and says he didn’t lose his wallet, so you’ll have to keep looking.”

  “Are you sure?” fell out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying. I cringed, squeezing my eyes closed as I prayed the guy hadn’t been listening.

  There was a pause as the guy was probably staring at the phone, thinking I was nuts. “Is he sure he didn’t lose his wallet? He seemed pretty sure that the one he pulled out of his pocket just now was his,” the guy said, obviously amused.

  “Right, of course. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome, Ms. Somerville.”

  Oh God yes, because I’d been stupid enough to use my actual name. I hung up quickly before I could manage to embarrass myself even more.

  ~ ♥ ~

  So the fake wallet thing didn’t work, making me realize I probably had to do something more...direct, I guess. Like hang around the A1 Windows storefront. Because finding out more about the dangerously sexy ex-con was now my life’s work and had turned me into a stalker.

  I mean, it’s not like I had anything else going on in my life like upcoming exams or fixing things with the cute older boy I’d spooked or the Santa Hop in less than two weeks or that whole lack of sleep thing. Nope, my schedule was wide open. Right.

  So I tried to figure out a way to accidentally-on-purpose run into the window guy, just to make sure he knew just how sorry I was about the whole calling the cops incident. I Googled the shop and looked it up on the map. “Bingo,” I said to my empty dorm room when I realized exactly where the shop was located and the perfect plan gelled in my head. I just had to wait until Tuesday to execute it.

  Blood from Stones

  “Seriously?” Chelly said with one of her perfectly executed looks of exasperation. “You’re dragging me to the blood donor clinic?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s your civic duty, especially as an O negative blood type. Do you know that’s the universal donor?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Of course I do, because you say it every time you drag me to the clinic.”

  “So why do you put up such a fight every single time?”

  “If I wanted to give up my blood so easily, I’d call up a vampire. Plus: needles.”

  “Maybe that male nurse will be there today,” I said, like I did every time.

  She let out a long-suffering sigh as she undid the top two buttons of her white blouse under her Rosewood blazer—an action that would get her in trouble with the dean if she was around. “Fine,” she said, obviously unconcerned with the Rosewood dress code. “But you owe me.”

  Whatever. I had known she’d give in because deep down, she recognized that donating blood was an easy and good thing to do. And, though she never spoke about it, I knew that her little brother had been very sick when he was younger and had needed several transfusions. So though she’d never admit it, it was personal for her. I had a feeling her dramatic protests were more for show than due to any actual aversion to losing a pint of blood.

  Which meant the three of us (Kaylee was meeting us in the lobby) would be getting on the Rosewood bus and heading into town to donate blood with a bunch of other girls. At the blood donor clinic which was right across the street from A1 Windows.

  Fine, all right, I’ll admit it was a bit opportunistic, but the fact is that I round up the girls to go donate blood as often as we are able because of course, it’s an important thing to do. This wasn’t a new thing I’d orchestrated just to meet up with him. So what if it happens to be right near where that guy works? So what if I were to run into him? Pure coincidence.

  That was my story, anyway.

  So we piled onto the bus and I debated telling the girls about what had happened as we made the short drive into town, but got caught up listening to Kaylee tell us excitedly about how Declan was flying her home with him for Christmas. I was of course happy for her—and who wouldn’t be—for getting the opportunity to travel to London to spend the holidays with her hot future duke. But at the same time, I was silently now dreading the holidays even more. I’d thought I’d at least have one friend to spend the holiday with but now realized I was probably going to be the one girl stuck on campus over Christmas, with maybe the exception of some of the international exchange students who didn’t celebrate. Together we would make up the dean’s Christmas pity party invite list. Maybe I’d see if one of the other girls would take pity on me and take me home with them—a friend’s pity was still better than the dean’s. And at least we’d have some fun, right?

  Anyway, by the time Kaylee was wrapping up telling us about her plans (and I swear, I’d never seen that girl talk so much—she was SO head over heels with that duke that she was the cutest thing ever!) the bus was pulling up to the curb out front of the blood donor clinic.

  As we waited for the girls in front of us to pile off, Chelly turned to me and quietly said, “So, what’s your deal?”

  “Huh?” I said.

  She clucked her tongue at me. “Don’t give me that ‘huh?’ crap. What’s going on with you?”

  “You’ll have to be more specific,” I asked, sincerely having no idea what she was talking about.

  She glanced over at Kaylee, but she was standing in the middle aisle with her back to us, waiting her turn to file to the front of the bus.

  Chelly kept her voice low, but said, ticking off on her fingers, “You’re quiet and preoccupied and have been like that for a week.”

  I shrugged. “Exams?”

  Her eyes rolled up so far, I could almost only see the whites. “Right. You’re telling me those giant bags under your eyes are from staying up late studying?”

  “Maybe.”

  She crossed her arms. “And why do you keep looking out the window. What’s going on across the street?”

  It was only then that I realized I was glancing out the window towards A1 Windows. I dragged my eyes back to focus on hers. “Nothing’s going on across the street,” I said, which was the truth.

  “Come on,” Kaylee said, making us both turn and realize we were the last ones on the bus.

  “Go on ahead,” Chelly said, giving Kaylee a dismissing wave over her shoulder. Kaylee looked at me, but I shrugged like I had no idea, so she turned and left the bus.

  Chelly stared at me, her gaze unwavering. It didn’t take long before I buckled. I told her everything: my sleeping problems, my situation with Rob and now this new obsession with the window guy.

  Well, as much as I could tell her in four minutes as we slowly exited the bus.

  At first, she didn’t say anything, but then gave me a decisive nod that made my stomach roll over. I was familiar with that nod; I’d been one to deliver that nod, so I knew to fear the nod because it meant she was up to something. “What?” I said. “What are you going to do?”

  She looked at me and gave me a smile. “Well first off, I’m moving into your dorm room with you, whether you like it or not, and then...urgle...” the last bit was a bit strangled as I threw my arms around her and squeezed her hard, fighting back tears of relief and love. She laughed, but didn’t pull away. At first. Then it was getting weird, but I was so overwhelmed, I almost couldn’t bring myself to let her go.

  “Emmie,” she said with fake scorn. “This is getting embarrassing. Pull yourself together. I mean come on, I don’t hug dudes this long. And no offense, but you are no dude.”

  I pulled back finally and wiped an errant tear away. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I just wish you would have told me before now. It’s not like I love living with Naomi. I thought you’d like having a room to yourself.”

  I shook my head.

  “Okay, well I’ll move my stuff down tonight. But until then,” she glanced over at A1 Windows. “How are we going to figure out who this guy is?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve already made an idiot of myself in front of him. Twice.”

  She looked back at me and nodded again, grabbing my arm and turning me toward the blood donor clini
c. “Let’s go do our ‘good deed,’” she said, doing air quotes, which apparently weren’t just a guy thing. “And we’ll think on it while we’re in there. I’m sure between us we’ll come up with something.”

  It turned out, we didn’t have to.

  No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

  We walked into the clinic and up to the reception desk, catching up with the other girls who were waiting to get checked in. “What’s going on?” Kaylee asked.

  I opened my mouth, but before I could even say anything, Chelly shrugged and said, “I can’t deal with Naomi anymore, so while Brooklyn’s away, I’m bunking with Emmie. I was just begging her if I could, but being the awesome person she is, of course she didn’t mind.” She turned and gave me a quick wink.

  Kaylee nodded knowingly, because hello: Naomi. So what I felt was a huge thing, was now a non-issue, thanks to Chelly. I squeezed her hand in lieu of a hug and she just gave me a tiny shake of her head that I knew meant it was nothing. But it wasn’t and I hoped she got that.

  Anyway, that was private, thanks to her, so after that little exchange, we turned back to reception to get checked in. They had the process down to a science and were expecting us, so we all got processed fairly quickly and met up again in the chairs, waiting to get called for the little iron test, blood typing and then donation. One by one we got called in, each by a different nurse, Chelly exhaling and muttering something about “a waste” when the hot male nurse was the one to call Kaylee first.

  It didn’t stop her from ogling him as he walked away, then muttering about his cute, scrubs-clad butt, though. Not that any of us weren’t looking at the same thing.

  I got called next and followed my young (female) nurse to the big recliners and chatted with her amiably while she got set up and prepped my arm. I’d never met her before, and she told me she was new to the clinic, having been hired in the summer. Just as I was about to ask her where she got her cute earrings, she said she was ready and I turned away so I didn’t have to watch her slide the needle into my vein.

  As the cold of the alcohol wipe faded and the needle pierced my skin, my eyes were drawn to the little dinette area where the volunteers gave out snacks and juice to the donors after they were relieved of a pint of blood. They made us all sit there for at least a half hour to make sure we didn’t end up passed out on the floor or something and doted on us, serving the donors like they were royalty.