Beautiful Mistake

by Vi Keeland

  There was no yelling.

  There was no telling me I was better off with another man.

  There was only me and him—and this kiss.

  This kiss.

  Us.

  We couldn’t get close enough. Our limbs entangled, his hard body keeping mine in place. We were hungry for each other. I had no fight left in me. My head was spinning, and I was unable to form a coherent thought when our wild kiss finally broke.

  Caine was panting, his voice hoarse. “Can you keep quiet for just a minute now?”

  I managed to nod.

  “Good.” His grip on me tightened, but he pulled back enough to look in my eyes. “I said you were better off with him than me. But you didn’t let me finish.”

  I held my breath, waiting to hear the rest.

  Caine looked away in thought. “I left last night, thinking it was the right thing to do. I’ve never had a relationship longer than a few months, and I fuck up everything good around me.”

  “But you don’t—”

  Caine covered my lips with two fingers, silencing me. He closed his eyes and shook his head. Opening them, he chuckled. “God, you really never shut the fuck up.” Then he leaned his forehead against mine. “Let me finish.”

  I nodded.

  “You might be better off with him than me, but I’m a selfish bastard. And I’m selfish enough to not walk away when I should and to ask you to be with me until I fuck it up so badly that you run the other way.”

  Looking into his eyes, I realized he believed every word he was saying. For whatever reason, he thought he wasn’t worthy of a chance—that things would inevitably end badly. A gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach warned me I was going to get hurt, but I tamped it down.

  “Will you tell me why you think you’re going to fuck things up?”

  “It’s just history, Rachel.”

  “So we’ll learn from it. But I can’t do that if I don’t know what there is to avoid.”

  Caine looked back and forth between my eyes. “You’ll tell that douchebag you’re not interested?”

  My brows drew. “Douchebag?”

  “Your roomie. Davis.”

  I didn’t bother to tell him I’d already planned on telling Davis I wasn’t interested. Let him think it was his victory. “Yes.”

  “Fine. We’ll talk later.”

  Of course, I immediately started to protest. “Later? Why can’t—”

  Caine silenced me with a kiss. Again.

  Later works.

  I listened to Caine’s heartbeat as my head rested on his chest.

  “In high school, I had a girlfriend for a few months. I cheated on her.”

  His voice was low, and I had to move my ear away from his heart to be able to hear. Turning my head, I rested my chin atop my hands. The room was dark, although my eyes had adjusted enough to see him as he spoke. We were both naked, and I was feeling pretty content.

  “You were young.”

  “With her twenty-two-year-old sister.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Well, that still sounds like you were young. She was older and should have known better.”

  “My first year of college, I met Abby. We’d been dating for about five months when I decided to take a semester off and go on tour with my band. We were opening for a band that wasn’t much bigger than us, but we thought we were going to be rock stars. That was my first experience with groupies. I didn’t technically cheat on her, I guess. After seven weeks on the road, I called her and said we should see other people. She thought I was just lonely, so a few nights later, she flew out to Seattle to surprise me and see our show. She caught a show alright, but it was backstage and involved me and two women.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “You had a threesome?”

  “I hadn’t even known Abby was there. Apparently when she walked in, one of the girls invited her to join us, but I was too busy to notice.”

  “That’s kind of gross.”

  “Abby got pissed, drank too much, and apparently fell walking up a flight of concrete stairs at her hotel. She rolled her ankle and broke her nose on the way down. Spent the night in the ER, and her parents had to fly out and get her the next morning. I didn’t even know she’d been in town until the following week.”

  “That’s horrible. Although I’m not sure that was even your fault. It sounds like you tried to do the right thing by breaking it off with her.”

  “Even if I try to do the right thing, I wind up fucking things up.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  Caine was quiet for a long time. When he spoke again, his voice was pained. “My best friend Liam and I started our band when we were twelve. He was a pretty incredible songwriter. The only problem was, he did his best work wasted.”

  “I’ve read that Dylan wrote most of his best work on heroin.”

  “Yeah. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It’s not just a tagline to sell T-shirts. The year things really started to take off for our band, so did Liam’s drug hobby. At first he drank a few Red Bulls to stay up and play or write songs—eventually the Red Bulls turned into Adderall because it’s easier to take a pill, and we were playing gigs near college campuses, and students take that shit like it’s M&Ms. But the Adderall keeps you up for twenty-four hours, and you need to crash, so you take another pill to help you come down.”

  “Are you talking about Liam or about you?”

  “I dabbled, but nothing like Liam. At the time, I didn’t see it as clearly as I see it now. I guess I thought it was the norm. Me and the other guys didn’t even know how bad things were for a while. Then one night, we tried to wake him for a gig, and we couldn’t get him up. When the hospital pumped his stomach, there were so many drugs in there—and not just pills—it was a miracle he’d survived. I had no idea the Adderall had turned into coke and meth.”

  “Oh, God. I’m sorry.”

  “Liam went to rehab the first time, and we went back to Red Bulls for a while after that. But it never lasted long. He’d build back up to out of control, and we’d drop him off at rehab. We got a recording contract offer during his last stint in rehab. I should’ve known it was too much for him to handle. Part of our deal was that we had to bring five new songs. That’s a lot of pressure on someone who’s just getting out of rehab.”

  I already knew one of his band members died from an overdose. I didn’t want him to have to say it.

  “I read about your friend when I Googled you after we first met. I’m so sorry.”

  Caine was quiet for a long time. He shut his eyes, and when they opened, I could see them glistening, even in the dark.

  I stroked his cheek. “You can’t control someone with addiction.”

  “No. But I didn’t have to pile on the stress. We shouldn’t have taken the deal and put that on Liam.”

  “Was Liam happy about the deal?”

  “We all were. We were twenty-one with a record deal from a major label.”

  “What happened wasn’t your fault. Addicts look for reasons to justify what they’re doing. If it wasn’t that, it would have been something else.”

  Caine sighed. “I don’t have a good track record, Rachel. Even when I try to do the right thing, I fuck it up somehow. I haven’t told you about even half the bad choices I’ve made. About Liam’s girlfriend, who was too damn young to be on the road with a band, but I let it happen anyway. About when I was sixteen and met this girl—”

  I’d heard enough. Just like he’d done to me earlier, I silenced him by pressing two fingers to his lips. “Shut the fuck up, Caine.”

  He smiled through his sadness. “You wanted me to talk to you.”

  I climbed up his body and straddled his hips. I’d been holding the sheet around me and let it fall to my sides. “Thank you for sharing with me.”

  He gripped my waist and surprised me by lifting me up to my knees. Reaching down, he grabbed his cock and held it up, positioning it at my opening
. “I’m not done sharing yet.”

  Rachel

  Things between Caine and me changed last night. The struggle that had been ever-present in his demeanor toward me seemed to have ended. The dawn of a new day brought a lighter—even happy—version of Caine.

  After kicking him out of the shower so parts other than my breasts and between my legs could get cleaned, I took a few minutes to reflect on everything that had transpired. The pulsating stream of water massaged my neck as I closed my eyes.

  Caine had opened up to me. He carried around a lot of guilt and weight on his shoulders, much of it seemingly unearned. Yet I hadn’t shared much of my past with him. I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready to talk about some of it.

  After I dragged myself from the shower, I rummaged in Caine’s closet to find a T-shirt. His walk-in was bigger than my kitchen. Grabbing an old, worn Brooklyn College shirt, I pulled it on and ran my fingers through my wet hair.

  I found Caine sitting at the dining room table with a pile of papers and his laptop open. He was wearing those glasses I loved so much on him and looked up to watch me walk down the hall.

  “What?”

  “My T-shirt. It looks better on you.”

  When I reached the table, he immediately slipped a hand underneath it and grabbed my ass.

  I wagged my finger at him. “Uh-uh-uh, Professor. Looks like you have work to do.”

  “My TA should be grading these papers.”

  “You didn’t ask. I would have.”

  He pulled me down onto his lap and buried his face in my hair. “Why don’t you grade them now? I’ll finger you while you read through the essay on the art of rhythm.”

  “You’re so crass.”

  He looked up at me. “What’s crass? Fingering you? You like my fingers inside of you. And my tongue. And my cock. I wish I had more parts to put in there. I’d never come out.”

  I shoved at his chest and laughed. “I’m starving. You need to feed me.”

  “What? That’s what I was trying to do. Warm you up to feed you.”

  “How about you make us something to eat, and I’ll finish grading?”

  “Deal. I fucking hate grading papers.”

  I finished marking the tests while Caine whipped us up some breakfast. Pancakes with a side of sausage.

  “This is really good. But it’s the same thing you made at my house.” I pointed my fork at him. “Do you only know how to cook pancakes?”

  “No, wiseass. I know how to cook a lot of different things. I just don’t do it often because it’s easier to grab something on the way home.”

  “I’m not that great with meals, but I can make a hell of a cake and pastry.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Rose, my aunt who raised us, was a pastry chef. She liked to try to bond with me and my sister by baking together all the time when we first moved in.”

  Caine seemed contemplative. “Did your aunt and uncle have kids of their own?”

  “No. Rose couldn’t have kids. They were actually foster parents for a long time. After they adopted my sister and me, they stopped taking in fosters. They had their hands full enough with me and Riley.”

  “You’ve mentioned that you had some wild years. I would’ve liked to see that.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. We put poor Rose through hell. Teenage girls are bad enough without an excuse to raise hell. I was no angel, but my sister was downright awful.”

  Finishing my breakfast gave me the perfect excuse to get up and try to change the subject. I wasn’t a good liar, and it was only a matter of time before Caine would stumble onto a question I wasn’t ready to answer. I took our plates to the sink and decided to wash them by hand rather than load the dishwasher.

  Caine came up behind me and kissed my shoulder. “Do you have to work tomorrow night?

  “No. I work evening tonight and day tomorrow.”

  “I want to take you somewhere tomorrow night.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  I smiled. “Okay.”

  “Get dressed up.”

  Finishing the last dish, I turned off the water and turned to face him. “How dressed up?”

  “As much as you want to be.”

  I couldn’t remember the last time anything had felt so right. Caine read my goofy smile. “What?”

  “This feels…right.”

  His eyes searched mine. “It does. As much as I fought it, and it’s against every rule at work, nothing’s felt this right in a long time. Maybe I couldn’t get you out of my head because you’re supposed to be there.”

  We spent the next few hours being lazy, snuggled up on the couch watching old Law & Order reruns. I hated for the day to end, but eventually I had to ask Caine to drive me home so I could get ready for work. We dressed in his bedroom together.

  I made the bed while he changed into jeans and a polo and brushed his teeth. There was a half-empty box of condoms tossed aside on the nightstand.

  The master bathroom door was open so I yelled, “Where do you keep these?”

  “What?”

  “The condoms.”

  “Nightstand. But you can leave ’em out if you want. We’ll be finishing those off soon.”

  I smiled as I opened the drawer and went to place the box inside, but a small, silver-framed photo caught my eye instead. Nosy, I picked it up to examine it. It was a picture of Caine’s old band. He was probably in his early twenties and was arm in arm with another guy about the same age. The rest of the band hovered in the background.

  Caine appeared and caught me with it in my hot little hands. “I’m sorry. When I opened the drawer, I saw it. I couldn’t help myself. You were so sexy.”

  The bed dipped as he sat down next to me. “Were?”

  I was relieved he didn’t seem upset at my snooping. Knocking shoulders with him, I teased, “Well, now you’re old and mature, so you’re more handsome than sexy.”

  He took the photo from my hand. “Is that so?”

  I watched him look down at it, rubbing his finger across the photo. “Me and Liam and the band.”

  “You all look so happy. Why do you keep it in the drawer?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s not easy to see some days.”

  I knew the feeling. When I first decorated my apartment, I had days when I passed by the photo of my mother and it made me sad. But eventually I got used to seeing it, and over time, I started to smile at her each morning.

  “It gets easier if you leave it out. When you tuck it away, you’re burying it, and it never heals.”

  Caine looked at me and nodded in silence. Then he shut the nightstand drawer and set the small photo up on the end table. “You ready?”

  I held back on showing him how giddy it made that he took my advice. The first few times he looked at it would probably be rough, but maybe it was time. Plus, I was hoping I’d be around to help him feel better as he slipped into bed each night.

  Grabbing my purse in the living room, I rummaged through to find my cell as Caine slipped on his shoes. There were some loose coins on the bottom next to my phone, which gave me an idea—something I hadn’t done in a long time.

  “Hang on,” I said. “I forgot something in the bedroom.”

  Walking back to the end table, I took one last look at the old photo of Caine and Liam before closing my eyes and making a little wish. Then I tossed the two copper pennies in my hand on the floor for Caine to find later.

  Find a penny, pick it up, and all day long you’ll have good luck.

  Satisfied, I smiled and turned around to head back to the living room. Not expecting to see Caine filling the doorway, I jumped at finding him there. My hand clenched at my chest. “You scared me.”

  Caine’s eyes flicked to the floor to look at the pennies and then came back to roam my face. “What the hell did you just do?”

  Caine

  What the fuck?

  I’d been pacing since I returned from dropping Rachel at her
apartment. She’d known something was off, known I was full of shit when I said I had the start of a migraine coming on. I don’t even get migraines, yet I was pretty sure the pounding in my head was leading in that direction.

  It couldn’t be a coincidence.

  Could it be a fucking coincidence?

  I dragged my hands through my hair. Think, West, think. What the hell was that little girl’s father’s last name?

  Then I remembered the file in my desk drawer. Or maybe it was in the cabinet in the office where I kept old band crap. I was certain I’d kept a copy of the police report. God knows why I’d saved it when my parents had paid a fortune to have the incident expunged and make sure my records were sealed.

  I ripped my files apart looking for it. By the time I came across the faded yellow page, my office looked like it’d been ransacked.

  Victim’s name: Benny Nelson

  Nelson. I’d thought for sure finding out would make me relieved it wasn’t Rachel’s last name, but instead it only raised new questions.

  The little girl’s mother had died the year before. That would’ve made her around nine or ten when she lost her. Same timeline as Rachel losing her mother.

  Fuck.

  That feeling. That goddamned feeling I’d had since the day I met her. I knew her from somewhere, but could never put my finger on it. What was it that made me feel that way? I never really saw the little girl close up—only a flash of a ten-year-old face across the span of a church and through lattice work more than fifteen years ago. Nothing was clear.

  Fuck.

  Rachel had said she was raised by her aunt. She’d never mentioned a stepfather. Then again, if my stepfather was an abusive child molester, it wouldn’t exactly be conversation to bring up during a date.

  Bypassing the wine, I grabbed the scotch from the liquor cabinet and poured myself a double. It burned as it slid down my throat, but it felt good, like I should be on fire at the moment.

  I knocked back another gulp.

  Rachel had said she’d grown up a town away from me. Pleasantville is a small, blue bicycle ride away from St. Killian’s.