by Marni Mann
I couldn’t see Vince’s expression, but I saw the change in his posture: the way his shoulders slouched and his weight shifted between his feet. He slowly turned his head and looked up at me. “I’ll wait for you out here. Let me know when you’re done.” His tone was entirely different this time.
Hart hadn’t been an instigator in high school, and I’d never seen him in a fight—mostly because nobody had ever tried to fuck with him. Everyone had known that he stood up for what he believed in and didn’t take any shit. It made disliking him even more difficult.
I couldn’t think about any of that now.
Using my key, I trundled inside Brady’s apartment, pausing in the middle of the living room to scan it all. He’d lived here for at least a few years. It was a good apartment. Great memories…some bad ones, too. Like the most recent ones of him detoxing on his bed.
Hart was suddenly in the doorway. “I think we’re going to need a bigger SUV,” he said. I glanced at my side, watching his eyes travel over the couch and the kitchen table, the pots and pans that covered the counter. “Do you want me to go—”
“None of this is mine.” I moved into the bedroom, opened my suitcase and threw in all my clothes that were on the floor. I loaded it until it was so full I could barely get it closed. I packed the rest into garbage bags. Then I went into the bathroom and removed everything that was mine, making sure the lids were on tight before I stuck them in the same bag as my clothes.
“Do you have any boxes? I can start packing the rest.”
“There’s nothing else to pack.” He stood in the entryway of the bathroom, and I moved past him, dragging the suitcase and the two plastic bags over to the front door. I checked all the surfaces one final time; there was nothing else that was mine. And since I didn’t have enough room in Hart’s SUV to load Brady’s stuff, this would have to do.
I was going to miss this place.
“This is everything I own.” The humiliation of it suddenly registered. I slowly met his eyes. In my head, I created so many different reactions that would come out of him, imagining his expressions, his words. His pity. I was waiting for one of those…or all.
He approached me and took everything out of my hands. “I’ll carry this all downstairs. Do what you need to in here, and I’ll meet you outside.” His voice was gentle—a whisper. Compassionate. It wasn’t one of the reactions I’d expected. “Don’t worry about the landlord…I’ll take care of him if I have to.”
I watched him move into the hallway, focusing on the provocative curves of his hand as it gripped the knob and pulled the door shut.
I sat on the sticky floor, tucked my knees into my chest, and wrapped my arms around them. The air left my lungs. I tried to suck it back in.
Back and forth.
I hadn’t shown any emotion while Hart had been in here. But now it was everywhere. In my liquid eyes, in my quivering lips, in my shuddering heart. Other than Brady and Shane, no one had seen me cry since the day I’d gotten my scar. And now Brady wasn’t even here to see this. To hold me. To save me.
Back and forth.
I didn’t need this apartment to remind me how alone I was. Brady’s boys were always around and available, but they were superficial. I needed someone much deeper. I needed Brady, and I couldn’t have him. And no one else was here, because people like me didn’t show their wounds easily. No one wanted to see this kind of damage. It was violent and disgusting, dirty and evil. It was destructive.
It had ruined me.
My face, my skin, and my soul.
I tried to control my breathing, to stop the tears from seeping out of my lids by rubbing my eyes over the knees of my jeans. A black smudge from the liner had smeared across the fabric. Brady didn’t have detergent…he didn’t even have hand soap. But I didn’t have time to scrub it out, anyway. I didn’t want the landlord to start mouthing off to Hart because I was taking too long. I’d dragged him into this situation, and it wasn’t fair to keep him in it any longer than necessary. I wondered what he was thinking as he packed my shit into his pristine, gleaming Range Rover. I know what I thought.
That I was trash, littering his perfection with my fear and my failure.
Fuck.
I uncurled my body and went into the bathroom. My eyes lingered in the mirror above the sink. I couldn’t stop staring. My mascara had dripped into my scar. The black mixed against the damaged skin, creating a deep, bruised purple. Like a storm gathering on the surface of my skin. It would have been perfect if this were Halloween. But this wasn’t a costume; I couldn’t take it off at the end of the night and return to the smooth, wanted face beneath it. My scar was permanent, a storm that would never pass. It glared back at me every day. It called out its existence whenever I touched my face.
It haunted my dreams.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“LET ME BRING this stuff to your new place,” Hart said, moving to the back of his SUV. “I don’t want you carrying it all by yourself.”
He opened his trunk and placed the gas can back inside that he’d used to fill my tank. It gave me a second to think. If I agreed, he’d follow me to my new apartment and help me carry the two bags and suitcase inside. The problem was…there was no new apartment. And this was the second time he’d asked; the first happened just after he bought me the gas. I’d refused then, too.
This time was no different.
“I’ll be fine.” I glanced at the B&B again. It was going to make a perfect spa. It was horseshoe-shaped, which meant the whole backside would face the water. I remembered how relaxing it was to stare at the ocean from Saint’s boat. A vision passed through my mind—a dream, really, of me somehow working in the spa, doing something I loved, with the sea being part of my daily view. It would be a long time before this place was ready for anyone to work here. And even beyond that, I wasn’t willing to spend any more time with Hart than I already had.
Stupid dream, Rae.
“Thanks for your help,” I told him sincerely. “You made this morning suck a little less.”
He sat on the edge of the trunk, his knees spread far apart. One of them brushed against the side of mine. It tingled. “The morning doesn’t have to be over,” he said.
Sex drizzled from his mouth. He didn’t even have to try. The way his gaze took all of me in didn’t help matters. I knew if I spent any more time alone with him, I would be naked before noon. The tears I’d sobbed on the floor of Brady’s apartment and the fact that I was homeless would be forgotten…until I got back into my car and had nowhere to drive to.
Spreading my legs for this man would just add to the day’s problems.
That didn’t mean my desire for him had disappeared. There was a lot of it, actually. And I didn’t think I was the only one feeling that way. For someone who had left me so easily before, he seemed to be having difficulty doing it this time.
I didn’t understand it. But I guess I didn’t have to.
I reached around him and grabbed the two trash bags, leaving the suitcase for him to roll. “I have to go, Hart.”
“Have to…or want to?”
Instead of answering him, I turned around and began walking. I placed the bags inside my trunk and held it open so he could do the same. I avoided his gaze as I moved to the side and unlocked the driver’s door. I could feel him behind me—the heat of his silvery eyes as they examined my legs, my ass, the outline of my torso that could be seen through my jacket.
When I tried to duck inside the car, he blocked me.
“Look at me, Rae.”
My lids closed and I took a deep breath. As calmly as I could, I turned. When I opened my eyes again, my vision was drawn to the spot where his jawline protruded as it met his cheekbones and angled up to his forehead. I remembered how my hands had once fit so perfectly there. I remembered too that after he was gone, my fingers still craved the feel of his skin.
It hurt to see him.
“What do you want from me, Hart?” I blurted out.
“I don’t want you to l
eave. Just give me a few more minutes.”
I wasn’t holding back the pain or the anger anymore. “And what will you do with those minutes that will make any difference at this point?”
He moved closer, so I backed up. The frame of the door pressed into me…and his fingers, at the spot where we both held the window. “I won’t be able to take it back,” he admitted. “None of it. I know that. And you won’t understand why I did it, but at least hear me out.”
I didn’t know if I wanted to hear any of it—especially today. Still, whether or not I wanted to, it felt like something he needed to say. In return for helping me, I’d give that to him. But nothing else.
“Okay. Tell me.”
He scanned my eyes, his irises sliding back and forth. I had to force my body not to sway in the same rhythm. “I didn’t want to go. My parents and coaches were telling me to leave because it was the best thing for my future.” He sighed, a breath that sounded painful for him. “I believed them; that’s what kids do. But I didn’t want to leave everything I knew, everyone who mattered to me: you.” His arms blocked me in. Every time he shifted, another gust of his scent filled me. He was cedar and musk, blending with the tangy smell of his skin. It only added to the other triggers that caused lightning flashes in my stomach. “When I tried to have a voice, they overpowered me. According to them, I didn’t know what was best for me.” There was a change in his tone, an underlying anger. I felt it, and felt for him because of it. “So they packed up my stuff and they sent me to a place where I could be a star. And it worked…until the injury happened in college.”
He held my gaze as I tried to find the answer somewhere in there. The answer I’d been waiting to hear all these years. I couldn’t see anything but myself staring back. “I haven’t heard it yet.”
“Heard what?”
I took a gulp of the cold air and held it in my lungs. “The reason you didn’t say good-bye.”
His fingers tightened on the window. They weren’t squeezing me, but I could sense their strength just the same. “If my parents had given me the opportunity, I wouldn’t have left at all. They knew that. I don’t blame them for waking me up in the middle of the night, packing my clothes into the car and driving me away. That was smart. Had they given me even a little space, I wouldn’t have gone.”
I hadn’t wanted to hear anything he had to say, and now suddenly I was addicted to his answers. But that one wasn’t good enough.
“Do they not have phones in prep school?”
His body hadn’t moved, but somehow it felt as if he was even closer now. “You’re right. I should have called. But it was hard enough to know I wouldn’t be with you anymore…”
“Maybe that didn’t have to happen. Maybe I could have been there with you.” They were so irrational, the thoughts of my younger self.
“You were in school, Rae.”
“I would have chosen you over school, if you’d asked.”
I couldn’t believe I’d just told him that.
“You would have dropped out your sophomore year to be with me? Left your friends and family? I would never have let you do that. And even if I’d been that selfish, I didn’t have the means to support you back then.”
“So instead, you decided to never speak to me again?”
His gaze moved to my lips, then lifted once more. “I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I’d heard how much I hurt you. I didn’t want to be your pain, and I didn’t want you to hear mine.” His face clouded over. “I realized long ago how shitty that was.”
I tried to move away from him. He wouldn’t let me, but he kept his hands off me just the same. “Shitty? It’s way more than that. It’s unfair, Hart. You didn’t even give me a chance. I deserved that from you, at the very least.”
“I would have told you to wait for me—I was ready to tell you, even as they were driving me out of town. That wouldn’t have been fair, because I knew you would have.”
He was right; I would have waited. He’d meant that much to me—more than Saint or any of the guys I had dated in between. All my relationships after Hart were about healing, finding others with the same wounds I’d suffered and trying to close them—with my hands, my heart, my body. With my words and my loyalty. But Hart was the only one I’d been with who hadn’t needed to be fixed.
He was also the only one who’d been there before my scar. All the others came afterward.
I wasn’t too blind to recognize that, in trying to heal them, I was also trying to heal myself.
“What are you doing back in Bar Harbor, then?” It came out as a whisper, and even that stung my already-burning throat.
His hand slid over mine and stopped just on the other side of my palm. “I’m building a spa.”
“No, what are you doing here?” He could be as evasive as he wanted. I couldn’t anymore.
Tiny flakes started falling from the sky. I felt them on my face. I glanced up, greeting the white specks of cold. They stuck to my eyelashes and melted on my lips.
“This was the first chance I’ve had to come home,” he said. My neck slowly tilted downward until my vision fixed on him. “I’ve missed it.”
I could tell he was waiting for something. Did he expect me to fade into his arms? To wrap my mouth around the sweetness of his? I wasn’t the soft thing he’d left behind all those years ago. I was made of scars now, of storms and squalls that tossed me about and made my life unpredictable.
I was hardened.
“I get it,” I said. And I did; I understood his answers, and the position he’d been in, even though there had been years in between for him to pick up a phone and offer an explanation. As fucked up as it was, a part of me was grateful for it. I didn’t know what I would have done if he had come to my house to say good-bye, or if he had called me from prep school. Because he hadn’t, my life had gone in a different direction, much darker than I’d expected.
And after all these years, he’d found me again, at what was possibly my lowest moment. What that meant or what was supposed to happen, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know what either of us wanted. All I knew was twenty-nine days.
And he hadn’t even apologized for leaving me behind.
I couldn’t give in to him now.
“Don’t ask for any more minutes,” I said.
A playful look came over his face. I had to stop myself from smiling. “I won’t…for today. But this won’t be the last you see of me. You know that.” He didn’t make any attempt to back up or drop his hands from the window.
“Do I? This from the guy who leaves in the middle of the night without a good-bye and doesn’t ever call.” I knew this kind of bitterness would come out sooner or later.
I turned, ducked my head and dropped into the seat of my car. My hands fumbled with the key before getting it to start.
“You’re not going to get very far with the amount of gas I just put in. Unless that’s your plan…” The grin hadn’t left his lips.
It made me angry more than anything. I didn’t need to be rescued more than once.
Saved from myself, maybe. But that wasn’t something Hart would be able to do.
“I’m headed to the gas station now.”
He leaned against the open window, not far from my unmarked cheek. I’d washed off most of my makeup in Brady’s bathroom; I knew how exposed my scar was. But I hadn’t caught him staring at it. Not even once. Either he didn’t want to see the way time had ravaged me, or he couldn’t see it at all.
I didn’t know which would be better.
I broke away from his gaze, trying to settle my stomach and get rid of his scent that seemed to have settled in my nose. “See you around.” I put the car in reverse.
He pushed off the window and took several steps back. “Yes, you will.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
AS I FILLED my gas tank, I considered the places I could crash. I really only needed a few weeks before I’d be able to afford something on my own. Of course, I’d have nothing to fi
ll it with, to sleep on, or sit on, but it would be mine. In the meantime, Caleb’s house was probably the best spot for me. It was the biggest house and had the most room out of all the places Brady and his boys hung out. And since Caleb’s parents had given him the house and it was all paid for, there wouldn’t be a landlord to evict me. For now, that would work.
I got back in my car and texted Caleb and his roommate, Jeremy, to ask if I could stay for a bit. Their replies welcomed me to, for as long as I needed. I’d spent enough time there to know there was an empty bedroom in the back, and that I’d be sharing a bathroom with Jeremy. With my work schedule, I’d really only be there to sleep. It didn’t matter how late or early I arrived; the guys would always be home.
Drug dealers didn’t usually get out much.
Before he’d disappeared, the rumor around town was that Brady was dealing again. It wasn’t exactly a lie. He did push the occasional ounce of weed or pounds for the guys who liked to buy in larger quantities. But he wasn’t a street-level dealer, and he didn’t do it every day. And he definitely hadn’t made it a career. He just had a solid connection with a guy in northern Maine who grew it, and he liked to snort the profits. The real dealers were Caleb and Jeremy. They were able to get their hands on anything—heroin, meth, even bath salts. But since one of their tweakers had flipped out after Caleb ran out of meth, poured gas all over the front porch, and tried to blow up the house, the guys were more selective with whom they sold to and what they kept around.
A long dirt road led up to the house. The guys’ cars were parked on the grass; they were the only ones there besides mine. I was thankful for that.
I waddled up to the front door with the two bags and my suitcase. After my double-knock, Jeremy answered and led me toward the back of the house. He scratched the top of his scalp as he walked, pulling his red strands in all different directions. I didn’t know if it was gel or filth, but the hair stayed where he left it.
On the carpet of the bedroom was a bare mattress that he said I could use. A mound of crumpled clothes sat next to it, and even more were on the floor of the closet. There were splatter stains on each wall, and two empty condom wrappers in the corner. If I looked hard enough, I’d probably find the filled rubbers somewhere in there, too. The room reeked of sour milk. It could have been from the clothes, or the cans of beer that were littered throughout, or from any of the stains that had hardened on the carpet.