A Safe Place to Fall (Places Book 1)

by Barbara Doyle

  I’ve given you twenty-one years.

  I knew the truth though. I would give him as much time as he needed if it meant finally having a day where he told me that he needed me as much as I needed him. Deep down, I knew that we were right together no matter how many arguments we got into. We were only human.

  I nodded. “As much as you need.”

  He pulled me in for a hug, resting his chin on the top of my head. “That’s my girl,” he whispered, brushing his lips against my hair.

  8

  There was one thing I learned about time. You had none to waste, take advantage of, or give away. Time was a valuable asset that could save your sanity or drive you nuts. My grandmother used to tell me that time healed all wounds, but I was more worried about it shredding me apart.

  Agreeing to give Nate time to think drove me mad for the past two weeks. The more time that went by, the more I started to wonder about what he was thinking. He said he wanted to prove something to me, so how could a text every now and again give me any shred of hope that he was truly working toward being forgiven? What did he need to do? Go to church and gather his Hail Mary’s?

  Hell, I didn’t even know how that worked. Neither of my parents were religious so we never went to church. My grandparents never forced us to, even though my therapist told them that it might help to find myself spiritually. I didn’t know how finding God would really help, because clearly he wasn’t around if he was letting all the bad shit happen to me.

  After I’d gone to the cemetery, it got me thinking about taking back my life. I was always determined to be independent and work my ass off for the things I wanted, but it wasn’t until talking to my dad that I realized what I needed to do.

  For the longest time I’d avoided seeing my father because I blamed him for my mother’s insanity. Aaron never really wanted to visit because I knew he felt the same way. Our parents were the happy couple everybody was jealous of, and when he died that just went down the drain. Then everybody felt sorry for such a good relationship torn apart because of drunk driver.

  Now I just felt bad for being so selfish. He was still my father, and avoiding him wasn’t accomplishing anything. Talking to him felt weird since it was a one-sided conversation, but he became the good listener that he always was when he was alive. That never changed. Blaming him for all of these years was pointless. The only thing it made me feel was angrier with myself, because I was selfish enough to blame my deceased father for something he never would have assumed would happen.

  My mother never really seemed like the type to lose her marbles. She was a caring mother for the most part, how would he have known that she would drown her sorrows with rum and depression medicine?

  “Earth to Blair,” Josh called from next to me, snapping his fingers in front of my face. “We have more inventory in the back that we need to put out, so if you don’t mind coming back to this realm for another hour.”

  I blushed and picked up some of the boxes he was pointing to and made my way out of the backroom. Josh walked beside me talking about his new designer shoes that he waited three hours in line for just to buy. For three hundred and fifty-two dollars I could pay my car payment, phone bill and get groceries for the week.

  I froze when I saw Aaron and Katie walking toward my department.

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  “What?” Josh asked. “Oh, my God! Did I step in something? Are my shoes ruined? Did I mention that these are designer?”

  I shushed him. “Your shoes are fine. My brother and his wife are coming over here, and I may have mentioned something involving you…”

  He stopped walking and looked at me with one of his freshly plucked eyebrows raised. “What exactly did you say?”

  “Well I had to cover up the fact that I had a thing for my brother’s best friend, so I lied and said I was seeing somebody at work. Your name might have been the first one I thought of.”

  He laughed. “Honey, I’m too gay to function. Have you not noticed the eyeliner and expensive shoes? If your brother is smart, then he’ll see that I bat for his team any day.”

  He looked at them as they walked toward us, and his eyes lit up.

  “Damn, Blair! Are you sure he’s not gay?”

  “Uh…he’s married.”

  “If I’m as hot as I think then I can get divorce papers sent to their house by Wednesday,” he whispered, checking out my brother.

  I held back my urge to gag.

  “Just help me,” I pleaded as they got closer.

  He sighed. “You owe me big time, girl.”

  Katie came over and gave me a hug. Aaron smiled my way and looked at Josh like he was a terrorist. It was both amusing and annoying that a man could still wear eyeliner and get glared at by my brother like he was trying to get in my pants.

  “Who is this, Blair?” Aaron asked slowly.

  “This is Josh,” I answered cautiously.

  Katie yelped. “This is Josh! Awe, you’re so adorable! I’m Katie, and this rude man is my husband Aaron. Just ignore him. Blair told me about you and I’ve been wondering when I’d get a chance to meet you.”

  She gave him a hug, making him drop the box of clothes he had in his hand. Thankfully they both moved out of the way before it crushed their toes.

  “Are you wearing…eyeliner?” Aaron questioned.

  Before Josh could answer, I intervened. “Uh, I was messing around with the makeup, and he let me apply some. I’m trying to get a new look, but I didn’t want to test it on myself.”

  Katie held her hand over her chest. “That is so sweet! Aaron won’t even let me paint his fingernails. Seriously, girl you’ve got a keeper.”

  Josh smiled. “We’re already planning our forever, aren’t we, sugar pop? We’re thinking a big wedding at the beach and at least five kids.”

  Aaron’s fists clenched.

  I patted Josh’s shoulder. “That’s enough sharing, Josh. I’m sure they’ve got a lot better places to be than chatting with us.”

  “Why?” Josh asked, putting his arm around my shoulder, and tugging me toward him. “If we’re going to get married then we should spend quality time with each other, right?”

  I gave him the eye.

  “He’s right,” Aaron agreed coolly. “What about dinner tomorrow night at the diner? We can all get to know each other.”

  I said, “No,” the same time Josh said, “Yes!”

  We stared at each other. “We’re working tomorrow night, remember? We can’t call out and leave somebody else pick up the hours.”

  He tapped my nose. “Aren’t you forgetting, sweetheart? The new schedule came out today and we’re both off tomorrow. Silly goose.”

  I’m going to kill him.

  “Great,” Aaron replied, taking Katie’s hand. “Then the five of us will have the perfect time together.”

  “Five…?”

  He smiled. “Well I’d hate for Nate to miss it. I’m sure he’ll be ecstatic that you’ve found somebody as…colorful as Josh.”

  “No!” I said too quickly. “I mean he’d probably be really uncomfortable. We’ve barely spoken since that whole thing happened and it’d be awkward. He’d be the fifth wheel.”

  Aaron shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll take a waitress home with him. It’ll be fine now that you’re staying at Ashley and Tara’s apartment, right? You have no problem with him joining us do you?”

  Of course I frigging do!

  The fact my own brother was baiting me pissed me off royally. What was he thinking? He knew Nate just as well as I did, and Nate had a bad temper. I didn’t want to see there be a huge scene at the one place I actually liked going. We’d be kicked out if Nate went off in there in front of everybody.

  Katie looked at me sympathetically.

  “No, of course not,” I told my brother quietly.

  “Awesome, it’s settled then. Seven sound good?”

  “It’s perfect,” Josh answered for me. He gave me a peck on the cheek. “Isn’t it, sweetie?�
��

  I didn’t even look at him when I answered.

  When Aaron and Katie left to do some shopping, I slapped his arm. “What was that about? I asked you to help, not set up a date for us!”

  He rolled his eyes and picked up the box. “Girl, I just did you a big ass favor. It’s a simple plan. We go to the diner, have a big fight and break up. I can go back to being my gay sexy self and you can go back being…whatever it is that you are.”

  “Hey!” I complained.

  He winked. “I’m just being real. It’s what I do best. So if you don’t mind, I have to get back to work and try figuring out what I’m going to wear that doesn’t give my sexual orientation away.”

  “Oh please,” I muttered, walking over to the jeans counter. I opened up the box and started laying out the denim on the countertop.

  “Your brother seemed to buy the whole straight guy act, which alarms me. It’s a damn good thing that he’s cute.”

  I gagged. “Can you not hit on my brother?”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “Well try,” I pleaded. “It’s bad enough that I have to go to dinner with them and Nate. He’s going to flip shit if he thinks that I’m seeing somebody.”

  Josh put his hands on his hips. “If he’s that hot headed then why bother with him? Does he have the golden penis?”

  My jaw dropped. “Did you really just say that?”

  He laughed. “Honey, you don’t know half of the things I’m capable of saying. By tomorrow night your brother is going to hate me so much this other guy is going to look like a saint.”

  I thought about that. “That’s brilliant.”

  He brushed off his shoulder in pride. “Well, I am a genius…so.”

  I giggled. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “You were totally thinking it.”

  Nope.

  “Despite you setting us up on a date, I do appreciate you helping me on such short notice. I’ve just been stressed trying to figure out how to tell my brother how I really feel about Nate. He just gets so angry about me dating, and the fact that I’m in love with…”

  I stopped myself after saying those words.

  In love? I’d never said those words to anybody. Not even Zach, although I thought about what they could have done if I said them at least once. Not that any of that mattered now. What mattered was that I just told Josh that I was in love with Nate. Not the kind of love like siblings have or friends have. Hell, not even the same kind of love as doodling his name in a heart on my old notebooks. This wasn’t puppy love, this was the real deal.

  Josh smiled and looked like he was going to cry.

  He waved his hand in front of his eyes. “If you could see your face right now, you’d see why I’m about to cry. If we were besties you’d understand how emotional I get sometimes, and if I ruin my makeup I will be tempted to punch you in the face.”

  I smiled at him. “I don’t know why it’s a big deal, but I never really thought about it. You know? I had a crush on this guy since high school, and watched him get together with so many girls. You’d think that’d make me realize how nasty he is, right?”

  He shook his head. “Sweetie, the people worth loving are the ones that have the most faults. You want to know why? It’s because despite all of the things we don’t like about them or their past, we love them anyway. It sounds like this guy has a lot to work with, but the fact you’re willing to fight for that says something about your relationship.”

  I leaned against the wall. “I don’t even know what our relationship is. He wants time to think because he told me that he needs to prove something. It sounds more like an excuse than a reason to me.”

  He passed me a shirt to put on the rack beside me.

  “You want to know what I think?” he asked.

  “Something tells me that you’re going to tell me even if I say no,” I replied.

  He smirked. “We’re becoming fast friends already. You’re correct. I think that you should grow some lady balls and just tell your brother at dinner tomorrow night how you feel. Nate will be there so he’ll see that you’re willing to fight. If he makes an excuse about needing more time, then play hard to get. Act like you’re not interested anymore because he wasted too much time. He’ll find you irresistible then.”

  Somehow I doubted that considering the night Aaron caught Nate and me kissing I was willing to fight. That didn’t seem to prove anything to Nate since he chose to walk away and leave me dealing with my hotheaded brother. All that proved to me was he was a lazy tool bag who didn’t have his shit together.

  I hoped Josh was right, because Nate had a lot of baggage. If we ever did date, we’d be a hot mess, and not even the good kind of mess either. The criticism we’d probably get was nerve-wracking, but I believed that after everything I went through I deserved something I truly wanted. If Nate was what made me happy, should people really judge us?

  You know that’s not the only reason you’re scared to make this kind of move, my conscious reminded me.

  All of my life that bitch in my head got to me, and she didn’t know when to shut up when the time was right. She was right though. The thing that scared me the most about just admitting to everybody what I wanted and how I felt was that I was going to be letting a lot of people down.

  You’d be letting Aaron down.

  Aaron was the one person that mattered most to me besides Nate. He always tried to make my childhood better by his constant distractions and games. What he thought was more valuable to me than what I wanted most times, but now was different. He would never be fully okay with me being with Nate because he knew everything that Nate did growing up. Telling him could burn a bridge that would practically kill me to see burning in the distance. Sure, I was twenty-one, but I still needed my big brother.

  “You okay?” he asked lightly.

  I shot him an unsure smile. “I will be once this whole situation is done and over with. I’m not really that sure how it will go or if Nate will stand up for me. I’m scared.”

  “You don’t sound like the type of girl to admit that a lot,” he noted, stacking the empty cardboard boxes on top of each other and grabbing a new box of clothes to open.

  I’m not.

  Being strong was all I knew how to do. Putting on a show for people made me feel like I could handle anything, but I knew better than to believe that. I tried so hard to be invincible that I kept making myself weaker and more vulnerable. Pretending to be something you’re not was a lot more dangerous than just admitting that you weren’t that person. I ended up getting lost along the way because I stopped remembering who I was trying so hard not to be. It didn’t take long for my raw emotions to come out of hiding when I remembered the mental scars that I tried covering up so many times before.

  “I like to think I have my shit together,” I told him, taking the last box and emptying the contents.

  He snorted. “Nobody has their shit together. We’re all bat shit crazy inside. Some of us just hide it better than others. Plus, there’s no reason to be ashamed of being afraid. Everybody’s afraid of something.”

  I ran my hands across a lace shirt. “What are you afraid of?”

  Quickly, he replied, “Vaginas. Those things will have me running in a heartbeat, and I don’t run. I don’t know how you can stand having one.”

  I laughed so loudly that I thought somebody was going to come and yell at us. “I cannot believe that you just said that out loud!”

  He shrugged. “I’ve said much, much worse here.”

  “I can believe it,” I returned, shaking my head.

  “Speaking of vaginas,” he added, “What ever happened to Sam? I’ve been hearing things in the backroom, but nobody ever really knows what happened.”

  I quieted down.

  “Uh-oh. Trouble in paradise?”

  I looked at him. “We don’t talk a lot anymore. Let’s just say that after she quit we had no reason to stay in touch. She only comes to me if she needs something.
”

  Like cocaine.

  “So she’s not pregnant with Cash’s baby?” he asked, like he was disappointed. “It would have made sense if she was. I mean we’re not allowed to date the managers, and Cash does have money. He could make anybody disappear with a blank check.”

  “She’s not pregnant.” I don’t think. “And she never saw Cash, or anybody from the store. I would have heard about it. Believe me.”

  “So…is she a lesbian who ran off because her secret came out?” he pressed. “If she is I told Diane from the Lawn and Garden department I’d get you to set them up. She’s totally sensitive about the whole not-ready-to-come-out thing.”

  I playfully slapped his arm. “Would you knock it off? Sam is not pregnant or a lesbian. You’ll have to send Diane my regards.”

  “Will do. So what is her deal?”

  Interesting choice of words.

  “She’s experiencing some…personal problems,” I said, trying not to give too much away. If I were Sam, I wouldn’t exactly want everybody knowing that I was involved in something as serious as this.

  “Vague much?” he complained. “I need details.”

  I put distance between us and started stacking some pants on the shelves with the old ones. Josh slowly made his way over to me, hanging shirts on hangers and putting them on the display wall.

  “This is where you tell me the details.”

  “We’re not that close, Josh.”

  “Well how close do I need to be? Keep in mind that I’m gay and vaginas terrify the living shit out of me.”

  I rolled my eyes and held back a smile. “Well I would never want to impose anything,” I joked.

  “Bitch please,” he replied, “If I were straight you’d be all over this!”

  I shook my head. “No. No I wouldn’t.”

  “Just tell me!” he whined like a five year old.

  “It’s not my place to say anything,” I finally told him. There was no way I was blabbing. “Sam has a lot going on that she needs to sort out, and I’m not at liberty to just tell anybody what she’s going through.”

  He sighed. “You’re a good friend.”