by Meg Collett
And to her, Cade Cooper would always be untouchable in the most important ways. He was clean-cut and straight lines. Conference calls and efficiency. Khakis and button-ups. Beautiful voice and careful words and the kind of smile that snuck up on you, warming you from the marrow out. His caramel-colored hair twisted in the night breeze, and when he smiled up at her from the bottom of the stairs, his teeth shone white as the stars.
Stevie could fall in love with far more than just his voice.
“You’ll be okay, Stevie Reynolds.”
He didn’t ask. That was all the difference to her. He just said it like it was a fact. And the way he spoke her name in his precise way of talking filled her stomach with an entirely different ache that had nothing to do with wine.
The nervousness she’d felt earlier quadrupled, because now she wanted to ask him inside and he would say no.
“You don’t need your parents’ money,” he said, mistaking her silence for doubt. “They don’t have that control over you anymore.”
Just like that, she came back to earth. The night around her became a little less enchanted because she did need their money. Desperately. She thought of joking about it, but she didn’t have the energy. Staring down at Cade, seeing him as yet another thing she couldn’t have, she didn’t have the willpower to make everything sound okay.
She lifted a shoulder, her eyes sweeping out over the ocean beyond him. “I can’t be sober and broke. I just can’t.”
Her attention snapped back as her stairs creaked beneath a footstep. He climbed up to her, and before she could process what was happening, he pulled her into a tight hug, one arm wrapped around her lower back, pressing her against him, and his other hand on her neck, like he was cradling her.
She spilled into him and found his chest more solid than she’d remembered from that night in the kitchen when they’d hooked up. His body met hers with a certainty she hadn’t anticipated, and he held her in a way that made everything better, if just for a moment.
Right then, she wasn’t thinking about her parents or how much she wanted a drink. None of that mattered. All she thought about was how much she hated herself for being drunk on the one night she’d ever get with him. Her one chance, and she barely recalled it.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, the words rustling the curls on top of her head. He was so much taller than her that her entire body tucked neatly beneath his chin.
“Everything,” she muttered against his chest. She breathed in deep to keep his scent in her nose. Clean cotton with sharp citrus woven through, the way daylight might smell.
His hand swept up and down her back, massaging her muscles in long sweeps. Kyra might be a hugger, but Cade was the type who could set everything right, set it straight, someone who could mend and soothe.
“Everything sucks so much,” she added, tagging on a sniffle at the end so he would keep holding her.
She wasn’t ashamed.
“I can’t imagine how alone you must feel.”
The words shocked her so much that she pulled back, frowning in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Ah,” he said, his hands going into his pockets and his shoulders hunching. “I just mean, with Kyra’s incident being so recent, you probably feel like you can’t talk to her about everything. Like she can’t handle it, I guess.”
Stevie blinked. She hadn’t even thought of that. She’d been so inside her own head that she hadn’t considered keeping certain things from Kyra out of fear she might not be able to handle the stress while she recovered. Cade had made her realize what she should’ve known weeks ago.
This, she thought to herself, this right here is why you’re the shittiest person in the world.
“Stevie?”
“Yeah?” She took a deep breath and focused on Cade. He’d retreated down a step. “I mean, you’re right. I just want her to get better.”
Asshole. She grimaced at the tiny voice in her head.
The tension in Cade’s shoulders eased. He was clearly relieved he hadn’t offended her. He leaned back against the railing, his hands still in his pockets, and the warmth in his eyes punched Stevie straight in the gut. “If you need a friend, I’m always here, okay? Whatever you need to talk about, I’m around to listen, no matter what time it is. Don’t forget that.”
She bobbed her head, her throat too tight to say anything. A friend, he’d said. Nothing more. Never again. She’d had her one night, and that was all she’d get with him.
You don’t deserve them, especially not him.
“Thanks,” she finally managed. “I appreciate that.”
“Anytime.” His smile returned, dimples and all. “See you later.”
“Bye, Cade.” She wrapped her arms around her middle. Don’t go. Don’t leave me alone.
He started down the steps, and at the bottom, he turned around and walked backward a few steps. “You and me,” he said, still grinning as he pointed to each of them, “we’ve got this. I promise.”
Stevie bit her tongue to keep from crying.
“We’ve got it,” she said, her voice cracking. She forced herself to laugh to cover it up.
He waved and turned around, hopping over her gate instead of unlocking it. He kept waving and smiling like a loon as he jogged around her garden toward the alley, where the sand turned to pavement, and headed back onto the main street. When he disappeared beyond the circles of light her back porch gave off, Stevie sat down on the stairs, head in her hands.
Right as she began really feeling sorry for herself, her phone rang, the incessant chirping interrupting the sound of the waves.
The number on the screen was private. She only knew one person who blocked their number.
She answered on the fourth ring. “Hello, Shepherd.”
“Hello there, Stephanie. Good to hear your voice. You sound lovely as always.”
She heard his oily, sleazy smile through the phone.
“What do you want?”
“No pleasantries? Don’t you want to ask me how I’ve been? Maybe who I’ve been speaking with lately?”
His chair squeaked in the background, and she pictured him reclining back in his posh L.A. office, a glass of whiskey in his hand because he thought he was a man. He’d probably put his loafers up on his glass desk, the city lights blinking through the window behind him. The office overhead lights were probably off, since he thought the angles of his jaw looked better in the dark.
She shuddered, remembering his voice in her ear telling her all the things she would do to him in the dark.
“I know who you’ve been talking to.” She bit off the words. “You should leave them alone.”
The protectiveness was new. She hadn’t expected it, especially directed toward her parents. But Shepherd was a piranha and her parents didn’t have enough flesh left on their bones to bleed. Los Angeles had drained them dry, leaving nothing behind, and they were too blind to know it shouldn’t feel good to get used.
“That’s not what they said. Oh, I was so sorry to hear about your accident.” She heard the laughter in his voice, the I told you so. “But it was a while coming, right?” Then he did laugh. “Remember that one night—”
“No.” Stevie cut him off sharply, heart pounding in her chest.
She knew exactly what night he was talking about.
“What do you want?” she pressed, needing to get it over with. “Tell me.”
“Fine.” She knew he was still smiling. “I take it you’ve seen your bank account?”
She gritted her teeth, the silence answer enough.
“You should know your parents didn’t want to do it. It took some convincing. Isn’t that sweet?”
“Get on with it,” she hissed.
“I’m flying to Atlanta tomorrow.”
Her heart stopped.
“From your silence, I see you share my excitement. RealTV is sending me down to run a new show. Real quick. In and out. It’s just for a few weeks, and they want you.”
“
No.”
“Don’t you want to hear—”
“No. I’m not doing it. I don’t need my parents’ money. I can make it without them.” Even she heard how her voice shook. “I’m okay,” she said, repeating Cade’s words, his perfect voice a reassuring hum in her mind. I’m okay. I’m okay. You’re okay.
“Now, hang on. You’ll want to hear this. It’s a home renovation competition called Reno Reality.”
“I know nothing about that.” But her voice was weak—weak like her.
“No, but your parents mentioned you have some friends who do.” Over the line, papers rustled like he was looking up information, though Stevie knew he’d preplanned it all. He’d always known exactly how to back her into a corner. “Ah, yes, the Cooper brothers. They do good work, I see. Very good. But it looks like they’re going through a bit of a dry spell. Do you know how hard it is for contracting businesses to survive on a hick island in the South?”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying they’re struggling. They aren’t bringing in much business, and their mother has a very aggressive form of cancer. Those treatments are expensive. The Coopers can’t afford very good insurance through their business—my people have checked. It’s actually kind of sad, really. You’d think construction paid better. Anyway, the show would be a great opportunity for them. Imagine the exposure. There’ll be weekly stipends, not to mention the hefty cash reward for winning, and I have it on good authority that the network likes the brothers’ story. I could steer them straight to the finals.”
Stevie raised her knees and wrapped an arm around them, as if to hold herself together better.
“So have them on the show,” she whispered. “You don’t need me.”
“We do. Your involvement decides the Coopers’ fate. You wouldn’t deny them the chance at caring for their dying mother, would you?”
Stevie lowered her forehead onto her knee, her grip loose on the phone, barely holding it to her ear. “What do you want me to do?”
“That’s my girl,” Shepherd said. He’d said those words before; Stevie knew them well. He’d spoken them just like he used to: slinking and dark like something you shouldn’t listen to too closely. “My assistant will email you tomorrow with the specifics and contracts. Filming starts in two weeks. Production meeting the Friday before.”
Stevie nodded, but then remembered he couldn’t see her, even though it felt like his eyes were crawling all over her skin.
“Okay,” she croaked.
“Can’t wait to see you again, Stephanie.”
4
Thirty minutes earlier, Stevie would have called Kyra to tell her everything about Shepherd and the show, and Kyra would have sat up with her all night just so she wouldn’t drive to the grocery store on Main.
So she wouldn’t wrap her hand around the cool glass of a bottle.
But that was thirty minutes ago and shit had changed after her conversation with Cade. He was right—she couldn’t call Kyra because she was dealing with her own issues and adding the stress of Stevie’s issues on top of hers wouldn’t be fair. That meant Stevie only had herself and an empty house.
Her phone chimed with a text message.
Friday, August 12, 2016: 10:38 PM—Answer This And DIE: So happy for you! Shepherd says after Reno Reality wraps, he’ll pitch our show! We should put your house on the market. I’ll tell my assistant. Love, Mom.
She quickly turned her phone off. She’d almost forgotten how fast news traveled in Los Angeles. Shepherd must have called her mom right after he got off the phone with her.
Not knowing what else to do, she walked the rooms of her house, upstairs through the empty bedrooms and the dusty bathrooms, then back downstairs, past the windows overlooking Gardenia, where the street lamps had all turned off. She headed to the back porch, to the ocean. She thought about sitting out there next to the waves, thinking it might be peaceful, but then she thought of mosquitoes and nature’s general bitchiness and continued on her circuit.
“Don’t think about it,” she told herself. She was thinking about it. She couldn’t stop.
This was bad. For all her effort not to think about them—about Shepherd and drinking and her parents and drinking and Cade and drinking—she was thinking about all of them. They weighed as heavily on her shoulders as an entire case of wine, or an entire bottle of Jim Beam Honey, or shots of Fireball that turned her brain mushy with its sweetness, until all she smelled was cinnamon.
She cursed and took off for her bedroom, her bare feet slapping back up the stairs. She hadn’t bothered with the lights because she didn’t want Kyra to see them and know she was still awake. She was a good enough friend to call, and Stevie was a bad enough person to tell her exactly why she couldn’t close her eyes. Then Kyra might relapse and it would all be Stevie’s fault.
Stevie reached her bedroom and flung open the door. The sheets on her bed were a twisted tornado from her attempts to sleep last night. Clothes littered the floor from this morning. She’d tried on everything she owned because every single thing had felt tight and itchy, like it might peel her skin off if she had to wear it all day. Food wrappers and coffee cups lined every available inch of every surface.
She went straight to her desk, a white modern affair her interior decorator had picked out. She opened the bottom drawer and breathed a sigh of relief. There, neatly lined up with the straps carefully rolled up and the lens covers all in place, were her cameras, a few of her point and shoots. They were simple digitals she used if she needed something light and fast, but her baby, her precious was the Canon 5D Mark III.
She eased it out and cradled it in her hands as she turned away, toeing the drawer closed. The strap unwound in her hand and she looped it over her arm. She pulled the lens cap off as she walked, her fingers instantly flipping through the adjustments—a thoughtless act as simple as breathing.
She breathed better with the camera in her hand.
She raised it as she left her bedroom, her eyes focused on the viewfinder a few inches in front of her face so she saw her house and everything in it through the camera. It was a barrier between her and the bad things, the secrets her house knew, and all the things she’d done here that she hated herself for.
The man who’d asked if they should go somewhere private as he slipped the ring from his finger into his pocket. She’d pretended she hadn’t seen because she didn’t want to be alone. She’d kept drinking until she hadn’t felt like a terrible person, till she hadn’t felt like anything at all.
The time she’d been so drunk she passed out in the bathroom. When she woke up the next morning, a puddle of clear puke had been next to her face. She would have died if she hadn’t been on her side; she’d gotten lucky that she couldn’t lie on her back in the small space.
The step in the stairs with a dark brown spot of blood where she’d fallen and busted her lip open; she’d been too wasted to see straight.
All her ghosts were here, and she took their pictures.
Click click click, her camera whirred. She adjusted the angle and fired again. The hall she’d stumbled down so many times. The side table that had nothing on it because she’d broken the pictures and vases so many times in her attempt to get to her bedroom. The view of the ocean from her hall window. For hours, she spiraled through her house, taking pictures, changing batteries, and starting all over, like if she took enough pictures she could pop out her memory like a card and slip in a new one.
In the early morning hours, it actually started working. She collapsed on her couch, camera in hand, and fell asleep.
* * *
The email from Shepherd’s assistant came the next morning.
Stevie hit the highlights as she sat on her couch, the morning sun spilling through her windows and resetting the clock on the night she’d fought tooth and nail to get through. Outside, the neighborhood came to life with people going about their morning routines. They drove past her house in their Lexus and Range Rovers without a gla
nce, as if a devil wasn’t hiding inside its walls. Stevie stood from the couch, phone in hand, and closed the curtains before heading into the kitchen.
The only useful thing in the room was her espresso machine—a gleaming, silver thing she would marry if she could. She readied a cup and waited, staring dully at the blinking light, the gurgling, hissing sounds faraway in her mind.
A shadowed face appeared in her kitchen window.
Stevie screamed and flung her phone at the glass.
From outside, a scream echoed as her phone smacked off the glass right in front of the figure’s forehead. They stumbled backward.
“Oh my gosh, Stevie!” a muffled voice sounded from outside.
Stevie’s heart had dropped out of her butt and hit the floor, but she still recognized that voice.
“Kyra?” she called to the window, stepping forward. She flipped the lock and pushed the window open. Through the screen, she spotted Kyra sprawled ass first in her landscaping.
“Um,” Kyra whimpered. “This bush has thorns.” She pried her arm free and grimaced.
“Hang on,” Stevie said. “My coffee is almost done. I’ll help you out in a few minutes.”
“Stevie! Now!”
Stevie sighed. “Fine. Don’t move.”
She closed the window and locked it before hurrying to her back door. She wove through her garden and out the back gate, heading toward the side alley between their houses. And there was Kyra.
Stevie couldn’t help it. She snorted. “You’re spread-eagle in my bush.”
“Not. The. Time,” Kyra hissed. She cried out when she tried to move.
“Okay, just chill.” Stevie circled the bush, searching for the best way to extract her. “This is a lot to process before coffee.”
Kyra pulled at her skin-tight surf shirt. Her legs were completely exposed in her bikini bottoms. Tiny drops of blood welled against her skin as thorns pulled against her. “This hurts!”
“Why were you creeping on me anyway?” Stevie positioned herself in front of Kyra, between her sprawled legs, and said, “Grab my neck. I’ll pull you up while I try to get these thorns out of your ass. Okay?”