Pieces of Eight (Mad Love Duet Book 2)

by Whitney Barbetti

  Mirabela, I’d love to speak with you.

  I dropped my phone on the floor and eyed it with distrust. My mother was in a season too—a season of caring. Which meant, for the first time in years, she wanted to visit me, seemingly wanting some kind of reconciliation. I stood up to wash my hands when it beeped again.

  It’s been years. I’d like to mend fences.

  Damn right it had been years. So many years, in fact, that my fences didn’t need to be mended, didn’t want to be mended.

  As I dried my hands on a towel, my phone beeped again.

  “For fuck’s sake,” I murmured, yanking the phone from my pocket. I turned the volume down to vibrate and ignored the newest message, dropping my phone on the counter and grabbing cereal from the cupboard.

  I ate from the box on the floor in front of the painting, staring up at it and trying to make sense of it all.

  My phone buzzed on the counter, and I eyed it shrewdly, mouth full of cereal. I waited. Four full vibrations. Then it went to voicemail, and my eyes turned once again to my painting, imagining the words I’d later embellish it with. Or maybe I wouldn’t, since I’d abused it longer than necessary.

  A second later, my phone vibrated again. I whipped my head to it and waited until it had vibrated fully off the counter, bouncing solidly on faded rug beneath it.

  I set my box of cereal to the side and reached for the phone.

  A familiar name flashed in my missed call list. I sighed in relief and then answered.

  “Mira,” he said over the line.

  “Jacob.” I gripped onto the counter and pulled myself to standing.

  “I haven’t heard from you. You didn’t go to the Dry Run last night.” That was Jacob; if I went too long without going to the Dry Run, he worried. Jacob had been my only real friend for the last few years—apart from Brooke—and was the kindest person I’d ever met, despite my penchant for hostility and my knee-jerk reaction to make fun of his clothes. He’d picked me up when things were the worst, with generosity I didn’t deserve. He helped me learn how to go forward, not stuck in the past.

  “Yeah.” I groaned as I stretched my muscles and felt the pops in my back. “I fucked up.”

  Silence on the other end. I knew Jacob well enough to know he was processing what I was saying. I idly dumped some fish food into Henry’s bowl and tapped the glass. He was either asleep or dead.

  I opened the fridge and pulled out a red bull, popping it open and chugging it a second later.

  “What was it?”

  “Wine,” I said. I set the can down and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “One glass.”

  Not that one glass was any better than two. I’d been on the wagon for more than three years, and that one glass took it from me.

  “When?”

  “Last night.” I tapped my fingers on the counter, noticed my nail polish was chipped to hell.

  “I’m coming over.” He hung up before I could protest. Even with how well I knew Jacob, he knew me enough to know that I’d talk him out of it.

  I snapped my fingers at Griffin and shook her leash. She was a lot slower these days, ambling toward me with a limp she hadn’t had the day before. I checked her paws, rolling my eyes when I found a round kernel of dog food between two of her toes. “You had a snack and you didn’t even eat it,” I told her, taking her on a quick walk before Jacob showed up.

  I swore I heard the silent admonishment Jacob made at the front door being unlocked. As much as I’d changed in the years since Six, that remained the same. Except now I lived with a woman and her daughter, who actually had nice shit to steal.

  “I just came in from a walk, that’s why it was unlocked,” I called out to him and settled at the table we often sat at.

  Brooke’s house was homey, more homey than I could possibly achieve on my own. I supposed that was why I’d stayed here for so long, taking care of Norah when Brooke finally decided to grant herself a life outside of these four walls.

  The slow scrape of metal on metal told me Jacob had locked the door himself. His steps across the wood floor were soft. When he entered the kitchen, I stared a little too long at his baggy jeans cinched hysterically tight at the waist.

  “Is it the pants?” he asked me when I stifled a laugh.

  “Honestly, Jacob. What’s the deal? You could jump out of an airplane and still land.”

  “Maybe I’m looking into jumping out of airplanes.” I was never more aware of his sheer height than when he did things like sit at my table, because he had to fold himself practically in half to do so. He shook his shaggy hair from his face and snapped his fingers at Griffin, who looked at him blankly and didn’t move from her sprawl on the floor. “She’s a lively one.”

  “She’s getting old. Nine years old this past October.”

  He shook off his jacket, revealing a baggy thermal shirt underneath. Sometimes it amazed me that we’d become friends. He was so like the people I often secretly made fun of. But he wasn’t the stoner idiot I’d initially pegged him to be. He was quiet, thoughtful, and a better friend than I deserved. “Nine years is old?”

  “For Newfoundlands, I guess.” I didn’t want to talk about my aging dog. I’d already gone through a few Henrys since leaving Six, but losing Griffin would probably send me to my knees. I carried a container of brownies I’d brought home from the restaurant to the table and placed them without ceremony at its center.

  “Is this intended to be a bribe?” He looked up at me from his black frames.

  “Box brownies are never a bribe,” I replied, sliding into the seat next to him at my round dining table. “If I wanted to bribe you, I’d have made these by hand.”

  He picked one up and brought it up for inspection. “I’m glad my company is at least worth boxed brownies.”

  “Imagine what you’d have to do to earn the real stuff,” I said with a wink.

  Jacob made a face that made me laugh before he smiled softly and bit into the brownie. He didn’t say anything else, just looked right at me waiting for me to start talking.

  I put my arms on the table, laced my fingers together. “I saw him last night.”

  “Six.”

  This was why I didn’t bother lying to Jacob. He knew me. He understood me. We held one another accountable and he’d been the first person to give me something I hadn’t known I wanted until it was there, in my lap: a real friend.

  I clenched my fingers together and then separated them, making fists. “I was running. I saw him.” I swallowed. My eyes focused on my palms, and my voice grew soft. “He was angry to see me. I’d always imagined the moment I’d see him again. And I imagined a hundred different scenarios, all with different reactions.” I looked up at Jacob. “But I never thought the first time I saw him, he would be angry with me.”

  Jacob didn’t say anything, just took another bite of the brownie.

  I shrugged and looked back at my hands. “I figured out why he was angry.” My eyes went to my wrist. To the words. “He’s engaged.”

  The silence between us was like a vacuum. I heard nothing but the roar of my blood in my ears as that word settled sharply on my tongue.

  Jacob didn’t need to ask me the silly, “How did that make you feel?” question that a therapist would be expected to ask now. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out exactly how that made me feel: like absolute shit.

  He set the brownie on his napkin and steepled his fingers. “Mira, you knew he’d move on eventually.”

  That was the thing. Of course I knew that Six would find a replacement, or a very sorry excuse for one, at least. Eventually. It had been three years since I’d last seen him, forcing him from the hospital room that had reeked of death and grief. Grief I’d been unable to process. His grief.

  But never in my wildest imagination had I imagined that Six would not just find a replacement, but that he’d also make a promise to have her belong to him according to the law and God. Never.

  “But engaged, Jacob.�
� I stood up from the table, needing to work out the energy. “And she’s basically a Barbie doll, whose problems are about as deep as a baby pool.” I grabbed a glass from the cupboard and thrust it under the running water.

  “You’re gracious as ever.” I didn’t miss the distaste in his remark. He knew I’d judged him before getting to know him, and often was the angel on my shoulder, reminding me to show sympathy.

  I shrugged and slammed a fist on the lever, turning the water off. “She’s not for him. She just isn’t.”

  “And who is? You?”

  I pulled the glass from my lips and pointed it at him. “No. You’re not going to psychoanalyze me, Jacob. You’re my friend.”

  “I’m your friend.” He pushed back from the table but remained sitting. “The reason we are friends, and the reason we work so well together, is because we’re opposites.”

  It was true. Not just in appearance or sex, but in the sense that we’d both climbed the mountain of addiction and reached the summit. To Jacob, the top was refreshing and life-affirming, and he’d descended it just fine, without relapse. For me, the top was dazzling, a taste of something I didn’t know I could have. Something I didn’t think I deserved, after all the fuck ups I’d made and still made. And I was still descending, still susceptible to relapse. But this time, I was on shakier ground because I didn’t have Six to carry me through the hard stuff.

  It helped that Jacob preferred blondes. It took the sexual component of our relationship completely away. Not that he was my type to begin with, but knowing it was off the table eliminated any temptation for something sexual.

  Six. Six was my type. He was the disease, and he was the cure.

  Where I was loud and volatile, Jacob was a calm peacemaker. Even when I tried harboring secrets, Jacob kept me grounded so I wouldn’t float away on an unspoken desire.

  “Forget it,” I said. “Six and I were perfect a hundred years ago.”

  “What about Six with you was perfect?”

  The fact that we didn’t need to be perfect, ironically, was what made it perfect. All of it. Everything. “Nothing.”

  “Mira.” Jacob’s voice pulled me from falling into thoughts of Six and I blinked, looking at him.

  “What?”

  He sighed, unhappy knowing where my thoughts had drifted. “You and Six were not perfect, Mira. Perfect things don’t fall apart.”

  I shrugged and clasped my hands together on the tabletop. “Everything falls apart eventually.”

  “Like your sobriety?”

  My eyes flew to his. “I had one slip up.”

  “You derailed years of work, Mira. You need to acknowledge that, and you need to avoid what caused it.” He took a bite of brownie and a chunk was left hanging on his lip.

  “It’s hard to take you seriously when half that brownie is hanging off of your face.”

  He rolled his eyes at me and wiped it with the napkin. “You know better,” he said quietly. He was right, but not for the reasons he thought.

  “It wasn’t Six that caused the relapse.”

  “Of course it wasn’t Six. Six didn’t force the alcohol into your mouth; you did.”

  I shook my head. “No, I mean.” I picked at my nails. “Victoria,” I began, thinking of the Barbie and her perfect skin, perfect body, unmarred by the scars that decorated my skin. I turned my wrists up and looked at them for a minute. “Victoria handed me a glass, and she told me they were engaged and everything happened so quickly.” My eyes moved from the scars to look at Jacob. “She was talking and Six was staring and…” my voice trailed off, and I lifted my shoulders. “I just drank.”

  “To escape?”

  I shook my head. “To stop thinking.”

  “Ah.” I hated when Jacob made that sound, and the bastard knew it because he gave me that look, the knowing look.

  I glared at him, wishing my eyes could cause physical harm, before remembering that this was Jacob. He wasn’t a threat to me. Only I was a threat to myself.

  “I know what you’re going to say.” I ran my tongue over my teeth and picked up a brownie.

  “And what’s that?” He took the brownie from my hand, knowing I was only going to pick at it until it fell apart, pieces on the table.

  “Turning off my brain is why I sought out drugs and alcohol before.”

  He nodded, but didn’t speak, clearly wanting me to continue my train of thought.

  “And when I feel threatened, I need to be proactive.”

  “Yeah.” Jacob looked to the painting by the window. “Like painting.” We both paused for a minute, looking at the swirl. I wished I’d hidden it. Knowing that he was seeing my thoughts translated onto canvas made me feel completely emotionally naked. “Your showing is in two weeks?”

  I turned back to face him. “December tenth.” My phone buzzed from the counter and I ignored it.

  “Are you going to get that?”

  Furiously I shook my head. “It’s probably just my mother.”

  He nodded. “Are you ever going to talk to your mom?”

  It was a bone of contention between us; Jacob wanting me to make amends with my mom, to fix all that was fucked up between us. He thought I’d have the happily ever after he had with his parents—was so delusional in believing that my mom was anything like his dad—and that it would all work out as if this was an episode of Leave it to Beaver.

  But my mom wasn’t on the same page, not even the same planet as his dad. I hadn’t seen her in a dozen years, and I had no plans to change that anytime soon. “No,” I answered simply, all the reasons swirling in my head.

  “I think you should consider it, Mira.”

  “You were just telling me to avoid Six, a person who healed me.”

  “He also broke you.”

  No, I did that. I always did that. I shook my head. “My mom never tried healing me.” She broke and she broke and she broke until someone else came and picked up all the pieces. Jacob didn’t get that about my mom, and though he was my friend, he wasn’t privy to all my thoughts or all my history. “You don’t know what she’s like,” I said, settling for that vague truth.

  “Maybe not.” He picked up another brownie and took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. “But she’s the only family you have. It might not be a bad idea to invite her to your showing. Even if you’re not ready to talk, she might be ready to listen.”

  I thought of my paintings, of the dozens I’d prepared for the showing, all of them with words, with thoughts I’d poured from my fingers with paint instead of with blood.

  “Focus on that,” he said, eyes on me as he stood up. “Focus on the showing. Leave Six be.”

  “’Leave Six be,’” I mimicked. “You make it sound like I’m out to destroy him.” I put the lid on the container and handed it to Jacob.

  He took the container from my hand and shifted to wrap his other arm around my shoulders. “Are you?”

  I wriggled out of the half-hug like it was poison, but his question echoed in my head long after I’d closed the door behind Jacob. I sat on my couch, staring at the painting I’d begun years before. Unsealed, the color was fading, but the swirl around the 6 was a clean curl, wrapping itself around the 6 a dozen times.

  I brought it upstairs, deciding once and for all not to include it in the showing. When I came back down, the front door opened and Norah’s chatty voice filled the room with sound. I think that was one reason why I liked being around her so much. She was loud, like me, and had more movement in her little body than an entire boy band on a stage.

  “And Hannah is going to Tahoe for Christmas. Can we go to Tahoe, mom, please?”

  I couldn’t make out Brooke’s answer, but judging by the whine in Norah’s voice, it was a negative.

  Descending the stairs, I picked up the things Hurricane Norah had left in her wake. A flowered sock, a black sock, a fuzzy beanie, and a pair of boots on different steps. I deposited them in the chest beside the door and followed the noise of Norah’s pleas down the hall
.

  “AJ is coming here for Christmas,” Brooke told her.

  “Mira, can we go to Tahoe for Christmas?” Norah asked me as I entered the room.

  “Whoa.” Brooke opened Norah’s backpack and pulled out her planner. “I’m the mom, here, okay?”

  “It’d be perfect,” Norah groaned, leaning on her mom. “You and AJ can have alone time or whatever and Mira and I can go to Tahoe with Hannah’s family.”

  “Do I get a say in this?” I asked Norah, grabbing a juice box from the fridge and handing it to her. The routine was comfortable to me, something I never thought I’d say in a hundred years. In a few minutes, Brooke would start getting out things to make dinner and I’d take over for her when Norah had a question on her homework.

  “Mira,” Norah began in that prepubescent Valley girl tone, slamming her palms on the table. “It’s Tahoe. Ta. Hoe.”

  I exchanged a look with Brooke. “It’s Ta. Hoe, Brooke.”

  “Yes, well, we’re spending Christmas with AJ in San. Fran. Cis. Co.” Brooke handed her daughter a pen and motioned with her hand for Norah to begin working.

  “AJ?” I asked her. “That’s still a thing?”

  Brooke narrowed her eyes at me. She knew I was just teasing her. After all, AJ had clung to Brooke like a puppy desperate for her love and attention, for the better part of the last year. Of course he was a thing. So much a thing that I had a feeling he wanted to be firmly in this thing, to give Brooke a new last name—that kind of thing. He was a good dude, I supposed. Not my type, but he made Brooke and Norah happy. Griffin too. Maybe she could smell the desperation on him.

  “Did you feed the fish today?” Brooke asked me absently as she grabbed cayenne from above the stove.

  “I did. Jacob stopped by for a bit this afternoon.”

  “Oh yeah?” She glanced over her shoulder. “I’m sorry I missed him.”

  But I wasn’t sorry for it. Brooke didn’t know I’d relapsed, and if possible I’d keep that from her. She didn’t need to know, not when I hadn’t had the desire to reach for the booze again. At least no more of a desire for it than usual.

  I may have grown comfortable with the voices in my head, but I didn’t let them charge me forward. Well, not all the time. Thanks to my super busy schedule, I didn’t have time to indulge in my madness. It also helped that I was perpetually a starving artist, apart from the fact that I regularly ate these days—thanks to Brooke.