by J. L. Berg
As if I was a lab rat.
“I’m not your client anymore, Brick. You can’t just show up like this. Why are you even here?” I didn’t like when he looked at me like a patient, or someone that needed help.
There wasn’t a damn thing he could do to help me. Not anymore.
“You called me.”
“What?” I asked in confusion.
“I was still in bed this morning when I got a call from you. Seemed rather odd since I haven’t heard from you in months, but I figured maybe you’d turned a new leaf. Maybe you were ready to make amends. But when I answered, all I got was a drunken string of unintelligible words that obviously weren’t meant for me.”
Realization dawned on me.
“I meant to call my secretary,” I clarified.
“I finally got that after a moment or two,” he answered.
My eyes flickered to my phone as I realized I’d never actually called the office. I might talk a big game when the alcohol was free-flowing in my body, but the idea of Trent coming here to my home, looking for me, wasn’t high on my to-do list for the day.
I mostly just wanted to crawl into a bed with a bottle of Advil and never resurface.
“I called your office,” Brick announced, regaining my attention.
“You did?”
He nodded. “I pretended to be you and feigned a cold. Your secretary wishes you a speedy recovery.”
“Thank you,” I said, the single two words falling from my mouth like bricks as the weight of everything I’d done, or rather the lack of what I’d done, finally crashed around me.
It was a sobering moment.
“I don’t know what to do anymore, Brick,” I confessed, sitting forward as my head fell into the palms of my hands. “I thought I could push her away. I thought I could keep her safe this way but it’s not that simple. Nothing between Everly and me is ever simple.”
“Do you want her back?” he asked simply.
“Every damn day of my life,” I answered. “Each day I crawl out of bed fighting the urge to race back to her and beg her to forgive me. It’s exhausting, Brick, and I’m fucking tired of fighting it. But I will. If it means keeping her away from Trent, I’ll keep doing it.”
“You could always—”
“No. I can’t tell her. She’d never leave my side, and if anything happened to her…” I shook my head as I imagined the possibility—the poor man in that art gallery. Even confessing everything to Brick was a risk, but one I’d taken because I needed an outlet, and when my whole world fell apart those days after Everly left, he seemed like the only viable option.
I should have known better than to spill all my secrets to a shrink. Or whatever he called himself.
“Trent will do anything to keep me on track—to use me as he pleases. I get the feeling that there is something else going on here. Fifty million is a lot of money, and yeah—I get that it’s an epic fuck-up on my part, but I just wish I had all the missing pieces of the puzzle. I feel like I’m working with only half of the information, and it’s frustrating as hell.”
“Would you ever consider hypnosis?” Brick asked, and my interest suddenly piqued. I looked up, my eyebrows raised. “You can do that?”
“Yep,” he said with a hint of cockiness shadowing his tone.
“Why haven’t you ever mentioned it before?”
He shrugged. “Before, when none of your memories had surfaced, I didn’t want to give you false hope, so I focused more on helping you cope with the cards you’d been dealt. After your memories resurfaced, well…you basically shut me out and I wasn’t going to force my expertise on you, was I?”
“No,” I said, slightly dazed. “I guess not. When can we start?” I asked, rising from the couch excitedly.
“Not so fast, Bourbon King. You need to sober up. And from the state of this living room, I sincerely doubt that’s going to be any time soon. I’ll be back in a few days. Try to stay sober until then.”
“Okay,” I answered.
“And August?” he said, before he disappeared down the hallway.
“Yeah?”
“For what it’s worth…I don’t think you should give up hope on your future with Everly. You’ve found a way back to each other before; don’t doubt that you’ll do so again.”
He didn’t wait for a response, and as I heard the door latch quietly clicked, signaling his departure, I wondered if he could be right.
Was there a way back to Everly? Or had I burned all the bridges that marked my path back to my happily ever after?
Chapter Fifteen
Everly
A few days after we returned home from Paris, I began to wonder if there was an actual name for what I was feeling.
Did most people feel this type of depression when resuming the everyday monotony of their life after experiencing the once in a lifetime charm only Paris could give?
The streets didn’t have the same sense of excitement, the coffee wasn’t nearly as exotic, and hell—even the cookies lacked that whimsical color only the French could perfect. Yesterday afternoon, I’d spent hours searching for the right type of brie to satisfy my new addiction to cheese.
I was a mess.
As much as I wanted to blame it all on cheese and wine and the entire French culture, I knew it really had nothing to do with Paris at all. It all boiled down to the perfect date that had spiraled me out of control and sent me running back to our hotel, ready to blame August for every problem I’d ever had.
It had all started out so innocently. A cute guy, a little flirting. It felt good to know I was still attractive to other men, especially a sexy French man—who had definitely not been a spy, much to Sarah’s disappointment.
Leo, the accountant, had sat with us for several hours that night, getting to know us and vice versa. His English was quite good and our conversations carried on very well. When the night came to a close, Sarah had begun to give me the suggestive eye waggle, trying to persuade me into something more with the man sitting across from me. But that just wasn’t my style.
I wasn’t a one-night stand kind of girl, and I never would be.
Which was why, when he asked me out to dinner the next evening, I leapt at the chance. I was the dateable type—the girl you brought home to your mother. It had seemed like a great plan. At first.
The next evening I found myself in a dimly lit restaurant. Romantic music played overhead and my head began to spin.
What had I been thinking? I’d quickly excused myself from the table, rushing to the bathroom as the air became thin around me. I barely made it to the stall before tiny lights began to flicker around my head. My head fell between my legs and I struggled for oxygen.
I was so stupid. So incredibly stupid.
The ink on my shoulder was still fresh and here I was, ready to go out and find Mr. Dependable #3? I’d left Ryan to find myself—to make a life of my own…and I was already scoping out his replacement barely three weeks later.
I’d quickly cleaned my tear-stained makeup in the bathroom mirror, then faked a stomachache, asking Leo to take me back to the hotel. He suggested we reschedule, but I never called him again. I didn’t need any more complications in my life. I already had a big six-foot-tall one I was doing an amazing job of ignoring.
It had taken the better part of our plane ride home for me to figure out my plan of action, but I now had one. No more floundering, no more waiting. I was going to finally take back my life, starting with fulfilling the one dream I’d always put on the back burner.
With all the lights long since gone out, I snuck into Sarah’s small kitchen and quietly brewed myself a single cup of coffee. She had one of those fancy brewers I loathed. They tended to make crappy coffee and I needed about five or six of those tiny expensive cups to make it through a morning. I much preferred a good old-fashioned brewer.
But for late night sneaking around, it had its benefits.
With coffee in hand, I quietly tiptoed back in to my room and pulled up
Google to begin my research. I’d had this dream for as long as I could remember, and for now it would remain solely mine until further notice. For all I knew, it could end up flat as a pancake on the side of the road with all of the other ideas I’d had in the past.
So for the time being, I typed in “culinary schools in San Francisco,” hit enter, and started taking notes.
Career goal research had begun; now I just had to work on everything else.
Easy peasy, right?
Why did I feel like the world was about to cave in around me?
* * *
Was there anything better than the smell of bacon?
Maybe bacon with a hint of coffee?
As I lifted my third—possibly fourth—cup of caffeine to my lips, I smiled as I surveyed the kitchen. Bacon was sizzling, the shrimp was prepared and ready to be sautéed. I’d even preheated the oven for the sweet potato biscuits I’d made from scratch.
Everything was turning out incredible.
“You’re really outdoing yourself,” Sarah commented as she strolled into the living room from her bedroom. She’d spent the last hour and a half primping while I slaved away in the kitchen.
While most people would be annoyed by this fact, I was grateful.
The kitchen was my sanctuary, and I cherished the peace and quiet. Everyone else could stay far, far away…until the dishes were dirty, that is.
“I just wanted everything to be perfect. After so many months of hearing about this guy, I feel like I’m about to meet a celebrity,” I confessed as I moved around the sizzling bacon and onions.
“Miles is just a normal guy,” she promised. “Which is why I’m so protective of him. Normal guys usually don’t end up with me. I’m usually a tractor beam for the weird, insane, or crazy types.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” I encouraged her. Since we’d been friends, Sarah hadn’t dated much. A guy here or there that led to nowhere, or a brief mention of a meal that had ended in disaster, but she’d never given much time or effort to any specific man. I’d just figured she was too involved in her career. I knew athletes were always sensitive about time—or the lack of time they had—when it came to how long they could perform at their peak. I’d just always assumed she was putting off the heavy attachments until she was in a different phase of life.
“Oh, it’s true,” she countered. “I know I haven’t spoken much about my dating past, but I’m a magnet for weirdos. My first serious boyfriend was one of my ballet teachers. I was eighteen. He was thirty. That right there should have been a warning. He took my virginity on the hard wooden floor after class one night. Being so young, I thought it was romantic. God, I was dumb.”
“What happened?” I asked, afraid to even ask as I watched her once lighthearted face morph into something full of pain and regret.
“It was little things at first. A little pinch of skin when we were in bed, or a sideways glance as I dressed. Sometimes he’d pull my food away before I finished, reminding me if I wanted the bigger roles I needed to keep my portion sizes small.”
“Jesus Sarah, he started it,” I said, knowing everything she’d been through over the years regarding her body image.
“No.” She shook her head. “I did—I started it. I didn’t have to listen to him. But I did. I let him control my thoughts, and soon I began to believe them. It was all downhill from there.”
I turned to move, to be there for her, but she held out her hand to stop me and shook her head.
“If you hug me right now I will cry, and I just spent the last hour perfecting my eyeliner.”
Smiling, I stayed put and nodded. “Okay, but just so you know. I love you and I will totally tackle hug you in your sleep tonight—ninja style. You won’t even see me coming.”
“Well, now I’ll be expecting it. You’re a terrible ninja.”
“I never was good at keeping secrets,” I said, but the words made my throat suddenly go dry.
I’d become an expert at keeping secrets. From those I loved—even myself.
I’d hide them away, lock them up, and never think about them again.
Until it was too late.
My late-night conversation with August came back to the forefront of my mind.
Was it too late?
* * *
Thankfully, as the imminent arrival of our guest of honor approached, the mood seemed to lighten up. No more talk of bad boyfriends, and no more dark thoughts of all the horrible things I’d managed to keep hidden over the last few years.
Tonight was about celebrating.
Sarah was happy and therefore, I was happy for her.
After everything we’d both been though, at least one of us should be happy. I just hoped the guy she’d chosen was worthy of her.
She hadn’t given me many details to go on over the last few months, but what I did know sounded promising. He was a business owner, made good money, and treated her well. Whenever she spoke about him, she got that far away, dreamy look girls tended to get when they were headed toward the big “L” word, and now all she could do was pace the floor in nervousness.
“Are you okay?” I asked, closing the oven door. I put the mitt down on the counter and joined her in the living room.
“Just nervous. I really want you to like him,” she confessed.
“Why does it matter so much?”
“You and I are like sisters,” she explained. “You know I’m not that close to my family. They live so far away and we don’t exactly see each other that often. When we were going into your bridal shower, and you stopped and said we were family? That’s exactly how I feel, Ev. You are my family, and I care what you think.”
“Well, shit—now you’re going to ruin my makeup,” I cursed, sitting down next to her. “I’m sure I’m going to love him as much as you do.”
She opened her mouth to protest my use of the big “L” word, but I moved on before she could say a word. “But, you’ve also got to realize, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks as long as you know what’s in your heart.”
Her smile was a bit smug. “Maybe you should follow your own advice.”
Rolling my eyes, I pushed her shoulder with a laugh. “We’re not talking about me. Now, go check on my rolls while I fix my makeup.”
I quickly ran back to my room, moving around all the boxes I still hadn’t unpacked. I’d secretly sent out several applications to culinary schools in the area for the spring semester, and if all went well, I’d be moving into student housing or something similar in the next few months.
No need to get situated here, right?
Plus, the idea of unpacking everything I’d shared with Ryan made me sad. Just another failed life to sort through. Part of me just want wanted to toss half of it and start over fresh.
Out with the old Everly, in with the new.
Rummaging through my makeup on top of my dresser, I found my mascara and a small mirror. Falling down on the small bed Sarah had placed in this room for guests, I quickly redid my makeup, tidying up the streaks that had made their way down to the corners of my eyes.
As I was finishing I heard the doorbell, and Sarah’s exuberant greeting as she welcomed Miles into her home. I’m sure this wasn’t the first time he’d been here, but no doubt it was the first time since I’d moved in. Taking a deep breath, I took one last look in the mirror, making sure I looked cordial and warm. I walked out into the living room with a happy smile on my face, ready to meet Sarah’s new man.
As soon as he turned, I felt all the air rush out my body as I struggled to stay upright.
“Oh my gosh, Ev—are you okay?” Sarah asked, rushing to take my hand.
My eyes stayed locked on the man before me. On Trent.
Dear God, why was he here?
She held me as I stood upright, the blood so loud in my ears I barely heard her as she said, “This is Miles. Miles, this is my best friend Everly.”
His slow smile sent chills down my spine as he took a step forward. His han
d reached for mine.
“So nice to meet you, Everly,” he said, meeting my gaze as he pulled me closer, as if to offer a friendly hug.
“Don’t you dare say a single word. Do you understand?” he whispered into my ear.
I pulled back, nodding ever so slightly as his smile widened.
“Good, good—this is great. We should have done this sooner. I’ve been begging Sarah to introduce me to the infamous Everly. She talks about you so much, I feel like I know everything about you,” he said with a laugh—a laugh that made my skin crawl.
“Hopefully not everything,” I replied, trying to sound calm even though I was anything but. My brain was in a frenzy as I tried to do the mental math. How long had Sarah been talking about this mystery man? Several months…long before I’d even got back together with August.
Dear God. Had Trent really been plotting this the whole time? And for what?
“Is something burning?” Sarah asked, turning toward the kitchen.
“Oh crap! The rolls!” I yelled, rushing to the stove. Smoke billowed from the oven as I pulled on the protective mitt and pulled out the cookie sheet. The once beautiful, round orange biscuits now resembled hard lumps of charcoal.
“It’s okay, Everly. No one is perfect,” Trent commented as his arm slid around my best friend. I watched her head rest on his shoulder. Such love and trust she had given him.
He deserved none of it.
He gave me a wink, making my stomach turn so hard I nearly blurted out the truth right there. But then I remembered Sarah’s story—her failures in love. If I came out and told her now, she’d either accuse me of sabotaging her one chance or she’d blame herself for finding another weirdo.
I knew I had to do something—anything to get her away from him, but I couldn’t do it alone.
I needed help.
I needed August.
Chapter Sixteen
August