“You asked Chester about my dating life?”
“Well yeah. You don’t walk into the ring without knowing what you’re up against.”
She was at her front door now, hand on the knob.
He pressed his palm to the wood, trapping her inside. “You can’t drop a bomb like that and expect me to leave it alone. Who is it?” He refused to believe she was telling the truth. They’d never dated other people, not seriously, anyway. A few dates here and there just to pretend they weren’t madly in love with each other, but that was all. “If this guy really exists, he has a name.”
She turned slowly. “I don’t want to hurt you. I just want us both to get on with our lives.” Her voice rattled him as much as her expression. If she were lying, she’d become far too good at it for him to read.
He dropped his hand from the door and she rushed out as if she’d just been released from prison.
Score one for April. True or not, he felt as if he’d been kicked in the groin. Shaky and out of breath, he pressed on his sternum and stumbled to the couch.
She was lying. She had to be.
Chapter 21
Caroline set the oven to preheat and stared at the ingredients covering her counter. It had been over a year since she’d pulled out her mother’s chocolate chip cookie recipe, but desperate times called for… well, in this case an evening full of gooey dough and spatulas.
She grabbed the largest bowl, unwrapped a block of shortening and listened as it dropped with a thud against the metal. Clogged arteries… check. But she’d seen the food the security guys inhaled and knew they couldn’t care less about the extra calories.
Sugar, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla. She poured and mixed, barely needing the recipe to know what came next. She’d made these cookies every year of her life, mostly around the holidays or school parties. She’d climb on a stool and her mom would let her use the mixer, even when she accidentally sprayed the ingredients all over the room. Tears sprung to her eyes, but she pushed them away.
Being alone was better than being terrified.
The oven beeped alerting her it was ready. She combined the dry flour with the wet dough and spun the hand-held mixer until it could hardly move through the thickening mix. The worst part was to come, though as a kid she’d love to get her fingers all gooey.
Her hands freshly washed, Caroline finished kneading the dough and added a bag of semi-sweet chocolate. She tested a small portion. Perfect. Using her elbow to lift the faucet handle, she watched as chunks of batter slipped from her fingers.
Again, the memories assaulted her. Memories of the first time she’d made cookies for Jeremiah. How he’d wrapped his arms around her and kissed the back of her neck while she tried to clean up. He could be so gentle. Loving. But then again, he was also the man who’d locked her in a closet for an hour—punishment for missing two of his calls.
She shook off the excess water and grabbed a dry hand towel. Moving like a robot around the kitchen, she continued to meticulously clean until she realized what she was doing.
No! Jeremiah did not exist here!
She grabbed a pinch of flour and flung it to the floor, smiling as she watched the dusting spread across the tile.
“Much better,” she said, her voice cutting the silence around her.
A soft knock split the silence further, and Caroline stilled as if thoughts of her ex could conjure him from thin air. The knock came again and she brushed her fingers against her spotted apron and moved toward the door.
“Who is it?” She called out, too far from the peephole to check herself.
“April. Open up.”
Relief sprang through her coiled muscles and she quickened her steps. “Coming.”
A careful check confirmed it was indeed her condo mate. She unlocked the dead bolt and swung open the door. “I take it you’re hiding again?”
April entered immediately as if something were chasing her down the hall. “How can you tell?”
“You look like a preteen at a slumber party.”
April glanced down at her attire and chuckled. “Yeah, I guess I do.” She eyed the mess in the kitchen, and Caroline braced herself for one of April’s zinging insults.
Instead she climbed on a bar stool and pinched off a piece of cookie dough. “Yum. Good call on the chocolate chips. Chester will love them.”
Caroline shut and locked the door. “Why would you assume they’re for Chester?” They were, which only irritated her further. She’d never met anyone who could size up an environment the way April could.
“Because it’s nine o’clock at night and since you’re not a bake sale mom…” She wiped her fingertips on the nearby towel. “That leaves nursing a broken heart, which, well, you don’t really fit that profile. Or you’re baking for someone else.” April draped a pajama clad leg over her other one. “And since I kept my end of the bargain and chewed Chester a good one, I’m guessing this gesture will appease some of your lingering guilt.”
“He doesn’t even say hello to me anymore,” she grumbled, moving back into the kitchen. “Why did you have to mention my name?”
“Because you’re the one who wanted the extra security. What good would it do to yell at him if nothing changed?”
April had a point. And while Caroline had missed Chester’s smiling commentary, she’d also slept better these last few weeks than she had in months.
Caroline slid the baking sheet on the counter, grabbed a small fist of dough and began rolling it in her hands. “So what has you running away this time?” She pressed it flat and laid it on the sheet.
“Sean moved next door, and he is having a hard time remembering my condo is no longer his.” April’s voice was different tonight. Shakier. The rage and bitterness she’d had the first time she’d come over was gone. Now her words felt wrapped in longing. “And worse, I feel guilty for it.” She fisted and unfisted her fingers. “Ugh. He is the only person in the world who makes me this crazy.”
“Sounds like you’re in love with him.” Caroline placed the last formed piece of dough on the sheet and picked it up, waiting to hear April protest. She didn’t. Only looked down at her fingers. “That’s not a bad thing, April. I met Sean and he seems like a really good guy. I have a sense about these things. Trust me.” She walked over to the oven, slid in the cookies and set the timer to twelve minutes.
“He is a good guy,” she admitted. “He’s just not the right guy, and no one but me seems to understand that.”
“Or maybe you’ve lost the ability to be objective.” Caroline leaned her forearms on the counter opposite her guest. “I don’t know the details of your break up, but chances are trust was broken in some capacity. That takes time to rebuild.”
“If I wanted a shrink, I’d have gone to Journey, not you. She has two on speed dial.” April hopped off the bar stool and barreled toward the sink. Within seconds, she had the hot water flowing and was washing out measuring cups.
The gesture would be considerate if Caroline didn’t know that April was using the tactic to avoid her greater issues. Turning, she pressed her backside against the counter and watched April furiously scrub a bowl that was already clean. If this was her coping mechanism, April must have been miserable this past year. Her apartment was freakishly spotless.
When the dishes were all dried and stacked on the counter, April finally wiped her hands and faced her again.
Caroline hadn’t moved in the five minutes it took April to do the task. Instead, she thought of how far she’d come since leaving Jeremiah a year ago. Sure, she still had relapses and shots of terror, but she didn’t feel helpless anymore. The person standing in front of her now, however, did feel that way. And for some reason, like she had with Ty during his personal crisis, Caroline felt the need to help April. “Feel any better?”
“Oh that wasn’t for me. Truthfully, I’m shocked this place isn’t infested.”
Hyper-spastic cleaning and now blazing insults. Both defense mechanisms. Caroline wondered
what came next. “Does Sean know you still love him? Is that why he came back?”
April’s neck flushed red, but to her credit, her expression stayed impassive, bored even. “Let’s not pretend we’re friends, okay? I’m using you just like you used me.”
Caroline crossed her arms. “I think I’m getting it now. You first try and scrub your way out of feeling anything. When that fails, you insult or redirect the conversation. Now, it’s demands and an attempted bullet to my self-esteem.” She tilted her head, surprised how calm she felt. Somehow, she’d been given eyes to see beyond April’s mask and now all she felt was compassion for the person it exposed. “What’s next?”
April’s breath came out in a furious snort. She attempted to flee the kitchen, probably the entire apartment, but Caroline was quicker. She grabbed a handful of flour and chucked it at April’s retreating figure. A mound of white splayed across her dark hair. Caroline burst out laughing while April froze in place.
Slowly, she moved her hand and pressed it to the back of her head, turning as soon as it made contact with the flour. “Did you really just throw food on me?”
“Yes, I did.” And with that, she grabbed another handful and threw it at her face, getting her raised forearm instead. “What are you going to do? Get angry? Fight back? Or run away like a coward?”
Caroline saw the very second that her guest snapped. She lunged, forgoing the overturned bag of flour and going straight for the carton of eggs.
Using the arm of a seasoned baseball pitcher, April threw two eggs in succession. Caroline screamed and ducked, but the first one nailed her in the shoulder, the next one, on the side of her head. Slimy goop trickled down her ear and plopped onto her shoulder, but the laughter wouldn’t stop. It was gut-wrenching now. The kind that came without sound because it was so overwhelming. Her foot slipped as she scurried to the counter, grabbing the first item she could find—a small block of shortening. This was bound to be her funeral, but she fell forward anyway, smearing the block of fat across April’s perfectly flawless cheek.
The stark shock in her expression along with the yellow smudge, white flour clump and brown sugar filled fists made Caroline’s laughter stop in a flash. They stood there, face to face, both armed with their next round of weapons.
April took her eyes off her for only a millisecond to assess the destroyed kitchen. “Something is seriously wrong with you.”
A wicked smile worked its way across Caroline’s face. “No, not anymore.”
And with that, the battle resumed. Ingredients flew across the room and by the time the oven started buzzing, both of them were sprawled on the floor, covered in gunk and laughing so hard, tears winked from the corner of their eyes.
Caroline crawled toward the oven, grabbed a mitt, and pulled the cookies from their warm home. She slid the pan on top of the burner covers and shut the door again.
April had moved too. She sat in the corner, back pressed against a cabinet with her knees to her chest. Caroline joined her, plopping down only a few inches away.
“I can’t remember the last time I laughed that hard.” April smiled and it lit up her entire face. It was the first genuine smile she’d ever seen on her and now that she had, all the others seemed extremely empty. “Probably in over a year.”
“Yeah, me too.” Though the truth was she did remember the last time she felt that kind of joy. The day Beck took her to Pirate’s Landing to win enough tickets to earn back his stolen trophy. The day he admitted his feelings and she told him he wasn’t what she needed. The day that inherently ruined their friendship.
April sighed. “If you were forced to choose between your family and a guy, what would you do?”
The question came out of nowhere and rocked Caroline with how it mirrored the choice she was forced to make. “I’d choose my family. Hands down. Every time.”
“Yeah, I thought you’d say that.” April set her chin to her knees. “I started dating someone.”
Anger wove around her heart. “Is he the someone making you choose?”
“Aiden? No. My dad loves Aiden. He’d adopt him if he wasn’t almost thirty. In fact, he’s the sole reason my parents are talking to me again.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know.” She tilted her head until her food-smeared cheek was flat against her pajama bottoms. “Do you know I’ve only kissed one other guy besides Sean? I mean, before Aiden, that is. It was my junior year and I went to prom with one of Beck’s football buddies. I didn’t like him, but I’d heard Sean was taking a date, and I didn’t want to go alone.”
Caroline didn’t move, just listened.
“But he did come alone. And I was stuck with this jock who kept looking down my dress and trying to feel me up.” She closed her eyes. “I let him kiss me because I wanted it to take away the horrible longing for something I couldn’t have.”
“Did it work?”
She grunted a laugh. “Not at all. It did the opposite. So that’s when I quit. Quit dating. Quit trying to replace him. I resolved that I would simply focus on school and success. It worked, too, until suddenly it didn’t. I’d just put off the inevitable.” She sat straight then and rested the back of her head against the cabinet. “With Aiden it’s different. I’m not with him to hurt Sean or to make a point.”
“Then why are you with him?”
April didn’t seem to want to answer that one.
“Let me ask you this. If Sean hadn’t come back, would you be with Aiden at all.”
“Absolutely.” She said the words with total honesty. “He’s my ticket to everything I’ve worked my entire life to achieve. The difference is that I feel this incredibly sinking guilt, like I’m betraying a part of myself by taking what is rightfully mine.”
The words poked at Caroline’s wound. “From my experience, if you have to betray any part of who you are to get what you think is yours, then you’re reaching for something highly questionable.” She stood then, suddenly hot and uncomfortable. She could feel the Lord pressing her to share more, to help make April see that she was more than this pigeonholed image she was clinging to. “Sometimes the things we want most are the things that cause the deepest damage.”
“And what’s your deepest damage, Caroline?” April’s eyes were piercing. “You left your family for Bentwood. Why?”
The reason nearly spilled from her lips, but Caroline shook her head, refusing the conviction. She wasn’t ready to share her story, not again. Instead she grabbed her spatula and shoved it under a hot, fresh cookie. “Freedom comes in many forms. Bentwood is part of mine.” Twisting, she eyed April’s slumped position on the floor. “And despite your insistence that you’re getting everything you want, you still seem very trapped.”
Chapter 22
April twisted her hair until most of the shower water wrung free and down the sink. She grabbed a towel and wiped the steam from the glass and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her mom wasn’t just being snappy. April had lost too much weight. Her jaw line was too sharp, her cheek bones too predominant. The combination made her eyes too big and her scowl far too jarring.
She practiced smiling and found it wasn’t too hard to fake tonight. Something inside had broken free when she’d thrown that first egg. An awakening of the girl she’d once been and lost. A girl she’d only known with Sean.
Caroline had it backwards. It wasn’t that she lost part of herself with Aiden. She was the same with him as she was without him. The difference with Sean was that with him, she gained a side of herself she didn’t even know existed. A softer side, a more compassionate side, a side that made her completely incompatible with her upbringing.
Turning away, April pushed aside swirling questions and swooped up her soiled pajamas. Caroline had lent her a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and apart from them being a little loose, they worked great. It was so odd to swap clothes with a girlfriend. Journey was five nine, so naturally her closet was a no go.
Music from the
living room drifted down the hall when she emerged, followed by Caroline’s singing. Yikes. It was not pretty or on key, yet April felt a strange warmth move through her.
She peeked around the corner at Caroline wiping down the last of the walls. “I’m all clean. Is it safe to come in the kitchen now?”
“It’s safe. Scrubbing this mess was plenty incentive to control my urges.”
Rows of chocolate chip cookies lay on the counter, the rich smell causing her stomach to cramp. “I offered to help,” April said, moving closer.
“Yes, but then we’d be cleaning to your standards and I do want to sit down at some point.” She must have heard April’s stomach growl because she tilted her head toward one of the rows. “There’s more than enough if you’re hungry. I also have leftover orange chicken in the refrigerator.”
April snagged a cookie and nearly groaned when she bit into it. “Wow. These are really exceptionally good.”
A raised brow. “I do believe that is the first genuine compliment I’ve ever gotten from you.”
“Don’t look at me like that. I offer praise when it’s warranted.”
“Okay. Baby steps. I get it.” She tossed the last paper towel into the trash, then picked at a crusted piece of dough on her arm. “I’m gross. Feel free to make yourself at home while I shower.”
Good. That would give her plenty of time to go back over what Caroline considered clean. “I will.”
She marched away and then spun back around. “And NO cleaning. None. I don’t care how much you want to.”
“But, I made the mess too.”
“None.” She pointed a finger at the couch. “Sit down and watch TV or play with your phone. I don’t care, but stay away from my kitchen.”
“Fine,” she grumbled, grabbing one more cookie before walking to the living room. Why Caroline felt such a need to keep her house in disarray, April would never understand.
The Truth Between Us (Bentwood Book 2) Page 16