Steady (Pleasant Valley Book 3)

by Anna Brooks

  “But sometimes it feels right.”

  “I know.” I kiss her forehead and back up then continue to my room where I close the door behind me. Nerves make my hands shake as I pull out the box from my closet and then grab a couple of bottles before I sit on the end of my bed and twist a cap open.

  Just like I knew I would, I hear Sophia’s voice. Begging, pleading with me. Me closing the door in her face then opening a different one and slipping on my parents’ blood. These are the absolute worst memories, the ones that combine my parents and Sophia. Because their memories are what made me such a bastard with Sophia. Getting them both thrown in my face is no less than what I deserve. It’s a vicious cycle that I can’t stop.

  It’s been a while… I’ve done good, but I’m about to prove how much of a weak bastard I am. As soon as the burn starts in my chest, I smile, welcoming the pain.

  Chapter 8

  Polly

  The frozen lasagna burned because I was lost in thought. I don’t know what happened at the diner, but for the time I’ve known Erik, I’ve never seen that level of defeat on his normally hard face. I’ve seen him almost every other way. The sharp lines of his jaw softened when he was inside me. The intense gaze that normally bores into me blurred with concern when he thought I was in danger. But his usually confident strides were unsteady as he walked down the hallway to his room.

  I hate to admit it, but I was kind of hoping he really would come back to the diner after my shift. The day was going by as normal until he walked in. That was when I finally breathed a sigh of relief. I wanted him to come to me. It seems stupid for me to continue to act like I don’t want him. I’m not denying that; I’m just trying to guard myself, my heart.

  My traitorous heart that speeds up when he’s near but slows when he touches me.

  I pick off the top section of burned cheese from my slice of lasagna and eat the remaining layers. It’s been a couple of hours since he closed the door to his room, but I’ve heard movement. Since I feel like I’m only here out of obligation and that I’m making him uncomfortable in his own house, I decide to put the lasagna back in the fridge and head up to bed.

  After brushing my teeth, I use the bathroom then pad down the hardwood hallway to his room. The water is still running, and it has been for a long time. Like an hour. I knock, but he doesn’t answer. Maybe he’s just taking a shower. A long one. Instead of bothering him, I decide to go back to my room and turn in for the night.

  Glass shatters from inside his room, and I reflexively reach for the knob and twist it. Surprisingly, it turns beneath my hand, and I push it open. “Erik?” I step inside his room. “Erik?”

  With no answer, I begin to get worried and continue toward the attached bathroom. After knocking, my heart rate kicks up with nerves, and I don’t think before opening the door. I come to a screeching halt at what’s before me.

  Erik lying in the bath with the water from the showerhead streaming down on him. The shower curtain is half ripped off and hanging limply. His clothes are completely soaked and his body is shivering so aggressively, his head bounces off the porcelain tub. A liquor bottle is shattered on the floor, inches from the bloody hand dangling over the edge.

  “Erik!” I rush to him and reach to turn the water off. “Shit.” The freezing cold beads hit my bare arm like pins and needles. I twist the knob, and as the stream shuts off, the silence is eerie. Reaching over him, I grab a towel off the holder on the wall, but on my way down, I slip on some water. My hand is sliced by a shard of glass, and I quickly pull it up to find the clear object sticking out of the palm of my hand.

  I yank it out and press the towel to it while trying to absorb some of the moisture from Erik’s ice cold clothes. “Erik, wake up.” I slap his face which only elicits a groan through his bluish lips, but when I try to yank him up, the wound on my hand rips open more, and I drop him, halting any progress I made.

  He’s thankfully breathing, and after pressing my uninjured hand to his jugular and feeling the strong throb of the vein, I make a decision. Running out of the room, I rummage through his stuff on the dresser and finally find his phone on the floor. Picking it up, I slide the unlock button across the screen and search through his contacts.

  I know Mellie is with Erik’s best friend, and from everything that happened, I remember his name. When I find it, I hit the call button and hold the phone up to my ear. As it begins to ring, I rip the comforter off Erik’s bed and rush to the bathroom. I toss it on top of him and then grab the bathmat and set it on top of the broken glass.

  “What’s up, fucker?”

  “Smith?”

  “Yeah.” His answer is confused.

  “This is Polly. I’m, um, I’m at Erik’s house, and he’s in the bathtub passed out. I-I tried to get him out, but he’s too heavy, and he’s freezing cold, and his hand is bloody and—”

  “I’m on my way. Are you okay?”

  Too much adrenaline is coursing through me to realize how kind the question is. “Yeah, but I don’t know what to do. He’s breathing, and he grunted at me when I slapped his face, but he needs to get out of his clothes, and I’m not strong enough.” My voice cracks, but I swallow the fear and feeling of incompetence as I run through the bathroom and grab more towels from the closet to wrap around his head.

  “I’ll be there in less than ten minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  I drop the phone into the sink and then sit on the end of the tub, pulling his head onto my lap. With my good hand, I rub the towel over his hair and press my warm face against his cold one. He murmurs something under his breath but nothing that’s intelligible. With another towel, I wrap it around my hand and grab his injured one, pressing them together to stop the bleeding in both.

  “Shh. It’s going to be okay.” I kiss his forehead and rock back and forth a little. “We just need to get you out of these clothes and get you warmed up then you’re going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine.”

  Five minutes feels like fifty, but Smith charges into the bathroom out of nowhere and makes me jump.

  “Jesus Christ.” He looks at Erik, then me, and then back at Erik. Just as he’s about to open his mouth, Mellie rushes in after him. Her eyes fill with tears, and she puts a hand over her mouth.

  “Dammit, Erik.”

  Smith steps in, and just before he’s close enough to reach him, I warn him, “There’s glass under the mat, but there’s still probably some that I couldn’t cover, so be careful.”

  He looks at Erik’s head in my lap then his eyes slide to my hand. “Fuck, how bad is he cut up?”

  “I think it stopped or at least slowed down.” I lift my arm and the towel falls off, and the second it does, blood pours out of my cut.

  “Oh, my God.” Mellie rushes over and picks up a clean but wet towel from the ground and presses it to my hand. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

  “I’m fine. I’m fine.” I carefully stand and set his head on a towel. “I just need help lifting him.”

  “You need to go get your hand stitched up. I’ll take care of him,” Smith argues.

  “No, I’ll be fine. He—”

  “He’s going to kill me if I let you stay. Go.” He nods at Mellie. “Take her to the ER to get looked at. I’ll call you in a bit.”

  “No, I don’t want to leave him. He—”

  “Trust me, Polly.” Mellie cuts me off. “He’s going to be beating himself up over this, especially since you got hurt because of him… trust me. He’d want you to take care of yourself.”

  I don’t like this woman. I despise her even though I don’t know her, because I know what she’s responsible for. But I can push that aside for Erik. Because it’s killing me to see him like this, and I know they’re right. He’s going to be upset with himself.

  “I’ll be fine. You can just take me home.”

  “Why are you here?” Smith asks, as he whips the comforter off Erik.

  “What?”

  “Are you here because he
wants you to be here and not at your place?”

  I roll my eyes. “I’ll be fine at my place.”

  “Naaa. Hur…” Erik mumbles, his head rolling back and forth.

  Smith pins me with a look, then addresses Mellie, “Take her to get her hand looked at. We’ll figure the rest out from there.”

  She nods and kisses his cheek on her way out, then stops and motions at me. “Come on. You’re going to need stitches.”

  I press my lips together so I don’t say something bitchy, and I follow her out. The cut is pretty deep, so I know it won’t heal on its own. I grab my purse from the kitchen island and get a glance at the red-stained towel still wrapped around my hand, evidence at how quickly it’s getting darker. She walks out the front door and points at a big ass truck. “Smith drove here, so we get the pleasure of riding in the beast.”

  “’Kay.” I look at the door as I close it, and a thought hits me. “How did you guys get in?”

  “Smith has a key.”

  “Oh.”

  Climbing into the truck is a challenge because it’s so high up, but I manage without further injury and buckle up. The ride to the hospital is silent, and awkward tension swarms around us. I breathe a sigh of relief when she pulls up to the hospital, and after parking pretty close, we both get out. “You don’t have to come with me,” I tell her as we meet at the back of the truck.

  “It’s okay. Erik would want me to.”

  “Well, he’s not here, so you don’t have to pretend to like me. I’ll tell him you stayed.” As I pass her, I think maybe she’ll get back in the truck, but her feet pitter-patter behind me.

  She doesn’t say anything else, but I feel her presence behind me as I check in, and then again next to me as I wait. Luckily, I’m only sitting for about twenty minutes before I get called back. As they take my vitals, a billing woman comes in and asks for proof of insurance.

  After explaining that I don’t have any and that I will need to be billed, she has me sign a form before I’m taken back to another room. After another twenty minutes, a nurse comes in and looks at my hand. “I’m going to have the next available doctor come in to stitch that up, but we just got a multiple victim car accident, so it might be a while. If a PA is available sooner, one of them will come in.” She smiles sympathetically.

  “Okay. I have someone in the waiting room. Can I go tell her that it’ll be a while?”

  “Oh, I will. What’s her name?”

  After relaying the information, I lie back down on the bed and stare at the ceiling. A knock on the door has me turning my head, and when I see Mellie, I move to sit up.

  “Don’t get up. It’s fine,” she insists, as she walks over to the chair.

  “You don’t have to be here.”

  “I want to.” She sits in the chair and sets her purse in her lap. “There was a crazy guy wandering around, so I figure it’s a little safer in here.”

  A laugh bubbles out of my throat and then it turns into a soft cry. The weight of everything decides to crash into me right now. Her words, a crazy guy, resonate with me, and it fucking hurts. It hurts that I was so stupid with Richard. It hurts that even though he was crazy, he was nothing but kind to me. And it fucking hurts that I miss someone I shouldn’t. I toss my arm over my eyes and try to calm down, but my body shakes with each sob.

  The bed dips when she sits next to me, and she holds my hand in both of hers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “I didn’t know,” I whisper. “I didn’t know, and it was so obvious, but he didn’t take anything from me, and he was the only person who’s ever done that before. I didn’t know.”

  She squeezes my hand, and after a few more minutes, I finally sit up, pressing on my wound in the process. “Shit,” I mumble.

  “I don’t dislike you, Polly.”

  My mascara gets all over my forearm when I wipe my face. “You don’t have to lie to me.”

  “I’m not lying to you.” She moves over so she’s sitting next to me, and both of our backs are leaning on the wall. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I know,” I confess. “But you were kidnapped, and I feel like I should have known or something.”

  “Listen. It’s in the past, okay? I don’t want to relive it, and I doubt you want to, either. We can just move on, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Yeah, it is. Even thou—”

  A doctor walks in to stitch the cut, interrupting our conversation. It’s probably for the best, anyway. We’re both willing to put the past behind us, so hopefully we can move on, especially since our men are best friends.

  Wait. Our men? My man… I act like Erik is mine. I don’t have a claim on him.

  The sting of the numbing medication is enough to tear my thoughts away from anything other than the project at hand… literally.

  After another forty minutes, we walk back to the truck where Mellie calls Smith. I listen to the one-sided conversation and deduce that we’re headed back to Erik’s.

  When we arrive, I rush inside, anxious to see how Erik is doing. Smith is just coming out of Erik’s room and motions for me to head back downstairs. “How are you feeling?” he asks, looking at my hand.

  “Fine. How is he?”

  Smith drops his head and places his hands on his hips. “I haven’t seen him like this in a long time. Did something happen?”

  I swallow and recollect the actions of earlier today. I tell him about the man from the diner, and how, ever since then, Erik was acting strange. Explain about Erik coming back to my place and everything that happened since we were back here, which wasn’t much.

  “Do you know who the man was?”

  “What man? From the diner?”

  “Yeah.” When Mellie leans into him, he lifts his arm and wraps it around her shoulders. Like a puzzle, they just fit together.

  “An older guy. I don’t know his name.” I plop down on a kitchen chair. “Why?”

  “No reason.”

  “Is he coherent?” I ask.

  “He came around enough to ask about you, but that’s about it. He barfed a couple of times, but now he’s sleeping.”

  “Okay. Thanks for coming by.” As I stand and walk toward the stairs, Smith’s voice stops me.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with you guys, but he’s been through so much, Polly. Stuff you wouldn’t even believe. If you can’t stick around, I’d rather you just leave now.”

  I bite my bottom lip and turn to face him. Is that what I want? To go back to my itty-bitty apartment and continue being alone? I thought it was. I was so sure that being alone and independent was a step up from dependency, but the time I’ve spent with Erik has been the best of my life. So I guess if my heart gets clobbered in the process, at least I can say I tried.

  Girls like me don’t ever get the opportunity to experience what I have with him. My life isn’t one I thought would ever have a happy ending. I still don’t know if it will. But once I was kicked out of the group home at eighteen, I tried to make it happen. It’s been almost a decade of trying, and this is the closest I’ve come. So when I answer him, all the confusion I’ve been feeling and all the uncertainty is long gone. I want this. I want Erik. “I’m staying.”

  Chapter 9

  Erik

  “Erik, I’m pregnant.”

  My mouth falls open, and instead of being happy, I’m nothing but angry. I don’t want this. Sophia senses my hesitation, and the innocent smile on her face fades.

  “Erik?”

  “How far along are you?”

  Her hands instinctively cross her belly. “Why?”

  “Can you still get rid of it?”

  She shakes her head as she begins walking away. “I can’t believe you’d ask that.”

  I stand from my position on the couch and point my finger at her. “I can’t believe you lied to me.”

  “I didn’t lie to you; I’ve never lied to you.”

  “You said you were on birth control.”
/>   My accusations make her sadness morph into anger. “Fuck you. You think I trapped you?”

  Instead of answering, I shrug. I know she didn’t. I know this wasn’t planned, but I can’t help feeling upset that this ruins everything. A baby ruins it; it makes it worse. I can’t be a father.

  “I can’t believe you.” She turns heel and slams the door behind her.

  It takes about three seconds for me to realize what a fucking asshole I am. I get outside just in time to see her pull out of the driveway. I rush back inside and grab my keys and then I race to her house. I break every traffic law and end up getting there the same time she does. She notices me and begins jogging to the front porch, but I intercept her and pull her to me.

  She doesn’t struggle because she knows it’s pointless. “I didn’t mean it.”

  Her arms wrap around me loosely, but she doesn’t say anything.

  “I’m a fucking bastard, Soph. I’m sorry. You know how much I love you; you know I’d never… God, I can’t believe I asked you that.”

  “Me either.”

  “I just—”

  “I know. I know what you just.” She sighs. “But when are you going to get over that, E? When are you going to realize that I love you for who you are and not for what you think you didn’t do for your dad? You aren’t him, and it’s not your fault.”

  My lips find their way to the top of her head, and I hold them there for a second. She’s right. I’m not my father, and I know this. Logically, I understand that. But knowing that the façade he put on for everyone was so fake is sickening. We all thought he was so strong and such a hero. But it turns out he was nothing but a coward.

  “What the hell is going on?” Smith’s voice makes us both jump a little.

  I step back from Sophia, and when Smith sees her red eyes, he glares at me. He doesn’t know. Has no clue about us. He would not take too kindly to me tainting his baby sister. Soph and I fight about this constantly. She disagrees, but when she threatens to tell her family about us, I always change her mind somehow. I hold her off just a little while longer.