Just as I open the door to my car, I see Nate come from around the back of the house. He has a sheen of sweat covering his skin, and it hits me like a rocket straight to my core. Wow, he is one sexy man. All the dirt, sweat, and grit covering his body with his tool bag dangling from his hand adds to his very enthralling appeal. He looks like a freaking model in a hunky guy’s calendar, dammit. All I can think about is finding something to break so I can watch him fix it. Of course, as he gets closer to me, I realize all that daydreaming is a waste.
Nate is unbelievably angry with me. He wants nothing to do with any part of me, but that will hopefully all change when I present my little project to him. I am not asking anything in return, except a smile and perhaps a thank you. I want to bridge a gap between the girl he hated ten years ago and the woman I am today.
I slowly make it to my feet, and a twinge of pain shoots down through my abdomen. “Ouch!” The pain is so intense it almost brings me to my knees, and I have to keep my hand clasped on to my car to avoid losing my balance.
Nate moves a little bit closer yet keeps a fair distance between us. I can see his face more clearly now, and he looks completely indifferent to me or that I am in pain. The corner of his mouth rises slightly—the first time I have seen any shred of happiness from him in the past seven days. It’s too bad it has to be my agony that makes him feel it.
I manage to get my door shut, but as soon as I make the jarring movement, another shooting pain slams into my side. I hunch forward and clasp my ribs, sucking in a breath of air because the pain is too intense to do anything else.
“Were you planning on leaving today?” Nate asks out of the blue, again with a twinkle of hope glowing in his gray-blue eyes.
“Ahh…” I suck in a breath of air and expel it. I keep taking deep gasps in and out for a moment then answer his question. “No, not today.”
“Then what the hell is your problem?” he snaps at me, clearly agitated I am still here and not on the road.
“I went for a walk and drove to the cell phone store. When I got back, my side started to hurt. So, that is what my problem is. Now, excuse me.” I turn on my heels a little too sharply and wince again in pain. However, I swallow it down because I am proving something to him. Maybe I do still have a little pride and dignity left in me.
I walk toward the front steps slowly, stopping frequently because the pain is too great. The entire time, I can feel Nate’s eyes watching me, and I don’t like it. The next thing I hear is a deep sigh of frustration and a loud thud. Before I can register what the hell is going on, I am being swooped up in his strong arms and tucked in toward his chest.
“The reason I keep coming in and saving your ass is lost on me, but here I am,” Nate growls as he walks up the stairs to the porch then up the many steps to my room on the second floor.
His chest is damp with sweat, and he smells oddly good for being covered in a hard day’s work. I can feel my heart flutter inside my chest, and now the pain in my side is masked by the confusion of my feelings and the growing fondness for him in my heart. I have always had a soft spot for Nate, but this feels a little bit more. I am not sure why, though.
“Saving me? I wouldn’t call it that. Helping me would be a better word for it,” I counter, trying to keep the harshness out of my voice. I am hardly in the mood to hear how much he hates me.
He kicks the door open with his boot then glides in the room as if I weigh nothing at all. I am a little embarrassed because my panties and bras are hanging around the room, air drying after I washed them earlier. There is nothing that says welcome to my bedroom more than bras and panties strung all over the place.
Nate huffs at my statement and rebuts, “Well, the night you came here I did exactly that. I could have left you to rot on your own, but I swallowed my disgust for you and brought you back here.”
Two very important pieces of information just came from his last sentence. One, he is admitting his true feelings for me, and they are not good, but it’s a start. And two, he saved my life that night seven days ago.
We have never talked about anything that happened. Nate has been avoiding me like the plague, and Juanita keeps telling me to ask him.
“Since we are on the subject, do you mind telling me what happened that night?” I point to the healing gash on my head. “The details are a little fuzzy still.”
“You tell me.”
“I can’t. I don’t remember how I even got back here,” I sheepishly admit. I do remember all the vodka tonics I consumed that night. Actually, I am a little surprised the bartender allowed me to leave in the first place. I had to have been pretty sloppy drunk if I can’t even remember leaving that night.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Nate asks as he leans against the dresser, crossing his arms over his chest. The tone of his voice isn’t short and irritated. It actually reminds me of the night we first met. It’s his calm, therapist voice that always soothed me when I was freaking out about my home life.
“Well, I went to a small, hole-in-the-wall bar outside the city and had a few drinks.”
“Why?”
“Because I was angry.” It is hard to keep my voice even when he is prying into my life so much, but I don’t want him to leave.
“Why?” He is quick with his questions, and I am about ready to lose my shit on him.
I have calmed down somewhat the older I got. I am not so in your face and angry all the time, but damn, when someone keeps picking and pushing, it is almost impossible for me to keep a lid on my mouth.
“God, what it this? Twenty freaking questions?” I snap then start ripping down the intimates hanging from the high surfaces. They are not dry, but I don’t care. I need to move around and work off some of this frustration.
As I continue to pace the room, tossing my underwear back in the box Daniel stuffed them into, Nate comes to me and stops me. His hands move to my shoulders, and I freeze. The feel of his skin is hot, and his eyes are not rage-filled like they normally are. They are curious and inviting. I can feel myself getting pulled into this version of Nate, a stunning mixture of the boy I once knew and the stranger standing before me. It is unnerving, and I can feel all my emotions start to unravel. I’m finally getting a glimpse of the person who was my friend and decide to share.
I release a gust of air from my lungs and speak. “I was up for partner in the firm I was working at. I spent so many nights and days getting this portfolio ready to present to the board. If mine was the best out of the three, they’d share it with the client, and I’d make new partner. Everything was going perfectly, but then I discovered it was all just a sham.”
“What do you mean, ‘a sham’?” Nate runs his hands down my arms then releases me. The absence of his touch is immediately noticed, and that alarms me.
“Daniel was my boyfriend. We dated; I moved in with him; we had a typical, serious relationship; and it was … fine. However, two days after the presentation, I was called in my boss’s office where I was accused of stealing his project idea, notes, etc… The entire time, I was being played by Daniel, and I had no idea it was happening. I lost my job, my apartment, and my boyfriend in a matter of hours.” I shake my head, knowing what a damn idiot I was for not seeing it. It is hard to admit that I could be so blind to Daniel’s ways, but he was a charmer.
“I didn’t know what to do with myself and decided I needed to revert back to my old ways of handling major life-altering stress and find my oblivion.” Nate smirks as I bring us back to the summer we met. It is weird how the tables have turned. “So, I went to the bar, got drunk, and the next thing I know, I ended up here. And this is where you begin to share your version of the story.”
“I was at the cliffs when you came driving up, all out of control.”
I think back to what the uppity snot at the other bed and breakfast told me. He was up there, on the brink of something, and I wonder if it was to jump off. Did I interrupt something when I drove up there, drunk and stupid?
“Which was really stupid, by the way.”
He is scolding me? If what I’ve seen over the last week is any indication, he drives drunk all the time.
“When you got out of the car, you were drinking champagne and screaming at an abstract Daniel. You kept getting closer and closer to the edge, so I intervened and got you away from it. You were thrashing around and acting all crazy, and then you fell over a bunch of rocks, injuring yourself. I picked you up, and here you are.”
When I saw her struggling to move away from the car, I thawed a little bit more on the inside. I had always plotted in my mind what I would do if I ever saw her again, methodically planning how I would react, what I would say. I hoped it would be filled with all the hateful things she planted inside of me. However, I have been looking at her for the past seven days, and each day, seeing her here is getting easier and easier to tolerate. I still want her to leave. Well, most of me wants her to go, anyways.
I will admit I got a little pleasure out of her getting played by her boyfriend. I may be considered a dick to get a little joy out of her misery, but she got a small taste of what it was like for me when she left.
I was lost and felt like I had nowhere to go. I was empty inside, contemplating jumping off the cliff many times that first year, but my parents were around to keep my head above water and take the suicidal thoughts away. This last year has been the worst since she left me, though. I have never felt so miserable. The mere fact that I am starting to feel a shred of happiness is a big deal for me. I am not sure if it is Madison’s presence, or maybe this is the moment I will finally get the closure I deserve. Whatever it is has me dangling on a hook, waiting for the outcome.
I figured Daniel was the man she dated, and what a piece of work to go to all that trouble plotting to steal her job when putting all that effort into his own presentation would probably have done it. I have never understood corporate people. Growing up, they would vacation here frequently, never leaving their work at home. What good is vacationing with your family if you don’t bother spending time with them?
They would be on the phones or running into town to use a fax machine or whatever. Most of them were pompous assholes that were rude to my family and the staff. As the result, the fact that Madison was dating a guy like that doesn’t surprise me at all. He was the opposite of everything I was, and I am sure that was exactly what she wanted. Why wouldn’t she? Madison didn’t want to marry me, so she went with the guy who was my exact opposite.
As I leave her room, she is sleeping peacefully, and I can see she is a little happier. She fell asleep the moment she lay down after our talk.
I used to watch her all the time when she would sneak into my room and sleep. There were many nights when the window slid open, and she would slip in next to me in bed.
Her dad was a total asshole whose only goal in life was to make his wife and child as miserable as possible. He would call her horrible names and basically say she was nothing but a whore like her mother. Day after day, he would slowly beat her down. To the rest of the school, Madison appeared as a typical teenager filled with angst and rage, but I knew different. I knew the real Maddie.
She would lay in my bed and talk of a different life until she fell asleep. I would run my hands down her face, wiping away her doubt, and comb my fingers through her hair. She was absolutely precious, and I wanted nothing more than to protect her. There was a night it came to that, which severed her relationship completely with her father.
By the time our senior year came around, all my feelings toward her had changed, and I knew I was in love with her. I knew I wanted Madison to be more than my best friend. I yearned to kiss her and get to know her beyond what I already knew. I wanted her to stay, and I thought exposing my feelings for her and asking her to be my wife would be enough to get her to do it. Turns out, it wasn’t.
God, all this reminiscing is making me exhausted.
I stumble out of the house, grabbing a bottle from my kitchen before finding my way to my bedroom. I take several large gulps, feeling the burn as it makes its way down my throat and into my stomach. It makes me choke a little with each drink, but I embrace the burn. It is the pain from drinking that numbs the agony of everything else.
I fall onto the bed and pass out with a bottle in my hand and the whiskey taste on my tongue.
I pull up to Maddie’s house, hearing her father screaming in a bout of rage. His voice is projected so loudly it vibrates my chest the closer I get. Or maybe that is the gravity of the situation.
My best friend is in there. She is the only one in there, and her drunk, waste of a mother can’t protect her, because she is dead. I can hear the scream and then a loud cracking sound. My feet move quicker.
When I finally get over the threshold of her house, the devastation of the situation is not good. I walk across glass from broken dishes, lamps, and picture frames. I try to keep my feet quiet as they crunch over the destruction. Clothes are thrown haphazardly throughout the home, but the worst is the sound of her father, screaming in a drunken rage, and Maddie screaming in return. I need to see what is happening.
I round the corner to the bedrooms and find her father standing over her with a baseball bat in hand, screaming incoherently at Maddie. She is pressed against the wall in her bedroom, seated in the corner with her knees tucked up to her chest. Her body moves slightly forward and backward as she rocks and sings a tune to herself.
“I hate you!” her father screams at the top of his lungs then swings the bat. It comes down a few feet above her head, the broken drywall raining down on top of her.
He moves to swing again; only, this time he loses his balance slightly and almost hits her in the head. I need to get that bat from him. It is up to me because one wrong move, and he will crush Maddie’s skull, killing her.
I creep into the room, my eyes finally making contact with Maddie’s. Her brow raises and eyes go wide as I sneak up behind her dad, pressing my finger to my lips. Looking to my left, I find a half-broken TV tray tossed to the floor. I step in closer and slowly bend down, grabbing the only weapon available. I quickly raise it up and crash it into his back.
Her dad falls forward to his knees, but the blow does very little as he quickly turns to me and takes his rage out on me. That is good. I want him to come after me and not his daughter. He has been tormenting her for years, and now it is time someone finally stands up to him.
As he eyes me up and down, I take notice of the heated feeling starting to ignite inside of me. My heart is pounding, and my breathing is rapid yet deep. I feel like I am changing into someone else as I keep my body planted in his direction. My insides are burning, and my fists ball into the tightest knots. I tap into this undiscovered part of myself, the fury every person has deep inside.
Then he charges me, and I charge him. We slam into each other as we ping-pong against the walls in the hallway. This man has got to be taught a lesson, and if it isn’t by me, then who? The police? Yeah, when Maddie is dead from blunt force trauma to the skull is when they will finally do something with him.
I slam my fist into his gut, and he does the same to me. I have never been in a fight nor had the urge to, but the unknown switch inside me has turned, and I can’t control the monster that has been unleashed.
We exchange punches back and forth to the gut, face, and side. My body is getting tired, but no way is it getting weak. His is.
I keep up my assault on his body until he finally collides with the floor, blood covering his face. Then I kneel over him and punch his face until he is no longer conscious. I hurt him just enough to know he has to live with what he has done to her, but not enough to do permanent damage.
When I finally get up, Maddie is standing behind me. She grabs my shoulder, pulling me away from his limp body, and then collides into me. She hugs me, crying out words of appreciation and telling me she doesn’t know what she would do without me. I then realize I don’t know what I would do without her, either.
I wa
s put on this earth to be here for Maddie, and it’s time to finally reveal how much I need her in my life.
chapter five
THE PAST FOUR DAYS HAVE gone by at lightning speed. I am so involved in my little project I found myself bouncing with happiness and scared like hell all my hard work will be turned down because of my past with Nate. I have been trying to think of ways to apologize to Nate for the way I left him ten years ago. It was a shitty thing to do, and I know that, now. I was a scared kid who was slightly messed up in the head. I had to get away to get myself together, but at the time, I couldn’t tell him that. I was afraid, so I ran, instead.
I have grown up a lot since being on my own. In my opinion, that is what I needed. I depended too much on Nate to make me happy when I should have found reasons to be happy all along. Still, I don’t think a meager I’m sorry is what he needs or wants to hear. I think he wants something more concrete than my words, because I fear my words really won’t mean anything to him. All I have left to give him is my best asset, which is my genius marketing plan, and to provide him with the connections he needs to bring his business back to life.
I have worked day and night, called in on the favors a few publisher acquaintances owe me, and spent every waking moment making this presentation perfect for Nate. Plus, with Juanita on board with my plan, I will be able to show him everything I have been working so hard for.
The Wakefield Bed and Breakfast is a staple of Crestbrook, Rhode Island. Even before Nate’s family bought it, the business was run by a little Irish man and his wife. From what I have learned from Juanita, this year is the worst year yet of the new establishments slowly taking customers away. This just makes my apology to him that much better. I am here to help him get this place back on the map.
The two week mark is almost upon me, and I am starting to feel extremely better. My ribs still give me small twinges of pain, but all and all, I feel like I am on the mend. I can move around normally, and it isn’t agonizing to climb stairs or lie in bed. I know Nate wants me gone in the next few days, and I will leave, but I hope what I am doing for him will give him a little bit of the peace he is searching for.
Hold on You Page 6