by Megan Hart
“I’d been dating a guy for a couple years. When he asked me to move in with him, I thought it was a good idea, you know? I thought it was what I wanted.” She didn’t mention that the guy was Wayne, the owner of the company that had bought the quarry.
Alicia snorted soft laughter. “Let me guess. Not all it was cracked up to be.”
“Not even close. It was fine at first, but after a while it turned out he was really serious about us. He asked me to marry him.” Theresa’s fingers tightened on the mug.
“Wow.”
She nodded. “Yeah, exactly. When I said no, he didn’t take it very well. I’d spent so many years making sure I would never be put in that position again. At least, unlike Galina, he gave me a few days instead of a few hours to get out. That’s when I found out that I couldn’t get an apartment because my credit score was so bad nobody would rent to me. And wouldn’t you know it? I lost my job in a downsizing thing. That was about nine months ago.”
Alicia shook her head and gave a low whistle. “I don’t understand . . . why are you responsible for this debt? You didn’t open the accounts. That’s fraud, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Theresa swallowed around the lump in her throat. “I’d have to file a police report and declare identity theft. I would have to prove I wasn’t the one who’d made the charges. Instead, I consolidated everything into a single payment and closed the other accounts. I’ve been doing what I can, but it takes time to erase bad credit.”
“Like gaining weight. Easy to put on, hard to take off.” Alicia frowned. “Sorry. I shouldn’t make light. He should be paying, Theresa. Not you.”
“He sends me money every month toward it, but my father is not . . . reliable,” Theresa said stiffly. “And before you ask me why I didn’t just turn him in . . . he’s my dad, Alicia. I don’t know if I can forgive him for any of this, but he’s still my father. I couldn’t send him to prison.”
“So you’ve been living in your car?” Alicia waved at the waitress to refresh their mugs, waiting until she’d gone before continuing. “All this time?”
“Only the past month or so. I stayed with some friends, on and off, although I didn’t want to tell them this wasn’t a temporary thing, so I could only stay for a few days at a time. I stayed with the Sterns for a bit around the time of the funeral.”
“I wondered why on earth you’d agreed to do that,” Alicia said.
Theresa laughed. It felt genuine. It felt good. She felt lighter, at least a little unburdened by her confession. “It was a place to stay. Food. I wasn’t too proud to take it. Now you know.”
“But what about the quarry deal? That didn’t help?”
“It wasn’t as much as I was counting on,” Theresa said. “It was enough to take care of the debt I’d racked up over the past few months. Money I didn’t want to spend but had to. My cell bill. Car insurance. That about wiped me out, but I need the phone and the car in order to make the cold calls I need to put these deals together. And I’m good at this, Alicia, surprisingly good, but everything is on commission, and so far nothing’s really come in the way I need it to. Until then, I have to keep hustling.”
Hustle was the right way to describe it, not that she’d admit that to Alicia. The quarry deal had been the best and biggest she’d managed to put together—but only by the skin of her teeth, and her ex-boyfriend’s lovesick hope that helping her out would get her back into his life. She’d been lucky the entire deal hadn’t fallen through when Ilya refused to sell, but as it turned out, she had a talent for this sort of thing. Wayne might have wanted to pull out to spite her once he knew she’d used his emotions to get him to agree, but his partners were completely on board with the hotel and condo plans. Working with them on this had led to other opportunities she hoped would soon pay off.
Alicia shook her head, frowning. “All of this sucks. No wonder you didn’t look happy to see your dad when he came to the house after Babulya’s funeral.”
“I hadn’t seen him since I confronted him about what I’d learned. Yeah, that was . . . awkward.” Theresa stretched, rolling her neck on her shoulders. “You’re the first person I’ve told any of this to. Thanks for listening. I guess I needed someone to vent to.”
“Are you kidding me? I can’t imagine having to deal with all of that. You’ve held it together remarkably well, better than I ever could have.” Alicia leaned across the table. “Look. You come stay with me.”
Stunned at this sudden and undeserved generosity, Theresa shook her head. “No, I couldn’t . . .”
Alicia held up a hand. “Don’t even. I’m in that house all by myself—”
“For now,” Theresa said with a grin.
Alicia grinned, too. “For now. And for a while, anyway. Niko and I haven’t even talked about making anything permanent, and I have no idea what’s going to happen. But I definitely have an extra bedroom, and you’re going to move into it until you get back on your feet.”
“I can contribute,” Theresa said at once, already deciding she was going to take the offer. She had to. This was no time for too much pride. “Not a whole lot. But you won’t have to carry me, Alicia. I mean . . . you don’t have a job, either. And trust me, you don’t want to get behind on things.”
Alicia shrugged. “Honestly, my parents left me pretty well set with the house. I have money left from the sale. It will last me for a little longer. If you chip in for utilities and food, I’m good with that.”
This gesture was beyond generosity. This felt like true friendship. It struck her, then, why she hadn’t asked her other friends to help her out. It had been more than embarrassment. Shame. It had been a deep-seated knowledge that even if she did ask, none of them would have offered her anything close to what Alicia just had. There were friends, and there were people who would always be more than that.
When she said as much, Alicia’s brows rose. She shrugged. “Well . . . we’ve known each other for a long time, Theresa. I mean, just because we haven’t been superclose doesn’t mean that it doesn’t count.”
“It would only be for a little while,” Theresa insisted, but her heart lifted. She didn’t want to cry, but she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to hold back.
“It would be for as long as it takes,” Alicia said. “Okay?”
Theresa wiped her eyes. “I don’t want anyone to know about my dad. The rest of it is bad enough, but please, don’t tell anyone what my dad did.”
“I won’t say anything.”
“Not even to Niko. Please, Alicia. It’s so embarrassing. And definitely not to Ilya.” Theresa paused, considering for a moment the folly of blurting out that she and Ilya had made out by his front door, and that had somehow made things different enough between them that she cared about saving face. Wisely, she kept that bit of information to herself.
Alicia looked wary at the request, but then nodded. “I’ll do what I can. And I’ll lend you the money for the storage units so you don’t lose your stuff.”
At that, Theresa could no longer hold back the tears. She tried to say thanks, but nothing came out. Alicia’s eyes were bright, too. They both sniffled and grabbed napkins to dab at their eyes.
“Thank you, Alicia. Thank you so much.” Theresa shook her head. “I can’t even begin to describe what this means to me.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Alicia said. “And, hey, look at it this way. If you’re right across the street from him every day, maybe you’ll be able to convince my stubborn ex-husband to take that deal.”
“Right,” Theresa answered. Across the street from Ilya. Every day. Every night, too. Her heart thumped harder at the thought. “That would help.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Then
If there’d been men in his mother’s life, Ilya hadn’t known about it. Hadn’t wanted to know about it. The fact that she’d been bringing this joker around for the past couple of months should’ve set off warning bells.
“She says they’re going to get married!”
Jenni tossed her long blonde hair over her shoulder. “She’s going to marry that guy? The one from the hospital?”
“Barry Malone. Yeah. That’s what she says. Next month. Talk about short notice.” Ilya threw himself onto the couch beside her.
“Maybe she’s knocked up,” Jennilynn said, and ducked away from the cushion he used to hit her. “Stop it, jerk!”
He knew she was teasing him, but he couldn’t find a way to laugh. “You wouldn’t be laughing if it was your mother.”
“Aw. Poor puppy.” Her frown was also teasing, but something in her voice was soft and tender.
It called to him. Everything about Jenni had been calling to him over the past couple of months. It wasn’t like he hadn’t noticed her banging-hot body, that long blonde hair, and those blue eyes that could give a guy a boner from all the way across the room before now. But they’d been friends for so long that something seemed wrong about him wanting her that way.
Still, when she gestured for him to come closer, he gave in to her embrace. She petted his hair. The kiss happened almost by accident, though later he would think they both knew all along that it was going to happen. He wasn’t sure who pulled away first, but when the kiss ended, her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed, her lips wet.
He was suddenly, achingly hard. Somehow she was on his lap, his face in her hands and her mouth on his. They kissed and kissed and kissed, and she ground herself against him until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He had to push up against her, turn them both until they were on the couch with him between her legs. They were moving and rocking together, and he’d give just about anything if she’d let him touch her bare skin with his.
It was enough to make him forget about Galina and Barry and his daughter, who would be moving in to Ilya’s house as soon as they got married. For now, all Ilya could concentrate on was the girl beneath him. The sound and smell and taste of her.
She went still at the sound he made when the heat burst and let go inside him, staining his jeans. She looked into his eyes. Her mouth twisted in a secret kind of smile.
“Hey, let’s go to the firemen’s carnival,” she said. “My mom left me some money to order a pizza for dinner, but if we let Alicia come with us, we can use it there. Call Niko. Babulya will drive us, won’t she?”
At the carnival, the four of them gorged on junk food and rode a few of the rickety rides. Alicia and Niko broke off to go find funnel cakes, but Jennilynn stopped in front of the game booth decorated with gigantic grinning goldfish.
“You want one?” Ilya had a couple of bucks in his pocket, and after what happened on the couch, he was willing to get her whatever she wanted.
It took him several tries, but at last he sunk a Ping-Pong ball into one of the small fishbowls. Jennilynn held up the plastic bag, the water swirling with crap, and squealed at the sight of the gold-and-black fish inside.
“I’m going to name him Chester,” she said, and gave Ilya a kiss on the cheek.
He’d loved Jennilynn Harrison forever, he thought. He would always love her.
It seemed impossible that he could do anything else.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The dive shop didn’t have much of a sound system, just a small radio set on one of the shelves behind the front counter, and an MP3 player dock in the office. Ilya supposed Alicia must’ve listened to music through her computer, but that was nowhere near loud enough for what he wanted right now.
The heavy equipment had come in this morning while he was working on setting up another trip. The constant crashing and noise were making him crazy. That, and watching them destroy everything.
He wanted to listen to some music to drown out all the noise, but the best he could do was tune in to a scratchy soft-rock station that wasn’t loud enough to cover up the sound of a squirrel farting, much less three dump trucks and a bulldozer. Muttering curses, Ilya went to the front door to watch. It didn’t take long for them to clear away the pavilions and the bathhouse, neither of which had been in the greatest shape to begin with. Still, it stung to see them go down in a clatter of splintered wood that barely filled the back of one truck. The spaces left behind seemed so bare, especially with all the ground torn up. So far they hadn’t started taking down any trees, but that would be next, he thought, with another string of under-his-breath curses.
Back inside, Ilya pulled up his computer browser again to check confirmation e-mails. He had sent out the usual e-mail blast and put something up on the shop’s Connex page, but of the two dozen or so divers who usually made the trips with him, only four had responded with interest in the one he was planning now. One of the more popular dives was in Belize, a more expensive trip, to be sure, but always well attended. At least it always had been in the past.
Idly, he opened his phone to look at his messages. Specifically, the last from Theresa, which was a simple K. He swiped to delete it before he could stop himself, although he didn’t go so far as to also delete her from his contacts. He might want to talk to her again, he thought. He might need a ride home.
He might need . . . something.
He scrolled through other messages, deleting most of them. Some had no contact information, others a simple word-or-two description. Very few had both a first and last name, and the sight of so many hopeful or desperate or angry or dismissive messages connected to nothing, barely even memories, disgusted him. When had he gotten so casual about all this? he wondered. Swipe, delete, swipe, and delete. Why did it seem to matter so much that he wasn’t that guy anymore?
It had nothing to do with long, dark, curly hair, golden-amber eyes, and a sharp wit, he told himself. Nothing to do with those kisses at the foot of the stairs. And absolutely not related at all to the fact that Theresa had been there for him when he needed her, something he didn’t want to trust but could not make himself forget.
He was so caught up in his phone that Ilya didn’t hear the bell over the shop’s front door jingle, but at the sound of a hollered greeting, he went out front to greet a familiar face. “Hey, Deke. Good to see you.”
Deke had been coming to Go Deep since they’d opened it. Today he wore a pair of battered board shorts, flip-flops, and a tank top, even though the temperature outside couldn’t have been higher than the low sixties. He gave Ilya a grin and two thumbs-up.
“Hey, man. Patty’s supposed to be meeting me here. We figured we’d get in a dive today, but what the hell’s going on over there?”
Ilya went around the back of the counter to pull out the standard release forms divers had to fill out every time they went under. “Someone’s going to build some condos over there.”
“No shit, man, really? I mean, I thought I heard something like that, but wow, it’s really happening? The hotel, too?” Deke scrawled his signature on the form and ran a hand through his shaggy hair. “Get out.”
“Alicia sold her part of the business. Yeah. So it’s just me hanging on.” Ilya punched a few numbers into the register. “You want a daily pass or another season pass?”
Deke shrugged. “I dunno, man. You tell me.”
“Shit,” Ilya said wearily, thinking ahead to the very real possibility that there wasn’t going to be any season. “Tell you what. Dive’s on me today. I need to get in the water.”
“You sure? Me and Patty, we don’t mind paying. I mean, free’s good, too,” Deke said with a smile, “but I’m not trying to jack you out of the daily rate.”
“You guys have been coming to Go Deep since the beginning. And it’s just me now, so I get to be generous.”
Behind Deke, the door opened again. Patty was
already wearing her wet suit, unzipped and folded down to the waist. She carried her tank with her. “Hey, Ilya. I’m gonna need a fill.”
“On the house,” Ilya said. “Along with the dive.”
Patty gave Deke a look. “Huh? You sure?”
“Yeah. Special appreciation gift for longtime customers.” Ilya’s smile felt like it was going to crack the corners of his mouth. “Consider it a bonus for making it past all the construction.”
Patty nodded, expression serious. “Yeah, I heard about the hotel. I wondered if that was going to affect you at all.”
“They said it wasn’t. But it will,” Ilya said.
“Could be good?” Deke asked. “Bring more people in?”
Ilya didn’t want to get into all the ways this deal could end up being bad for the business. He didn’t want to think about it, to be honest. He wanted to slip into chilly waters and float with nothing but the sound of his heartbeat in his ears.
Less than an hour later, they were all suited up, tanks filled. Go Deep did not permit solo diving. The liability insurance on that had always been far more than they could justify, and even Ilya, who admitted he could be a bit of a bastard when it came to playing by the rules, knew how easily a solo dive could go bad. Still, Deke and Patty had come to do their own thing, so as soon as they were in the water, he held back and waved them toward the sunken helicopter while he went a little lower to let himself drift along his personal favorite attractions.
The 1987 Volkswagen Golf was nothing exciting. It had been Ilya’s first car, inherited from Babulya when she decided she no longer felt comfortable driving. He’d driven it for years before no amount of spit or prayers could keep it running. It had become the first attraction he and Alicia sank.
He pushed himself toward it now. The stream of silver bubbles rippled around him as he ran a gloved hand along the pitted metal. At one time, the car had been a deep navy blue, but time had worn it to a dull, deep gray. They’d taken out the seats before sinking it, stripped the insides to bare metal, and taken out the glass to prevent divers from ever accidentally or on purpose putting a fist through it and cutting themselves open to bleed to death in eighty feet of spring-fed water. Now he ran his hands along the side of the car as he swam around it. If he turned slightly, he’d be able to see the looming form of the helicopter where Deke and Patty were exploring. He wasn’t expecting to see anything in the opposite direction, and certainly not a flash of orange and black on the car’s other side.