“Is it Eamon? Your weekend?”
I sit up and almost ask how does she know, when I realize she’s just guessing. “Nope.”
Only the look she gives me says she knows something, or at least suspects. Probably half has to do with the fact she’s my mama, and half to do with the way I reacted...or overreacted...
“One day that boy is going to have an epiphany, and know you two should be together. But I want you to know, as much as I’ve always teased you about ending up with him, your destiny might not end up there, and I don’t want you to put all your hopes on someone who might never grow up.”
It’s all things I know, but still, hearing Mama say them spins it into reality. Maybe I’ll be the one to call Nate or Brian or whatever Mr. Neat’s name was since he doesn’t actually have my number.
21
Eamon
I call Jerry, and tell him about the train stunt--fudging the details and letting him know that I won’t be in today. I feel like an ass because normally I just work through whatever I do to myself on my down time, but after running on no sleep and my head being such a mess, I really just want my own place for a night or two. Ma gives a quiet gasp and a telling shake of her head from the porch when I finally make the walk home, but I wave her off and stumble up the stairs with my small bottle of Percocet.
I wash two pills down with a beer from my mini-fridge, turn on the TV and slowly ease myself into my recliner. I don’t bother taking the pain meds very often so it hits me pretty hard, and I don’t think I make it halfway through the first inning.
I don’t wake up until just before I need to be at work...the following day. Every time I blink I see Rachel in scrubs, Rachel in her swimsuit, Rachel laid out naked waiting for me, Rachel smiling. By the time I finish at work, Tobin’s long gone because I’m moving so slow. Days go by where I feel like I’m only half present, but at least some of the small scratches are starting to heal. Being at work, unable to weld, puts me in a position for a lot of really shitty, stupid jobs--stock, sorting parts, learning payroll while trying to avoid Jerry asking me if I’ve made any decisions.
There’s a small part of me that wants to talk to Tobin. Tell him everything. What a fucking mess I am. God, I think I’ve ruined everything. I can’t even stand next to her without feeling everything. And that’s not what I want. I’ve never had a hard time ignoring things I don’t want.
I send Tobin a text asking him where the hell he is because even though I’m not searching for him to talk about Rachel, sometimes hanging with your brother sort of fades out everything else. Trying to be with a different girl, and keeping to myself for the past few days sure as hell hasn’t worked.
He texts back. AT CABIN.
I asked Tobin about the cabin after he got back from running off. He admitted that he stayed here for a night, but it was too much, so he took off with some friends down to the Gulf. I know the tracks well enough that it doesn’t take me long to find the trail Rachel showed me. I shake my head when the feeling of kissing her in that place rolls through me. That’s not what I need right now.
Tobin’s sitting on the end of a dock I’m sure will collapse at any moment, drinking a beer. I walk along the side over the supports not in the mood to get wet. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Tobin starts peeling off the label, staring over the water.
“Isn’t it hard to be here?” I ask, setting the tone of our conversation in a way I didn’t mean to.
“Sometimes, yeah. And sometimes it’s harder to be away.”
“Do you think she’s your soul mate or something? I mean, you don’t really buy into that, do you?”
“No.”
I feel at least a little relief that he still has a grain of sense about him.
“But,” he continues. “I think when you give enough of yourself to a person and they do the same, it changes you. It changes them. And from that point, maybe yeah. I think we sort of create soul mates in each other because we want to.”
He pulls me a bottle from the small cooler he packed with him. Sort of pathetic that he planned to come out here to sit and drink, but as I pop off the top, I realize I sort of did the same thing.
I take another long drink, knowing that with Rachel I’m fucked either way. If I walk away from her I’m going to have to see her with other guys and I nearly go insane right now when I think about someone else touching her. At the same time, I want to throw up when I think about being stuck. Only one girl… Even if it’s someone as cool as her. It’s pressure. I could hurt her. I could ruin things for her. I will ruin things I could...no, I will fuck it up.
“I don’t want anyone like that. Ever. I can’t imagine it.”
Tobin finally looks at me, and it’s times like this that I can see parts of me in him. Parts of our family. “Why not?”
“I don’t… It’s too damn much, Tobin. It’s just not what I want.” I down the final few swallows before hurling my bottle into the lake.
“But you might at some point.”
“Not after watching you.” I elbow him, trying to give him a hard time, but he smiles at me like he’s in on some secret I don’t know and shakes his head.
“It’s worth it, Eamon. Because being in love is worth it.”
He’s such a pathetic romantic. I have no idea where the hell he got that from. “You got sacked, Tobe.”
He tosses his bottle into the lake and reaches in the cooler for another. “She doesn’t love him.”
He’s more messed in the head than I thought. “How the fuck would you know? Do you seriously hold out any kind of hope for you and Delia?”
He pops off the top and flips it between his fingers, watching the bottle cap roll back and forth. “I saw her.”
“Her who?” I ask.
“Delia.”
I freeze as a million scenarios involving possible restraining orders from Delia’s father spin through my head. “When?”
“When I took off.:
“I thought you said you went to the Gulf, T,” I say.
He shakes his head, and I gotta say, I’m pretty damn shocked he lied to me. I can’t think of the last time he did, but I’m sure as shit not about to bust his ass for it right now when I’m keeping a big ass secret, too.
“I hitched all the way to D.C. to watch her dad speak at some hospital outdoor thing. Watched her with that guy. She doesn’t love him.” He says it very matter-of-fact; there isn’t a doubt in his mind. “At some point, the girl who loved running barefoot through the trees with me is gonna come back. I have no idea what the fuck I’ll do with it when it happens, but it’ll happen. It’s meant to be, I know it.”
“No point in talking logic with you, Tobin, because your brain just isn’t wired to work that way.”
He snorts. “Maybe not. But I’d do it all again in a fucking second.”
My brother is a crazy ass romantic, even months after being dumped. Even after I watched him turn away everyone since Delia. At the same time, he admits he doesn’t know what he’d do if Delia came back to town. He can’t move forward, but can’t go back, and I wonder if I’m doing him any favors by letting him stay frozen like this.
And the word hits me like a ton of bricks. Frozen. I’m not moving forward or changing anything about my life either, and suddenly buying half of Stine Welding, doesn’t seem like the best way to move forward. The best way comes with a kickass smile, and a body I can’t get enough of.
22
Rachel
I’m trying to wrap my head around the date with Nate. It was nice. It was absolutely, positively nothing but…nice. And that’s okay, right? But I’m still sitting in my car, wondering what to say to Mama, or what to think about it. He’s just not who I want. Only I can’t have who I want, so I’m thinking a break from all guys is what I have left. My heart is too tired for anything else right now.
A distinctive rumbling comes to a stop behind me and quiets as headlights turn off.
Eamon.
What. Was he waiting u
p the street, or does he just have colossally instinctual timing? I’m staring at the steering wheel with no idea how to protect a heart that’s already cracked and breaking when Eamon stops outside my car door. I try not to notice how his jeans are perfectly faded, or how he’s in a white tee that’s probably supposed to be underneath a button up shirt that Eamon would never wear. I don’t want to see how his shirt is maybe a bit shrunk from the wash and pulls across his abs.
It’s stupid that he’s standing out there and I’m sitting in here. We’re supposed to be friends again. Normal. Back to how we were before my admission, before our weekend, before I realized that being with Eamon was even better than I’d imagined.
Finally, I open my car door and step out. His face is still a bit of a mess, but the multitude of small scratches are healing up a little.
“Hey.” My voice breaks a little in nerves and uncertainty. I stare at my hands, and I hate that he makes me this nervous. He’s supposed to be one of my closest friends. Things shouldn’t be this complicated. “What are you doing here?”
His eyes are heavy lidded as he watches me without speaking. He starts to run both his hands through his hair, but stops when his fingers are laced over the top of his head. “I don’t... I don’t know.”
I flip my keys in my hand for something to do. “Okay, well, I’m gonna crash. I’ve got to catch up on sleep. Went out tonight.”
“Right, I…” But he doesn’t finish. Just continues to stare at me. “Wait. Went out? With who?”
“You don’t approve, Eamon, which is fine.” Exhaustion is taking over my curiosity as to why he’s here. “I’m not going to see him again anyway.”
“Wha... I...” Eamon’s never this odd. “You went out with a guy?”
Like I somehow have lost the right to do this when he’s not ready or willing to... I’m too angry to finish the thought.
“Where’s the redhead?” I snap back and even as the words come out, I cringe because the last thing I need is Eamon thinking things between us are weird. Though, I think we’ve been in some shade of weird since my admission, and barely back to normal before we hit a new shade of weird with the kissing, and after all the sex, I don’t have any idea how to explain what we are.
“She wasn’t…” He coughs and lets his arms drop. “She wasn’t…”
I raise my brows and try to smile like I’m not wishing he’s here for me. To tell me he loves me. That he wants me. “She wasn’t…?”
“She wasn’t you.” He swallows hard as we stand in my driveway staring at one another.
All the pieces of wanting and wishing start to fall into place allowing hope to take over when I know it shouldn’t. “That’s…”
He rests a hand on my neck, stroking my cheek with his thumb. “Rachel…” Now it’s him who sounds broken.
I want to press my lips to his, wrap him in my arms and fall asleep night after night. I want him to give in and tell me how he feels. For once. Just open up in a way that really matters.
I try to speak twice before finding words. “What do you want from me?” I whisper. It’s the same question I’ve been asking him, and even myself for weeks.
He leans down and presses his forehead to mine. We’re both breathing hard, excitement, or just raw emotion, I’m not sure which. Eamon tilts just enough that our lips come together once, softly. “I don’t know.”
I don’t know.
Before thinking, I wrap my arms around him and rest my face on his chest. “Until you do know, we’re just friends. My heart can’t take it.”
I hate how honest I have to be in this moment, because I really can’t protect myself in any way with him here like this. Before he has a chance to answer, I step back, force myself to not look at him and unlock the front door.
“Can I see you?” he asks.
“I’m in Rainey tomorrow while the guy fixes the gutters.” I fumble with my key twice before unlocking the door.
“Damn, Rach. I could’ve done that for you with a little warning.”
“I know.” I thought about asking him, but things are still to up in the air, I didn’t want to. It’s a weird place, not wanting to ask one of your best friends for a favor.
“Maybe after then?” he asks.
I squeeze my eyes tight because Eamon came here. He may have been kissing someone else before he came here, but he came here. He wants to see me. He kissed me again. Still, I try to find my best friend, relaxed face before turning to face him. “Sure.” I smile wide. “I’ll give you a call when I’m back.”
Eamon looks smaller and more lost than I’ve ever seen him. “Okay then. Tomorrow.”
“Try and figure out what you want, okay? Because I can’t…” Tears press against my eyes forcing me to blink. I shake my head, dissolving the thought between us. “See you tomorrow.”
I don’t wait for him to answer, just slip inside and quickly close the door. The second my back leans against the wall, I slump to the floor. Why can’t it all be simpler?
***
I’m texting with Leslie going on two hours while creepy guy goes up and down the ladders a million times. I’ve paced the backyard looking for more chores to add to my list, but there are none. The girl who does the weeding lives next door and enjoys it. The place is immaculate.
I wander back inside, wishing I’d have gone ahead and turned on the A/C because it’s killer hot outside. I’m so ready to be home. I don’t know if I’m ready to hear whatever Eamon has to say, or maybe by now he’s decided he has nothing to say. I don’t know how long I can be in this weird place with him before going insane. This back and forth, one day close, the next we can hardly look at each other. It’s too much. It’s draining any bit of energy I have left in me from my normal, hectic routine.
“All done,” the guy says as he strides through the door.
Even his smile slides up my spine leaving me feeling dirty.
“Great. How much again?” I start dating the check, wishing I didn’t have to spend another second around this creep. I’m so stupid. Really, I should have just asked Eamon. It’s that I know he wouldn’t have let me pay him--even though it isn’t my own house he’d be repairing. He has a day job already, and honestly, right now, with the place that we’re in, I just don’t want to owe him.
“Two hundred.” His voice is so close I jump and spin to face him standing in the doorway of the kitchen.
The only doorway.
My heart slams in my ribs, but there’s no reason for it. He’s just a guy. He’ll take the check and leave. This is not a big deal.
“Okay. Just a sec.” I turn back to my checkbook.
My phone beeps in another text and I reach out to see another from Leslie.
STILL THR?
I start typing back, but his hand slides around my middle and my fingers fumble on the keyboard.
“That can wait,” he whispers as he pulls my back to meet his front.
My knees go weak and my body starts to shake. I deal with creeps at the bar almost every night, why does this feel so different?
“I thought we’d have some fun before I have to go home.” His lips touch my shoulder, and I try to laugh as I spin around.
“Nice try, but not a chance.” I smirk just as his hand slams into the side of my face.
I scream and scramble for my phone, pushing anything that my fingers can reach. It’s probably futile, but maybe a mess will get through. Anything.
I’m on the floor and my side is throbbing. Did he hit me again? All I can think is get away, get away, get away… And I scramble across the floor.
He laughs as he grabs my foot, and I scream again.
“Help! Help!” I turn onto my back to try and kick him or hit him or anything.
His body comes down on mine so hard I lose my breath and a rough hand slides up my skirt.
God, no. Not this. Anything else.
I squirm underneath him, but he’s so heavy I can’t breathe, and an arm pushes down on my throat. I grab his arm, clawi
ng and pushing, but I’m not strong enough. I’m gasping for air as I push with both hands on his arm.
Holy shit, I’m going to die. I’m not ready. I’m not ready.
“Hold still and this’ll hurt a lot less. I been watching you all day prancing around in your tiny skirt. Like you’re just begging to drive a guy a little insane.” His bitter breath burns my nose, and his voice scratches through me as whimpers come up my throat. How can this be happening?
I twist hard to the right and his back hits the cabinets as I start to crawl across the slippery floor.
“You really shouldn’ta done that.”
A sharp pain hits the back of my head and I blink furiously to keep away the blackness as his body slams down on mine. I can’t let this happen.
23
Eamon
Leslie doesn’t tell me Rachel’s been creeped out by some jerk until she gets a text that’s nothing but a mess of letters and now Rachel won’t pick up her phone. Leslie was calling the cops as I ran for my bike.
The railroad ties jar me with each one, and I’m driving so fast I don’t dare check my speed. My heart races faster than my bike as the worst possibilities fly through my head. I get it. Everything Tobin said about how he’d do anything for Delia. I fucking get it because I’d do anything for Rachel right now, and I’m stuck on my fucking bike racing god only knows what on the other end.
I hit the Rainy crossing and the bike slides sideways as I make the turn way faster than I should. By some miracle I don’t drop my bike, and I can almost see the yellow house from here.
Lights. Fucking police lights. The bike is pegged and this time when I slide to a stop, I do half crash. I slide out from underneath the bike about three feet from an ambulance, everything in me at breaking point because I don’t know what I’ll find. I should have known. Been here.
“Sir, excuse me.” A cop steps forward, but I’m flying I’m running so fast and easily jump around him.
I throw my helmet to the porch as I push my way through the front door.
“Rachel.” My gut sinks as I see her eyes closed on a stretcher with two EMT’s around her bloodied up face.
My Fate for Yours Page 11