by Amelia Wilde
Michelle threads her fingers together, resting her hands on the desk, and looks me in the eye. She’s wearing an all-black ensemble that manages to look fresh and easy, but there are slight shadows under her eyes. My throat tightens. If it’s all this crap with Calley that’s stressing her out…
“Well, that was a disappointing end to a business relationship,” she says, with a disgusted sigh. What is she saying? Is she saying that our business relationship is over, or— “Edison Calley isn’t worth the time of anyone at our firm.” My heart practically bursts with relief, and it’s all I can do not to sag into my chair. “I’m—” She puts a hand to her chest, leaning back a little. “I’m truly sorry that you were put into that situation, Sam. If I had known—”
I wave one hand in the air, finally able to breathe again. “There was no way—” Then my throat closes up, and tears fill my eyes. I put my hand over my mouth, because I do not want to cry in front of Michelle.
But I do anyway.
She comes around from behind her desk, a box of tissues in her hand, and offers me one while I try to choke back the sobs. When she puts her hand on my shoulder, I lose it.
“It’s all right, Sam.”
“It’s not.” It comes out as more of a wail.
It’s not for another fifteen minutes until I finally get control of myself. By then, I’ve got the box of tissues clutched in my hands, and I pull out one after another to wipe my face. My makeup is probably a mess. My hair is probably fine. Silver lining, I guess. Michelle brings the wastebasket over next to my chair.
When I’m at least partially composed, she goes back around the desk and sits in her seat. “Sam, we need to talk about filing a police report.”
I open my mouth, then close it again. “But there’s nothing—there’s nobody else—”
“From what I’ve heard,” she says, firmly, “there may have been another witness. A young man named Beckett Taylor. Do you know him?”
Do I know him? Yes. I used to know him. I knew him for a minute, a few weeks ago, but now I don’t know if that’s true anymore. Now that I’ve fled back to Arbor Springs, he might not want anything to do with me.
“Yes.” It might not sound very convincing, but I barrel ahead. “We went to school together.”
Michelle nods. “Over the weekend, I’ve—I’ve spoken to the police here in Arbor Springs, and they’re willing to work with the police in Lockton. If you’d like, I can go there to make the report with you right now.”
I stand up, slowly, my heart pounding, my throat thick. “Right now.”
It’s not a question, and Michelle doesn’t say a word. She just rises from her seat, grabs her purse, and comes around the desk, meeting me at the door. “I’ll drive.”
“That would—that would be great.”
“And Sam?” She looks me straight in the eyes. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
I don’t sob again, but it’s close.
It’s very close.
Chapter Forty-Two
Beckett
The sky is pitch-black, and I can’t relax for a fucking second, because there could be deer charging out from behind every tree lining the freeway. I play the music loud.
It’s one in the morning, and I’m hurtling toward Arbor Springs, where Sam lives, and where I hope she is right now.
I just hope it’s not too late.
I hope I didn’t wait too long to get off my ass and go find her.
Fuck. I shouldn’t have waited even this long.
But I couldn’t skip town without seeing my mom first.
She opened the door, her hair piled on top of her head. She’d clearly been painting again because she was wearing a white smock with stains in a million colors. “Beck!” Her voice was full of joy when she saw me, which still, after all these years, takes me by surprise. “I’d have thought you’d be at work.”
“I don’t work at Cerberus anymore.”
Her eyes went wide. “No? But you’ve been there…” She ushered me into the house, even though I was just going to stand on the porch and tell her that I’d be out of town for a few days. “Well, a few years now, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. There was an…incident.” Her forehead furrowed with concern, and that’s what did it. That’s what made me spill the whole story, the whole embarrassing, stupid fucking story of how I got myself fired from Cerberus, from how I got Sam’s company fired from her project, and how I probably got Sam fired, too.
I wouldn’t know because I haven’t had the balls to text her again.
My mom listened to the whole thing, and then she stepped close to me, making me feel like a damn giant next to her petite frame, and wrapped her arms around me as far as they’d go. “Is that what you came to tell me about?”
“No,” I said, and she laughed a little, and I laughed a little. “I just came to say that I’m going to be out of town for a few days.”
She’d given me a knowing smile, her eyes crinkling with satisfaction. “Are you going to visit Sam?”
“Yeah. That’s my plan. If she’ll—if she wants to see me.”
“I’m sure she does.” I glossed over some of those details, but it doesn’t seem to have made any difference with my mom. She understands everything, even if you don’t want her to. “Oh! Before you go, would you mind raking the backyard?” She puts one hand on the small of her back. “It’s just too much, what with…” Mom threw her back out in the summer, and it still hasn’t healed.
Okay, maybe she doesn’t understand everything. Because after the raking, there was dinner, and then she wanted to talk about the things my dad loved to do in the fall, and finally I had to cut her off.
“I’m actually—I’m on my way out of town right now, Mom.”
She’d given me a light slap on the shoulder. “You devil. You should have told me that first.” Then she rose up on tiptoes and kissed my cheek. “Get out of here.”
“I’ll call you.”
Mom waved me out of the house, calling after me into the dusk. “Say hello to Sam for me!”
“I will,” I’d called back, but I had no way of knowing if it was a lie or the truth.
“Your dad would have done the same thing.”
“What?” I’d turned around in the driveway to face her.
She had a funny grin on her face, standing on the porch. “Your dad—he would have chased me all over the state, too. You’re so like him, Beck.”
Something eased in my chest.
What I’d told my mom was only a half-truth, because I still had to go back by the house for some clothes, which took another half-hour round trip. I don’t know what the hell I shoved in the duffel bag, but it’ll be enough. It has to be enough.
I’m ten minutes outside of Arbor Springs when the trees lining the highway stop completely, and everything is lit up with parking lot lights from developments just off the exits.
City living.
I pull off at the first exit for Arbor Springs. I don’t know if it’s the right one. All I know is that Sam lives in an apartment complex called Arbor Mews, which seems like the kind of bullshit name they’d give a collection of buildings in a fucking parking lot with no trees to be found.
But I didn’t think that far ahead.
I don’t know where the apartment complex is, or which one is hers, and it’s way too fucking late to wake her up by knocking on her door or even by texting her. It is. Isn’t it?
Yeah, it’s too damn late.
I pull into the parking lot of a 24-hour gas station and pull my phone out of my pocket. It’s running low on battery, so I don’t waste time with any of the apps other than the Internet browser. Arbor Mews is four miles away, on the opposite side of town. Great.
I go inside and buy an energy drink, then come back out, climb in my car, and drive all the way through Arbor Springs, past the university buildings, past the restaurants, past the fancy apartments downtown. There’s practically no traffic, and I feel like I have a target on my back. I go
exactly the speed limit. The last thing I want right now is to get pulled over in the middle of downtown for speeding.
I’m out past the downtown area when I see the sign for Arbor Mews. I was totally fucking right—it’s a big collection of buildings, miles of parking lots, but there are a few trees here and there.
It’s not bad.
I figure I don’t have forever to drive around like a fucking stalker before the cops show up, so I commit to one single lap before I find a place to park for the night.
Arbor Mews is bigger than I thought.
It takes a full fifteen minutes to circle all the buildings, and I don’t dare drive too slowly like I’m some kind of criminal looking for a place to break into. I might be an asshole, but I’m not in a big hurry to get arrested outside Sam’s apartment.
I’m in the very last parking loop, which curls around what looks like an open lawn, when I spot her car.
It’s right there, pulled up snug to the front entrance of the building. It’s definitely hers. I recognize the plate.
My heart picks up the pace. I want to go inside right now and start looking for her, but the outer doors are going to be locked, and that would be a scene she wouldn’t appreciate.
So even though it makes my heart fucking ache, I drive out of the lot, find the nearest big-box grocery store, and lean my seat back, falling into a restless sleep.
Chapter Forty-Three
Samantha
When my alarm goes off on Thursday morning, I don’t recognize the sound for a long time, the tone blending into my dreams. I don’t recognize my apartment, either, when I finally open my eyes.
Where…and when?
Then it all comes back to me.
The interview at the police station, Michelle sitting next to me, her back straight, face determined. Describing what happened, in terms so exact it made my stomach turn over. I was glad I hadn’t eaten. That was the only thing I was glad about until it was time to describe when Beck had come in and interrupted Calley. I listen to myself tell the detective how terrified I was in that moment, how my hands felt cold but my face felt hot, how I thought I wasn’t going to be able to get away from his clinging hands.
Without Beck, I don’t know what would have happened to me.
I tell the story twice, and each time, it becomes clearer to me that I was being a complete idiot to Beck in the hallway, shaken up or not. He put his job on the line to protect me, and he didn’t flinch when losing his job was the eventual consequence. It was the least of his worries – all he cared about was protecting me.
Each time I recalled the story to the recording officer, I managed to hold it together until I had to say Beck’s name, and then my eyes filled with tears, hot, embarrassing tears that I wiped away with jerky motions using the sandpaper-rough station tissues.
I have to do something.
What I have to do is get out of bed and get ready for work. Michelle was solid as a rock through everything, and when we got back to the office, she told me to go home and take the rest of the day off and tomorrow, too, to recover.
“See someone. That number they gave you—call it.” She’d looked right into my eyes when she said it, and something there made me think she was speaking from experience.
I took Michelle’s advice and met with a counselor yesterday. I steered the conversation away from Beck. I didn’t want to spend the hour-long session drenching the raw wound I’d caused to my own heart with my salty tears.
I have to do something, and soon.
The soft feeling of the plush carpeting on my feet barely registers as I stand to reach for my phone that’s plugged into my charger on the bedroom table. There are no new texts and only a scattering of work emails pop up. I bring up a new text message screen and hover over Beck’s name in my contact list, but everything I think of writing to him seems empty, hollow. Not enough to give back what he gave to me. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to.
I need to go back to Lockton.
But I can’t leave now. I can’t ask Michelle for any more time off, even though I’m sure she would give it to me without a second thought. I want to be back in the office, working on projects, leaving this mess as far behind me as possible.
It won’t be over for a while. I know that. I’ve accepted that. But in the meantime, I want to get dressed in my work clothes and sit at my desk. I need routine. I need a purpose.
The only hard part is that my body aches for Beck, and my heart feels raw and battered. None of what happened was his fault. Calley wasn’t his fault. The baby—the baby wasn’t his fault. All of these things just happened. And I need to say that to him before much more time goes by. I need to say it, not write it to him in a text message.
I turn whether I should text him or call him over again and again in my mind while I’m in the shower. It continues to consume my mind as I’m putting on my most comfortable work slacks and a top with lace detailing that I’ve always loved but didn’t take with me to Lockton.
At the door to my apartment, I drop my phone into my purse next to my wallet, then grab my keys. In the hallway, one of my neighbors, Keith, is on his way out, and he nods at me. “Hey, Sam.”
“Hey, Keith.” Keith has a gorgeous wife named Anne who works from their apartment—I think she writes. As he passes by, a painful twist makes its way through my chest. Coming home to someone in the evening seems like the best thing in the world right now, and I probably screwed that up for myself.
I lock the door.
“Hello,” Keith says—again—and I look up. We already exchanged hallway greetings, so…
There’s someone standing outside the outer door of the complex. All I can see from here is a plain black t-shirt, and at the sight of it my stomach drops to my toes.
I shake my head, trying to will the redness out of my cheeks. I want it to be Beck so badly that I’m probably fantasizing about a delivery guy right now.
I look at the carpet while I’m going down the stairs, trying to keep my breathing steady. When I pull open the door, ready to rush past whoever it is—I don’t know, a U.P.S. deliveryman?—the man is standing right in front of the door on the concrete step, reaching for one of the apartment buzzers.
And I recognize his shoes.
And I recognize his legs.
And his belt.
And his face.
It’s Beck, here in Arbor Springs, standing outside my apartment building, one hand in his pocket and the other dropped to his side.
Heat rushes through my entire body, concentrating between my legs, and it’s all I can do not to throw my arms around him and maybe sob into his shirt.
“Beck,” I say, breathless. “What are you doing here?”
He cracks a grin at me, but in his eyes are a thousand questions. “You forgot some things in Lockton.”
I smile at him, all of a sudden overcome by shyness, through a new gathering of tears. “You came all this way to bring me my clothes?”
He clears his throat, sticks his other hand into his other pocket, and I’m swept under by the green of his eyes, by the hard muscles bulging from underneath his shirt, by the way he’s just standing here on my doorstep, his hair a little mussed in places. I want to take him inside right now, but if I do that, I don’t think we’ll ever get out of bed. The air between us crackles with everything we’ve never said to one another. I thought we’d moved past most of that when I was in Lockton, but now I know that’s not true. “I came because I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand how it ended. Either time. I came to see you. I had to see you.” He presses his lips together and takes in a deep breath. “If you want me to go, I’ll go. I’ll go right now. If you want—”
I stop his words with a kiss that’s so hard and so hot, he stumbles backward off the step, managing to catch us both just in time.
Chapter Forty-Four
Beckett
Sam launches herself at me, and before I can react, her lips are on mine, covering mine. I catch her, but I have to step
back off the concrete step, landing hard on my feet, her weight pushing against me. She pulls back, laughing.
“Damn.”
“Did I come on too strong?”
“Almost.” I put her down gently on her feet on the sidewalk. It feels so damn good for my hands to be touching her, even if I’m just steadying her from the near-miss, that I think I could die right now and be happy.
No. There are other things I’d want to do to her first.
“Listen, I know I’m just showing up out of nowhere. If there’s somewhere you need to be, I can—”
“Come inside.”
“Okay.”
Judging by Sam’s outfit, she was on her way to work. “I don’t want to make you late for anything.”
“I have a little wiggle room. A little.”
“Understood.”
She leads me back into the building, up a half-flight of carpeted stairs, to the first apartment on the left. When she digs her keys out of her purse and goes to unlock the door, my heart pounds against my rib cage. I’ve never had the chance to see where Sam went after college. This is the new Sam’s home, not the girl who went back to the dorms after that summer, who ate in the cafeteria. All the lost years are another punch to the gut.
She pushes the door open, holding it so I can step inside.
I’m standing in a short hallway, so short that when she comes in behind me I have to move forward into the living room of the apartment. To the left, she has a couch and a TV stand set up, along with two matching side tables. To the right is a narrow kitchen with a pass-through countertop. There’s at least one book on every surface in sight, which has been one of her trademarks as long as I’ve known her. Her mom used to hassle her for leaving books in her wake everywhere she went.