The Perception

by Adriana Locke

  I couldn’t help but smile at just how right Nick was. “You got him pegged.”

  “I have to run to a meeting, but if you need anything, just call me.”

  “I’m pulling up to a meeting myself, but thanks a lot, Nick.”

  I turned off the phone and pulled into a parking spot and cut the engine. Blaine was standing near the marina at Tempe Town Lake, his hands tucked into his pockets. He seemed nervous, which was just how I wanted him. I didn’t need him in some pissing match with me; I needed to know how he met Samantha West.

  I got out of the truck and made my way towards him. The wind was whipping pretty hard and I saw him wince as the cool air swept by him. He finally saw me coming and put his hands to his sides, trying to look more imposing.

  Good luck, asshole.

  “Hey,” I called out, the sound of my voice making birds take flight around the water’s edge; Blaine nodded in response. “I’m gonna cut right to the chase.”

  “Sounds good,” he said, his eyes narrowing.

  “How did you meet Sam?”

  He bit out a laugh. “That’s what you called me for? To see how I met Sam?”

  “I’m just curious. Did you see her somewhere? Did you meet online? Did you get hooked up by friends?”

  “Not that it’s any of your concern, but we met at a bar. I was in there with a client and she came up to me. Same place, same time.”

  She came up to me . . .

  “Did she ever say anything to you about knowing Kari?”

  He looked at me like I was crazy. “How would she know that I knew Kari? Yeah, we got into a conversation a few times about our pasts and things, that’s how I know you two have a history . . .”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He smiled cockily, tilting his head to the side. “That you two had this thing going on. She said she had a fuck buddy but he was embarrassed about it, coming from a good family and all. I didn’t care because that’s all I wanted her for, too.”

  “That’s asinine,” I said firmly. “Sam is nothing to me but my little sister’s friend. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that she didn’t know that you knew Kari?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know how she could’ve. I think we were all a little shocked at the restaurant.”

  “All of us but Samantha,” I exhaled. “She found a letter that Kari wrote you a long time ago but never sent. I’m pretty sure she set you up.”

  His reaction wasn’t what I expected. He started chuckling, shuffling his feet backwards a couple of steps, his eyes looking me up and down. I knew he was gauging me, trying to see how far he could push me.

  Judge carefully . . .

  “Good,” he grinned. “Seeing Kari again was an answered prayer. I shouldn’t have walked away from her like I did and I’ve never been able to really get over that. But now I know where she is and what happened—I can try to make things right.”

  “Things are right. We are getting married in a couple of weeks.”

  He blanched. “You’re marrying her? What about Sam?”

  “What about her?” I laughed angrily.

  “She said you and her—”

  “She’s a crazy bitch.”

  He stood taller, eyeing me. “Kari just came back into my life. Don’t expect me to just ignore her.”

  “Oh, I’m expecting you to ignore her, alright. I’m expecting you to pretend like she doesn’t exist.” I took another step forward, causing him to step back. “That girl means the world to me and if you or your girlfriend or fuck buddy or whatever you want to call Samantha mess with her, I’ll end you. Got it?”

  “I don’t ‘got’ anything,” he challenged me, eyes blazing.

  I smiled through the anger. “I’d be more than happy to help you understand.”

  I peered down at him. I could feel the vein in my temple pulsing, rage tearing through me.

  Try me, you sonofabitch.

  I took another step towards him before he laughed nervously and headed towards the parking lot. I watched him walk away, get in his car, and drive off into the afternoon traffic.

  KARI

  “And that’s how I met Pierce,” Isa laughed, setting down her cup of coffee. “He was so irresistible. I couldn’t help myself.”

  “He reminds me a lot of Max,” I said, picturing his face. “Just younger.”

  She nodded. “They’re good people. Good hearts, all of them. For Joselyn’s first birthday, Max had a pink Mustang, you know one of those Little Tykes battery-operated things, delivered to our house in Texas. She couldn’t even use it yet, but he said she had to have it. Had to start her in a Ford.”

  I laughed. “I can so see that.” My phone started ringing in my purse and I grabbed it. Gladys’ name was flashing on the screen. “I need to get this,” I told Isa. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Kari. It’s Gladys. I thought you should know that your friend left your house keys over here.”

  “What?”

  “Your friend, Samantha. She left the house keys with me. Said she was moving out and asked me to give them to you. I’m assuming you knew.”

  News to me.

  “Well, I didn’t really. I’m not surprised, but I didn’t know it’d be today. I’ll swing by there in a little bit and pick them up, if that’s okay.”

  “I’m sorry if I surprised you with this. I know you’ve been friends for a while; I hope everything is okay.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “We weren’t really friends and I haven’t known her that long. She’s a friend of Max’s family and he hired her on at his company temporarily and she needed a place to stay. I’ve only really known her for a couple of months, so it’s nothing to worry about. I appreciate your concern, though.”

  “Oh,” she said, surprised. “I thought you two were closer. I remember seeing her visit you a lot last year, when your sister lived with you.”

  My blood turned to ice. I looked at Isa, my eyes wide. “Gladys? What do you mean?”

  “Well, you don’t have a lot of guests. Little old ladies like me are nosier than we should be, I know. But when your sister stayed there, you had one girl that kept coming over. I noticed her because she didn’t drive. She always walked. I actually was out in the yard one afternoon and she went in the back, like she always did, and then came out the same way. I stopped and talked to her that day and she said that your house was on her running route and she would pop in for a glass of water. Said you had been friends since high school. She seemed like a nice girl.”

  “Gladys,” I choked out. “That’s a lie.”

  Oh. My. God.

  MAX

  “I’d say I hate telling you this, but I don’t. She’s a fucking lunatic,” Cane said, tipping back his Corona that evening. “Although the rape shit wasn’t something I ever expected, but I’m not surprised. I’ve told you for years that she’s a head case.”

  A fire was going in the fireplace at Alexander House. Kari, Cane, Jada, and I sat around after dinner. We tried to talk about other things, but we couldn’t get over the topic of Samantha.

  “Do you think she really made that up?” Jada asked, nibbling on a cookie. The evening sun shone brightly in the West-facing windows, creating shadows across all the walls.

  “I do. I really do,” I said, nodding in disbelief. “I just don’t know how to go about handling it at this point. I want to go rip her a new . . .” I looked at Kari and cleared my throat, catching myself. “I want to knock on her door and let her have it.”

  “But that will only keep the ball rolling,” Kari said, cutting me off. “You have to ignore her. We all do.”

  “What about Bri?” Cane asked.

  “Bri agrees. She’s the one that told me about Joe Dumas. I called her after Kari called me, telling me about Gladys. She said Sam had been calling her but she wouldn’t answer. And I guess Sam went by her apartment a couple of times, but Bri wouldn’t answer the door.” I took a drink of my beer. “She let that shit happen to my sister. I
just don’t think Bri knows what to say to her. She’s pissed as hell, but she’s also, I don’t know, sad? Hurt?”

  Jada shook her head. “This is just so disgusting. She was sneaking into your house. I lived there, too, at that time. Even I feel violated! What if she went through all of my stuff? I just . . . it makes me sick!”

  “I know,” Kari said, taking a cookie off the plate. “I’m just so over crazy people. Sam apparently coming in my house, making my life a mess. Blaine called me again today.” She added that little piece on the end as a side note.

  “He did what?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

  “I didn’t answer it.”

  I tossed my hat on the chair next to me, dropping a little bomb of my own. “I met with him this afternoon, too.”

  “You did what?” Kari asked, turning to look at me. “Why?”

  “I wanted to know how he met Sam. I wanted to know if she did set you up.”

  “And?”

  “Of course she fucking did,” Cane said, rolling his eyes.

  I nodded.

  “Is there anything you can do?” Jada asked. “I mean, to protect yourself?”

  “I think you’re giving them too much credit,” I said, laughing. “All we have to do at this point is not believe Sam’s bullshit and Kari needs to ignore Blaine and this will all go away. Be history.”

  “Speaking of Sam’s line of bullshit, I got a call from Dan Collins today,” Cane said. “He found the original Grady quote that was sent for the Chandler job. The one he had been using was a copy and the top of the fax, where it shows the fax number it was sent from, was cut off. Anyway, he was going through the job file and found the original. Guess where the Grady quote was sent from?”

  My stomach sank. “Us.”

  “Bingo.” Cane got up from the table, a serious look on his face. “I need some air.”

  I flashed Jada a curious look and she watched him walk into his office. “His mom sent another letter. He’s . . . touchy. I don’t know what to do. He’s so preoccupied with it, Max. I heard him vomiting this morning. It’s killing him.”

  I stood and made my way to his office door. I opened it cautiously. He was standing at the window, looking over the city. He didn’t even acknowledge I was there.

  I closed the door behind me. “Cane?”

  He shook his head but didn’t move. “I don’t know what to do.” He sounded so un-Cane like. Normally he was bursting with energy, hell-bent on every situation, one way or the other. But that confidence was gone.

  “What’s going on, man?”

  He turned towards me, his hands deep in his pockets. “I got another letter from Kellie. She wants to meet me.”

  My heart sank for him. “I know that has to be hard.”

  “I want to tell her to go fuck herself. She left me, so what makes her think she gets a chance to just waltz back into my life?” He walked to his desk and sat down.

  “But you’re not telling her to go fuck herself. Why?”

  His shoulders slumped forward. “Jada says I need to think about giving her a chance. That I don’t have to let her in my life, but I need to hear her out. Something about there being two sides to a story and she knows what it feels like to be a mother now. I don’t fucking know.”

  “Well, she has a point.”

  “But damn it, I might not be a mother but I’m a father. And I’m telling you,” he said, his voice getting angry, “that I cannot imagine walking away from Jada or this baby. And she walked away from me!”

  I hung my head, not knowing what to say. I saw both sides of the coin. “Look,” I said, meeting his eyes, “if you really want to tell her to fuck off, do it. I’ll stand by you. Jada will, too. No one can blame you for that and it’s your right. This is your call, Alexander. But you do need to think about it. I mean, she was kind of young when she had you, right?”

  Cane nodded warily.

  “Okay. Imagine that you had a baby when you were 21. Imagine you had a baby with Ashley?” I smiled as he grinned and I knew he knew what I was going to say. “What if you fucked up a ton of shit, because you probably would’ve. Then imagine you getting older, like you are now, and wanting to at least say you’re sorry.” I shrugged. “Maybe she just wants to apologize. Doesn’t mean you have to accept it, but would it really hurt? She can’t hurt you anymore than she already has.”

  He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, a smirk sliding across his face. “Sometimes I think you’re a fucking woman,” he laughed.

  “Why? Because I make sense?”

  He laughed. “Grab us a beer and let’s look at these plans.”

  KARI

  It had been a long day. A long three days, really. Between Samantha losing her cool, Blaine blowing up my phone, and Fern having a hay day with the wedding, my head was spinning.

  Max had told his family about Samantha’s shenanigans. I’d worried that they would somehow see me as the problem, not her. After all, she’d been around their family for much, much longer than me.

  Fern had went to Samantha and tried to talk to her. She was angry, but she was worried about her, too. Sam played it off, like always, and assured Fern that she was fine and living with her mother. Sam sobbed her heart out, saying that she hadn’t done the things she was accused of. Fern didn’t believe her, but didn’t want to walk away from her either. She made a call to Sam’s mom and made sure she was being taken care of. There wasn’t much more she could do.

  I was leaving most of the wedding stuff up to Fern and Brielle, who had made it her mission to help show her support of our union. I told them I’d take care of my dress and I wanted purple orchids because they meant something to me. They could do whatever they wanted otherwise.

  All I wanted was to be Mrs. Maxwell Jacob Quinn.

  As I lay in bed, Max stroking my back with his fingertips, I really felt like maybe we were through the worst. Every relationship had speed bumps and we had hit ours, but maybe we had made it over them all.

  I traced the vine on Max’s side, starting at his hip and working my way up lazily to the top . . . and to the orchid.

  “I want to get a new tattoo,” I said, letting my fingers graze over the petals printed on his skin.

  “You do, huh? What of?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure. Something of you. You have the orchid for me, but I have one of those, too.” My heart clenched a bit, thinking back to the tattoo on my hip for my lost baby and my mother. “I also have the arrow on my wrist.”

  “What’s the arrow for, anyway?”

  “There have been times in my life where I’ve felt like everything was going to stop. Like I couldn’t figure out which way to go. Paralysis by analysis or whatever. I got this arrow after Blaine left and I got back on my feet again. This is to remind me that life goes on and I get to pick which way to turn. I can go back and revisit things that have already happened and get pulled into that or I can go forward and make new things happen.”

  His lips turned in a half-smile. “Well, you’re gonna have a ring on your finger and my last name in a couple of days. That’s enough for me.”

  “But both of those can be removed. I want something . . . permanent,” I said, smiling when he got the reason behind my choice of words.

  He kissed my forehead. “Sweetheart, we are so permanent that no ink can explain it. But if you want something, we can go get it tomorrow.”

  “What if I want to surprise you?” I asked.

  “I guess you could, but I’d like to go, too.”

  I smirked, letting my hand trail down his abs. “You know what I’d like?”

  “What’s that?” he asked, his voice rough as my hand reached the waistband of his shorts.

  “I’d like you to get rid of these.”

  “Would ya now?” he grinned, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

  I nodded. “I would.”

  “Ladies first.”

  I didn’t hesitate to grab the hem of his ASU shirt and drag it roughly over my sk
in, exposing my nakedness beneath, and discarding it to the floor.

  Max’s eyes lit up, scanning me from my red-painted toenails to the top of my head. He shook his head, a rumble escaping his lips, as he removed his shorts and briefs. He crawled across the bed until he hovered over me, desire radiating off of him in waves.

  “Damn it, Kar. It doesn’t matter how many times I see you, I get caught off guard by how beautiful you are.”

  I felt my cheeks blush under the weight of his gaze and complement because I knew he meant it. It wasn’t a line or a ploy to get something from me.

  He had all of me already.

  “Show me,” I whispered, tugging on the back of his head, bringing his lips to mine. His lips were both firm and soft. Our mouths moved together, his tongue caressing mine, like they were designed with the other’s in mind. One of his large hands found the side of my face, his thumb stroking my cheek.

  I adjusted my legs so that he was on top of me again and locked my ankles behind his back. He growled into my mouth as I urged his pelvis towards mine, running my hands up and down his back.

  He pulled his face back, panting heavily, as breathless as I was. He grabbed his cock and guided it towards my opening, wet with need.

  I kept my eyes locked on his, something I found very difficult to do even a few months before. His greens sparkled like stars shining in the night sky, gold flecks mirroring the same feelings I felt. It melted me, comforted me, made me feel whole to be able to accept that look and those feelings from someone else with full knowledge that they meant them. For better or worse.

  I felt him push into me, a smooth hardness parting my folds. A smile tugged at the corner of his swollen lips as he sank himself inside my body.

  I closed my eyes, enjoying the fullness when he pulled back out and dipped inside again. Slower than before, I felt every centimeter as our bodies became one.

  Max brushed a stray lock of hair from my forehead and my eyes opened again. They immediately found his, like two magnets pulling toward each other from a distance. I returned his smile, an acknowledgement of the intimacy we both seemed to be feeling. We weren’t fucking and we both were okay with that.