by Alex Rosa
He leaps onto the back of the couch, twerking his tail back and forth with each step before making it to the armrest. He jumps confidently from the couch onto the desk nestled in the corner, knocking a pile of papers over.
I don’t even flinch. I just eye him and the mess now on the floor.
“Perfect. Just what I need.” I shrug.
He doesn’t care. He licks at his paws from the corner perch, as if acting like I did in fact deserve that.
“Did I ever tell you I’m not much of a cat person?”
Meow. He tilts his head to the side, stopping his licking to examine me mockingly.
“Yeah, and that I’m in the market for a new coat.”
Soot throws his body onto the desk suddenly, and I hate how adorable it is.
Mew, he beckons.
“Does this act work on everyone else? Because I am by far harder to convince.”
He rolls over again, letting out more mews as he stretches.
I roll my eyes. “I guess you’re right. I’m the biggest pushover ever.”
Caiden comes to mind as I approach Soot, scratching at his chin, igniting his purr.
“Don’t tell anyone, especially Caiden, that I pander to your needs so quickly. Also, I’d like it if you kept our snuggles secret, too.”
I rub at his belly, chuckling, because although sleeping on the couch is doing a number on my back, Soot has been curled in my arms most nights now.
Meoow.
I nod as if we just negotiated a merger. “Yeah, I agree. Let’s be more productive. What do you suggest? Wait, don’t answer that.”
Meowww.
I grunt, eyeing the desk and the mess of papers shoved into the small shelves of the old wooden antique.
“But I don’t really want to go through her stuff.”
Soot stretches again, knocking another smaller pile to the floor.
“Okay—okay! Fine! I know I need to. First, more wine.”
I grab for my glass off the mantel, and my childish stomps spook Soot, causing him to leap off the desk and wander the room.
“Sheesh,” I mumble, until something on the floor catches my eye.
Caiden’s name. Caiden’s name scribbled over and over.
I place the glass next to me on the floor as I lean onto my knees to grab a tiny booklet peeking from the pile of papers.
It’s my mother’s checkbook.
Soot reappears, rubbing against my leg as he releases another meow and then nudges the small booklet in my hands.
It’s a pad of checks, or I should say, used to be. The receipts that were written for who the checks were given to are the only pages left. My eyes go wide as I see only one name listed under every check number. Caiden Anderson. The amounts vary. Some as little as forty dollars to a check that’s listed at five hundred dollars.
I stand, filling with an odd sort of rage. What is Caiden doing taking money from my mother? There seems so much more to this than meets the eye. As if this life in PineCrest didn’t already hold so many secrets, this one feels like a blow to my gut.
I rise from the floor, flipping through the booklet. Nearly every page has his name on it. I fume, feeling my face heat irrationally. I stuff the booklet in my back pocket while sliding my hand frantically over the surfaces of the messy desk, carelessly knocking more papers to the floor, and I can hear my own shallow breath reverberating around me.
Water gathers in the corners of my eyes, and I don’t know why I’m so upset. It feels like betrayal. Was Caiden borrowing money from my mom and never going to tell me? I find another checkbook, this one in a leather case. This time fresh checks fill the front of this book, but I quickly turn to the back. Again, his name marks every lined receipt. I gasp when I see a check listed in the amount of eight hundred dollars.
“Oh my God.”
I toss this one across the room while letting out a shriek of my own.
I’ve had it with not knowing. I’ve even had it with my mother and her secrets. She would never tell me she was giving her money away because I’m sure she knew I’d never approve. But I’m more furious at someone who was like a member of my family taking advantage of her. It’s no secret she favored Caiden, but money, and all these checks? I demand to know why, and to make him accountable. Did he think he could get away with not telling me?
As if we don’t have enough to work through.
This is the last straw for me.
I rush across the living room, grabbing for my car keys, and stomp out the door. I half hope this is the rage I need to let Caiden go, but my tears bewilder me. My frustration collides with confusion and anger as my body contorts with the need to have answers.
I deserve that much, don’t I?
It doesn’t take me long to figure out where Caiden is. I drive past his house to see that his truck isn’t there and then drive to the only other place I can think of: the fire station.
Sure enough, his truck is among only two others sitting in the darkness in front.
I slam my car into park, feeling more at my wit’s end with every mile I gain. I’ve lost it. I know it. I’m a heaping mess of missing my mother and possibly hating her—which was a place I never wanted to get to. All the while feeling the same for the stupid guy who’s supposed to be there for me.
Life has never felt so foggy, and the only thing that feels clear is this burning anger that explodes deep in my gut.
Maybe it’s this need to feel something. I’m in a constant state of trying to rein it all in. I won’t anymore. I don’t want to. I want to be mad, and being mad at Caiden feels right.
When I walk into the fire station dispatch office, my sneakers squeak on the linoleum floor, and I realize that Caiden might be sleeping upstairs with his crew.
Luckily, I see him leaning back in a chair, eyes resting closed, his arms folded over his stomach as his legs perch themselves atop the desk in front of him. Isn’t he supposed to be working?
I stomp up to him and kick his boots off the desk. His body flings forward, and his eyes fly open as his arms jut out to avoid an oncoming fall. His palms fall flat onto the desk with a loud slap as he looks around frantically.
“What the hell!” he blurts out as he sees me fuming in front of him, tapping my toe furiously as I cross my arms over my chest. “Hailey, what are you doing?” he asks, just as annoyed.
His rugged face has my stomach doing a somersault, but anger and frustration win the battle over my nerves.
I pull my mother’s checkbook from my back pocket and wave it in the air. “What have you been hiding, Caiden? Huh?”
He rises from his chair, smoothing out the navy button-down of his uniform, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows revealing his tattoos. I try getting a peek at my initials secretly woven into the art, but he’s moving too quickly. His height suddenly feels intimidating when he greets me with the same seething intensity, but I’m not going to cower when it comes to this argument.
“What are you talking about?” he asks, running a nervous hand through his hair. I disregard the worn lines around his sizzling green eyes as they devour me in frustration and anger. I wonder what fuels his rage.
“My mom. I finally decided to go through some of her things—”
“At eleven o’clock at night?” he cuts in.
My mouth bobs a bit. I didn’t even consider the time. Is it really that late? Water pools in the corner of my eyes. I blink it back as quickly as it came. “I wasn’t really. I just—it’s tough sometimes going through Mom’s things—” I shake my head, not liking the direction this is going. He’s watching me like a wounded animal now. No, thanks. “Why was my mom writing you checks, Caiden? I was going through her desk and found her checkbook. Nearly all of them were made out to you!”
His face softens as he takes a step toward me. “I never once cashed any of them, don’t worry.”
I take a step back, confused by his endearing transition, practically fearful of it. It’s as if he isn’t fazed by the inquiry. I hate tha
t the corner of his mouth crooking upward into a smirk has me losing my breath. I shake my head to get a grip.
“You didn’t?” I ask. My hand nervously comes up to tug on a lock of my hair, and it’s impossible to ignore my trembling, neurotic state.
He shakes his head. “Of course not. Your mom was as stubborn as you, and she just wrote the checks anyway. I told her she didn’t have to pay me.”
I stiffen with more confusion while I watch him take two more steps toward me. I try to move a step back again, but I bump into a desk.
He adds, “Hailey, are you okay?”
I’m anything but, and he knows it. I ignore his question.
“You act like I know why my mom was trying to pay you!” My voice begins to rise, and it feels good to shout, so I keep doing it. “Why the hell has my mom been writing you checks for years? Why would she do that? Why were you taking money from my mom? Why are you keeping all these secrets?” My words come out hot and fiery. I’m angry, but tears appear again, and this time I can’t blink them back as they fall over the edge and drip down my cheeks.
The tears mean all the things I can’t say. I wipe at them quickly, as if to hide their true meaning.
“Hailey, you’ve been gone a long time…” He gets choked up, too. His eyes dissect me as they always have, but they have a remorseful edge to them this time. He takes that final step, and I’m backed up against a desk, trapped. I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. His hands slowly lift themselves up. I’m still clutching the checkbook close as if it’s a shield. I hate that watching Caiden’s emotions unfold puts me in a trance.
“Why Caiden? Why?” I beg. I’m pleading for something to make sense, because the only thing that seems to is the gravitational pull that appears between us.
“Your mom needed a lot of help around the house as she got older, so I would come around when I could to do things she couldn’t, like yard work, handyman stuff, cleaning the gutters before the fall. Ya know? Things your dad used to do. She needed help, and I wasn’t gonna let her do it on her own. She started to feel bad and wanted to pay me for the work or the supplies I would get.” He pauses to chuckle, his eyes searing me with cherishing intensity, causing only more liquid to pool in mine. He loved her as much as I did. “I never once cashed a single check she gave me. Never. She’d get as mad as you are at me now. She’d shout and scream at me to take her money. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.”
“You did all that for her?” I whimper, and I wish I could sound stronger, more resilient. The way I want so desperately to be, but I’m breaking down.
He smiles, and I swear the edge to his mouth causes my knees to buckle.
“… And for you,” he replies quietly, as if hoping I wouldn’t hear.
Unfortunately, his words only echo and bounce off the walls of my skull until I commit his tone, his look, and those words to memory. I savor them when I shouldn’t.
His hands finally make it to my face. I attempt to turn away, but his grasp is firm, holding my jaw steady, forcing my eyes to stay pinned to his.
His touch is too much. It confuses me more than this new revelation. My words come out erratic and unfiltered. “Why didn’t she tell me you were doing that? I can’t stop it. I’m mad at her—” I blubber, the salty tears spilling over my lips as I lean into his touch. His strong hands feel like home in an instant, even if they’re rougher than I remember. The light stroke of his thumb against my cheek has my eyelids fluttering while I’m utterly enthralled by his stare.
“Don’t you dare be mad at her, Hailey. Don’t. Be mad at me. ME. I’d rather you be mad at me forever than hold anything against your mom. It’s hard to understand, but know that she never wanted to distract you from your big dreams. She loved you too much. Especially because she would never let you get distracted by something like me. And think of it this way, just as much as you didn’t want to tell her you needed her help, she didn’t want to tell you that she needed yours. Never for one moment think she kept things from you to hurt you. She just wanted to keep things level. She wanted you focused. All she ever wanted was for you to fulfill your dream, because she knew from personal experience how important that is. She opened the diner for that exact reason. She may not have originally agreed to you leaving like the rest of us, but regardless, she was proud.”
“B-but you were there for her, and I wasn’t. She never let me be there. I wanted to be there. I wanted—I loved her—I can’t—”
“And she knew that. She read your book, Hailey. It was obvious how much you loved your mom, just as obvious as how much you loved me,” he blurts, and as if he can’t help himself, his lips crash into mine. I don’t even see it coming. I don’t even get a chance to argue.
I’ve stared at his mouth so many times since seeing him in the bar that first night, wondering if things would ever be the same, wondering if I would ever get over my curiosity if his lips would meet mine with the same fervor they had when we were nineteen.
They absolutely do.
His mouth caresses mine while his thumbs swipe over my cheeks, wiping at the tears. I’m shocked by the whole experience, but my lips greet his with a sense of familiarity and desperate passion as our mouths reacquaint themselves with each other.
I drop the checkbook, my hands pressing flat against his chest, sliding up his shoulders, loving the feeling of every hard line. His heartbeat beneath my fingertips feels like a rapid-booming bass drum that sends mine into a tailspin of frantic beats, too.
When his tongue dips into my mouth, my hands reflexively move to tangle themselves in his hair. His body presses against mine, pushing mine back, forcing me to sit atop the desk as he continues to take that small extra step to place himself between my legs.
In that instant, I have never craved anything, or anyone, so much in my entire life.
He tastes of cinnamon coffee, and my tongue wants to taste all of him. It twists around his as a quiet groan escapes him.
His right hand slides down the length of my body, igniting a tingling trail in its wake until he takes a firm grip of my thigh. All I can do is bring him as close as possible, anchoring him to me as he hitches my leg around his waist.
How did I get here? Where am I again?
RING. RING. RING. “PineCrest station, small brush fire reported on Walnut Avenue. Reportedly, the Shelton family playing with illegal fireworks again. Blaze seemingly under control at this time. Officer’s Barton and Garcia will be on scene to assist.”
The 911 call is deafening over the loudspeaker.
He doesn’t leap away from me but freezes instead. His lips stop stroking mine, and his eyes slowly open. It’s as if he doesn’t know how he got here, either. I can feel each of his muscles tense against me, one by one, as he processes the situation. I can even feel the gulp of his throat with his lips still pressed to mine, and his tight exhale.
Personally, I can’t breathe.
The sounds of heavy footsteps can be heard on the floor above us as his crew (and presumably some of our friends), wake up to handle the emergency call.
He peels himself away as another ring echoes off the station walls as a reminder. His eyes are wide, round… terrified.
He takes three steps back, his arms rising defensively. He whispers, “Shit-shit-shit.”
I’m petrified. My lips are swollen from his assault. My eyes examine his tangled mess of hair, knowing my hands are the cause, and then I absorb the gut-wrenching look in his eyes.