by Nicky James
I didn’t work up front for the most part, unless a wedding party came in for fittings or adjustments. Then, I’d take measurements and disappear into my lair once again—the much less extravagant sewing room in the back with four plain walls, a table with my machines, and racks of tools I used to get the job done.
Matilda, my boss and the owner of Ever After, was the type of woman who looked stuffy and proper on the outside but was actually kind and caring on the inside. She’d hired me as an assistant to the head seamstress when I’d started college, but I’d since moved up in the ranks and was a trusted part of the team working my own jobs without an audience.
Like all days, Matilda was dressed in her expensive pantsuit, black hair curled and set in an uplift with so much styling spray it didn’t dare move, and enough jewelry I’d have sunk to the bottom of the ocean if I tried to wear it all. Floral perfume wafted off her in waves.
“Good afternoon, Arden,” Matilda said as she poked her head into the back room moments after the heavy door slammed, announcing my arrival. “The Randall party is coming in for a final fitting tonight at six thirty instead of seven if we could have that ready to go.”
“No problem. I’ll have it set out. Room three?”
“Please.”
There were voices upfront of the store, so I wasn’t surprised when she disappeared again with a flash of a smile.
I checked my schedule book and set to work immediately, cursing the ever-present tremors in my fingers that made my job more difficult. In less than ten minutes, I fished inside my backpack and came up with a sealed bottle of vitamin water. It would give me a hit of calories and was among the few fluids I could manage outside green tea or straight alcohol. Sometimes it calmed the shakes.
Checking the date twice, I cracked the seal and sniffed the contents before sipping a small amount and swishing it around my mouth. The berry flavor tasted how it should. There were no hints of bitterness or earthiness that would set off alarms inside my head.
So I swallowed one tiny mouthful.
Two more sips and I screwed on the cap and set it beside me while I continued working.
By the time I took my break at seven thirty, a familiar gnawing ache had infested my stomach. I sat at our small lunch table and unpacked my backpack while I waited for the kettle to boil for my noodles.
For the second time that day, I studied the peanut butter I’d purchased with a suspicious eye, noting the date, the seal, and the contents visible through the plastic. Finally deciding it was okay, I peeled back the foil and studied the smooth surface of the spread, sniffing it a few times for good measure.
Untouched.
No discoloration.
No peculiar odors.
The nutty scent didn’t immediately tighten my gorge either which was a win. When that started happening, I’d lose peanut butter as an option altogether.
Using a knife, I scraped a dime-sized amount off the top and spread it on an already inspected cracker. Another round of examination then I ate it. The tiny bites made the entire process take close to five minutes. Another reason I just couldn’t get enough calories into me in a given day. A proper, two thousand calorie diet would probably take me all day to consume, and I didn’t have all day to eat. My dinner break was a strict half an hour.
No matter what I ate, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, sweat beaded across my forehead, and my insides clenched. Nausea lingered just on the outskirts of reasoning, and it took all my concentration and strength to keep it at bay. The what-ifs lingered in the background. Haunting and taunting me.
The small number of calories I managed to consume needed to stay down.
I repeated the peanut butter cracker ritual three more times and then ate a quarter of my ramen noodles before my break was up. Carefully packing everything away, I mentally calculated my caloric intake and fought back tears, knowing it still wasn’t enough. It was never enough.
The rest of my night was consumed with an ever-familiar panic while I overanalyzed every suspicious sensation inside my body, looking for signs and symptoms of rejection or illness. It was an ongoing battle I fought every minute of every day just to keep myself alive.
Fear consumed me.
* * *
I waited until Sunday before storming my brother’s house where—surprise, surprise—his wife was completely moved in—despite their having left on their honeymoon the morning after the wedding two weeks ago and despite them arriving home late last night.
It was a wonder how my parents were so oblivious.
It was just after eight in the morning. Considering they had the viable excuse of jet lag and exhaustion, I assumed Carrie and Phoenix would avoid morning service. However, to be sure I didn’t miss them, in case they decided to go, I didn’t want to wait much longer. Two weeks had been long enough.
I pounded on the door, my other hand shoved deep in the front pocket of my baggy hoodie for warmth. It was a few days until the first of June, but the early morning sun had done little to cut the chill of the previous night. The tips of my ears ached as I bounced on my toes, waiting for an answer.
It took five insistent minutes of knocking for the front door to open. Or rather, for the front door to be yanked so hard it was a surprise it didn’t come off its hinges.
The look on Phoenix’s face was raw and unfiltered. Pure rage mixed with a weariness that came from two weeks of drunken partying in Cuba and a full day of traveling home.
“Thou shall not kill thy brother,” I reminded him with a rarely given half smile I didn’t hide—if only to fuel the fire burning behind his eyes.
He didn’t respond, but the door slammed closed like it was driven by the force of a hundred men. I stopped it with my Converse just in time, and it fucking hurt. Grimacing, I shouldered it open again, limping on my crushed foot as Phoenix growled, “What the fuck, Arden?”
“Five minutes, and I’ll leave—provided I get my answers. Five minutes. I’ve waited two weeks for you to get home.”
“Whatever it is, no. The answer is no and fuck off. Get out of my house. Leave me alone. I’m tired and cranky and hungover and really, really don’t want to deal with you right now.”
Ignoring him, I wedged through the small crevice between the door and the frame and ducked under his arm when he tried to block me.
Thank God for being small.
“You are technically free to have all the sex you want now without hiding it. How are you this grumpy?” I asked when I succeeded in tumbling into his front hall.
“With annoying fucking brothers like you, how am I not locked behind bars is the real question.”
Relenting, since I’d managed to worm my way inside, he slammed the front door and squared his shoulders, crossed his arms and did the whole intimidation thing that had never worked on me.
“One easy question and I’ll be on my way.”
“Swear it,” he gritted.
“I swear… Provided I get my answer.”
His icy blue eyes were the same color as my own except a thousand times more venomous at the moment.
“What?”
“Where does Iggy live?”
He flinched, blinked and rattled his head. It wasn’t the question he’d expected. “Excuse me?”
“Iggy. Your best friend. Remember him? Where does he live? Address. Be a doll and jot it down for me and I’m out. You can go back to sleep, fuck your wife, or whatever else you need to do to shed this funk.”
“Are you drunk?”
“Not anymore, but I remember every detail with perfect clarity hence the need for his address.”
Every now and then, Phoenix got the whole dumb oaf look on his face. It glowed today as I waited for him to absorb and respond. I gave him extra time, understanding his late night and limited IQ but when he continued to stare, lips parted and brain clearly unable to process, I rolled my eyes.
“Phoenix?” I waved a hand in front of his face. “Hello? Address.”
He caught
my wrist, and I yelped as he twisted it into an awkward position. “Don’t be a punk. Why the hell would I give you Iggy’s address? No fucking way. I told you to leave him alone.”
I pursed my lips, fighting the strain in my wrist and made a dramatic effort at looking thoughtful instead of showing pain. “Yeah, I don’t think I want to. And based on the way he kissed me at the wedding, I don’t think he does either, so if you could please just give me a direction, a street name, a general ballpark idea on where I might find him in this shitty town, I’ll be out of your hair.”
Phoenix shoved me away, and I stumbled before catching myself. Narrowing his eyes, he tilted his head to the side like he hadn’t heard me right. “Say again?”
“Oh my God, address! Please give me an address!”
“He kissed you?”
“Well technically, I guess I kissed him. The first time. The second time was all him.”
There was an extended pause while Phoenix soaked up all that information. Then, he shot forward.
Recoiling in surprise, certain he was launching an attack, I managed to cover my face when his shoulder pummeled mine and sent me spinning as he darted down the hall to his bedroom.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I straightened and was about to follow when he returned, cellphone clamped to his ear and a snarl in his lip which made him look deadly.
“You kissed my fucking brother!” Phoenix roared when Iggy must have answered.
He paced, wiping a hand over his face and through his tangled hair. Anger radiated off him in waves.
I couldn’t hear Iggy, but based on Phoenix’s silence, I assumed the poor guy was scrambling to defend himself, so I stepped forward and held up a finger, hoping to interrupt.
“Um… Phoenix?”
“Get out of my house!”
“Address?”
“Out!” He pointed at the front door and the fury painted across his face was enough warning to get me moving. Maybe he didn’t intimidate me—as such—but I wasn’t an idiot. Phoenix was easily twice my size.
Then he barked into the phone again, “Have you completely lost your mind? What did I tell you…”
I slipped out the door, silently apologizing to Iggy for getting him in trouble and irritated with Phoenix for being so fucking stubborn and judgmental. Why the hell did he care?
Instead of taking the bus home, I walked, thumbing through another Google search, this one trying to pinpoint where Ignatius Rojas lived. It was useless. Every search variable I entered turned up nothing.
It left me with two options. Either I visited the home where he’d lived when I’d known him before and asked his mother, or I stalked his place of work. Seeing as he was an EMT and in an ambulance working calls during his shift, I’d need to catch a shift change at wherever it was they parked the rigs.
This did not have to be complicated. Fucking Phoenix!
For the hundredth time, I considered why I was hunting Iggy down. He’d been clear on his position about hookups and more than clear on his position on dating a McMillan.
But it was Iggy Rojas! My childhood crush. The same guy I’d dreamed about for years as a prepubescent boy. Dreams that included outrageous scenarios where we got married, shared vacations, where he held my hand in public, and no one shamed us for loving each other.
Iggy Rojas! And he was gay.
And he’d kissed me.
Not a small kiss either. A claiming, hungry, needy kiss that had nearly brought me to my knees. With tongue!
“Fuck!”
I’d relived it every night in bed for two weeks and lost hours at work daydreaming about taking that kiss further.
I didn’t have a whole lot of good things going on in my life, so I’d be damned if I didn’t at least pursue the first thing that had made me feel good in six years.
Fuck Phoenix. Fuck my unaccepting family. I’d find him on my own.
I wasn’t giving this up without a fight. Iggy didn’t kiss like a man who wasn’t interested in more. He kissed like he’d suddenly found the answer to a problem he’d never been able to solve.
Chapter Seven
Iggy
“What are you doing with your weekend?” Mickey asked as he steered us down the road toward the garage.
“Hopefully sleeping. Gotta get groceries for Ma tomorrow at some point, try and make it to the soup kitchen by eleven, and help at the hospital fundraiser BBQ in the afternoon, but outside those obligations, I’m planning to get really cozy with my bed.”
Mickey chuckled. “You signed up to help with the fundraiser?”
“Yeah, they were looking for extra hands and asked if I’d be interested.”
“That’s because you can’t say no.”
“I’m aware. It’s a good cause and only a couple of hours from my day. I’ll survive.”
We reached the garage, and Mickey swung the rig around to back her into her spot. The garage doors were wide open, and a few crews were standing around, preparing for their shifts. The reverse signal beeped loud as we pulled in, and when Mickey cut the engine, he sighed.
“A whole fucking weekend off. Man, does it feel good to be done.”
I couldn’t have agreed more. We’d just done twelve days straight and were overdue for a day off.
“Keep your phone turned off,” I said, releasing my seatbelt and popping the door.
“Oh, believe me, I will. There is no fucking way I will be called in. None. Hell needs to freeze over first.”
We greeted the team preparing to go out, and Mickey tossed them the keys to allow them to do their checks. I grabbed my backpack from behind my seat while Mickey signed us out.
I fished inside my bag for the keys to my car and then shouldered it and headed for the open garage doors.
“See ya Monday, Mick. Have a good one.”
“Later, man.”
As I followed the concrete drive to the sidewalk and hung a left toward the parking lot beside the ambulance garage, I tugged my phone out and skimmed my messages. Phoenix had been ignoring me for a week, so I wasn’t surprised to find him still silently seething. Otherwise, there were only a handful of messages bringing me up to date on the fundraiser event that weekend. They were from an acquaintance nurse I’d met a handful of times who was helping organize it, a guy named Ireland Hayes.
Deciding to respond to him later, once I was home, showered, and fed, I stuffed my phone back into my pocket and scanned the lot for my car.
That was when my steady escape from work ground to a halt. Not unlike the night at Phoenix’s wedding, on the other side of the lot, sitting on the hood of my car and watching my approach, was Arden McMillan.
Even the mischief in his crystal blue eyes was the same.
Just seeing him again made my stomach swoop—and not unpleasantly. I might have had a few drinks that night, but I certainly hadn’t forgotten a single thing. Especially not the taste of those pale pink lips working hard not to smile at me.
Finding my feet, I advanced, studiously aware of my body’s reaction to seeing him again. My heart tripped and skin buzzed. I licked my lips and could almost taste him again as I relived our shared kiss, my blood tingling to life.
But it wasn’t simply his taste I remembered. I could still feel his cold fingers as they’d gripped my dress shirt, the small weight of his body as he’d leaned against me, the hints of sunshine and lavender surrounding him, the delicate way I’d held him close, memorizing each detail without even knowing I had.
“This is a surprise,” I said once I was close enough I didn’t have to yell. My voice rasped, and I cleared my throat.
“You’re a bitch to get a hold of.”
“You went to your brother, didn’t you? Do you have any idea how mad he is?”
“Phoenix can get over it. I’m a big boy, and so are you.”
I stopped within five feet and studied his calm, self-assured demeanor. With elbows propped on his knees and blond hair draped over one eye, he looked younger than his twenty years. He�
��d always been a tiny kid—him and Ivory—but it took him to be an adult for it to truly register just how small he was.
I knew from what Phoenix had shared that they were born premature and had suffered extensive problems as infants which affected their growth and health. It was also believed their weakened immune systems were partly the reason Ivory hadn’t survived six years ago when they both got sick.
If I understood correctly, Arden’s survival was a miracle.
He wore a navy hoodie, despite the warm day, but his cheeks were flushed—a hint of pink in an otherwise pasty white complexion. Rosy, perfectly formed lips drew my eye, but when I caught myself staring, I flicked my gaze away, shuffling my feet. Subtle hints of sunshine-warmed skin tickled my nose.
“What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you again.”
I considered the underlying message. “For what reason?”
He rolled his eyes and pierced me with smoldering sapphires made all the more brilliant by his navy hoodie. “Come on, Iggy. You are not that naïve.”
I couldn’t contain the smile or ignore the warmth coasting my skin. “No. But I thought we already talked about this. It was a great kiss, Arden. I’m not gonna lie.” Incredible, fabulous, unforgettable, knee-weakening… “There are a lot of possibilities there, and despite Phoenix’s relentless warnings, I don’t think you’re a bad kid. Guarded, but not bad.”
He scowled. “I’m not a kid.”
“Sorry. You’re right. You’re not a bad guy. But the reality is—”
“You don’t take risks. I get it. Was it the ex that broke you or my father?” Arden jumped down from the car and strolled forward, hands deep in the front pocket of his hoodie. He stopped within inches and peered up from his scant height of maybe five foot six or seven, and I had to fight the urge to brush his hair from his eyes, bury my face in his neck and breathe him in.
“Maybe both. Not gonna lie. I’d like to think I’m not a masochist.”
“Can you honestly tell me you haven’t once considered more?”