Vote Then Read: Volume II

by Lauren Blakely

  A part of me wanted to crawl into Tate’s lap and let him fix everything. But he couldn't fix this. I was broken, and no matter how good I got at handling my anxiety problems, the media circus was always going to be a part of Tate’s life. A tiny sliver of me resented him for it. It wasn't fair to resent him for my problems. I knew that. But kneeling on the bathroom floor, puking up my guts after being ambushed by reporters and fighting back flashbacks from the worst part of my childhood, I didn't care about fair. I just wanted to go back to being okay.

  "Go away," I rasped. "Go away, please, Tate."

  After a minute, he did, leaving me alone.

  I don’t know how long it took me to get myself together, but eventually, I got up off the floor. I was still a sweaty, shaky mess, and I couldn't stand it a second longer. I turned on the shower almost hot enough to burn and stood under the steamy spray, letting my mind drift.

  Tate was still there when I came out, my hair combed straight, bundled in a thick fuzzy robe. His eyes flashed to me, dark with worry. He started toward me, then stopped.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, reaching out a hand, then dropping it to his side when I kept my distance. Jo looked between us, frowning, and said,

  “I made you some tea.” She set a mug on the kitchen table, and I lowered myself into a chair, feeling ancient. After an episode like that, every muscle in my body hurt. I was exhausted, and I wanted to be alone, but I had to do this first.

  “Can you sit down?” I asked, looking up at him. The expression on his face, worry mixed with frustration, made me want to cry. I fought it back. I needed to keep it together long enough to talk to Tate. Once that was done, I was going to crawl into bed and cry myself to sleep.

  “Was that a panic attack?” he asked gently.

  “Yeah," I said. "I haven't had one in over a year."

  "Was it the reporters?" Tate asked, looking at Jo and then back at me. Then she hadn't told him. Jo was the best, and she knew how to keep a secret.

  "When I was nine, I went on a play date with my best friend," I said. Tate looked confused. I didn't blame him, but I didn't know how else to do it. I had to tell the story, and then he would understand. "It was a day off school, a teacher workday or something, and Kelly's mom took us to one of those arcades for kids with the cartoon animals and the pizza. We were there about an hour when a man came in and started arguing with a woman who worked there. He was her ex-husband. They’d been fighting over custody, but I didn't know any of that. I just heard the yelling, and it scared me. I was in the ball pit with Kelly. She ran for her mom, but I hid in the balls. The woman was screaming back at him, and he hit her. When she got back up, he pulled out a gun. He started shooting. He didn't stop until everyone was dead. I was the only one who survived. I hid in the bottom of the ball pit, and I didn't come out until the police found me."

  "Emily," Tate said, his voice heavy with pain and the horror of what he'd heard. His hands reached across the table for mine, but I sat back, gripping the warm mug of tea. I wanted his comfort. Half of me wanted to burrow into him and let him wrap his strong arms around me and keep me safe. The other half couldn't forget that he was the reason we'd been ambushed by the reporters in the first place. They hadn't been shouting my name. They'd been shouting Tate's.

  "They wouldn't leave me alone," I said, wanting to finish it. "They followed me everywhere, the reporters, taking my picture and yelling at me. They waited in the street outside my school." I shook my head as if trying to banish the memories.

  "I didn't start having the panic attacks until later. I don't know, maybe it took time for everything to filter through. But it started then, at the shooting and right after."

  I looked down at my cup of tea and took a long sip. When I thought I had enough courage, I looked back up at Tate and said, "I can't do this with you. I want to. I do. But I can't. I can't face that kind of attention. I won't be able to handle it."

  "Emily, don't. That doesn't happen all the time. It doesn't even happen often. Something is going on with my cousin, Jacob—that's what it was about. It wasn't even me. We can handle this."

  "No, we can't,” I said, feeling sick and hopeless. “I can't. I worked so hard to get here, to have a life that was even close to normal. Now I feel it all sliding away. I've gone a year without having any panic attacks, and now I've had two in three days."

  "You said the other day wasn't a panic attack," Tate argued.

  "I have too much at stake, Tate,” I said. “I don’t want to go back to how I was before, living at home, scared to leave the house. I'm better off alone. I'm sorry."

  "So that's it? Just I'm sorry, and it's over?" Tate shoved back out of his seat and stood, glaring down at me.

  "You don't understand," I said. "You don't understand how bad I was and how hard it was to get better. I care about you. I care about you a lot. But I can't do this, Tate. I can't."

  I was so tired. My head hurt, and I still felt queasy. I risked a look at Tate and immediately wished I hadn't. His deep blue eyes were dark with anger, his arms crossed over his chest. Maybe being mad at me would make this easier for him. I didn't want to hurt Tate. That was the last thing I wanted, but I'd been crazy to think I could make a relationship with him work. With another guy, maybe—someone low-profile who lived a quiet life. I couldn't handle Tate Winters. This morning had proved it without a doubt.

  Suddenly desperate to end the whole thing, I got up from the table and said, "I'm sorry," before turning and fleeing down the hall to the safety of my bedroom.

  Jo came in a few minutes later and sat on the edge of my bed.

  "You need to get some rest," she said. "Sit up and let me braid your hair so it doesn't get all tangled."

  I did, turning my back to her, and felt my tight muscles relax under the soothing strokes of the comb against my scalp, the tug of it pulling on my hair. She sat there and combed my hair, waiting for me to calm down. Finally, she gathered the wet strands and began to braid them.

  "Are you sure about this, Em?” she asked quietly.

  I sighed. I didn't want to be sure. I wanted Tate. But just the memory of the shouting reporters and the flashing lights was enough to remind me that it couldn't happen.

  "No," I said honestly. "But I can feel myself falling apart, Jo. Everything has been so good, but since I met Tate, I feel like I'm sliding closer and closer to the edge. It scares me," I whispered.

  "I know," Jo said. "But you need to think about this, Emily. He really cares about you. He wasn't just mad when you made him leave. He was hurt."

  A tear slid down my cheek. The idea of hurting Tate was a knife in my heart. I cared about him—more than I should, when we’d known each other for less than a week.

  “I know you're scared,” Jo went on. “And you need to do what's right for you. But Emily, don't think about what's right for you from a place of fear. How did your therapist help you get over your agoraphobia?"

  It sounded like a random question, but I knew what Josephine was getting at. "I had to do the things that scared me," I said in a low voice. "But this is different."

  "How is this different, Em?" She tied off the braid and urged me to lay down on the bed, pulling my quilt up around my shoulders and stroking my forehead. "Get some rest. I know that scene was a nightmare. The only person who feels worse about it than you is Tate."

  She left quietly, and I pulled the quilt around me, clutching it with my fingers, tears rolling down my cheeks. Jo was right. I knew she was right. I was still in a cage, a bigger cage than I'd been in a few years ago, but I was still trapped by my own fears, and the only way to beat them was to face them. This time, the reward wasn’t college or a career. If I could find the courage, the reward could be Tate. If he still wanted me.

  12

  Tate

  I pounded on the door of Jacob's apartment, furious that he hadn't answered. I knew he was home. He wasn't in his office, my first stop, and Holden had told me he was no longer with the police. I wished, more than anyt
hing, that I'd answered Holden's calls that morning. He'd been trying to warn me about the reporters, and if I'd known, I could've told Emily, and I would have found out what a big fucking problem they would be.

  Instead, I walked into that cluster fuck blind and ended up losing Emily. Maybe it was my fault. I hadn't tried hard enough to talk her around, or been patient enough, but at that moment, I was happier blaming Jacob.

  I had a key to Jacob's door, though he’d probably rip my head off if I used it. I didn't care. Let him get pissed. I could use a fight.

  I unlocked the door and swung it open, revealing the front hall of Jacob's plush penthouse. My cousin owned the top floor of Winters House, and it looked like a gilded age mansion with gleaming hardwoods, smooth, creamy plaster walls, and priceless oil paintings. To my surprise, a woman stood in front of me, her dark hair up in a twist, dressed in yoga pants and a matching tailored hoodie, holding Jacob’s house phone up as if it were a weapon. Her eyes went wide at the sight of me, and she backed up a step. In a calm, cultured voice, she said, "Leave, or I'm calling security."

  "Who the hell are you? And what are you doing in my cousin's penthouse?" I demanded.

  She narrowed her eyes on my face, studying me for a moment before her shoulders relaxed and she dropped the hand holding the phone. "You’re one of Jacob's cousins, I presume? Which one? You’re too young to be Gage, or Vance, so you must be Tate."

  She was clever, whoever she was. "Good call. When will Jacob be back?"

  "You'd better come in," she said, turning and disappearing into the penthouse. I followed her, curiosity beginning to outweigh my frustration.

  "Who are you?" I asked again as she came to a stop in Jacob’s kitchen.

  "I think it's better if Jacob answers that question. But I have his permission to be here, if that's what you're worried about. Would you like some coffee? Tea? It's a little early for lunch, but I can probably throw something together."

  "Coffee, and something to eat, if you have it. It's been a long morning," I said, sitting down at the counter facing the rest of the kitchen. The woman moved as if she were very familiar with her surroundings, starting coffee and pulling things out of the fridge. This was beyond weird. If Holden was touchy about letting women in his apartment, Jacob was even worse. He was occasionally open to houseguests—a few months ago, he'd sheltered a friend of the family's girlfriend when she was having a hard time—maybe this was something similar. There was no way she was involved with Jacob. He'd never let a woman he was fucking live in his house. Still, she was exactly his type, classically beautiful, polished and elegant despite her casual clothes. Her hands moved with grace as she assembled a sandwich. Something about her tugged at my memory, and I had the feeling I was missing something.

  "Do I know you?" I asked.

  "Wouldn't you know if you did?" she countered. "Cream? Sugar?" She held up a steaming mug of coffee.

  "Black is fine." I took the coffee and sipped, grateful for the caffeine.

  "Did the mess in the parking garage this morning have anything to do with you?" I asked, fishing for information. The woman flinched but recovered immediately, her face shifting back to the same calm, serene expression.

  "You really need to ask Jacob. He called half an hour ago and said he was on his way home."

  I drank my coffee, understanding that as polite as Jacob's guest was, she wasn't going to tell me anything. Holden hadn't known why there had been police and reporters in the parking garage either. He'd gotten a call from Cooper Sinclair, telling him to stay in the office and keep his head down—and to call me—but that was it.

  The woman slid a turkey sandwich in front of me, and I ate it gratefully, noting as I did the thin layer of pesto and the fresh tomatoes. So Jacob didn't just have a woman living with him. He had one who could cook. Good to know. She'd excused herself while I was eating, leaving me alone in Jacob's kitchen. Annoyed at the wait, I wandered around when I was finished eating, ending up in Jacob's office. Like everything else, it was old school, elegant, and very neat. Jacob was wound way too tight to leave things lying around. I was curious to see a manila envelope left on his desk, the clasp open and papers pulled halfway out. I didn't think I'd ever seen anything on his desk aside from the blotter and pen.

  Bored and feeling nosy, I picked it up and looked at the photograph on top only to freeze in shock. With a shaking hand, I withdrew the photograph. It showed a room I'd only seen in pictures and a woman I barely remembered sprawled on an oriental carpet, her hand flung above her head, a bullet wound in her chest. What the fuck? Grief, old and sour, weighed on my heart. I’d seen this picture once and had never wanted to see it again. I barely remembered my mother. I didn’t want this ugly image of her dead body in my head, crowding out the few memories I had of her when she was still alive.

  "Put that down," Jacob said from behind me, reaching around to yank the envelope and the photograph out of my hands.

  "Why do you have that?" I asked, confused and a little sick. "Why do you have a crime scene picture of my parents’ murder? What the fuck is going on? Does this have anything to do with what happened downstairs? And why do you have a woman living with you that none of us have ever seen?"

  "Would you relax?" Jacob asked, his voice ice cold, his tone suggesting I do as he said or face the consequences.

  "No, I will not relax. I want to know what's fucking going on. My girlfriend just broke up with me over that bullshit in the garage."

  Jacob's eyes softened, but he raised a sardonic eyebrow and said, “Your girlfriend? Since when do you have a girlfriend?"

  Feeling annoyingly put in my place, I shoved my hands in my pockets and said, “Since this morning, but it didn't last very long, thanks to you."

  Jacob went around to the other side of his desk and shoved the envelope and picture in a drawer, slamming it shut. “I’m not going to talk about the picture. Not yet. Come back in the kitchen," he said. "It's been a long fucking morning, and I'm starving."

  "Fine." I followed him back to the kitchen, where the woman, now wearing a linen shift dress and sandals, was making Jacob a sandwich similar to the one she'd made for me. Looking between her and my cousin I said, “Are you going to introduce us?"

  I wasn't expecting to see Jacob walk up behind her and slide his arm around her waist, dropping a gentle kiss on her neck just below her ear. She murmured something to him and he answered, but I couldn't hear what they said.

  "Abigail, you've met my cousin, Tate. Tate, this is Abigail Jordan. She's my guest, and while she's here, security has been tightened."

  "It's nice to meet you, Abigail," I said, smiling at her. To Jacob, without a smile, I said, “Where have you been all morning? What happened in the garage?"

  Jacob took the coffee Abigail handed him and sipped before he said, "Abigail had an unfortunate situation that is none of your business. As part of that situation, someone tried to shoot me in the garage this morning. We're still not sure exactly how he got in, but he's in police custody and I'm fine. When she got here, I increased security, but I did it quietly because we didn't want to broadcast her location. After this morning, that's no longer a concern."

  "The Sinclairs are on it?" I asked. Jacob nodded.

  “You, Holden, and the other residents will get a brief this afternoon. Traffic in and out of the garage will be personally checked. It's going to be slow, but it should prevent the kind of scene you dealt with this morning."

  “And you're not going to tell me why someone was shooting at you?" I asked.

  Abigail started to speak, but Jacob flashed a glance in her direction and she stopped, biting her lip as if to prevent any sound from leaking out.

  "It's not your business," Jacob repeated. "Despite what happened this morning, I don't want anyone to know Abigail is here, so don't tell Holden or your brothers."

  Wanting to mess with him a little, I said, “What about your brothers?” I knew that if Abigail were a secret, he definitely wouldn't want Aidan to know. Ai
den was the oldest of all of us, the patriarch of the family now that our parents were dead, and he was both nosy and bossy. If Abigail was a secret, Jacob definitely wouldn't want Aidan to know about her. Showing signs of temper for the first time, Jacob said, “Don't fucking tell Aidan anything."

  Interrupting us, Abigail asked, “Your girlfriend broke up with you because of what happened in the garage?"

  "Because of the reporters," I said. "They were like a pack of wolves, shouting and taking pictures. Emily has problems with anxiety and panic attacks, and it was too much. She freaked out, and then she broke up with me."

  Jacob didn't say anything, just narrowed his eyes, but Abigail frowned and considered before she said, “Did she freak out, or did she have a panic attack?"

  "She had a panic attack," I admitted. "It was pretty bad." So bad, I couldn't get it out of my head. Her face had been white, sweat pouring down her skin, her body shaking so hard she could barely stand up. Listening to her struggle to breathe on the short car ride to her apartment had been torture.

  "I had a friend in college who had panic attacks," Abigail said quietly. "I always felt terrible for her when they happened."

  Somehow, Abigail's quiet acceptance made me feel the need to explain. “Emily was a victim in a mass shooting when she was a kid, the only survivor, and the media was relentless. She said the panic attacks started because of that."

  "We know what that's like," Jacob said, meeting my eyes. We did know. The attention had been brutal when Jacob’s parents had died. I didn’t remember the fallout from losing my own mother and father, but losing my aunt and uncle had been hellish—both the sudden loss and the unrelenting harassment by the media. At least we'd had each other to lean on, to buffer the intensity. Emily had been on her own, dealing with survivor's guilt on top of everything else.

  “Walking into that garage this morning must have been horrible for her," Abigail said. "Is she all right?"