[2014] Ten Below Zero

by Whitney Barbetti

  “No, I meant what I said.” I grinned and asked, “What's your given name?”

  His eyes came back to me, and he shook his head. “You haven't given me your name yet.”

  “My real name? Or do you want a number? I'm partial to seven. Perhaps you can call me Seven.” His jaw clenched just a little, but he kept his eyes forward.

  “Does Seven have meaning to you?”

  Seven, the age I'd ruined my mother's life. I angled my body toward him. “Does Six have meaning to you?”

  “Perhaps.” He switched gears as he approached the freeway. He flicked over me again. “Seven's an odd number.”

  “I'm an odd person.”

  “I can tell.” His lips betrayed the humor he found in our conversation.

  “Call me Seven, then.”

  “Why Seven?”

  “Seven is higher than six.”

  “Not anymore.” He glanced over at me again. “That's what you get for buying cheap cocaine.” The last word dripped with sarcasm, and his raised eyebrow punctuated his point.

  “What do you mean 'not anymore'? Are you high?”

  “What if I was?”

  “Then I'd be an idiot for getting in your car.”

  “One would think the first question of your intelligence would be the moment you snorted ten bucks' worth of bathroom chemicals, not the moment that you climbed into the car of a man you barely know.”

  I mean, he had a point. “That's fair.”

  This man was interesting somehow, this Six. He didn't try to impress me or flatter me. He insulted me, to some degree, but I had to admit that I deserved at least some of it. The more he spoke, the more attractive he was to me.

  “Where are we going?”

  He turned to me. “To an incinerator, naturally.”

  “Ah,” I said, holding up a finger. “No evidence. You're a smart serial killer.”

  His lips lifted a bit more, carving a delicious crease along the side of his mouth. “That might be the oddest compliment I ever received.”

  While we waited in his car for the food he'd ordered to be ready, Six handed me a box of wet wipes. I stared at it blankly.

  “You might want to wash your hands before you eat,” he said.

  I ripped open one of the packets and glanced at him meaningfully. “Are you saying that I'm gross?”

  “I'm saying you might want to wash your hands. That bar likely had more STDs than booze.”

  I rubbed the wipe over my fingers, wincing when the alcohol seeped into the various cuts across my knuckles. “Are you some kind of clean freak?” I asked, smacking the gum he'd offered to me while he ordered the food.

  “No, but we're coming up on cold and flu season.”

  I laughed, because it was genuinely hysterical to me. “You sound like a dad.” I finished wiping my palms and shoved the wipes I used into a small trash bag he kept in his car. I settled back against the seat. “You have no idea the kinds of things I expose myself to regularly.”

  “You're right, I don't.” His dark eyebrows drew together in concentration as he looked at me. “But this way, you're less at risk than you were.” I opened my mouth to say something else, but he interrupted me, “Don't tell me you actually take pride in exposing yourself to all kinds of nefarious things.”

  My flaws pushed against my skin, trying to make themselves more pronounced under his scrutiny. “I don't take pride in anything,” I told him in a moment of naked honesty, right before we were interrupted by a knock on the window from a server holding up Six's bag of food.

  We ate sandwiches made with English muffins, eggs, and sausage out of greasy white paper bags in his car. The accompanying hash browns lay in my stomach like warm lead. It was probably the first real meal I'd had in several days. Wiping grease from my fingers on a brown napkin, I turned to Six, who was eating slower than I was, his eyes staring into nothing out of his windshield.

  “Thanks for”—I looked at his car's clock—“breakfast?” I asked. I picked up my orange juice and sipped it loudly through the narrow straw.

  “You're welcome,” he said in a low voice, unwrapping the last bit of grease-spotted paper that covered the remaining bit of his sandwich. “Are you going to tell me your name now?”

  “It's Mira.” I set my orange juice in the cup holder and leaned back, sighing contentedly.

  “Mira.” He rolled the word around his mouth. “Is that short for something?”

  It was. “No. Just Mira.”

  “Just Mira,” he echoed. He took a bite of his sandwich and chewed thoughtfully.

  “So, Six,” I began, my finger playing with a loose thread on my sweatshirt. “Why are you being nice to me?”

  His eyebrows pulled together as he looked over at me. “There has to be a reason?”

  “There's always a reason,” I said. I flipped down the mirror visor and wiped away a smear of mascara under my eye. His silence after my question caused me to suddenly feel a twist of suspicion. “You were at the bar, I puked everywhere, and you offered me a ride and bought me food.”

  He set his sandwich on his lap and brought his cup of coffee to his mouth. “I had just showed up to the bar, you'd puked everywhere, and I suspected you didn't have a car.”

  He was right. After I'd had my license taken away, I'd sold my car—not to pay my fines, but to buy the cleanest white powder I'd been able to find. It took me four days to snort the value of my car up my nose.

  I shrugged. “Cars are a bitch in San Francisco. But you could have put me in a cab if you felt some kind of misplaced obligation to see me out of there safely.”

  “I thought you might want something to eat. You vomited everything in your stomach.” His eyes glided down my body, tracing my clothing. My breath hitched when I saw him swallow and look up at me with his eyelids low. “You're also not exactly dressed for the weather to wait with all the other club-goers who were looking for a cab—or in the right state of mind.”

  I looked down, seeing my skin tight black leggings and a pink sweatshirt that had more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese. I liked to think my clothing choices reflected the turmoil in my head. “Leather is warm,” I said, not thinking of my leggings but of his car instead. I lifted my finger to my mouth and licked off the salt from the hash brown. Glancing sideways, I caught him watching me, his eyes warm. His gaze didn't travel south of my mouth and I swallowed, feeling his stare like a touch on my lips.

  I knew about favors. Six had taken me for food. In my experience, that meant there was a debt to be paid. I'd paid debts worth far less than this meal, to men much less attractive, which meant, in the smallest of ways, Six would be different. A debt I'd pay freely. Gladly.

  The air in the car seemed to condense, warming from our breath and body heat. And maybe a little bit of the attraction simmering between us warmed the air. I closed my eyes, briefly imagining the slide of his lips over mine, the opening of his mouth, his grip on my face demanding. When I opened my eyes, he was all I could see.

  Six stared at me for several tense seconds, probably noticing the lust in my gaze. I wanted him to. His lips parted, and I waited, waited for the lean in, for a heavy hand to grasp the back of my head. I felt my eyelids go heavy.

  “Are you ready to go home?” he asked, not moving an inch toward me.

  “Yes,” I said, thinking he intended to collect his debt in private. I felt attraction spear my center, and I crossed my legs to subdue the ache.

  The only dialogue we exchanged were directions to my apartment. “Turn right. Get in the left lane. Turn left at the light. Go up the hill.” And by dialogue exchanged, I mean I said these things, and he followed the directions, wordlessly. He didn't turn on the music, so all I heard from him was his gentle breathing. Each exhale made my ribs tighten in anticipation.

  When he pulled in front of the building where my third-floor apartment was, I didn't waste any time climbing out of the car. Six put the car in park and climbed out as well, following me all the way up.

>   I knew this dance well. I slid my key into the door and turned around to face him, taking in the sheer size of him, all his angles and edges. The leather jacket enveloped me in its scent. I placed one hand on his chest, felt the worn leather beneath my fingertips. Looking up at him, I waited for him to do the lean-in, waited for the feel of his lips on mine.

  The voices in my head were suspended in quiet anticipation.

  When he did nothing, my fingers traveled up to the lapels of his jacket. I let my thumb brush inside his jacket, pushing just enough on his tee to feel the hardness underneath.

  I tilted my head to the side, felt my hair brush my bare shoulder as my Flashdance-esque sweatshirt slipped over the joint.

  “What are you waiting for?” I asked, gripping the lapel a little tighter. I brought my other hand up to his chest and placed my palm right against his shirt. I stood up on my tiptoes, bringing my lips closer and closer to his.

  It happened in less than a second: One large hand grabbed my wrists, halting my movements, pushing me back, arms above my head as he pinned me to my door. I heard the jangle of the keys in the doorknob behind me, clashing against each other.

  I smiled knowingly. He was rough. That was okay with me.

  He leaned in, and my eyes closed. My chin lifted. His breath feathered over my mouth as my stomach took a dive into my hips. I swallowed, then let my bottom lip fall away from my top, opening for him.

  He didn't kiss me. His breath moved along my face until I felt it hot at my ear. “Get inside,” he said, his voice controlled. He freed my wrists, my arms falling to my sides like dead weight.

  Before I had time to react, the door fell open with my weight on it. I opened my eyes in alarm, but felt his arm wrap around my waist to steady me. “Goodnight, Mira.” He held me a moment longer than I knew he'd wanted to, and then he left.

  I stood on my doorstep for a moment longer as the sound of his steps pounded down the stairwell until all I heard was my own pulse roaring in my ears.

  I turned to the paint kit my mom had bought me—some rudimentary colors and tools. “Get a hobby, one that doesn’t involve drugs or alcohol,” she’d told me with that slight bite of disgust that often colored her words. I’d kept it tucked away, not using it on principle.

  But the voices drew me to the supplies before my feet did. I picked up the paintbrush, looked at its tip for a moment, and then tossed it across the room on the floor. I spun the cap off the green tube of paint and smeared a glob on my finger, staring at it a moment before I plopped to the ground, in front of the square canvas that practically begged for color.

  The voices chanted his name over and over and, since I was submissive to their power over me, I placed my finger on the center of the canvas and drew a number six, looping the top part around it so that it appeared more as a swirl than the number itself. I sat back, staring at the swirl as I rubbed my thumb against my finger, smearing the green a bit until I felt the lines of my fingerprints push through the green.

  I pushed the canvas away and laid back on the floor, falling asleep within seconds.

  Want more? Check out Six Feet Under on Amazon

  More Books by Whitney Barbetti

  Mad Love Duet

  Six Feet Under (Book One)

  Six & Mira

  Amazon

  Pieces of Eight (Book Two)

  Six & Mira

  Amazon

  Love in London series

  The Weight of Life (Book One)

  Ames & Mila

  Amazon

  The Sounds of Secrets (Book Two)

  Samson & Lotte

  Amazon

  STANDALONES

  Hooked (dark romcom)

  X & Lucy

  Amazon

  Ten Below Zero

  Everett & Parker

  Amazon

  Bleeding Hearts Series

  Into the Tomorrows (Book One)

  Jude & Trista

  Amazon

  Back to Yesterday (Book Two)

  Jude & Trista

  Amazon

  He Found Me Series

  He Found Me (Book One)

  Julian & Andra

  Amazon

  He Saved Me (Book Two)

  Julian & Andra

  Amazon

  Box Set (Books One & Two + Bonus Scenes)

  Amazon

  Acknowledgments

  Sona, my best friend for fifteen years, if you haven’t figured it out yet, I based a lot of Parker on you. You wanted to be Mira, the bad ass, and you are. But you’re also Parker. Kind, observant, thinks-she’s-cold-hearted Parker. Parker whose soul is beautiful, like yours. Remember what I told you, when couldn’t decide between the sunflower seeds that had shells and the ones without. You’ve wasted a lot of your life on people who don’t deserve you. Fuck those shells. They don’t deserve your effort. Eat the seeds, straight up. You deserve them.

  It wouldn’t be my acknowledgements if I didn’t thank my husband for being awesome. Also, thanks for disappearing for three weeks so I could channel all the missing you I did into this book. To my beautiful sons, I love you so much. Please sleep more than four hours a night so I can write my next book much faster.

  Thank you to my family for your support. There’s so many of you, and too many miles separating us. I can’t wait to hug you all.

  To Wilma and Tracie, for all your support. You are like family to me. I am so thankful to have you in my life.

  To Debbie, another fellow Army wife and one of my closest friends. Thank you for pimping out He Found Me so much. Thank you for all your support during AT, when I was going out of mind trying to finish this book and also get sleep. I love you!

  Christine! I miss buddy reading with you. Thank you for telling me over and over how much you loved this story, and how you thought this novel would do so well. Everything you said propelled me to finish this novel in thirty-four days. I wouldn’t have done that without you.

  To all my friends, I so appreciate every share, every email, every word you’ve spread about my novel. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  Thank you to Jade Eby, for rescuing me, and for humbling me. You are so sweet and kind. I wish nothing but good things for you in your success as an author. You’ve already excelled as a human. I am forever grateful you went out of your way to message me. Click, click, click.

  Thank you to Lex Martin. You have no idea how far-reaching your post was, the one you shared about my novel. Thanks to you, I found a beta reader who sent me the most amazing email after reading the copy of my novel you advertised. Thank you for being so supportive and offering to share about He Found Me in your group. I’ve made some really great friendships already thanks to you.

  To Najla for another amazing cover. I would never go to anyone else. You are a beautiful human being.

  Thank you to the reader reading this. Ten Below Zero is an emotional read, but there’s a reason for that. If this book moved you, I’m happy. I don’t rejoice in the tears of strangers for the reasons you may think. Everett wanted Parker to feel. I firmly believe in reading books that make you feel. You should never read books that are easy to put down, mine included. Read books that make you think, that make you feel. Read books that impassion you, that enlighten you. Don’t be afraid to hurt. You’ll be stronger for it. Loving and healing are intertwined, and with both comes pain. You can’t love without pain. You can’t heal without pain. Don’t be afraid to love, to hurt, to heal. Embrace it. Be stronger for it. Be a compassionate human because you’ve hurt before.

  The whole entire point of Ten Below Zero is to allow yourself to feel. In feeling, there’s healing. There’s love. And that love is within you.

  That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. - 2 Corinthians 12:10

  About the Author

  Whitney Barbetti is a mom to two and a wife to one, living in Idaho where she spends her days writing full ti
me and keeping her boys from destroying her house. She writes character-driven new adult and contemporary adult romances that are heavy on the emotional connection. You'll most likely find her curled up with a good book and a giant glass of wine, with Queen playing through her headphones.

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