Mirrors (Reflections Book 1)

by A. L. Woods

  The lids of his eyes flickered, processing what I had tossed at him. His stare tightened on me, lips pinching together like he was trying to suffocate whatever was brewing inside of him. “I need time.”

  “What do you mean, you need time?” As far as I was concerned, his time ran out when he walked into my place of employment seeking me out. He should have thought about that before he pushed me at the bar. Before he pursued me the day I met him. Before he ever kissed me.

  I squared my shoulders, fixing my stare at him. “I just told you that today is the anniversary of my sister’s death, and my father was shot and killed. Don’t talk to me about needing time.”

  His expression grew pained, his hold on the crook of my elbow slackening. He remained mute. I wasn’t sure if there was a deeper meaning in the loss of his touch, but at this moment in time, it didn’t matter to me.

  My body staved off the tremble from the cold gust of wind that pushed my hair from my face. “You have been relentless since I met you. You’ve barely given me time to figure anything out before you’re back for more.”

  “Shit,” he bristled, rubbing his face, his hand lingering to scratch at the stubble on his chin. “I knew I was coming on too strong.”

  “That’s not it, Sean.” I sighed, wrapping my arms around myself. “I’m just asking you to reciprocate. It’s a give and take.”

  With each quiet second that passed, I considered that this really might be our last date.

  This was not where I had foreseen us ending up—not that I had ever had any indication that we would ever be at this point at all.

  My initial plan had been to avoid him at all costs, but he had been there at any opportunity he could find. And I had wanted him to be there, without rhyme or reason, I had wanted his attention. I had basked in the warmth of his presence, I had grown enamored with his laugh, his smell, his touch.

  I liked him.

  I really liked him.

  I would be the first to admit that I had been standoffish in the beginning—but I had just jumped over monumental emotional hurdles that had felt nearly insurmountable, that had been tantamount to extracting what was left of my frayed soul for him.

  But it didn’t look like he was going to be able to do the same, and I was past the point of compromising myself for people who couldn’t reciprocate—regardless of how he had flipped everything I had ever known upside down.

  Sean looked up at the inky sky above us, puffs of hot air leaving his mouth in stiff, short clouds that evaporated into the atmosphere.

  “Can we go back inside at least?” he huffed, bouncing on the heels of his shoes, hands burying themselves in his pockets. “My balls are going to turn into ice cubes if we stay out here.”

  I rolled my lips together to smother the laugh that crawled up my throat, swallowing it back down. I didn’t trust him to not seek an out again if I gave him an inch, and something told me he would perceive that laugh as acquiescing, but I meant every word I said.

  “Will you tell me about your father if I do?”

  “I’ll tell you whatever the fuck you want to know, just get your ass back inside.”

  I considered the order a minute longer than he would have liked. Sean’s presence filled my space as he stepped toward me, placing his hands on the brick wall on either side of my head. Our faces were barely an inch apart, the tip of his nose chilled as he grazed it against my own.

  “You can walk back in there out of your own volition, or I can sling you over my shoulder,” he said. “Your choice, but either way, the night isn’t over and you’re not leaving until you help me eat at least twenty percent of the clusterfuck that is our table right now.”

  I considered testing his patience just for the sake of curiosity—science, if you will. But I could feel Rhonda’s eyes burning a hole through the glass of the window, her mouth ajar while she watched the scene unfold.

  Indoors it was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  I knew Raquel’s question didn’t warrant this kind of reaction from me, but I was hot off the heels of having my sister badger me days ago about my choices spanning the past decade, and I wasn’t entirely interested in revisiting the subject.

  Raquel was literally dangling her continued presence in my life like a carrot in front of my nose, and regardless of how mulish I could be, I knew when to fucking walk when I needed to avoid getting my ass whipped.

  Which was the only reason why she was sitting across from me, staring at me over her made-up lashes, looking thoroughly unimpressed. Rhonda topped off our coffees and I bought myself more time by downing the cup, scalding my tongue in the process.

  Fucking peachy.

  Raquel sighed, glancing at the wall clock over the cash register. “I’d like to be back in Boston before midnight, ideally.”

  “Thanks for that pep talk, Hemingway.” I glared at her, and she just fucking blinked at me like I was wasting her time. I retraced my steps, wondering how I had found myself in this predicament where I now owed this woman my life story. It wasn’t even a bad life story. My life probably looked like a trip to Disney compared to hers. My parents had been happily married for two decades. They loved each other right up until the day my father died. I had three sisters who were brilliant and talented in their own right—and life breathed through all of them.

  I hadn’t had to live through any of my sister’s deaths, and I selfishly prayed to God that I never did. Unlike Raquel, I wasn’t a fighter.

  But I had given up in some way when my father had died. I had conceded to the unspoken expectation and done what I thought was right.

  It was just hard for me to admit that Maria had nailed it and I had not only stopped living, I had spent the last decade focused entirely on surviving.

  “I wanted…” the word was already stuck in my throat. It was as if tiny granules of sand were filling my larynx, making it nearly impossible to speak. She tilted her head down, brows furrowing together over her unearthly eyes that burned like an inferno, forging a clearance for me like a guide in a darkened forest. They were the only light in my life at the moment, and it was the only thing that helped me get the words out.

  “To be a chef,” I concluded. I ran my tongue over the roof of my mouth. “That had always been my plan. I loved cooking more than I loved anything else. Food makes people feel good. It cures every malady, every heartache. Food brings people together.”

  My heart set off in a gallop, my pulse throbbing in my throat as I focused on slowing my breathing. This wasn’t anything to hyperventilate over, but shit, it was damn hard to talk about.

  “My parents were generally supportive about my ambitions, and as soon as they were financially able, they did whatever they could to make our every hope and dream possible.” I felt myself shrinking in my seat, hating how pathetic I must have appeared. Poor little Sean Tavares. His parents did everything possible to fulfill his and his sisters’ every want and whim.

  Raquel’s face was impossible to read, her eyes impassive in a way that made me break out into a cold sweat with fear she was judging me.

  She remained quiet, that brevity of speech Penelope had warned me about weeks ago finally making its appearance. I dragged a tight inhale through my nose, filtering the oxygen out through my parted lips to slow my racing heart before I continued.

  “My dad never wanted me to be like him. Didn’t want me to take over the business, although there was nothing wrong with my doing so, it just had never been the plan. He dreamed of more for us.” Raquel was staring at me with rapt attention. She leaned forward, placing an elbow on the table, cupping her chin with the palm of her hand.

  “When Maria got into Harvard, it was the happiest day of his life. It was the first time I ever saw my father cry. He was a man of few words, but that day he hooted and hollered loud enough for the entire town to hear him.” I was mired in my own discomfort as I approached the impending climax of the story.

  “But there was a lot going on in the background that I wasn’
t aware of.”

  Her eyes searched mine, as if she could excavate the latent answer outta me that way. When I didn’t go on, she prompted me to continue. “Like what?”

  I scratched at my jawline, trying to collect my befuddled thoughts.

  “Things weren’t going as well with the business as we thought,” I said, swallowing hard. “We were north of half a million dollars in debt. The contracts we thought my dad was procuring weren’t going through, but he just kept carrying on like everything was fine. He had taken another mortgage out on the house to pay for Maria’s Harvard tuition without my ma’s knowledge. I think he thought it was just a blip, that things would get better and he’d be able to pay it all back.” The words became trapped in my throat, and it took every ounce of strength I had in me to get them out. “But then he got sick.”

  Raquel’s face grew ashen, that sternness evaporating from the angles of her face as she uncoiled herself in her spot, correcting her posture.

  “He was never honest with us about what was going on. I think he thought he would get better, y’know?” The laugh that left me was hollow, that empty feeling that had suffused me on and off for years swimming over me. “He died, and we didn’t have a damn clue about our financial situation until we went to buy him a casket and there was nothing in the account.”

  “Sean.”

  “Do not say you’re sorry, please,” I implored her, my voice gruff. “You’re the last person who should be commiserating with me. You went through so much worse.”

  “That’s subjective,” she said evenly, tearing at the edges of a napkin she had pulled from the dispenser. “You can’t compare apples to oranges.”

  “Your dad and your pregnant teenage sister died. Your entire life was laden with disappointment and heartache. My life was fine up until I was twenty. When was your life ever fine?” I had possessed no scruples about saying that to her right up until the moment the words were out of my mouth. I watched with bated breath as they landed in a place that I could tell left her wounded from the stricken look on her face.

  Fuck, fucking, fuck.

  Contrition yanked at my insides as Raquel turned her head for the briefest of moments, her breath pushing out through her parted lips, the transient drop of her lids nearly wrenching my heart from its place behind my ribcage. Then those eyes of hers opened again, and she shifted her attention back in my direction.

  “You’re allowed to mourn and be sad about what you were deprived of regardless of the circumstances, Sean.” She cleared her throat, pulling her upper lip between her teeth only to set it free. “It’s not a competition.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know it’s not,” she offered with a sad nod of her head, “but I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide those things from me. It’s true that my life hasn’t been conventional up until this point, but,” she paused, “I’d like to try conventional with you, and that means talking about all the ugly bits that make us a little uncomfortable.”

  My back slammed against the banquette, my eyes wide as the hand that had been propping her chin up slid across the table, skirting past our mountain of half-eaten food.

  Had I heard her correctly? My stare flitted from her eyes, the sincerity in them overwhelming, to the tips of her fingers that grazed against mine. Ten minutes ago, she had fled this diner like I wasn’t worth another minute of her time.

  Now, she was giving me the chance I had always asked of her.

  I swallowed the ache in my throat, my tongue sweeping my lips for moisture. “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never done this before, remember?” she said.

  What had happened between her and Cash that had made her apprehensive about dating years later? What had he done to make her feel so special back then that she had been willing to give so much of herself to him? She hadn’t struck me as the naive type, and yet somehow she had found herself wrapped up with him like he was a cancer sucking the very life from her.

  “What does the average couple do when they’re getting to know each other?”

  “So, we’re a couple now?” I liked the way that sounded. Her cheeks blistered the color of a tomato, her shoulders shooting toward her ears as if she was trying to recede into herself.

  “Sorry, that’s an antiquated term, isn’t it?” She was too damn adorable right now as she visibly shifted in her seat.

  “Nah,” I said, sweeping my thumb across her knuckles as my insides swirled. “I like it.”

  “Can I ask you something else?” she asked, her eyes falling to the table.

  “Shoot.” The worst of it was out; everything else was inferior compared to having to relive my father’s unintended deception. She could ask me whatever she wanted.

  “Did you,” she paused, appearing reluctant to finish the sentence. “Did you get to be a chef, ever?”

  Thinking about the loss of that dream hurt like hell. She must have detected the shift in my mood, as recollection cascaded through me. I could still recall the feel the weight of the chef’s knife in my hand, the frenetic energy that came to life inside of me when I was in a kitchen, creating. I could feel the fibers of the chef’s jacket that clung to my frame, the warmth of sweat that broke across my brow as I worked in tandem with my classmates, who were all fighting for the same dream as me.

  The dream I’d never see come to fruition.

  My jaw rocked from side to side. “No.”

  Raquel’s mouth opened, then closed, as if she was about to say something but then thought better of it. I was glad. I didn’t want to hear it. Not tonight. We had had our fill of heavy conversations for one day. I wanted something easy now. I wanted her in my lap, and her mouth on mine, and my fingers in her hair. I wanted her moans in my ears, and my name on her tongue. I wanted to drag her against me, to feel the thump of her heart as it beat in sync with mine.

  I could lose myself in this woman. I was losing myself in this woman.

  “Wanna get outta here?”

  “Not yet.” She picked at the pancake, popping a piece into her mouth. She dropped her lids, lips pursing with satisfaction, a making a moan that tightened my balls.

  “I think the pancakes might be my favorite.”

  I shook my head as she teased the edge of what I had warned her was my dealbreaker.

  The pancakes could be her favorite—because lucky for both of us, Raquel was mine.

  Dealbreakers be damned.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  It felt like we had gone everywhere and nowhere at the same time. After leaving the diner, we climbed back inside the Wrangler and drove laps around Eaton, rolling through the winding roads that led to sleepy neighborhoods, then into the small industrial section of town and back through the historic downtown strip.

  “What’s your favorite song?” Sean asked me, stealing a glance in my direction as he drove us to our next destination. The road in front of us was dark and ambling as he followed its curves, the moon guiding our way. I stretched in the passenger seat, deliberating as my mind ran through the discography that lived in my mind. We had embarked on a game of twenty-one questions, although by now, we were well into the fifty-plus territory.

  “New or old?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Well, that’s hard,” I said with a laugh.

  “Okay.” He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. “What song can you listen to over and over again without getting sick of it?”

  I mulled over the question a minute longer before I finally settled on the song. “‘You are the Moon’ by The Hush Sound.”

  “Never heard of it. What do you like about it?”

  A sad smile touched my lips. “When Holly and I were kids, in moments of worry or anxiety, I used to tell her to look for the moon. For a split second, we’d get lost under its spell. Your problems suddenly seem small in comparison to something so big. Its existence eclipses everything else.”

  “Spoken like a true writer.”
He shot me a quick smile.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat, the pace of my heart quickening. I felt as though he was undressing me with his eyes and revealing my inner thoughts. I managed a small shrug of my shoulders for the sake of doing something, all while remaining eerily indecipherable under his gaze.

  “I’ll have to check it out, then.” As though detecting the shift in my spirit, Sean reached for my hand across the console, giving it a gentle squeeze.

  “Where have you traveled to?” he asked next, the car slowing as he turned left onto a street where I’d never before ventured.

  “Nowhere. I’ve never left Massachusetts.”

  “Never?” His brow rose an inch.

  “I mean, I saw the border of New Hampshire one time. Does that count?” I chortled.

  He gave me a feigned look of pity before erupting into laughter.

  “What’s your favourite song?” I asked, rerouting the conversation and reclaiming the game.

  “Easy,” Sean said, breaking out into an ebullient grin that surprised me. “‘Cry Little Sister’.”

  I scrunched up my nose with interest. “That’s the song from The Lost Boys, right?”

  “Best movie ever,” he proclaimed with a decisive nod of his head, another laugh leaving him that shot arrows from Cupid’s bow directly into my heart.

  I wasn’t sure if I hated or despised the way my insides twirled and spun like the innards of a kaleidoscope every time his laughter filled the Jeep or he looked at me the way he was doing right now. It was as if time came to an impasse and nothing else mattered in those moments except him and me. His stare on mine was deliberate this time, like everything I had thought had been said out loud. I cleared my throat, breaking our eye contact to glance back out the window to finally figure out where we were going.

  There was nothing cookie cutter to be found here. Stately century houses spilled into my peripheral vision as we came into a part of Eaton that I’d never been to before, but knew of. The well-fenestrated houses here were made up of rich redbrick with slate gabled roofs and porches that protruded from the frame of the house.