“I’m fine,” I finally managed to get out. “Belle made me laugh when she waltzed in, and I snorted shake up my nose.”
I was greeted with silence and several blinks, and then they were all laughing at me. Not with me, but at me, and I felt even worse than I had before. I hated being the center of attention, and now several sets of eyes in the diner were focused this way.
“Shakes are for drinking,” Belle told me as if I hadn’t already known. She pulled the chair out opposite me and sat down.
“I know,” I told her, at the same time Sal placed a shake in front of her.
“You joining us?” Sal asked them.
“Sure,” Uncle Brody said and pulled a table next to ours, not hesitating one bit.
“Wait.” Lola held her hand in the air. “It’s their family dinner night—”
“It’s okay,” Mom told her. “The more the merrier.”
Sal took all their orders and walked back to the kitchen as everyone sat down. Uncle Brody and Lola sat on either side of Belle, and Mom pulled up a seat next to Lola, which meant there were two chairs left. One next to me, and one on the other side of Asher.
I kept my focus on Asher as he was handed some crayons and a picture to color in, intent on not paying attention to where Cade was going to sit, but it was no use. I was hyperaware of his movements and the shirt and pants he was wearing. He’d obviously come right from school too.
He pulled out the chair next to mine, sitting opposite his dad, and I pulled in a breath. I couldn’t be this close to him. Being in the confines of his car a few days ago was bad enough, but with errant tears still trickling down my face and the embarrassment of the shake snorting, I couldn’t cope with him only centimeters away. I felt like that same eight-year-old girl who had met him for the first time and fallen in love instantly.
“Hey,” his deep voice greeted, his baritone low. “You okay?”
I nodded, too afraid to say an actual word to him, sure I would make the situation even worse.
Conversations surrounded us, but all the while, I stayed silent, not wanting to draw attention to myself. Asher handed me a green crayon and told me to color the grass, so I concentrated on my task at hand, and not on the person sitting beside me engrossed in his cell.
My skin itched for some kind of relief, my body craving something I shouldn’t want, but it didn’t matter. I knew I’d give in to it as soon as I was alone, and for a brief second, I’d feel like I was flying high. I didn’t want to entertain the crash that would come after it—the low I’d experience—because those few seconds of euphoria were worth it.
I imagined gripping the object in my hand and leaning toward it, my breathing picking up as I did, and I completely forgot where I was until a hand touched my arm.
My head whipped around, my wide-eyed gaze landing on Cade. “Dad asked you a question.”
I blinked, trying to clear the fog. “He did?” I shook my head, trying to evaporate all the warring thoughts, and moved my attention to Uncle Brody. “Sorry, I was miles away.”
He smiled, the same kind of smile he gave Belle when he knew she was lying. “That’s okay. I just asked if you’d thought about college yet.”
The chatter around the table lowered, and I could feel the burn of Mom’s gaze on the side of my face. We hadn’t talked much about what would happen when I finished my senior year. I knew she wanted me to get out of this place and away from all the memories surrounding us, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted.
“I…I’m not sure I’m going to go to college,” I murmured.
“What?” It was Cade whose tone was one of disbelief. “You have a 3.8 GPA. Of course you should go to college.”
I shrugged, thankful I could see our food being brought to the table. “I don’t even know what I’d do in college. I’m not…” I trailed off, not wanting to say the rest. I wasn’t going to reveal myself to everyone around this table, not when I wouldn’t admit it to myself. I’d keep my worries inside and let them out the way I normally did: alone.
Thankfully, the conversation was interrupted by our plates being placed in front of all of us, and Sal finally sat on the other side of Asher. I leaned over to help cut up Asher’s food.
“You could get a scholarship,” Mom announced, and I flicked my gaze up to her. She hadn’t touched her food yet, her focus not waning from me. “You said you’d try out for track this year,” she reminded me.
I gritted my teeth and stared into her eyes. I had said I would try out for track, but that was before I knew Cade would be the coach.
“You’re trying out for track?” Cade asked, but I couldn’t answer him. I couldn’t form any words.
“She is,” Mom told him for me. “Are you the coach this year?”
I felt Cade shuffle in his seat, his arm a whispering touch against mine, and I pulled in a sharp breath. “I am. Tryouts are next week.”
Mom smiled up a storm as she said, “Aria will be there.”
Everyone started to murmur between themselves, but I couldn’t do anything but look down at my food and try to regulate my breathing. She’d spoken for me, and I hated that, but I wouldn’t call her out. I was the kind of person who kept it inside and let it go, but it didn’t mean it wouldn’t eat away at me.
Running was something I did for me, not for anyone else, and the fact that my legs were shorter than most of the girls on the track team would probably mean I wouldn’t come anywhere close to their times. Maybe I wouldn’t even make the team.
My feet bobbed up and down on the floor as I resisted the urge to bite my fingernails. I was on the brink of something, I just didn’t know exactly what it was.
A hand landed on my knee, large fingers gripping it to stop my momentum. I swallowed as my breathing picked up, but didn’t turn to face Cade.
“You’re making the table shake,” he whispered in my ear, his breath fanning across my neck. I hated that it made me shiver, hated that having his hand on me soothed all my crazy thoughts instantly. One touch shouldn’t be able to calm me the way it had.
“Sorry,” I croaked out, turning to look at him. His dark-blue eyes shone bright, but this close, I could see the starburst of green around his pupil. “I just…” I didn’t know what I was going to say to him. His hand was still on my knee, his thumb rubbing back and forth. “I want to go home,” I finally managed to say, not shying away from the truth.
He blinked, something swirling in his gaze, and then he nodded. He didn’t look away. Instead, he kept his attention on me, almost as if he were searching for something. My heart hammered in my chest, and my fingers itched to reach out and run across the slight stubble lining his jaw. For the first time since he’d left for college, I didn’t feel so…invisible. They said the eyes were the gateway to the soul, and I never believed it until this very moment.
I wasn’t sure what was swirling between us, but when Uncle Brody said, “What do you think, Cade?” It broke whatever spell we had both been under. His hand snapped back from my knee, and he stopped looking at me. I craved to pull him back around, to stare into his eyes again, but it was gone, like everything else in my life.
I was alone…again.
* * *
ARIA
It wasn’t easy to carry a thirty pound four-year-old, up the stairs while trying to follow a tired eight-year-old, but I was managing just fine.
Asher was dead asleep, and had been for the last twenty minutes, propped up against my arm on the sofa. He hadn’t moved from his spot next to me since Lola and Brody left for their monthly date night, not even when I answered the door to the pizza delivery.
I always let them stay up a little later when I babysat, and I was sure Brody and Lola thanked me for it because it meant they got to stay in bed a little longer the next morning.
Belle made her way to her room, and I whispered, “I’ll be back in a minute. Get your pj’s on, okay?”
“Okay,” she murmured back in her tired voice.
I moved to the door oppos
ite Belle’s and entered the pirate-themed room. Asher was obsessed with anything to do with the sea, but mainly pirates, which meant he had a hand-built bed from his uncle Ford that resembled a ship, and there was a mural painted on one of his walls. It was the perfect room for a little boy, and even I’d admit I was kind of jealous.
Luckily, I’d already changed him into his pj’s, so all I had to do was place him in his bed and tuck him in. I ran my hand through his soft, brown hair, and smiled. He looked so peaceful. I wondered if I ever looked like that anymore. I was always wound so tight, afraid of someone noticing something I didn’t want them to see, that I constantly had my guard up.
I stared at Asher for another couple of seconds, switched his nightlight on, and then exited his room. Belle was already in bed when I walked into her room, the covers up to her chin, and her half-closed eyes focused on her bedroom door.
“Read to me?” she asked, although she didn’t need to because this was our routine whenever I was here.
I lifted the book she held against her chest and shuffled onto the edge of her bed, settling in for a couple of chapters of The Faraway Tree. This was one of my favorites when I was Belle’s age, and I could remember my dad reading it to me, doing all the different voices and getting excited at parts. He always read it like it was the first time he’d come across the words in that order, but I knew he’d read it over and over again.
Belle’s soft snores rang out after a few pages, but I didn’t move for several minutes. I stayed put, listening to the quiet sounds of the house, and wondered why I always felt so…different when I was here. I’d spent more time here than my own apartment growing up, and it had always felt like a second home.
Maybe it was because these walls didn’t hold the memories my apartment walls did.
I always found myself in this exact position, hating the thought of going home and being alone again. Mom and Sal were working the late shift, which meant they wouldn’t be home until around 2 a.m. And when they got home, they’d only have a few hours before one of them would be opening up for the morning shift.
Sometimes I wished we had more of a…normal life. One where we all ate together around the kitchen table at dinner and talked about our day. We weren’t normal, though. None of what we’d been through was normal.
The front door opening and closing brought me out of my own head, and I slowly lifted off Belle’s bed. I placed a piece of paper in the book to mark the page and then headed down the stairs. It was early for Brody and Lola to be home.
“Brody got called in to work on a case,” Lola said.
“Oh.” I nodded like I understood, and part of me did. There had been times over the years he’d been called away on a job at a moment’s notice, and he’d have to leave without more than a quick goodbye.
Lola patted the seat next to her on the sofa. “Come sit.” I did as I was told and stared as she flung her heels off her feet. “God, I hate those things.” She groaned and rubbed her feet. “I wasn’t sure I could last another hour in them.”
I laughed because the thought of wearing something like that didn’t appeal to me, no matter how much Mom went on about me needing a pair for winter formal. I had no intention of going, but if she had her way, she’d come with me.
“You doing okay, sweetheart?” Lola asked.
Her question took me by surprise. “Me?” I pointed at my chest and feigned a smile. “Yeah, I’m good.”
She tilted her head to the side. “You sure? You know you can always talk to me, right?”
I swallowed past the building lump in my throat. It was on the tip of my tongue to spill everything to her, to let it all out and bleed my pain, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell her what I did in the privacy of my own bedroom. I couldn’t tell her the relief I itched for. I couldn’t tell anyone.
“I know,” I whispered, trying to keep my emotions in check. “I’m good. Really.”
She stayed silent for a few seconds as she leaned back on the sofa. Her features relaxed, but her eyes told a different story. “It’s not weird having Cade as a teacher?”
I blinked. And then I blinked again. “Erm…I guess.” I shrugged. “I haven’t seen him for years, so…”
“He’s changed,” Lola said. “He’s not the same happy-go-lucky sixteen-year-old he was when you first met him.”
“He’s not.” I shook my head and started to construct the wall around me. I didn’t want to talk about this. I didn’t want to—
“Neither are you, Aria.” I swallowed at her words. “I know it’s hard that he’s your teacher, but he’s still part of our family. Your family.” We’d always been one extended family, never separate entities, but she’d never know how alone I always felt. You could be surrounded by a thousand people and still be the loneliest person in the world. “Family always comes first.”
I heard her words loud and clear, but the fact of the matter was, I wasn’t really part of her family. My family had been ripped apart nine years ago. One action had changed the course of my entire life, and I’d not realized how much impact one moment could have until then.
Lola leaned her head back on the sofa and stared over at me. She was always good at reading people. She knew when to push, and knew when to let something go. Tonight, she was letting it go. “Wanna stay here tonight? I don’t know when Brody will be back, and Cade is at his new house for the weekend.” She stuck out her bottom lip, acting nothing like the twenty-nine-year-old she was. “I don’t want to be on my own.”
I shook my head, but my lips were spreading into a grin. “I got nothing better to do.”
“Good, because I’m in the mood for a chick flick and no one else will watch them with me.”
I stood. “I’ll make some popcorn.”
“This is why I love you!” Lola shouted after me, and that feeling of home washed over me again.
Maybe it wasn’t the place. Maybe it was the people. Either way, I’d savor the time I was here because, as soon as I was back in my apartment, the feeling would evaporate faster than raindrops on a scorching day.
* * *
CADE
Dad: The guys are coming over. We’re having a cookout. Bring beer.
I chuckled at the message from my dad and looked down at the paintbrush I was holding. The repairs on the house were nearly complete, and the inside was done, which left only the outside. The siding needed a fresh coat of paint, and then I’d be finished, which was what I was doing at 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning.
I’d already been out for a run and sorted out my homework for the weekend so I’d be prepared for the week ahead. Now that the extracurricular activities were up and running, my hours during the school day wouldn’t be as free as they had been.
Dad: Lola said to pick up hamburger meat too.
I shook my head and typed out a reply to Dad:
Cade: You sure it isn’t you that’s meant to get meat?
I waited for his reply and grinned when it came through.
Dad: See you in an hour.
I tucked my cell back into my pocket and finished painting the slat of wood a light blue. Every weekend I’d been at the house, trying to finish all the repairs it needed, so I was sure I could give myself a break today. My official move-in date was next weekend, but all I was waiting on was my furniture to be delivered, and I could manage without a sofa and television for a few days. Once all my supplies were put away, I headed inside for a shower.
My cell pinged again as I pushed my feet into my sneakers and positioned my sunglasses on my face.
Lola: Could you grab some juice boxes for the kids on the way over? Your dad said you’re getting beers.
I grabbed my keys, walked outside, and locked the door behind me.
Cade: On it.
I still couldn’t believe I had my own house. The years had flown by, but inside, I still felt like the fifteen-year-old kid who listened to his parents argue over who had cheated on who first.
The drive to the store near my dad’s h
ouse took me past the street I grew up on. The first fifteen years of my life, my mom had basically been a single parent. It was simply the way we’d lived, and Mom didn’t seem too bothered by it. Until the year I turned sixteen. That year changed everything. It was the year I met Lola, who tutored me, the year my dad cheated on my mom, and the year I found out my mom had done the same.
And then I’d gotten shot.
I winced as I drove toward Dad and Lola’s, remembering the pain I’d been in. Lola had been pregnant with Belle at the time, and I hadn’t thought twice about diving in front of the bullet for her. That day was full of sadness and chaos, but a smile worked its way on my lips as the memory of a bossy Aria came into view. That had been the first time I met her, and I’d never forgotten her lopsided pigtails and her overalls rolled up at the ankles because of how small she was.
Mom moved to France after that, and I’d only seen her a handful of times since. She married twice after Dad, each marriage lasting no more than two years, and if the invitation I received last week was anything to go by, she was getting hitched again to some multimillionaire French socialite. Mom never did anything by halves. Part of me wanted to blame my dad for the life she was leading now, but it wasn’t all on him.
My last three years of high school, Dad got a promotion and was home more. Things had changed. Change wasn’t always a bad thing, and in our case, it was exactly what we had needed. It meant I truly got to know my dad and build the father-and-son relationship I was always seeking growing up.
Several cars littered the driveway, which meant Dad’s team was here, otherwise known as the uncles I’d grown up with. They’d always been there to protect and guide me, but it hadn’t been them I’d wanted when I learned how to ride a bike. It was my dad I wished was there to cheer me on, not the men he saw as his family, but it was the way it was, and there was nothing I could do to change it now.
Defy Fate: Fated Duet: Book One Page 5