Neat

by Steiner, Kandi

  To taste them.

  That last thought zapped me out of my trance, and I cleared my throat, moving on to the next box in the stack. It was the one that had been buried on the bottom in the very back corner of the room, and it was extra dusty as I plopped it on the table in front of me.

  I waved away the cloud, squinting. “Did it hurt?”

  “When I fell from heaven?” Mallory snickered. “Come on, Logan. You’ve got better lines than that.”

  I chuckled. “No, I meant that,” I said, motioning to the ring hanging from her nose. I pinched the septum of mine to illustrate. “I feel like that had to be painful.”

  Mallory reached up, fingering the diamonds that lined the bottom of the ring and shaped her too-perfect nose. It was ridiculous, really, that I noticed her fucking nose — but I did. It was perfectly sized for her face, the tip of it rounded like a little button, and that ring she wore only called my attention to it more.

  “A little,” she admitted. “But then again, I was eighteen and on a mission to piss off my parents. It could have felt like childbirth and I still wouldn’t have backed down.”

  I cocked a brow. “You got that pierced to prove a point to your parents?”

  “No, I did it because I liked it and I wanted to,” she said, but the corner of her mouth lifted. “Driving my father insane was just a perk.”

  “I’m sure he loved the tattoos, too.”

  “Oh, the one on my lower back is his favorite.”

  I laughed, peeling the top off the dusty box. “Why were you so hell bent on pissing them off?”

  A long sigh left her lips. “That’s a very long story, and one that would require libations. Maybe—” Her words died mid-sentence. “Logan? What’s wrong?”

  I wanted to say nothing.

  I wanted to shake my head, laugh it off, tell her to continue with her story.

  I wanted to put the lid back on the box in front of me and pretend I’d never opened it and seen what was inside.

  But I couldn’t.

  All I could do was stand there, gaping at the charred remnants of the most horrible day in all my life.

  The box had been unlabeled — and now that I saw what was inside it, I knew why. It was a box not meant to be found, one not meant to be dug through. Black soot lined the edges of it, and the items that filled it looked like someone had cleaned out their desk after being fired, ready to make the walk of shame through the halls to their car with everything that had decorated their office loaded into a box.

  The photo frame that sat on top was busted — the glass broken, the silver frame mostly black now, and the photo seared and water damaged. Only one little inch of it remained clear enough to make out.

  It was my oldest brother’s face — his smile, one sparked by the joke Dad had told us just before the photo was snapped.

  I swallowed, gripping the edges of the folding table the box was on to keep myself from stumbling backward or passing out. All the blood drained from my face, from my neck, from every vein in my body.

  “It’s my Dad’s stuff.”

  The words were barely out of my mouth before Mallory scrambled up from where she was sitting on the floor, peering into the box with me. “What?!”

  I nodded numbly. “That… that’s Jordan,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat as I pointed to what was left of the photo. “He had this picture on his desk. It was from our fishing trip the summer before he died.”

  “Jesus…” she murmured, reaching inside the box to retrieve the frame. She held it as delicately as she could, but already, her fingers were covered in black. She pulled the frame close to her eyes, studying it, and I watched her eyes trace the photo before they found mine again. “Logan, wasn’t there an investigation done that day?”

  I nodded, every movement slow and distant, like I was submerged under icy water just seconds from passing out.

  “Wouldn’t this have been evidence?” she asked, pulling the next charred item out of the box. Bits of ashes fell off the once-gold paperweight, now mostly black. It was one my mom gave him for Christmas, engraved with his favorite Colin Powell quote.

  There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

  I couldn’t speak. I just stared at the weight in her hands as Mallory stared at me.

  “Logan?”

  I blinked. “I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t think it was relevant.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed, thumbing the small part of the quote that peeked through the grime. “But, if it wasn’t relevant to the fire department or the police… then why did someone keep it?”

  We shared a look then, and my heart kicked back to life in my chest, thundering hard in my ears as my hands dug into the box. One by one, I pulled out each item in that box — what was left of each item, anyway — until I got to the very bottom and retrieved a thick, heavy, dated and familiar rectangle that I never thought I’d see again.

  Mallory gasped. “Is that…”

  “His laptop,” I finished for her, swallowing as I carefully sat it on the table. “Yes.”

  For a while, we both just stared at it, but then Mallory rounded the table to stand on the same side as me. She reached forward, carefully flipping the monitor of the laptop up to reveal the damage inside.

  The screen was shattered and covered with a thick, black gunk, and what was left of the keyboard was melted and warped, revealing the plates and wires that made everything work underneath.

  Mallory peered inside the box again. “Is there a power cord? Do you think it would turn on?”

  “Look at it,” I told her, waving a hand over the damage.

  She sighed, nodding.

  We both stared for a while again — me because I couldn’t believe the ghosts we had found, Mallory likely because she didn’t know what to do or say. But after a moment, her hand dipped into her pocket, and she pulled out her phone, typing something into a search browser.

  “We may be able to recover the hard drive,” she said, showing me an article she’d found. “And if we can get that, then maybe…”

  “We can get answers.”

  The words sounded like they’d come from someone else’s mouth, in someone else’s voice. They shook and croaked out of my throat, and I swallowed, trying not to let the hope I felt building in my chest get enough air to surface. The longer I stared at that burnt hunk of computer, the heavier I breathed, and the more my pulse raced.

  Little black dots invaded my vision, encroaching from every angle until I could only see through a lens the size of a pin hole.

  I felt hands on my chest, on my neck, on my face, pulling me. Mallory’s voice was somewhere in the distance, pleading with me to look at her, to breathe.

  “Logan,” she repeated, this time her voice clearing the fog in my head. “Look. At. Me.”

  I blinked, over and over, trying to find her through the darkness. It was her cerulean blue eyes I saw first, just an inch from mine. I felt her forehead against mine, her cool fingers framing my jaw, and the next thing I knew, my hands were reaching for her, wrapping around her waist, pulling her closer.

  “Breathe,” she said, and I sucked in the first breath in minutes, my lungs burning with the inhale before I let the air out again, slow and long through my mouth. “That’s it.”

  I repeated the process, keeping my eyes open and locked on hers, but the more my body approached awareness, the more it buzzed to life at our proximity.

  My cheeks heated under her fingers, breaths shallowing out again as I swallowed past the sticky knot in my throat. My gaze fell to her lips — dusty rose, plump and full, and now, parted just a centimeter, letting sweet breath through that met mine between us.

  My eyes snapped to hers, but her gaze was on my lips now.

  She let out a shaky breath.

  Her tongue glided over her bottom lip, wetting it.

  She leaned into me — just a fraction of an inch, the movement so subtle I couldn’t be s
ure it happened at all.

  All it took was the tilt of my chin, and our lips brushed, the slick heat of hers meeting the shaky coolness of mine. Mallory sucked in a breath at the contact, her fingers curling where they held my face.

  “Logan…”

  It was a warning, a whisper of desperation for me to stop — or maybe to never stop. I couldn’t be sure, but I pulled away, wrapping my hands around her wrist as I pinched my eyes shut and took a real breath now that we had some distance between us.

  “I’m sorry,” I rasped out, shaking my head. “I… I think I was having a panic attack.”

  “It’s okay,” she assured me. “It’s fine.”

  I released my grip on her wrists, breathing deep again before I let my eyes flutter open. My hands found balance on the flat of the table, and I stared at the computer, shaking my head.

  “What do we do?” I asked — and I wasn’t sure if I was asking Mallory, or my deceased father.

  But it was her who answered, and her voice was steady and sure.

  “We find a way to get that laptop home with you.”

  My eyes met hers, and the determination I found there lit a fire in my chest.

  “Tonight.”

  Mallory

  Later that Friday night, Chris sipped from his wine, commenting on the bogus drama happening on the reality TV show he was watching while I read the same sentence in All the Light We Cannot See ten times in a row.

  I was actually enjoying the book — which was a new feeling, since I hadn’t read for pleasure in as long as I could remember. College textbooks had turned me off to reading, especially since I preferred to make art in my spare time rather than read it. But this book was intoxicating, drawing me into another country, another time, another perspective. I loved reading it at night before I went to sleep, and since Chris knew how much I hated reality TV, he wasn’t offended that I had the hardback splayed open in my lap while we hung out.

  The problem was I couldn’t read tonight any more than I could stomach watching two housewives fight over who had the best birthday party for their kids. As much as I wanted to escape into another world, I couldn’t stop thinking about what was happening in my own.

  Logan Becker had nearly kissed me.

  Or was it me who had nearly kissed him?

  It didn’t matter, I’d decided, because either way — our lips had touched.

  I shivered again at the memory, eyes glossing over that same damn sentence with my thoughts somewhere else entirely. I could still feel the coolness of his lips against mine, the warmth of his breath, the strong grip of his hands around my waist. I could see his eyes, honey gold and dilated as they searched mine before they fell to my lips. My fingers had curled where they held his face when that first bit of contact was made, and just a dip of his chin or a tip of my own would have sealed the deal, would have closed the final distance between us.

  But he’d pulled away.

  My stomach dropped, just like it did every time I replayed what happened in that storage closet. Logan pulling away felt like the most painful mix of relief and rejection — and I couldn’t figure out how to decipher which feeling was more prominent.

  I sighed, readjusting the book in my lap and trying again to focus on what I was reading. It didn’t take longer than sixty seconds for my thoughts to float back to Logan — this time, to the box of his father’s belongings that we’d found.

  We’d stashed that box away where we’d originally found it, stacking the boxes of items the distillery would keep and archive around it to hide its presence. Everything stayed in the box — except for the laptop, which I hid in my messenger bag as Logan and I walked to his truck after work. We checked to make sure no one was looking before I pulled it out, and Logan quickly placed it inside his truck and covered it with an old ratty towel.

  “This is stealing,” he reminded me, his eyes darting around the employee parking lot. “If someone catches us…”

  “They won’t,” I was quick to assure him.

  He still looked a little worried, a little numb, a little like he was going to throw up or pass out or both when he nodded, climbing into his truck. I’d stood there like a statue when he drove away, my fingers tracing the flesh of my bottom lip as I watched him go.

  I could still taste him.

  I let out another huff of frustration just as my phone lit up on the coffee table. I slapped the book closed, feet hitting the floor and heart hitting the ceiling when I saw Logan’s name in a text notification.

  Chris eyed me, one brow climbing. “I’ve never seen you move so fast for a text in your life,” he commented. “Who is it?”

  “No one,” I murmured, but my eyes were glued to my phone now, reading and re-reading the text Logan had sent.

  Logan: I got the hard drive out. It doesn’t look damaged, but after some research, I think I’ll need a USB hard drive enclosure to plug it in to my own computer and see if any of the files survived.

  My fingers flew over the keys, and Chris hummed, sipping his wine with a knowing grin. “Mm-hmm. No one my ass.”

  Me: Okay. This is a good thing, yes?

  Logan: I guess we’ll see.

  Logan: Thank you, Mallory. For helping me get the laptop out. For everything.

  My stomach lurched.

  Me: Of course.

  I stared at the screen, waiting, hoping — for what, I had no idea. But after a moment, the little bubbles that told me he was typing something popped up. I held my breath as I watched them, but then they disappeared again. I was just about to start typing something else when they reappeared, and just as quickly, they were gone.

  He didn’t know what to say any more than I did.

  I wondered if he wanted to ask about the almost-kiss, if it was replaying in his mind as much as it was my own. Did he want to kiss me? Or did he want to make sure I didn’t read too much into something that was nothing?

  Maybe he wanted to clear the air, to let me know that he was having an anxiety attack and didn’t actually want to hold me, or brush his lips against mine, or suck in the breath that I’d just let out.

  Maybe he wanted a redo, and this time, he wanted to pull me into him instead of push me away.

  Something close to a growl came from my throat when the bubbles disappeared again, and Chris paused the TV, turning where he sat on the opposite end of the couch until he faced me completely.

  “Okay, enough with the animal noises. I can’t focus with all the barking and growling you’ve been doing for the past hour.” He snapped his fingers twice as he took a long sip of his red wine. “Spill.”

  “There’s nothing to spill.”

  Chris flattened his lips, and then before I could react, he snatched my phone from me and read the screen as I wailed on him to give it back to me.

  “Logan Becker,” he mused with a smirk, handing my phone back.

  I huffed, pulling it into my chest like I could protect what had already been seen. “It’s just work stuff.”

  “Right. And I only cross dress during Pride Week.” He rolled his eyes. “What happened? Did you get him in trouble again? Or is his grumpiness rubbing off on you?”

  “I’m not grumpy,” I defended. “And neither is he.”

  Chris cocked a brow. “That man has been a broody, keep-to-himself piece of eye-candy since we were teenagers. Who else do you know who sits at Buck’s alone with a scowl and a glass of whiskey.”

  I opened my mouth to retort, but Chris held up his finger.

  “Besides his brothers, because that will only prove my point further.”

  I shut my mouth again.

  Chris chuckled. “Come on. Tell me what’s going on so I can stop bugging you and get back to my show.”

  I covered my face with my hands, blowing a hot breath through the fingers. “I don’t know,” I groaned out. Then, I peeked through my fingers at Chris. “There may or may not have been lip contact.”

  “Lip contact? As in, kissing?!”

  “No.” I
bit my lip. “Well… maybe kind of?”

  Chris filled his glass of wine before topping off mine, and then he kicked back, making himself comfortable on the couch. “Tell me everything.”

  So, I did. I told him how Logan and I had started getting along, how I’d brought him into my studio that night after our walk, how we’d found a rhythm at work. I told him about my first real tour, how it had felt so good before we realized we’d forgotten the no photos allowed speech. I told him about Mac, about our punishment, about Logan’s surprising taste in music and how his nerdiness somehow made me like him more. I told him about the box we found, the laptop, the hard drive.

  And finally, the almost-kiss.

  Chris was giddy the entire time, smiling like a loon and completely unable to keep still the longer I talked. By the time I finished, I thought he was going to squeal or giggle or jump up and down.

  “This is bad, Chris,” I pointed out. “We almost kissed. Or… at least… I think we almost kissed.”

  “Oh, you definitely almost kissed,” Chris agreed. “Honestly, I’d say lip contact classifies, but since there was lack of embrace or tongue, we can file it as an almost.”

  I sighed.

  “Why are you acting like he kicked your cat?”

  Dalí croaked out a meow from where he was curled up under the coffee table.

  “Lip-locking is fun, Mallory — especially with a Becker boy.” Chris waggled his brows.

  “Did you hear what you just said? He’s a Becker. His entire family hates my entire family — and honestly, if you ask me, it’s for good reason. Plus, we work together. Plus, my father would murder me.”

  Chris scoffed. “And? Like pissing off your dad isn’t your favorite pastime.”

  “It’s different this time. He has me by the balls with this building being in his name,” I said, gesturing to the studio apartment we were sitting in above the shop.