I blinked, my curiosity getting the best of me. “Didn’t see what?”
“That you’re broken too. Not in a way I can fix, though I’d give a fuckin’ limb to do so. I was right in thinking you were royalty, babe. A kind of princess. But not one any man can save. You’ve gotta save yourself. I’ve gotta let you. I’ll wait. And hope that’s gonna happen in time for you to realize that you’re not the only one who’s broken. And you’re not the only one you need to fix.”
On that, he walked away. The gentle closing of my door wasn’t so much of a slam, but it echoed through my house, and my soul, with its finality.
A single tear trailed down my cheek.
“You what?” Rosie all but yelled at me. Actually, not all but yelled. Just straight-up yelled. She craned her head, her glitter-rimmed eyes focusing on my gold hoop earrings in a way that made it obvious she wasn’t admiring them. Though they were gorgeous. As were the rest of the clothes I’d sheathed myself in. Some girls slobbed around in sweats when men fucked with them. Me? I dressed for battle, because that’s what Audrey would do. She may have said that happy girls were the prettiest, but she also said that lipstick on a bad day could cure all. Or some such sentiment. I took that and rolled with it.
“What?” I asked Rosie, trying to look at my own ear self-consciously.
“I was just seeing if there was any leftovers,” she said, returning her sharp gaze to me.
I furrowed my brows. “Even I’m not following the crazy train today, and I usually drive it. Leftovers?”
“Yes, leftovers. Of the fucking brain that seemed to have leaked out of your fucking ears by pushing a man who looks, walks and talks like Keltan out of your life. He can make a girl orgasm by giving her one of those stares he does! God can only know what his manly parts can accomplish with their stare alone,” she continued on the same decibel as before.
I glanced around the café, but no one had even blinked. Rosie and I had been coming here since we started drinking coffee—so twelve years old. They were used to scenes. Heck, this wasn’t even a scene.
Yet.
I sipped my coffee. “My brain is still firmly in my head. In fact, it was working correctly this morning after malfunctioning all last night,” I said, my cheeks heating up with the memory of it. My legs were tender everywhere. His touch remained, hours after he’d left the house. The memory of it was all I had, and that made the ice return.
“Were you not sucking face outside this very establishment not two months ago?” she accused, pointing her black-painted fingernail to the parking lot. “Two months,” she repeated for emphasis. “And yet, here I was, blissful ignorance.” She paused. “Well, not so ignorant considering I know he was into you in a big way, and obviously you were into him because you’re not blind. But I thought you did your ice thing.”
I frowned. “Ice thing?”
Rosie gave me a look. “Oh, come on, Luce. You know, the look that you get on your face even that bitch from that Frozen movie couldn’t replicate. You freeze them with it and they go running.” She paused, her face furrowing. “Keltan didn’t seem like a runner.”
The words hit me with a pain that I knew Rosie did not intend.
Because she didn’t have the words circling around in her head like poison.
“You’ve gotta save yourself. I’ve gotta let you. I’ll wait. And hope that’s gonna happen in time for you to realize that you’re not the only one who’s broken. And you’re not the only one you need to fix.”
Around and around.
I scowled at Rosie, eager to jump off that carnival ride currently playing in my head. “I do not.”
“Then why is it that some of the most attractive men in the country—heck, the world—have grown up with you and somehow not managed to do the horizontal tango with you? And it’s not because they don’t find you attractive. They aren’t blind,” Rosie said with a pointed look.
I ran my finger around the rim of my mug. “They haven’t slept with you either,” I accused, searching for a way out.
It was all I had been doing lately, it seemed. Searching for escape from the holes I found myself in.
She rolled her eyes. “Because I have a brother who would legitimately castrate them for doing so. It’s not from lack of trying, but they’re all just strangely attracted to their junk, which I can understand considering it’s the only thing I want them for anyway.” She sighed, cradling her mug. “Apart from Gage. I have a feeling his fuckery goes well beyond his male member, though I’m thinking even that would be a ride to hell and back.” She waggled her eyebrows at me. “In a good way.”
“What’s a good ride to hell and back?” a deep voice asked.
Both Rosie and I snapped our heads to the owner of the voice, who’d managed to sneak up on us since we were both so deep in conversation.
Luke’s twinkling eyes were focused on Rosie, and his hand rested easily on the belt that held his gun and badge.
Rosie proceeded to hastily put her cup down on the table, spilling coffee everywhere.
“Shitsack, ballfuck,” Rosie hissed, hastily mopping up the mess with her napkin, glaring at me for smirking and then glancing back up to Luke with fluttering lashes and a composed smile like the last ten seconds of frantic coffee mopping and awkwardness hadn’t happened.
His eyes twinkled more as he focused on her, his grin widening even more. “Those are some interesting curse words. Even I haven’t heard them, and I lock up criminals for a living,” he teased.
She blinked once. Then twice. Then her face turned hard, and the dreaminess from before was gone. “Yeah, well, I picked up a few things growing up with bikers who use ‘fuck’ like a comma,” she replied, doing an impression of my tone that even I couldn’t reproduce.
The easiness of the air was gone, replaced by the chasm that had always been between the two of them, even before Luke realized what he was missing.
His knuckles whitened as they no longer easily rested on the belt that held the badge, the shining and reflective piece of metal that seemed so small and insignificant before but now was larger than anything else in the room.
Even I, someone well versed in silence, and comfortable with it, found the following quiet unnerving. Because of the sheer amount of pain in it. On both sides.
A real Romeo and Juliet situation. One I would make sure didn’t end the same way. Happiness was what my friend deserved. I just couldn’t decide whether the man in front of us promised that or heartbreak.
Then again, it wasn’t my decision to make.
Luke cleared his throat. “Well, try not to scare too many children with your vocabulary.” His eyes went to the hastily mopped-up coffee, then to the white shirt Rosie was wearing, tucked into ripped white jeans and exposing a lacy bra underneath. “And be careful with flaming-hot liquids when wearing all white. We don’t want any wet T-shirt contests without proper permits.”
His voice lingered with residual teasing that showed he was eager to find a way back to easy banter, but it dripped in melancholy of the reality.
He gave me a nod and Rosie another lingering look before he turned and sauntered off.
We both watched his well-formed ass leave the place.
My eyes snapped back to Rosie. “What was that?”
She gave me a blank look that so didn’t fool me, though it might fool a judge or two it was that innocent. I knew no such thing as innocent, especially within my spitfire of a best friend. Though, come to think of it, she had convinced at least two judges of the contrary.
“What?” she said.
I narrowed my eyes. “Don’t what me. I was here. I witnessed Luke trying to start a conversation with you, finally with his eyes wide open, and you shut it down quicker than I max out my credit card at the online Nordstrom sale.”
She picked up her napkin and wiped some remaining coffee from the table. “And why shouldn’t I? It would be in both of our best interests for us to remember where we stand. On either side of a line drawn in the
sand. One Luke drew when he became intent on ruining my family,” she said coldly. “And another one called federal law.”
I heard the hurt beneath the ice. Mainly because I invented such a tone, and because I knew Rosie almost better than I knew myself.
But then, sometimes that girl was a mystery even to me, and I wondered what hid behind her easy—if a little crazy—beautiful, ever-changing exterior.
“Luke may have drawn it, but he is quite capable of un-drawing it,” I replied. “Especially for a woman.” I paused. “Especially for you. I’m thinking you’re his Juliet.”
She scoffed. “Yes, because things turned out so well for Romeo and Juliet. Stop trying to change the subject. Doomed romances are not the flavor of the morning. Delicious muscled foreigners are.”
She leaned forward.
“So, at the risk of sounding like a Grease extra, tell me more,” she demanded, with sparkling eyes that betrayed none of the hurt and heartbreak from moments before. “And then tell me that you are going to call him, apologize for a moment of temporary insanity and then get him back in your bed and life.”
I swallowed glass. I itched to do that very thing. The split between the need for him and my self-preservation was agonizing. “There is no more. We had sex. It was great.” Mind-blowing, heart-wrenching, earth-shattering. “It’s out of my system.” He’s under my skin so deep I can’t stop thinking about him. “Now I can carry on with my life.” Now I need to figure out a way to live with the emptiness that he created in a mere handful of moments.
Rosie snorted. “Babe.”
I quirked my brow at her. “Really? You’re going to start speaking in grunts like your brother? Even if you did that and perfected a smoldering look, they ain’t gonna patch you in.” I looked down to her chest, which was aptly on display in a tight V-neck tee. “Because of those. And the fact that you wear skirts. No matter how fabulous.”
She rolled her eyes. “Right, like I want a cut. If I actually did want to be patched in, I’d be in, make no mistake about that. With or without the rule about vaginas.” She gave me a look. “When I want something, I get it. Fuck the rules.”
I gave her a look of mine own, then glanced to the window where Luke was getting inside his cruiser, his aviators pointedly focused on the interior of the café.
“You sure about that?” I asked evenly.
Rosie jutted her chin up in a gesture of stubbornness I knew all too well. She refused to even glance in the direction of the cruiser. “Sure as I am that clogs should never make a comeback, and you should be at home getting your brains fucked out by the hot kiwi,” she replied easily.
I knew my girl. The Luke subject was closed.
For now.
That powder keg was due to explode.
Mine was just closer to the flames.
“He’s already done that,” I sighed. “Now this is why we’re here.”
Rosie’s brows rose. “Babe, I love you, you know that. And apart from the time I had to reassure you that you were frenching right, I’m not going there. Not fucking your brains out. Sorry.” She shrugged apologetically. “Not in me. But if it was, you know I’d hit that.” She gave me a wink.
I rolled my eyes. “No. We’re here to get my brains back in. It’s not happening again. Me and Keltan, that is,” I said firmly.
“And why the fuck not?” Rosie yelled.
The clientele barely flinched. Apart from a family at the booth across from us. The overweight and balding father wearing a stained white tee frowned at Rosie. She blew him a kiss.
I shook my head. “Because,” I said.
“That’s not an answer,” she snapped. “I’m not the first to judge anyone on stupid behavior. I’m the one who found herself on a boat in international waters doing some very shady shit with some Columbians,” she continued. “But I see it. The twinkle in your eye. Something different. And even if it weren’t for that, the little fire in my ice queen that makes me happier than a Black Friday sale, he’s hot. You don’t make the same mistake twice unless he’s hot. And he’s got it going on.” She waggled her brows. “And I know what a well-fucked woman looks like, trust me. I’ve done the legwork.” Another brow waggle. “And all the other kind of body part work. So, he has it going on. ‘Because’ is not an answer at this juncture.”
I regarded my friend seriously. “‘Because’ is the perfect answer at this juncture.”
She blinked at me, catching the change in the air but not fully grasping the why.
“Because Gray,” I said, my voice flat, even unfeeling to the outsider.
Rosie was not an outsider.
Her eyes instantly turned a soft and hard that was reminiscent of her brother. Revenge and sorrow.
It didn’t matter that revenge had already been dealt. That only ghosts remained. Ghosts could do the same damage as corporeal beings. Perhaps more.
Rosie’s black-painted fingers squeezed around the hand that wasn’t holding the coffee cup.
“Okay, babe. I’ll roll with you on this one. Despite what I think he might offer. Because Gray,” she said softly. “But you can’t let this haunt you forever. Can’t stave off the storm forever.”
I stared at her. “Can’t I?”
She didn’t answer.
Mainly because she knew I wasn’t asking her.
I was asking myself.
Eighteen years ago
“You’ll wake the girls.” Mom’s voice was that loud whisper she used to get Polly and me quiet when Daddy was napping on the sofa after one of his soda beers.
She was trying to be quiet, but our house wasn’t big and when you were awake you could hear lots and lots.
I’d heard Daddy call Mommy a lot of bad words that kids at my school used sometimes when they were trying to be cool.
I didn’t think they were cool. I thought they were ugly and mean. I didn’t like the way Daddy’s voice sounded when he said them. He made Mom cry.
But I loved Daddy too. He never told on me for staying up past curfew and reading another few chapters.
It was The Secret Garden right then. I didn’t want to leave it just yet. Especially when the yelling got louder.
I jumped under the covers, my flashlight that was meant to be for Girl Scouts—but I used to see my book after light’s out—almost flying from my hand when I heard a loud bang.
I didn’t know what it was, but something hard and heavy broke with it. “I don’t give a fuck about the girls waking up right now!” Daddy yelled too loud in the soda voice.
I glanced over to Polly’s crib, worried that my little sister might wake up and cry from the loud noise. Then scary Daddy might come in here. I wanted him to stop being mean to Mom, but Polly was only two, and I didn’t want him getting mad at her.
Sometimes he did. Got mad when Polly cried too much. Once I saw him pinch her little arm when she knocked over his soda beer on accident.
I’d made sure I always kept her away from it after that.
Mom said it was my job to take care of Polly. I was her big sister. I didn’t like doing my chores, like making my bed or dishes or the rest. But I liked looking after my Polly.
That’s why I got out of bed and padded over to her crib to stand in front of it. She was all tangled in her blankets, her little cheeks red because it was hot in the trailer, and we didn’t have the fancy fan in here like Mommy usually brought us in the nighttime. There was only one, and she said her princesses needed it the most.
Until Daddy drank the soda beer, which was almost every night now. That meant that he got the fan.
Polly’s eyes stayed squeezed tightly shut, her thumb shoved in her mouth and still sleeping.
“You just need to go to sleep.” Mom’s voice filtered through the walls, even though she was still speaking quietlike.
The slapping sound, like a high five but different in a way that made my belly feel sick, came next.
“You don’t tell me what to do, bitch!” Daddy yelled.
I squeezed m
y eyes shut and put my fingers in my ears like I liked to do when Daddy got mean like this.
It didn’t work. He was too loud and he was saying bad words, and there were a lot of weird noises I didn’t understand.
I understood the sound of Mom’s cries and her voice. “Please, stop. The girls.”
Her voice sounded funny now too. Like the time she accidentally slammed her finger in the car door and hurt it real bad. She was in pain.
My mom needed taking care of sometimes too. Like when she forgot she baked cookies so I had to watch them so they didn’t burn.
I ran out to the living room to help Mommy find the plasters for whatever she did to get hurt. She sometimes forgot where she put those too.
The coffee table was tumbled over, and all my crayons that I left there so I could draw and watch TV at the same time, they were all gone. All over the floor. Next to Mom. She was all curled up like Polly, but she had a bleeding head and mouth and her eyes were swollen and scary-looking.
She was crying.
Daddy was standing over her, and I first thought he was helping her up after she tripped, but I started to get scared that he was hurting her.
“Mom?” I whispered in a small voice, not knowing what to do. The Band-Aids weren’t big enough to help cover this boo-boo.
Mom’s red eyes went to me, as did Dad’s. His were red but not from crying. He looked weird. He didn’t look like Dad. It was scary.
“Go back to bed, baby,” Mom ordered, her voice not like it was at bedtime. It was different. Like broken at the edges. And panicked.
I didn’t move.
My eyes stayed on Mommy, then moved up to Daddy. He was staring at me, but his eyes were strange and empty. Like marbles. Glassy.
“Lucy,” Mommy said, her voice more like the bedtime voice but still tinged with hurt.
“No,” I said, stepping forward. My knees felt weak and funny when I did it, and I was really scared of the glassy-eyed stare from Daddy, but I kept going.
Then I was beside Mommy. In front of her. Between her and Daddy.