by Elyse, Drew
“Nothing else ever stood out?”
“Not really,” she admitted, looking a bit embarrassed by it for some reason. “I never had like a passion or anything.”
I got it then. She was feeling uncomfortable because I had a job that was, absolutely, my passion. Which was fucking ridiculous since I’d all but fallen into that gig. “It seems like you’re pretty passionate about what you do.”
Her eyes brightened, that embarrassment disappearing. “That’s true. I do love my job now. I just didn’t know I’d end up there. I hadn’t been planning on it, but life’s funny that way sometimes.”
Yeah, like when it drops a woman way out of your league not only into your life, but into your apartment.
“It can be.”
We lapsed into silence then. The TV was on, but we both knew neither of us were paying it a lick of attention. I was far more interested in her. For whatever reason, she felt the same way.
“Okay,” she said out of nowhere. “I have an idea.”
I didn’t say anything, just waited for her to elaborate.
“You’ve got stuff you don’t want to talk about,” she stated. I thought of telling her that it wasn’t about her, but she beat me to it. “I get that. So get it.” She probably did. Her scars, the story of how she got them, people probably thought they were entitled to that shit all the time just because they could see the result. “But I want to get to know you.” The feeling was mutual. “So, I have this idea. One for one. I’ll tell you something about me, you tell me something about you. Anything at all. Anything that’s not off limits. Then there are no awkward questions that either of us aren’t prepared to answer.”
We both knew this game was designed for me. She’d already been pretty candid about shit. Still, I did want to get to know her, and I wasn’t entirely opposed to the idea of her doing the same with me, so it was worth a shot.
“Okay.”
She beamed. “Okay.”
Chapter Sixteen
Gwen
Okay, this could work. I really wanted to make this work.
In that spirit, I offered, “I’ll go first.”
He didn’t argue, but I doubted he would. Park, it was becoming clear, was like an island. He was used to that space around him. I got the sense he might have some friends that swam in close—like Jess—but that was about it. If I wasn’t willing to ride the waves, if I couldn’t figure out how to stay afloat, I wouldn’t get anywhere near close enough to actually know him.
So I took the first step and dove in.
Ironically, with, “I can’t swim.”
His brows pinched together. “You can’t swim.”
“Hey, I don’t need your judgment, mister,” I clipped. “I never learned to swim. I can manage to keep myself afloat and sort of doggy-paddle to get around, but I never learned to do it properly.” With nothing else to say on that, I pushed on. “Your turn.”
His response was quicker than I expected. “I can’t swim either.”
“Seriously?” I laughed.
“Never even got into a pool or the ocean until I was pushing twenty. At that point, I wasn’t going to screw around and show everyone I had no clue what I was doing. Since then, I’ve just never gone deeper in water than where I could stand up.”
“I’d recommend the doggy paddle, but people do tend to look at you weird when you do it over the age of ten.”
His eyes were warm on me, though his face stayed neutral.
“Let’s see,” I went on, taking my turn. “I can play the bassoon.”
Okay, that might be a stretch. I hadn’t picked up a bassoon in ten years.
“The bassoon?”
I nodded. He stared at me, and I knew he was waiting for more.
“In like third grade or so they brought in all the band and orchestra instruments one day so we could see them and decide if we wanted to learn. I saw the bassoon and it was just so big and weird. I wanted to play that. They wouldn’t let me right away. There were only a few options for us at that age, so they put me on the clarinet. I didn’t want to play the clarinet, so I practiced like crazy to prove I learned it. Then, when I moved up to middle school, they gave me my bassoon.”
“Did you do marching band and all that?”
I tried to keep the tension out of my face and voice but didn’t succeed. “No. That was only high school. After… what happened, I wasn’t really interested in being involved in things.” I shook that off, not wanting to go down that road. “I did lessons with the band teacher during my free period on and off. I think she was hoping I’d eventually join in again, but I never did. I did learn the bassoon, though.”
That awkwardness was heavy again. The whole point of this game had been to avoid it, and I had to bring up the bassoon of all things.
“I once painted an entire fire escape pink,” Park shared.
I blinked, surprised he’d taken the lead on our game. “What?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I told you I started out in art with graffiti?” I nodded, and he kept going. “I was in this alley one night, had to be sixteen at the time, tagging one of the walls. It was the third time that week I’d been there working on this monster-themed mural. Then this old woman opens her window above me. She starts yelling down how if I was going to be a hooligan, at least do something to make the world a little prettier, not just the scary shit I was painting. She even said shit. I’d seen her around. She was one of those grandmas to the whole neighborhood types. It was known at that point that she was sick, declining fast. Not that her attitude would show it. It was also known she was never seen without something pink on her. So the next week, after I was done, I came back in the middle of the night, quiet as I could, and painted the whole damn fire escape across from her window fucking bubblegum pink.”
“Oh my god. Parker! That’s amazing. Did she love it?”
“Saw her a couple times just after, she seemed to be smiling a lot. Never actually made an approach or said anything, though.”
Because he hadn’t done it for thanks or attention. Like he hadn’t offered to rent me half the apartment for thanks. He was just a good person.
“I’m sure she loved it.”
“Yeah. They moved her into a care facility a couple weeks later. She passed not long after that. Seemed like everyone for blocks was mourning her after she was gone.”
That was sad, but I couldn’t help but think it wasn’t at the same time. One of the last things she knew was some kid she barely knew doing something to add a little beauty to her life and asking for nothing in return.
“Your turn,” he said after a minute when I didn’t pick things up.
“Right. Ummm…” I tried to think of something that wouldn’t send us to a sad place. Neither of us had been great about that thus far, and I didn’t want him to decide this game wasn’t working after all. “I don’t like strawberry things.”
He raised an eyebrow. Why that made my heart flutter, I didn’t know, but it definitely did. “Like strawberry flavored candy?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Well, here went nothing. “I don’t like the seeds and how they cover the outside of the strawberry.”
He blinked. Again. Then, “You don’t like strawberries because of the seeds.”
“Right.”
“So you won’t eat strawberry flavored things even though they don’t have the seeds and they probably don’t use real strawberries anyway.”
“Also right.”
He gave me nothing for a long moment. And then he burst out laughing.
I didn’t even feel the burn of my embarrassment the way I usually did when people learned this particular fact about me and had much the same reaction. I was too busy seeing all that was Park, his usually so emotionless face, taken over by laughter. I wanted to drink it in. I wanted to see him like that forever.
The laughter died out quick, but his face was still full of amusement when he informed me, “Gwen, that’s complete
ly insane.”
“I know.”
“And yet you won’t eat strawberry stuff anyway.”
My face scrunched up, and he was chuckling again. “It’s not that weird.”
“It is.”
“It’s not!”
He schooled his features until he was almost back to the normal Park, but both corners of his lips were still tipped up, and there were slight creases at the outer corners of his eyes. “It is.” There was the faintest hint of that chuckle still in his voice.
Well, it might have been, but I’d take it if it meant getting that reaction from him.
Thaddeus, who had been lounged in his tree by the window, came up and settled himself in my lap, facing Park. He settled there, lying down, and I got the sense this was approval. I’d made his human laugh. Maybe more than the time I’d been around him in the shelter, this one fact meant I could stay.
Park, eyes still lit and fixed on me, reached over and pet him. He started to purr. In that moment, I could have, too.
“What are you doing?”
I spun around. Park was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, eyes slits, rubbing at the back of his head. He was also shirtless, which my brain opted to make the focus of my attention, and with good reason. Park was all lean muscle and more of those brilliant, vibrant tattoos covered his chest. I wanted to explore them, study them, memorize every one.
What I wanted didn’t matter, though. What I needed to do was stop drooling over him like an idiot and answer his question.
“Making French toast.”
His face scrunched a bit. “Why does it smell like something’s burning?”
Oh crap. I flew around, checking the two pieces of egg soaked bread on the pan. They were fine. I blew out a breath. Turning back to him, I explained, “That was the first two. I had an accident.”
“An accident,” he repeated.
“Thaddeus was asking for breakfast. But I didn’t know where you keep his food. I took a little longer searching than I realized.”
“That’s why he wasn’t in my room,” he muttered.
“Sorry?”
“Thad,” he said, “he’s in my room at the crack of dawn every day, asking for breakfast. Woke up because I realized he hadn’t. Only smelled the burnt when I got in here.”
Well, at least the smell was dissipating then.
“You’re just in time. These are the last two. I was going to put it in the oven if you didn’t wake up soon to keep them warm. Now you can get it fresh.”
His eyes, focusing more now, moved from me to the counter where the plate piled up with the cooked slices was piled. “You do the full breakfast thing every day?”
Was it too much? Was he not a morning person and I was making things weird?
“Not usually, no.”
He looked back to me. “Too bad. That smells great.”
I smiled and his eyes dropped to my lips. He bit his, and my treat stuttered.
Was he… Did he… Was Park thinking about kissing me?
He blinked, and his gaze slid away quickly. I was imagining things.
I focused on my French toast, flipping the last two and watching them as if they would go from raw to burnt on the remaining side in a heartbeat if they didn’t have my full attention. I heard rather than saw Park go to the coffeepot and pour a cup.
“You need a top off?”
I was about to say no, but my eyes dropped to my cup and saw it was almost empty. I needed to stop being weird with him, so I said, “Please.”
He came over, pot in hand, and stood right at my side as he topped me off. I could feel him there, close. His smell was lost under the food and coffee, and it made me want to lean in closer.
“Take it black?”
He could see by the color of what was in my mug that I did, but, “First thing in the morning? Black’s good. I need the caffeine more than the hassle with the rest, so I don’t bother.”
He returned the pot to its place, then I heard him open the refrigerator. A moment later, he was beside me again, this time with the gallon of milk in his hand.
“Tell me when.”
He poured slowly, giving me ample time to tell him when he’d added enough. I spoke up at that point, and he stepped back, putting the milk away.
“Sugar?”
“I’m good.”
“Gwen, not doing anything. Do you take it with sugar?”
Was it possible to be so nice it was annoying?
“One spoon.”
He grabbed a small container of sugar with a pour spout and a spoon and went back to fixing up my coffee. He even stirred it for me. He did not, I noted, add either to his own coffee. He drank it black, obviously by choice. He’d only gotten the milk and sugar to take care of me.
“You’re very solicitous,” I remarked.
“Says the one making French toast.”
He may have had a point there, not that I’d concede it.
Checking the last slices and finding they were done, I flipped them onto the plate already piled up with food and announced, “Breakfast is served.”
In return, I got to start my day with that half grin.
Chapter Seventeen
Park
The gust of wind cut through my wet clothes and felt like it was searing my skin. I hadn’t been able to stop the tremors for hours. Maybe days. I wasn’t sure anymore. When I’d hunkered down there, I’d thought the dumpster would act as a shield, but the wind seemed to change directions constantly, funneling down the alley both ways. Keeping my hands tucked in to my belly wasn’t helping anymore. My fingers were prickling with the cold. My feet had long since numbed.
I’d go with numb. It was better than the cold that felt like needles or the ache that had consumed my core. I’d take numb over feeling all of it.
Someone came out of the door closer to the street. A few weeks ago, I might have taken off, left the alley or found somewhere to hide. Now, it just wasn’t worth it. I dropped my head to my knees. Maybe if I could curl tighter, the wind wouldn’t hurt so much.
“Hey, fuckwad.”
I didn’t look. I knew he was speaking to me, but it didn’t matter.
“You fucking deaf? Get the fuck out of here.”
It was a familiar refrain.
Get out. Get out before I finally fucking finish the job. Toss your ass somewhere they won’t find you. No one’d give a fuck you were gone.
A blow came to the side of my head and shoulder, knocking me prone.
“I said get the fuck out of here.”
I should, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know if I had it in me to even sit back upright.
“You little fucking cunt.”
Another blow to my stomach. Pain exploded everywhere. Another to my head and everything got fuzzy. Another. Another. Another.
I shot up in bed, panting.
It was a nightmare, just a fucking nightmare.
Except it had been real. Years ago, but it had all been real. That cold, the hunger, I’d never forget. Even that asshole who came out of the bar, the blows he’d landed. I’d thought I was going to die that night, but I hadn’t. For some reason, my body hung on even when I’d given up.
Then came all the nights after, days and weeks and months where I would wish I just had.
But I wasn’t there anymore.
I had a job. An apartment. A fucking savings account that meant I wouldn’t go back there. I would never go back there.
I’d rather die.
Something touched my arm, and I jumped.
It was Thaddeus. He rubbed his head and side against me, moving across my arm and chest. He was warm. I was warm.
Fuck.
I scratched his head, trying to focus on that, on the fact that I was in my bed instead of out on the street. I’d survived. I’d made it out of that. I’d escaped.
And yet, sometimes, it felt like I never would.
“You look like you need this.”
Jess was standing at my station, to-g
o cup of coffee in her hand that was extended my way. I hadn’t even heard her come back in or approach.
I took it. “Thanks.”
“Rough night?”
You could fucking say that. After waking up at three-thirty in the morning for that flashback, I hadn’t been able to get back to sleep. I’d stayed in bed, trying at first then just not wanting to wake Gwen wondering around the apartment.
When it was finally a somewhat decent hour, I’d gone out to brew a pot of coffee. Gwen could tell something was up when she woke up, but I got out of there and came into the shop early. I knew I was coming across like an asshole, which only added to the fact that I was feeling like complete shit all day.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Cute brunette down the hall?” she teased.
“No.”
She scoffed. “Like you’d admit if it was.”
She was right, even if she was wrong. I wouldn’t tell her, but it wasn’t about Gwen. This happened. The nightmares came creeping in every so often, like they wanted to make sure I didn’t forget where I’d come from, as if I ever could.
“Anyway, just wanted to see if you were bringing her tomorrow?”
Tomorrow was the barbecue at her and Braden’s place. As of yet, she wasn’t wearing a ring—something I didn’t have to look for because Jess would have come in shouting that shit for all to hear. I didn’t know what he had planned for asking her, but we’d all know soon enough.
“Bringing Gwen?”
“No, the other ‘her’ that I could possibly be talking about,” Jess sassed.
I didn’t have it in me to deal with this today. “Jess—”
“I’m not trying to be all matchmaker and shit,” she cut me off. She peddled that back quickly, “Not right now, anyway. But her friend is tight with Cassie, so we ought to just bring them into the fold.”
That was Jess. If you weren’t an asshole, there was always room to add to her circle.
