Tommy
Door To The Den: quietly inching open. Dad & Mom: in the way of a good, hard fuck.
I listen to the sounds of the television in the living room, and pans moving in the kitchen. Devising my escape was easy; I’ll leave through the window behind me, but I need keys. I’m assuming my car is still in the garage and opening the garage door will be a cacophonous alert of grinding belts and chains. Plus, it moves too slowly. Even if it rose up high enough for me to speed out underneath it before my dad made it to the driver’s door to yank it open and drag me out, he’d just run out, jump in his own car and chase me down. I want them to never know I left. I’ll be back before they wake up tomorrow.
As I tiptoe toward the stairs, I realize that Dad heard me come in, in the dead of night, and already had his shotgun pointed at me, so what the fuck am I doing? Sneaking is the wrong way to go about this. With all of my weight, I change tactics and walk into the living room like nothing is amiss.
“Well, look who’s up. Bathroom’s that way.” My dad says with a quick glance my way before he looks back to the T.V.
“What are you watching?”
“What does it look like I’m watching?” He doesn’t look back to me. So I watch the screen for a couple minutes as my mom comes in and puts a beer in front of him and reaches to take away the empty one. “Thank you,” he mumbles. She smiles and I shake my head at the complexity of their relationship. I’ll never understand them.
“You’re watching Orange Is The New Black?” I ask, glancing over to his jacket on the table behind us. Next to it are his keys.
Dad picks up his beer and takes a swig. “Great fucking show,” he says, reaching to the remote to tune me out with louder volume.
This gives me an idea. “Hey, Dad, I was thinking…”
He turns up the volume louder. I glance over to the kitchen and see my mom’s back as she cleans the stove with a sponge and big bottle of yellow liquid. Probably something organic, knowing her. Taking a couple steps closer to the keys, I continue, “What if I moved back in here with you guys?”
He snorts, eyes glued to the screen.
There is no way in hell I would EVER move back in here. I’m thirty years old for Christ’s sake. “Why not, Dad? I’m tired of living in the city.”
“I’M TRYING TO WATCH MY DAMN SHOW!” he bellows, throwing up his arm in disgust and looking to the side. He grabs up the clicker and hits the volume yet again and just as he does, one of the girls starts a fight in the onscreen bathroom. Their catfight masks the sound of my dad’s keys being quietly lifted from the table.
Walking to the den, I clutch the keys to my chest like I’m holding my wounded shoulder, grumbling loudly, “Alright! Alright! It was just an idea! I’m going back to sleep.”
In the den, I close the door and dash to the window, pulling it up and biting down my yelp of pain as I climb out. My feet fall with a crunch onto the plants outside. I look toward the kitchen window, waiting to see if Mom heard. I don’t see her pop her head out, so I rush to the fence and out to the street to climb into my dad’s Ford pickup and drive back over the Golden Gate Bridge.
My phone I left in the den. If they do check in, without the GPS that’s lodged in it telling them where I am, there’s no way they’ll find me. Not until I want them to. The pain in my shoulder is pounding. Even though I was careful, I irritated it to no end just now.
But I don’t care.
All I care about is getting to Rebecca.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Brendan
M.R.I. Experience: weird, but cool. Lung: on the mend. Wound: stretched a little, but good enough. Eyes: on Annie’s ass as she walks out of the hospital first, since I’m a gentleman.
“Do you want to drive?” Annie asks me, moving a soft lock of hair behind her ear as we leave the hospital.
“No, that’s okay. You can drive, but thank you for that.”
She nods. “I wish I’d brought your shoes back.”
Walking barefoot along the pavement, I say with a laugh, “It’s okay. I’m just happy to be out of that room. I wouldn’t have cared if I left wearing one of their hospital gowns.”
“The jeans and jacket with no shirt combo is very hot, by the way,” she smiles and reaches for my hand, like it’s the most natural thing in the world for her to do. I keep my eyes forward, but I’m very aware of her next to me. Walking out into the real world with her by my side feels natural to me, too, and that’s what makes it strange. I’m normally not this comfortable with the women I’m interested in, because that interest has always had an inevitable end-date.
Distracted by these thoughts, I let her hand go and carefully lower myself into her car. She gets in and we both shut our doors at the same time, saying nothing, the silence charged. As she puts the car in gear and looks behind her back to reverse out, I glance to her face and see her mind is just as full as mine, so I sit back and focus on the dashboard. It’s got a thin layer of dust on it and I mentally make note to have it detailed for her when I’m up and running again. I know a carwash that does a great job with interior detailing; I’ll take it there for her as a thank you for helping me.
“Where do you live?” she asks, as soon as we’re at the exit.
“Go left. My place is just a couple blocks up from your bar.”
She smiles, instantly wistful. “Oh… right.”
I know what she’s thinking, that we were supposed to go there that night. I’d promised her it was nearby and… “Yeah.”
She cuts a glance to me as she turns the wheel, checking her rearview. “Burgers first though, yes?”
A grin spreads on my face instantly. “Right! I forgot. Burgers! Zoe’s is great.”
“That’s on Mission, too, yes?” I nod. She smiles and heads in the direction of home. God, I can’t wait. “Tell me about your job. Do you love it?”
Grateful for a familiar subject, I launch in, telling her all the things I love about my job; the people, the creativity it affords me, the pay. She listens to a few of my campaigns and shows real interest, asking good questions, really listening. When we get to Zoe’s, we’re still talking about it, stopping only to order a couple of burgers and fries to go, with a salad to share. We take a seat at the bar while we wait and Annie opts not to drink, but I get a Sazerac, one of their signature cocktails because she wants to taste it, see what the competition is doing.
“Well, it’s not really your competition, since you don’t serve food. You want to promote that, too. Show what you are, clearly, so that people know what they’re getting.”
She leans forward a little and puts her head on her hand, facing me on her bar stool. “What am I, exactly?”
“You’re a dark and classy lounge bar for the hip, up and comers who want to get together with friends, or make out in a dark corner if they’re really lucky.” I grin at her as she looks at my mouth, hers spreading into a slow smile.
“You nailed that,” she says.
My grin fades and I lean in and kiss her. She receives the kiss and bites her bottom lip, licking it as I pull away. She tries the drink and likes it, and we go back to talking about Location Times Three until the burgers arrive.
Walking outside, she points to her car. “See, told you we wouldn’t get a ticket.”
I chuckle, shaking my head. “Parking in the red in this city is begging for a ticket.”
After she opens her door, she looks at me over the top of the car. “I would normally agree with you, but I think you and I are fresh out of bad luck.” She tilts her head to the side and shrugs both shoulders before dipping down and getting in.
I lower myself in, holding the bag of food, and give her my address. Then I take a deep inhale. “Annie?”
She’s looking to her left to see if traffic is coming. “Yeah?”
I take in her profile, her arms bent at the elbows, her hands gripping the wheel. As I follow these, my eyes naturally fall on the radio. It’s off. I didn’t even notice it was off. “My plac
e is really close to here, so you’ll want to drive slow.”
Annie pulls out onto the street and mumbles, distracted by traffic, “Okay. I can do that.”
With my eyes on the cars in front of us, I’m stunned and silent. I was just about to give her the speech. I was going to tell her what I tell all of them, not to get attached. I will be seeing other people. Everything Rebecca and Teri, and probably all the others, memorized.
The voice that is always in my head saying, Protect yourself, said something else a little louder.
Don’t.
Protect.
Yourself.
Not this time.
The End of Book 2
in the Hearts Series
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About the Author
Faleena Hopkins is an American best selling author, actress, and award-winning filmmaker whose novels have sold over a million copies worldwide. Her movie Just One More Kiss launched in theaters Feb. 2020 after it won Best Feature Film at BAFF in 2019. The novel launched at the same time, her first in hardback. Faleena currently resides in California with her oh-so-gentle senior rescue dog, Sophia, where she drinks too much coffee and not enough wine. Sophia prefers water. Lots of water.
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Copyright © 2020 by Faleena Hopkins
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Cover designed by Faleena Hopkins
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction, an imaginary world set in the real city of San Francisco for the purpose of entertainment only. People and circumstances have been made up by the author and are in no way associated to real people.
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Reaching Hearts: Hearts Series Book 2 Page 15
