Perfect (Holt Brothers Book 1)

by Leila Lucas

  I grab the keys quietly and stand in front of the car in the garage. My heart is racing just thinking about the freedom I’ll finally have. The freedom to leave the house and go wherever I want to. To get away from all the cautious eyes that are always on me.

  The second I closed the car door the claustrophobia hit me like a ton of bricks. All of a sudden it’s as if someone had sucked all the air out of the car and I was choking. It’s hot. Too hot. I’m too numb to take my top off. I need to get out of my clothes. My heart is beating so fast I can see my chest moving under my T-shirt. There’s no air going in or out. Sweat runs down my face and my vision is starting to blur. I reach for the door handle, but my hands are trembling so much I can’t grip onto anything. I can’t keep my head upright anymore, so I clutch the steering wheel and rest my head against it. At this point I don’t know if the loud horn is the car or just in my head.

  I’m having a heart attack and nobody knows where I am.

  There are so many sounds running through my head and the louder they get the heavier they feel on my chest. I can’t breathe.

  The first sign of comfort is hearing my dad’s voice over the car horn that my head is pushing down. He’s repeatedly saying my name, but that’s all I can understand right now. I feel a rush of fresh air come through as someone opens the car door and drags me out onto the floor.

  “Can’t… can’t breathe.” I look him in the eyes. My dad is the manliest man I know. He is smart as hell, he can build and fix absolutely anything, and I’ve never seen him cry. Until right now.

  “I need you to concentrate on your breathing. Look at me and follow my inhaling and exhaling, okay?” He speaks as sternly as possible while a tear runs down his face. I nod and follow his directions all while my insides still feel like they’re going to explode. I didn’t break eye contact with him until my heart started beating at a semi normal pace and I had control of my own breathing. I fell into his arms and we both stayed there until I could get up on my own.

  “I need help.” I finally admit.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  CHLOE

  “Just a sec!” I yell at whoever is at the door while I quickly change out of my pajamas. Nobody comes by here, so I’m not sure who to expect. I open the door and an enormous bunch of roses are placed right in front of my face, blocking me from seeing who is holding them. The bouquet slowly starts moving down and I see a pair of eyes looking right at me. Dylan.

  “These are for you.” He hands them to me.

  “Thank you.” I put them on the table next to the door. “Come in.” I open the door wider and he walks in alone.

  “Did you drive?” I check outside the door, hoping to see someone else. The thought of Dylan getting in a car is freaking me out.

  “Don’t worry, Ben drove me here and left.” He takes my hand and leads me to the lounge.

  “So you found me.” I point out the obvious. Only Ben and his parents know I’m staying at their cabin. It was a tranquil writing space and I was technically homeless. So renting the place out was the perfect solution for me.

  “Ben told me you were here.” He looks around and smiles. I genuinely don’t remember the last time I saw Dylan smile. Right now I’m in between wanting to kiss him and slap him across the face.

  “Bear spray.” He points to a box near the front door. Silly? Yes. But a girl’s gotta be careful.

  “I didn’t have anyone protecting me this time.” The silence in the room is heavy. For the first time since we met there’s an unfamiliar awkwardness between us.

  “Oh yeah.” Dylan turns around to grab something out of the small backpack he has with him. I noticed that his fingers gripped the zipper a lot faster than they did when I was around. “I was hoping you could sign this.” He hands me a copy of my new book. “I wanted to be the first person to pre-order it when you mentioned it. It arrived a few days ago.” Dylan pre-ordering the book was sweet, but it didn’t surprise me in the slightest. It’s Dylan. World’s most supportive boyfriend. What I was surprised by was seeing his ring finger sit almost flatly on the book.

  “Can you make it out to Jackass Dylan?”

  “Your finger.” I run my finger down it gently.

  “Yeah.” He smiles again. “Latest tests showed the muscle recovering. Didn’t really believe it until my finger hit a key on my laptop. Pretty sure it was the second best day of my life. Still working on this guy, though.” He turns his hand so I can see his pinkie finger sticking up.

  “And the pain?”

  “It’s gotten a lot better since…”

  Since you kicked me out of your apartment? Since you told me that you don’t want to see me again?

  “I’m really happy for you, Dyl.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says after a while.

  DYLAN

  “Do you want anything to eat?” She ignores my apology. “I was just about to make some sandwiches.”

  “Sure.” I follow her to the kitchen. This is the first time I’ve noticed boxes stacked along the wall.

  “You still haven’t unpacked?”

  “I’m packing.”

  I watch her as she makes my sandwich. She knows exactly what I want because she’s made it a million times for me after the accident.

  “I got a new place.”

  Once again I didn’t know what was happening with her. I’d ask Ben how she was, but he stopped giving me updates after a while and told me to find out on my own.

  “Where?” I’m scared of the answer. I don’t know where we stand right now. If she’s moving back to L.A. I’ll know for certain she’s given up on us. With Ben and Vikki gone I’m the only reason she’s still in Nashville. If she’d let me I’d move there to try work things out. I would follow her to the end of the world to be with her.

  “About ten minutes away from my old apartment.” There’s still hope for us. It might be a slow process to getting her back, but at least I know she’s still willing. “I’m going to drive a bunch of boxes there soon, so I can drop you off at home.” She places the two sandwiches on the dining room table. I never noticed how big this table is until she sat across from me. I don’t even get to my second bite when Chloe stands up, one half of her sandwich in hand, and starts placing things in her boxes.

  “Can you just sit down and eat? You don’t need to rush. I’ll help you pack.” I just get a head shake as a response. She’s facing the wall as she not-so-gently places a candle in the box. My chair screeches as I push it back to stand up.

  “Don’t,” she says quietly. She’s still facing away form me. Now I know she’s crying.

  “Please. Let me help. I can’t just sit here and watch you cry and pack.”

  She inhales deeply and turns around. Her red eyes are breaking my heart right now. “I didn’t expect you to be here today.” She wipes away a tear. I stay seated because I want to hear what she has to say. I prepared for the worst yet it’s the silence that’s killing me. “I’ve imagined what I’d be like when I saw you again and it was always a different outcome. Now you’re here unexpectedly and I’m feeling all the emotions at once. I want to tell you that I’ve missed you, but at the same time I want to scream at you and tell you how much you’ve hurt me. I want to kiss you and punch you, but I need to decide which of those I won’t regret.”

  “I just can’t sit across from you, Dylan. I can’t look at you because it hurts.”

  I get up and walk past her to go upstairs.

  CHLOE

  I don’t know what just happened. I refuse to follow him to the bedroom because I’m not apologizing and I don’t have the energy to yell at him for running off like that. But what if he’s not feeling good? What if he went to the bathroom instead of a bedroom?

  My phone starts vibrating on the coffee table. It’s Dylan.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I shouldn’t have come here without asking you first. I should have eased into it with a phone call
first. I never asked what you wanted. I’m sorry about that.”

  I still don’t have the right things to say. I don’t know what I think. I don’t know what I feel.

  “Say what you want, Chloe. You can be mean, you can be vulnerable. I know you have a million things in your head. Start with one thing. Anything.”

  “Did you start seeing anyone else?” I wince at my question. The longer the time went on the more concrete this breakup was. I stopped thinking he’d come back because he hadn’t spoken to me for months now. I wanted to say so many other things, but this was a big thing. The rest we could work through, but this was a deal breaker for me.

  “Oh, Chloe.” He sighs. “No.”

  I exhale as my tears continue running down my face. I feel like a bunch of weight has been lifted off my back.

  “Fuck,” he says agitatedly before he lowers his voice. “I fucked this up so bad. It didn’t even cross my mind that you might think I had given up on us. I never did anything even close to that. I would never do that and I’m so fucking sorry that it even crossed your mind. I regret not talking to you so much it’s killing me. I thought not speaking to you until I was better was the right thing to do. I just wanted to apologize when I was perfect for you so you can see I’ve changed.” With the last word, his voice broke and he starts crying. Not once did I see him cry throughout the months of frustration and pain he was going through during the worst time of his life. I might not want to forgive and forget, but I need him as much as he needs me right now. I drop the phone on the couch and go upstairs to find him.

  All the bedroom doors are open except for the main one, so I know he’s in there. When I open the door I see Dylan sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed end. He looks like a mess compared to just ten minutes ago. I kneel down next to him and pull his head toward my chest. Immediately his arms go around my waist tightly. I hate seeing him hurt.

  “You’ve always been perfect for me.” I rest my chin on the top of his head. Sometimes actions speak louder than words and this, right now, is what we both need more than any apology. We stay in the same position until we both get our shit together.

  “Okay. I’m going to get up now and help you pack.” He wipes his eyes with his sleeves then turns to me and wipes mine with his thumbs. “We can talk or not talk the entire time up until I get home. It’s entirely up to you. I’m going to take this as slow as you need to.”

  I love that he knows me well enough not to push this any further than what it is.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  CHLOE

  I’d scrub Chloe’s toilet all day every day if that’s what it took to spend time with her. Fortunately for me she’s been allowing me to help her with the move daily—no toilet scrubbing necessary. Chloe’s new place is a lot bigger than her old apartment so she had to buy new furniture, which arrived in flat packs. Chloe is talented at many things, but putting together furniture isn’t one of those things. There is so much to do so she was happy to have me over every day to help her, and I sure as hell wasn’t complaining.

  I came over with fresh pastries and coffee from Noah’s. I built things. She re-positioned them a million times. We ate pizza on the floor. I went home. And repeat the next day.

  “I have PTSD,” I blurt out. There’s something easier about opening up to someone when you’re not facing them. I love Chloe and can tell her anything about myself, but this? This makes me feel like the smallest man in the world. I continue to take apart the drawer parts for her dresser. She attempted to do it herself and half of them ended up backward.

  “What?”

  My back is to her, but I know she stopped cleaning the windows when I said that.

  “I had nightmares about the accident almost every night. They felt so real that I woke up sweating constantly. I had my window open when one day a car screeched in the parking lot and I swear I could feel the impact all over again. I could feel the car spinning. I could feel the airbags and my head hitting the window. I fell to the floor and I didn’t get up for hours. I refused to go outside after that day.” I continue working on the dresser because it’s distracting me. I haven’t spoken to anybody about this apart from my therapist and people at my support group. “I hoped that having the TV on loudly would drown out noises from the outside or when I’m sleeping and that helped some nights. I wanted to get better and die at the same time.”

  Chloe’s arms wrap around my waist and she leans her head on my back. Her touch brings more peace than I could have imagined.

  “Dylan, I had no idea. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Things looked so different from the other side of that bedroom door.” She sniffles.

  “Please don’t be sorry. I didn’t tell anyone because I was embarrassed. People get into accidents all the time and deal with it, but here I was locked up in my room like a bitch. One day I got into a big fight with my parents and grabbed their car keys without them noticing. The second I sat in the driver seat I felt like someone punched me in the chest. I couldn’t breathe. I was convinced I was having a heart attack. I don’t remember much aside from Dad pulling me out of the car and telling me how to breathe. I broke down in the garage and that same day they took me to the doctors.”

  “And that’s when they diagnosed you?”

  “I had to see a few specialists and they diagnosed me. Now I go to therapy and support group. They put me on medication for now too. I still have shit going on. I don’t sleep properly every night. Sometimes I end up on the couch with the TV on. I still can’t sit in the driver’s seat of a car. I have headaches and my two fingers don’t always do what I want them to do. But getting into the car that day was the best thing I did. I don’t think I’d be here today if I didn’t get the help.” I wish I didn’t wait so long to tell her all of this. The warmth of her body behind me brings me more peace than I’ve ever felt in the past year. And that’s all she wanted, to help, to be there, and I just tossed her out of my life like she was nothing.

  “So the things I said to you, the way I treated you, the way I shamefully asked you to leave my apartment… that wasn’t me. I wanted to be someone you deserve before I came back to you.”

  “I can’t believe you were doing all that and I asked you if you were seeing anyone.” She shakes her head against my back.

  “I didn’t handle that well. In my mind I was just going to show up when I was better and we’d go back to where we were. Looking back on it now I realize how much of a selfish idiot I’ve been.”

  “I still have a lot of mixed feelings, but mostly I just really missed you.”

  “I missed you too. I hope we can get back to where we were.”

  “Me too.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief.

  “I’m just going to stay here for a while,” she says, hugging me tighter. “You get back to work.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I smile.

  DYLAN

  “Oh wow, that’s huge!” She walks into the spare bedroom, which is now her office. “I’m going to need to buy so many more books now.” She stares at her corner bookshelf in awe. This is the second huge bookshelf I’ve put together for her in the last few days and she’s just as excited about this one as she was about the last one.

  “Come, I have to show you something.” I lead the way to the lounge, where her back wall is basically just shelving now. “Turn the lights off.” As she does that I switch the power on next to the big bookshelf. The bookshelf is subtly lit up. It looks almost as good as the Pinterest photos she had saved.

  “Oh. My. God.”

  “Don’t worry. I didn’t damage the walls or anything. I did have to drill two tiny holes for the cable so I can hide it behind and you don’t have to look at it. It’s supposed to be a lot fancier, but this is the best I could do. When you buy your own place I’ll Pinterest the shit out of it.” I wait for a response, but instead I get Chloe wrapping her arms around me from my side.

  “Thank you.” She lets go and stands next to me. “I love it. I can’t belie
ve you did all this in one day.

  Oddly enough it was relaxing, albeit challenging because of my hand. I knew she’d love it, so her reaction kept me going.

  CHLOE

  I’m officially twenty-four years old today, almost halfway to fifty. With the exception of having dessert for dinner, my birthdays are just another day on the calendar. This year I have Dylan in my life. The Holts are big on any sort of celebration and Dylan included me in their traditions. When I woke up I had breakfast in bed with flowers and balloons sitting on my bedside table.

  There were three birthday cards sitting on my bed; from Susan and Roy, Astor Blue, and the last one is from Dylan. Dylan’s card just had instructions to be ready to go to dinner at the Red Bar at six. I’ve been to the bar so many times yet have never eaten in the restaurant area.

  * * *

  The weather has been insanely hot and tonight is no exception. I play it safe—and comfortable—by wearing a floral minidress and small-heeled sandals. Comfort over style. I think I’m starting to show my old age already.

  “Just so you know I didn’t forget your present.”

  “I’m happy just not to be alone today, so thank you for taking me out.”

  “It’s my pleasure. Sorry it wasn’t anywhere fancy, but I feel like we’ve tried that before and it didn’t go so well.” He laughs.

  My mind went right back to that day. The perfect date with the perfect guy. I went from excited and nervous to calm and deliriously happy. The bad dinner turned out to be a good thing because it just elongated our night. Maybe tonight will be like a second first date. Maybe this is where we start again.

  Dylan opens the restaurant’s front door for me. “Try not to lose your voice,” he whispers as I walk past him.

  “Why would I lose my—OH MY GOOOOODDDDDDD!” I didn’t care about losing my voice, or deafening everyone that was seated because my friends are sitting at the table. My family. Vikki runs in for a hug first.