by Jenna Mills
Everything. The word did cruel, cruel things to my heart.
No one had ever called me everything.
No one had ever called me anything.
“Austin—”
“And I don’t want to hurt you,” he said quietly, and then he was moving, and then he was there, beside me, lifting his hands, his fingers gentle against my jaw. But he didn’t tilt my face toward his. I did that on my own.
“I want to make it all better,” he said. “It kills me to know what happened to you—I would take it away, if I could, erase the shadows and the hurt, the fear…not make them worse.”
I wanted to look away, because looking at him hurt, looking at him twisted me up in ways I didn’t understand. “You do…you do take it away.”
The green of his eyes blazed like an entire forest on fire. “God, you’re beautiful.”
All those little doors inside me, doors I’d excelled at keeping closed, because I had to keep them closed, because I had no idea what would ever happen if anyone saw what was on the other side, slowly began to fall away. And then I was reaching for him, lifting my hands to his face in much the same way he had his on mine.
His eyes burned. “Don’t move,” he said. “Don’t blink—don’t breathe.”
I couldn’t help it. In total violation of his request, I laughed. “What can I do?”
He reached for a small table behind him and came back with the camera we’d used with the kittens. “Be you,” he said, lifting it to his face. “Just like that.” Taking a few steps back toward the row of media chairs, he slid his finger to the shutter release. “That’s what I want. Right there.”
My breath caught.
“You.”
I could feel my heart pounding, the hard rhythm against every pulse point—but I couldn’t move…
“Like this.”
Couldn’t breathe…
“Forever.”
Just like he said.
“Those eyes,” he murmured, and I felt them flare, felt the quick widening, followed by an equally quick heaviness. “They own me.”
My throat burned. My breath burned. Everything. Everything burned. Like fire. Fire streaking through me. “Can I move yet?” I asked, or tried to ask, but the question came out more like a rasp. “It’s getting hard not to breathe.”
He lowered the camera enough for me to see the dark glitter in his eyes. “Just don’t turn away.”
I didn’t.
Couldn’t.
Didn’t want to.
Even though that’s what I always did when it got to be too much. When I could feel someone—feel him, Austin—feel him looking at me. Seeing me. And I knew that he did, see me, not just the long strands of blond falling against my face or my mouth slightly parted, my heavy-lidded eyes, but all those other places, the ones I kept safely tucked away from everyone else.
But in that moment I couldn’t move, because I didn’t want to. Because I was looking, too—and I was seeing, and it was like waking up and seeing sunshine, feeling the warmth, and craving more.
“I won’t,” I whispered. “I won’t turn away—I want to see what comes next.”
He lowered the camera, and gave me his eyes. “Next?”
Something came over me. I’m not sure what. But I couldn’t fight it. Didn’t want to. I was tired of being cautious. Being afraid. Tired of running for shelter.
I wanted…for once…to feel…the storm.
“Next.” My smile changed, streaming from some other place, and with the words, I lifted my hands to my black boho tank top and slid the top button through its hole. Then the next, and the next.
The whole time, I kept my eyes on Austin’s.
The next.
He stood frozen, watching.
Another.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, reaching back to gather a handful of hair and drape it over my shoulder. “Don’t you want a picture of this?”
His eyes flared, a quick little explosion of surprise and something else, something darker, but he had it all under control before I could draw another breath.
“To remember this?” I pressed, slipping back toward the gorgeous velvet sofa, with all its rounded edges and curves. “Or…” I breathed over the hard rush inside me, the roaring pulsing louder with every throb of my heart, “do you want me to stop?”
Austin didn’t move. “Zoe…what are you doing?”
I lifted my eyes to his, slowly, deliberately, as the last button came free, and my top fell open. With a little shrug, the soft cotton slipped down my arms and fell to the floor, leaving me standing there in my simple black bralette and faded denim shorts.
“Isn’t that obvious?” I turned slightly, letting my hair fall against the dragonfly at the base of my neck. “You only live once,” I whispered, bringing my hands behind my neck and lifting my hair up off my shoulders and holding it there, in another pose. “And that’s what I want to do.”
Live.
Be alive.
Slowly, woodenly, Austin lifted the camera to his face, his finger to the shutter release, and began to click.
“I don’t want to be invisible,” I murmured, raising my arms higher and letting my hair rain down around me. “I want you to see me.”
And then somehow he was there, he was there and the camera was gone, and with a low muffled sound his mouth slanted down against mine, not the soft gentle greeting of before, but more familiar already. More forceful. Desperate. Urgent. This, was all I could think.
This.
More.
Not goodbye.
And then we were both on the sofa and he was on top of me, and I could feel him, feel all of him, and it was like a dream, a dream swirling around me and consuming me, consuming us, a dream where nothing else mattered, nothing but the incredible rush inside me. I could drown here, I knew in some hazy corner of my mind, I could drown but I wasn’t afraid, didn’t want it to stop, didn’t want it to end—didn’t need to breathe. I only wanted to lose myself…and find something new.
His mouth left mine, skimming down my jaw to my neck, to the dragonfly fluttering at my pulse point. “So beautiful,” he murmured, as his hands made quick work of my bra.
Sensation swamped me. I arched into him, my legs falling open as he pressed closer, and then I was reaching for him, reaching and finding him as his mouth slid lower.
“Your parents—” I heard myself murmur.
“Won’t be home for hours,” he answered before I could finish asking. “And they’d never just walk in back here.”
And then his mouth was there, and conscious thought fell away. There was only him, and us, and the way he made me feel, and the need, the need to feel more, to feel all, feel everything. His hands found the waistband of my shorts, mine found his. Our legs tangled, skin to skin. And then he was there, pressing against me, and I was welcoming him, wrapping my legs around his hips and holding him as we came together in every imaginable way, and there was nothing else, only us and the mindless, urgent rhythm, until I couldn’t take it one second longer and I heard myself crying out, crying out as his mouth again found mine, our fingers joined, and everything else fell away.
I lay in the darkness, my head on his chest, listening to the steady thrum of his heart. From the giant projection screen, the movie had given way to darkness. It was late, after midnight. I knew it was time to go. Five more minutes, I told myself. I’d slip from his arms in five more minutes…
But I didn’t want to.
Safe.
For the first time since that night, since before then, I felt…safe.
Five minutes turned into ten, fifteen, until at some point a loud buzz broke the silence. I felt Austin tense, his body crazy still until the buzz came again. His phone. His breath rushed out and his heart kicked hard as eased from beneath me and crossed naked to the bar.
Through the shadows I watched him. Watched him pick up the phone, look down, then stalk from the room.
Several minutes went by. Several more. I waite
d for him to come back, but the minutes piled up on each other, and, without him next to me, cold replaced the warmth. Knowing I had work in the morning, I dressed and gathered my things, then headed toward the front of the house.
I found him in the kitchen, standing with his back to me, looking down at the island. His phone was off to the side. I stood there a moment, watching him, the way the shadows played against the contours of his shoulders and back. At some point he’d pulled on shorts. I wanted to slip up behind him and slide my arms around his waist, hold on tight, but something held me back, as if I was hovering on the edge of a dream.
We’d known each other less than a week. It didn’t seem possible.
I’m not sure what gave me away, but without warning, he turned and blasted me with a smile. “Hey.”
It was crazy how good he looked standing there, and crazy what the sight of him did to me. Crazy how naked I still felt, even though I was the one fully dressed.
“Hey,” I said back, trying to play the moment as cool as possible, but the word came out more breath than voice.
His hair was messy, dark blond bangs sweeping into his face as he slid a red apple toward me. “Hungry?”
I told myself to act normal—but had no idea what normal was. “Not really.”
His mouth curved. “I was starving.”
Heat shot through me. The moment held, stretched, until finally I looked away, toward the white granite—and saw my portfolio open in front of him.
“You’re really good,” he said. “How long have been taking pictures?”
It was like a bucket of ice water. Pictures. Photography.
The internship.
San Francisco.
“Forever,” I whispered, stepping closer. Since I was a kid. “It’s all I ever wanted to do.”
“It shows,” he said, flipping the page. “Where’s this?”
I stood there in the shadows of the gleaming stainless steel kitchen, with Austin right beside me, and tried to breathe. I knew it was there, the picture, one of the few I had from that day, the last one with Hannah. I’d taken it with my phone, not my camera. I’d added the glossy 8x10 to my portfolio weeks before. But seeing his finger slide along the frozen image was like slamming one world, one life, into another.
Two worlds I never wanted to collide.
Austin leaned toward the picture, sliding his finger along the bottom edge. “Who’s this?”
She stood there, with her copper hair blowing in the breeze, laughing at something silly she’d just said—I didn’t remember what. I didn’t remember much. Only bits and pieces, like a random slideshow.
“Zoe?” Austin glanced back. “What’s wrong?”
Time fell away, and for a cruel heartbeat, it was April again, and I was there. In the mountains.
I tried to erase it, erase it all, the memories, the nightmares, but the way his eyes narrowed told me I wasn’t fast enough.
“She was my friend,” I said quietly. “Hannah.”
His eyes, those amazing pools of mossy green, narrowed in silent understanding. “Was?”
“Was,” I repeated. Turn left, turn right. There were moments, I knew, moments that changed, defined, every moment yet to come. I could tell him, or I could lie.
“That was the day everything changed,” I said, staring down at the forest of Christmas trees. And I told him. Told him everything about Hannah. “She wanted me to go up in the mountains with her, to show me her special place.” Robotically, I lowered my fingers to the slants of sunlight playing against a fast-moving mountain stream, the snow-capped peaks standing guard against the phenomenal blue sky. “She was so quiet…distracted. Maybe if I’d been able to look closely at the pictures I took…” I’d always wonder. “But that was the night Tucker Cole came into my room.”
Austin whipped around. It was all there in his eyes.
“About a week later Hannah didn’t show up for work.”
He stood there motionless, watching me.
“A few days later they found her car down near Garden of the Gods, off a dirt road. She was inside…but she’d been gone a long time before they found her.”
Wordlessly, Austin looked back at the beautifully serene picture.
“Heroin.” I looked too, at the mountains in the distance, the shadows falling into the foreground. “It’s weird to see her like that, and remember how alive she was. It makes me realize how fast things can change.” And how fragile life could be.
Austin drew me closer. I leaned against him, closing my eyes a long breath and letting him hold me.
“She was always talking about living,” I remembered, “doing things that made you feel alive, really alive, so you didn’t leave life unfinished.”
“Is that what I am? What tonight is?”
I twisted to look up at him, and felt everything inside me shift. “That night Tucker Cole came into my room…I thought he was going to kill me. That I was going to die without ever having really lived.” Without having known what it was like to fall for an incredible guy. “And I realized…I realized how badly I wanted to live. And that’s what tonight is. That’s what you are. Living.”
His eyes flared, a quick little explosion of surprise and something else, something darker, but he had it all under control before I could draw another breath.
“I want to take you back,” he said.
“What?”
He lifted a hand to my face, his fingers playing along my cheekbone. “To the mountains,” he murmured. “To build a better memory.”
I smiled, and went back into his arms.
I’m not sure how I drove back to Emily’s after that. I’m not sure how I slept or got through the long morning at work. But I know all of that happened, because I stood behind the counter at The Java Joint, counting the hours until I saw Austin again.
“Do you know if Lexi ever reached Detective Cooper?” Emily asked.
I finished handing change to an older woman who screamed tourist. “I have no idea. I haven’t talk to him.”
“She’s up to something.”
“Definitely,” I said, greeting the next customer in line, this one not a regular, but at least familiar. With his long blond hair and the gauge in his ear, the ink on his forearm, he pretty much screamed local.
I took his order and made polite small talk, but it was hard concentrating on customers and making cappuccinos and lattes, pretending to want to be there, to be interested, when all I could think about was later, at Austin’s place…
“Just go,” Emily said, agreeing to cover the last two hours of my shift. “I got this.”
Within fifteen minutes I was in a dressing room a few blocks away, my plain white shirt and beige bra in a pile on the floor, replaced by black lace. On a little hanger hung the matching thong.
Dreamlike I lifted my hand to my ribs and slid upward, over the swell of my breasts, closed my eyes, and saw Austin.
The rush was immediate, the quickening, and I knew. I knew what I wanted. I would worry about tomorrow…tomorrow.
Five minutes later I was walking out the door—and saw him.
Chapter 9
I told myself to keep walking. I told myself not to look back, that it wasn’t him. That even if it was, it didn’t mean anything…
But I couldn’t keep walking, not without checking, not when already I knew the truth.
He stood across the street, next to an ornamental tree, holding a paper coffee cup—the same coffee cup I’d given him over thirty minutes before—watching me.
Our eyes met.
He didn’t look away.
For a heartbeat I didn’t either. I took him in, drank him in, the image of him across the street giving way to that of him across the counter, the long blond hair and the gauge in his ear, the kind of guy you’d run across a hundred times a day but never think twice about, because he blended in.
But a dark whisper went through me anyway—a dark whisper I recognized all too well.
A face I recognized, I
remembered thinking...
Robotically, I did something I would never have done only a few months before. I reached for my phone to snap a quick picture—a picture to have, to show L.T.—
—but never got the chance.
Because a text was waiting—a text from L.T.
And that moment of hesitation, the moment of seeing L.T.’s name already on my screen and realizing I’d missed a text, was all it took for the guy across the street to vanish among the sea of families with strollers, as if he’d never been there to begin with.
Heart slamming I did something else I would never have done before. I took off across the street to the other side of the sidewalk, where he’d stood. I hurried from one shop to another, looking, searching—
But he was gone.
Frustrated, I slipped back outside and into the shade of an awning, and remembered the text from L.T.
Debating whether or not I should tell him about the guy—who was probably perfectly harmless—I pulled up the message.
Hey. Em said you left early.
Are you somewhere we can talk?
The late afternoon sun blazed from a blue, blue sky, but for a frozen moment I couldn’t feel it, couldn’t feel the warmth, only a quick chill whispering through me.
No big deal, I told myself. There was nothing ominous about his text. He stopped by the coffee shop almost every day. He checked up on me. That’s all he was doing.
But as I typed out my response, my hands tried to shake.
Because of the guy, I knew.
Because of the paranoia.
The feeling I couldn’t make go away, not even when I was with Austin, that something was wrong.
That I was being watched.
Followed.
Over on 19th. What’s up?
