by Naima Simone
“Well, congratulations,” I force out. “When do you leave?”
He cocks his head to the side, studying me like some failed science experiment. And in this moment, I feel like one of those eviscerated frogs, spread out and skin pinned down so he can glimpse every bit of me—the hurt, anger, completely inexplicable sense of loss.
I shut the lid of the to-go box, my appetite having fled. Stuffing it back into the plastic bag, I stand, needing to escape this room, escape him…escape myself.
“Cypress.” My name in that sandpaper-rough voice doesn’t stop me as I head toward the door. The hand encircling my bicep does. “Cypress, what’s wrong?” Gently, but with a firm hold on me, Jude turns me around until I face him. “You’re angry,” he murmurs, pinching my chin and tilting my head back.
Ignoring the spot of warmth that radiates from where he touches me, I look him in the eye and lie. “No. I just need to get to work.”
“You’re angry,” he repeats in that maddeningly calm tone. It just makes me even more mad because of the maelstrom of ridiculous emotions wailing and twisting inside me.
“I’m not.” I jerk my head out of his grasp and step back, placing much-needed space between us. At least on my part. “I have no reason to be upset with you. We’re roommates, Jude. You’re giving me a place to stay for a while. That doesn’t mean we’re privy to each other’s personal information. And I’m sorry for prying.”
“Playing the victim doesn’t sit well on you,” he says, green eyes hooded.
Now I’m angry. “See? This is why we’re not friends. None of mine would dare call me a victim.” Call me a bitch, a cunt, a raging asshole, but that word? No. For a year, I fought being seen as a victim—even as I was being victimized. Now, when I was trying to jack my life out of neutral and back into drive, back into moving forward, I despised that word.
Because deep down, in a place I rarely acknowledged, a tiny part of me believed I was one.
“Then stop acting like one,” he counters, his tone just as calm as before. But those eyes…they glittered. “I wasn’t intentionally keeping anything from you. It never came up because of all that’s been going on in the last few weeks. You’re my friend, Cypress. I wouldn’t intentionally lie to you by omission. Or just up and tell you in another month that you need to pack and get out because I’m leaving. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“I’m not your responsibility,” I snap, because damn it, that throb has intensified behind my sternum. A month. He would be gone across an ocean in another month.
For all intents and purposes, I’ve only really known him for little over a month. During those three years of our childhood, we were too busy snapping and sniping at each other to become friends, much less family. But these weeks, Jude has become a… Hell, what is he? Not a friend, because I don’t wage an internal battle every night over entering my buddies’ bedrooms and climbing in with them. I don’t dream about fucking my pals.
Yet he’s the closest I’ve come to one in too long to count.
But this impending separation is good.
Yes, it is. Becoming attached to Jude would be a bonehead mistake. Becoming dependent on him, a disaster.
“I never said you were my responsibility,” he replies, lowering his arms and reclaiming the space I inserted between us. “I don’t know what happened to you out there in California, but it’s screwed up the way you view people. Makes you look at an outstretched hand as if it’s about to haul back and smack you. Makes you see kindness as pity. Has you viewing help as a burden. Friendship as obligation.”
Screw him. “We’re not friends,” I point out…again. As if the more I say and think it, the deeper it will sink. But not for him, for me.
“Sherlock.”
I blink, thrown by the sudden, random switch of subject. “What?”
“It’s your favorite show—the BBC version, not the one with Lucy Liu. And it’s not just that Cumberbatch guy that keeps you hooked. You watch so you can try to outsmart him and figure out the killer before him.” I gape at him, but he isn’t finished. “Reese’s Pieces, not peanut butter cups. Your favorite snack. Especially after midnight when you come home from work and can’t wind down enough to sleep.”
My lips part, but not one sound emerges. All I can manage is to stare at him as he continues listing details about me.
“You love ketchup and mayo on your fries, and you believe you need to lose ten pounds, which is utter bullshit. Especially if it’s in your ass.”
“Okay, you can stop now,” I whisper. “Point taken.”
“Is it, Cypress? Because that chip on your shoulder is so damn heavy, I’m surprised you don’t have a back like Quasimodo. Me, your sisters, even the people here in this shop—we care for you. We know you and care for you. More than those assholes you knew back in Cali.”
“How do you know they’re assholes?” I growl, his words striking their intended target over and over. “You’ve never met any of them.”
“Sweetheart, you told me yourself that your life was shit before you left to come back here. Anyone who didn’t help to make it better, who didn’t support you so it was even less shitty, who let you pack your car and drive across the country by yourself, are assholes in my book.” He lowers his head, his mouth only bare, damnable inches from mine. I can practically taste the kiss that I haven’t forgotten. “And that goes for anybody who dared call themselves your man. No man would let his woman suffer, shouldering worry for her mother, or serve drinks in a rathole bar while he sits on his cushy ass somewhere, not lifting a damn finger to help her. So yeah, babe, they’re assholes.”
Our harsh breaths boom in the silent room.
I want to yell at him, push him away, curse him out for acting like he knows me, knows my life. That chip he called out has protected me from spinning out and ending up like my parents, it’s shielded me from falling for people because they never get close enough to hurt me. If not for that chip, my soul and pride would be even more battered than it is from the year of retaliation tactics and petty vengeance my supervisor and coworkers doled out after I dared open my mouth and report the abuse women in the company were expected to just shut up and swallow.
But none of that comes out of my mouth.
Maybe if I stopped staring at his lips and wishing they were on me, sucking me, tormenting me. Maybe if I focused less on the clean, cedar-and-rain musk emanating off his skin, I could defend myself. Maybe if my body wasn’t on high alert and aching with the need to be treated to this man’s special brand of sexual torture, I could set him straight.
Maybe.
Oh Christ, I want him.
Want him to touch me, squeeze me, lick me…lay me out and pound into me.
“Hey, Jude, you—” At the sound of Eden’s voice, my body jerks, and I nearly jump away from Jude. She stands in the doorway, her gaze swinging back and forth between her brother-in-law and me. “Jude,” she starts again, “Analise is here.”
The sultry lust that gleamed in Jude’s hooded gaze disappears under a hard, sharp glint. The hunger suffusing his features evaporates, folding into anger before it, too, vanishes beneath a blank, impenetrable mask of indifference.
The air stalls in my lungs. I’ve never glimpsed this side of him before, witnessed this expression. It’s…disquieting.
“Thanks, Eden,” he murmurs. “I’ll be right there.” When she nods and backs out of the break room, he slides me a look that freezes the blood in my veins. “Stay here,” he orders, and the dark tone has more than a wealth of don’t argue with me in it.
Forget that.
I wait until he exits the room and his footsteps fade before following.
Before I even hit the tattooing area, I hear the raised voices. Well, voice. Jude’s tone is still cold, forbidding, but calm. But the feminine, higher-pitched one is strained, needy, and two decibels beneath screeching.
“—expect me to do when you won’t answer my calls or respond to my texts, Jude?” The slender blond
e leans over the front desk and clutches at Jude’s arm. She’s gorgeous with thick, long hair that falls over the shoulders of her pink Burberry coat; wide, sky-blue eyes; and sculpted cheekbones that would sell millions for any cosmetic company. I resist the impulse to glance down at my uniform of T-shirt, ripped jeans, and boots. Her perfectly applied makeup is still pristine even though tears glisten in her eyes, and one rolls down her cheek. If not for the obvious pain darkening her gaze and drenching her voice, I might be real cynical about the effect of that lone tear. “I miss you.” She raises one hand to his cheek. “So much.”
“I expect you not to show up to my job and embarrass yourself and me,” he replies, not addressing the last part of her admission. Taking her hand in his, he removes it from him. “I told you not to do this again.”
Again?
Who is this woman? And why doesn’t anyone seem surprised that she’s making a scene in front of customers? Hell, some of the customers don’t even appear shocked.
“I know,” she whines. “But I just want to see you, hear your voice. You’re the only one I can talk to; you know that.”
“Ana, we’ve been over for months, and you pulling this isn’t helping you move on. You need to go.”
We’ve been over for months. The words echo in my head, loud, loud, louder. Fast, fast, faster. This stunning woman is clearly his ex from the direction of the conversation, but still, a hollow pit yawns wide in my stomach. And I hate the murky, twisting, hot emotion that’s filling it. Jealousy. I stumble back a step, horrified with myself. Jesus, I have no right to that. I don’t want any part of it. That green demon is the first step toward addiction, toward obsession. Like this woman. Like my mother…
“Who are you?” Ana demands. I blink. That damp gaze now blazes with a bright blue flame, and it’s directed at me. “And why are you wearing his sweatshirt?”
I glance down. Shit. I completely forgot about the hoodie. Jude swings around, his stare pinned on me. His furious stare pinned on me.
“Who. Is. She?” she shrieks in Jude’s face. Scarlet blooms over her cheeks, mottling her skin, the blue of her eyes so bright now, they appear almost manic. Jesus Christ. She went from Beverly Hills 90210 to The Exorcist in two-point-five seconds flat. “Answer me! Is she why you won’t talk to me? Why you don’t love me anymore?” Once more, that feral glare stabs me. “Take that shirt off,” she growls, lunging for the half door that separates the front from the tattooing area.
“Goddammit, Ana,” Jude snaps, blocking the entryway. With the flip of the lock, he’s out the door and around her, his arms locked around her in a restraining hold. “Stop this,” he hisses softly in her ear, but with the deafening silence that has fallen over the whole shop, everyone hears it.
Seconds after his arms envelop her, she sags against him. A sob rips free of her, and she whirls around, wrapping around him like a clinging vine.
His head lifts, and his stare pins me as surely as if glue coated the bottom of my boots. There’s so much in those emerald depths: anger, frustration, helplessness…grief. The last emotion rocks through me, an earthquake measuring eight point nine on the Richter scale. And it’s my heart that’s the epicenter. Jesus. The look in his eyes… I can’t bear it.
I need to back away from it. Just spin on my heel and run to the break room, shutting the door so there’s another barrier between him, his hurt, and me. I can’t feel. Not for Jude. Not for myself. It’s a dirty, greasy slide that I can’t afford to tumble down.
But… I also want to charge over there, snatch that girl away from him, and step in between them. Be his shield against whatever put that agony there. Whoever put it there.
I’m caught like a wiggling fish on a hook, trying to go one way, but a stronger, deeper emotion pulling me the other.
“Jude,” Knox rumbles, his big arms crossed over his even bigger chest. “Take her outside.”
That sadness deepens for just a moment before he nods at his brother, and turning, guides the still sobbing Ana from the shop.
He doesn’t have a coat on.
The inane thought runs through my head as I—and everyone else—watch him try to disentangle himself from Ana’s grip. After two attempts, he succeeds and guides her into a black BMW. He stands there, seemingly impervious to the cold, staring at the space the vehicle occupied long after she drives off.
Seconds, minutes, God, an eternity, elapses, and he doesn’t return. And when he does finally move, it’s to stalk off down the street, away from the shop.
I exhale, my heart pounding against my rib cage, the drumming reverberating in my head like an echo chamber. This is too much. He’s my roommate; we’re not the kind of friends who confide in each other, who tend each other’s wounds. I have my own pile of flaming poo littering my life; I can’t add on someone else’s. Hell, I’m barely equipped to handle my own. Besides, he has Knox, Eden, and his coworkers here. Speaking of work, I need to be there in an hour. Pivoting, I head back toward the break room to grab my bag and keys.
I’m staying out of that mess…
I snatch up my things and break through the rear exit.
And go after Jude.
Chapter Nine
Jude
I don’t want to live without you. Don’t make me live without you.
Ana’s pleas as I forced her into her car chase me down the block. They dog me, snapping at my heels, the back of my neck. Burrowing under my skin and sinking their teeth into flesh and bone. I can’t outrun them. I can’t dig them out of my brain.
So maybe I can drown them out.
I jerk open the front door to a bar, and even though it’s only eight o’clock, more than half of the tables and booths are filled, and the bar is busy. The owner tried modernizing the place a few years back with fancy lighting behind the bar, switching out the scarred tables and ladderback chairs with sleeker models of both, mounting flat-screen TVs permanently fixed to ESPN, and replacing the jukebox with a PA system that played 97.1 FM, The Drive, one of the local rock stations. But the odor of old-school dive bar continues to linger with the working pay phone still hanging near the exit, the condom dispenser in the bathrooms, and the to-go cups for booze.
Slipping onto one of the few empty stools, I wait for the bartender to head my way. Should I be here when I’m on the clock at the shop for another four or five hours, depending if any walk-ins come in? Hell no. Knox is probably cursing my ass out right now, but with Ana’s sobs and subtle threat ringing in my head like the bells of St. Helen’s, I don’t care. I’ve already disappointed him once today by bringing my personal issues into the shop and disturbing business—again. Getting a shot of something inside me so it dulls the ache, slurs the words, eases the panic grabbing at me—that’s my main, and only, concern.
Goddamn. What is taking that bartender so long?
After thrusting my fingers through my hair, I prop my elbows on the bar top and bow my head into my hands.
My eyes close, but almost immediately, I open them again. Because with them shut, I can still feel Ana’s slender body shaking with the force of her cries against me. Can still hear the pain in her voice as she pleads with me to tell her I still love her, that she can’t go on without me. An old image waves before my eyes like a black-and-white photo. Black and white except for the dark crimson streaks of blood on skin and bathroom tiles. I swallow hard, heart thudding against my chest. Every time Ana says those words that carry the hint of a threat, I’m tumbling back to the worst, scariest moment of my life. What if Ana…? It would be my fault.
A phantom hand reaches out, grabs me by the throat, its skeletal fingers squeezing …
My breath wheezes in and out of my constricted lungs, and obsidian smoke starts creeping in on the edges of my peripheral vision. Goddamn, no. Not here. Not now.
But no amount of begging or willing the panic attack to disappear causes it to ease. Standing, I stumble away from the bar, probably looking drunk even though I haven’t had one drop of alcohol yet. Desperate fo
r space, for air, I stagger to the hallway leading to the bathrooms. Privacy for this breakdown. Please God, just let me make it there. No one knows about the attacks, and the thought of suffering one in front of the whole bar only tightens the vise around my chest. Has my heart pumping faster, sweat popping out on my forehead, back of my neck, and under my arms.
With numb fingertips, I shove open the restroom door, uncaring of who is on the other side. I just need in.
Once inside, I fall back against the wall, my spine thumping against the tile so hard, the impact ripples through me.
Trying to calm my brain, to remind it that we’re suffering an attack, that we can control it, I shut my eyes and focus on each limb, attempting to relax them and push breath through my chest. To concentrate on…on… On what? I can’t…
“Jude.” Soft hands cup my face. Gentle. Firm. Cypress. Desperate, I zero in on her—her voice, her touch, her roses-and-apple scent—to ground me, to drag me out of the blackness threatening to suck me under. “Jude, look at me.”
Each of my eyelids feels like it weighs a ton, but I pry them both open, and her face wavers before me, fuzzy, but the longer I stare at her, the clearer she becomes. Knowing how I must look to her in this barely clean bathroom—trembling, out of control, weak—I still clutch her hips, draw her closer and closer until her thighs press to mine, her chest is a tangible weight against me, and her breath is a warm flutter against my throat.
“Focus on me,” she orders. Peeling one hand from her hip, she splays my palm and fingers over her chest, covering it with hers. Her heart beats against her sternum, and the steady rhythm pulses up my arm, reaching for the same organ jackhammering away at my rib cage. “Breathe with me.” She draws a long, even breath in through her mouth, holds it, then exhales through her nose. “Do it with me, baby.”
She repeats the breathing exercise, and I follow her lead, mimicking her pattern. Her face, with those stunning angles, curves, and dips, fills my vision, and slowly, so slowly the darkness starts to recede, the dagger-sharp talons of panic release me inch by resentful inch.
