When I'm Gone

by Jaxson Kidman

  “Let me get you something to wear.”

  Kace dug through some drawers and tossed me a pair of black pants that had no chance of actually fitting me. But they had strings so I could tie them as tightly as humanly possible.

  “T-shirt work?” he asked.

  “Yeah, that’s fine,” I said. “Thank you.”

  He threw a t-shirt at the bed and left the room without hesitation.

  I stared at the door, trying to understand him.

  I got changed and opened the door to find Kace literally standing right there. I gasped when I saw him.

  “Who’d you think it would be?” he asked with a grin.

  But the grin quickly faded.

  My mind and memory were messing with me again.

  “You look good,” Kace said. “You ready for bed yet?”

  “Yeah. I’m ready.”

  “Lights?”

  “Off.”

  “I have an idea.”

  He backed away and turned on the light in the hallway. He came back to the bedroom and turned off the lights. He left the door open just enough so that a small amount of light came in. I didn’t admit it, but that was perfect.

  “You get into bed first,” he said. “I’ll sleep near the edge.”

  “What if I have to go and pee?”

  “Then you can climb over me.”

  I cocked my head to the side.

  “Fuck,” he said.

  Kace got into the bed first and basically sat up against the wall.

  I slowly inched into the bed, feeling shaky, tired, confused and even a little bit excited because it was Kace. I couldn’t believe how this entire night had turned out.

  “I’ll wait for you to crash, darlin’,” he whispered.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know. But it’ll make you more comfortable.”

  I pulled the blankets up to my chin and curled up tight. The blankets, the pillow, the room, it smelled like Kace. It was soothing. It was comfortable.

  “Kace?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Will you talk to me?”

  “About what?”

  “Anything. Tell me about that house again.”

  “The house…?”

  “The one you took me to. With the missing shutter.”

  Kace laughed. “Right. I haven’t been there in a long time, Sienna. I haven’t been anywhere in a long time, honestly. Just helping out Mack. He always does these big and stupid things and I’m there to bail his ass out. So I’ll help him fix up that building. He’s convinced that he can do it to all the buildings down in the shit hole.”

  “Shit hole?”

  “That’s what we call that area, darlin’. I grew up near there. Mack grew up in the shit hole. I don’t know what’ll happen though. I don’t mind working on the building. I haven’t really done anything since… whatever happened with us.”

  I opened my mouth, but I was so tired and nothing came out.

  There was silence for a few seconds.

  Then Kace kept talking. “I don’t even know what happened with us, darlin’. It sort of had this feeling of okay and then it was gone. I didn’t want to burden you and I know that you didn’t want to burden me. I can’t believe we met like this. We have to stop meeting like this. Maybe next time we can bump into each other at a store or a movie or something.” There was silence again. “Well, goodnight, Sienna. Not sure if you’re asleep yet or not. If you can hear me and you need anything, just wake me up. I don’t mind. I really don’t have anything to do tomorrow. Or today. Whatever time it is right now. I just hope you feel safe here. That’s all I can say.”

  He paused again, and this time it was for good.

  I was half asleep as I reached behind me. I slowly eased my hand through the covers until I found Kace’s hand. I didn’t want to hold it or anything like that. I just wanted to touch it. To feel my fingers sliding over his rough hand. Knowing that he was next to me. Knowing that he somehow found me to save me. And now he was keeping me safe again.

  My mind started to slip into the world of sleep and I had one last thought.

  I didn't want to lose Kace this time.

  Chapter Eleven

  Working for the Wrong Things to Say

  Kace

  I waited for Sienna to wake up, constantly looking at the clock. I couldn’t blame her for sleeping the way she did. It almost made me jealous wishing that I could sleep like that. Truthfully, I had a hard time sleeping. The second she touched my hand, I just stared down, wondering what the hell was happening. What had happened. What was going to happen. I had spent months holding Kylie’s hand for the sake of the relationship I desperately wanted to have with her. And I didn’t feel a fraction of what I felt when Sienna touched my hand. That was the craziest part.

  This morning, when I finally called it quits on attempting to sleep, I had to climb over her as slowly and quietly as I could to keep from waking her. That second or two of me hovering over her was… it was something. And that something I had to chase away because of what happened to her. It wasn’t fair or right to let my mind think the way it wanted to.

  I made coffee and drank enough that I was wired. I thought about going to find Sienna’s car. I thought about knocking on her friend’s apartment door and ripping her apart for letting some asshole like that guy into her place. Or better yet, harass her enough to make her give me the guy’s name and information. So I could track him down and…

  I shut my eyes and groaned.

  I’m not going to fix the past by fucking up the present.

  Reality was a horrible thing to face sometimes.

  I tried to shift my mind a little and thought about the building that Mack bought. I pictured the floors, the walls, the open ceilings and all the wiring just hanging there. I opened a couple of drawers and found a piece of paper and a pencil. I leaned over the island in the kitchen and started to write down some ideas. I drew a horrible sketch of the apartment as best as I could remember. Something inside my head started to fire up a little. That urge to work again. That need to find something in rough shape and clean it up. I hadn’t felt this way…

  “Morning.”

  I lifted my head and felt like someone had punched me right in the chest. I dropped the pencil and my teeth pressed together so tightly, I swore they were going to shatter.

  Wow.

  It was the only word I could find.

  Sienna looked amazing. In my clothes. My black t-shirt was super big on her, the neck pulled just enough to the side to show a little hint of a thin, pink strap to either an undershirt or a bra. Her arms barely stuck out of the sleeves of the shirt. Her hair was tossed up into a messy bun that was off to the side, obvious that she woke up, sat up, and did it in a hurry. Messy looked good on her. Messy looked beautiful on her.

  I took a deep breath and gave her a nod as I turned to make her some coffee.

  I battled my mind as I took my time pouring it. Telling myself to calm the fuck down. That this wasn’t some sleepover or me buying her drinks to get her drunk and flirty. That something really serious had happened the night before.

  I put the coffee in front of her and smiled. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Good. Thank you. For all of this.”

  “No worries.”

  “What are you drawing?”

  She nodded to my sloppy sketch.

  I put a hand over it. “Nothing. Just thinking about that stupid building Mack bought.”

  “Oh, right. That’s cool that you get to do that. Better than what I do.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Waitress.”

  “Do you like the place you’re at?”

  “I actually do,” she said. “All things considered with Lexi… but that wasn’t her fault.”

  I nodded. I felt the anger want to boil, but I swallowed it down.

  “Better than that other place,” I said. “With that flower lady.”

  “Flower lady?” she asked.r />
  “Yeah. Daisy.”

  Sienna burst into laughter. “Yeah. You’re right.”

  “I was just keeping myself busy while you were sleeping,” I said. I slid the crappy drawing out of the way.

  “You could have woken me up.”

  “Nah. You needed the rest.”

  She grinned. “I guess so. Hectic night, huh?”

  “Yeah. I need to know what you want to do. About your car. About what happened. I’m at your mercy, darlin’.”

  “That’s dangerous. You at my mercy. You always seem to be at my mercy.”

  “Consider yourself lucky,” I said. “I don’t do this crap for anyone. Probably not even Mack.”

  “You could maybe tell me why you do it for me. I know it’s connected to what you told me before. But I don’t want to ask you and piss you off.”

  “You won’t piss me off. I just won’t answer.”

  “I figured that,” she said.

  We were in silence for a couple of minutes. It wasn’t uncomfortable though. If anything, it felt normal. It felt right. For a few seconds there I had the image of me and her doing this every morning.

  “You know, I have to admit something,” I said. “I feel like I know you so well, but I don’t think I do. Just these bits and pieces of stuff that I’ve learned the hard way.”

  “I could say the same about you, Kace.”

  “Well, what do you want to know about?”

  “Why you aren’t doing the restoration stuff anymore.”

  I backed up and rubbed my jaw. I should have known she’d go there.

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  “It can’t be that hard,” she said. “You told me that you used to go to that house all the time. And then last night you said you hadn’t been since you took me there.”

  “That’s true.”

  “So what were you doing?”

  “Not sure, Sienna. I was dating someone for a little while, but that didn’t work out.”

  “No?”

  “She felt a way about me that I didn’t feel about her.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “She fell in love and I didn’t.”

  “You’re confident enough to think someone fell in love with you?” Sienna asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “It was just the path we were on. Actually, we were on two different paths.”

  “What kind of paths?”

  “She surprised me with dinners and buying me things like that shutter over there against the wall.”

  I pointed and Sienna turned.

  “Oh,” she said. “That’s kind of sweet to do.”

  “Except I didn’t want it,” I said. “I didn’t want any of it.”

  “But you pretended to want her?”

  “I didn’t say that,” I said. “I just had a different thought of what we were. And I figured it was easier to just be honest, rather than let things get deeper.”

  “Wow. I guess I’m sorry about that.”

  “You know, you actually should be.”

  “I should?”

  “Yeah. It’s your fault.”

  “It’s my fault? How is it my fault?”

  I rubbed my jaw again. “There was one big problem with her.”

  “And how is that connected to me?”

  I stepped forward again and put my hands to the island. “The problem… she wasn’t you.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” I said to Mack. “If you wanted to put some stuff on these walls...”

  “I thought you said that was a no-go.”

  “I did. But we can salvage some of the wood we had to take out. I can clean it up and make it fit into something you can hang on the wall.”

  “See,” Mack said, slapping my back. “You’re a natural at this. Man, we keep this up and we can have our own TV show. Mack and Kace. Coming at ya.”

  I turned my head and with a quick move, I stuck my finger behind his sunglasses and flipped them off his face.

  “Asshole,” he said.

  “I’m never going into business with you. And I’m never doing a TV show with you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Mack said. “I just hope I don’t run into any more problems. That plumbing stuff cost a lot.”

  “Sorry, man, but you bought a shit building. There are going to be a lot of problems.”

  “Whatever,” Mack said. “This is going to work. For both of us.”

  I took a few steps back and looked around the place. I hated to admit it, but the apartment wasn’t all that bad. The rest of the building needed the same TLC as this place, but it was actually a little fun to do. I’d got my spark back and was out scouring for junk to clean up. The brick walls of the apartment looked really nice with a dirty white coat of paint on them. I even painted them a little sloppily to give it a grunge kind of look.

  “I need to get a master electrician here for the ceiling work,” Mack said. “Feel like going for a ride? I have someone to talk to.”

  “No. You do your thing on your own. I’m staying here to get some ideas.”

  “Nice. I like it. You look happy, Kace.”

  “Are you a fucking therapist now?”

  “I’m the jack of all trades.”

  “Get out of here,” I said, shaking my head.

  Mack took a few steps and there was a knock at the door. Last time there was a knock at the door, it was the plumber. And he checked out the bathroom and gave Mack some bad news about a few leaks and issues that needed to be updated. I took care of Mack with a case of beer, and we got drunk and slept there.

  When Mack looked back at me, his eyes were wide.

  “What?” I asked. “Is this the part where you tell me that you pissed someone off and they’re here to get you? Or did you not pay a bill?”

  “No, none of that,” Mack said.

  “Then answer the damn door and get out of here.”

  I shook my head as I started to move big pieces of wood down to the floor. They were uneven cuts of wood, some of which needed to be thrown out because of water damage. But there were still plenty of good parts that I could work with. It wasn’t going to be a simple project, but nothing in life ever was.

  I heard the question Is Kace here?, and instantly I thought I was in trouble.

  “Yeah, he’s right there,” Mack said without hesitation.

  Thanks, man. You moron.

  Only when I turned to face my visitor, I didn’t mind at all.

  “Sienna,” I said.

  She stepped into the apartment, holding two coffees.

  “I’ll be back later,” Mack called out. “Lock up if you leave.” He looked at Sienna, looked at me, then winked.

  I ignored him as he shut the door.

  “Hey,” she said. “I was in the neighborhood.”

  “Really?”

  “Sort of. Just wanted to come and see you.”

  “Can’t believe you found this place.”

  “Wasn’t that hard to do. Here, I brought you this.”

  I took one of the coffees and couldn’t stop smiling. I felt like a damn fool as I stood there looking at her.

  “Hope you don’t mind,” she said. “I mean, it’s not an antique shutter or anything…”

  “Wow,” I said. “You show up unannounced and go for the throat. Is that jealousy I smell coming off you?”

  “No. It’s just the moldy smell from this building.”

  I laughed. “At least it’s not my building. I’m just here to help. I’d offer you a seat, but there’s only a couch and a bed. And trust me, you don’t want to sit on either.”

  “Gross,” Sienna said.

  “Again, it’s not my place. I was just thinking about cleaning up some of this wood. Mack had a little plumbing issue and a lot of this stuff is salvageable and the original wood from when the building was built.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “Not sure yet.” I sipped the coffee.

  Sienna did the same. Her eyes were shining really
brightly in the natural light from the curtainless windows. There was seriously just something about her natural beauty that hit me hard. Not a dab of makeup on her face, and I don’t think she even gave a damn about it. Which was amazing to me. The kind of woman that just woke and went. That took a sense of confidence that she probably didn’t realize she had.

  There was silence, a little bit longer than I liked. So I killed it with some meaningless talk.

  “Mack’s plan is to fix this up and rent it out,” I said. “Then slowly do the same to the other units. I think he’ll end up living here. He’s the kind to fall in love with a place like this.”

  “You and him are close?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s a guy thing. We don’t talk about being close.”

  “Too much pride, huh?”

  “Yeah, sure. I’ve known Mack since grade school. I bailed out his ass when he ran his mouth too much and he bailed out my ass when I needed somewhere to hide. We took care of each other.”

  “That’s really cute, Kace.”

  “Cute? I don’t need to hear that.”

  “Too bad. It’s cute.”

  I smiled. “Say what you want, that’s fine.”

  Sienna slowly walked toward the window and stood there.

  I gave it a few seconds before I crouched and put my coffee on the floor. I approached her with caution, not stupid enough to not be able to put two and two together here.

  “Hey darlin’,” I whispered as I inched closer to her. “What are you really doing here?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I thought about stopping to see Lexi. She feels terrible. She’s really upset with herself over everything. That she slept with his friend. But he was a good guy.”

  “At least it was quick to find that other asshole,” I said.

  “Yeah. Right. I just sort of came this way, Kace. I don’t know why. Lexi is working today. So I drove by her place and then around for a few minutes, looking at everything. Thinking about everything. Getting angry. Getting hurt. But I think it was for all the wrong reasons maybe.”

  “What reasons, darlin’?” I asked.

  I was a foot away from her. I could see her reflection in the glass of the window.

  She swallowed.

  “Like maybe what I tried to do before wasn’t so bad. Like maybe I knew something… or I just…”