by Ellie Danes
My dad. I growled inwardly. He was such an asshole sometimes. Isn’t able to come and get her—more like, he didn’t feel like it. He didn’t believe that Claire had any sort of mental disorders — and he definitely didn’t believe that she had any learning disabilities. He thought she just needed to try harder to be normal, like if she just worked hard enough, she could be happy all the time and have an easy time learning just like everyone else.
I remembered when I was a teenager, and Claire was just a kid. She’d been failing her English class because the teacher kept asking for persuasive essays. Claire was always the kind of person who just knew when she was right, and she basically seemed to think, fuck everyone else for their shitty opinions. But that sort of argument wasn’t going to fly in a persuasive essay.
One day, Dad had come home from what he’d called “another waste-of-my-time parent-teacher conference,” pissed off. He’d stormed into Claire’s room, where I was helping her with her math, and he’d dragged me out, his grip rough on my arm. Then he’d gone back in there and shouted at her. Shouted at her, and shamed her, like his gruff treatment would make all the difference.
When Claire had hidden in the bathroom later, he wouldn’t let me go in after her. “Use the other goddamn bathroom,” he’d barked.
I’d been able to hear Claire sobbing, and finally, after Dad had gone to bed, I jimmied the bathroom lock and went in to her. She was covered in tiny cuts she’d made with the sharp edge of the nail clippers.
Dad thought she was just “begging for attention.”
He thought she “lacked motivation.”
How could someone as brilliant and savvy as my dad be such an incredible dumbass?
He always had been, and I kept hoping he would change. In the meantime, I had to step up and make sure Claire got the help she needed.
“I’ll come and get her,” I said into the phone. “Thanks for calling me.”
“Certainly,” the woman said. “This can’t become a habit, though.” Her voice was sweet, but I understood what she was saying.
At least this school had people who cared. But hell, it hadn’t always been so easy. After the last school Claire got kicked out of, I had decided that we’d all been through enough. Because as hard as it was on the family—especially my dad—every time she was expelled, it was even harder on Claire.
I did my research and, eventually, discovered that Manchester Prep was the best match for her needs. I read review after review, spoke with parent after parent. The school came highly recommended. And after meeting with some of the faculty, I was impressed beyond belief. I honestly couldn’t believe how excellently trained their entire staff was — not just the teachers — in dealing with teenagers who had issues similar to Claire’s. I’d lobbied hard to get her there.
So far there hadn’t been any issues with the school. Sure, Claire still had her problems — but Manchester Prep wasn’t one of them.
I could only hope such a wonderful streak would continue. The school seemed like a good match, and it seemed like it was doing her some good. And maybe — just freaking maybe — Claire would thrive and show our dad that her mental health issues and learning disabilities weren’t all just make-believe.
I rolled out of bed, still thinking about the amazing encounter I had had with Ian. My legs trembled just a little, more from the shock of the phone, but I’d like to believe my dream was all that real. I threw on some clothes so I could go get Claire.
I struggled to put my coat on as I ran outside. I wasn’t sure why I was in such a hurry. It wasn’t like Claire was dying or anything. But there was something about the fact that she didn’t feel well and wanted me to come get her that made my sisterly instincts kick into overdrive. I wanted to come to her rescue; I always wanted to.
And that crazy dream I’d had, about having sex with Ian in the Starbucks bathroom? I had to put it in a whole other part of my brain and lock it up tight. Because that was all it had been—a dream.
My feet worked quickly as I made my way toward the subway steps, and I was happy for the fact that I had long legs. Because when I checked the time on my phone, I realized it had only been a couple of minutes since wrapping up the conversation with Claire’s principal. I was making great time.
As soon as I approached the subway’s steps, though, I was startled. In my peripheral vision, I could have sworn that I caught a glimpse of the tall and gorgeous man that had just been invading my dreams.
I gawked at him for a minute. He really did look a lot like Ian. But I knew better. I was getting into that ridiculous and dreaded infatuation stage — and sadly for me, that meant thinking about the guy so much that I literally saw him everywhere.
I groaned. I really did hate that stage.
I always felt like I was going crazy.
I wished I could go to Starbucks, though. And hell, if I was going to anyone other than my sister, I might have considered it. But Claire came first. She always did.
Maybe tomorrow, I thought with a slight grin as I began descending the stairs. Maybe tomorrow I could go to Starbucks and see him again. I knew he’d be there. He apparently always was.
But then as quickly as the thought came, I had to kick it square in the ass and knock it away. I sighed. Tomorrow I had a coffee date with my dad’s secretary, Melinda. I’d already postponed it a couple of times, and I couldn’t do that to her again. This was our tradition. We always saw each other when I could spare a little time. Besides, she’d said she wanted to congratulate me on my new job.
I wanted to see Ian just as much, though.
So much that I couldn’t help but sulk a little as I made my way toward the subway.
Dammit, Melinda.
Why do I love you so much?
I made my way down the steps and under the overpass, to the subway rails below. I hated the subway. It was the grossest place to be in NYC, and NYC was already pretty gross. But it was a mode of transportation, and the train running close to Claire’s school would be arriving any second. I didn’t want to waste time taking a cab.
I wanted to just get there. Not just because I was worried, but because it was too damned cold to be out for too long. I just wanted to go home, curl up on the couch and watch some TV.
Part of me wondered if she was really sick, or if she was just pretending to get out of school. She didn’t like to deal with things head on. Hell, she’d just gotten to school, and I knew for a fact she would have kicked and screamed if she was sick before she left.
I couldn’t help but wonder about it, all the way to my train stop, which was just a block away from her school.
As soon as I climbed the steps, I felt like I’d been punched. The cold hit me like a ton of bricks, and I felt breathless. The wind clawed at my cheeks and caused my teeth to chatter as I jogged the rest of the way up the stairs.
I was trying to ignore the cold the best way that I could, as I walked the extra little bit to the school. But with my face growing numb, my head pounding, and my breath growing ragged, it was a little hard to do.
I felt like I was climbing Everest. My lungs were faltering. And it made me wonder just how out of shape I was if I couldn’t even walk in New York winters. Those thoughts quickly left me, though, as I found myself climbing the steps to Claire’s school and pushing the door open.
The warmth enveloped me like a toasty blanket I’d just pulled out of the dryer, and I sighed with nothing but contentment before shifting my gaze to my right, where the principal’s office was located.
I could see in through the large window that scaled the wall. For security, I was assuming, so they could see everyone that entered the school. I liked that.
Claire must have seen me as I walked through the door, even before I turned my gaze to the office, because before I knew it, she was walking out of the office, toward me.
She looked wrecked.
Her rust-colored hair was pulled up in a bun, and her eyes were red, and face pale — paler than usual, even. Her head slumpe
d down as she walked toward me. “Can we go?” she whispered faintly as she reached me.
I nodded, feeling my heart flutter sadly in my chest. I hated seeing her any less than happy. She leaned against my shoulder and as soon as she did, I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her close.
She really did look sick. I almost felt bad for wondering if she was faking it the whole way there. Almost.
She’d played me way too many times. And hell, for all I knew, she could still be playing me.
She needed to go to the therapist, though. That much was certain. Even if she was sick today, that didn’t make up for all the other times lately. She was having way too many sick days, and days where she clearly just didn’t feel “up to going to school,” and that wasn’t jiving with me.
I’d worked too damn hard to get her in a school as understanding as this one.
With my free arm, I reached out and pushed open the door, with an intensified strength. It was almost like I was in sheer Mother Bear mode. I wanted to get her home, and I wanted to get her home now.
Sick or not sick, she was breaking my heart.
The door hit the side of the building with a crash as I swung it open, and I couldn’t help but cringe at the sound.
“Let’s go home,” I said, maneuvering us away from the door that swung back at us.
My hand trailed to the small of her back as I led her toward the street and hailed a cab.
I needed to get her into bed.
Chapter 8
Ian
I started loosening my tie before I even reached the lobby’s front door. My feet dragged behind me. I was almost completely spent. I would never have guessed that my feet and legs would be so fucking tired when all I did was sit on my ass most of the day. I could do hours of squat reps, leg presses, and run a fucking half marathon all in one day, and my feet still wouldn’t have dragged with as much exhaustion as they did now.
The night air was cold. So cold that my nipples rubbed against my cotton shirt fiercely. The friction was a painful tickle, and I couldn’t help but let my mind wander to thoughts of other nipples. Nipples belonging to hot redheads named Kate, for example.
While the thought was arousing, I could barely manage to hold on to it. I was tired. I was beyond ready to just lie down with a crystal glass in one hand and whiskey bottle in the other.
I fell into the revolving door of the lobby, sighing with relief that I was actually home. I was even more relieved when I felt the warmth of the building hug me and warm me from the outside in.
As soon as I stepped out of the revolving doors, I scanned the large, elaborate lobby. People were still hanging out there. Nameless faces that I didn’t really care about, or bother to care about, but they smiled. I barely managed to smile back, but I was getting used to faking smiles. Without even much effort, my lips curved into a professional bullshit type of smile. I nodded to each of them as I passed, not really bothering to register what any of their faces looked like.
With my brain as fried as it was, I wouldn’t have remembered them anyway.
It was like my mind couldn’t quite focus or even so much as begin to make sense of anything as I headed toward the elevator. All of my caffeine from the day had worn off, and I was officially a zombie roaming the earth. The only thing that even made me remember to check my mail was the fact that I saw the large metallic sign on the way to the elevator. I wondered when the last time I actually checked the mail really was.
I grumbled and veered off toward my mailbox. Luckily it was just down from the elevator. I really didn’t want to waste too much time. I needed a drink, and I needed it now.
I unlocked my box and grabbed out a handful of envelopes as well as two rolled up magazines. I wasn’t even sure where the magazine subscription came from in the first place. Who the hell still read magazines?
A glimpse of flaming red near the elevator— a flaming red that I only remembered seeing a few times before— was the only thing that could have possibly pulled me from robotically sifting through envelopes. My head snapped up like a slingshot toward it.
Kate?
Without taking even a second to think about it, my body moved instinctively towards the elevator. In a mad dash, I ran. “Kate?” I yelled, hoping to see a hand stop the elevator doors from closing. “Kate?”
It was too late. The elevator closed before I could reach it, and before my vision could fully focus enough to actually see the woman’s face. I huffed, exhausted and winded, as I leaned against the wall, my tired eyes still straining to look at the elevator door. I watched as the numbers on the floor display increased. I had hoped it would have stopped and returned to the lobby.
Fuck. Still leaning against the wall, I rubbed my forehead as I sighed. I felt my chest heave and my temperature begin to rise.
It couldn’t have been her, could it? She didn’t know where I lived, and she sure as hell wouldn’t be visiting me. She’d been constantly on my mind, and I knew my head was playing games with me.
I had to rethink what I’d just seen. Her height. Her walk. Her hair. Everything seemed to be her. At least I wanted it to be her. I needed it to be her. I was desperate for an escape and Kate had provided me something to look forward to the past few days.
It was amazing how much I had even been thinking about Kate in the first place. I didn’t really know what I was doing — or what had come over me. But whatever it was, it was probably a safe bet that she wasn’t thinking about me nearly as much as I was thinking about her.
It was almost like I was becoming too obsessed. I had been thinking about her a lot, but to see her in other redheads in the city? What was my issue?
A lookalike would have been kind of nice, though. I always welcomed eye candy. If she was anywhere near as sexy as Kate, it might alleviate a fewof my thoughts and help me get my mind off of the real Kate. And hell, part of me couldn’t help but think about how it could have given me some better access. I mean, instead of constantly having to wait around until I was at Starbucks, where I had limited time in the first place — I could see someone almost as damn beautiful in my very own building.
I smiled. It’d be nice to get a more frequent view of that gorgeous long, red hair…those eyes…that gorgeously sexy body…
That body.
Fuck.
I imagined her standing in front of me, smiling, with her hair falling effortlessly — as it seemed to do every time I saw her — just over her shoulders. I imagined how great that fair skin looked beneath her clothes.
I imagined my eyes wandering over her — starting at hers, and then down to her lusciously plump lips, to her long neck and then down, down over the entire length of her body. Her perfect chest. Her tiny waist — and then down her long, stunning legs.
I leaned against the cream-colored wall, almost breathless as I thought about her.
Sometimes I hated the winter. It meant no short skirts. No low-cut tops. It meant no skin. It meant layers and layers of clothes.
But it also left more to the imagination. I imagined the way she looked beneath all of those clothes. I imagined her being there with me in my building, in my apartment. I imagined what I might do with her there. All I knew was that I wouldn’t act the way I had the first time I met her. I would pay close attention to everything. I would take the chance I was given and grab her while she was in front of me.
I imagined the sounds that might come from her as I grabbed her and pulled her to me. I could only hope that she would like it as I held her tightly and caressed her soft skin. I hoped she would melt into the touch.
It was with that hope that I realized I was falling into more than just imaginative thoughts about a woman I hardly knew. Instead, my brain had somehow warped me into hyper speed toward a full-blown daydream, which was something I never did.
I imagined us in the shower, which I desperately needed at the moment. I reeked of sweat, and I could smell coffee practically seeping out of my pores. I couldn’t help but wonder if that was why my min
d so quickly jumped to the specific shower scene.
Not that it mattered, though — all that really mattered was that my mind was there. It was reeling like a film and quickly spinning out of control.
Not caring that I still stood in the hall, where everyone could see me, I imagined the way she might look, standing just beneath the streaming water in my large open shower. I imagined how the heat of her body might have felt as I wrapped my arms around her.
I would smile into her neck, and make sure to hold her close to me as the water continued to bang down against our blushed skin. My lips would brush over her heated, water-streamed face, and I would revel in how amazing she felt beneath my kiss.
I loved her skin. At least, I loved the way it always looked—smooth and delicate. Like it was begging to be touched, to be smelled, to be tasted.
If I could do any of those things, I would love it. I would love it all.
Hell, I already did love it all, and all I had was my imagination and the pictures I was making in my mind.
The thing I loved the most about her, though, was her hair. That signature red. I had paid so much attention to it the few times I saw her, that I could trust that I was doing it justice in my imagination. It was a sort of red that I had never seen before. It was deep and bold — just like Kate seemed to be. And it fell beautifully around her face. It was wild and almost messy as it curved around her soft features and then fell behind her shoulders. It gave her an almost effortless look. Whether or not her hair was effortless, I had no clue. I didn’t know Kate very well at all, no matter how much I might wish I did.
I just knew that her look, and the way she carried herself with such cool confidence, made her unique to all the other fashion-forward, cookie-cutter drones that I saw roaming about the city.
Although I was surrounded by nothing but my apartment building's lobby hallway, and a couple of stainless steel elevator doors, in my mind, I sucked at the hollow of Kate’s neck. Sensuous, open-mouthed kisses. My lips, tongue, and teeth grazed her delicate skin. I was devouring everything that I could, with everything that I had in my thoughts, and I could almost feel it for real. It was almost like she was really here, and we were upstairs in my penthouse apartment.
