Left Behind (Lost & Found #1)

by C. L. Stacey

  Well, that’s just wonderful. Security in this building is useless, apparently.

  I slam my hand against the button on the panel, incessantly pushing, even though it’s already lit up.

  “Wasn’t it you who told me that that does nothing?” Jackson’s voice comes from behind me.

  “Shut up!” I snap, stubbornly pushing some more.

  “What the hell is the matter with you?”

  The elevator doors open, and I get inside, pushing the number to my floor. Jackson follows me in.

  I wasn’t exactly expecting him to be ready to call it a night right then and there, but when the doors close us both inside, I am seething. I fold my arms over my chest and say nothing, just watch the numbers climb.

  “Leave me alone,” I say in a way to warn him. I can just feel the words I’ll come to regret resting against the tip of my tongue, itching to be spoken.

  “Not until we have this fight.”

  I arch a brow at him. “You want to fight?”

  “If it’ll clue me in on what you’re so mad about, yes.” His eyes challenge me.

  I scoff. “I hate you.” There they go.

  It does nothing. Jackson’s expression is a complete blank. “I’ll let that one slide, since you’re up to your eyes in tequila right now.”

  The doors open on my floor. “I don’t care if I’m drowning in a sea of it.” I walk up to him until we’re standing toe to toe, and his eyes drop to my mouth. “I hate you,” I repeat, slower this time. Then I exit the elevator car, walking so fast to my door I’m practically running.

  The easy way he keeps up with my pace only angers me more, and I fumble with the keys when trying to get my door unlocked. Jackson slaps my hand away and does it himself, getting it on his first try.

  “Goodnight,” I greet him from the door.

  Jackson tips his head in the direction of my open door. “Get inside,” he orders me.

  “You’re not coming in.”

  “Aren’t I?” He takes me by the arm and pulls me inside behind him.

  I slam my door shut and throw my clutch at him. It bounces off his back, landing against the floor with a soft thud, and he turns to face me.

  “All right, Lexi,” he says, folding his sleeves up to his elbows. “Why don’t you let me know just what the hell it is I did to piss you off this time?”

  “You were flirting with Nikki!” I accuse, pointing an angry finger his way.

  His brows draw in together when I lose him.

  “You were flirting with her, but you get mad and tell me what to do when my friend gives me a kiss goodnight? ARE YOU CRAZY?” I wildly flail my arms about.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

  “You know how I feel about Caleb. You actually like Nikki. She’s your friend, I was being nice, like I’m nice to Harper.”

  “Harper’s getting married on Saturday, you idiot!” I stomp my heel against the floor at the end of my sentence.

  Jackson frowns, dropping his hands into his pockets as he thinks about what I’m saying. “So you’re mad I was flirting with someone? Someone who’s single?” he asks to clarify.

  Now that I hear it, it sounds stupid. “No!” I spit.

  “But that’s what you just said,” he makes his case, standing firmly by it. “Why is this an issue?”

  I’m mad, so mad. “It’s not!” I throw my hands up as a sign I give up, and I start heading to my room.

  Jackson reaches for my arm before I pass him, holding me there. “She asked for my number,” he tells me, only fanning the flames. “I told her I wasn’t looking.”

  The fire fizzles out.

  I turn toward him, and my heart sinks to my stomach. “Not looking?” I repeat.

  He nods. “I didn’t give her anything, Lexi. I was just being nice. That’s it.”

  Nice like he is to me?

  Is that what this is, him being nice?

  He thinks that by stating that fact, it helps his case, when it only depresses my spirits completely.

  I bite the inside of my top lip, turning away from him when I feel the tears threatening. “Okay,” is all I say before freeing my arm, and I head into my room.

  I’m in the middle of changing out of my dress when Jackson walks in, and I scream for him to turn around when he’s caught me half-naked.

  “Shit! I’m sorry.” He whirls around, facing the other way.

  “Go home, Jackson!”

  “No, I’m not done,” he says with his back still to me.

  “I’m freaking changing!”

  “So do it quickly!” he commands.

  I run to my drawers and pull on the first shirt I can find then yank a pair of shorts up my legs. “I’m done,” I grumble.

  “You’re decent?”

  “That’s what I meant by done,” I snap.

  Jackson turns back around to face me, and I get into bed, pulling the duvet over my legs. “What’s wrong?” he asks me again. “I just told you that it was nothing, so what’s wrong now?”

  I shake my head. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine, I can tell.”

  “I’m just tired,” I state as convincingly as I can, tears still threatening to form in my eyes.

  He walks over to me and takes a seat at the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry I scolded you about Caleb. You know I don’t like seeing you two together. I don’t have any good reason to support that, I just don’t like it.”

  I bite the inside of my lip again and nod. “Okay, well, I don’t know what to do to help you with that, Jackson. He’s my friend.”

  Jackson looks away from me, his gaze pointed straight ahead at my wall. “Yea, so you keep telling me,” he sighs.

  We say nothing, minutes rolling by us as we just sit there and stare at each other. Then he decides to ask me another one of his random questions. “What’s with all the butterflies?”

  The struggle I put up to hold back my tears is lost, and they begin to form as I follow his gaze to the painting he must’ve been asking about. The one on my wall. The one I’d abandoned for some time.

  I realize that I haven’t stopped to stare at it in a while.

  Guilt forms in my chest, and that painful lump forms in my throat, nearly suffocating me.

  He notices.

  “Never mind, don’t answer that.”

  My tears fall when they have nowhere else to go but down. “I was his butterfly,” I whisper inaudibly, and my head fills with memories of one day in particular, the images so clear I feel fifteen again.

  Our families decided on a separate trip this summer break. Ever since Eli left with his family to visit his cousins in Florida, I’ve grown to truly miss him.

  Everything I did since we were apart was put on a list I made up in my mind, a list of all the things I wanted to share with him when he got back.

  He was my best friend, and we shared everything together. He knew all of my secrets, and I knew all of his. But this one thing I kept from him. I wanted it to be a surprise. If I told him, it would affect his reaction, and I wanted to physically see the real one for myself.

  I feel different.

  I feel like a new person.

  Eli’s always been straightforward with me. My parents are my parents, so they have to tell me I’m beautiful. But Eli will tell me the truth, he always has.

  My heart is in my throat the second I hear the doorbell ring.

  My pulse races a mile a minute when I hear my mother answer the door.

  “Hey, bookworm!” I hear Eli call as he makes his way up the stairs. “Do you know how badly I had to beg to come back by myself, where are you hiding?” His voice comes from just outside my door.

  No, I can’t do it!

  I can’t, I change my mind!

  Just before my door opens, I squeal and hold one of my pillows out in front of my face.

  He sighs. “What the hell are you doing, weirdo? I can’t see your face.”

 
“That’s the freaking point.”

  The sound of his footsteps draw near the closer he gets to me, and my heart hammers so hard I feel it in my head.

  I see the top of his shoes when he comes to a stop just in front of me. “I just flew across the country to make it in time for your birthday. The least you can do is look at me, nerd.”

  “No, you’ll make fun of me.”

  “I always make fun of you.”

  “I’m serious, Eli. Go away.”

  “No freaking way, Lex. What’re you hiding under there?” He rips the pillow from my hands and stops when he witnesses what I’ve been too chicken to show, the transformation that took great effort on my part to get used to. “Oh, what the hell did you do?”

  I smile, and he gasps. I stop smiling. “You don’t like it? You hate it.”

  His eyes do another sweep of my face, taking his time as he starts with my eyes and stops at my mouth. “What have you done?” he asks again.

  “My braces finally came off at the start of the summer.”

  “And the rest of it?”

  “I asked my mother to show me how to use makeup after trading my glasses for contacts, and I learned how to do different things with my hair…” I grabbed the ends of it, nervously twirling a strand around my finger.

  “I don’t like it.”

  I’m hit with disappointment following those four words. I’m so embarrassed, and all I want to do is run to the bathroom and wash it all way.

  Tears sting from the corner of my eyes. “I just wanted to be pretty…”

  I honestly thought he’d like it. Was I stupid to believe that?

  I feel dumb, and angry, and embarrassed, all at once.

  “What?”

  “I wanted to be pretty!” I shout in his face, angry with him for telling me the truth.

  Eli takes a few steps back, his hands resting over his hips, and his eyes flash angrily back at me. “You are pretty, stupid!” he shouts back, then he takes a second to cool off, and he tries again. “You were always pretty,” he says without shouting it this time. “And now you’re too pretty!” He throws his hand up toward my face, his voice rising again. “So I don’t like it!” He starts to pace. “I take off for one month, and my bookworm’s transformed herself into a goddamn butterfly.”

  I bite my lip to keep from laughing. “Caterpillars turn into butterflies, stupid. Worms are just gross.”

  “Yea, well, only a bookworm would know that.”

  “No, any child who’s read The Very Hungry Caterpillar knows that. That thing eats through the entire book, goes to sleep, and wakes up a butterfly!” I argue.

  He steps up to me until his face is mere inches from mine. “You think you know everything.”

  “I know more than you, dumbass.”

  His gaze drops to my mouth, and I’m literally screaming inside for him to do it. “I’m going to kiss you,” he says.

  I smile, triumphant. “Ew, no!”

  My answer takes him by surprise, and his eyes shoot right back up to mine. “What?”

  “You like the way I look, so all of a sudden you want to kiss me? Dude, no.”

  “No, I’ve always wanted to!” he insists.

  I laugh. “That very well may be, but I’ll never know that now, will I? You’ve never tried. You were busy kissing other girls.”

  “I was practicing for you! I wanted to be great at it for when I finally kiss you!”

  “Oh, fuck off!” I can’t believe his bullshit excuse. I don’t buy it for a second. “If you want a kiss from me, you’re going to do everything a gentleman should when courting a lady first!”

  “Courting a lady—what century are you from?”

  “From the one when women still had self-respect!” I shoot back. “I’m not going to just give you my first kiss, are you crazy? I can only give my first kiss to one guy, and I have to be one hundred percent certain you’re the right one. So work for it.”

  “What does that mean?” Jackson’s voice brings me back.

  I shake my head. “He was the first boy to tell me I was pretty, after a decade and a half of being ugly. His bookworm had transformed into a butterfly,” I quote him, my mouth smiling, but my eyes still shed their tears. “Isn’t that the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard?” A sob bursts from my mouth and into the hand I lift to stifle it.

  “Lexi…” Jackson reaches a hand out to touch me, but it stops halfway before he drops it back to his side. Instead, he leans over and plucks a tissue from its box on my nightstand, and he offers it to me. I take it and dab at my tear-stained face.

  “We have something in common, Jackson,” I say, causing his curious eyes to lift back to mine. “We both have a dead someone. I remind you of yours? Well, you remind me of mine. He didn’t notice me at first, either.” He opens his mouth to argue that, but I don’t need his pity, so I don’t let him. “You don’t see me,” I weep, “when all I ever do anymore is try to get you to notice me! He was an idiot, just like you. I hate you both.”

  Jackson’s brows draw in again, and this time my words succeed in hurting him. “Lexi, please…”

  “Just leave me alone, Jackson. Go home.” He begins to shake his head, so I scream them again, making sure he gets it loud and clear. “Go home!”

  It takes him a few moments, but Jackson eventually gets to his feet, taking a piece of my already shattered heart with him when he does.

  He says he’s not looking…

  So what would be the point in trying?

  The first guy I actually trust enough to hand my heart to again, and he’s not looking…

  Clear blue skies, not a cloud in sight, the sun is shining high and bright this afternoon. It’s a beautiful day for a wedding here at the Greystone Mansion. I’ve been dealing with one crisis after another, typical wedding day stuff, but a beautiful day nonetheless.

  I would go to hell and back to make sure this day is perfect for my sister. Harper deserves the absolute best.

  At least God is on my side with the cooperative weather. It’s the planner who proved incompetent at her job on the way wrong day.

  “Hey, pretty girl.”

  I grin wide at the sound of a familiar voice, and I spin around to face him.

  Standing there in front of me, all six-five of him, is a friend I haven’t seen in a good, long while. Kellan. “Hey, stranger.” I reach on the tips of my toes when he bows his head to plant a kiss on my forehead.

  “Let me look at you.” He lifts my hand in the air and takes a few steps back to get a proper look at me. I laugh when he lets out a low whistle. “You make one smoking hot Maid of Honor, Lexi Moore.”

  “You clean up real nice, too, Best Man.” I nudge him with my elbow. “So, how’ve you been? Anything new?” I ask as my hands continue to work, setting party favors down in front of each seat. It’s the last item on my list, and I need to get it done fast.

  “No,” Kellan sighs. “Work’s just been keeping me real busy. How’s life on your end?”

  “Ugh!” I scoff. “Uneventful.”

  “Doubt that very much,” he disagrees.

  I arch a brow in his direction. “How’s that?”

  “You’ve been all over the papers. Photographed with two of the most eligible bachelors in the… well, world. How’s that uneventful?”

  The mention of the two idiots in my life really dampens my happy mood. “Because they both equally suck.” I toss one of the favors down, which Kellan quickly fixes to make my disgraceful display appear neater.

  “Why do they suck?”

  “Well, it’s hard to be as awesome as I am.”

  Kellan laughs. “I missed you, Lex.”

  I chuck a favor at him, and he catches it easily before I can get him square in the chest. “I freaking missed you, too, Kellan. We should hang out more.”

  “We should,” he agrees.

  “So, come on…” I wave my hand at him. “Tell me more about your boring life. Dating anyone?”

  Kellan reaches
to scratch the back of his head. “Kinda.” He shrugs. “Nothing serious, just dinner dates and shit.”

  “Oh, yea? With who?”

  “Randoms.”

  “Oh!” I react in dramatic fashion, rolling my eyes toward the sky. “Kellan Cooper, always the romantic.”

  His brows pinch together. “What’s with the southern accent?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, back to my normal accent. “It just sort of slipped.”

  He laughs at me again. “What about you? Dating anyone?”

  “Ha!” I knock my head back on a laugh. “Negative. The papers have got it so wrong.”

  “A beautiful girl like you can’t get a date in this town? Is there any hope for the rest of us commoners?”

  I roll my eyes at him. “Fuck men! Honestly, Kellan, like, I don’t even care!” I chuck another favor down on the table, which Kellan fixes for me. Again. “Without man-drama, I’ve got a bunch of free time on my hands. Like, today… it didn’t matter that the cake arrived later than the scheduled time, or that the flower arrangements meant for specific tables were set on the wrong ones, or that name cards were dispersed incorrectly, because I, the Maid of Freaking Honor, saved the day. I am awesome while single! A man would just throw me off my game.”

  “What’s happening right now?” Kellan waves his finger up and down the length of my body, pointing out the sudden meltdown I’m having.

  “Oh, nothing.” I throw a favor. Kellan fixes it. “I’m fine, just fine.” Throw another one. Kellan fixes it. I grip the next one in my hand so tightly I crush the candy inside of it. “I’m going to become a freaking lesbi—” I stop talking when I turn to find Jackson standing in front of me. “Lesbian,” I finish.

  Jackson is wearing that famous blank expression of his, un-amused by my crazy rant. I look him up and down, decked out in a very nice black suit. Plain, like his favorite expression. “You were saying?”

  “Hi, yes, can I help you?” I greet him formally. “May I show you to your seat, perhaps?”

  Sensing the hostility in my tone, Jackson abandons all humor, trading up for a more serious expression. His hands drop into his pockets, and he tilts his head so he’s more leveled with my gaze. “What are you doing?”