Impressions of Me (Impressions Series Book 2)

by Christopher Harlan

  Dacia: I'm sorry- new phone, lost all of my contacts, nothing personal.

  Kane: you don't have to lie, it's okay. I would have erased me too.

  How does he know? Maybe a better question is why lying is my default setting when it comes to uncomfortable situations with guys. I'm the most painfully honest person I know - I make other people uncomfortable sometimes because of how straightforward I am, but in situations like this I go right for the white lie. Why can't I just say 'yeah, erased you, I had a thing for you once, but you let me down.' It's uncomfortable even to think about, but -least he admits being delete-worthy.

  Kane: well...what do you want?

  Dacia: what do you mean?

  Kane: for lunch? What do you feel like?

  Dacia: are we having lunch?

  Kane: well if we're not then I'm wasting my time parked in front of your place waiting to pick you up.

  What the hell! I go over to the living room window and look outside. Sure enough, there's Kane parked outside my place. Wow, I didn't expect him to just show up!

  Dacia: you're crazy

  Kane: maybe so. But I'm also hungry- how about you? Chinese?

  Dacia: sounds amazing - I need ten minutes. And how long have you been out there.

  Kane: no way to answer that without sounding like a complete stalker, so I'm pleading the fifth. See you in ten.

  I'm still half asleep and a total mess, but I have the day to myself (what's left of it anyhow), and why not spend some of it having lunch with Kane?

  I get myself as ready as I can in ten minutes and give Jordan a big kiss on the nose before I walk out. God I hope she doesn't destroy the place...not that I wouldn't deserve it for abandoning her again. But just when I start to feel guilty I hear Mia's words, 'the dog will be fine.' She's always right.

  As I approach the car I see that he's dressed up more than he was last night. Nothing too fancy, but a nice slim fit shirt and tie. Damn, I think, he looks good, I'm definitely making the right decision. As I get in he looks at me intensely, up and down, like I'm the most beautiful thing in the world. "You look gorgeous," he says.

  "You're a terrible liar, but thank you."

  "I'm an excellent liar, but in this case there's no need, you look amazing."

  "Well if you're such a good liar how do I know you're telling the truth?"

  "You don't," he answers, still looking at me like he wants to have me for lunch, "but if you can't tell from my eyes then my words won't convince you." He's right, I can tell he's being honest with me, and that he's genuinely attracted to me, and despite how much I don't want to admit it, I feel exactly the same way.

  "So where are we going?"

  "There's this great restaurant by my offices, it's not far. We can go and I'll have my driver take you back, I need to attend to some business after."

  "You have a driver?" I ask, kind of shocked.

  "Yeah, but I never use him."

  "That's so strange." I say, "what's his name?"

  "John."

  "John?"

  "John."

  "Okay then, I guess I'll get a ride home with John the driver."

  "You'll like him, he's a good guy."

  "I'll like anyone who gives me a free ride through town. Interesting conversation is optional."

  "Then you'll love him," Kane says confidently, "But enough about John, you can get to know him later, let's have lunch."

  As we drive to lunch I can't help but think about what's happened so far with Kane, and how surreal it is for me to be in the passenger seat of his fancy car. Just a few weeks things were so different on so many levels, and now I have the wind in my hair as Kane drives way too fast through town. It only takes about 15 minutes of speeding and chit-chat to get to the place. We pass the Marsden, Inc. offices, and I feel like a tourist staring up at a huge building with wide eyes. "That's where you work?" I ask, my eyes fixed on the impressive building.

  "Sometimes," he says with a grin, "when I'm being my responsible self. Impressive building, isn't it?"

  "It's stunning."

  "Our father had it constructed when Wesley, Annabelle, and me were still little kids. Now it's the place where I work."

  "Fancy." I say laughing.

  "Yeah, well that's one thing my father did well." I remember the first night I met Kane, and how he always referenced his dad as 'my father'- I didn't know much about him, but based on what Mia said and what I heard from Kane that night, Papa Marsden sounds like a guy I'm better off never having known. Kane doesn't sound angry or bitter when he mentions his dad, but he sounds pretty disconnected from being his son. Maybe one day he'll tell me more about his father.

  We get to the restaurant and I feel under dressed. I'm not bumming it by any means, but I'm not looking my cutest either. I haven't been to too many fancy places - even for lunch - and the second we walk in I remember why. It's all in my own insecure head, but I feel like everyone's staring at me when the hostess goes to seat us. Kane's dressed even more casual than I am, but he wears casual perfectly; it's that kind of I-don't-give-a-fuck casual that only good looking guys can get away with. I just feel out of place.

  The hostess seats us and we make small talk while I look over the menu with no prices listed, which is always a sign that the place is expensive. After the waitress takes our order we just sit and talk, mostly witty banter with a healthy dose of sarcasm, but after a few minutes I decide to switch it up. If this is going to be anything past a flirtation I need to test the waters. "Do you know what I've been thinking a lot about recently?"

  "I couldn't possibly," he jokes. Even though I'm the one who starts the conversation, I feel strange being vulnerable to him, and I don't want him to see my change of topics as too random, but I want to see what it's like to talk to him about something realtor a change.

  "I've been thinking about the things that we hold inside, and what we choose to show to the world; the masks we wear, and the reasons that we wear them."

  "Hmm, interesting," he answers, before pausing for a few seconds, "I've never thought of it quite like that, but I know what you mean. I'm very careful with the space I keep between the world and me."

  "Space?" I ask.

  "That's how I look at it; like there's a distance between the real me and the rest of the world that I hide to keep." I'm amazed at how quickly he follows me into a deep conversation, never questioning how I shifted topics, or asking what the hell I'm talking about; he just follows.

  "Why do you need to keep a space between you and everyone else?" I ask.

  "Why?" He repeats. He seems surprised that I would ask, as if keeping everyone at arm’s length is somehow a normal thing. Maybe for him it is. "I don't know," he says, looking away from me into the nothingness of the floor beneath him, "I guess I learned at a young age that the real me..." he stops his speech mid-sentence and just stares at the ground for a few seconds, "...that the real me can hurt people; hurt them badly."

  My first impulse is to hug him, as unhuggable of a human being Kane Marsden usually is, but for some reason I don't. I sit and look at him with compassionate eyes instead of wrapping him up in compassionate arms, and I wait for the rest of the words that I know he probably needs to get out. Still looking down, he continues. "The real me is the reason..." he stops again. I finally get what the end of his sentence is intended to be, and I stop him before he can finish.

  "No," I interject, "no no no, don't do that." He finally looks up at me because he knows that I know what he means. I'm not supposed to know the story - I heard it by accident, as the sidekick best friend who tagged along that night- but I wasn't supposed to know the dark Marsden family secret.

  "It's hard not to," he says sternly, "I wouldn't expect you to understand." I don't really like the way he says the last part. Maybe I'm being ridiculous and projecting my shit onto him, but there's something vaguely condescending in his tone.

  "You wouldn't expect me to understand what?" I ask, a little edge to my voice.

  "Noth
ing, forget it." He says and then looks away again.

  "No, I don't want to forget it, do you think I don't understand what it's like to be looked down on by family members? Or to have family drama?"

  "Of all the ways I've ever thought about what happened to my family, the word 'drama' never crossed my lips."

  "Don't be a dick, you know what I mean, and trust me, I've had my fair share of family...whatever you want to call it." It's true. I haven't told anyone about my past completely, not even Mia, and it's all come flooding back to me as I think about that phone call last night.

  "Tell me about it." I don't think any guy has ever asked me about my past - or maybe I never kept them around long enough to have conversations like that, but for whatever reason when Kane says those words I have such a weird reaction. I want to tell him everything right now and I don't know why; about mom, about growing up like I did...even about him. But for some reason I can't do it yet, I'm just not ready.

  "Another time, I promise."

  "We've had too many 'another times' already, what's wrong with now?"

  "I'm just not ready to pour my whole heart out over fries and a sandwich, I'm sorry. But I really do promise you that I will tell you all about it one day, okay?" He nods in agreement. I like that he's not pushy and I like that he really seems interested in something so personal to me, but now just isn't the time.

  "So," I say, trying to change the subject like I do so well, "How's Marsden, Inc.? Holding down the fort while big bro's away?" I remember the last time this came up he got really weird with me. We never spoke about that moment; he actually asked me out right after that, but i definitely hit a nerve, so I'm curious if it'll happen again. He looks at me sharply and smiles.

  "Yes," he answers confidently, "despite the gut wrenching lack of Wesley being around, I've managed to not destroy our entire family legacy, but just barely. Thank God he'll be back soon." His sarcasm is as bad as mine, so I smile. "Not that Wesley's done much himself recently; he's been too busy playing the avenging angel for our sister before Mia came along and knocked some sanity into him. The truth is, I've been more directly involved in our business for years, and hopefully even more so soon."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, Wesley and I are majority owners of the company," he explains, "but there are other people who own equity in the company. Mostly old associates of our father's - old, wealthy, evil men- just like he would have been - men with no vision for the future. I've let them steer the ship for too long while Wesley stared at maps in a room and I counted all the money, but it's time for me to take control of the company again."

  "Oh," I say, not knowing exactly how to respond to all of that, "well, good luck with that. It's pretty cool that you want to get more involved with the company- it does have your name, after all."

  "Does it surprise you that I have such ambition?" It's a loaded question he's asking and he knows it. He also knows that there's a good and a bad answer, and I need to choose the right one.

  "Can I be honest?"

  "Never be anything else with me." He answers. Be careful what you wish for, Kane Marsden.

  "I'll Remember that you said that. Truthfully, it does surprise me, yes," I begin, nervous that I'm going to offend him again and ruin this whole thing before it's even begun, "but surprises me in a good way. You have to remember that night we met, and all of my impressions of you since then. Let's be real, you haven't seemed too ambitious."

  He just sits there listening to me talk, the expression on his face never changing, and his eyes never leaving mine. "I guess I can't blame you for getting me wrong; like you said, all you've seen is the version of me that would lead you to believe that. Space, right? Masks."

  "Masks." I say back. "But look, I like that I'm wrong about you, maybe one day you'll rule the world."

  "One day?" He says, smiling his fakest arrogant smile. I hate to admit it, but he's so damn handsome I can't even stand it, and when he smiles like that my legs go weak and I melt inside. It isn't his money, and it isn't the power that he wishes he had (and probably will one day), it's just him; something deep inside of him that shoots to the surface when he blesses those around him with that smile.

  "You're pretty, you know that?" I ask.

  "I'm okay," he answers modestly, "the younger brother can't be the good looking one, that's all Wesley." I can hear in his voice a strange kind of self-deprecating sincerity. "And bedsides, like I said back at your job, you're the beautiful one."

  "You have a talent for saying the right thing at the right time. Unfortunately you also have a talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. But what you just said was perfected, even if you didn't mean it."

  "Of course I mean it," he says, looking deep into my eyes with such focus that I feel like the only person in the room. "And while I'm saying the right thing at the right time let me try one more time."

  "Okay." I say, wondering what could possibly be coming next.

  "There isn't a man alive who could look at you and think otherwise."

  My heart stops for a minute; like a little skip in it's normal rhythm, and it only returns to normal after a few seconds of me staring into those beautiful eyes, wondering if I just heard what think did. I'm not just staring at him; we're staring into each other, and as we do the room around us melts away; all of the individual noises of the restaurant blend into a symphonic hum that just holds its note in the background. I'm aware of it, but the only sensation that's clear - the only feeling that I can perceive with total clarity is the pulse of my heart, and the fact that I've been holding my breath without realizing. "Wow," I say, mostly because I don't know how to react to real compliments. The fakes ones; the ones the sleazy guys have rehearsed just so they can get into your pants- those are easy to respond to. A slap on the face for the creeps, or a polite but soulless 'thank you' for the creeps who pretend not to be creeps. But the real compliments are something different, they're much harder to react to because I don't hear them very often, and it's not easy for me to figure out their intentions. "That's...that's really nice of you to say. But don't sell yourself short, you make me feel things."

  It's a crazy thing for me of all people to say; me who's built a life around not feeling, around learning how to prevent the pain that caring about someone can being. I learned a long time ago how to block myself off from the people in my life without making it obvious that I was doing so, but sitting here at this table is the first time I can remember feeling something like this. I never thought it would be Kane Marsden, of all people, who would remind me what a feeling like that could be like. It's a strange yet somehow familiar feeling - like an old friend from high school, that you haven't seen in a while coming back to say hi. They look different, but feel exactly the same - they feel strangely...familiar. That's how Kane feels to me right now - just like someone I've always known and someone who's always made me feel like I do, only I needed to be reminded somehow.

  Our food comes and snaps us out of the moment we're having temporarily. We finish what's honestly the best lunch I've had in a long time, and before too long Kane looks down at his watch. "Shit, time flies, doesn't it?"

  "Is it time for me to meet John the driver? I'm seriously excited about that."

  "I'll be sure to tell him you're a fan," he jokes, "and yes, as much as I hate to end this, I have to get back to taking over the world."

  "I understand," I say softly, "the worlds not gonna conquer itself. Now text John, or send up the Bat signal, whatever you need to do to get him here."

  Kane messes with his phone, and we talk for another minute or two before I hear it vibrate. "He's here."

  "Yay!"

  "You're way too excited about this, in case you were wondering."

  "I wasn't," I joke, "and I am excited."

  Kane pays the bill like a gentleman and walks me out to the car. I can see John sitting behind the wheel of a Lincoln Town-car. He's an older guy like I expect, and looks every bit the driver, hat and gloves i
ncluded. He gets out of the car and opens the back door and stands next to it, waiting for me to get in. Kane puts up a single finger and tells John to wait. "What is it?" I ask, seeing that he looks weirdly nervous all of a sudden.

  He doesn't answer, or say anything at all, and while it's happening I don't think I realize that it's happening, but he's kissing me before I know it, and I'm kissing him back. His kiss is soft, surprisingly tender, but there's such intense passion that I forget where I am or what I'm doing. And then, as quickly as it began, the kiss ends, and I'm left standing there, staring up into his beautiful eyes, wanting more of what just happened. "That's what," he says softly, looking down intensely into my eyes, "I've wanted to do that for...for a long time."

  "So what made you have the balls to do it now?"

  "I don't know, it's hard to say, it was just a feeling I had that it was the right time. I guess i was right."

  He couldn't be more right. I've been trying to keep my attraction to him buried deep inside of me because I don't really want to be attracted to him. When he isn't around me it's easy to forget his face, or his smell, or the way he makes me feel, but each time I've seen him over the past few days the feelings have been undeniable, like a swelling deep inside me that I can't control any longer. I don't want to control it. I want his lips against mine again right now, and I don't want it to stop there. Just when I'm about to lean in for another kiss I hear John the driver clear his throats in that way you do when you want to interrupt something without being too rude. It does the job because Kane seems to be snapped back into whatever frantic reality might await him at the offices of Marsden, Inc.

  "I've got to go now." He says almost sadly.

  "I know. But maybe text me later?"

  "Maybe?" He asks, "there's no maybe about it, Dacia. I'll be the ding on the other end of your phone."