Torn Asunder (Part 1 of 2)

by Abigail Boyd

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  JAMES FOLLOWS MY gaze and turns to look over his shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t need help with your blast from the past?” he queries.

  I shake my head, and see to my dismay that Tonya is stomping over to them. I slide out of the booth and straighten my uniform.

  “Nope, I already have help.” I tell him, leaving his booth. I’ve never been on the receiving end of Tonya’s scorn, but I’ve seen her be brutal to people who have wound up in tears. She has both of them up on their feet before I can even get there. She practically shoves them out of the door while the girl—Tess—tries to kick my manager. Tonya shuts the door on them, and Tess flips her off through the window.

  “Go somewhere else. You little shits aren’t welcome here anymore,” Tonya calls. She looks around the restaurant self consciously, but our other guests seem to approve, and they break out in a short round of applause.

  I survey the mess that is left on the floor, chicken bones and a broken glass with a puddle of beer around it. All of the napkins have been pulled out of the dispenser, some burned around the edges from a lighter.

  “I’m sorry,” I begin, but she shakes her head and wipes her forehead on her sleeve.

  “It is what it is. What were you going to do? Tiny little thing like you isn’t going to intimidate nobody.” She wipes her brow and rests her hands on her hips, her voice going lower. “As long as that dumbass Russell doesn’t find out about this, it didn’t happen. But this mess needs to be picked up.”

  “I’ll do it,” I say quickly, and retrieve a trash bucket from the back. Using a paper towel because I don’t want to touch anything they touched, I pick up the napkins and then bend to get the chicken bones.

  Someone kneels down beside me. I look up and without much surprise see that James has started to scoop up the mess, too.

  “You don’t have to help me,” I say, genuinely flattered. “I appreciate it, but believe it or not this is not the worst mess a customer has left behind.”

  He doesn’t respond but finishes cleaning up the area in front of him. I finish the rest quickly and all that’s left is to come back and mop it.

  “Some people are rude as shit,” he says finally as we both stand. He dumps a handful of broken glass chips into my trash. I wipe my hands on my apron and push my sweaty hair back with the back of my hand. At this point, I don’t really care what I look like.

  “Thanks for your help,” I say.

  “I wasn’t just going to sit there staring and let you do it by yourself.”

  He hands me his bill folder with cash poking out of it. “I’m going to wash my hands. I’ll be back.”

  I take his bill up to the register and cash him out. Waitresses are allowed to use the register, despite the fact that it takes a job from the hostess. My heart is beating erratically again and I still feel that brand new giddiness. I drop his coins on the floor and dive to pick them up.

  I come back around the counter and spot Quinn talking with James. Lovely, well-meaning, treacherous Quinn. She smiles at him hard, the apples of her cheeks round.

  “I mean, the rent’s really affordable. It would have to be with the crap we get for tips here,” Quinn is saying when I get in earshot. “I would move there myself if it wasn’t for my lease.”

  “Well, thanks for the recommendation. I’ll have to give them a call and check it out,” James says cheerfully. “I think my friend is sick of me hogging his couch. He’d be happy to have it back.”

  “Not a problem at all,” Quinn says, her lilting voice going up an octave. No question she thinks he’s just as attractive as I do. “I’m sure you’re a great neighbor.”

  I’m still trying to piece together the conversation and I shoot my best mild glare at Quinn for this dating warm up exercise I’ve been through tonight.

  “It was nice talking to you, Remy,” James says as I hand him his change. He pushes the little bill folder back into my hand. “No, keep it.”

  “I didn’t do much,” I insist. “And I think you already paid for my services tonight.”

  This gets a laugh that I don’t know if I intended out of him. He takes his change out and hands the folder back to me. “Fair enough. I’ll see you around, Remy.”

  And then he’s gone. I practically drag Quinn into the back room, and she’s got a Joker grin plastered on her face.

  “Remy and James, sitting in a tree,” she sing songs. Then she opens her eyes wide and clasps her hands together. “R and J? Like Romeo and Juliet, I didn’t even realize that before! This is like fate, I knew you would find someone last night…”

  “Stop right there,” I tell her sternly, holding out my hand. “First, Romeo and Juliet is not a love story. It is a cautionary tale about how stupid teenagers are. Second, why did you tell him where I worked? What were you two talking about before I came back?”

  “Hold on, sister,” Quinn says defensively. “I told him because he asked. Then, tonight, he said that he was in need of an apartment and I informed him about the one across from you.”

  I have to struggle not to get genuinely upset. “Are you kidding? Why would I want him to move across from me? What if he really is some obsessive creep, did you think about that?”

  She pats me on the arm. “Relax, Remy. I doubt he’s going to move there just because I suggested it, there are a lot of other apartments for rent in Ocela. And if he’s a stalker you got the luck of the draw.”

  ###

  I don’t know what I’m expecting, maybe that James will have already moved in from me when I get home. But the apartment still appears empty for the next week. Quinn must have been right and I blew it out of proportion.

  As the days pass from the night he visited Lucky’s, James and my attraction to him become fuzzy memories. I involve myself in work and try not to even think about him. I know I read too much into the situation, just because it was the first time I found a guy I liked.

  Quinn and I went back to the Longhorn the next weekend, but we didn’t meet anyone interesting. We asked around about James, however, and the people that knew him told us he had a reputation.

  “He comes pretty much every weekend since the first time he showed up, every time with different girls on his arm,” Matt the bartender informs us. “I’m surprised you haven’t seen him in action tonight. You seem like nice girls, so you’d be best to steer clear of him.”

  I hear enough gossip that night to kill whatever lingering hope I had for him to be different than the other womanizing players who prowled the club. I just wish my disappointment wasn’t so strong.

  On Saturday morning, I visited the coffee shop on the corner and came back with vanilla lattes. Quinn had been sleeping on my couch when I left, but now she’s standing in the open doorway of my apartment.

  “What’s up?” I ask her in confusion as I handed her a latte. She greedily gulps down a few swallows and nods towards the apartment across the way.

  Several shirtless, ripped guys are bringing boxes in, navigating the narrow doorway as a thin sheen of sweat glistens on their skin. I giggle to myself, because it’s almost like a commercial for a dude fragrance. Then my heart stutters, thumping back hard. What if they’re there for James?

  I dismiss the thought. The college that Quinn attends is close by, and a lot of students end up taking apartments like these. The heat is on the fritz again in the building and it’s very muggy. Quinn is already fanning herself with the neck of her shirt, but I don’t think it’s just the heat causing her to react that way.

  We continue to watch the show as the guys carry in a couch, their arm muscles flexing from the effort. They don’t seem to be struggling at all.

  “I think we have an audience,” one of them says, and transfers his side of the couch with one hand so he can wave to Quinn. He has spiky, sun-blonde hair and a deep tan. She waves back with her fingers and smiles at him flirtatiously.

  “Can we help you with anything?” I ask.

  “You’re fine,” the other
man says, and they guide the couch into the apartment on its side.

  “I think he doubts we have muscles,” I whisper to Quinn.

  “So do I,” she says, pinching the bottom of her skinny arm. “I haven’t been to the gym in months.”

  James comes around the corner so fast that my brain can barely keep up with my eyes. My mouth goes dry, my skin finally responding to the heat and starting to sweat. This can’t be possible. At least he’s not shirtless like the others. As long as he keeps his t-shirt on I can think rationally. His head is bent as he scrolls through his phone and he doesn’t even notice Quinn and me as he goes into his apartment.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  QUINN TURNS TO and whacks me gently on the chest. “Holy shit.” She thinks she’s whispering. She’s not. “He really did move in.”

  Not wanting the men to hear, I push my door open a little so that my friend and I are almost inside.

  “Quinn, we just spent all last night hearing about what a player he is. I’m not looking for that, so he can stay over on his side of the hallway.”

  James steps back out into the hallway. Holy shit is right. It’s like he’s testing my resolve, because he’s taken off his shirt and I can’t stop my eyes from traveling across his hard stomach and muscles obviously trained with a lot of work and crunches. He even has indents on his hips. Oh, somebody help me.

  My stomach starts to get giddy again, but I force myself to calm down, despite his arresting good looks and the electrical connection I instantly feel between us again.

  “It’s like an oven in here,” he mutters. I hear Quinn let out a loud exhale. This makes him turn toward us, and when he sees me he grins. “Hey, Remy.” God, I like the way he says my name, like it’s a new word I’ve never heard before.

  “Hi,” I croak. He’s not for you, I shout to myself. He goes through women like Kleenexes, he’ll treat you like you’re disposable. But his blue eyes, the silver center hidden by his pupils, have already captured my gaze, and I can’t tear them away.

  “Does the air conditioning give out often?” he asks me casually, leaning his slim hip against the wall.

  My teeth clack together as I shut my mouth, which was apparently open. I might have even drooled. Why am I acting so embarrassed? This is way worse than when he was fully clothed.

  “Occasionally. Twice this year. The management usually fixes it within a week,” I say at last.

  “A week? They take their time, don’t they?”

  “The more people complain, the longer it takes,” I admit. Why are we talking about air conditioning when he’s standing there looking like that? I finally look away from him so he doesn’t think I’m eye-groping his body.

  He turns to Quinn. “Thanks again for telling me about this place. It was a cheap deal compared to the others I looked at around here.”

  She nods at him. The blond guy with the tan comes back out with a couple of water bottles in his hand. He tosses one to James. “You didn’t tell me you had such good looking neighbors.”

  Quinn smiles at him and I think her knees are melting.

  “That was part of the perks,” James says.

  He rolls the cold water bottle across his forehead and I swallow hard. This is not fair. Quinn starts chatting with the blond, who introduces himself as Charlie. James steps close to me, close enough to breathe his cologne, and the sudden intimacy freezes me in place. I can’t deny that I would be perfectly fine with him ripping my clothes off right now and pressing me against the wall, but the rational part of my mind is still protesting. I smell his ocean cologne again, the same smell still clinging to the top I wore at the club, the one I have yet to wash.

  I look down, hoping that breaking the connection with his eyes will lessen the tension, but then I make out the veins on either side of his lower stomach running down into his shorts. That does not help the breathing situation. I look back up into his eyes, and the corner of his mouth smirks.

  “I know this adds a check in the creeper column,” he says quietly. “But I’m not noisy or nosy. I just couldn’t pass it up.”

  “Understood,” I choke.

  Another of his friends comes out of the door and tosses a baseball cap at James’ back. Our tense moment is over, and I’m both relieved and frustrated. “Are you gonna help or what?” the friend asks him.

  James laughs and puts the baseball cap over his curly hair. “I thought I’d make you do all the work.” He lifts up a stack of boxes on the floor with one arm like it’s nothing and carts them into the apartment. I allow myself a couple of guilt-free moments to admire his muscular arms and shoulders. Then he heads down the hall, and Charlie apologizes to Quinn as he follows him.

  “I think I’m going to have to move in with you now,” Quinn murmurs, drinking the rest of her latte.

  I stare into the tantalizing open doorway of the apartment that now belongs to James. I can’t believe he’s actually here, and I don’t know how I’m going to tell him no.

  ###

  Quinn already has a date with Charlie tonight. We had been planning to go out together, but I tell her I’d rather stay home anyway.

  “Maybe I’ll clean out some closets,” I tell her.

  “Oh, yeah, that sounds like fun,” she says, rolling her eyes.

  “Precisely. I want a break from fun for a little while.”

  “Are you sure? I can reschedule with Charlie for another time. He was just eager to hit up this steak and sushi place. But I feel like an ass ditching on you.”

  “Don’t. I want you to go,” I insist, and I mean it. “I’ve had enough excitement recently.”

  Several hours later, I’m sitting on the floor of my bedroom, staring into my open closet with piles of clothes already folded on the bed. My organizing tendencies can get a little out of control sometimes, and I stand and straighten the line of hanging dresses and shirts. The air conditioning hasn’t been fixed, but with the windows open, the humidity is starting to drain out.

  After I put my clothes away there isn’t really much else for me to do. So much for relaxing—I feel more antsy than when I started. I know part of it is James living across from me. I decide to go out after all. There’s a sports bar at the end of the street that I’ve never checked out, and this is as good a time as any. I get dressed quickly in jean shorts and a flowing black top, eschewing the jewelry and keeping my makeup fairly simple, just a swipe of lip gloss and some dark brown shadow with mascara. I stow my wallet into the back pocket of my jeans and my phone in the other.

  As I slide out of the apartment, I notice with what feels like a hot flash that James is coming down the hall toward me, holding a laundry basket full of folded clothes.

  He stops and looks at me, and I feel self conscious so I twist a piece of my hair.

  “You look nice. You going out?” he asks, balancing the basket against his hip.

  “Yeah, I’m just going to the bar.” I never play with my hair and yet my fingers won’t stop twisting. I quickly scoop it all into a messy bun and secure it to the back of my head with a clip I had in my pocket.

  “Hold on, I’ll come with you,” he says, stowing the laundry just inside his apartment.

  “Did you just invite yourself?” I ask skeptically, raising my eyebrow.

  “I did, so unless you’re going to uninvite me, wait here.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  I’M STRUCK BY his forwardness, but I don’t move. He’s back within a few seconds, not even long enough for me to close my open mouth. He slides his leather jacket over his shoulders and follows me down the stairs.

  “Do you like the apartment so far?” I ask as we’re making our way down. Now that he’s fully clothed and I’m not so shocked to see him, I feel like I have better control of myself.

  “Definitely. The view is much better than my last place.”

  “Is that another one of your pick up lines disguised as innocent comments?” I ask.

  “Oh, you’re on to me,” he says, and smiles. “No, actually I
mean it. All those windows in the living room really let the light in.”

  We chat on the way to the bar, about nothing much of importance. I tease him for complaining about the heat, but he tells me the difference between Arizona and our state is that he comes from dry heat, and it’s humid here. He asks me how long I’ve been working at my job and how I like it, but he’s not very forthcoming about himself.

  At the bar, we’re seated at two stools around an elevated table in the center of the room. I’m silently glad they didn’t stick us in a private booth. A few older men are clustered around the TV, watching a basketball game. The waitress takes our drink orders, and then it’s just James and me again.

  “So, what evidence do I have that you’re not my stalker?” I challenge. “Since you hinted that I should be keeping score.”

  He smirks and shakes his head, resting his elbows on the table. I can’t prove a negative. Yes, I asked where you worked. And maybe I followed you a little, but not because I have any bad intent. Mostly it’s because I like talking to you.”

  “And here I thought it was because you liked the way I danced.”

  “Oh, I like that too, don’t get me wrong. You were very compelling that night.” He rests his lips on the mouth of his bottle and takes a swig.

  It makes me shiver to hear him admit that, and the strangely pleasant, anxious tingle returns to my stomach. I reach out for the table to keep my balance, hoping he won’t notice how much of an affect he has on me.

  “Well, I know it can’t just be the windows. Did you really move into that apartment because I live across from it? Tell me the truth.” I feel like I have to ask.

  He laughs and runs his fingers through the top of his curly hair. “That’s just a bonus. Really, Remy, we had just met and spoke what, two times? You really think I’d do that? It was just a coincidence.”

  I don’t know if I completely buy it, but I admit that it would be crazy for him to move there just because of me, and he doesn’t strike me as crazy.

  “I’ve told you about my life, what about you?” I ask as I’m sipping my cocktail. “Or are you a secret agent?”