by Abigail Boyd
I rush towards her, but she stretches her arms out, and I feel like I’m frozen. In my head, I hear her laugh and laugh as I pass into darkness.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I BLINK AND look up, seeing grungy tile and fluorescent lights. Someone is shaking me way too hard and I feel like I might throw up.
“Stop the earthquake.” I sit up and push the person away, then remember that I was just in the middle of a creep sandwich and jump to my feet.
“It’s okay, Remy, you’re okay,” I hear a familiar, melodic male voice say as strong hands steady my shoulders. I turn to see James standing beside me, looking both nervous and concerned.
The person that was shaking me is apparently the store manager, and he’s standing on the other side of me wringing his hands. “Are you okay, lady? I just walked over here and saw you lying on the ground. I warned Mike to put out that wet floor sign, I swear—”
“I’m okay, I didn’t slip.” I assure him, darting my gaze to James for a moment. “I just…passed out or something.” I think about the menacing look in Tess and Tag’s eyes. “Did you see a couple wearing black clothes walk out of here? They were kind of threatening me.”
“The ones from the night I was at Lucky’s?” James asks. I nod quickly and he frowns in concern.
“I think they followed me here or something. That wasn’t the only time they came up to the diner.”
“What did they do? Did they hurt you?” He touches my arm and looks me over, and I try to look like I’m okay, when really I’m still trembling.
“No, they didn’t even touch me, but they were definitely trying to freak me out. They cornered me and then I just blacked out, it was strange. Maybe they think it’s fun to intimidate me.”
The manager is still standing by twisting his hands, probably waiting to see if I’m going to sue him or something for his slippery floors.
“I’m absolutely fine,” I repeat, and he heads reluctantly back to the front counter. I bend down and pick up the scattered objects I was going to buy. The aspirin bottle must have popped open, because there are a few pills on the floor.
“How did you end up here? Why are you always in the same place as me?” I ask him.
“You were going to come over, remember?” he says as he walks beside me. “You told me that you had to come here first, but that was a half hour ago. I sent you a text but you didn’t answer and I got worried.”
A half hour? I was passed out for a pretty long time. I don’t want to tell him that and freak him out more. He follows through the aisles and toward the counter.
“I was thinking maybe after I show you this power outage map we could maybe hang out tonight, if you were free,” he suggests
“I guess. I need to eat something first. That’s why I was buying these.” I gesture to my handful of snack items, a bag of chips and a noodle cup. My stomach rumbles as if to prove my point, and I rub it through my shirt.
“How can you eat that crap? What else did you eat today?”
I think back, and realize I’d completely bypassed being hungry. “Nothing.”
“Then, in that case, I’m staging an intervention.” He lifts the junk food out of my hands and deposits it on a nearby shelf.
“You can’t stop me,” I say, putting my hands on my hips. “I can fill my body with junk if I want to.”
He smiles and shakes his head at me. “Would you protest if I made you dinner?”
“You want to make me dinner?” I ask incredulously, raising my eyebrows at him. He rolls his blue eyes and tugs gently on my arm.
“C’mon, let’s go.”
I hold up the aspirin. “I do need to pay for this first, I already sampled the merchandise. Plus I feel bad for that guy who found me.”
He immediately has his credit card out. “Let me pay for it.”
“No, I can pay for it for myself. It’s like two bucks.”
He scoffs and stands beside me as the manager is ringing up my aspirin, asking me again if I’m okay. James swiftly slides his hand into the back pocket of my jeans and pulls out my wallet, whipping out a five dollar bill.
My cheeks burn hot as the manager hands me the change, but luckily he doesn’t comment on it.
“How did you know that was in there?” I ask James as we’re walking out.
“I saw it sticking out of your pocket,” he says.
“So, basically you just admitted that you were looking at my butt?”
“Like that surprises you.” He’s grinning at me again and I can’t help but smile in response as we cross the street.
At least my headache is gone.
“My place or yours?” he asks.
“Mine, if it’s not a big deal.” For some reason, it seems like safer territory, despite the fact that it gave me goosebumps to have him there the other night. Plus, I can get out of these jeans and into some leggings and a fresh t-shirt. I’m still not feeling all the way back to myself yet.
As I step inside my foyer and set down the aspirin and my phone, faintness comes over me in a wave. I reach out on reflex and grasp the edge of the counter to keep from going down.
James is instantly at my side, holding me up so that I can steady myself. His sudden closeness is both distracting and comforting, and it takes me a moment to regain my balance.
“I think I can stand all right now,” I say, but my voice cracks, giving me away.
“You don’t have to put on a brave face for me. Just sit down and relax,” he says gently, helping me over to the couch.
He kneels down in front of me and looks up, that silver ring standing out unmistakably in the center of his eyes. He must see that my eyes are the same way, but he doesn’t comment on it and neither do I. We sit that way for a moment, just looking at each other. Looking into each other. He’s almost close enough to kiss, but he doesn’t move the few inches that would bring his lips to mine. Pushing him away hasn’t accomplished what I wanted, it’s only made my attraction to him more potent.
Slowly, tentatively, he reaches his hand out and runs it down my arm, starting at my shoulder. I hold still, trying not to tremble. I wait for him to say that he knows me again, and this time I won’t argue, because in this moment, he’s never seemed more familiar or welcome. But his lips press together, and he withdraws his hand. I blink and the moment seems to disintegrate.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“WELL THAT SETTLES it, I’m definitely subjecting you to my food now,” he says, and hops to his feet, making his way to my small kitchen. “Don’t want you passing out again.”
“And what makes you think I’m going to eat your bachelor cooking?” I ask, tilting my head to the side. “What did you have in mind, chicken nugget nachos?”
“Now there’s an idea,” he says, snapping his fingers, “But sadly, no. I mean real food. Believe it or not, I do know how to cook.” He starts opening my cupboards and searching through them, and I smirk at his bemused look when he finds them bare. He yanks open the fridge, where only a sad, half-empty bottle of Skyy Vodka and some hummus sit on the top shelf.
He turns to me and his face contorts in distaste. “This is all you’ve got? How can you live on this?”
I know I’m supposed to be sitting, but I move to the easy chair across from the couch, leaning with my chin on the headrest so I can watch him. “I almost never cook for myself, so I pretty much live on energy bars and takeout. And lots of coffee.”
He opens the stove and sticks his head inside, investigating the racks. “This thing is immaculate! But you work in a restaurant…”
“Exactly, I work in a restaurant. I come home smelling like bread and grease, and I’m around other people’s half-masticated food all day long. I don’t want to come home and have to cook. Not to mention, I never really learned to cook properly. There are too many options out there to have it done for me.”
He considers this, looking away from me and nodding. “I never thought about it that way. The lazy way out. Pardon me if I think you’re a little
weirder than I did before.”
He’s teasing me but I don’t take the bait. “I’m a little weird? You’re the one who’s obsessed with me.”
He smiles and rubs his hands together. “But who could blame me for that?”
I can’t fight my smile anymore, and the fluttering feeling is back, butterflies that are warring inside my chest. “I just don’t waste time with things I’m bad at.”
“I’m just kidding, Rem. I understand.”
“How are you going to make dinner without any ingredients?” I ask, propping my chin up with my hand as I rest my elbow on the back of the chair. “I’m not having you go grocery shopping on my behalf.”
He holds out both hands. “Wait here.” Then he’s gone, leaving the door open a crack. Thirty seconds later, he’s back with his arms full of supplies, boxes and jars and vegetables I recognize, along with unknown objects that are probably also of the vegetable variety.
“Do you need help?” I call.
“Nope.” He kicks the front door shut with his foot and shuffles into the tiny hallway of kitchen.
I feel much better, no doubt due to his presence, even if I don’t want to admit it. The dizziness is gone and the absence of the headache alone calls for somersaults. I stand up to check on him and laugh as he deposits the supplies on the counter with a loud thud.
“Are you cooking for sixteen people?” I join him in the kitchen.
“No, I just needed a little of this and that. And you don’t have a little of anything.” He winks at me and turns around to the stove.
“Step one, This is how you turn on the burner,” he jokes, twisting the electric dial.
“That’s not how I do it,” I say, thinking about my experience with the stove at work. If only he knew about that…well, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
He gestures with the spatula. “Maybe that’s your problem.”
“Maybe. So what are you making with all that?” I peer over at the little pile of his stash.
“I figure good old pepper steak,” he says, as he starts undoing the plastic packaging on the meat. “Since you expressed a preference for bachelor food.” He thinks of something and turns to me, setting the beef on the cutting board. “You’re not a vegetarian or anything, are you? I probably should have asked, but you did suggest a cheeseburger at Lucky’s.”
“No, I don’t have any eating restrictions.”
He pours oil into the frying pan, then adopts a serious expression as he sets out all the ingredients and starts chopping.
“Can I help with anything? I feel kind of lame just standing here.”
“Nope,” he says, still chopping a yellow pepper. “You’re not allowed to lift a finger. You should really be sitting down, too.” He gestures with the tip of his paring knife towards the living room.
“I’m don’t feel dizzy anymore.” He’s really doing this for me, and it seems so surreal. I watch him as he adds the shiny pepper strips and flicks the frying pan up and down. “You didn’t have to do this, you know.”
He concentrates on cutting a red onion, scooping them into the pan. “I know,” he says finally, still not looking at me. I pull myself up to sitting on the small amount of counter space that’s left so I can watch him.
“It’s like being the audience on a live cooking show,” I remark. “Only I actually get to eat the results instead of just staring at them through the TV while my mouth waters.”
He smiles and bobs his head, testing out one of the peppers. “You gonna put me on a timer? I work pretty well under pressure.”
“If I had one, I would.” He lifts out a pepper with his fingers and holds it in my direction, and I stare at it. “I didn’t know when you said you were going to feed me you meant literally.”
“Shut up and eat it. My hands are clean.”
I open my mouth and he deposits the pepper inside. His fingers touch my tongue for just a second, and the ache between my legs stirs. I focus on chewing the pepper, which is still crunchy but delicious.
“Do you do this for any of your…girlfriends?”
He stops and looks up at me finally, studying my eyes. “I haven’t had a girlfriend since high school. And no, I’ve never done this for anyone else.”
“Oh.” I look down at the floor, feeling embarrassed that my questioning mind decided to veer in that direction. “So, why are you doing it for me?”
“Because we’re friends,” he says simply, and transfers the steak to a broiler pan. “I’m not going in to this looking to fail. I want to see how it plays out.” Neither of us says anything else as he finishes working, putting a top on the pan with the vegetables and the broiler pan into the oven.
I notice that he has a tattoo on his right forearm in black ink. I try to get a closer look without being conspicuous, and see that it’s the outline of some kind of beast with sharp claws and a face full of teeth.
“You ready to see this outage report?” he asks me. I’ve been concentrating on his tattoo, so it takes me a second to catch up.
“Oh, from the electric company? Sure.” I hop off of the counter. He pulls a folded paper out of his back pocket and lays it across the table in the living room. I don’t have a dining room table, because I’ve never needed one. It’s a printed map, with street names and blocks of gray areas with a few blue dots.
“What does the blue mean?”
“An outage. This little map is a snapshot of the time right before the flash, about 8:10, remember?”
I nod. He points to the center of the gray area. “This is approximately where that building we went to is.”
He pulls two more folded papers out of his back pocket, and lays one of them on top of the one we’ve been looking at. He points to the same spot, where now there’s a tiny burst of red.
“What does the red mean?” I ask, looking at the page and then up at him.
“It means a power surge. But there’s no mention of it affecting anything else. And here’s the report from about ten seconds later.”
He lays the final page down, and the area is all gray again. “It only lasted for a few seconds, just like you said you saw.”
“But what would cause a power surge in that little area? That building is empty, I wouldn’t think it would even have power,” I thought out loud. He leans down with both elbows on the table, studying the page and then lifts his eyes back to me.
“I think someone is using that roof for something,” he says. “The little button that we found and the weird scorch mark on the wall up there are the evidence.”
“But who?” I ask, searching his face.
“That I don’t know,” he admits. “I was hoping you’d have some ideas.”
The apartment is starting to fill up with the delicious smell from his cooking, garlic and spices scenting the air. He opens the stove to check on it, and using a fork, flips the steaks inside. “They’re almost ready. Can you get some plates out for me, please?”
Despite not cooking often, I do have quite a few plates. None of them match, as they’ve been collected hodgepodge over the years, but I pull them out along with forks and knives. Ever since he sat me down on the couch, I’ve been thinking about telling him the truth. Now the heavy weight of the unspoken words hangs in the air, and I wonder if he senses it, too. But I don’t know how to go about it, so we make small talk instead about the cooking shows we’ve watched.
James takes out the steaks and distributes them onto the plates. He scoops the vegetables out of the frying pan on top of each steak. Then he cuts a piece and holds it up to me.
“Are you still going to feed me?” I ask.
“Just this. Try it.” I open my mouth again and try the steak, which is ridiculously tender and perfectly cooked.
He watches my reaction. “So what’s my score?”
“Uh, six, seven out of ten,” I say, and he pretends to growl at me. “Actually, it’s perfect. Thank you.”
We take a seat in the living room and I proceed to polish off every
bite. The flavors erupt in my mouth as I sample the peppers and onions.
“That was fantastic,” I tell him as I gather our empty plates.
He smiles, looking pleased. I realize that I like pleasing him. “Thanks. I haven’t cooked for anyone but myself in a while, so I kind of wondered if I played up my talent a little too much.”
“Who taught you to cook like that?” I ask as I take the dirty dishes to the kitchen. He follows me with the steak sauce and salt and pepper shakers.
“My mother,” he says, but he doesn’t go any further. I don’t know whether to ask him questions or not. Usually people are more than willing to tell you everything that’s ever happened to them in their life, and I don’t know how to deal with someone who is acting as guarded as I do. I realize that all I know about him is that he’s from Arizona and he has a sister.
“I’m not saying I’m an expert or anything,” he says as he puts the bottles on the counter. “But if you’d like me to teach you how to cook a few basic meals, I’d be happy to.”
“I’d like that.”
I study the back of his head as he rinses off his hands, the way his hair curls right above the nape of his neck, the bands of muscles in his broad shoulders as they move against his t-shirt. As he turns and dries his hands off on a dish towel, I can tell by his serious expression that he’s thinking about something. I remember that serious look, somewhere deep in my brain. I can’t keep this in any more.
“You were right, you know. I think we have met before,” I say before I can change my mind. “I realized it when you first said it. But for some reason, I didn’t want to tell you.”
His expression doesn’t change, his eyes meeting mine. I can’t read them at all and it’s frustrating. He searches my face like he’s searching for the truth. “Why did you feel like you had to lie about it?”
“You knew I was lying, didn’t you?”
“Not absolutely.” It’s a vague enough answer to confirm my suspicion.
I try to give him an answer, but I don’t have an answer for myself. “I told you no because I don’t know how it’s possible that we do know each other. And because I didn’t want to have to explain.”
