After I Fall

by Amity Hope

  He quickly closed the distance between us.

  “Wait,” I said, “if you lost your key ring, are you going to be able to get into the house?”

  “They use a key code,” he said.

  “They?” I asked.

  “The people I’m staying with,” he mumbled. “My foster parents, actually.”

  I wanted to ask him more but since I didn’t know him well, or at all, really, I didn’t feel like it was my place.

  When we reached the SUV he stopped with his hand on the passenger door handle.

  “Nice. Whose is this?”

  “Their dad’s. It’s just easier to take his vehicle because of their car seats,” I explained.

  He got in the passenger side but I poked my head through the back window. “You both still buckled in?”

  “Uh-huh,” Natalie said.

  “Yes,” Madison replied.

  They looked at each other and a replay from earlier started to unfold. They both covered their mouths and giggled. Before I could wrap my head around what was going through their little brains Madison blurted out, “Em thinks you’re adorable!”

  Natalie, who was too shy to speak, squealed out laughter.

  “She likes you!” Madison tacked on.

  “Who wants to watch a movie?” I didn’t mean to bellow it out but I did, desperate to drown out Madison’s rambling. I was going to have to talk to her about that. Not that it would do much good. Mom and Phillip reminded her regularly that she needed to think before she blurted things out.

  I pulled the door open and stuck my hand into the pocket on the back of the driver’s seat.

  “Oh! Here’s The Fox and the Hound!” I said as I pulled out the first movie I found. I didn’t have to look at Eric to know he had a bemused expression on his face.

  “I don’t like that one,” Madison whined. “There’s no princess. I like movies that have a princess.”

  “I like it,” Natalie said. “I like foxes. And hounds. But not guns. I don’t like guns. They kill foxes…And they kill Bambi too.”

  “I’m putting this one in,” I said. “No arguing or there will be no movie.”

  Madison pursed her lips and her eyebrows bunched together. I knew it took a lot out of her to keep quiet.

  Movies were supposed to be reserved for special occasions—otherwise known as interminably long car rides. Neither Mom nor Phillip allowed the girls to watch DVDs every time we got in a vehicle. And while this might not exactly be a special occasion, it was a mini-emergency. Or at least it was to me. I was desperate to have their attention averted somewhere other than on me and our passenger.

  Minutes later they were settled with their headphones on. Their eyes were riveted to the mini screen.

  “Where to?” I asked Eric.

  “The house is on the west side of the lake. On Maple Lane?”

  I nodded to let him know I had a general idea of where we were going. “My best friend, Clara, lives over that way. Just let me know when I need to turn off.”

  I glanced at the girls in the rearview mirror. They were both little chatterboxes but put them in front of a TV and it was like they developed a mute button. Sometimes, there silence was bliss.

  I glanced over at Eric. I caught him looking at me with a curious smile.

  “What?” I asked with a nervous laugh.

  “Adorable?” he asked. Then he snickered.

  I shrugged. “I may have said that,” I nonchalantly admitted.

  “Aww,” he teased. “Well, I have definitely been called worse things.”

  “Okay, so now that we have that awkwardness out of the way, how are you liking Roseville so far?”

  “Could be better, could be worse,” he said noncommittally.

  I didn’t ask for more of an explanation. So far I knew that Jace had given him a hard time. I’d seen him drop a drink and have to scrub it up with an audience. And he’d lost his keys.

  Didn’t seem like he was off to a great start.

  “How long have you been in town?” I asked. I hoped it was a neutral question that wouldn’t make him uncomfortable.

  “Not long. Just since school got out.”

  “I just moved here too,” I admitted. “Last fall, I mean. I go to RHS. Will you be going there?”

  He didn’t answer right away. When I was met with silence I dared a quick glance his direction. His brow was furrowed, as if I’d asked a trick question.

  Eventually he shrugged. “Yeah, probably. I mean, if I’m still here, that’s where I’ll go.”

  “You might not be?” I didn’t know much about the foster care system. But maybe this was a temporary placement? I didn’t know him well enough to ask.

  “Who knows,” he muttered.

  “Well if you do stick around don’t let Jace get to you. I wish I could say that if you ignore him, he’ll go away. But that’s not the case. He keeps coming back no matter what. Like an annoying stray dog you can’t get rid of.”

  “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” Eric said.

  “Unfortunately,” I agreed.

  “You need to take the next left,” he said.

  I turned on my blinker. Maple Lane led into a quiet neighborhood. The houses were older but well maintained. It was still a premiere neighborhood with the lake as its backdrop.

  “Two more driveways,” he said. “The one with the green mailbox.”

  There was no other traffic on the road but I turned on the blinker anyway. The driveway was short. It led to a log house with a huge front porch. I caught a glimpse of the lake shimmering in the background.

  “It’s pretty back here,” I said as we came to a stop.

  He looked around as if taking it all in for the first time. “Yeah, it is.”

  “Are they going to be mad about the keys?” I asked.

  He scrubbed his hand across his forehead and blew out a breath. “I have no idea. I hope not. I just hope they have a spare set. I don’t want them to regret letting me use the truck. I mean, it’s just their old work truck but I needed something to get back and forth to work.”

  “It’s not like it’s your fault,” I pointed out. “I mean, they were stolen.”

  He nodded and gnawed on his lower lip for a moment. I wondered what it would be like to live with strangers. Total strangers. I wondered what it would be like to not have any idea how they might respond to a situation. I hoped they were nice people. I hoped they treated him well.

  He dropped his hand and reached for the door handle. “Thanks for the ride. I really appreciate it.”

  “Anytime,” I said as he slipped out of the vehicle.

  He gave me a heart melting smile before closing the door.

  Chapter 3

  “Everyone keeps talking about the salted caramel frozen yogurt.” Eric kicked out a chair at the wrought iron table I was sitting at. He held a cardboard cup in each hand. He placed one of the desserts in front of me. I stared at him a moment in stunned silence. “But if you’d rather have another flavor, I can run back in and get you something else.”

  A smile quickly found its way onto my face.

  “What’s this for?” I asked. It had been over a week since the day I’d given him a ride. The girls only had lessons three days a week. The last time we’d been here, he hadn’t been working.

  I snuck a peek at the twins. They were both preoccupied with their coach. I quickly turned my attention back to Eric. He gave me a sheepish smile.

  “It’s an unimaginative attempt to thank you for the ride the other day,” he explained.

  “Thanks, that’s really sweet,” I said. “But you didn’t have to do that.”

  “It’s not a big deal. I do get an employee discount you know,” he teased. He glanced around and I realized that he hadn’t settled into his chair yet. “Do you mind if I sit with you?”

  “No, not at all,” I assured him.

  “Thanks. Yours is the only friendly face in this whole damn place.” He leaned back, making himself
comfortable.

  I reached for the bright pink plastic spoon that was sticking out of my dessert. I was so flustered by his sudden appearance that I couldn’t think of anything to say. I was grateful for the dessert. I took a bite to fill the silence.

  I was only vaguely aware of the flavor that melted in my mouth. My senses were otherwise preoccupied. I could just barely make out the scent of Eric’s cologne. He’d taken the seat next to mine and his knee skimmed against my knee as one leg jiggled up and down. I wondered if he was as nervous as I was. I watched him as he took a bite, his eyes slicing across to the pool area.

  He watched them with a neutral expression but I had to guess that his breaks were the best part of his workday. He most likely felt me watching him because he turned back to me.

  “You were obviously able to get the truck home,” I said. It wasn’t the most exciting conversation starter but I had to start somewhere.

  He nodded. “My jacket and the other key still haven’t shown up. The Zierdens were pretty decent about it.”

  “Zierden? That name sounds familiar,” I said as I swirled my spoon around my bowl. It wasn’t a common name but I was sure that I’d heard it before.

  “Lisa Zierden? She’s a realtor. Her face is on a billboard coming into town,” he said.

  “Got it.” I didn’t know a lot of people from town yet. But that would explain why the name was familiar to me. “What does he do?” I asked.

  “Tim? He works at one of the banks in town. Loan officer, I think.”

  “Are they nice?”

  “Way nicer than I thought they’d be.” He flicked a glance toward the pool area. “Way nicer than anyone here, aside from you, I mean. I can’t believe how spoiled these kids are. They act like they own the place. They treat everyone who works here like dirt. There’s way more money in this town than where I’m from. I mean, we had snobby people but the snobbery here…totally out of control. Like these kids just think their money entitles them to treat people like crap.”

  “What’s going on here?” Jace asked as he dumped himself into the chair on the other side of me. “Is he bothering you?” He settled back in his chair, silently telling me he was staying put. He smiled at me like we were old pals.

  Eric leaned forward in his seat, as if he were ready to leave the second I let him know I wanted him to. His gaze switched from Jace to me. “Am I bothering you?”

  I shook my head at Eric and then turned to my other side. “Jace, your timing is terrible, as always.”

  “Why, what’s going on?” he asked.

  Other than the fact that he refused to take a hint?

  “We were trying to have a conversation. But…,” I shrugged and gave him a pointed look. Unsurprisingly, he chose to ignore it.

  “Come on, Em, why—”

  “EmLynn,” I corrected.

  “EmLynn. Why don’t you join us over there? You can see the girls just fine through the fence.” He leaned forward, as if he was about to get up. As if he actually expected me to follow. He hesitated at the edge of his seat, waiting to see what I would do.

  “Jace, please.” I hated that my tone was pleading. “Would you just go?”

  “How ’bout you?” he asked Eric. “When are you gonna go? I mean, when are you leaving town?” He spoke the last of his words with a harsh edge.

  Eric leaned back in his seat. He looked tense, as if he wanted to avoid this conflict. At the same time, he seemed more confident now that I’d made it clear that Jace was the one I wanted gone.

  “Don’t think I am,” Eric said. “I’m probably sticking around.”

  “You sure about that? Don’t you think the Zierdens are gonna get sick of keeping a charity case around? What’s it like? Mooching off another family, I mean. Then again, I supposed you don’t really have a choice. Since your own family apparently didn’t even want you. This brings me back to my original question. How long do you think the Zierdens are gonna put up with you?”

  I was speechless for a moment, shocked into silence by his cruel words. His smile was malicious and aimed at Eric.

  “Jace!” I hissed. “Could you please just go back to wherever you came from?”

  He stared at me, suddenly silent. I glared back at him.

  “Really, just go back to your friends,” I urged. “I don’t know why you even came over here in the first place. Unless you just wanted to prove to me what an ass you can be. But if that’s the case, you really didn’t need to bother. I figured it out on my own months ago.”

  My words didn’t seem to affect him. His expression remained impassive. His cocky attitude oozed from him. I didn’t find it appealing and I wasn’t sure how so many other girls did. Unless they were shallow enough to base their opinion of him on looks alone.

  Jace had the type of obnoxiously chiseled features that could land a guy on the cover of a magazine. His smile was too fake, too perfect. Teeth straightened by braces and whitened at the dentist’s office. His eyes could be his best feature. They were an icy shade of blue, offset by his deep tan this time of year. But they looked cold. When he smiled, it never reached his eyes. His honey blond hair appeared to be shellacked into place. He was also too tall, too thin and lanky for my taste.

  Sitting feet away from each other, it was hard not to compare the two.

  Eric, on the other hand…

  I quickly flicked a glance his way even though I already had his features almost memorized. His smile was adorable, a bit lopsided, compounded in cuteness when his dimple decided to make an appearance. His hair was rumpled and unlike Jace’s, it begged to have someone run their fingers through it. He wasn’t model perfect but he had the wholesome, sweet, boy-next-door look to him that I suddenly realized I preferred. He was a few inches shorter than Jace but much better built. His arms looked like they were made for wrapping around a girl.

  Yeah. No doubt about it. I was definitely a boy-next door kind of girl.

  I suddenly tore my gaze away from Eric, afraid that my expression would give away my meandering thoughts.

  Maybe they had because when I glanced at Jace again, he was scowling at me.

  “You’re hopeless EmLynn, you know that?” Jace made a sound of disgust as he launched himself out of his chair.

  I was so surprised by his departure—the ugly scraping sound his chair made against the concrete—that I jumped in my seat. I watched him with wide eyes as he stormed back over to the pool area.

  “Huh,” Eric said.

  I tried to gather some composure as I turned to face him

  “Is he ever jealous.” It was a proclamation, not a question. He grinned while he said it, and then shoved a big bite of his frozen yogurt into his mouth.

  “What? Who? Him? Jace? Jealous? No…nope,” I sputtered as I choked on a laugh.

  “When you said he was as hard to get rid of as a stray dog, I thought you meant he hassled you,” Eric explained. “I didn’t realize he was into you.”

  I scrunched up my face at the thought and shook my head in disagreement. “No. You are definitely wrong about that.”

  I realized Jace had some odd obsession with me but infatuation was not part of it.

  “No, don’t think I am,” he asserted.

  Without meaning to I glanced back at the pool area. Jace had tossed himself onto a lounge chair next to Marci. She was saying something to him but he was staring off, either blatantly ignoring her or simply not paying attention.

  I didn’t want to argue about the subject so I redirected it. “Sorry, I’m not usually so rude. But he brings out the worst in me. He can’t seem to take the hint.”

  “Right. Because he likes you,” Eric said with a grin. “I kinda feel bad for you.”

  Realizing my attempt at a subject change was too subtle, I redirected yet again. This time I chose a topic that couldn’t be swung back around to include me. Or Jace.

  “So did you mean what you said? Are you sticking around?” I popped another bite of my frozen yogurt into my mouth, trying to l
ook nonchalant despite the fact that I was anxiously awaiting an answer.

  He gave his half-eaten frozen yogurt a swirl. “Probably. I mean, it’s not like I have much say in it.”

  “Your parents…” I started, but then cut myself off. I realized I might be pushing too far.

  “They’re gone.”

  “Oh.” The word came out on an exhalation of air. “I’m sorry. My dad just passed away last fall. He had cancer. I know how hard it is to lose a parent. I can’t imagine losing them both. Did it happen at the same time? Was it an accident?” I realized I was rambling so I stopped myself.

  He was looking at me intently with a frown on his face. He probably found my rambling a bit overwhelming.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I don’t usually just blurt all of that out. I didn’t mean to dump on you.”

  Usually? I had never blurted that out before. But hearing Eric say he lost his parents too had struck a chord in me. It wasn’t something I had in common with anyone else I knew.

  “No, it’s not that. It’s—”

  His phone buzzed, vibrating across the table. He sighed as he reached for it. “Sorry. I’ve got to go. I only had fifteen minutes. We punch a time clock. If we’re a minute late coming back from our breaks they round up to the next fifteen minutes.” He pushed away from the table.

  “Who would’ve guessed the country club was so cheap?” I asked. I wanted to walk over to Jace and smack him alongside the head for taking up more than half of Eric’s limited break time. “But, you know, if you ever want company on your break again, feel free to join me anytime. I’ll even get the frozen yogurt next time.”

  “Later, EmLynn,” he said before walking away.

  * * *

  “EmLynn, don’t run out the door just yet,” Mom requested.

  “Why, what’s up?” I asked. I had just dropped off the twins. They were in their playroom and I had hoped to sneak out without running into my mother. Despite Jace and his disgusting comments I was bubbling with happiness over my visit with Eric. I didn’t want a confrontation with my mom to ruin that.

  I hesitated in the foyer, my fingers itching to reach for the doorknob. I was anxious to head back to the pool house so I could be alone with my thoughts. Mom clearly had other ideas for me as she strode purposefully forward.