Honest Love (Broken Hearts duet Book 1)

by Lauren K. McKellar

  I lingered online, searching for more memories, watching the movie Facebook made over and over again.

  But each time I stared at my phone too long, each time I stared into the past too long, Piper brought me back. Sometimes, it was gentle—a hand to my leg, a long gurgle of words that made no sense. Other times, it was brutal—a scream that sent me running to the next room, a cry that tightened every muscle in my body, until I felt as if my insides were wound up like a screw, ready to explode.

  When her bedtime rolled around, I’d had enough. All the energy of the day, the emotions that had churned around my body like whirling dervishes—I needed to get it out.

  At home, when I got like this I went to the gym. I raced on a treadmill, outrunning the past until my body was too sore, my muscles too tired to run anymore.

  Here, I had nothing.

  But I needed to get all the memories inside of me gone, just so I could sleep. So I could try and get some rest and pretend that life without Bella wasn’t the world I lived in anymore.

  I took out my phone, sent a text to Mack.

  Cameron: Buddy, how was the Honeysuckle? Looks like you had a good night.

  Mack: Still going, mate. What’s up?

  Cameron: Do you happen to have any weights or anything in this joint, like you did when we were kids? Going crazy over here.

  Mack: …

  Mack: Check out the garage. There are a few surfboards and some gear in there from when we were in high school.

  I entered the garage through the internal living room door. The scent of mould, a room shut up too long, reached me. The crickets sung as I pulled and pushed the roller door above my head.

  Light spilt in from the street, showcasing a room of memories. Dust covered boxes, towering high to the left of the room and scattered in the middle. To the right was a jumble of miscellaneous shapes. The surfboards Mack mentioned hung on racks against the wall. An old bike, the tyres deflated, leaned up against a box stack. Some fishing rods were twisted together like lovers in the corner, their tips touching a long metal beam that stretched across the ceiling. A stack of bricks the same colour as those that covered the house sat squat to the side.

  I stepped farther in, flicking on a light even though the sun still burned against the horizon.

  “Nothing,” I muttered, peering behind a kids’ bucket-and-spade set. I’d buy some weights online. Get them delivered.

  Just as I turned to head back out, something caught my eye. Behind the pile of boxes. Something black and shiny and—

  A punching bag.

  I’d found a goddamn punching bag.

  I grabbed it out, the chain attached to it still in good nick. My body thrummed with possibility, and it was almost as if now I’d found it, I had to race to get it up. Race to get all this energy out of my system. Race to sleep, to dreamless, exhausted sleep.

  I pushed some of the boxes aside, clearing a space, then grabbed some bricks, piling them in the centre of the garage. When I’d made a stack two-feet high, I grabbed the bag. My knees bent. My muscles protested as I carried it across the room to hook it on the metal cross bars that ran along the roof. A small ring waited for the bag to be attached to. Perhaps Mack’s father had let off steam here when his boy was a kid, too.

  When the bag was strung up, I cleared the bricks from under it and stared at it. The white light overhead painted the room in stark relief.

  I’d need gloves. Years of boxing at the gym when I was a kid meant I knew I’d need gloves.

  But more than that, I needed to hit something. I needed to let all this hurt inside of me out.

  I balled one hand into a fist. I drew it back, my elbow in, just like my dad taught me.

  Back before the attack.

  Before he forgot who he was.

  Then I released.

  My fist connected with the hard bag and I swore, shaking my hand. It stung my knuckles. It jarred my arm. So. Much. Pain.

  I lowered my head, looking up at the bag in front of me.

  Bella. I miss Bella.

  I punched it again.

  This time, hurt radiated all the way up my arm to my shoulder. My bones ached. My teeth clenched together.

  I needed it.

  Relished it.

  I drew back my arm and punched, punched over and over again. I threw everything I had into each hit—every ounce of hurt, of loss, of loneliness, the kind that ate at your soul at three a.m., the kind I felt selfish for feeling because at least I could feel. At least I had that left.

  I punched and I punched and I punched until tears pricked my eyes, my breath short in my chest—

  And then I cried.

  I knelt in a corner of the garage as night set in, letting loose the tears I’d stored up for twenty-two long, stoic months. I cried, and I nursed my bloodied knuckles and wished like hell that I was that punching bag, and that I had been there to take the fall for the people who’d needed it most. I cried, and while it didn’t make me feel any better, it helped me keep that memory crystal-clear in my mind.

  A white dress. Long, red hair. Laughter that sounds like the birds.

  The scent of honeysuckle, lingering in the kitchen.

  Chapter 7

  I couldn’t sleep.

  I punched that goddamn bag until my emotions bled from my body, but sleep was still so far away.

  Rolling over, I glanced at the clock. 2:37. In the morning.

  Goddamn it.

  I grabbed my phone, the temptation to watch that Facebook video again so strong. Ten years ago, we became Facebook friends. Had it really been that long? One third of my life.

  One third of my life I’d been in love with a beautiful woman.

  And now …

  I swallowed, pushing down the many ways to finish that sentence, all of them tasting bitter.

  What I needed was a plan for tomorrow. Something to do. Some way to distract me, to distract Piper.

  Everly.

  Her name slipped unbidden into my mind, and I shoved it out. What did she have to do with anything? I had this. I could find answers on my own.

  But no matter how hard I tried, she kept creeping to the forefront of my brain. She was someone who knew about babies. Who knew what to do with them. How to care for them.

  She was someone who didn’t look at me the way the rest of the world did. Someone who saw me as just another guy, a father trying to care for his child.

  But even as I went to type her name into the Facebook search bar, I shook my head. What was I going to do? Send her some message? Hi, Everly. I met you at the beach yesterday. I was hoping I could ask your advice about being a parent.

  She’d think I was a creep.

  She’d think I was hitting on her.

  My fingers moved across the keyboard anyway.

  I couldn’t seem to stop them. They rolled over the letters, Es and V and L and R and Y, the letters from her surname following.

  Her photo came up—one of the first I saw.

  I clicked on her profile. Everly Jenkins. Lived in Copacabana. Aged thirty-one. A link to From Mum, With Love, whatever that was.

  Briefly, I opened a new window. A blog. From Mum, With Love was a blog, full of advice for new mothers. I read her most recent article, a piece on the top tips for changing your child’s nappy and surviving. Ha. So she was funny, too.

  Back on Facebook, I clicked on her profile picture. Blue eyes. A dark, stormy blue, wide and full of life, of love. Dark hair looked like it had flirted with the wind, falling in casual waves around her head, and her smile—that smile. It stretched so wide it almost took up her entire face. Her lips smiled. Her cheeks smiled. Her eyes smiled. And as I looked at her, I couldn’t help but work a smile back.

  The way she looked at Piper when she mentioned she didn’t have a child … I sunk back against my pillow. She’d want me to be a good dad. She’d want Piper to have a good life. She’d want to help me help her—I was sure of it.

  Perhaps I was just sleep-deprived. Perhaps I
was plain crazy, and the past was finally catching up with me, the ocean inside my body washing through my mind until all sanity was gone.

  But as I created the new Facebook profile, uploaded the photo I found after searching online, and sent a friend request through, I knew I’d made the right decision.

  Because for Piper, I’d do anything.

  I’d research. I’d let someone else in. I’d move heaven and hell to make sure she was safe and looked after, my own flesh and blood. That was what us Lewises did—we kept our family close.

  But maybe I wasn’t just doing this for her.

  Maybe I was doing this for me, too.

  I pushed the pram along the beachfront. The sun was out, shining high overhead. The sand below was a white gold, the colour a striking contrast to the blue–green ocean beyond.

  As I neared the surf club, a group of women in workout clothing exited the building, some with yoga mats under their arms. One pointed to Piper, and it was like a pigeon to a homing beacon. Four women beelined for me, cooing and pointing as I drew near.

  At least they saw her.

  At least they didn’t see me.

  “She is just divine!”

  “Gorgeous. She is too gorgeous.”

  “Mummy and Daddy must spend all day just looking at you.”

  “I want to eat you up. Eat you up!” One woman touched Piper’s foot, and I flinched, as if she’d touched me.

  “How old is she?” The first woman straightened, her eye line locking with mine instead of the baby, and then—

  There it was.

  Her mouth rounded in recognition. “Oh,” she said, her voice soft. “Oh, God. You have a baby. But aren’t you—”

  “You two know each other?” Another woman cut in, her eyes darting from her friend to my face. My grip on the pram tightened.

  “No, Liesel. This is Cameron, the guy from—”

  “I have to go.” I tilted my head down, pushed the pram forward.

  “Of course. The terrorist attack.” Liesel’s voice followed me no matter how much I wished it didn’t, no matter how hard I tried to outrun it. Where was that phantom cry now? The one that rung over and over in my head all day yesterday, all the night before? “I didn’t know he lived near here.”

  “I don’t think he does. Maybe he’s just moved,” the first one replied, and I gritted my teeth, my jaw locked as I rounded the corner of the surf club and headed toward a small park. “He has a baby? She has to be at least six months’ old.”

  “But his wife only died two years ago! Who moves on that quick? If you ask me, that’s …”

  I crossed the road, thankful when the steady hum of a car drowned out the rest of the woman’s words.

  I hadn’t thought about that. Hadn’t thought about how this would look.

  Still, I walked on. For Piper. I would do this for Piper.

  And at least judgment felt better than pity. They could hate me all they wanted.

  Some days, I hated me too.

  Brightly coloured play equipment surrounded a sea of red wood chips. Five, six, seven, children climbed on the jungle gym, pushed each other on swings, with a group of prams parked to the side of the space next to a cluster of mothers.

  The second my pram rolled to a stop, I felt the eyes on me. The same sort of eyes Liesel and her friend had. The same sort of eyes I’d felt on me so many times before.

  My stomach twisted. I turned my head toward the ocean, just a block away and yet somehow, too far. Fine. It is going to be fine.

  Back home, I was somewhat protected. Mack had been there to distract me when it all got too much, and at work, no one treated me any different.

  Here, I had to face it on my own.

  And I couldn’t keep Piper in the house forever.

  Breathe.

  I closed my eyes and took a long inhale, and when I opened them again, the women looked away. Thank hell.

  I unclipped Piper from her pram and carried her to the slide. She wriggled in my grasp, desperate to break free and no doubt try put some of the woodchips covering the ground in her mouth, but I had other ideas. I sat her at the top of the slippery dip, paused, then slid her down it, my hands under her arms the whole time.

  She squealed.

  She giggled.

  Just a small sound, as if it had almost escaped involuntarily. My chest tightened for an entirely different reason altogether. The sound of her giggle … whoa. It made me want to smile. It made me want to turn cartwheels to hear that sound again.

  I hoisted her back up the slide, whooshing her down, and this time? This time, an all-out laugh escaped her lips, hearty and wholesome and good. So, so good.

  I reached her up for a third run when a woman walked over, a sympathetic smile plastered on her face. “Are you and this adorable girl hogging the slide?”

  I frowned, glancing around. Shoot. But none of the other children were anywhere near the two of us. “Sorry. I didn’t realise someone else wanted a go.”

  “It was a joke.” She placed a hand on my arm, and I stiffened. I couldn’t shrug her off without letting go of Piper. And letting go of Piper was not something I intended to do. “Are you new around here?”

  “I am,” I ground out.

  “I thought so. My name is Matricia.” She gave my arm a little squeeze. “And you must be Cameron. I’m so sorry about what happened to you. I—”

  She kept talking.

  The roar of the ocean between my ears drowned her out. I fought the urge in me to run, to bolt as far away from here as I possibly could. Please, just leave me alone. Why isn’t she judging me, like the other women did? Why does she think she can touch me, as if I’m public property just because my life was destroyed on the news?

  Why do we have to go back to that day again?

  “There you are!”

  Matricia stopped speaking.

  I frowned, confused. Who was—

  Then I saw her.

  Everly.

  She walked toward us, a big smile on her face. “Honey, I was looking for you all over. Of course I should have known you were taking this little cherub on the slide again.”

  The woman by my side dropped her hand, her eyes widening. She looked from Everly to me and back again. “Sorry. I didn’t realise you were … Bye.” She turned and walked over to the group of mothers, her posture remarkably less tits-forward than before.

  Finally, I whooshed Piper down the slide, then turned to the woman who’d made Matricia back the hell off. But had I jumped out of the frying pan and into the fryer?

  I studied Everly’s face. There was still no sympathy flashing in those eyes. None of that watching-a-car-crash, rubber-necking awe that seemed to wash over people’s faces when I was near.

  “Thank you,” I muttered, nodding my gratitude.

  “It’s no problem. You looked like you were drowning. I thought I’d throw you a raft.” She smiled, and as I scooped Piper up in my arms, she turned her attention to the baby girl. “Hi there, little one. How you doing?”

  Piper gave a big gap-toothed grin, and I wanted to applaud her for her taste. At least she hadn’t done so for any of the creepy women earlier. “Seriously, thanks,” I said, gruff. “It’s hard. I don’t deal well with the attention, and when people see me, they think …”

  I didn’t say it.

  I didn’t say it, because I wanted to know the truth. Did Everly know who I was or not?

  “They think they see a hot guy and a baby.” Everly raised her eyebrows. “That’s like waving some catnip in front of a group of excitable cats.”

  I snorted, rolling my eyes. “Whatever.”

  “Believe what you want. It’s true,” she said. “I’m sure this little one’s mother must have a lot of patience, dealing with all the females you’d attract.”

  Oh, shit. The question I hadn’t really thought through. What was I supposed to say to that? “She, uh …” I took a deep breath. The truth. That was often the easiest lie to tell. “We’re not together.”<
br />
  She must have sensed my discomfort, because she nudged my shoulder with her own. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to hit on you.”

  This time, I all-out laughed. “You say that like it’s a punishment worse than death.”

  “My ex sure seemed to think it was.” A war waged across her face, and for one moment, she was the woman I met at the beach yesterday, a storm raging inside of her.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I’m not. We weren’t right for each other.” Her eyes lingered on Piper for a moment. “They say having a child can make or break or a couple.”

  Having a child could do that.

  Losing a child … one so small it wasn’t even announced to the world …

  I pushed the thought to the back of my mind.

  I’d lost it all. I didn’t get a chance to find out.

  I turned and walked away, Piper a little heavier in my arms. “I’d agree with that.”

  I reached the pram and leaned to place Piper in it, looping the straps over her arms. She looked up at me with a strange kind of recognition, as if she was still kind of figuring me out. You and me both, kid. You and me both.

  “You walking home?” Everly asked.

  “Yeah.” I paused, studying her. Was she fishing for an invite?

  “Cool. I’m going to head off too. Was just passing by.” She turned as if to walk toward the ocean. “Goodbye, Cameron.”

  I opened my mouth to say goodbye, but I felt something. Something like I didn’t want her to go. Something like don’t leave.

  Because of what I could learn from her.

  Because of what she could teach me about Piper.

  “Wait.”

  She turned, her smile a question. “Yes?”

  “Thanks again. For what you did with that woman …”

  “It was nothing.” She shrugged one shoulder.

  “Well, it meant something to me. In fact …” I took a deep breath. “Perhaps I should walk you home. You know. If you’d like.”

  One side of her lips twisted in a smile. “In case the tables turn, and I run into a guy who decides to accost me in the street?”