My own heartbeats sound thunderous, rattling my chest, as I think about hunkering down in the basement with Parker.
I gulp.
As I follow behind him, my brother straightens from his perch against the island, his focus drifting between us. “Hey, man.”
Parker nods his greeting, resting his toolbox on the counter, remaining silent.
I feel an overwhelming duty to fill that silence, so I chime in, “Parker, this is my brother, West.”
“We’ve met,” Parker deadpans, sifting through his supplies.
“Right. Um… and this is Shane, my brother’s friend.”
Shane sidles up beside me, tossing a beer bottle into the recycling bin, then brazenly drapes his arm over my shoulders—some kind of unprecedented, territorial move. “I’m your friend, too,” he notes, the flirtation heavy.
My body stiffens, my gaze instantly floating to Parker. I watch the way his eyes lift, zeroing in on the brawny arm wrapped around me, his jaw ticking. He forces his attention back to his tools as I unravel myself from Shane’s embrace with an uncomfortable chuckle. “That you are. Are you about finished with the pipes?”
“Yeah, just give me a few minutes to gather my stuff and I’ll get out of your hair.”
West saunters over to me, ruffling that hair with his meaty palm. “I’m taking off, too. Stay safe with the weather warnings.”
“Ugh.” I shove him away, irritated, fixing my newly disheveled locks. “Thanks. Be careful driving.”
When my brother ventures out of the kitchen and the front door claps shut, Shane begins to gather his own supplies while Parker fetches the ladder and sets it up below the ceiling hole. I catch the two men eyeing each other every now and then, so I resort to what I always do when I need a distraction: bake. As I’m pulling out baking sheets and mixing bowls, Shane makes his way back over to me with his hands in his pockets.
I swallow as I blink up at him. “All set?”
“Yep. Should we go over payment?”
“Oh, right, of course.” Swiping my palms along the skirt of my dress, I reach for my purse behind me on the back counter. “Is a personal check okay?”
Shane scratches his head, approaching me with a sluggish gait, a coy smile tipping his lips. He curls his fingers around my wrist and begins to tug me away from the kitchen.
I can’t help but glance at Parker’s perch from atop the ladder, noting how his eyes keep cutting over to us, dark and stormy, his stance rigid. Biting into my lip, I lace my fingers together in front of me and trail Shane until we’re just out of Parker’s line of sight. “You don’t take checks?”
“I do,” Shane laughs, still messing with his hair, then massaging the nape of his neck as his blue-gray eyes rake over me. “But I was thinking something a little more unconventional. Let me take you out.”
“Take me out?”
“Yeah, like a date. Dinner.”
“Dinner,” I parrot.
He chuckles again, bobbing his head. “Look, I know you’ve had a really hard year, so I’m not trying to rush you into anything. But if you’re ready… well, I’m interested.”
My cheeks heat at his proposal, and I resist the urge to repeat his words in an attempt to delay my floundering response. I’ve never been asked out before. Charlie and I just happened, all fireworks and fairytales, and there was never any need for this… formality.
And while I’m flattered, certainly, I don’t feel any sort of attraction to Shane.
I don’t think—I guess I haven’t given him much of a chance yet.
Scuffing my bare toes against the carpeting, I smile, “I’m not really sure what to say. I think I’d feel more comfortable paying you for your time.”
“You’d rather pay me than go out with me?”
“Well, I’d feel better if we kept this a business arrangement, you know? I’m not saying we can’t go out sometime… in the future.”
Shane narrows his eyes, registering my words as he runs his tongue along his upper teeth. “Are you seeing someone?”
“No, I just—”
A familiar presence closes in on me from behind, radiating warmth and command, inciting goosebumps to dance across my skin and light me up like a heatwave.
Parker stalls his feet right beside me, propping a power drill against his shoulder, and my insides buzz with anticipation as I wait for him to say something.
He doesn’t.
He just stands there, looming over us with some kind of silent intensity, some kind of control I don’t understand, glaring daggers at Shane.
Shane raises an eyebrow at him. “Can I help you?”
“No.”
I hold back an abrupt laugh, tucking my hair behind both ears.
Both ears that are currently burning fire engine red as Parker’s arm tickles mine while we stand there, side by side.
Curse my Swedish genes.
Shane’s gaze travels between us until he slowly nods his head, then scrubs at his nose. “Got it,” he mutters, but he never indicates what he “got.” “Check is fine. Just give it to West, and I’ll grab it from him this weekend.”
“Oh, I can do it now. It’s n—”
“Take care, Melody.” Shane storms past us, bumping shoulders with Parker, and stalks through the living room to the front door, slamming it shut.
I brave a peek up at Parker, trying to read him, trying to make sense of what that was, but he just lets out a sigh, his eyes closed, then traipses back into the kitchen.
Giving chase, I call out, “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” I reply to his flexing shoulder blades, molded into his wet shirt. “Why were you just standing there smoldering?”
Parker finally pauses his escape attempt and turns toward me, the power drill tapping against his thigh. His eyebrows arch with bemusement. “I don’t smolder.”
“You absolutely smolder.”
I swear his cheeks twitch with the hint of a smile. “I was telling your douche-canoe of a friend to back the fuck down,” Parker replies. He presses the finger-trigger on the drill, and it buzzes to life. “Points for subtlety?”
My mouth goes dry, like I swallowed sand, but I try to downplay the dust storm funneling inside of me. “That wasn’t subtle, Parker. Zero points… actually, negative points.”
“Then why did you ask me if you already knew?”
“I…” Shock, disbelief, denial. Swallowing down more grit, I reply in a whispered breath, “I thought you hated me.”
Parker frowns slightly, glancing away before meeting my confused stare. “Who says I hate you?”
“I got the impression you hated everyone.”
His eyes flick over me like jade flames, drinking me in from toes to top as his jaw clenches, the tendons in his neck straining when he makes his way back up to my face. “Not you.”
And then he spins back around and trudges toward the ladder, leaving me dazed and dumbstruck as I watch him retreat.
“I’m pretty sure a cow just flew past my window.”
There’s a resounding chill dwelling inside my bones as I watch the storm die out through the pane of glass, replaced by an eerie sky, painted dark and green. Only the howl of the wind can be heard while everything else seems to go still. A shiver sweeps through me.
The calm before the storm.
Parker plods back down the ladder, the soles of his feet against the metal rungs causing me to blink myself back to reality. I glance at him over my shoulder, his hair dusted with specks of white drywall.
“If you need to get home, you should probably leave now,” I encourage him, hugging myself to repel the chill. “It looks like Judgment Day out there.”
“And leave you here alone to be all scared and shit?” He musses his hair, the sheetrock scattering. “Kind of a dick move.”
Nibbling my lip, I look back out the window. “I’ve been through worse.” When I feel him approaching me, I twist in place,
facing him, noting the way he fidgets with the bandage on his index finger. “How’s your finger?”
“Still attached.”
“You should change the dressing,” I tell him, pacing forward. I reach for his hand, not asking for permission, but he dodges me. “Let me see.”
“It’s fine, Melody.”
The sound of my name on his tongue sends a blast of heat through me, settling deep. I’ve only heard him say my name twice, which makes it feel so… intimate. “Can I see?” My request is gentle, laced with sweetness and delicacy, as I slowly extend my arm towards him and brush my fingertips against his hand.
But the moment I make contact, the sirens go off.
Loud, shrieking tornado sirens.
Oh, no.
We glance at each other as my heart picks up speed, and I lower my arm, spinning back around and rushing to the window.
“Jesus, you’re not supposed to stand in front of a window,” Parker scolds me, and before I know it, he’s taking me by the wrist and dragging me away. “Basement?”
Sirens, wind, black skies, and him.
I’m incapacitated by equal parts terror and thrill.
“Y-Yes… that’s the door,” I point, my finger trembling. “Hold on, let me grab my phone from the kitchen.”
I pull free from his grip and race to the kitchen island, quickly pulling up my Hangouts app.
Me: The tornado sirens are going off. Are you safe?
He answers right away, and I let out a relieved breath.
Zephyr: I’m safe. Are you?
Me: Yes.
Zephyr: Are you alone?
Me: No… I’m not alone.
Zephyr: Good. Check back in soon.
As I shoot off a group text to my parents, West, and Leah, letting them know I’m taking cover, I join Parker by the basement door just as he’s slipping his phone into his back pocket. When our eyes clinch, something passes between us, something akin to allegiance—like we’re heading into war together, not knowing if we’ll make it out alive.
Which is silly, honestly. We’ve had tornado scares before… it’s the Midwest. It will probably pass over us, and everything will be fine.
But maybe it’s not about if we’ll make it out, but about how we’ll make it out.
Somehow, I feel like everything is about to change.
Taking the lead, I pull open the door to the finished basement and head down the stairsteps with Parker on my heels. While the primary space has narrow windows along the far wall, there’s a little, windowless den we can hole up in until the threat passes. “Follow me,” I say over my shoulder. “We can hang out in here.”
Whistles and howls sound on the other side of the basement wall, making me tremble, and just as we reach the old wooden door to the den, the lights flicker out.
Shit.
Out of instinct, I reach for Parker, pulling him into the now pitch-black room and latching the door behind me. When I turn around, he’s right there—flush against me, my nose grazing the front of his chest, inhaling his earthy scent. I swear I feel him shudder as I let out an unsteady breath, clenching my fingers into fists at my sides in an attempt to keep them from reaching for him. From holding onto him for dear life. “We lost power. That can’t be good,” I state the obvious, murmuring against his t-shirt, all breathy and weak.
I hear him swallow as he stands there motionless, and the only soundtrack to our heavy breathing and rapidly beating hearts is the sirens sounding in the distance, mingling with the angry wind. Parker hesitates before he grits out, “You all right?”
God, his question does something to me. There’s a cyclone headed our way, but it’s my insides that are all twisted up and pinwheeling.
Feeling nearly dizzy from his proximity, I lean in closer, just an inch, until my forehead presses against the hard planes of his chest and my hands lift on their own accord, despite my resistance, despite my fear. They raise up and rest along his hips, dipping just beneath the hem of his t-shirt and grazing the leather belt that encircles his waist. One of my fingers slides through the beltloop as I let out another drawn-out breath and hold him to me. “I’m okay. Are you?”
Parker remains rigid, but I feel his breathing quicken. I hear his heartbeat pulsing in my ears, louder than the warning sirens.
He doesn’t respond right away, so I inquire more specifically, “Are you scared?”
His answer comes quick. “Yeah.”
“Of the storm?” I probe, my forehead pivoting against his torso until my temple is level with his heart.
“No.”
He’s scared of me, of whatever the hell is happening between us. I know this, I know exactly what he’s implying because I feel the same way, but I still ask. “What are you afraid of, Parker?”
A deep sigh hits the top of my head, shaky and agitated. Parker’s arms still hang loose at his sides, refusing to hold me back, refusing to give in. “Don’t make me answer that.”
I cling tighter, and he doesn’t pull away.
He doesn’t pull away, and I know that means something.
I drop the question because he’s not ready, and truthfully, I’m not ready either. Instead, I close my eyes, squeezing them shut, as the screeching wind echoes through the darkness, causing a fearful gasp to escape my lips. The house rattles around us, my skin vibrates, my throat burns, so I just keep holding him, tighter and tighter, until my arms are fully wrapped around his waist. “Tell me a story,” I tender, needing a distraction, needing to hear his voice. It’s so dark in here—I have to know that I’m not alone.
Parker falters for a moment, heaving in a breath and letting it out into my hair. “What kind of story?”
The wind roars, the windows clamor, the shutters clap, and the sirens sing loud, all trying to outplay the racket of our frazzled hearts and cluttered minds.
I never much cared for the dark, but right now, it feels like a friend.
Nuzzling in closer, I whisper into his t-shirt, “Tell me your story.”
—SIXTEEN—
“Tell me your story.”
She’s wrapped around me like I’m her favorite fucking blanket, and it’s the only thing keeping me from spiraling back in time and returning to that closet. To that prison.
It sounds like there’s a freight train on the other side of the door, but she is louder—her presence, her breaths beating against my chest in sporadic bursts, her pulse vibrating beneath my skin, the goddamn feel of her arms clutching my waist, so delicate and fragile, yet so, so loud.
She’s louder than the voice inside my head screaming at me to resist, to push her away and get the fuck out of here, tornado be damned.
She’s even louder than my inherent fear of dark, enclosed spaces.
Yeah, Melody is louder… and I’m paralyzed by every decibel, by every deafening note.
Inhaling sharply, I reply, “You don’t want to hear my story. It’s not a nice story.”
“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve to be told,” she whispers back.
My eyes squeeze shut, as if that will somehow make her disappear.
This is just pretend.
This is just the darkness fucking with my head like it always has.
I hate the dark, I really do, and I know that sounds weak and pathetic, considering I’m a grown ass man. But this kind of darkness, the kind where you can’t even see your own hand in front of your face, takes me right back to that closet when I was five years old, all alone and scared shitless.
All I had were ghosts to keep me company.
All I had was Zephyr.
And now I have her.
Tipping my head back, I blow out a hard breath, then inhale deep through my nose. I do it again and again, closing my eyes and trying to center myself before I unravel.
Melody must notice my tension, my mounting panic, because her hands unlink from behind me and glide up my chest, gripping the material of my t-shirt between two fists. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I force
out, shoving her hands away and sliding them back down to my hips.
I don’t want her touching me there.
Melody fiddles with the beltloops as she drops her head, forehead pressed to my front. “Talk to me.”
“No.”
“You’re shaking.”
Shit, am I?
Stupid, traitorous body. My hands ball into fists on either side of me as my teeth gnash together, and I grit out, “I don’t like the dark.”
I wait for her reaction, her imminent pity. Laughter, maybe. I don’t really know what to expect because I’ve never shared that with anyone before, but I can’t imagine anything but ridicule.
She surprises me, though. She’s always surprising me.
“I don’t like it either,” Melody responds softly, her index finger tracing the hemline of my pants. “But it’s not so bad with you here.”
The whooshing sound grows closer, and the house rattles around us, causing me to stumble, my balance off-kilter due to the surmounting anxiety. My back hits the wall beside us, and I take her with me, instinctually wrapping my arms around her and tugging her further against my chest.
Melody lets out some kind of breathy moan, maybe a gasp, but I’m not sure if it’s out of fear or because we’re fully entangled with one another now, and my fingers have somehow crawled their way up to her hair, weaving through the strands and fisting gently.
My panic seems to ebb the moment she’s in my arms—the moment I give in and hold her back. She’s chipping away at my brick walls, and her sunny rays of light are seeping through the cracks, trying to bring me warmth.
Fucking hell, what is she doing to me?
I slide my back down the wall, and she goes with me, until we hit the tiled floor together and Melody straddles my lap, her knees caging me in. My right hand is still knotted in her hair, while the other curves around her back, and even though I can’t see shit, I know we’re face-to-face by the way her warm breath skims my lips with each arduous exhale.
The Wrong Heart Page 13
