Wrong Number

by Laura Brown

  “And now he’s sniffing back around.”

  I froze and let Hannah be the one to react. The color drained from her face.

  “What?” She grabbed her brother. “Dad’s around?”

  Jake looked ready to punch someone. Not Hannah. I detected a note of yearning in her voice and had no clue how the siblings would work through this.

  “Yeah, he caught me and Carter playing soccer the other day.”

  Jake backed out of my kitchen and snatched his jacket.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “To find this creep. Who writes something like this then sets the damn house on fire and runs? Who the hell is this guy?”

  Hannah collected her jacket. “I’m coming with you.”

  I was about to grab mine as well, rugelach be damned, but Jake held up a hand.

  “No. This is something I need to do.”

  The door slammed before either of us could react.

  “He’s not happy,” Hannah said.

  “He’s not thinking.” I threw the door open and caught him at the end of the hall. I grasped his shoulders, the tension simmering even though his jacket. “Are you sure about this?”

  His jaw ticked. “Yes.”

  His eyes were usually so warm and welcoming; now they were ice. “Your father’s return is what was bothering you?”

  Some of the ice thawed. “Yeah.”

  I sighed. I wanted to help, but he needed to go through with this, whatever it was. I rose on my toes and pressed my lips to his, giving him whatever I could through a simple kiss. “Be safe. And think before you act.”

  He nodded and hit the stairs. My feet didn’t budge until the flop of his hair faded from sight.

  Back at my apartment, Hannah stood by the door. “You talk any sense into him?”

  “No.” But I had a feeling I knew who could. “You have Carter’s number?”

  Hannah frowned. “Carter? Sure.”

  “Jake said he was playing soccer with Carter when he saw your dad. I think Carter knows more than we do. Jake shouldn’t be alone right now, regardless of what he wants.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Jake

  My hands dug into the steering wheel hard enough to create a dent, but I couldn’t let go, not even when my fingers stung from the pressure. The run-down boarding house stood ahead of me, one of the few shingles left shifting from the breeze. I debated between walking right up to the building, demanding to see Steven Ruben, and staying here until I could catch the bastard on his own. I didn’t move, the fire in my blood too strong, too intense. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. More importantly, I didn’t know what I was capable of.

  Thirty-year-old me had been placed back into eight-year-old me’s shoes. Or burns, as the case may be. All the fear and pain fueled my rage. A rage my younger self hadn’t been able to administer.

  I wasn’t eight anymore, obviously. After everything that had happened, the fire, my father’s departure, bullies at school, I made sure to become strong. Now I acknowledged an additional reason: so I could one day kick my father’s ass and protect my family.

  The message on the back of the recipe came to mind, along with the shock. I couldn’t reconcile those soft words with the man I knew. The man who left. Mom had to juggle everything after the fire on her own. The one responsible for it all left town.

  He should have gone to jail.

  At least, that was what eight-year-old me thought. And I must admit, the thought still held promise, though I didn’t know if being stupid enough to fall asleep with a cigar in hand really called for jail time. Probably not, his inability to help those inside aside.

  I tried focusing on the sky, the silhouettes of trees shifting in the breeze, shedding leaves in the process. I couldn’t get the last thing my father said to me as a kid out of my damn mind. I’d still been in the hospital, hopped up on painkillers that didn’t begin to mask the pain. It had been late, Mom and Hannah already at my grandparents’ house.

  I’d been trying to find something on TV, something to take my mind off everything. I gave up and threw the remote on the bed, just out of reach. That was when I noticed the shadow by my door. My father’s long face, bags under his eyes. And I hadn’t cared.

  I turned away, toward the window, arms crossed. He came in, slow and steady, because his legs were fine.

  “You’ll never be what you should have been,” he’d said.

  Tears welled in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. He patted my good leg twice. I listened as his footsteps exited the room and faded down the hall.

  Never to return.

  I scrubbed a hand down my face. I shouldn’t be here, not with over twenty years of pent-up anger controlling me. I should have stayed with Avery and Hannah.

  The side door opened, and I jumped, one fist ready to slug the intruder, as Carter slid in the passenger seat, handing over a large Dunkin Donuts coffee. I forced my fingers to uncoil and took the cup.

  “Funny thing about cars,” he said casually, as if he hadn’t risked a broken nose. “When you park, the doors automatically unlock. Turns the occupants into sitting ducks.”

  He sipped his drink, looking through the window. “Any sign of Steve?”

  I stared at Carter, a million thoughts and emotions racing through me. In the end, I opted to uncap my coffee and let the warmth attempt to soothe my weary soul. “None. I was about to leave.”

  “Smart move. Except, you’ll just be back here in a few days until things are solved. So the question really is this. What do you want from him? And don’t say your leg back because we know damn well he doesn’t have that power.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, man. What do you say to the person who screwed up your life?”

  Carter angled his seat back. “That I don’t believe. I think you’re exactly who you want to be and where you want to be. You’ve got a great job, great family, and a woman who accepts you as you are. What did Steve really mess up?”

  I placed my head on the steering wheel. “He still let me burn.”

  “He didn’t set the fire on purpose. He may be an ass, but he’s not that kind of ass.”

  I picked my head up and drank more of my coffee. “What would you do?”

  Carter put his feet up on my dashboard. “Don’t know. Probably sit on the steps, wait him out, and tell him what a lousy excuse of a father he was. Then find out what he wanted to say to me. If there was any silver lining, we could take it from there. If not, shake hands, thank him for fifty percent of the genetics, and walk away.”

  I watched the vacant street, letting his words sink in. Beside me, Carter remained silent, keeping himself entertained with his drink. He’d let me stew as long as I needed to. Since my dad made his presence known, I’d been on edge, waiting for him to drop more bombshells in my life. I needed to at least be in control.

  I gulped down more coffee, needing the empowerment, before getting out of the car. My leg took a little stretching to work out the kinks, but by the time I made it across the street, I was fine. Or as fine as I got.

  The old building had no doorbell, so I pounded my knuckles against the wood. A guy a few years older than me with a receding hairline and a face that said he’d lived a much harder life than I had answered the door. He didn’t say hi. He raised his eyebrows in question.

  “Uh, is Steven Ruben here?”

  Guy nodded and closed the door in my face. I shoved my hands in my pockets, looking at the sky rather than Carter, as footsteps and voices echoed inside. A minute or so later, the door opened.

  “Jake?” Dad’s rusty voice asked.

  He closed the door behind him and then it was the two of us, the night air, and Carter watching nearby.

  Dad still looked like crap and it hit something uncomfortable deep inside. I realized I didn’t want to get into the past, didn’t want to find out whatever sob story his life had turned into. I needed one question answered and then I could get the hell out of here. “Are you
planning on stopping by the bakery?”

  He studied me, jaw set.

  “You don’t want me to.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Not my decision.”

  A dog barked in the distance. Neither one of us moved, only the tension swirling around, thick and heavy.

  “I’d like to,” he said at last.

  Not what I wanted to hear. Or maybe it was. I couldn’t be sure.

  I nodded and started down the steps. “Mom’s going on vacation next week. She hasn’t taken one since before you left. Take from that what you will.”

  I didn’t turn back, didn’t stop walking until I settled back in my car.

  He remained on the porch, hands in his pocket, face masked by the dark sky. Would he do it, visit with my last jab of how much he messed Mom up? Or would he leave us all the hell alone?

  “How’d it go?” Carter asked after I finished my coffee.

  I crunched the container and tossed it in the back seat. A sticky feeling settled in my gut, waiting on the results of whatever Dad would decide. “Only time will tell.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Avery

  Hannah left shortly after the rugelach had finished, leaving me alone with my overactive brain. The urge to be with Jake, to help him, overwhelmed me. These urges weren’t common, at least for me, definitely not with this level of intensity. Carter could and would handle him. I wasn’t needed. Didn’t change the pull deep inside. All of it seemed to connect and disconnect, the things Jake and I kept from each other, the rugelach, my plans, our relationship. A bigger meaning weighed heavily on us, and I refused to examine what it all meant.

  So I baked the rugelach on my own. And at two in the morning, I sat on my kitchen floor fighting off tears. My batch and Hannah’s tasted the same. I already had ideas on how I could shift things, make it my own, for better or worse.

  I could leave.

  I had my phone in my hands and my mother’s contact up before I realized that known insomniac or not, I shouldn’t be calling her at this hour of the morning. She’d assume someone had died, not that I struggled with a crisis of the soul.

  I stayed on the floor for so long, my next move was to the shower to get ready for work. My heart weighed heavy in my chest. I didn’t have to leave. No one was counting on me to return to New York, with the exception of a dead guy and my parents who also expected me to fly the coop. When I arrived in Massachusetts, my future was so clear, what I wanted etched in stone.

  Now, the stone lay cracked and my future was uncertain. I didn’t know what I wanted. Or perhaps I did and was terrified of the answer.

  I entered the bakery with my large cup of coffee and got to work. The noises were familiar now, the movements automatic, and each cupcake that I topped, I poured some of myself into. Because baking was love for me, like Hannah said, and I put that into all my work.

  I hadn’t even realized how much time had passed, but as though I had conjured him, Jake’s voice came in from the front.

  I paused in my work, stunned by the realization. I recognized his timbre and pitch. I barely recognized my own mother’s voice, yet I’d bet my entire cupcake tray he was here, early for his shift.

  I checked the clock on the wall…or not so early. I really needed to get some sleep and tell my mental demons to take the night off. Only his voice rose higher, giving me a clue why I recognized it. Soon the door swung open and Jake and Hannah appeared, deep in a bickering match. I couldn’t understand the words, not until I clearly got a “Dad” comment.

  Uh oh.

  I had no idea how his night had gone, but brother and sister were enough alike that this fight was liable to go on for a while.

  I quickly washed my hands and put myself between them.

  “You can’t be serious,” Jake said to Hannah.

  “I really am. It’s been twenty-two years. Doesn’t that mean something?” Hannah asked.

  “Yes. It’s been twenty-two years of nothing. That means something.”

  “Okay.” I put my hands between them. I didn’t touch Hannah, but I put my hand on Jake’s firm chest. “You two are done for now. Not here. Not with the audience.”

  They continued to glare, neither one looking at me.

  “I didn’t start this,” Hannah said.

  A vein ticked in Jake’s neck. His hair was out of place. Both bad signs for this fight ending. He opened his mouth, but I intercepted.

  “You, outside. Now.” I pushed him.

  He went with me, maybe because I knocked him off-balance. I glanced back at Hannah, but she held up her hands in a peace offering, before heading through the doors to the front.

  The cold wind instantly made me miss the warm kitchen, but with any luck, it would calm Jake down.

  “What is going on?” I asked.

  He paced in a circle. “Hannah wants to see Dad.”

  “Well, he’s her father. I get that.”

  “He burned down our house.”

  “I know.”

  Jake faced me and my gut clenched at the look of utter devastation masking his features.

  “All he gave her were bad memories.” His voice lost the angry yelling edge and he looked down at his leg. The bad one.

  “And made you a fighter.”

  His eyes reached mine, an innocent vulnerability shining deep in the depths, and I got a glimpse of the lost boy he had been.

  “I know what it’s like to want to be normal. I might not have the tragic backstory to go with it, or know what life is like to be completely abled. But I get it. I’ve done my best to make my ears a part of me, even when they slow me down. Because they are me. Like my religion and my interests. They shape me. As your leg shapes you. Had the fire never happened, you’d be a different person than you are today. Who’s to say that would be better?”

  He ran a hand through his hair, chest rising and falling in fast puffs. A distance had formed between us, starting over the past few days. We might have had our reasons for keeping secrets, but even with our reasons, the foundation cracked.

  “But you kept this from me, so maybe that’s the truth. And I kept something from you. We’re not good at this relationship thing, are we?”

  He broke from his trance. “Avery, I’m sorry. I didn’t keep this from you because of your ears or my leg. I kept it because I didn’t know what to do with it; didn’t know what to think about it. And I liked not having to get into any of this shit for a moment.”

  I forced a smile. “I know that a little too well.”

  His eyes focused above my head. “The truth is I don’t know what to make out of my dad’s sudden appearance. He looks like crap, as though life hasn’t been good to him. And I don’t want that to be the case. I want to hate him.”

  “So hate him.”

  He stopped focusing above me and made eye contact.

  “You don’t have to pity him or feel bad for him. He hurt you, in more ways than one. You don’t have to forgive him or like him. You do have to accept that he’s your father and your sister and mother might think differently.”

  He stepped into me, closing the physical and emotional distance between us, and placed his forehead against mine. It shouldn’t have been a big gesture, and yet I felt the bond between us tighten.

  “You should have sent yourself and not Carter.”

  A chuckle bubbled up. “I didn’t know where you’d be. Carter did.”

  He pulled back, just enough so our faces weren’t blurry. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  I gulped, pushing down the heavy weighted butterflies coming to life in my stomach. Statements like that involved longevity, even permanence. Big scary notions when my entire future rested on a question mark. He didn’t come here to deal with my baggage; getting into any of this wasn’t what he needed.

  Regardless of plans or changes or anything else, I knew one thing to be true. “I don’t want to lose you either.”

  His lips were on mine, calming the butterflies, silencing the worries. I wrapp
ed my arms around his neck, holding him close, his warmth making me forget about the cold. His hands dug into my hips, kept our bodies pressed flush against one another. In that moment, I knew there was no other place I wanted to be.

  Never had a single kiss made me want to shed my clothes with no regard to the weather or the fact we stood outside. It had always been this way, from the first text message. I never belonged anywhere as much as I belonged in his arms.

  His hand snaked up my side and inside my apron to massage my breast. I arched into him, knowing we needed to stop but unable to do so. Cautious Avery existed no more. I was home. Not the state or the location or anything like that. The person.

  He nipped my bottom lip, then my chin, before sucking on my neck. I held his head to me, rubbing against him, ready to let all sense of caution float into the wind.

  A car honked. Jake and I pulled apart. No one was around, all cars parked and empty. Must have been from the street and not because of us. Laughter bubbled up inside, and I placed my head on his shoulder.

  “We could have been caught,” I said through the laughs.

  His hands rubbed my back. “Not like it would have surprised anyone.”

  I laughed harder, because it was true. When I calmed down, I picked my head up to find a glimmer in his eyes.

  I brushed his cheek. “Better.”

  “What am I going to do about you?” he asked.

  I fixed my apron. “Don’t know. Guess you’ll just have to wait and find out.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Jake

  I left a flushed Avery at her station and headed out to the front, where I found Mom and Hannah with matching expressions and crossed arms.

  “You keeping secrets, boy?” Mom asked.

  All the happy thoughts Avery created vanished as I looked at the two women I was charged with protecting at the same time I recovered from burns. “I was protecting my family. He already destroyed us once, I’m not supposed to wonder why he’s suddenly here?”