A part of her wished her mom had opened up about how much losing her parents had hurt her. Maybe their relationship wouldn’t be so strained now, but Leah had been too young to fully understand. She hadn’t known how to ask, and she wouldn’t have known how to help. All she could do was wait every night at the kitchen island and wonder if she’d ever see her mom smile over a pot of homemade soup again.
By the time she was Elijah’s age, she had accepted the answer was no.
“Can I help?” Elijah asked.
His eager face struck at that persistent dull ache in her chest. She finished smashing a clove of garlic before asking, “Did you finish your homework?”
Elijah made a face. “Almost.”
“Well, go finish it first.”
He slid from the stool, and she could hear his footsteps echoing through the emptiness as he made his way upstairs to his bedroom.
It wasn’t right, him home alone in such a huge house. She saw him every afternoon, but she hated leaving him afterward. The guilt ate at her, turning into a roiling anger at her parents. She had moved out as soon as she could because she could no longer stand being dependent on people who would never be there for her, and despite the crushing guilt that she had about leaving Elijah there, she couldn’t move back. Just the thought of going back there to live set her pulse racing. It would be like willingly jumping back into a hole it had taken years to climb out of. She wouldn’t do it.
But Elijah needed her. And if her parents kept refusing to let Elijah move in with her, maybe she’d just take him anyway and to hell with them.
Elijah dragged his backpack into the dining room where he set up on the table to finish his homework. Once the sauce was done and the noodles were boiling on the stove, she checked over his homework and circled the math problems he’d gotten wrong. Then she pulled her book of nineteenth century poems from her purse, which she’d tossed onto the kitchen counter earlier, and settled next to him to skim through assigned pages. They were studying the classics in order to develop their own poetry writing. Her professor kept telling her to stick to concrete images instead of meaningless pretty words. All poetry sounded like meaningless pretty words so how was she supposed to figure out how to stop?
“There’s a bake sale tomorrow at lunch,” Elijah said without looking at her. “They’re trying to raise money so we can get free yearbooks at the end of the year.”
She dug into her purse. She only had a few dollars on her, but she tucked them into a small pocket on Elijah’s backpack.
“Don’t lose it, okay?”
He nodded and gave her a small smile. He always looked scared to ask. He knew how tight money was for her. When she graduated, she would be buried in school loans, and that was after the two scholarships she’d managed to get. But when her brother gave her that uncertain look, it was hard to deny him anything.
They ate dinner while Elijah told her about the constellations he’d learned in school that day. Then, he helped her clean up before they went outside and picked out Orion and the Big Dipper in the night sky. After, she gave him the usual reminder to brush his teeth and get up in time to catch the school bus in the morning.
“Can we make cookies tomorrow?” he asked as she hooked her purse strap over her shoulder.
“Sure.” They baked at least once a week. Making creative desserts was one of her favorite hobbies. She supposed she wouldn’t be a Carter without some kind of love for the kitchen. She pulled Elijah into a hug and kissed the top of his dark head. “I’ll see you then.”
“Good night.” He gave her a squeeze before letting go.
She waited in her car until she saw the light in his bedroom turn on. As she drove out the gates, she congratulated herself for not having thought about Blue Eyes and his low, lilting voice even once.
At least until now.
Chapter Five
Leah got home to find her roommate overseeing the assembly of new furniture.
This appeared to basically involve making the living room look like a forest with an identity crisis, full of dozens of slightly different pieces of wood. Helena was shouting at their neighbor Jay who sat on the carpet with a screwdriver in one hand and the instructions in the other.
“But they’re in Japanese!” he said, shaking the instructions at her. “You’re Japanese!”
“I was born in San Francisco,” she snapped. Then, seeing Leah, she demanded, “Can you read Japanese?”
“Not unless the instructions just say ‘baka’ over and over again,” she said.
“Ha!” Helena threw up her hands. “All that anime you watch, and you’ve learned exactly one word.”
“You don’t speak or read it either, and it’s your heritage,” Leah pointed out.
“That’s different.”
Leah gave her a bemused look. “How?”
“Because I didn’t bring home my tenth casual screw of the year and then pass out while he robbed us blind, hence my trip to the furniture emporium, and hence Lord of the Eyebrows here trying to put it together.”
Jay rubbed his absurdly thick eyebrows with a self-conscious frown.
“How does that even—” Leah gave up and sighed. “I take it I’m never going to win an argument with you ever again? What if I had a boyfriend and you slept with him?”
“You got us burglarized.”
“What if you ran over my mother?”
“You still got us burglarized.”
“I see.” Leah pursed her lips.
Jay gave a cry of triumph and waved two pieces of wood that had been fastened together into an L shape. Leah headed for her bedroom. Spending time with Helena these days always turned into another guilt trip, and she was tired of making the journey. She had promised to pay her back for everything that had been taken. But it had been over four months, and Helena showed no signs of forgiving her, despite that she was trying her best to do whatever Helena wanted.
Why else would she be attending those ridiculous sex addict classes?
Leah collapsed backward onto her bed and sighed. Thank God she still had her bed even if it was only because she’d been asleep on it while her one night stand had been lugging everything else out the door.
She rolled onto her stomach and reached for her book bag. Having read enough of the assigned pages to get by for the next class, she pulled out her computer science textbook instead. She had database commands to study. Having always wanted to do something with writing, she’d ignored her parents’ protests (she ignored a lot of their protests so it hadn’t been hard) and was majoring in creative writing. But her minor was in web design because she was also practical, and she knew that if she wanted to live on anything that wasn’t ramen, she would have to study something else as well.
Even as she flipped through the textbook to find the right page, she itched to be writing instead. The last time she’d written anything just for herself instead of an assignment had been before the burglary. The guy had taken her short story journal. Of all her possessions, that had been the most treasured. She would have happily traded everything else that was stolen to get it back.
The journal had held over two dozen short stories she’d written over the course of the last three years, ever since she began college. The stories themselves weren’t important. But they represented who she’d been when she wrote them—the bright moments and the darker ones. Helena had always called them morbid so there had probably been more dark ones than bright, but the stories had been her only way to release the things she kept bottled inside. More than that, they had helped her think objectively about herself and whatever issues she’d been going through. She could pretend those feelings, those difficulties, weren’t happening to her, just to a character in a story.
Every story in that journal had been fiction. But everything the characters felt had been real.
From outside her bedroom door, she could hear Helena’s raised voice, although she couldn’t make out the words. Leah glanced around her nearly empty room. All that
was left were her clothes, a few notebooks, and some pictures of herself and Helena hanging on the walls. He’d even taken her anime collection. Weirdo.
She hadn’t asked for his full name when she’d made the poor decision to bring him back to the apartment, so all she could give the police was his first name and physical description. They were still looking for him, but if she ever saw him again, she’d smash his face into the nearest jagged surface.
Waking up to the sound of Helena screaming and sobbing at their cleaned-out apartment had been terrifying. Realizing she was responsible had been … horrifying. Humiliating. Gut wrenching. A hole had opened up in her stomach, and she had wanted to climb inside and disappear so she wouldn’t have to face what her colossal mistake had cost her. And she didn’t mean money and possessions.
More than the loss of her things, she’d been scared to lose Helena. She couldn’t even count how many times she’d apologized, but really, how did someone make up for something like that? She didn’t know, but she’d started by going along with Helena’s demand to get help for a problem she didn’t have. It was a miracle Helena hadn’t immediately thrown her out and ended their friendship. In fact, she still half-expected it to happen.
They had known each other for nearly ten years, ever since Leah’s family permanently moved into the old estate that had, previously, only been a vacation home. Helena was her first and most enduring friend. Okay, Helena was pretty much her only friend. But that didn’t make their friendship any less important.
Shutting her textbook, she scooted back off the bed. Database commands could wait. Helena and Jay sounded like they could use some help.
Chapter Six
Leah didn’t even bother looking at the cookies. She was too agitated. To still her fidgeting hands, she tucked them inside the too-long sleeves of her striped tee and trapped them between her thighs. A moment later, she realized she was bouncing on the balls of her feet and immediately stilled.
She couldn’t understand why she was so restless. This was her last session. After tonight, she was free. And yet, instead of feeling anticipation, the agitation had been gradually building for two days, and now, back again in the dingy church hall for the last of her completely useless ‘therapy’ sessions, she had reached some sort of peak of freak out.
It was only when Blue Eyes walked through the door in dark jeans and a v-neck tee that perfectly framed his collarbones—and she released a breath in heartfelt relief—that she realized she had been afraid Blue Eyes wasn’t going to come back a second week. She would have left these sessions without ever having seen him again.
This realization made her stiffen up in renewed agitation. She immediately vowed to avoid eye contact. She looked at the ceiling. She looked at the floor. She crossed her arms and scowled. What was her problem? Whether he came or not, it shouldn’t have mattered to her anyway since she wasn’t coming back.
She hoped this compulsion to see him was just because she felt bad for snapping at him last week. Even after she insulted him, he’d still been inexplicably nice, and now her conscience wouldn’t let it go until she apologized.
At random points in the past seven days, moments from last week’s session had surfaced in her mind, completely steering her thoughts away from whatever she’d been doing at the time. It had been extremely confusing when she’d been vegging out watching a late night documentary on the migration of wildebeest, and then suddenly, she was thinking about the way Blue Eyes had stood up for her. About the genuine indignation in his voice that had caught her so off guard.
Or the next day when she’d been decorating cake pops with Helena, and suddenly she was remembering the way Blue Eyes had looked at her when he handed over her jacket. Not with the lust of a one night stand or the disgust of some of her classmates or even with the disregard of the other addicts.
He had just looked … thoughtful. Like he wanted to ask her something, and he might actually care about how she’d answer.
Or maybe it was just her imagination twisting the moment into something else.
She sensed him settle into the chair next to her, which made her stomach tighten with excitement. She should just get that apology out of the way, but she wasn’t very good at saying she was sorry. She’d probably screw it all up. So instead, she focused on the counselor as he walked in, maintaining her glare, and determined not to acknowledge the guy beside her. Even though the side of her body nearest to Blue Eyes burned with awareness.
He was close enough that she could lift her hand if she wanted and bridge the distance between them, feel the warmth of his skin against her fingertips. Her resolve weakening, she stole a quick glance in his direction. He looked just as good as she remembered. Better even. This time, his sleeves were short, and the way he stretched his arms back to lace his fingers behind his head made the thin cotton stretch across his chest and his biceps bulge. Her throat went dry. Her pulse quickened.
His gaze shifted, met hers, stayed. There was a question in his eyes, the exact look she’d recalled during her wildebeest documentary, and she wanted to know what it meant.
She drew slow, deep breaths through her nose to steady her heart rate. Just faintly, she caught the scent of what must have been either his cologne or his soap. Fresh sea. Warm sun. Rich earth. It made her want to press her face into that tiny dip at the base of his neck and inhale deeply.
Geez, maybe she really did need help.
She didn’t even notice that the rest of their motley group had straggled in until Stilettos muttered something to Packers Cap about a relapse and a tub of pudding. She cast a quick glance at Old Lady who appeared to have made it to her chair without incident.
“Good evening!” the counselor announced in that ineffably cheerful voice. “I thought we would try something new this week.”
Oh, sure, she thought, perhaps a little irrationally angry. Experiment on us like a bunch of helpless, horny rabbits.
“I want you to split into pairs.”
Shit.
“And talk about your childhoods.”
Holy mother of God. She could feel Blue Eyes turn his chair a little toward her, and she braced herself for the two most awful things in the Leahverse: 1) Having to spend time with someone she physically wanted but couldn’t have (because Helena would find out somehow and cut her), and 2) Talking about her feelings.
“Off you go then!” said the counselor.
She reluctantly swiveled toward her ‘partner.’ Blue Eyes was smiling. Don’t look directly at it, she thought.
“Do you want me to go first?” he asked, his voice rolling over her nerves like honey. “It doesn’t look like this is your sort of thing.”
She nodded and prepared to endure endless reminiscences about whatever the hell kind of paradisiacal environment could have produced such a beautiful man. Magical dust and fairy god mothers were almost certainly involved. Maybe even footmen made of mice.
“How detailed are we supposed to get?” she asked.
He gave a ridiculously sexy shrug. “What do you want to know?”
How you look without your clothes on. If you’re a shouter. How many inches— She cut herself off before the heat in her neck could give away her thoughts.
“Where’d you grow up?” she asked and rattled off a bunch of mundane questions. “What do your parents do? Where’d you go to school? Do you have siblings?”
How weird was it that she had no idea who he was as a person and yet she knew he had closets full of porn? Personally, she hoped he’d been exaggerating because that was a little disturbing and Blue Eyes seemed so … normal.
A part of her had to wonder if he was really an addict or just some poor idiot who’d lost a bet or came here on a dare. Something about him and his story just seemed off.
But maybe she just wanted to believe that. Looking at the guy, it was pretty easy to believe he spent a lot of time in bed.
“Ah,” he said with an indecipherable look. “Well. I grew up in a tower block in Glasgow. My dad
’s a bus driver. My mum worked at the post office. They weren’t home much.” He said this with very little inflection.
It surprised her a bit, but she nodded politely for him to continue, rapt with learning more about him despite herself.
“I guess you could say I pretty much brought myself up,” he said, sounding forcefully cheerful. “I could use a microwave before I was four, and I ran a wee bit wild later on with some gangs. Nothing too illegal though.” He flashed her a grin, but something hard passed through his eyes.
A knot formed in her chest. She had the sudden urge to reach out and take his hand. Instead, she laced her fingers in her lap and observed the subtle shifts in his expression.
He continued on. Blue Eyes had gotten lucky in secondary school where a teacher had taken him under her wing and convinced him that passing exams might be better for his future than stealing bikes and drinking cider beneath the underpass. Blue Eyes had then awakened a previously undiscovered intelligence and done well enough to earn admittance to an American university, where he was now a junior.
He was a college student. She kept her face blank as the realization that he probably attended REU, River’s Edge University, crashed through her. And he was a junior as well. Could she ask to verify if that was his school? Was that allowed?
For the sake of maintaining anonymity, she held her questions to herself, but the possibility of accidentally running into him on campus made her palms sweat. Would he greet her? Would he pretend to have no idea who she was? Would they end up in a storage closet?
“It’s been interesting,” he concluded. He looked hesitant and surprised, as if he couldn’t believe he was telling her this. “Getting used to American customs and the way everyone speaks, I mean. A lot of the professors found my accent difficult to understand, so I’ve learned to speak more clearly and what words not to use. It’s been almost three years so I’m used to it now, but I still forget myself sometimes. And then there are times I overhear conversations that drive me mad.”
Addicted to You Page 3
