She was used to being disregarded by others, and that normally didn’t bother her. It was just that she hadn’t expected it from him.
Maybe it had been a mistake to kiss him that first time. Maybe he now thought she really was just some addict with no self control. Was that why he’d kissed her again in the theater? Because he knew she’d be easy?
The knot in her throat tightened. The fact she even cared about what he thought of her was the most aggravating part of all.
She swallowed to ease the ache and then tried to shake away the unnecessary anxiety. This wasn’t like her. She was being dramatic and over thinking things. Who cared about why he kissed her? She had kissed him first, and she doubted he’d questioned her motives. They were, after all, supposed to be sex addicts.
But what happened in the theater with Finn also meant Blue Eyes had told his friend about the program. Those therapy sessions were supposed to be confidential. What happened in Sex Addicts Anonymous stayed in Sex Addicts Anonymous. She didn’t even tell Helena the details, although admittedly that was just to punish Helena for making her attend them.
And she hadn’t yet told Helena about going back on Thursday either. She probably should.
“No fair!” Helena said. “If he’s telling his friend about those meetings, I should get to know what goes on in them, too.”
Leah snorted and didn’t respond. Helena babbled on some more about how unreasonable she was before switching tactics and grilling her about Blue Eyes instead. Leah refused to give her anything more than a rough physical description just in case Helena decided to go on a manhunt across campus.
And anyway, a rough physical description was all she really had to go on for figuring out his identity. Over the last couple days, she had begun playing a game in her head. She assigned him different names until one seemed right. Scott? Too obvious. Derek? Nope. Calum? Pretty, but probably not. She had even looked up a Scottish baby names site. However, she’d stopped when she realized how ridiculous she was being, and how utterly pointless it was because chances were he wasn’t named Farquar or Tavish. At least she hoped not.
When they reached the estate, she wasn’t surprised to find her parents home. Since it was a Sunday evening, they were recuperating from another busy weekend of trying to impress their wealthy neighbors and pretending they were still one of them. Her mom was draped across the sofa in the living room, dressed in a satin robe while watching TV and sipping a cup of wine. Her dad was bent over his work on the dining room table. He looked up when they entered, gave each of them a small nod, and went back to his papers.
Leah ignored them both and helped Elijah upstairs to get ready for bed.
“Go wash up. I’ll get your pajamas out,” she said.
He groaned and slumped his shoulders. Brows pinched together, he squinted at her through sleepy eyes and gave her his most beseeching look. “But I’m tired. Can’t I just clean up in the morning?”
Leah flicked her finger at the line between his brows. “No, you can’t. Now go,” she said, pointing toward the bathroom.
“Uuugh.” He dragged his feet down the hall, rubbing his eyes and mumbling irritably. Leah smiled as the bathroom door shut behind him.
She switched on the light in his room, revealing a fairly small space considering the size of the rest of the estate. With a sigh, she moved around the room, picking up dirty clothes and toys and depositing each into their respective baskets. Then she pulled open the top drawer of his dresser and withdrew a set of simple, striped pajamas.
Elijah joined her a couple minutes later, looking more awake, but no less grumpier for it. She stepped out so he could change.
“Okay,” he called from inside.
She went back in to find him already burrowed into his bed. “Want your night light on?” she asked.
“Yeah,” came his muffled reply.
She switched on the low lamp at his bedside table and then turned off the bright overhead light. Leaning over, she dropped a light kiss to the tuft of dark hair sticking out the top of his blanket.
“Good night,” she said.
The blanket slid down just enough for Elijah’s face to peek out. “Hey Leah,” he said, squinting at her again through one eye. “Thanks for taking me today.”
“Of course,” she said, sitting at the edge of his mattress. “Like I said, we’ll do it again soon.”
He gave a soft sigh and turned his face into his pillow. “I wish you didn’t have to leave.”
Her throat tightened. Swallowing thickly, she leaned over and touched her forehead to his temple. “I know. I hate it too. But we’ll be together all the time once I get Mom and Dad to let you move in with me, okay?”
“When will that be?” he asked, his eyes closed. His words slurred together with grogginess.
“Soon,” she whispered. “I promise.”
Having to leave him every night chipped away at something inside her. Even though she came to see him as often as she could around her work and school schedule, she knew how lonely he probably got when she wasn’t around. It didn’t help that the estate was outside the city and the nearest neighbor was nowhere near walking distance for a nine-year-old.
Chest aching, she kissed the top of his head again. His breath had grown deep and even with sleep, so she stood from the bed, her fingers brushing the ends of his hair that curled beneath his ear. She left his door ajar and then made her way back downstairs.
A moment later, she joined Helena in the living room where she had presumably tried and failed to engage Leah’s mom in a conversation. Talking to her parents was always awkward, but seeing as they were here, now was an ideal time to once again approach the topic of Elijah.
Her mom was sprawled on top of a pile of pillows, a thin blanket pulled up to her waist just below the ties of her robe. Leah had her mom’s coloring with the blond hair and pale skin, but she had her dad’s hazel eyes. Objectively, she had to admit that her mom was a beautiful woman who looked at least fifteen years younger than her actual age. Her appearance mattered to her, and she knew how to take care of herself. Too bad that didn’t extend to her children.
She gave Leah a quick, dismissive glance before refocusing on the TV where a fashion news anchor was reporting on the latest celebrity scandals.
“How’s school?” she asked in that tone of voice people used when they were just being polite and didn’t actually care about the answer.
Leah didn’t bother answering. She sat beside Helena on the loveseat, adjacent to her mom. “We need to talk about Elijah.”
Her mom’s eyes narrowed slightly, and she could tell by the way they unfocused on the TV that she was at least partially listening. “What about him?”
Leah took a slow breath before saying, “I don’t like him here home alone all the time. You need to reconsider letting him move in with me.”
Her mom rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s fine, and he’s old enough to entertain himself.”
“He’s nine,” Leah said evenly. Raising her voice never worked except to ignite her mom’s stubbornness.
“Exactly,” she said, her gaze sharpening on the TV again. Apparently, the conversation was over.
Leah ground her teeth. This was the last straw. She was taking Elijah whether her parents consented or not.
Warm fingers closed around her fist, and she looked over to see Helena giving her a tight, encouraging smile. Slowly, she relaxed her jaw.
“By the way,” her mom said, “there’s a party this weekend. It’s being hosted by some friends, and they asked us to bring Elijah.” Her tone of voice suggested this particular condition annoyed her. “I’ll need you to go as well to keep an eye on him.”
Leah glowered, but her mom was so intent on the news anchor that it did her little good.
“You want me to watch him at a party full of people, but you think he’s fine on his own in an empty house?”
“Well, I can’t have him causing trouble at a party, now can I?” Incredulo
usly, she made it sound as if Leah were the one being unreasonable.
“Elijah doesn’t cause trouble at all,” Leah said, her voice rising in spite of herself. “If you were around more often, you’d know that.”
Now, her mom did look at her, with an expression filled with ice. It was the same look Leah sometimes saw reflected back from a mirror. She felt suddenly cold despite the burn of anger in her chest.
“My life involves more than sitting around and looking at stars,” her mom said coolly. Her gaze flickered to Helena, who was pretending she wasn’t listening by flipping through a pamphlet she’d picked up at the observatory. “You will attend the party.”
“Let Elijah move in with me.”
“This is not a negotiation, Leah,” she said, a warning in her voice.
“Then I’m not going. And you’ll just have to look after your son like a real mother for once.” She was bluffing, of course. She would never leave Elijah to wander a party alone. Knowing her parents, they would drop him off in a corner, order him to stay put, and then disappear for hours.
Her parents never asked her for anything—the one good thing about them—so she had to take advantage of it now.
Her mom gave Leah a scrutinizing look. Very little in the way of genuine emotion passed over her face even though Leah had just accused her of not being a real mom. Not that Leah was surprised. Their deal in regards to Elijah had, after all, essentially released her from any obligations to him.
The deliberation in her mom’s eyes wasn’t for Elijah. It was for herself and Leah’s dad. How badly did they want to impress these so-called friends of theirs?
“We’ll consider it.”
Apparently, the answer was ‘a lot.’ That was the most leeway she’d ever given Leah on this subject.
Leah nodded. She was willing to leave it for now instead of pushing harder and risking setting off her mom’s contradictory nature. Her mom hated being told what to do and sometimes did the exact opposite just to spite the offender.
With nothing else to discuss, she and Helena said their good-byes. They couldn’t get out the door fast enough.
Chapter Fourteen
Having avoided directly interacting with his boss for a week (it helped that Will only went into the office Mondays and Fridays, and he’d called in sick on Monday), Will was beginning to feel the weight of his conscience. James had responded by email to last week’s notes with a terse, “Let’s discuss when you come in.”
Not only did Will not want to disappoint his boss, he didn’t want to disappoint himself, and this shoddy work would do him no favors. But analyzing whether the counselor’s methods were working (in his opinion, no) while trying to make his own diagnoses and treatment suggestions by dissecting their mental and social behaviors meant he’d have to dissect the girl who’d taken over his every spare thought lately.
This wasn’t what he meant by wanting to get to know her. Studying her, breaking down her parts like a specimen beneath a microscope would be like twisting the knife with which he’d backstabbed her.
Especially after what had happened last Friday. His behavior still surprised him. He was appalled that he’d been ready to take her in the nearest broom closet, never mind that she’d been perfectly willing. She drove him crazy, and he didn’t even know her name.
Next time, he’d do it right. He would bring her here, into his bedroom. He would lay her down across his bed and show her that the only addiction she needed was him.
Hopefully, there would be a next time. Finn’s outburst hadn’t helped him any.
And on top of everything was the increasingly pressing fact that he had yet to tell her the truth. He should have told her in the theater, but every time he’d opened his mouth, he couldn’t say it.
Bonny bumped her face against his jaw. He sighed and gave her chin a scratch. With a purr of contentment, she settled back into his lap, her tail curling around his forearm. If only everyone was so easily appeased.
He glanced at the time in the lower right corner of his screen. He’d had a sandwich for dinner hours ago and his stomach was grumbling again. Maybe Finn would want to go out for a burger.
Before shutting down his laptop, he pulled up the website for his bank account and logged in. His balance was pitiful, but at least it matched what he’d been expecting to see. He transferred everything except fifty dollars—enough to get by before his next paycheck from James—to the account he’d opened for his parents, which he noted sat at a balance of twenty-three cents. He didn’t much care what his parents spent the money on, so long as they stopped flooding his inbox at the end of every month with emails that were simultaneously nice and resentful.
The first time they contacted him after he came to America was by phone, and it had caught Will completely by surprise. More surprising had been when his dad told him he was proud that his son was not only attending University, but that he’d come to America to make a new life for himself. For the briefest of moments, Will had felt … elation.
He should have anticipated what was coming, but he’d been blindsided by a hope he hadn’t known he was holding onto. His dad went on to say that if Will had the means to attend University in America, then he should do what he could to help his parents as well. What sort of selfish son would leave his parents to live like paupers in their wee neighborhood while he lived the American dream?
Will had worked three jobs—two to save up to leave Scotland and the third to supplement his parents’ income. Most days, he’d been so exhausted that he could barely speak, and his dad knew that. He had made it this far on his own merit and his own refusal to fail, and yet, listening to his dad, for a moment, Will had believed him.
Maybe he’d been selfish for leaving them. Selfish for wanting his own life, for wanting to be more than a bus driver like his dad. Coming all the way to America had, perhaps, been a bit extreme. He could have just gone to Edinburgh or London. Or anywhere else in Europe.
He supposed his dad had been right in one thing—Will had been running away. And remaining anywhere on the same continent just wouldn’t have been far enough.
But that particular conversation had happened almost three years ago. Will had long since made his peace with it. He was happy here. Even though his parents hadn’t been around much, it didn’t matter who they were as people because they were still his parents. And he was still their son. He had a responsibility to help them if he could.
Money transfer complete, he closed his laptop and rubbed his temple. He needed a drink. He reached for his cell phone.
As it turned out, Finn was already a step ahead of him.
Half an hour later, Will met his friend at a nearby bar. Finn greeted him with a rough pat on the back and immediately shoved a mug of beer into his hand.
“Where’s everyone else?” Will asked, glancing around the bar. He hadn’t been out with the guys for a couple weeks, and one of them had caught him after psych the other day to remind him to come out that weekend.
“Just me,” Finn muttered into his drink.
Will shrugged and took a gulp of cold beer. “Are you drunk already?” he asked.
“No, but give me another hour.” Finn tossed back the rest of his beer and then refilled his mug.
Will gave the nearly empty pitcher a curious look. “What happened?”
“I’m a fuck-up, that’s what happened.” He made to toss back another mugful of beer, but Will put a hand on his forearm to stop him.
“Unless you ran over someone’s dog, I’m not sure I see how you could have screwed up badly enough to need …” He made a nebulous gesture at Finn’s current near-drunk state. “All this.”
“Excuse me?”
Someone tapped Will’s shoulder. At the interruption, he swiveled around in his bar stool to find a pretty girl standing before him, tucking ginger curls behind her ear.
“Hi,” she said, smiling. She had freckles across the bridge of her nose.
“Hello,” Will returned.
He
glanced back at Finn, who rolled his eyes and muttered, “I keep telling you it’s the accent.”
“I’m Sara,” she said and held out her hand. “Do you go to REU?”
He shook her hand to be polite. She really was quite pretty, and under normal circumstances, he probably would have been glad to continue talking to her. But Finn had that ‘I’m a shadow of a man’ look, and Will hadn’t come here to meet someone.
Besides, there was only one girl he wanted to be with at the moment.
“Sara, it’s nice to meet you. And I’m really quite sorry, but my friend here is having a bit of a night so …”
She seemed to take the hint because she put up her hands, and her cheeks were pink even beneath the yellow bar lights. “Oh no, it’s okay, I—er, sorry for bugging you.”
She made a hasty exit back to the booth where her friends waited, all leaning forward to watch their exchange. Since they were staring—and now glaring—he gave them an apologetic smile before turning back to his friend.
“So tell me what happened,” Will said.
Finn, meanwhile, had emptied the last of the pitcher into his mug and was staring into its murky depths like he was searching for life.
“Kat hates me.”
Will waited for him to elaborate. When he only continued to stare sullenly into his beer, Will shook his head.
“All right, but we already knew that. How does that make you a fuck-up?”
Finn covered his face and mumbled into his palm. “Because her boyfriend kissed me.”
That was, quite possibly, the last thing he’d expected Finn to say. Will tilted his head and squinted a bit to try and make out Finn’s expression behind his fingers.
“Did you just say …”
“Yes.” Finn rubbed his palm down his face and gave Will a look that was decidedly bleak. “Her boyfriend kissed me. I sort of wondered if maybe he was curious because this one time, he kept staring at me, but I convinced myself it was just because he knew I wanted his girlfriend. But last night, he—”
Addicted to You Page 8
