Six Feet Under (Mad Love Duet Book 1)

by Whitney Barbetti

  I shoved my hand into my pocket, fingering the money as I contemplated what to do. Waving to the cashier—who knew me by name but didn't particularly like me—I walked to the candy aisle, viewing all my options.

  I wanted to be bad, to pocket some of the money and save it, get a pill from Jerry/Jeremy/Jared or whatever the hell his name was.

  But I wanted to be good, too, to prove to Six that I was better than he expected.

  In the end, the bad side won out.

  I chose everything very carefully, tallying up the total myself in my head so everything would total just over twenty.

  I dropped nineteen candy bars onto the counter and pointed to the pack of cigarettes Six normally bought. I pocketed twenty of the change right away, holding the rest in my hand.

  “Are you trying to kill yourself?” Six asked upon seeing my bag of sugar.

  I shrugged and handed him his smokes. When I reached toward him with the change I hadn't pocketed, Six took my hand and flipped it over, eyeing the money carefully. I wondered if he was mentally calculating how much the candy must have cost.

  His eyes whipped up to mine and he stared at me for several full beats of my heart, searching for something. And just as quick as he'd grabbed my hand, he let go.

  “Keep it,” he said. He hit the pack of cigarettes against his hand several times before pulling out one and lighting it up. “You never know when you might need it.”

  We walked back to my apartment in silence, but it felt heavy, weighed by my equal guilt and relief that I could maybe get a hit sometime soon.

  Six said nothing to me and I couldn't help but feel like this too was a test. A test he wanted me to pass, but I was bound to fail.

  When we reached the apartment, Six stayed just outside the door.

  “You're not staying?” I asked, feeling a little anxious.

  He shook his head but looked down at the cigarette in his hands. “I have a job I need to do.”

  I knew two things by his body language:

  He was lying to me.

  And he knew I had lied to him.

  14

  December 2001

  Six months later

  “Keep up,” Six barked from behind me, his foot landing in a puddle and splashing my sweats.

  Just for that, I wanted to push him down into the muddy water. But I was much, much shorter than Six—maybe a whole foot—which gave my legs a disadvantage. Still, I powered on, despite the burning in my lungs and the aching in my feet. Six’s many words of wisdom echoed in my head, beating against the voices.

  If you think about the pain, you won’t win.

  What the fuck was I winning? It sure wasn’t a marathon, not with Six several meters ahead of me, barely breaking a sweat while I lagged behind, lungs aching and hair soaked to my face.

  When we hit a crosswalk, we both paused. Six stood by easily, hands in his pockets like he’d been taking a leisurely stroll and not trying to set the world record for running through the streets of San Francisco.

  But now that I’d said it, I was sure there wasn’t a world record for that. Which meant Six was just a show-off.

  With a hand braced to the street light, I leaned over and coughed, hard.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked, giving me a quick one over.

  “Peachy.” I hacked up what I expected to be a lung, but only foggy air came out. I reached in my pocket and pulled out a pack of smokes.

  Just as I was bringing my trusty gold lighter up to it, Six plucked the cigarette from between my lips and tossed it on the ground with little fanfare.

  “What the fuck?”

  “You’re bent over, struggling to breathe, and you’re about to smoke a cigarette?”

  “So?”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  That set my blood to boiling. “Stupid is tossing an unused cigarette to the ground. These things aren’t free.” I held up my pack. “If you didn’t want me to smoke, you could’ve just used your words, like a big boy, and I’d have put it away.”

  “You shouldn’t be smoking at all, not before you go for a run and not after, either. Smoking is what’s making you breathe so shallowly. You’re lowering your oxygen absorption—and your muscles need oxygen to produce energy. Your endurance is going to suffer, the longer you smoke.”

  I knew full well it was childish, but I wanted to light a cigarette then just to smite him. “I’m not training for the Olympics, Six.”

  “No, but you’re slowing me down.”

  What. An. Ass. I shoved the cigarettes in my pocket, and before the crosswalk told us it was safe, I bolted across it to the other side. I hadn’t narrowly escaped death—this side of the city wasn’t exactly bustling at three in the afternoon—but I’d still done something risky. And judging by the hard lines around Six’s face, he was less than impressed.

  “Come on, old man,” I called with my hands cupped on the outside of my mouth.

  But he waited dutifully across the street. Traffic was slow enough that he could’ve played a toddler-level game of Frogger, but he waited nonetheless, his expression hard.

  When the walk sign flashed, he started walking toward me. He was looming, his shadow briefly preceding his body as he came closer and closer. And boy, was he angry.

  “Why is it, when I tell you not to be stupid, you decide to be stupider? What is it that drives you to be so reckless, Mira?”

  The steam that had built up inside me after he told me not to be stupid before had fizzled away, along with my adrenaline from running across the road. So when I answered, I didn’t have an ounce of anger in me. The running thing was, admittedly, doing a great job of tiring me out of expending useless emotion.

  “Because it’s fun, Six. I know you’re allergic to fun things, but since you’ve taken away a few of my fun hobbies, I have to find it somehow.”

  “I haven’t taken anything from you. Jesus, Mira, I’ve only given. And given again.”

  The conversation rapidly turned serious, wiping away whatever small bit of satisfaction I had. He wasn’t lying. He did give, and give, and give—when I didn’t deserve any of it. But I hadn’t asked him to give. He’d practically forced himself into my life. I wasn’t the one showing up at his apartment, begging for him.

  “If you’re giving more than you’re getting, feel free to leave.”

  He tilted his head down, his angry lines softening into annoyance. “I’m not saying that. I’m saying don’t be stupid. Or, at least, try not to be. For me.”

  At my look—the look that told him not to talk about relationship shit, since it was still so new for me—he placed his hands on my shoulders.

  “I’m saying that I care about you, and that I don’t want to see you mowed down by some guy showing off his muscle car’s juice, okay? I’m asking you to think about more than yourself.”

  “I’m selfish.”

  “I know.” He leaned down, kissed the top of my head. He kept doing that, dropping small bites of affection on me like I actually deserved them. “But you and I aren’t going to work if you’re not going to think about how I feel from time to time.”

  But that was the problem. I thought about how he felt all the time. It kept me awake at night, long after his soft, deep breathing first reached my ears in bed. I wondered what he saw in me, what made him keep coming back. I was the most selfish person alive, and still he wanted what little I could spare him. It was hard, sometimes, for me not to see him as a wolf coming back for scraps. And in anyone else, that would’ve given me a reason to take advantage of him. But I couldn’t do that with Six. Not just because he wouldn’t let me, but because I didn’t want to.

  Before he could pull away, my fingers wrapped around his wrists. They were so large that I couldn’t reach all the way around, so I squeezed him. “I’m sorry.” I meant it, even if my apology was lacking.

  “Okay. That’s a start.” He gave me one of his rare smiles and cupped my neck with his hands. “But I do think you should try to cut the ci
garettes down to a minimum, at least.”

  “You smoke.” It wasn’t a question, but it was accusatory.

  “I do. But it’s not a good habit. I’ve let myself go a little soft since meeting you.” He patted his stomach. “I need to get better. Our runs are as much for me as they are for you.”

  I touched his stomach, feeling every damn line of his abs. “If this is soft, then my stomach is mashed potatoes.” I wasn’t fishing for compliments. Six never really talked about how I looked—which was what I preferred. Compliments were awkward, like wearing an itchy sweater. I didn’t need him to tell me I was pretty to feel validated in my looks. It was what was inside that was the problem.

  He laughed anyway at my joke. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “I can think of a number of things, but at least ninety percent of them would get us both arrested if we did them here.” I gripped his sweater. “Your place or mine?”

  “I can’t,” he said, and sighed remorsefully. “I’ve got a flight this evening, actually.”

  “Oh? A job?” Six often traveled for work, never bringing me along, and hardly ever told me about the job until after he’d returned. The fact that he was telling me now seemed poignant.

  “Remember Lydia? My friend?”

  The woman with the little girl from the photograph. “Yes.” I tried not to sound eager, which was hard to do with a word that consisted of only three letters. But I still did, because Six hardly gave me any information about the things in his life.

  “Lydia passed away two years ago. Her daughter was orphaned. I try to visit a few times a year.” So that was why he didn’t seem to want to talk about her, about them, in his apartment that one day.

  His eyes drew together, and in them I swore I saw something pass. Memories, feelings, something bigger than any other emotions Six usually let me see.

  So, that was what sad looked like on him. Six being sad made me want to draw away from him. Anyone else would be drawn in, consoling. Not me. I was selfish, and I could barely take hold of my own feelings. Being burdened by someone else’s was … too heavy for me to carry.

  “Cora needs me. She’s alone, you know?”

  Cora. The name filled my mouth when I tried to say it. “Okay,” I said, suddenly wishing he hadn’t told me anything.

  “It’ll be for a few days. Can you manage not to get yourself into trouble while I’m gone?” The fog lifted, and he was back to his regular self again. But I was unsettled. The glimpse behind the veil, and the way Six had looked—it’d been a lot. A new side of him.

  “I guess I can try.” If Six sensed any apathy in my tone, he didn’t let on to it.

  “Will you run while I’m gone? Keep yourself busy?”

  “I guess if I feel like it.” But I was drained, answering him on automatic.

  “You’re really such a pain in my ass,” he said with a sigh. “This is why you should get a dog. Have something to keep you accountable when I’m away.”

  “Oh, please.” I blew out an exasperated breath. “That’s such a scam.”

  “Having a pet is a scam?”

  “Yeah. It’s fucking bullshit. You adopt these creatures and get, maybe, ten years with them and then they die, and you start the process all over again with a new one, because you’re so depressed. What kind of shit is that?”

  “Everyone dies, Mira.”

  “Yeah, but animals die faster.” Like my goldfish.

  “It wouldn’t be fair to them to outlive us now, would it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want one. Never have. Never will.”

  “You didn’t have any pets growing up?”

  “Um, no.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Hello, how many Henrys have we gone through this year? That was a big adult step for me, you know, getting a goldfish.”

  “Dogs are harder to forget than goldfish are.”

  “Still don’t want one.” Before Six, I was barely keeping myself alive. To be responsible for something needier than my voiceless goldfish sounded like a cruel joke.

  “Well, anyway, I’ll only be gone a few days. Maybe a week. But you can do this route, as if I’m with you in spirit. I’ll be back right before Christmas.”

  “Oh, good. Will you bring me another garbage bag filled with gifts again?”

  “Only if you’re really good.” He let loose another sigh and tucked a sweaty strand of hair behind my ear. “Are you going to miss me?”

  “Ew.” I pushed against him. “It’s only a week, Six. Calm down.”

  He tugged me back toward him, not letting me go that easily. My heart hiccupped into my throat and his mouth came down, not quite touching my lips but nearly there. “I’ll miss you.” He said it so softly, as if he thought I needed to hear those soft words. Or maybe the softness was for him. He was so hard, everywhere, all the time, that soft was such a contradiction to the man I visualized in my head when I wasn’t looking right at him.

  “Okay,” I managed, breathing the word into his mouth.

  His lips curved briefly, just a hint, before they settled back. His eyes searched mine, and his hands holding my arms squeezed gently. He wasn’t letting me go, and I realized that it extended beyond this moment. It’d been a year, and still he was proving himself to be steadfast; to be consistent when I was not. To be present when I was not. To love me when I could not.

  Love. My heart tumbled out of my throat and landed with a smack on the ground in front of him. But he couldn’t see it; only I could. He loved me. He hadn’t said the words, but I knew it in the marrow of my bones. And, I couldn’t love him.

  He was still hovering so close that each spoken word breathed into me. “You might not be able to admit it, but you’ll miss me too.”

  But I didn’t want to miss him. How had I let myself get so wrapped up in him? He’d given me a job, paid my stupid bills, kept me company, helped put me on the right path. And I was stupidly afraid of all that. Because everything had an end—and I couldn’t clearly see where the us that we were, broke off into his path and mine.

  “You’re going to miss your flight.”

  Keep touching me.

  Stop holding me.

  My heart rate had accelerated once again, and the voices were at war with one another.

  “You don’t even know when my flight is.”

  He had me there. “When is it?”

  “This evening.”

  “That’s specific.”

  He chuckled softly, pulling away, breaking our chance to kiss. “A week at most, okay?”

  I could tell he was more worried than I was about what would happen in our time apart. We hadn’t gone a week apart since the year before. Part of me suspected this was some kind of test; a way for Six to see how I’d do without him constantly hovering. “Don’t be so dramatic, Six. It’s a week.”

  “I know.”

  But it wasn’t just a week. It was just enough time for me to fuck everything up.

  15

  One week later

  Six-thirty pm.

  Six’s plane had landed. I knew because he had called me while on layover in Denver.

  “You paid my phone?” was how I greeted him.

  “Hi, Mira. Yes, because I’d like to talk to you.” He didn’t even wait for my “Why” and included the answer. He knew me better than I think I knew myself sometimes.

  But he’d gone the whole week not talking to me. A long, silent week, that reminded me of who I was when Six hadn’t been around.

  It was a test, and I’d failed. Miserably.

  “Have you been eating?” he’d asked me on the phone.

  No. “Yes.” The lie made me itchy. I looked at my fish bowl, where Henry floated on the top. A blob of white. “Henry died.”

  “Interesting segue. Did you eat him?”

  “Shut up.”

  My heart grew fonder in his absence, which was unfortunate, because all it did was bring about all my fears.

  It started three nights after he left. I hadn’
t run all day, my body was restless, and so I put a paintbrush in my hands and went to town on one of the many canvases waiting to be colored.

  Sometime near three in the morning, I stepped back to see what I’d done and felt that kick of realization to my gut. Six’s arms. I’d painted them. They were mottled, but they were warm colors—tans and browns and deep burgundy. It was how I saw him. A warm blur, holding me together.

  I did not fall in love with Six the way you read about in books. Falling implies a smooth transition of standing to not, but nothing was smooth about the way I loved Six. There was no landing at the bottom; I was just stuck. Words tangling with my heart in my throat. I was a child holding something precious and fragile and dangerous—something I was ill-equipped to care for.

  Loving Six wasn't gradual; it was sudden. There was silence and then there was noise, loud, pulse-pounding noise. There was no adjustment, no warning, no hint of what was to come.

  It was just there when I looked at that painting. Like a parade through my heart, a storm over my soul. It wasn't a fall; it was an explosion, obliterating my life.

  What had been nothing had become everything.

  Love put me in a chokehold. I knew I couldn’t tell him.

  I’d been loved and let go a million times before Six, but the love I had for him was so big that I was sure I couldn’t carry it. Not on my own. And if he let go of me, that love would engulf me; suffocate me.

  I was sitting on the floor when he showed up. He dropped his bags on the floor and held up the plastic one, which contained another orange goldfish. In his other, he had some kind of food. It smelled good, and I realized I hadn’t eaten that day.

  He disappeared to the bathroom with dead Henry and returned, cleaning the tank and refilling it. I watched as he placed the plastic bag encased goldfish inside the bowl.

  “Henry the Fourth,” he said proudly, and set to work on the bags of food.

  I’d gone through a few fish while Six had been gone on jobs. I was a shit pet owner. And I let Six keep replacing my dead goldfish while I pretended not to care.