by Vivian Lux
A thin layer of dust lay everywhere. That was the only thing that was out of place that let me know for certain my grandfather wasn’t going to be coming in the door. Dust would never dare to settle in his house. It fucking knew better than to take on the likes of Gerald Dolan.
It was a breezy fall day and the wind was whistling through the gaps in the windows. That sound used to frighten me as a kid. My overactive imagination called up the torment of lost souls, ghosts wandering the house at night, the ice maker in the refrigerator supplying the clacking chains. Hearing it now was almost like hearing from an old friend.
I walked into the living room and cranked open the casement window. Then I stood back and checked my phone, deleting the message from Killian without reading it.
Instantly the desire to fall asleep overwhelmed me. But I couldn’t get Killian’s face out of my head. The way it had crumpled from smugness to dismay when he realized I was serious. I was leaving. The threat of a lawsuit, breach of contract, all that didn’t matter right now. What mattered was that he thought he could get away with it and he didn’t. He thought he had me all figured out, but I’d surprised him. Instead of hanging back and trying to work things out with him, I’d thrown my shit in a suitcase and fucking left. It was worth it just to see the expression on his face.
How would he look at me if I came back?
There was no way I was coming back.
No, for better or worse, I was stuck here. I needed to brazen this out, show Mr. Granger over there that two can play the stubborn game. This was my house now.
This was my home.
CHAPTER FIVE
Derek
She didn’t look back at me, so she didn’t see me staring.
I couldn’t help it.
It had been too long. I was staring at her ass the way a hungry dog stares at a steak. Junkie or no, she was undeniably gorgeous. I was surprised I wasn’t actually drooling at the sight of her swaying in those ridiculous boots of hers.
The fact that I let her walk away from me showed just how far I’d come.
Or rather, how far I’d fallen.
Back when I was drinking, I’d know exactly how to work this. It wouldn’t matter that she currently hated my guts. That had never stopped me before. I’d take her to the bar, order a drink for her and slide it into her hand. The alcohol would be lubrication, smoothing over the awkwardness of a first date. She’d be warm and giggly by the end, and I’d figure out a way to charm myself into her bed.
That’s the way it had worked for years.
But it’s not the way it worked now.
Now I stayed away from women. From everyone. The number of people who knew I lived up here on Mr. Dolan’s property was exactly five. My brother Cole, my friend Brynn, Sy Tarrington, the delivery guy, and now fucking Aria Jane over there with her boots that were going to figure largely in my dreams tonight.
When she pushed her way into the great house, I finally turned and walked to mine. The sweat from my run had cooled on my skin, but I felt overheated all the same. She was here now. She’d invaded my sanctum and shoved her way into my business and what the hell did I do now?
Without a drink in my hand, I had no idea what came next.
Because for years, you’d never find me without a drink in my hand.
I opened the door to my place, shut it behind me and locked it for the first time in the year I’d lived here. Mr. Dolan had no interest in what I did here. I trusted him.
I didn’t trust his granddaughter.
I showered off quickly and sat down at my laptop. The next job was due from my employer within the week, but until then, I was free to do what I liked with my time. I was working on a project that was pretty interesting, the kind of knotty problem that captured the whole of my attention. But now my attention was fixed fully on the girl in the great house.
I tapped at the keys idly. There wasn’t much left to learn about her that I didn’t already know. There was one new account of the last Wrecked show in Seattle, the one she must have played right after getting my email. She’d stood up in front of her adoring crowd and told them all that Killian was a cheating piece of shit. I grinned as I read it, imagining that douchebag’s smug face falling as she publicly ripped into him. This girl had balls, there was no question of that. I needed to keep my eye on her.
And not on her ass.
I sat back in my chair and my hand shot out in a reflexive motion for the beer that wasn’t there. Hadn’t been there in three years.
Not since the accident.
The habitual drinking, that was the hardest to let go of. The sweating tumbler of bourbon sitting next to me as I hacked into systems well into the night. The ice-cold beer drunk in triumph after an especially good run. The liquid courage I’d down right before I moved on a pretty tourist chick who’d wandered into Reese’s Pub. It was all…routine.
And it had been for most of my life.
Alcohol slid into my life like it was the next logical step in development. Birth led to walking, walking led to talking, talking led to drinking. It was as simple as that. By the age of five, I was fetching beers from the fridge, carefully carrying the bottles into the living room without dropping them on our wooden floors. By the age of seven, I could mix a pretty good version of my mom's favorite drink, a dry martini with just a whiff of vermouth. By the age of eight, I had mastered my Dad’s Rusty Nails, even though I hated the smell. By the age of eight and a half, keeping their drinks topped off was my full-time job.
It took me until I was nine to finally understand that if I wanted my parents to remember something that I told them, I needed to make sure I asked it before 5 o'clock cocktail hour. Because once the tumblers and martini glasses were in hands, Cole and I were expected to disappear.
My parents had parties almost every night, friends we called Uncle and Aunt, but who never treated us as anything more than short bartenders. "Derek, go mix Mr. Wayne an Old-Fashioned. Cole, go put Mrs. Quinn’s purse on your bed." My younger brother and I quickly fell into the rhythm of their parties. In the summer, we hid out heads under our pillows to drown out the noise of shouted laughter. In the winter, we fell asleep amongst the pile of coats and boots that covered our beds. The first hour, we could be visible, as long as we were helpful and happy. The second hour, we hung in the doorway in case we were summoned. By the third hour of drinking, though, we always need to make sure we were out of sight. So our parents could pretend they never had children and the lifelong party of their lives was never interrupted by something so mundane as parenthood.
I never really talked about it with Cole. But I'm sure he felt the same way I did. That he and I were nothing more than items ticked off their checklist. They started careers, bought a house, and had children, all because those are the things that people do, but that's never what they wanted. They never wanted to be a family, so it was up to me and Cole to make our own way.
There are some scars on my body, not inflicted by my parents in any literal way, but through their neglect. A broken arm from climbing way too high in an apple tree. A long thin line where the oven door closed against my arm. A broken toe, never fully healed, never splinted because I knew better than to bother them with something so trivial. They were wrapped up in themselves, wrapped up in each other and in their own brilliance, and more than anything they were wrapped up in their drinking.
My brother and I got very used to spending all our time together but that did not last. When Cole started getting inducted into honor societies and getting invited to take college classes while still in high school, I peeled off from him and found my own group. And that group liked to party. And my house was the one you could come to if you wanted to get completely shit-faced.
My parents' liquor cabinet was insanely well-stocked, and they drank down their supplies so quickly, that they often didn’t notice when it was going more quickly than it should. Well, either they didn't notice, or, more likely they didn't care that their son was throwing wild parties in
the woods. With my arms stocked full of supplies that I liberated from my house, I became quite popular. Especially given my willingness to share.
The parties were my gateway into the wider world of high school, and a little alcohol was my social lubricant.
But then I started to need it. By fifteen I was drinking nearly every day. By sixteen I was sneaking sips before school, just to quell the nervousness in my stomach. By seventeen I was carrying my own damn flask everywhere I went, sneaking sips to take the edge off, as I called it.
There was always an edge.
When I finally turned twenty-one it was almost anticlimactic. I've been drinking heavily and daily for six years at that point, so far gone down the rabbit hole of alcoholism that my face had started to change. I was bloated and tired, my mind stretched like a rubber band when I tried to think hard. There were holes in my memory, but I didn't care enough to worry about that.
Jesse and Gabe, my best friends back then, weren't nearly as far gone as I was. They didn't have a chance, because their parents actually noticed when they came stumbling home with red eyes and slurred words. Time and again they were grounded and my name was blacklisted, but we always got back together again.
Until the accident.
I sat back in my chair and took a sip of water, one of the only liquids I allowed myself to drink these days. These old thoughts, the regrets, I had no idea why they were creeping up on me again. I rolled my chair over to the window and peeked out at the great house. It was her fault, most likely. She’d brought up my past, so, of course, I was thinking about it. And thinking about it always brought me back to that night.
The sideways slide on the icy road. Jesse’s anguished cry as the back started to fishtail. The sickening screech of metal on metal. And then everything turned upside down as we started to roll.
I stood up. Spying on Miss Sexy Boots wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I needed to focus on my work, my real work.
I slid my hand under my desk, feeling around for the latch. The panel sprung free and I pulled the key out of the slot and walked to the back of the carriage house.
Back here, behind the old stable doors, was my real work. Locked up and away, safe from prying eyes. Even Mr. Dolan had no idea what I was doing back there, nor did he seem to care. But with Aria in the picture now, I needed to be doubly careful that my work stayed secret. I unlocked the door, pocketed the key and slid it shut behind me.
CHAPTER SIX
Aria Jane
The first thing I noticed was how fucking loud the birds were.
Fucking birds, how the hell were there birds this close to my window? My last few years had passed in a twenty-third-floor apartment, in hotel rooms, in airports, or on tour buses. None of which were known for their avian surplus.
But the birds kept right on making their racket. Sparrows’ chirps and the raucous calls of blue jays, the low caws of crows, and a whole hell of a lot of other loud ass birds yelling at the top of their birdy lungs.
“Shut up,” I croaked and rolled over, burying my face in the mattress.
Which was bare.
Which was the second thing I noticed.
Housekeeping must have fucked up.
But I wasn’t in a hotel room.
That was the third thing I noticed.
The fourth, fifth and sixth things all came at once in a barrage of discomfort. My neck was cramped oddly, my underwire was digging into my ribs and my mouth was as dry as a desert.
Then all the realizations came at once and everything flooded together. I sat up straight in bed.
In an unfamiliar bed.
No.
It was a completely, overwhelmingly familiar bed.
I was in… my grandfather’s house?
I opened my mouth to call for Killian, and then the reality of everything hit me upside the head and I collapsed backwards with a muffled curse.
Holy shit.
I rolled over into the fetal position and cursed out loud. “Shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. What the fuck? What the actual fuck?”
I’m not sure how much time I spent lying on my grandfather’s bare mattress and cursing. Cursing Killian, cursing my band, cursing myself. Cursing the seven years I’d devoted to twining my life together with a man who didn’t fucking deserve me. Cursing the fact that my whole fucking identity as a person, as a singer and guitarist and a fucking rock star were all linked up with that same shitty man. Cursing myself for letting it get to that point in the first place.
And then I moved on to cursing Derek for standing in the way. My whole life I’d done nothing but fling myself out into the world and cling desperately to whatever hope I could find. I’d flung myself away from Killian and now I was clinging to this house. My house, goddammit. My safety net, my piece of sanity in the chaos that had taken over my life. What the hell was I going to do with a stubborn playboy tenant gumming up the works? Never mind whatever old feelings I felt upon seeing him. I snorted out loud. That was just old shit, muscle memory at this point. I didn’t still think he was attractive. No fucking way. I’d been at the top of my game, partied with some of the hottest rock gods out there. Hell, I’d done guest vocals for fucking Ruthless, man. The Wilder Brothers, I’d seen them make their magic right there in the flesh. I wasn’t impressed with Derek’s small-town smolder, not in the least. He was nothing more than a bump in the road.
I pushed myself up on my elbows and saw sparks of light flash in the corners of my eyes. Then I fell back, dizzy.
I pinched the bridge of my nose between two fingers and tried to think.
I’d last eaten something…breakfast it was. A piece of avocado toast…and then…
Nothing.
I rolled back over again, my head a tumult of confusion and pain.
I felt like a washcloth, wrung out and left to dry. And I realized I had never been so hungry in my life.
I had no idea what time it was until I located the source of the pain in my side and realized I had been sleeping on my cell phone. It read 2:34 pm. On Sunday.
I had slept for over twenty-four hours.
Gingerly I stood up. Hunger had my head throbbing and my mouth tasted like an old sock.
Gradually everything started to come together. I needed a plan. But first I needed a glass of water.
There was no power, so the well water didn’t come on the first try, but there was still a tank of propane near the generator and it was half full. I primed it, turned it on and then swallowed great gulps of the sulphur-tasting water. Then I spat into the sink and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror.
“Okay,” I said. “Now what?”
There was no food in the house, but that was easy enough to procure.
Except for the small problem of having no car.
And the slightly bigger one of not wanting anyone to see me here.
My stomach growled again. I squeezed my eyes shut and then opened them to look across the expanse of green lawn. I could see almost the whole of the lake from up here, stretched out to the horizon. The only thing marring the view was the old carriage house.
Derek’s house.
Where Derek lived.
And probably had food.
I lifted my head, squared my shoulders and swallowed my pride. After all, he was still my tenant, right? At least until I got this whole mess squared up. I could knock a few bucks off his rent if he gave me some food. Yeah, that was exactly what I’d do.
I opened the door and walked across the lawn…carefully.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Derek
I thought I’d missed her. That maybe she’d emerged from the great house some time when I was in my workshop. Or maybe she’d slip out under the cover of darkness during one of the random fits of sleep I’d manage to snatch from insomnia’s grasp.
But there she was, striding across the lawn, the wind gently twisting and playing with her wildfire hair. I swallowed and turned away from the window so she wouldn’t see me staring at her once she came to my
door.
Because that’s where she was headed, with this weird little smirk on her face, like she’d figured something out.
If I were a lesser man, that smirk would make me nervous.
She rapped on my door in this strange staccato beat, like she was tapping out the rhythm of a song only she could hear. I smiled, then quickly stopped smiling because why the fuck would I find her charming? She was a self-absorbed bitch who didn’t spare a thought for anyone but herself and her own selfish needs. She was planning on kicking me out of my fucking house, for god’s sake. She wasn’t charming at all.
She rapped again, more impatiently this time, and for that I was grateful because it ignited that little, irritated spark in my chest. The one I needed to keep lit in order to maintain a proper distance from her pretty blue eyes and ripe little peach of an ass.
I didn’t move from my kitchen, making sure she had to knock a third time, more hesitant this time. A little unsure of herself now. Goddammit, stop smiling. Then I slowly made my way to the door.
She was raising her fist to pound a fourth time when I threw the door open. “Oh!” she said with a start. “I wasn’t sure you were…” she cleared her throat and tossed her hair over her shoulder and I had a momentary vision of twining it around my fist. “You’re home,” she said, lifting her chin.
“Yes,” I said slowly, deliberately. “I am in my home.”
She winced, then colored. “Are you…” she looked down at her feet and then tossed her hair up and over her shoulders again. Jutting out her chin in a fierce little scowl she looked me dead in the eye. “I’d be willing to knock a few dollars off of your rent if you let me borrow some food.”
I tried to suppress my smirk and then decided fuck it and laughed out loud. She scowled all the harder as I lifted my eyes to heaven. “Wait a sec,” I laughed. “You’re telling me you have no food and you want to borrow some?”
