Seal All Exits (Tangled Web #3)

by Jade C. Jamison

  “So it started by me finding comfort in food. It was a reward at first—the attention, and then I discovered the joy in food. You know, that high you can get from sugar or how you look forward to eating a favorite meal. But it wasn’t long before I treated it like my only friend.

  “Well, then, after that, when I realized I’d gained a lot of weight, I—well, I guess I did become kind of obsessed with my looks. What I looked like consumed my thoughts day and night, and I eventually decided to do something about it. I’d go ahead and eat, because I no longer wanted any attention from anyone for doing something perceived to be abnormal, but as soon as I was out of the scrutiny of my family, I’d throw up.” She nodded, letting her mind wander back. “The weight came off pretty quickly. No one noticed. And, unlike all the other shit in my life…it was the one thing I could control. The one thing no one could affect or change other than me. And…I saw the numbers dropping on the scale, but to me I still looked the same. I was still chubby. No, I was fat, and I hated myself. Yeah, hated myself. Only I think I hated my dad more. Maybe that was where all that animosity came from, but it was there, and it was vile.

  “After a while, it was second nature. Most of the time, I’d throw up after eating. If I wasn’t throwing up, I was finding another way to deal with the food—I would exercise for hours, but sometimes I’d just go without eating for days.”

  She was quiet for a while and then Kiefer asked, “But…when I first met you, you weren’t skin and bones.”

  She smiled and nodded her head. “I had been under the care of a therapist for a long time, and he gave me a range on the scale. If I could stay within the weights he gave me, he said, I’d be healthy. So I kept my weight between one-twenty and one-sixty.”

  “What were you before?”

  “Always ninety-five pounds or under.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. And I still looked fat. To me.” She knew Kiefer meant well, but she couldn’t look him in the eye. She could see the care and love in his face, but she wasn’t ready to accept it—not yet. “You have no idea how it preoccupied my life. I barely graduated high school, because I was worried more about my looks than I was about my schoolwork. But I could tell you—drop of a hat—the calories in a potato chip, a donut, an apple, a hot dog…anything. You name it.” No way in hell would she ever tell Kiefer, but she even knew that the blowjob she’d given him the night before weighed in between five and twenty-five calories. Had she still been in that frame of mind, she would have then swum around the pool fifty or so laps to burn off all those calories. Stupid. Yeah, it was stupid, but it was the way her mind worked.

  “What helped, though…Dave. He was my therapist. Still is. He taught me so much about the faulty way my brain works.” She took in several slow breaths before continuing. “I take anti-depression meds. They help. And he treated me for years, helping me learn to love myself. I can go back anytime I need to, but especially when things get rough again. The problem is I don’t always reach out to him when I need help. When I was going to grad school, I’d convinced myself I didn’t need anyone’s help. I stayed on my meds, yes, but I went way too far the other way. I began stress eating again and put on a lot of weight, avoiding the mirror like I always do, but I was lying to myself, trying to avoid the real fact that I’m messed up in the head.” She looked over at the mirror and saw Kiefer’s head behind her, also looking. “See? I look at myself. I look like a fat clown.”

  He looked sad. “Really?”

  “Yeah. I look really fat.”

  “But you’re not. You know that, right? You know you’re not.”

  “Yeah, I do. But I don’t like to look at myself…because I don’t see that. And I have to trust the scale…and Dave. Dave promised he’d tell me if I really did get fat. I know logically that one-hundred-twenty pounds is healthier than ninety for my height and bone structure, but it doesn’t feel right. I can’t explain…but emotionally I don’t feel thin. I always feel like the chubby twelve year old whose dad doesn’t give a shit about her.”

  Kiefer didn’t say a word; he simply pulled her into an embrace. How had he known that that was exactly what she’d needed? It said more than words could ever say…that he accepted her for who she was and that, no matter how fucked up her brain was, it was okay. He was still there, and that was more than any other man had ever done for her.

  Chapter Twelve

  OH, YEAH. IT was pretty damned stupid, but he’d promised to do it for Heather. He was pretending like they were just friends in front of everyone else.

  After their long talk and her confession of sorts, Kiefer had kissed her and told her that she was beautiful and he hoped that someday she would see herself through his eyes. She’d thanked him and told him he’d already done more for her than he’d ever know. It was sweet and amazing and it reconfirmed what he’d known all along—that they were best friends who needed each other more than they’d realized at first.

  But after all that—all that had happened the night before…she’d asked him to keep up their ruse. For some reason, she didn’t want anyone there to know that they were seeing each other romantically—and because he cared, he was going along with her wishes…but now he was wondering why the hell he’d agreed to it.

  Like she’d asked, though, he was walking to his room to change into fresh clothes before heading to the kitchen. She was already on her way to breakfast. Again, her idea was that if they arrived at different times, no one would figure it out. Yeah, okay, but he didn’t give a shit if Katie, Johnny, Mickey, Sage, or any of their other guests knew he and Heather were together. They were friends already, and if they took their relationship further, it was no one else’s business. But Heather was concerned about the “secret” getting out. He knew she had her reasons why.

  What bothered him was what he thought was the reason. Even after everything—all they’d shared, all they’d been to each other over the past few years—she wanted to keep him at a safe distance, as her friend only, even though they clearly should be more.

  He sighed as he opened his bedroom door. Well, he still had a few more days to try to convince her otherwise. He could only hope she could be persuaded to see that they belonged together—as more than friends.

  He heard Mickey in the bathroom running water in the sink. “Hey, that you, Kief?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where you been, man?”

  Kiefer looked toward the bathroom door and watched as Mickey opened it. He said, “Just taking a walk.”

  “It’s kinda cold outside, isn’t it?”

  Man, he sucked at lying. He was going to try anyway. He’d promised Heather. “Just around the house. You see how big this place is?”

  “Yeah. It boggles the mind. I get wanting to have a bigger place, but do you think Katie and Johnny really need a place this big?”

  “I doubt he gives a shit. He’s got that huge man cave and a music studio—a studio, dude, where we’re going to actually record our next album. And then he’s got that huge garage for tinkering on his Harley. I don’t see him hating it here.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I get the man cave with all that cool shit. I get the music studio, the garage, and even the huge fuckin’ swimming pool, but what the hell do they need with, like, sixteen bedrooms or however many they have? And other shit. I haven’t even looked in half the rooms. Sage was sayin’ somethin’about an art room and a library.”

  “You’re not surprised about the library, are you?”

  Mickey shrugged. “What? ‘Cause Katie’s a writer?”

  “Yeah. Johnny said she was totally into classic literature and wanted to be surrounded by books and beauty while she wrote.” And he started wondering if Heather had checked it out yet. He knew she was into the same shit. That was why she and Katie were such good friends—they’d gone to school together, studying for the same thing—and, if he remembered correctly—those were exactly the subjects Heather taught nowadays.

  His mind was preoccupie
d by thinking about how Heather had had a hell of a battle growing up—a war she was still fighting, apparently. In all their past conversations, he’d never realized how hard she’d had it. He’d had a pretty shitty childhood too, but nothing like what Heather had had to deal with. He’d had no idea…and he wasn’t about to tell her his own woes, because his paled in comparison to what she’d had to go through.

  It made him want to hold her close for as long as she’d have him.

  Instead, she continued to push him away.

  Was it her past that made her want to keep that distance? Was her father such a cold asshole that she would never trust any other man? He was starting to wonder if that was the problem, because—as far as he knew—he’d never done anything to engender that sort of response from her.

  And he wasn’t sure how to counteract it.

  Mickey spat the toothpaste in his mouth into the sink. “You eat breakfast already?”

  “No. I was gonna go do that in a minute.”

  “If you’ll give me a sec, I’ll go with you.”

  “Sounds good. I just want to change clothes first.” Mickey rinsed out his toothbrush and headed into his room to, no doubt, finish dressing himself. Kiefer walked across the room and flipped open the lid on his luggage to pull out fresh clothes. He didn’t really care what he wore and never had. As long as he was comfortable, it didn’t matter. He threw on some shoes just as Mickey walked into his room.

  They were heading down the hall toward the kitchen and Mickey paused in front of Sage’s door and pounded on it. “You up?” The two of them kept walking, but they heard Sage say something behind the door—something pissy. Mickey cracked a smile but didn’t miss a step. He was holding a new pack of smokes and started slapping the top of the pack against the palm of his hand, something Kiefer had seen his friend do dozens of times, something Mickey had told him he did to pack the tobacco in and make each cigarette slower burning. Kiefer had his doubts that it really did anything for the cigarette, but there was no way he was going to argue with Mickey and his habits. He knew routines like those could be comforting—he’d seen his mother engage in those types of activities surrounding her own addictions, but they were never anything like smoking. Kiefer tended to think of smoking as harmless, even though he knew it really wasn’t, but at least it didn’t eat away the addict’s brain…not like what had happened to his mom.

  Mickey broke him from his spell. “Is that sausage I smell?”

  Kiefer drew the air in through his nostrils. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Damn. I could get used to this shit.”

  They rounded the corner and saw that the table was already full. Kiefer had almost forgotten about all the guests that had joined them yesterday—he could hardly keep all the names straight. But they had Johnny’s original band members—not just Riley and Erin but all the other guys who’d arrived the day before, except for Stone and his girl—as well as Heather at the table. Johnny had just sat down and Katie was getting ready to.

  Kiefer tried to avoid Heather’s gaze at first, because he thought she would want that. He instead took in the spread at the table. He was starting to feel spoiled on the food front. On the table were biscuits, bagels, and English muffins, a plate full of sliced sausage, and some kind of hot plate with fried eggs. There was also a huge bowl of hash browns and a fruit salad with pineapple, bananas, grapes, and Kiefer had no idea what else, but his mouth was already watering. Katie said, “Help yourself to an egg sandwich or two,” and Kiefer made his way toward the coffee pot first, planning to sit in the empty seat next to Heather, hoping he looked casual when he did it.

  But by the time he had his coffee stirred, he turned around and saw that Mickey stole the empty seat. Damn it. What had he expected? All this secretive bullshit would, of course, lead to that. Well, he couldn’t let it show on his face. When he sat down—between Katie and one of the guys named Mike—he allowed himself to glance at Heather, and the look on her face made him feel a thousand times better. She gave him a little grin and he saw the twinkle in her eye. Okay, maybe he could lay low for a while if she continued looking at him that way.

  And then he glanced around the table just to make sure that significant look hadn’t been caught by anyone else. He was pretty sure they were okay, and he began filling his plate.

  There was a little chitchat around the table, mostly focused on the weather this high up on the mountain and when they expected snowfall. Kiefer couldn’t pay much attention because he was thinking about Heather—last night and this morning and what he could do to help her.

  Knowing what he knew now, he couldn’t help but watch what she put on her plate. Nothing about the way she ate seemed unusual. She didn’t put cheese on her egg and sausage biscuit, but she put fruit salad on her plate as well and seemed to eat like a normal person—not eating too much or too little. He tried not to frown at himself. The last thing Heather would want would be for him to scrutinize her. He’d never say a word. He just found himself worried about her now that she’d shared her secret.

  Sage joined them shortly after and grabbed a cup of coffee. He sat at the table without saying anything and didn’t fill his plate immediately. Kiefer wondered if he and Mickey had hit the bottle in private last night. It wouldn’t have surprised him, but Sage looked a little out of it, like he was nursing a hangover.

  Kiefer wasn’t going to say a word.

  When the conversation around weather hit a lull, Johnny said, “I know a lot of you old-school friends are heading out today, but how many of my new guys are up for a writing session today? Ready to break in my new studio?”

  There was a lot of positive noise around the table and Riley said, “Could I join you too?”

  “Sure, man.”

  Erin touched her boyfriend’s shoulder but didn’t open her mouth. Riley said, “Yeah, I know we gotta visit my parents, but let me jam with the boys for a while first.”

  She grinned at him. “Sure it’s not just that you wanna play some of your oldies with your friends?”

  “Nope, I’m not sure. I think that’s a big part of it, but I think it might be simple avoidance too.”

  Johnny smiled. “I wouldn’t sweat it, Ri. Parents seem to mellow with age.”

  “I call bullshit, man. Your mom was always mellow.”

  “You got me there.”

  In spite of the fact that Kiefer felt sad that he couldn’t connect with Heather at the moment, he was enjoying the feel of camaraderie around the table. He knew there’d been some rivalry between the members of Spawn in the past—Johnny had said as much—but they seemed to get along just fine nowadays and even seemed to appreciate and respect one another. He was a newcomer to the music business, but he loved what he was doing and hoped it would always be that way. He couldn’t imagine not getting along with his bandmates, even when they were being dicks while thinking they were funny. He loved them like brothers, even when he didn’t feel particularly close to them or know that they had no clue about who he was inside, because they were doing something fun. They were creating music, bringing art to millions of screaming fans who loved what they were doing.

  So, after a general consensus between Riley and Johnny’s current band, Katie told the other two females at the table that she had plans for them too. She was being secretive but said that what they were going to do involved the library.

  Erin’s eyebrows perked up. “Library? As in Winchester?”

  “No…as in my library.”

  “I had no idea.”

  Heather smiled, her cute little dimples lighting up her face. God, Kiefer loved that. “You can sign me up for anything involving your library.” She faced Erin. “Just wait till you see it. You are gonna die.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  Kiefer had to admit that even he was curious about what the girls would be doing with Katie in her library, but he was going to be busy engaging in male bonding and, he hoped, maybe even sharing some of his words with Johnny. Today was gonna be a grea
t day.

  Chapter Thirteen

  HEATHER COULD SPEND hours and hours—days, weeks, months—in Katie’s library and not get bored. Holy God. It was her kind of place. So many freaking books. She wondered how the hell Katie had gotten her hands on all of them.

  And that followed such a beautiful moment with Kiefer. When Heather had heard Johnny talking about jamming in his studio, Heather remembered that Kiefer had asked her to look over his stuff before he showed it to Johnny, so as they were cleaning off the table, Heather waited till there was no one close by and asked if he still wanted her to look over his lyrics. The way his eyes lit up was priceless. So, with the promise of meeting up in their respective groups after a while, Heather walked with Kiefer to his room…as friends, so if anyone said anything, it would be easy enough to explain.

  They’d gone to his room, a bedroom not unlike the one Katie had put Heather in, only Kiefer had to share a bathroom with someone else. He had a large suitcase on the loveseat against the wall. He unzipped the top part and slid out a spiral notebook that had a ballpoint pen wedged inside the metal spiral. He took the pen out and started turning pages. “Let’s sit down.” They both made their way to the queen-sized bed and sat on the end.