Trust

by Casey Diam

“You look like shit.” Brad grinned. “Were you up all night trying to get laid? I told you I could give you some pointers with the ladies. You know, sometimes, you just gotta take it.”

  “Fuck off.”

  He belonged in jail—him and my entire family, myself included.

  Pushing him aside, I stepped into the elevator.

  “Like my new suit?” He made a show of dusting off his collar. “As you can tell, I’m off to the family meeting.” A shit-eating grin spread across his face. “I’d say that I’ll see you there, but you know... you’re not invited.”

  Aside from Brad being clean-shaven and having a scar on his neck, we looked so much alike that no one ever questioned whether we were really brothers.

  Chapter Eight

  Paige

  One hour before happy hour was over and thirty minutes before the madness started.

  In thirty minutes, all the drinkers would realize they weren’t tipsy enough and that happy hour was coming to an end. After that, the madness would continue because people would realize they were indeed tipsy, but, “It’s the motherfucking weekend, so let’s get drunk!”

  At least, that was what the two girls taking a shot at the counter said... for the third time.

  I smiled at Chelsey, and she inclined her head.

  “You know something,” she accused, taking a pint glass from the tray.

  “Like what?” I asked, watching as she pulled one of the ales on tap. Brown liquid filled the pint glass up to where froth began to rise to the surface.

  Chelsey’s beach-blonde waves were curled tonight, and she was wearing her bright pink lipstick. Observing her made me wonder why she had suspicions of Ian cheating. She was gorgeous, so much so that I had a girl crush on her.

  While she collected payment for the drinks, I picked up an empty glass from the counter and placed it in the sink. My body was hanging on with the few hours of sleep I’d gotten in Caleb’s car and the powernap I’d taken at home. I knew I would need a full night’s rest soon or I wouldn’t be able to keep up my energy. The thing was, I shouldn’t have to take pills for that to be possible. It’d been almost five years. I should be better. But I wasn’t, and all the lack of sleep was only making it worse.

  “It’s either you know what Ian’s planning for my birthday, or... you haven’t told me everything that happened with what’s his name... Caleb,” Chelsey teased.

  My mouth fell open, and my stomach tightened as the annoying butterflies returned. “Don’t say his name like that.”

  “Caleb,” she crooned.

  “Ugh.” I rolled my eyes as she took an order from an older man in a Boston Red Sox hat.

  “Hey, Paige,” Chelsey said, her eyebrows dancing. “Two chilled martini glasses.”

  She was no longer my girl crush. She was a pain.

  “I’ve never seen you like this. It’s great,” Chelsey whispered before twirling her way to grab a bottle of Belvedere from the top-shelf liquors behind us.

  And that was how most of the night went—Chelsey teasing me every chance she got and me cringing at what liking this guy meant. This was weird.

  “Paige finally has a crush, and it isn’t you, Mark. Sorry.”

  Mark?

  I hadn’t even realized he’d shown up again tonight.

  Chelsey had gone mad. That was the only explanation as to why she’d said all of that to the weirdo who stalked us at the bar on the regular.

  “I’m going to grab more booze,” I said, hurrying away.

  I’d lived my life these past few years in such a way that everything was planned, even before I was released from the ward at sixteen. The most important point of the plan was to stay out of the spotlight. I’d even applied to colleges across the country and told everyone I was moving to New York. It’d worked, but it also meant my losing some of the friends I’d met at the community house. But, in my heart, I was helping them because I would rather lose them that way than the way I’d lost my family. I would have left Boston completely, but it would have meant leaving behind everything, even the memories that gutted me. It was why everyone knew me as Paige even though my ID said Madelyn Wells.

  A small fuss started at two thirty in the morning. Chelsey and Ian. I was behind the bar cleaning and the bouncer and John, our manager, were in the office counting the drop for the night when I heard her on the phone.

  “How do you expect me to get home?” she asked. “Why do you keep doing this? Ian, seriously, you know I can’t afford that right now.”

  My heart broke for Chelsey. Ian was a douche sometimes. A douche and an idiot. It wasn’t the first time he’d borrowed her car and then ended up leaving her stranded when her shift was over. This place was one of her three jobs while attending medical school, so with her working so hard, spending that money on a cab to get across town when she had a car was shitty and ridiculous.

  A half hour later, she was on the phone with him again, and I swore that I heard her sniffling, but before I could verify, she disappeared to the restroom in the back.

  As I was grabbing my backpack from my locker, it occurred to me that Caleb could give her a ride. I knew he wouldn’t mind, but I couldn’t go. I didn’t want him to know where I lived, and I knew he would insist on dropping me home at this hour of the morning. Guys in the past had always done that. I chewed on my lip so much that it became tender. I pulled my phone out and then tucked it back in my pocket. When I walked to the back of the bar where Chelsey had gone, she was exiting the restroom, her eyes red.

  “Everything okay?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Guys are assholes—or maybe it’s just the one I’m in love with.” The back of her hand wiped the corner of her eye.

  “How are you getting home?”

  “I’m going to have to call a cab.”

  “Um”—I wound my fingers into my belt loops—”if you want, I could call Caleb. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind taking you home.”

  “Really? Are you sure?”

  I nodded and pulled out my phone. “Let’s find out.”

  Caleb answered after two rings. “Hey.”

  “Hey, I have a favor to ask. My friend lives twenty-five minutes outside of Boston, but an hour via public—”

  “I’m on my way,” Caleb said.

  “Uh... I didn’t even ask you anything yet.”

  “I know,” Caleb confirmed.

  The way he’d said it, I knew he was smiling. My body heated, and I was sure that, if I could see my heart, it would be twirling around and fainting dramatically.

  “Where should I pick you up?”

  Oh shit. Uh... shit.

  “Hey, time to head out,” John said.

  “It isn’t me; it’s my friend,” I explained. “You’re taking her home. Not me.”

  “Oh my gosh, Paige,” Chelsey said in her you-are-being-weird-again voice. “He can meet us outside. We have to go. In front of Stilts Bar, Caleb,” she yelled.

  I gasped.

  “You’ve been talking about me.” His voice was deep yet so smooth, it reached inside and caressed my melodramatic heart.

  “No,” I lied, forgetting how to walk until Chelsey pulled me behind her and out the front exit.

  “How was work?” Caleb asked.

  “Um, good.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  And I was freaking out on the inside. I was freaking out because Chelsey knew I was a little weird, but she didn’t know how I moved every few months. Or how no one else knew where I worked, except the people I worked with, customers, and the apartment complexes that required that information. She didn’t even know I used a fake name because I had two names, not knowing which one mine was. Was I Madelyn Wells, or was I Paige Sawyer? Instead, I’d created a person in between. Paige Wells.

  And Caleb?

  He shouldn’t know where I worked. This was a bad idea. What if he was one of them? I’d have to leave my job.

  I couldn’t afford to move, which meant they would find me.
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br />   I turned away from Chelsey as I tried to supply more air to my shrinking lungs.

  A black car rolled to a stop before us, and my heart began to pound its way through my chest, hoping to exit my body and run in an attempt to save its own life and failing.

  Caleb stepped out of the car, and his eyes landed on me. My chest tightened. He was in dark colors again, but so was I. Long legs strode around the bumper to the passenger’s side, and I barely registered Chelsey saying something about hot... holy shit... where... meet... Then she grabbed my hand, pulling me forward.

  Heat wrapped around my neck, and by the deafening throb filling my eardrums, I imagined my heart was trying to find another way out.

  Chelsey clambered into the backseat of the two-door car, and Caleb stood inches away from me, pushing the front seat back into its seated position. I was mumbling something about taking the metro as he turned to face me. Then he was everywhere. In my head, my heart, around me, warming the chills circulating inside and down to the tips of my trembling fingers. He held my shoulders and looked into my eyes. Said something, but the pulsation in my ears blocked his words.

  My world swayed off its fickle equilibrium right before Caleb hugged me.

  Why is he hugging me?

  His voice seeped into my thoughts when his breath touched my ear in a whispered, “Breathe, Paige.”

  I inhaled and exhaled, my fingers curling into the back of his hoodie. “What?”

  He knows. I don’t want him to...

  Chapter Nine

  Caleb

  “It’s okay. We’ll talk later. If you want to,” I whispered, releasing Paige and guiding her to the opened car door.

  She removed her backpack reluctantly as she stepped and lowered herself into the car.

  “What was that about?” Chelsey asked as I was closing Paige’s door.

  The question from her friend confirmed one thing: Paige hadn’t been joking at the café. She didn’t want me to know anything about her. But it wasn’t just me; she didn’t want anyone to know about her.

  After keying Chelsey’s address into the GPS, I sped onto the highway, thinking and worrying about the girl next to me.

  “Are you from here, Caleb?” Chelsey asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you do?”

  Oh, she was the talking kind.

  “Hotel manager.”

  “Neat. Which hotel?”

  Chelsey was already a little too inquisitive for my taste, but I answered, “Luxe.”

  “Oh shit. That’s the tower close to the opera house.” Sounding more like an afterthought, she added, “I heard the owner’s son used to throw the craziest parties there.”

  I smiled and shook my head.

  Fucking Brad.

  I looked over and saw Paige studying me. Unable to stop myself, I reached over and brushed a thumb across her cheek.

  “I also heard there were two sons, both of them entitled pricks. Do you know them?” Chelsey asked as I refocused my attention on the road.

  Disclosing information to outsiders about my family and myself was off-limits. In the past, I had given minimal information to satisfy the curious, but since adulthood, my politeness had taken leave. That meant nothing in my life was anyone’s business, especially with the situation I was putting myself in, putting Paige in.

  “TTM,” I said, settling for Paige’s gentler method of saying, It’s none of your goddamn business.

  “What?” She sounded confused.

  “Things that matter,” I replied, feeling like an idiot. I should have told her my way.

  “Uh, what?”

  Paige had a huge smile on her face and was shaking her head as she looked at me. Chelsey didn’t know about TTM. I grinned, weirdly soothed by the knowledge that we shared something not even her own friend was in on.

  “What’s going on?” Chelsey pressed, her tone imparting more than she was asking.

  Looking up at the rearview mirror, I met her prying eyes, which were shining from the bright illumination from her phone. There was something more potent in them. Something I was sure she didn’t know was there but matched the tone in which she’d spoken. It was distrust and envy.

  “Sorry, Chelsey, but I don’t talk about myself much.” I propped my elbow on the center console and scratched the stubble on my jaw, listening to the awkward silence that ensued for the rest of the ride to her place.

  The ride back with Paige alone was more relaxing because being around her didn’t consume my energy. When I was with her... it was just her and me. No fighting to keep my guard up. There was no need to pretend with her because she didn’t intrude. We just were. If we didn’t want to talk about something, that was it. No bullshitting.

  “How is it that I feel closer to you than to anyone else in my life when we’ve barely even spoken?”

  “I don’t know.” She relaxed her head back against the headrest and stared into the night. Her hands fidgeted in her lap, curling, uncurling, and rubbing against each other.

  Reaching over the console, I slid my hand between hers, and her touch, hesitant and delicate, sent heat and neediness through my body. My whole being craved more of her, and even though I’d only slept four hours in forty-eight hours, I would stay up all night again if it was what she wanted.

  Out of hundreds, thousands, millions of girls, why did it have to be her? The girl who’d been hiding in plain sight for years. The girl who my father had been adamant about finding. The girl who... I would stay away from if I were wise.

  “Where are we heading tonight?” I asked, pulling myself out of my thoughts.

  “I never asked your last name,” she murmured.

  “Connor.”

  “Caleb Connor.” I turned to her the same time she turned to me.

  “You already know more about me than anyone in my life knows.” She removed her hand from mine, and something ached inside me. “You know some of the things that matter. It isn’t who I am.” She looked at her hands in her lap as she told me, “I’m not weak. I just need more sleep.”

  First, the nightmare and then the anxiety or panic attack symptoms she’d been having earlier came to mind. They had to be from a much larger cause than a lack of sleep.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No. There’s nothing to talk about,” she said, controlled, practiced almost.

  “Do you want to come over?”

  She considered my question before answering with, “I’ll let you know when we are five minutes away.”

  “Not to pressure you, but we are five minutes away.”

  “Oh.”

  I chuckled. “Don’t worry; I’ll go extra slow to give you more time.” I would mean that in more ways than one if my time with her wasn’t so perilous.

  And I didn’t want her to go home.

  I knew they were watching her, figuring out her schedule and her patterns. What time she left and returned, where she walked, what train she took. Paige had been good about changing what she did and at what time and was probably the most unpredictable person I’d ever met. From what I’d noticed and from what Calvin had told me, she was as good as we were. But that information was between Calvin and me. My father’s men could figure her out on their own, which meant two weeks, max, until they had a good grasp of that. So that was how long I had to figure out what the fuck was going on. Figure out why I felt so connected to her.

  It would help even more if Paige would cooperate or reveal to me—

  “Drop me here,” Paige said.

  “What?”

  “Here. Pull over.”

  I braked where I was since there weren’t any vehicles behind me, and she released a breath, clutching the backpack at her feet.

  “I... thank you, Caleb.”

  As the car door popped open, I had a sinking feeling. “Why do I feel like this is good-bye?”

  She twisted to face me, one foot out the door. “It is.”

  Chapter Ten

  Paige

>   I zigzagged between the parallel-parked vehicles on the side of the street and onto the sidewalk. And, as I looked down the desolate, amber-lit path, the soft crack of the car door closing replayed in my head as I’d said good-bye to Caleb.

  There was a darkness about him that intrigued me. I hadn’t seen it before the way I had tonight. The way he’d shut out Chelsey when she questioned him. And the way his features had tensed until he dropped her off. It had tripped Chelsey out so much that she even asked me to call her when I got home. But, as soon as Caleb drove away from her apartment, he was once again the pretty laid-back guy I’d met in the café.

  This variation in his behavior should have me running, which was what I planned to do, but the last words he’d said to me affected me.

  “Why do I feel like this is good-bye?”

  He hadn’t even said good-bye, just nodded as if he understood. I didn’t want him to understand. I didn’t want to like him.

  But he understood, and I liked him.

  If he hadn’t been on my mind, taking up every last thought in my brain, I would have been paying attention to my surroundings. I would have been alert, would have seen the dark figure approaching, and would have cut to the other side of the street as a precaution. But it was too late.

  A large man who looked like he lifted boulders for a living walked toward me, and as he lifted his head, there was no hiding the shock on his face. He quickly lowered his head and crossed the street. His strange reaction set me even more on edge, but my apartment was only fifty feet away, so I just picked up my pace. I wish I had been paying attention because, what if he were coming from my apartment? What if there were more of them there waiting for me? I couldn’t go upstairs.

  They’d found me. I just knew it.

  Dammit.

  I inhaled a few breaths to calm myself before an idea ensued.

  Caleb’s apartment complex was behind mine on the opposite side of the street. Maybe I could go to his place because there was no way I wouldn’t be freaking out all night on my own. Besides, if I went to his place, it would be a distraction. Chills ran down my spine, and I looked behind me, continuing my walk past my own apartment and to the coffee shop a block ahead. I turned down the street next to the coffee shop and did a full circle, dialing Caleb’s number when I was a few feet away from the entrance to his apartment.