Trust

by Casey Diam

  “Are you okay now?” she asked.

  I looked at her. “Uh... yeah, I think. What happened?”

  “You mean, besides you having a good time at some strip club and apparently taking drugs?”

  “That wasn’t what—”

  “Sorry, if you don’t mind, I have another final exam tomorrow, but Calvin’s on the couch. I’m sure he’s ready to answer any other questions you might have about your awesome night.”

  Things were different, and I shouldn’t love that pout on her, but I did. I had to do better at controlling what I felt for her, starting with a brutal cold shower. Once in the closet, I pushed the door closed behind me and pulled on a pair of sweats. Then I took them off and pulled on a pair of briefs first. No free-balling.

  Although, while in the shower, I found a new way to keep my thoughts in line. All I had to think was: she could be my sister.

  It was a fucking chastity belt that I was sure would never come off even if it turned out we weren’t related, and knowing that sucked because it meant Paige and I could never go back, no matter what happened after this.

  I bent to grab a T-shirt from my duffel bag and found them stacked in perfect rolls. I shook my head and smiled. I’d seen some of her shirts rolled in the same way. Unrolling the white T-shirt, I noticed it was almost wrinkle-free. Shit, rolling it does keep out the wrinkles.

  I made my way to the living room while digging my arms through the sleeves of the soft cotton and stretching it over my head. Once on the couch, I talked to Calvin for a bit about what was going on and what we knew so far. As soon as he mentioned Paige at the police station, I was off the couch and standing by the bed in the next second.

  “What were you thinking? You shouldn’t have gone there without telling me. Anything could have happened.”

  “Well, unlike you, who has the time to indulge in happy hour, I needed answers,” Paige countered without lifting her eyes from the textbook.

  “I was doing the same thing.” As a low throbbing began inside my head, I left the bedroom and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge in the kitchen.

  “Then, what did you find out?” Paige tested.

  My hand paused in mid-screwing the cap from the bottle as I searched my brain. “I forgot.”

  “Right.” Turning her head back to the book, she closed it and then repositioned herself to sit and lean against the headboard. “Who was that guy who stopped you when we were leaving your hotel? You never told me.”

  “My brother, Brad.”

  “Great. Well, as of today, I’m his personal trainer.”

  “What? No.” My muscles tensed, and I shook my head. “You need to quit, Paige.”

  “What? I can’t quit. Are you crazy?”

  “He’s probably out there right now, planning to corner you somewhere. He’s the last person you want to get close to.”

  “I’m not getting close. I’m just training him.”

  To what? Kill you? I wanted to scream, but I lowered my voice, sending most of my anger into the clenched fist at my side. “Paige, listen to me. Brad is”—I paused, looking for the right word—”highly capable of doing any workout you throw his way. He does not need training.”

  “Fine. Then, let him do whatever he thinks he’s doing. I can take care of myself.”

  Holy fucking shit.

  My teeth ground, and the fumes from my rage congested the air.

  Control.

  Patience.

  The two things I’d worked so hard to possess for years were missing.

  “Paige, he’s right,” Calvin cut in, walking up to the bed. “Brad is dangerous. He’s the one who ran into the side of Caleb’s car that night, and the only reason he did it was because he thought you were in there.”

  Paige should have been hurt by this information, hearing it from Calvin and not from me. But, while she still looked at Calvin, her head bobbed. “I can take care of myself.”

  I knew then that she wouldn’t look at me because she knew I would see it. She was hurt.

  “Hey, Calvin, I’ll text you in the morning. Thanks for—”

  “Watching me. Keeping tabs on me.” Paige scoffed, grabbing her phone from the nightstand. “Thanks, Calvin.”

  Inhaling, I bit my lip with a sigh.

  “Please, don’t strangle each other after I leave,” Calvin begged.

  When the front door closed, I paced for a minute before I sat down on the bed, close to where her outstretched legs stopped. I bent one knee on the bed and left one foot on the floor as I faced her. I scratched the back of my head. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

  “It’s no big deal,” she uttered, still attempting to ignore me.

  “Yes, it is. Don’t do that with me.” I sighed. “I didn’t tell you about my brother or about going out with him tonight to get information, and I should have. Communicating is the only way we’ll be able to stay safe while figuring this out.”

  Leaning her head against the headboard, she pulled her knees to her chest and stared at the ceiling. “I’m not used to talking about my plans, but I should have told you about going to the station, too. I wasn’t thinking. All I want is the truth, Caleb, and I’ll do whatever it takes to find it.”

  I dropped onto my side on the bed and studied her. “What did you find out?”

  “Nothing I hadn’t been told before. The case was closed after they found my parents’ bodies on a rowboat drifting in the harbor with a suicide note on deck. Apparently, the note said I was somewhere safe. But it didn’t make any sense. Why would they have left a note if I had been kidnapped? Or where was the rest of my family—aunts, uncles, or grandparents? Where was my reunion with anyone who was still alive, waiting for my return, you know? The file at the station all sounds like a lie that leads to blaming the Sawyers—again.

  “The officer who came up to us on the highway that night was the same one who had handled the case almost twenty years ago. Rodriguez. I never trusted what they were telling me years ago, and today confirmed that I was right not to. There’s so much more to the story, and I’m trying not to think about it with my finals going on, but it’s impossible.”

  “And my being here is probably making it worse.” I sat up and stood. “I should go. I’m starving, and you should get some sleep when you’re done studying. Will you be okay?”

  Shaking her head, she wrapped her arms around her knees and kept her eyes down. “I know I don’t need anyone, and I can take care of myself, but... since you left, I haven’t been able to sleep.”

  Something tightened around my heart as it throbbed, causing an intense ache to take over the left side of my chest. Since the night I’d walked into my brother’s suite, I hadn’t been able to sleep through the night either.

  Circling my grip around her small but toned upper arm, I tugged her up. “Come here.”

  She crawled over and knelt on the bed, encasing her arms around my neck at the same time I fastened my arms around her.

  “It’s okay to need me because I’m here for you. It just pisses me off that you’re putting yourself in danger, especially now that I know my brother is at the gym with you. Are you sure you can protect yourself? I can teach you a few moves. Brad can be—”

  “Caleb”—Paige let out a breath—”there are about five different ways I could break your neck right now, all without even thinking. Trust me, I can protect myself.”

  “What? Listen, I don’t want you hugging me like this again.”

  “Why not?” She laughed, and it could have been an evil laugh because her arms lingered around my shoulders. I wasn’t laughing, but she couldn’t stop. “It feels good to laugh again.”

  “Oh, I’m sure. I wonder how many others know about this evil side of you.”

  “No one, and don’t tell anyone. I think it’ll be my greatest advantage if it comes to... you know. Your brother or anyone trying anything.”

  This was why I needed her to quit. She might think it was okay, but I knew those guys, and I fu
cking didn’t want it to come to that.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this now,” I told her. “But we’re not getting anywhere, and in order to figure this all out, we’re going to have to dig through your past, Paige. Anything you can find, think of, we’ll need it. I need you to go back.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Paige

  The sunlight flooding the apartment brightened the wooden floor I was walking across. Plopping down on the couch, I opened the red pencil tube and took everything out, placing it all on top of the leather ottoman. It was Friday, and I’d convinced Caleb to disappear from work on his lunch break to meet me. He’d been sleeping on the couch for the past few nights, and I’d gotten even closer to him. But, since today was my last summer final exam, it was time to dig deeper and come clean about what I’d been hiding from him.

  The door clicked open, and I turned my head, watching as he entered.

  “What’s up? How’d your final go?”

  “Argh, good.” I pouted. “I still don’t know what I want to major in, and I kind of need to figure it out before fall semester starts.”

  “Just take a break. You should be in hiding anyway.” Jutting his chin out to the leather ottoman, he sat at the edge of the cushion, so he could admire the pictures laid out on it. “What are those?”

  “Maybe your family, my family, or both. Who knows?” I shrugged, trying to keep everything down in my well of emotions that was surely going to overflow one day.

  I hadn’t looked inside this tube for years, avoiding all the feels that came with it, but it was time, and Caleb needed to see it, too.

  “Okay.” He released a breath and picked up two of the pictures. One was a picture of me hugging my two sisters, all of us dressed in cheerleader outfits. The other was of my high school friend Mackenzie and me at the semi-annual sleepover bash we’d had at the mansion. “Who are these people? And, wow, I didn’t know you were a cheerleader.” A crooked grin formed on his lips. “Kim Possible makes much more sense now.”

  I rebuked the glint in his eyes with my narrowed ones. “Those were my sisters. Reese was the oldest, and Alaina was the youngest. That was our first game together. Alaina worked really hard to skip a grade just so she could cheer with Reese and me before Reese graduated.” I took a deep breath and exhaled as the pictures restored memories I wasn’t ready to awaken. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  His dark eyes peered into mine. “You can.”

  Taking another deep breath, I refused to let any of the tears filling my eyes spill. “My best friend, Mackenzie, is in the next picture. I haven’t seen or spoken to her in five years. The men seemed to know so much, and I knew I needed to stay away from anyone they could use to find me, but also, I didn’t want to be a part of that life anymore, not after everything.”

  “Okay. I’m assuming the next two are of the parents.”

  “Yeah, Leanne and David. I don’t have a picture of my grandparents because they are the only ones alive. I would really have preferred not to have anything that might lead someone to them. So I really hated that they’d bequeathed me the mansion.” I shook my head, looking up at him, despair in my eyes. “But we can’t go to them for answers or anything. It’ll put their lives in danger.”

  “No, we can’t. We’ll find another way.” He leaned back into the cushions and stared at the pictures. “I remember now. The night I was at the strip club. I think Alex Connor told Brad the same story about why he had been adopted. So, I’m starting to think I might have been kidnapped.”

  “Shit. Sorry. I know how much it sucks, not knowing.” I kicked my bare foot on top of the ottoman and threw Caleb a hypothetical scenario. We seemed to be doing a lot of those as of late. “If the Sawyers are your parents, why would Alex Connor have kidnapped you and then turned around and given the Sawyers someone else’s kid, which I’m thinking is me? It still makes no sense.”

  He pulled off his suit jacket and threw it over the arm of the couch. “How much older than you was the oldest sister?”

  “Reese was two years older.”

  “That means, it would have still been possible for them to have had me first. Maybe Leanne was with someone else before Mr. Sawyer,” Caleb reasoned.

  “They were together, traveling the world, for five years before they got married and had Reese.”

  Settling back into the cushion, he sighed. “I don’t know then, Paige.”

  “I have a key.” Leaning forward, I shook it out of the red tube. When it fell into my palm, it felt like it’d burned me, and I dropped it onto the cushion between us.

  He picked it up and looked from the key to me. “What’s this for?”

  “The mansion.” I looked to the ceiling. “You’re right; I do need to go back. But I don’t know, Caleb. I really don’t know. The only reason I’ve been able to live my life is because I haven’t gone back. I’ve blocked it out as much as possible.” A cold shudder came over me, and I looked to the kitchen, expecting something to be there, watching me. “If I go back, I don’t think I’ll ever be okay again, and that scares me.”

  He moved over, forcing his hand between my back and the sofa, and then tucked me into his side. “You have me to help you. Every step, I’ll be there. And, when we get back, you can take all the time you need, even from work. Days, weeks, whatever you need, Paige. I’ll take care of you.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “You’re not asking. I’m offering, and you have Calvin, too. Oh, the doctor called on my way here. There were no matches in our DNA samples, but you know how accurate that is, according to what the doctor explained.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Also, we’re both STD-free, so at least there is some good news.”

  I sighed with a smile. “Good. I don’t think I can handle any more bad news.” Removing myself from the warmth of his body because it still freaked me out if I got too comfortable in his arms, I walked to the kitchen. “I still can’t believe your brother drugged you Monday night before a not so random drug test the next day. I still think there’s a reason behind it. Has he said anything to you about it yet?”

  “No,” Caleb said. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  I couldn’t help but feel like there was more to that story, but he changed the subject.

  “Are you still up for having dinner with my friends and me later?”

  ❧

  Later that evening, I was sitting at the table booth with Caleb’s friends at the underground bar in Quincy. Since my shift at the bar was in three hours, I was the exception to the constant supply of beers and cocktails around the table.

  Although most of the tables were filled, there was much less of a crowd than the first time I’d come here. Then again, at only 6:00 p.m., it was still early.

  I set my half-eaten burger on the small paper-lined platter. “It’s a younger crowd tonight,” I said to no one in particular.

  Lisa, who sat next to me, flicked a few black curls over her shoulder. “It’s college night, which means major hotties.” Her head bobbled as her body did a happy dance in place.

  I liked Lisa. I supposed I also envied her freedom to be herself and be happy, not caring about anyone else’s opinion or having any problems with trusting people. The few times she’d spoken to me, she had done it like she’d known me forever, making me feel like I was a part of their group.

  “Cool. Maybe you can give me a few flirting pointers. The same no-judgment rules apply to me, right?”

  Lisa’s mouth hung open. “Uh...”

  She peeked around my body to Caleb, who was sitting on the other side of me, and when I looked up, Calvin and Amber were looking from me to Caleb. He had warned me we needed to do something to let his friends know we weren’t together before they started asking questions, and from the reaction we were getting, he was right.

  “What’s with the stares?” Caleb asked, picking up the last four fries from his platter and swirling it in the pile of ketchup next to his
burger.

  Amber pointed to Caleb and me. “You guys are not... I thought you were...”

  Caleb shook his head.

  “We had a moment, and now, we don’t,” I clarified. When everyone still seemed mystified, I continued, “We’re good.”

  “We are,” Caleb confirmed, sticking his fork in the fries on my platter.

  “Hey,” I chastised, smacking his arm. “We’re not that good.”

  “Careful, they might see your evil side,” he whispered only for me to hear.

  I smiled. I liked that most of the weirdness between us had subsided. It’d been a week since everything changed, and we’d slowly begun to accept this new form of friendship that might have never happened if everything we’d thought hadn’t been blown to pieces before our eyes.

  His friends conversed about nothing that mattered for the first hour. Things like Amber getting a perm, Lisa only needing to apply gel to her natural curls, what they were wearing to the club on Saturday. Calvin or Caleb didn’t talk much, which explained why the conversation had drifted to the type of girl talk I’d only heard when I was still at the mansion, living a different life. But none of that stuff mattered to me anymore, which made me wonder when it was that I’d lost myself, lost my sense of reality, and stopped caring.

  Fidgeting with the hem of my work top, I looked around. Why am I here? This wasn’t me. It hadn’t been for a while, and the thought of getting close to these people caused a burn to slowly rise around my neck.

  “Smoke break?” Amber asked Lisa.

  “Yeah, sure. Guys, can you watch our purses?” Lisa tapped my shoulder. “You’re coming, too.”

  Baffled by the offer, I accepted, deciding I could do with some fresh air, and mingling could be good for me, though I felt awkward as hell.