by Bright, Sera
On the table, the nearly empty pastry bag lay open next to the laptop’s dark screen. A handful of apples sat in the middle, my meager attempt at healthy eating. The photo had disappeared, but I hadn’t exactly looked too hard to find it. I didn’t want to think about it right now.
Reaching over his shoulder, I grabbed the last doughnut. Shiny flakes of hardened glaze fell all over his precious shirt. Revenge can be sweet. “The way you’re going, there’s a definite possibility it will be the last thing you ever do.”
His hand inched slowly, threateningly, toward the other highly ticklish spot beneath my arm. “I have ways of making you talk.”
“You don’t want me to talk, you want me to strip naked. Big difference.” And considering we had spent the last couple of hours naked, I was highly impressed with his dedication to the idea.
He arched an eyebrow as his fingers pressed on the underside of my upper arm. A few more inches to the right and I was a goner.
I shuddered. “I surrender! You can have your shirt back.” I paused for effect, and took another bite. “When I’m done smearing this doughnut all over it.”
He lazily rubbed my back as I finished my doughnut. The vintage black cat clock on the wall ticked in time with its tail and eyes. I didn’t know how long our fragile peace was going to last, but I wasn’t going to let it go to waste. So this was what trying was like. Not bad if it involved sex and pastries.
“Are you going to work at the café tonight?” Ash said.
“No.” I licked glaze off my fingers.
He leaned forward and swept the last flake of sugar off my ring finger with his tongue. “So you’re all mine?”
I blushed at the intimacy of such a simple act. The contradiction wasn’t lost on me. Sitting half-naked on his lap after everything else we did today, and I was embarrassed by him licking me. One moment I felt like a goddess, and the next, like a girl playing a role and unable to quite remember any of my lines.
“Why don’t we go out and do something this evening?” he asked.
“Like a date?” I pressed the back of my hand to my forehead. Be still my beating heart. “How romantic.”
He went to tickle me, and his elbow jostled the wireless mouse for my laptop. The screen blinked on, showing an email alert. I clicked on the icon out of habit, thinking it was from the program manager of the volunteer agency. I had requested a new placement for the rest of the summer, since I’d missed out on working at the migrant worker medical clinic. I was looking forward to that job, too. But the only new email was from James Flynn, my father.
I disentangled myself from Ash, and stood up to read it. Short and terse, my father reiterated that I was to do whatever necessary to keep the house from falling into foreclosure, and he’d pay me back what it cost. Then he swore he was going to show up next weekend if I would just wait for him. I’d believe it when I saw him standing in front of me with cash in hand.
“What’s that frown for?”
“My father,” I said. “He’s saying he’ll be here in a week.”
“You said last night he’s going to lose the house?” he asked.
I shook my hair out of my face. “He pleaded with me to come back because he didn’t have the paperwork with him. The usual helpless routine.”
Ash traced a circle on my lower back. “You know, you don’t have to fix everything for him all the time.”
“If I don’t, no one else will.” A growing knot of tension developed between my shoulders. If my father lost the house, he’d have nowhere to go when his own problems caught up with him. Judging by his evasiveness over the last few years, it would be soon, too.
“He has a decent job, and he doesn’t even live here.”
“It’s a house—you don’t just give up on it like a toy you suddenly don’t want to keep anymore,” I argued.
“Or your kid, Katie?” Ash said quietly. “Like the way he left you alone whenever he felt like it?”
“It’s not the same thing.” I closed the laptop.
His parents had abused him in ways I couldn’t imagine, only witnessing the aftermath. Mine simply ignored me. It never seemed fair to compare, so I didn’t talk about it.
I glanced to the swinging tail of the clock. But it didn’t mean I had to keep everything else to myself—I could at least tell him the other part of why I came home. I picked up the white bag and folded it in half as fine crumbs sprinkled out of it and onto the tops of my feet.
“I didn’t agree to come back just because of the foreclosure. I don’t care what happens to the house,” I said, folding the bag in half again. “I want to finally ask for some answers from him. Why my family is the way that it is. Until then, I feel almost like I’m…doomed to repeat the past. Their past. And now I’m wondering if something more is going on, you know? With my mother.”
“Is this about that photo? It was probably under a piece of furniture, and found its way out when you were cleaning or something.” Ash went motionless in his seat. “And you already know the truth. She abandoned you because she couldn’t deal with her life. You’re not like that—you’re already stronger than she ever was.”
The paper was smooth and glossy in my fingers. He thought I was strong? I had him really fooled then. “I don’t think my father told me the real reason she left, and that’s why I want to stay in town until he gets here. One last chance for him to come clean about something.”
I attempted to fold the wad of paper, but it was too thick, a wrinkled, misshapen square. “She wanted to completely disappear, so she did. Like she was running from something. Sound familiar?” I avoided his eyes, and tossed the square on the table. “Like mother, like daughter.”
“Stop saying that. You’re not your mother.” The chair crashed to the floor as he got to his feet, his voice reverberating in the small room. “You’re nothing like her!”
The explosive shift in his mood rattled my conflicted nerves. I focused on the contents spread out on the table. He was so angry on my behalf, but I didn’t quite know how I felt. It was why I wanted to find out the truth from my father. When you’re lost, go back to where you started. I was reaching over to line up the apples in the middle of the table when Ash took me by my shoulders.
“Look at me.” He turned me to face him, his voice calm again. “You and I are different people. We’re not our parents, and we can make different choices.”
The fierce expression marring his features died.
“We only have a week before you leave, right?” He ran his thumb across my bottom lip. “Why don’t we just go to my place tonight, order take-out and watch movies. I don’t think I want to share you with the outside world right now.”
I disguised my relief with a flirtatious look. I hadn’t wanted to stay the night in my house alone. It no longer felt secure, all because of a strange photograph, but I would die before admitting that out loud.
“If it involves bad horror movies, I’ll consider your offer.” I leaned on the edge of the table, lifting my face up to his.
He kissed me, another one of those feather-light kisses that made my stomach flip. “For you, I’m willing to watch those awful movies where the characters are too stupid to live and deserve to die but you know they won’t.”
“My favorite.” I sighed dramatically. “You really do know how to show a girl a good time.”
His busy hands moved to go under my stolen t-shirt. I appreciated the way he changed the subject. With enthusiastic dedication.
“Wait, is this just another ploy to get your shirt back?” I said.
He gave me another secret smile. I loved that smile.
Chapter Fifteen
Monday
Ash drove me to the repair shop early the next morning from his apartment—a gorgeous loft, right down to the exposed brick walls and industrial ductwork—in a revitalized neighborhood near downtown. He had explained that the owner of the gallery had arranged for him to stay there for the summer as a perk of his internship, all the while actin
g uncomfortable about the whole thing.
The repair shop was a different story, hidden in one of the seedier areas of Cleveland. Ash insisted on staying with me until everything was taken care of before he left for the gallery. After I paid the bill and got the keys from the mechanic, we walked across a small parking lot ringed with towers of decaying tires. My truck looked better with a fancy new windshield and four outrageously expensive tires, as if nothing had happened in the first place other than a couple of new dents. Dents gave it more character.
A city bus flew by on the street, leaving a cloud of exhaust fumes behind. I waved a hand to clear the smell of it away. Ash stood by my door while I unlocked it. I was already wilting from the humidity, dressed in a flowing turquoise sundress. He, on the other hand, appeared cool, despite wearing a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Even the shirt collar remained crisp. I didn’t know what fascinated me more, that he actually knew how to iron, or that he was wearing something other than jeans and a t-shirt.
“I’m all done now,” I said. “You can stop hovering.”
“I like hovering,” Ash said with a lazy grin. “And you have the self-preservation skills of a hamster at times.”
“I do not!” I’d made it this far alive. I didn’t see any reason to doubt my continued ability to survive on my own. But I had to admit, the underlying sentiment was kind of sweet. “And I’m somewhat concerned that you’re comparing me to a rodent with creepy beady eyes.”
He laughed, and opened my door for me with a mocking bow. I wondered what it would take to steal that particular shirt of his. It could be the only dress shirt he owned, so he probably needed it. I should keep my thieving fingers to myself. As I climbed onto the bench seat, he gave me a light spank on the butt.
Oh, now it was on. He was absolutely losing that shirt.
“When do you get off tonight?” I perched on the end of the bench seat to face him.
“Do you realize,” he drawled, “that almost everything that comes out of your sweet mouth can sound incredibly dirty if one puts it in the proper context?”
“That’s because you have a dirty imagination.” Not that I minded.
“All part of my charm.” He brushed away a lock of hair that had fallen into my eyes.
“I like other things about you than just your charm.”
“Interesting. So what you’re really saying is, you’re after my body.”
The tips of my ears burned. I didn’t want him to think I was using him again.
“No, that’s not what I meant at all.” But he did look quite nice in those charcoal-gray dress pants.
Taking note of my appreciation, he grimaced. “I don’t have to dress like this every day. A special client is coming in this afternoon and she specifically requested ‘the young man with the pretty ass’ to help her select some pieces for her bedroom.”
He actually blushed. Rosy cheeks and all.
“You poor objectified thing.” I covered my mouth to stop a laugh from escaping.
“If you’re done enjoying my humiliation,” he said, “I wanted to say that I’ll come by the café tonight to walk you out.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Trust me.” Ash held on to the top doorframe, his clean scent replacing the haze of diesel. “I want—”
“And if you had let me finish,” I said, interrupting him just for the fun of it. “You don’t have to rush. If something comes up to make you run late, I think I can handle walking out a door on my own.”
Please don’t let anything come up, I prayed in my head.
“If something comes up, I’ll call you.” Ash furrowed his brow. “Except I don’t have your new phone number. I need that before you leave.”
“And I don’t have your new one, either.” I hated having to bring up the reminder that I hadn’t talked to him for the last year, but I needed his phone number, too.
“You knew I changed my number?” Ash let a satisfied grin spread across his face. Too satisfied. “You tried to call me when you came back this weekend, didn’t you?”
I squinted my eyes at him. How did he know the specific time frame when I’d tried to call him? “Maybe.”
He took his hand off the doorframe. “When did you call me? The exact day.”
I tugged my dress over my knees. I didn’t understand why he was so pleased about this. “I called you on Saturday.”
“Saturday? After we were at the beach?” He leaned in close, his face smooth and clean-shaven. “I got to you right from the start.” He grinned wider. “Admit it. You couldn’t resist me.”
“I think we’ve already established that,” I said, trailing a finger down the button placket of the soon-to-be-mine shirt.
“I changed my number two weeks ago, when I upgraded my plan. I didn’t want to deal with… Anyway.” Ash’s smile slowly disappeared. “I didn’t switch to a local number for L.A. the whole time you were gone, just in case you called.”
My heart broke a little more. So I really could have called him the whole time I was gone. I had almost convinced myself it would’ve been impossible for me to contact him if I had tried. And maybe I hadn’t wounded him as much as I’d thought. More wrongs committed, more added to my ever-growing list.
“I should go—you’re probably going to be late.” I went to close the door, but he stopped me with a hand on my upper back.
“That came out wrong.” He ducked through the doorframe and gathered me up into his arms. “I want you to know—I missed you, too.”
“I know.” I always knew, even when I tried to tell myself otherwise.
“I don’t blame you for leaving,” he said quietly in my ear.
He didn’t have to. I blamed myself enough for both of us. I looked up to see his face turn tender, the sunlight bringing out the gold in his eyes. Shame struggled up to tell me I didn’t deserve this, but then I remembered shame and I weren’t supposed to be on speaking terms right now. I softened into his embrace and let myself be held.
He cleared his throat. “So why don’t we exchange numbers now?”
“Okay.” I brought up a small smile that hopefully hid my lingering guilt. “But first, I think you need to let me go.”
He released me and took out his phone. “What’s your number?”
As we exchanged, I realized my cheap one didn’t have the ability to save phone numbers. Or at least, I didn’t think it did. Technology and I didn’t always get along.
“It’d be easier if I just wrote yours down.” I dug through my bag, but I couldn’t find a pen. I reached across to open the glove box. Propped on the top of the registration paperwork was a photo of a woman. Recoiling, I banged the glove box closed.
“What’s wrong?” Ash asked behind me.
I wanted to keep things easy and light between us, and I’d already screwed that up. He would either think I was crazy, or go crazy protective. Both prospects I wanted to avoid. Even I thought I was crazy by reacting like it was a time bomb.
“I think I saw a mouse,” I said, giving him what passed for a sheepish look.
He raised his eyebrows. “A mouse scared you? How would a mouse get in there?”
“It’s an old truck. I’m sure he just climbed in through one of the rust spots. I didn’t want to scare it just to have it jump out and try to eat my face.” I made a show of checking the time. “You really are going to be late if you don’t leave soon. I’ll get your number tonight—if that’s okay with you?”
“Yeah.” Ash rubbed the back of his neck, still appearing doubtful of my explanation. “I guess.”
He leaned back in and gave me a quick kiss. When he straightened back up, I grabbed the door handle. “Got to go, I have some things to take care of, too.”
I shut the door as he went to his car, looking over his shoulder at me a couple of times. I waited for him to go out of the parking lot, and followed him. He went in one direction at an intersection, and I went the opposite. Finding an empty lot a couple blocks away, I
parked in the middle.
With my heart going a mile a minute, I opened the glove box and took out the photo. I’d justified the last photo by believing what Ash said—that it was probably stuck under some furniture and got dislodged by my cleaning or opening the windows. There was no way I could justify this new one. Someone left it for me to find.
I knew for certain I’d locked my truck the other night before going to the café. I always locked it, although no one in their right mind would steal the rust bucket. But I’d never checked it before it was towed because I’d assumed it was still locked. It did sit all night with a busted-out windshield. It wouldn’t have been difficult for someone to reach in and unlock it from the inside.
I examined the photo carefully, feeling ridiculous to be so freaked out. My mother stood on a beach. The water behind her was calm and clear, and there was a thin strip of white sand at the bottom. It wasn’t Lake Erie but somewhere tropical. She wore a teal bikini, proudly showing off a nice tan. A chill went through me as I glanced down at my blue-green sundress, my arms and legs already burnished golden from long days in the late spring sun.
One side seemed to have been cut with scissors. A disembodied arm dusted with dark hair draped over her shoulders. I looked closer at the hand holding on to her shoulder—on one of the fingers was a thick platinum wedding ring. I turned it over. “St. Kitts with Cassie, June 1995” was scrawled across the matte back of the photo in blue ink. My mother had died in 1996, which meant the guy in the photo couldn’t have been my father. They’d been separated for a couple of years at that point.
A cold sweat broke out. I didn’t have any idea who could be leaving these photos because no one I could possibly think of made any sense. I didn’t think it was Trevor since he lacked the finesse necessary for this kind of creeping terror campaign, choosing the more blunt methods to make my life difficult. And while Ash’s parents had been determined to break us permanently apart, they had more skill and experience in how to intimidate me effectively than using something like this. They had to know I wouldn’t reject Ash over some random pictures. Besides, where would they have gotten them?
