At Arm's Length

by Amber Nation

  Was it awful of me to be secretly hoping that the snow would never melt, that way we could be locked in here together forever?

  I was startled awake, quickly rising up from my position from the pallet on the floor, when I heard the door open and then slam closed. Then there was the telltale sound of someone stomping their boots on the floor. I was about to turn to Holden to wake him up when I heard my father’s voice, making my body instantly freeze. “Trudy, use the rug to wipe off your shoes, we don’t need excess water on the floors.” He almost sounded like he was back to his stubborn self, until he ended his statement in a fit of deep coughs.

  Guilt instantly settled into my stomach for the fact that my father was even here in the first place. I knew that he wanted to make sure that I was all right, but furthermore, he needed to see with his own eyes that Tate Manor was still standing.

  “Hurry up, Tru. I’m freezing out here.” The next voice that I heard made me inwardly groan. Just great, Greg was here.

  “Would you chill out, Greg?” Trudy chuckled, and I had to roll my eyes are her lame attempt at a joke.

  Then my sleepy haze immediately fled as my thought logic took over. Trudy, my dad, and Greg were here. The cavalry.

  The snow mustn’t be too terrible anymore if they were able to trek in here.

  Shit. I was naked on the floor with a man who was equally in the same state of undress.

  Using the tips of my fingers, I lightly pressed on Holden’s shoulder. When my first attempt didn’t seem to stir him in the slightest, I used a bit more force. “Holden,” I whispered, leaning closer to his ear, “you need to get up. It’s time to go back to reality.”

  Actually admitting that out loud took more of a toll on me than I ever intended it to. But in the end, he was right. We were from two totally different places. Hell, we could be at two completely different points in our lives. Perhaps his career was always a frontrunner. Not that I actually knew what that was.

  Finally, he began stirring, opened his eyes, and greeted me by forming the brightest smile on his lips. At that moment, I felt as if I had it all. I was the luckiest girl with my own slice of paradise. But little did I know that our feeling of contentment was about to end.

  I quickly stood up, all traces of sleep completely disappeared and found Holden’s shirt from the corner of the couch where it was barely hanging on. “Reinforcements are here.” I tried to keep my voice even although remnants of pain were breaking through. His smile faded from his face, and the same hardness reappeared that he had when he first arrived here. I understood it, but that didn’t mean that I had to like it. “I’ll go stall them while you find your pants.”

  I hurried through the doorway, critically aware of my state of undress underneath Holden’s shirt. This definitely wouldn’t be my finest moment, but I didn’t have a moment to spare. My dad’s voice carried through the Manor, “Marlee?!”

  My steps quickened. “I’m coming!” Once I walked through the doorway, I was fully aware that I had three sets of eyes on me, and it didn’t take a genius to know they were all coming up with the same conclusion. This could quite possibly be one of the top three most embarrassing moments of my life. My cheeks flared as I tried to tug at the hem of Holden’s shirt, attempting to stretch it out a bit to make it longer.

  Trudy’s face slowly morphed into a smile and had a cat that ate the canary type aura about it. Greg’s eyes flared with heat, no doubt at my attire, then transformed into a look of hatred. There was so much intensity in their depths it made an already uncomfortable situation infinitely worse. Then there was my dad, whose mouth was agape, quite literally. I was ashamed for how they had found us, because once Holden came out of the sitting room the tension was going to be insurmountable.

  “Uh, hi, Dad,” I muttered with a nervous chuckle. “I guess the snow has melted enough to dig us out?”

  Dad cleared his throat. “Greg has spent the last couple of hours out there making sure we could get to you.”

  It was now my turn for my mouth to be hanging open, like a fish out of water. I turned to Greg with my brows raised. “You did?” I asked incredulously. I know I had told Greg that I was staying here alone, but I had no idea that he would actually go through all the trouble to dig me out. He stoically shook his head, but he made no movement to speak. “Thank you,” my appreciation came out just barely above a whisper.

  A rustling noise came from the sitting room, and I turned toward the sound knowing that Holden would be emerging at any moment. Greg took it upon himself to storm past me going through the same door I had just entered. I didn’t even have time to try and stop him before he was already out of sight.

  We could hear raised voices, which were undoubtedly Greg’s, but I couldn’t make out exactly what was being said.

  “Marlee, what’s going on?”

  My dad broke the silence and interrupted my eavesdropping. I tried to play it off as ignorance. “What do you mean?”

  Trudy took it upon herself to chime in. She crossed her arms and gave me an arrogant smirk. “I take it he wasn’t a serial killer?”

  “Tru,” I admonished, “not now.” I was glaring at her, trying to convey the fact that I needed her to drop it.

  Greg stormed back in, grabbing me by the arm as he practically dragged me to the other side of the room. “Ow,” I cried, trying to wrench my arm free of his tightening grasp, but failing. “What’s your problem?!”

  “What’s my problem, Marlee?” His grip tightened before he finally let go and pinched the bridge of his nose as his jaw hardened. “My problem is the fact that you’ve been shacking up with an animal!”

  “Holden is not an animal,” I seethed, taking a step closer to him and crossing my arms in front of my chest. How dare he say such a thing.

  “Marlee, he is an animal. In fact, that’s why he’s nicknamed ‘The Beast.’ He’s not the type of man you want to be dealing with.”

  “How dare you say such a thing!” I admonished. “You don’t know Holden,” I continued yelling, but then really allowed what Greg said to sink in. “Wait a minute…” I uncrossed my arms, “…How do you know that’s his nickname?”

  “You don’t know, do you?” Confusion seeped in, and I was well past the point of irritation.

  “Obviously not!” I exclaimed, exasperatedly. “Care to clue me in?” Greg did nothing to deserve the brunt of my backlash, but someone needed to start talking right fucking now before I lost it. My temper was flaring, and I was moving closer to my breaking point.

  “That’s Holden Reed.”

  I was completely dumfounded. You could’ve knocked me over with a feather. “No kidding? I actually already knew that.”

  “Okay, let me break this down for you since it seems you are oblivious.” He pointed in the direction of the sitting room. “Holden Reed, the man you’ve apparently been stranded with the last few days is the starting running back for the Carolina Panthers.”

  My stomach immediately sank. Holden’s a football player? I looked at the blank wall and tuned everything else out around me as I wrapped my head around this information. It all started clicking into place; things were now beginning to make sense. Holden saying that he was into fitness and needed to watch what he ate. His favorite movie being Rudy. Being afraid to tell me his last name for fear of the fact that I might actually recognize it. Being partial to football, I’ll just bet he was… Only one word came to mind at the moment, and that was asshole.

  But why? Why would he feel the need to lie to me about who he was? “But I don’t understand, aren’t they based out of North Carolina? He told me he was from South Carolina.” I knew that I was grasping at straws here. I didn’t want to believe that what Greg told me was true, but all signs were pointing to the fact that it was. I had been duped. It seemed as if I was on the receiving end of a well-calculated play. Of course, that was easy for him since his job involved acknowledging and memorizing skillful plays.

  “They do have training facilities in South Car
olina, so he could very well live there. But that’s not the biggest part of it.”

  “There’s more?” My voice raised even further. Shit like this didn’t happen to me. Wait, scratch that, it always did. I would step up to be the person that they needed me to be, always insisting on being the dutiful person. I basically waved a giant red flag, allowing him to use me. Holden may not have been a serial killer, but at the moment, that scenario was looking more appealing than my current situation.

  “He was dubbed “The Beast” because of his obtrusive anger issues. There is a news story going around that he was suspended from the team for beating the shit out of his teammate.”

  I gasped, absolutely outraged at what I was hearing, about the same time Holden stalked into the room, looking equally as pissed as he was beautiful. Why couldn’t my clothes have been discarded where I needed them to be? Without his shirt he just looked that much more appealing. Damn the man!

  Simultaneously I heard Trudy mutter, “Holy shit,” at the same time my father yelled, “What the hell is Holden Reed doing here?!”

  I threw my hands up in the air exasperatedly. Of course, everyone else would know who he was. I was the only one without a clue. Why couldn’t I actually keep up with the barbaric sport? Then I wouldn’t have been left in the dark. I turned toward Holden and with my rising anger, it was as if I was practically seeing the man for the first time. In a way, I supposed I was. I was given a big portion of Holden that was rarely ever seen, but the part he shared with everyone was shielded from me. Holden’s stance was wooden and his features hardened, but I didn’t care. I was going to poke The Beast and see if I could get him to break. That thought should frighten me, and with any other person I would’ve clammed up within myself, but I was done being a doormat. It was time to show everyone that I wasn’t afraid of taking a stand.

  “Why did you get suspended?” It wasn’t the obvious question that I should’ve asked, but I wanted to see if Holden was going to share.

  All of a sudden his contemptuous stance deflated. He appeared almost defeated. I had penetrated the impenetrable, and it occurred more easily than I ever could have imagined.

  His shoulders slumped. “It doesn’t matter.”

  I snapped back quickly, “It does to me. I refuse to believe that you would fight with a teammate unless it was warranted.” Sure, I could tell that he had anger issues from the first moment I met him, but the compassionate way he looked after me led me to believe that the man had to have deserved it.

  He stood to his full height, squaring his shoulders again. His moment of weakness now gone, he bit out, “I guess we don’t ever really know someone.”

  My eyebrows furrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You being with that guy?” he challenged.

  “Greg?” I shouted. My head snapped to where Greg was standing, and he had the audacity to look smug. I was on the verge of lashing out at them both, giving them each a nice piece of my mind. But in the end, it wouldn’t accomplish anything, and it would only make me feel shittier than I did currently. No, I refused to encourage the use anger in this situation.

  I began by taking a long, drawn out breath. “You know what? Never mind…” Even though I decided to forego playing the anger card, as Holden apparently conceded to do, that didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to make it count. I began slowly walking in his direction. “It was you taking care of me while I was sick.” I took another step. “It was you helping me with the firewood so we wouldn’t get cold and then bonding over hot chocolate.” Another step. My voice broke as my throat grew thick and my eyes welled with unshed tears. I didn’t think that a heart could actually break, but here I was, living proof. The beating organ within my chest felt as if it was physically breaking into a million tiny pieces. I took one last step before coming to a complete stop. “It was what I thought was us. But even that turned out to be a lie. Not only did you lie to me by omission, you had so little faith in me that you thought I’d do the same.”

  Holden’s parting words were like a shot to my stomach, “Bill me for the third night.” Then he turned on the balls of his bare feet and took off up the stairs. I stared at him, wrapping my arms around myself, wondering how I could’ve given my heart to a practical stranger. And hoping like hell that this pain would subside sooner rather than later.

  I felt Greg’s presence before the warmth of his arm wrapped my back and settled on my shoulder. “It’s better this way,” he said, and I involuntarily shuddered at his touch and his words before I stepped forward and shrugged out of his unwanted hold.

  “Would somebody tell me what the hell is going on?” my dad hollered with a rasp before he was thrown into another coughing fit.

  I should’ve gone directly to him, helping him into a chair so that he could rest. I knew that guilt would set in eventually, but for this moment in time, I was going to be selfish. I continued to stare at the space Holden fled from, allowing my pent-up tears to fall down my cheeks, and whispered to myself, “How could I be so stupid?”

  And then asking my heart, why him?

  How could I be so stupid? I thought as I stalked into my room and slammed the door.

  I knew that by allowing my guard to slip, I would undoubtedly face extensive repercussions. But I couldn’t be bothered listening to my head since I was so busy listening to my heart.

  A heart that felt as if it was currently being held in a tightening fist within my chest, squeezing the organ, obliterating it into a pile of dust.

  I was in the middle of throwing all of my shit into my suitcase as I powered up my unused cell phone. Luck seemed to be on my side for once as I had full cell service. I ignored the numerous text and voice messages that had come through after being unreachable for days. My first point of contact should be Coach Knox, but I didn’t need further reiteration on what a monumental fuck up I was, so I scrolled to Roscoe’s number and pressed call.

  He answered on the second ring, “Reed, what the fuck, man? Everyone has been trying to get ahold of you for the past two days.”

  “I don’t have time to talk; I need you to book me a flight out of Gunnison, Colorado for as soon as possible. Oh, and I’m going to need a tow truck at Tate Manor in the same town.”

  I finished packing my suitcase and zipped it up before tossing it to the floor. “What is going on?”

  “Ros, not now. Just get me the fuck out of here.” My temper began to flare. I didn’t like being made a fool of, and I surely didn’t like having to repeat myself. I tried to think of ways to talk myself down from the ledge, but it was just further irritating me. I disconnected the call and pocketed my phone before snagging my coat and shrugging it on. Lastly, I tugged my sock hat down over my head and ears, only feeling the faint sting from my cut. Knowing my luck, it’ll leave a scar to further remind me of my time here, which was the last thing that I needed.

  The whole time she had a boyfriend. The whole goddamned time. Even after she deliberately told me that she wasn’t seeing anyone. How could she lie to me like that? Never mind the fact that I did the same exact thing to her.

  I replayed the conversation I had with Greg over in my head:

  I had just finished zipping up my jeans when a guy stormed into the sitting room and stopped dead once he saw me. Between Marlee only wearing my shirt and me without a shirt, he didn’t seem like a dumb guy that he couldn’t come to his own conclusions. Instant recognition crossed over his face, and his eyes thundered. He was pissed, and I thought he was going to try to defend his friend’s honor by giving me a piece of his mind. Trying to shield Marlee from the likes of me, which was something I should’ve done in the first place. I tried keeping my distance, but little by little her kindness and pixie-like features chipped away at my resolve.

  “I’m only going to say this once, Reed,” He widened his stance trying to make himself appear tougher, but in reality it just made me want to roll my eyes. He knew who I was, so he undoubtedly knew what I was capable of. “Stay away from
Marlee, she’s mine.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I certainly didn’t stutter. Marlee is with me.”

  My immediate response was to turn and punch the wall, but I tried to think rationally. I first wanted to ask if Marlee was aware of this and what she thought of it. She wouldn’t lie. But then doubt took over my senses, and I couldn’t say with one hundred percent certainty that Marlee wouldn’t lie to me. With the type of person that she was, I really couldn’t see her doing that to me. But then again, I’m sure she didn’t think that I would actually lie to her as well.

  We were at a stalemate.

  Maybe it was better this way.

  “I see,” I muttered. When the guy’s eyes widened, I could tell that he was genuinely surprised at my calm reaction. If only Dr. Hensley could see me now. My gut told me to fight for her, that I was the better man. But my head was saying just to walk away. Go back to South Carolina and get my career back on track. Since I failed to listen to my head on a normal basis, and it had done me zero favors, I decided now was the time to do just that.

  I felt like an utter fool for letting her into my heart so easily. Most people said that love was child’s play, but I was now witness to the fact that it was a royal fucking bitch.

  There was a tightness in my chest, and I felt as if I was going to lose my mind if I stayed here one more minute. I needed to get the fuck out of here, now!

  I grabbed my suitcase and stormed down the stairs toward the front door. Apparently, I felt like I should rotate the knife within my chest more because I actually took the time to glance around the entryway for Marlee. No one was in sight, but I could hear her muffled tears somewhere off in the distance. The faint noise killed me. I felt a piece of me wither away and dissolve, just like our pseudo-relationship. Furthermore, I wanted to drop my suitcase and beat on my chest like the animal I was because she was feeling the same agonizing pain that I was experiencing. I wanted to take away her hurt and help heal her until she was whole again.