by Elle Casey
“Of course I’m talking about Brian. Do you see any other Galahads around these parts?” She sweeps her arm out towards the yard.
The smile won’t stay away now. Nicole feels her face turning pink with it. “It’s not like that with him.”
“Fiddlesticks. That boy is ripe for the picking. What’s stopping you?”
Nicole’s smile fades. “I would think that’s fairly obvious.”
Agnes stands. “You know, there’s a reason why certain expressions never go away and endure the test of time. It’s because they’re as real today as they were a hundred years ago.”
“What expressions?” Nicole asks, confused.
“Love is blind.” Agnes reaches out a hand and strokes Nicole’s cheek. “Love sees inside the person. It doesn’t stop at the surface. That stuff is all just window dressing, anyway. It says nothing about what you’re really getting. If a man loves you when you look your worst, you know he’s a keeper. They’re a rare breed, too, so I don’t recommend walking away from it easily.” Agnes steps down to the yard and begins to make her way over the bumpy grass to the gate. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled for intruders in the neighborhood. See you tomorrow?”
“Thanks, Agnes,” Nicole says, almost absently. “See you tomorrow.” She walks into the house with a lot on her mind. The woman is nuts to suggest that Brian could see beyond the surface of her damaged self to the person within. And even if he did, it wouldn’t matter. She’s just as ugly inside as she is outside. She knows that redemption will not come in the form of unconditional love for her. It will come with time and isolation and making one last wrong right before she leaves this earth. A seed of a plan slips into her mind and begins to grow.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
BRIAN KEEPS A CLOSE EYE on Nicole. He wants to get her to talk, to tell him which of her memories or thoughts are torturing her into silence and continued nightmares, but every signal she’s sending is telling him to leave it alone. So he does.
Instead, he focuses on giving her affection as much as he can without smothering her, trying to convince her that she’s valuable and important to him and Liam, and showing her that she’s welcome here in his home for as long as she wants to be there. And he also keeps an eye on the neighborhood. He’s only ever seen John once, and that was when the guy was washing his truck out in his driveway. Brian drove past like he didn’t even notice him, but a glance in his rearview mirror told him that John had recognized his face. That was the last time he went that direction to do a delivery.
“What’s this?” Nicole asks, holding up a piece of paper.
Brian glances at it, recognizing the logo at the top of the sheet. “It’s a receipt.”
“I can see that. But it doesn’t have a job reference on it. I don’t know which job to attach it to.”
“It’s not for any of my existing jobs.” He moves into the kitchen, acting like he’s suddenly very hungry and has to get something to eat that’s very deep in the fridge. He dives in up to his shoulders, this mystery food he must have buried in some unknown location.
“What do you mean?” She’s followed him into the kitchen and is standing behind him. “Is it for an old job?”
“Yeah. Sure. Whatever. Just put it off to the side.” He moves three jars of mustard over to the right. He has no idea why there are three jars of a condiment he rarely uses. He begins pulling them out and a bunch of other jars that could possibly have botulism spores growing in them, placing them all on the counter next to the fridge.
“What are you looking for? Maybe I can help you find it.”
“A snack.” Confident that she’s been distracted enough to risk no longer refrigerating his head, he backs out and stands up, opening the freezer next. He shuffles things around, hoping she’ll go back to her work.
“Do you remember which job it is?”
“Nope.” He takes a popsicle out of a box he finds buried in the back and grabs the old jars of crap from the fridge. Walking around the kitchen, he makes a big show out of throwing them and the popsicle wrapper in the garbage. Even though the can is only half-full, he takes the bag out and walks to the door that leads to the garage where the bins are kept.
“Are you running away from me?” Nicole asks, like she’s not sure she believes it.
“What? No. Don’t be silly.”
She’s waiting for him as he steps back into the kitchen, her good arm folded over the one in the cast. “Time to confess. Why are you being so evasive?”
He leans in and kisses her on the forehead. That’s usually enough to get her flustered, but this time it doesn’t work; he can tell by the look on her face. “There’s nothing to confess. It’s just a personal project that doesn’t need to be on the books. It’s fine. Just set it off to the side.” He walks past her and into the living room. His first plan was to sit on the couch and go through some woodworking magazines he just got in the mail, but when he realizes she’s not quite done with him, he veers off to the right and heads to his bedroom.
“Brian …”
“Be right back,” he says, shutting his bedroom door behind him. He can’t keep the smile off his face. She won’t be mad at him when she sees what he’s doing, but he can’t let her know what it is until he’s done. That would spoil the surprise. He whips off his shirt, deciding that a shower would be a great way to stall and get rid of the sticky sweat he built up in his shop. He’s not expecting the door to fly open as he’s unzipping his pants.
“I know you’re hiding …” Her words trail off into nothing as she stands there staring.
He stops what he’s doing, not sure how to react to her catching him with his pants nearly down.
“Uhhh … uhhhh …” Her face is hot pink. The paper in her hand slips out, fluttering to the floor.
He makes a split second decision and walks over to get it, bending down and snatching it up. Crumpling it into a ball, he tosses it towards his bathroom. There’s a trashcan in there that’ll be the perfect hiding place. Now all he has to do is get rid of her so she won’t come in and fish it out.
“Did you need something?” he asks, lifting a brow. He’s hardcore flirting right now, but he can’t seem to stop himself. Every moment of every day he’s been with her, he’s controlled himself, gone really slow, let her decide what happens and how it happens. He wants her to feel like she’s in control because she is. But that’s not what he’s thinking at this particular moment. Right now he wants to push the limits a little. Something about her curves is making him feel reckless.
“No. I mean, yes … I mean … no.” She bites her lip and looks at him with an expression of desperate shyness.
“Which is it, Nicole?” he asks, moving in closer. “Yes or no?”
“I can’t,” she blurts out.
He reaches up very slowly and puts his hands on her upper arms, rubbing them up and down. “You can’t what? Need something? Want something? What?”
“I can’t do this,” she says, her words coming out with heavy breaths.
He can’t help but smile. She’s not afraid, he’s almost sure of it. She’s just nervous over the heat building between them. The chemistry is real, he’s not imagining it. She senses it too; it’s in her eyes and the way her body is leaning towards him, even while she says she can’t.
He pulls her gently towards him, making sure to give her plenty of opportunity to pull away if that’s what she wants. “Well, whatever you need it must be pretty bad for you to come in here and try to catch me naked.”
Her mouth quirks up in a smile, her equilibrium restored. “I wasn’t doing that.” She play-slaps him on the chest. “Go away, I have work to do.”
“Okay, one kiss and I’ll let you go.”
She bites her lip again, maybe to keep the smile from getting bigger. “How about no kiss and you let me go?”
“No deal.” He closes his eyes and puckers up big, pausing only once to deliver his offer. “One kiss, all on you, then I let you go. See?” He waits, not expectin
g her to go along with it, but doing it anyway. It’s fun playing with her like this.
He feels her body shifting as she leans forward and goes up on her toes. He’s not expecting the warmth on his mouth until it’s already there.
She probably meant for it to only be a peck, but he leans into the kiss, taking more. At first he meets resistance, so he backs off a little and there’s air between them again. But then he opens his eyes and sees her there, sees the longing in her expression, and moves forward again. His arms move up to encircle her back and his lips come down to meet hers.
It reminds him of a first kiss from his youth. Shy. Tentative. Gentle. All the urges and sexual drive are held back in favor of learning this art, this delicate operation of getting to know a woman’s mouth. Her lips are soft, the scars not detectable with either his lips or his tongue. A small sound escapes her, a whimper almost, and it only encourages him to go deeper.
She meets his tongue with hers and it makes him go hard under his jeans. It’s only when she begins to melt into him that he realizes she’s trembling all over.
He backs away. “Don’t be scared,” he says in a low voice. “I won’t hurt you, Nicole, you know that right?”
She searches his face and then moves, taking a large step back towards the door. “I know. I know you won’t. But I can’t do this.” She spins around and runs out of the room, slamming the door to her bedroom closed behind her.
“Fuck!” Brian grinds out, his anger reserved entirely for himself. He pushed her too far, too fast. He stands there staring at the hallway and the profile view he has of her door. He could go over there and knock, ask for her forgiveness, but then in the end he doesn’t. Because he’s not sorry that he kissed her back, and he’s not sorry that he wants her. He’s just sorry that she thinks it’s not possible.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
TWO WEEKS GO BY IN relative harmony, the awkwardness over the kiss and the subject of why Nicole can’t forgive herself left to fade away for now.
The question of forgiveness comes out to haunt her every night, but at least it seems to have left Brian alone. He hasn’t asked about it since and she’s avoided any hint of it in their conversations about the weather, meals, and Liam.
Brian’s business is running smoothly, and all of his books are completely computerized. Nicole has even taken a few hours over several days to train him to use the software. He’s a great student, only having to be told the same thing twice on occasion. Nicole suspects he was greatly exaggerating his need for an assistant, but her need for the paycheck keeps her from arguing the point.
“You have to come over here and learn the functions on this spreadsheet I made for you, just in case you mess them up and need to rebuild them,” she says, feeling a little bit like a nag. It’s not the first time she’s had to cajole him into getting involved in his books.
“But why do I have to learn it when I have you?” he says, resting on his back on the couch, looking over at her as she sits at the desk. He’s on break in between sanding and varnishing a desk in his shop. He works weekdays and weekends as the spirit moves him, but always finishes when he says he will.
“Because I’m not going to be here forever,” she says, tallying up the hours she’s worked so he can pay her. She gets the money in cash and keeps it in under the bed in a hand-made wooden box he gave her - the project that the mysterious invoice was supposed to be attached to.
So far she has almost a thousand dollars saved. It’s not enough for an apartment, but it’s good enough for bus fare and some clothing. Maybe after another month she’ll have what she needs to be on her way. The idea makes her sad, but so does pretty much anything involved with not being around Brian and Liam anymore. She’s gotten way too attached to the dynamic duo.
“Where are you going?” asks Liam, walking into the room. He stops in front of Nicole, searching her face. He no longer flinches or has expressions that speak of being uncomfortable when he looks at her. It has given her immense hope to know that a person can look past her outward ugliness to the girl inside, the one she’s trying very hard to build up and make confident again.
She reaches out and takes his small hands in hers. “I can’t stay here forever, Liam. I have to move out, get my own place.”
“But why?” he asks, shifting to sit in her lap. Once he found out he could convince her to read to him whenever he asked, her lap became his favorite place to be, book in hand or not.
“Because. This is your house and Daddy’s house, not mine.”
“So? You can still stay, right, Dad?”
“Yep. Briana can stay as long as she wants.”
“Yeah, like forever and ever, right?” Liam clarifies.
“Yes, like forever and ever.” Brian rolls over on his side and gives Nicole his best puppy-dog eyes. “Come on, stay. Why would you want to leave all this?” he asks, spreading one arm out above him, gesturing to the modest living room.
She smiles sadly. He might be joking about not having the biggest or fanciest house, but she isn’t laughing. This is the most beautiful, loving home she has ever known. Leaving is going to almost destroy her. That’s why she’s putting it off for as long as she can. She’ll need to be very strong to walk away from all this love.
But staring at Brian, she’s reminded how it won’t be enough, to just be with him and see him every day without being closer. And she can’t be closer with him, even if he were willing. There’s Helen and Liam to think about, not to mention her face.
The ache in her chest is almost unbearable as she thinks about her decision to quit men forever and dedicate herself to the life of a hermit spinster. The one silver lining she’s come up with out of this whole mess is that John did her a favor turning her into a monster; at least with a face like this, she won’t be attracting any attention from the opposite sex. Or the same sex for that matter. She’ll be left to her own devices, to a life of peace and serenity where violence has no place to take root.
Brian sits up on the couch. “I’ve been wanting to ask you … do you feel like going camping? I’ve got the itch to hang out in the great outdoors for a few days, and Liam has a holiday coming up at school.”
Liam jumps off Nicole’s lap and starts dancing around and flapping his arms. “Camping! Camping! We wanna go camping!” Then he streaks out of the room and down the hallway, yelling the whole way.
“I’m going to take a wild guess and say he likes to camp,” Nicole says.
“Just a little. What about you? Do you like to?”
“I’ve never been.”
“You’d love it.”
“I can’t leave the house, Brian, you know that.”
“Says who? Your arm’s almost all better, so are your ribs … your bruises are gone, and your lips are healed. You’re good to go.”
She shakes her head, proud that she’s not crying over this conversation like she has so many of the others they’ve had. “It doesn’t change the fact that I make people sick to their stomach just looking at me.”
“Oh, come on, stop exaggerating. Your face isn’t that bad at all.”
“You’re just blind.” She turns back to the computer, not wanting to look at his beautiful face anymore. It’s almost painful how gorgeous he is in comparison to her.
“I have perfect vision, I already told you that. And I was talking to Helen the other day and she was saying how with a little makeup she could make you feel better about going outside in public. We’ll keep you in disguise until we’re out of the neighborhood and then you can take off the wig and stuff when we’re headed out of town. Come on, it’ll be fun.”
Another one of those annoying sparks of hope lights up in her chest. They come more and more often these days, and don’t want to get snuffed out as easily as they used to. It’s very frustrating, trying to stay unhappy and hopeless in this house with everything working against her. Not only does she have Brian’s twenty-four/seven happiness and occasional chaste kisses on her cheek that warm her to her to
es, she also has Liam hanging on her every word, Helen dropping by to help at odd times, and Agnes at the back door with that delicious coffee every morning. No one seems to want to leave her alone long enough to be lonely. It’s the longest span of time she’s lived where the days are full of light instead of darkness.
“I’d rather just stay here and work on the books.”
“If you work those books any harder you’re going to be crunching numbers I haven’t even brought in yet. You’ll get a brain cramp. Come on, let’s just do a short little trip. Two days. We’ll leave on Friday as soon as Liam’s out of school. I know the perfect place, isolated out in the middle of the woods near a stream. I can fish, you can fish or read books, and Liam can get covered in dirt and mosquito bites. It’ll be heaven.”
The smile refuses to leave her face. “I’ll think about it.”
“That means yes.” Brian jumps up off the couch and leaves the room before she can argue. A moment later she hears him rattling around in the hallway closet where she knows the camping gear is kept.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean yes!” she yells, defeat lacing her voice. She wants it to mean yes, she just can’t bring herself to say the words that will put her out in the public eye again. The idea is too terrifying to just walk right into it voluntarily. “I don’t even like camping!” That part was a bold-face lie, but it seems justified.
She turns back to the desk and tries to focus on her work again, but she can’t. Her mind wanders to a vision of the three of them sleeping in a tent together, Brian cooking over a fire, a refreshing hike in the woods. It all seems so magical, so unlike anything she’s imagined herself doing in years.
She used to think she’d like camping, before John. Up until two seconds ago, she thought he’d taken that away from her right along with everything else, but somehow right now Brian is making it seem like it could be part of her new reality. Camping. Could I really go out and do that? Where people might see me?
