"Have you seen them before?" I asked, wanting to know more about him.
"Yeah. You'd be hard-pressed to find much of this country that I haven't seen at least once."
"Do you like traveling?"
"Depends on to where. And the company." He made the comments sound final, but a moment later, went on. "I'm not a fan of the south in the dead of summer. They have a different fucking sun down there, I swear. And the bugs and snakes and shit. Not my bag. But aside from that..."
"So no Alabama in August. What about the cold states in winter?"
"Snowboarding in Vermont is the shit. Haven't done it in a few years, but I will take the cold over the scorching heat any damn day. Besides, ever have real apple cider donuts from an actual cider mill?" he asked, waiting for me to shake my head. "Gotta try it at least once in life," he told me, then his face fell when I felt mine do the same.
Because I wasn't going to be allowed to travel.
At least not for years.
Maybe not even then.
It depended a lot on what happened with Rodrigo Cortez.
"Maybe there is a cider mill in Nevada somewhere," I said, but there was skepticism in my voice. I mean, most apples came from the east coast, not the midwest. But they had to have some, right? Hopefully. Because now I was sure life would never be complete without an apple from a real cider mill.
"Tomorrow we got to start work on your identity. Learn the shit like the back of your hand," he told me, moving away. And it felt like a wall.
As the night and the next day would show, that was exactly what it was.
The only speaking we did was about Sloane Livingston, about her past, about her likes, her interests, her friends, family, previous work experience.
About eight hours into getting quizzed about her, I could feel myself starting to resent this person that didn't actually exist, that I would have to learn to be.
Silly, yes, but undeniable.
It was like my mind had decided to hate her in defense of Sloane Blythe-Meuller, the person I had always been allowed to be, for better or worse.
"Alright. I'll let it drop for a while," he told me as we settled into a hotel in Utah.
This one was clearly recently redone. And maybe just a tad bit too modern. I hadn't been sure there was such a thing. But when the bed didn't look like someplace that you wanted to rest on, you knew you took your HGTV obsession a step or five too far. Everything was stark, eye-aching white with very sharp lines - and corners. I actually rammed my leg into the side of the bed, creating a decent gash that bled like crazy, and put me in an even more surly mood.
Gunner seemed to be faring no better, mumbling under his breath as he tried to unmake the bed a bit so he could get in it.
"Not a fan, huh?" I asked as I put a on band-aid that Gunner had provided from a small first-aid kit he apparently carried at all times.
"It's like a fucking hospital. Who the fuck would want to live in a room like this?"
"You're a fan of a more... lived in look," I assumed.
"I'm a fan of a place where I can prop my feet up on the table. And where the goddamn sheets don't crinkle when I move them."
I smiled at that, silently agreeing.
While my place was on the modern side, it was still warm and homey. At least I liked to think so. And I always made sure to use softener in my wash.
"So... tomorrow," I said after I had changed and settled into bed, when the show Gunner had been staring at - though, I thought, not actually watching - went to commercial.
"What about it?"
"Everything changes," I said, half to myself.
"Guess you could say that."
"What else could you say about it?"
"You get to start over," he said, refusing to look my way, making my stomach feel tight and uncomfortable.
I didn't say it. Not aloud. Not to him. I didn't want him to think I was silly or ungrateful or even just bemoaning my fate.
But I thought it.
I thought it until the words stopped even making sense in my own head.
I thought it until it made a deep, sad sensation settle in my stomach.
I thought it until the TV turned itself off, leaving me with nothing but the sound of Gunner's breathing, steady, but not asleep.
I thought it until I fell asleep and couldn't think it anymore.
What if I don't want to start over?
TEN
Sloane
Carson City was - and wasn't - what I was expecting.
I couldn't claim to have much point of reference when it came to Nevada. The only thing I knew about it - like many people - was Vegas. And that knowledge was only from TV shows and movies. I had never been there myself.
Gunner had told me it was a smaller city. And it was. I mean, of course it was. Most cities were smaller in comparison to New York. And while there were parts of it that looked very old-timey and stuck in a different era, other parts were surprisingly modern.
It was bigger than I imagined, a sprawling, very flat place nestled inside some steep green hills.
As we drove through downtown, we were greeted by a banner hanging across the roadway reminding us to be Water smart because Every drop counts!
"You'll get used to it," Gunner told me, seeming to interpret my silence as disappointment.
I couldn't call it that myself.
I didn't know what to call my mood right about then.
If anything, I would say detached.
I had told myself days ago that if this was going to be my fate, that I was going to try to make the most of it, that I was going to find the silver linings where they existed, that I was going to try to build a nice life for myself, even if it wasn't the one I had always wanted.
So I should have been looking at the lines of mom-and-pop stores with curiosity and excitement to explore their shelves. I should have been breathless at the idea of the beauty I could find in those hills once I settled in. I should have been trying to commit some of the street names to memory.
Something.
Anything.
But all I could do was stare blankly out the window, feeling absolutely nothing inside.
"I know," I agreed in a hollow tone, knowing I needed to say something to him.
"Do you want to stop for some food, or see if the super is around to show us the apartment building Jules has tentatively picked out for you?"
Might as well get it over with, I guess.
"I'm not hungry. Let's check out the apartment."
So that was what we did, driving just a couple minutes out of downtown where all the shopping was. If the weather was nice, and I was feeling up to it, it was even close enough to walk to.
Carson Valley Apartments was a modern building, clearly not more than ten or so years old, all warm sandy-colored stucco, and small in comparison to the apartment buildings I was used to seeing with six separate buildings of seemingly four units each, two up top, two down below.
Each ground level apartment had a deck area with wooden pergolas. Each upper level had a balcony. Small, they seemed, but big enough to put a small table and chairs and some plants.
Half of the buildings' balconies and decks faced the hills. The other half faced a subdivision a street away.
I should have been hoping I got the view of what natural beauty the area had to offer, but all I thought as we finally exited the car to stretch our legs and wait for the super to greet us was In just a few days, I was going to be all alone.
It was an absurd thing for someone like me to think, someone who had always been alone. Comfortably. Mostly happily. I had certainly never bemoaned the fate.
Maybe it was as simple as the fact that I was never completely alone. I had employees that I interacted with daily, whose lives outside of work I knew about.
But, really, I knew the truth.
I was feeling the impending aloneness as genuine loneliness not because of a new city or a new job or a new apartment.
It was beca
use of Gunner.
Gunner and the smirk I would miss, whose bluntness I had grown accustomed to, whose calm presence had become something I had relied on, whose determination to help me come out of my shell a bit had been something new and incredible for me.
Soon he would be gone.
And he would leave a hole in my life that had never been there before. Because I had never allowed anyone in to leave a void before.
"You're quiet," Gunner observed, his eyes piercing into me.
Luckily, I was saved from having to answer him when the super - a neat-looking man in his forties with kind eyes and an open smile - came out to greet us, shaking our hands with enthusiasm.
"And this is my sister," Gunner said, making my head jerk over.
"Nice of you to bring her out to settle her in," Andrew, the super, told him, both of them leaving me somewhat out of the conversation.
"So, just to show you around the outside real quick," he said, starting to walk, doing so side-by-side with Gunner, leaving me - the actual potential renter - to follow behind. "We have a bunch of amenities. An in-ground pool, gym, tennis court, basketball court, playground area, common room inside, even a DVD rental library to choose from. Now you were interested in B2, correct?" he asked... Gunner.
"That was the one, right, Sloane?" Gunner asked me pointedly. And I suddenly wanted to kiss him. Just for recognizing the problem, and addressing it.
"I believe so," I agreed, looking at Andrew who had the sense to look apologetic.
"Right," he agreed, moving toward one of the buildings. "So 2B is a second-floor apartment with a balcony overlooking the hills out there," he told me, waving an arm out even though we were already in a hallway. "Stairs and elevator, of course," he went on, waving toward the stairs as we got on the elevator. "It is six-hundred-seventy square feet. One bedroom, one bath. Nine-hundred-fifty a month. Water is included in that."
Six-hundred-seventy feet.
My old apartment was twice that.
In a city where a shoebox cost nine-hundred-fifty a month.
I needed to stop doing that, comparing places.
They were different.
I would have to be different as well.
"Here we are," Andrew declared, taking me to the left once we got into the upstairs hall.
To the right, 2A had a small Easter wreath on their door, hanging around the peephole.
I should have taken it as a good sign, that people here did things like that. I didn't even remember the last time I had put the effort into putting up a Christmas tree. It was nice to see the simple things. Or, it would have been nice, if I had been feeling any such thing.
"There are other buildings," Gunner whispered to me as Andrew moved in, waiting for us to follow.
I felt something then, feeling his breath on my ear, his body close to mine, his voice moving through me.
A shiver.
Both good and bad at the same time.
But at least it was something.
I didn't say anything, following Andrew inside, finding the living room directly in front, with a small kitchen to the right, and a hall that ran along the back of that to, presumably, the bed and bath.
There wasn't much to say.
The carpet, while clearly recently shampooed, was old and off-white. The floor in the kitchen was faux wood linoleum. The cabinets were dark and dated with fake brass pulls. The fridge and stove were black and white.
With the overall size, I imagined a small bedroom and smaller, dated bath.
But it was a place to live.
Where I wouldn't be stabbed.
Hopefully.
"Is there a bathtub?" I heard myself ask, suddenly not so sure that showers would feel quite so safe all alone. Not even almost completely across the country.
"It's a combined bath and shower," he told me. "You know, with a curtain and the like."
That would do, I guess.
"I'll take it."
"Sloane," Gunner hissed at me, clearly taking in my lack of enthusiasm, wanting me to be happy.
I just wasn't so sure that happy was an option for me.
Maybe it never really was.
"Can we sign the paperwork now?" I asked, wanting to move things along.
"Sure thing!" Andrew beamed. "Just let me go grab it from my office. I'll be back in just a minute."
With that, he was gone.
And I moved across my new apartment, looking out on the hills, green and seemingly never-ending.
I could feel it bouncing off of him, even with my back turned. The anger. Frustration. Confusion.
"You don't like it, duchess. The fuck are you signing papers for?"
"It's fine," I insisted, crossing my arms around my middle somewhat defensively even though I wasn't facing him.
"You don't want fine," he growled at me. "We can do better than fine."
We.
Except he didn't mean we.
Not the way I wanted him to.
"I have a kitchen, a bedroom, a bath with a tub, and a balcony. What more could I want?"
"Something that gets that dead tone out of your voice, maybe?"
"I'm just tired," I told him. It was half true. I was getting good at half-truths lately. I wasn't sure I liked that about myself.
"You're not tired," he snapped, this time right behind me. "You're shutting down."
"So what if I am?" I asked, feeling a small bit of something then. Not something good, but something. A sadness that made my eyes sting for a second.
"I don't like it."
"It's okay," I told him, shaking my head, swallowing hard. "You only have to deal with me for a few more days. If that."
"Alright, fucking enough," he growled as his hand closed over my bicep, turning me, forcing me to face him. "Stop talking about yourself like you're some--"
"Job," I cut him off, throwing his own words back at him. "I'm just a job."
That time, even I could hear the hurt in my tone.
"Like fuck you are," he shot back, hand going behind my neck, yanking me to him as his lips crashed down on mine.
Sensation came back to me in a moment of blinding clarity. His fingers sinking into my skin at my neck, fingertips tangling into the roots of my hair. The feel of his unyielding body against my softer one. The way his lips branded into mine, ensuring I would feel them there days, weeks, months, years later, like they would always be marked as his.
A low, primal growl moved through him as he slammed me back against a wall, his body pushing harder into mine, his free hand sinking into my hip as his tongue traced the seam of my lips before moving inside to claim mine.
My moan whimpered out of me as my arms went around him, holding on, begging for more, for everything we had been denying ourselves since that morning back at the cabin.
But then, somehow through my pulse pounding in my ears, I heard it.
The ding of the elevator.
Seeming to hear it at the exact same time, Gunner suddenly ripped away from me, turning to face the view out my balcony as I collapsed back against the wall, trying to force my brain to work through the haze of desire.
"You look all flushed, Miss Livingston," Andrew said, looking concerned. "Do you want me to turn the air on? It's a bit warm in here."
"No, no. I'm fine. Just haven't had lunch yet. I'm a bit, ah, lightheaded," I outright lied even as Gunner slid open the balcony door, and went outside.
He stayed there.
The whole time Andrew talked to me about rules, regulations, bills, local attractions.
The whole time I filled out my paperwork, doing so with intensity to make sure I used all of my new information, not slipping up by accident and habit.
It wasn't until Andrew handed me a key and took the check I handed to him that Gunner had given me the day before that he finally came back in.
And this time, I wasn't the one with guards up.
He was.
His ones, well, they made mine look like a dilapidated chainlink f
ence by comparison.
"Ready?" he asked. At my confused look, he shrugged. "To go to the hotel. You can't move in with no furniture," he reasoned. "We will deal with all that tomorrow. Today, we need food. And to go over some shit."
Andrew seemed to stiffen a bit at Gunner's tone or language - or both - making me need to force a smile like this was the most natural thing in the world.
"Okay, yeah, makes sense. Thank you so much, Andrew. I am looking forward to making it my own."
"Great. Glad to hear it. You have some great neighbors to get to know," he told me, shaking my hand, then Gunner's, and leaving since this was, technically, my apartment now.
"Let's go," Gunner barked at me, loud enough to make me jump, following him automatically without even really thinking about it. Yeah, it was that stern a voice.
I didn't think about the town as we drove through it again to get to a two-story hotel that almost had a barn-like look.
All I could think of was the kiss.
And his unexpected reaction to it.
Which seemed to be anger.
For what reason, I had no idea.
All I did know was... when we got into the hotel, there were two rooms waiting for us instead of the expected one.
Gunner all but tossed my luggage into mine before leaving it, slamming the door, and disappearing into his own room.
I waited.
Like an idiot.
Like a woman I would have normally shaken my head at.
But I waited.
For him to calm down, to return, to finish what we started, or to even just ignore it all.
But to show up.
He didn't.
Not for an hour.
Or two.
Or four.
At hour five, my stomach was finally starting to grumble, forcing me to venture out on my own, a task that - back in my old city - never would have bothered me. But here, I felt an odd dis-ease creep up on me as I made my way to the elevator, then down a floor, then out onto the street, looking for someplace I could find something to eat.
In the end, I walked my high-heeled self down the street to town, so used to walking in the city that my feet were all but immune to blisters.
If Gunner was going to avoid me, I figured I had to at least put a little effort in getting to know my new area, my new life. Soon, sooner than I wanted even to think about, I would be on my own in this. It would go better for me if I weren't completely clueless.
The Ghost Page 13
