"Having a bad night?"
The voice startled me. I spun round to see Sean at the foot of the stairs in his boxer shorts, faint smile on his lips and a hint of redness in his eyes. He sauntered over with the grace that comes from someone who trains their body. His muscles seemed bigger in the dim light and I wondered if he'd been working out more since Arthur died. It wouldn't surprise me that he'd turned to a more healthy form of coping mechanism. Well, anything would be healthier than knocking back pills.
"I'm having a terrible night," I said. "I don't know what hurts the most."
He ran a hand though his hair and sat across from me. Gooseflesh rose on the backs of his arms and he rubbed them as he shivered.
"What are you doing down here? You should get some sleep."
I shot him an angry look.
"I can't sleep. That's why I'm down here.”
"Yeah, of course."
He stood up to grab himself a beer and I watched the contour of his muscles as he moved, focusing on his back where his tendons showed around the edges of his shoulder blades.
With his beer, he squeezed in tight beside me and leaned his head against my shoulder.
"It's been the weirdest month," he said. "How are you holding up?"
I sighed and flipped the beer lid between my thumb and forefinger. It pinged off the table and landed on the floor out of reach.
"Right now I feel as though I'm falling apart."
He didn't say anything. Even he knew that right now, there was no right thing to say.
"Hey, you know the number of a good therapist?" I joked.
He smiled, his lips still pursed around his beer bottle.
"Don't trust a shrink," he said. "They'll have you on all sorts of crazy pills. Which reminds me, how many of these have you taken today?"
He fingered the orange bottle and flipped the lid to peer inside, his features visibly tightening as he saw the meager number of tablets tinkling around the bottom.
"Six," I lied.
He narrowed his eyes.
"Okay, I had six but I just took another three."
"Paige!"
"It's been an exceptional day!" I protested. "It's not every day you bury your husband."
His face dropped. Saying the words made it more real, more tragic.
"When you say it like that..." he said, his eyes cast down to the table, "But you need to start letting up on these. They're addictive."
"I know, I know, save the doctor's lecture."
"I'm serious! I'm not nagging for the fun of it. I'm worried about you."
I knew he was. I could see it in his eyes. They looked dewy in the faint light and a little wider than usual.
"Can I ask you something?" he leaned in and squeezed my thigh.
"Ask me anything," I urged.
He paused for a minute and licked the beer froth from his top lip. His thigh pressed into mine and I felt comforted by his warmth.
"Is it our fault?" he asked.
I knew what he meant. I'd been asking myself the same question from the very second I woke up after the crash.
"Arthur dying, you mean."
He nodded slightly, his face growing pale.
"It wasn't just our fault," I said. "It was him who crashed into us, remember?"
"But it was us who drove him to it!"
Actually, it was me, I thought.
"Let's just focus on the future," I said and cuddled into his side.
He tensed up beside me and tapped his bottle off the table.
"I feel like a murderer," he blurted out.
"If anyone should feel like a murderer, it's Arthur," I replied a little too fast.
But I felt the same way too. None of this would have happened if I'd just stayed faithful.
"So what about Lauren?" I asked.
"What about her?" he sagged at the sound of her name. "She wasn't you, was she? That's what I'd hoped for when I met her. She kinda looked like you too at first, had the same slender frame, the blue eyes, the fair hair."
"She was like me?"
"Not really. Looking back she was your opposite. She was a bitch for starters and insisted on spending almost a thousand dollars a month from my paycheck on organic freakin' quinoa and elderberries or whatever the hell it was she ate. She had the highest standards in everything and absolutely no desire to work for anything. She reminded me of the phrase, knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing."
I winced as a little flicker of pain wound its way up my side. It would seem the painkillers still weren't doing anything yet.
"So why stay with her?"? I asked. "I mean you asked her to marry you, right?"
"Kind of..."
He hesitated and scratched the back of his head. I couldn't help but notice how well built his arms were, big powerful machines that could kill a man but never would. That was one of the things I always loved about Sean. He was strong with the potential to be devilishly mean, but all he wanted to do was help and protect people. All he wanted to do was wrap his arms around me and make me feel safe.
"Her dad kinda talked into it," he confessed. "Made me think it was a great idea and that I was the man for his daughter. He thought I was respectable, came from a good home and all that crap. He said he'd forgive the fact that I didn't come from a dynasty family. Can you believe that shit? Anyway, he had me believing I was the luckiest man alive and that there was no possible way I could do any better than his princess of a daughter. I believed it too. I was fresh outta college and a little wet behind the ears. When a man twice your age tells you something you're likely to believe it, especially when you're fucking his daughter."
"Sounds like we were both in the same situation," I said. "If I never left we'd never have had to be trapped in miserable relationships."
He said nothing.
"If I hadn't left then Arthur wouldn't have killed himself."
He tensed up and drummed his fingers along the edge of the table.
"You can never say ‘what if’," he said. "What if Mick Jagger stole you away from me? What if the sky? fell down? What if the sea was purple? There are too many ‘what ifs’. Don't dwell on them."
He kissed my cheek and bopped me on the nose.
"Thanks," I said and he frowned.
"For what?"
"For just being here and making me feel a little more... I don’t know, normal. I've been thinking I might be cracking up, losing my senses or whatever."
"Well these won't help".
He flicked his fingers over the orange bottle of pills.
"I know, I know. You've said your piece about that already," I moaned.
Upstairs, a floorboard creaked and we both looked up to the ceiling. The snoring had stopped.
"Dad's probably wondering what we're doing down here."
"Let's hope he goes back to sleep."
With baited breath, we listened to his heavy footsteps as they padded across the landing into the bathroom as though we were in the wilderness listening out for a hungry bear.
"Hey, you remember when I first moved in and we used to sneak around at night and play that stupid game?"
"Terrorists!" I half screamed half whispered. "Oh, my god. I totally forgot about that until just now."
"It was my favorite."
We called the game terrorists but it was little more than the two of us creeping up and down the stairs in the middle of the night with laser pens taped up around the top of our Nerf guns. Each game, one of us had to be FBI and the other had to be some sort of baddy and we'd skirmish around the house. The first person to be yelled at by Alex lost. It was always me. I was too clumsy, always got freaked out and screamed whenever Sean jumped out from behind the couch. Not to mention he was stealthy and athletic and could leap over the furniture like Tarzan.
"Do you think that's what he reckons we're doing now?" I laughed.
There were tinkering noises in the bathroom, the sound of the taps running.
"Somehow, I don't assume he thinks y
ou came home from a funeral to fire Nerf darts at me."
We both chuckled, a brief respite from the emotional turmoil. At last, when we thought he'd never go back to bed, we heard the flick of the bathroom light switch and the footsteps continued back over to the bedroom. A few moments later, the snoring resumed and we both breathed a sigh of relief.
"Hey, you wanna come sleep in my room?" Sean asked.
He said it so innocently as though we were just going to head up there and hang out like kids, maybe have a shot at the old Nintendo 64 and eat Twinkies by torchlight.
"Really?" I asked with arched eyebrows.
"Sure!" he smiled a radiant grin.
"Aren't we a bit old to be sneaking around each other's bedroom?”
"Well... yeah but we can't exactly ask mom and dad for the master bedroom now, can we?"
Fuck, sooner or later we were going to have to tell them about us and I still had no idea how they would react. Part of me thought mom's softer side would understand. There were times when I was certain she might even give us her blessing. Then at other times I was certain she would explode and send us straight to church. She wasn't the religious type unless it was Christmas or Easter but when the mood took her she could fit the mold of a puritanical mother.
"So... are you coming?"
Sean stood up and tossed his empty beer in the trash.
"I don’t know. I should really get some sleep."
"I thought you couldn't sleep."
He wasn't going to give in easily. Slinking around to my back he lay his hands on my shoulders and began massaging them. It felt good, really good and I felt my body slump with relaxation, heaving out a great sigh as his hands took me away from my thoughts.
"Don't worry. I'm not expecting you to do anything. I know how much of a hard time you're going through. I just want to hold you, make you feel better."
There was genuineness to his voice, a serious tone that made me want to surrender myself to whatever he had to say.
"That sounds nice. I just need a hug."
Although I couldn't see his face I knew he was smiling. There was a way I could sense the movements of his face and how he breathed when he was happy.
"Okay, but remember it's my old, crappy single bed remember?"
I couldn't help but laugh.
"Oh my God. This is so weird, being in this house again, the two of us."
He led me up the stairs, his voice being subdued to an almost inaudible whisper.
"Hey, imagine if we get caught," he sniggered.
"Don't say that!"
"But I'm just saying... what if?"
"Shut up."
I gave him a playful push and he dashed up the stairs smiling like a schoolboy. Tiptoeing past our parents' bedroom, we crept into his room. It was just how I remembered it. Posters of Pamela Anderson lined the walls, there were old CDs and cassette tapes spilling out the drawers and old horror books lying dog eared and yellowed all over the floor. In the corner by the window, his telescope sat on the tripod facing the stars.
"Woah, your dad kept this place like a museum."
"I know. I think he found my porn stash," Sean laughed but managed to grimace and shake his head at the same time.
He reached under the bed and pulled out a cardboard box that looked as though it had gotten damp and soggy at the bottom as it sagged in the middle. Peering inside, I could see dozens of Playboys and Penthouses.
"Geez... Remember the good old days before the internet."
"Those were the prime days of pornography," Sean scratched his chin like a nudey mag connoisseur.
He flicked through the issues like a mother sifts her way through photos of her children. There was a nostalgic haze to his eyes as they wandered over a young Jenny McCarthy. I sat down beside him and looked over her perfect body.
"I wonder what happened to her," he said.
He flicked through the pages with intense concentration.
"Still hold a candle for the old playmate?" I asked and nudged him with my elbow.
He stuck his tongue into his cheek as he thought deeply.
"I always like her because I thought she looked like you. Well, the eyes anyway, and the body."
"Gimme a break," I shoved him and stood up to walk over to the window.
There were old NFL stickers still spread along the window ledge, the paper forever stuck against the flaking paint and grain of the wood.
"I mean it," he said. "You were so hot as a teenager. I mean you still are but I remember being a young kid in this house and seeing you and just thinking... Woah. I thought you'd leave this place and marry some big shot in Vegas or something, be one of those dolled up models who marry a guy three times their age."
"Erm... No Sean. I'm not Anna Nicole Smith."
"I know. Sorry. That must all sound weird."
He shoved the magazines back into their resting place and with great ceremony, got down on his knees and pushed the box beneath the bed like he was saying goodbye to an old friend.
"Hey, remember this?"
In a bid to change the subject, I grabbed the eyepiece of the telescope and wiggled it around in a semi-circle.
"I loved this thing," he said and pressed the eyepiece into his face.
He bent down and lowered the telescope across the street to the neighbor's house.
"Old man Richards. We used to watch him all summer, the weirdo."
All year we moaned and pleaded to our parents that we needed a telescope. Somehow, they didn't quite believe that we were interested in the constellations and they were right. We had no interest in them whatsoever. What we were interested in were the neighbors. The area was a strange one, filled with a mixture of young families and retired couples. There were rumors of swingers parties, of old folk living it up at "secret barbecues”. When old man Richards' name kept popping up we knew we had to know more. It was pretty obvious what we were up to, mom and dad could smell our nonsense a mile off but after months of persistent nagging, Alex relented and got the telescope. We spent night after night just staring across the street, the lens of the scope protruding through a small gap in the curtains as we crouched on the floor with the lights off. As it turned out Richards was a weirdo, but not in the way we first imagined.
We soon discovered he loved mannequins, and not like he had one or two, but rather he had almost twenty of them dotted around his house. There were no swingers parties at all, just old man Richards dawdling around his home having happy hour with a bunch of plastic people. I shivered at the thought of him.
"Hey, are the mannequins still there?" I asked.
Sean was still bent over, his boxer shorts riding down slightly to reveal the top of his ass. I ran a fingernail over the small of his back and he wriggled and shot up. There was a red ring around his eye from the eyepiece so it looked as though he was wearing an invisible eye patch.
"Nah, no mannequins," he said and knuckled his eye. "Or at least none that I could see."
He yawned and stretched his arms up over his head.
"Come lie down," he said. "We can reminisce some more in the morning.”
Peeling back the covers, he let me take the inside next to the wall then climbed in after me and held me close.
"Hey, it's been a long time since we did this," I said.
"Shhhh..." he replied, his breathing becoming more drawn out as he grew sleepy.
He kissed the back of my head and pressed himself in tight.
"Goodnight, Pay," he said.
I stared at the wall and felt a warming sensation of calm descend over me.
“Goodnight,” I whispered back, but he was already asleep.
Chapter Five
Sean
When I woke up I wasn't sure where I was. There was the faint smell of breakfast being made and the sound of the frying pan sizzling on the hob in the kitchen beneath me. I rolled over and felt as though I was pushed up against the wall even though my legs were falling off the side of the bed. Looking over my shoulder,
I saw Paige's blonde hair fanned out over the pillow. She was snoring slightly but in a cute way, like a tiny kitten who had exhausted itself from a long day sleeping. Rolling over to see her better, I reached over to hold her and felt the hardness of the plaster cast around her ribs.
Shocking me at first, I recoiled before leaning back in, drifting my fingertips over it. She was being such a trooper with it all, had barely complained of the pain after the crash although I knew she felt it. Part of me thought it had to be my fault. I should have been watching in the mirror and noticed Arthur's bright white BMW speed up behind us. Part of me knew I should have been more alert while the other part was grateful neither of us was more hurt or worse. There was nothing I could have done. Arthur was intent on crashing into us and must have been following us for hours. I wondered what had been going through his mind as he watched us. It would seem that Paige and me made a monster out of an innocent man.
She snorted a little and slapped an arm over my waist. I pulled her in closer to me and smelled the fading scent of liquor on her breath from last night. She was looking pale, her cheeks almost like alabaster. I touched her skin and felt it was cold. If it wasn't for the sound of her breathing I might have thought she had died.
"Paige..."
I gave her a gentle nudge and kissed her shoulder. She didn't move.
"Paige..."
Something stirred in her. Her eyelids flickered and her snoring turned into a splutter as she rolled over toward me.
"Hey..."
She opened her eyes and looked as though she was staring at a stranger. Her eyes moved up to the ceiling, then over the walls before settling on the telescope at the end of the bed. Realizing where she was, she breathed a sigh of relief and clapped a hand to her forehead.
"Jesus, I had no idea where I was there for a moment."
"There's nothing to worry about. You're right here with me."
Down the hall, her mom Julia's footsteps were shuffling into the craft room.
Best Friends To Lovers Romance Series: Complete Series Boxed Set Romance Page 12
