Live Like You Mean It

by Ava Stone

  “Well, you gotta play to win.”

  “Uh-huh.” She rolled her eyes playfully. “Well, good luck with your hand.” Then she started back down the path toward the parking lot.

  Fuck.

  “Leah!” I called after her. “You gotta let me thank you for the driver’s license. Let me take you to breakfast.”

  “It’s lunchtime,” she called over her shoulder. “And I have to get home.”

  Lunchtime? Damn it. “Lunch, then,” I called again. “Come on. Help me out here.”

  She turned back around and flashed me a smile. “If you want, you can take me to dinner tonight. I don’t have to work.”

  “What about your standing date?” I asked and then wanted to kick my own ass as soon as the words were out of my mouth. What was I trying to do? Give her an out?

  “I can manage to get away one night every now and then.”

  Best fucking news I’d heard all day. I ran down the path after her, finally reaching her near the parking lot. “Where should I pick you up?”

  A ghost of a smile settled on her lips and I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that she’d played me somehow. But I didn’t care in that moment. I didn’t care at all.

  “Brody, you’re not dressed,” she said instead of answering me.

  I shrugged. “Never heard any complaints before.” When she raised her brow in surprise, I grinned in response. “Come on, where should I pick you up? When?”

  “Why don’t I meet you at the Royal Grill?”

  The manager at the Royal Grill hated me, but… “Sure. Eight o’clock?”

  “Eight o’clock,” she agreed, her gray eyes twinkling just enough to make me wish I’d been able to coax her into my apartment a few minutes ago. The things we could be doing right now.

  I would have kissed her then and there, or tried to, if Cade’s voice from the parking lot hadn’t interrupted the moment. “Thanks for picking up the phone, douchebag. I had to walk all the way from the police station.”

  Cade was annoyed with me? After the stunt he pulled last night? “Yeah, no problem.” I glared at my friend, who’d stopped right behind a black Mazda3 to fold his arms across his chest like a spoiled brat. “Thanks for fucking up the performance last night. I had to go to the emergency room to have my hand stitched up because of you, asshole.”

  Cade’s face paled momentarily and then his gaze landed on Leah. “Yeah, I can see I really cramped your style.” Then he stalked off toward our apartment without even a glance back.

  Leah frowned up at me. “So that’s Cade, huh?”

  “That’s Cade.” I shrugged. “He’s going through a hard time right now.”

  She nodded as if that made sense. “You sure you want to go out tonight?”

  Meaning would I rather stay home with a depressed drummer or go to dinner with her? It was no contest. I’d hang out at the hospital and watch her type up intake forms all night, if she’d let me. “Eight o’clock.” I grinned. “Looking forward to it.”

  Her smile lifted my soul like sunshine after a rain. Who even knew that was possible? I hadn’t even known my soul needed to be lifted.

  “I’ll see you then,” she said and then made her way across the complex parking lot.

  I just stood there and watched her perfect little ass and the way her sundress swung with each step she took until she climbed into a white Civic. She waved as she pulled out of the space, and I would have watched her drive away if an old lady, walking a poodle hadn’t rounded the corner.

  The old biddy sucked in a breath and grumbled, “For the love of God! Put some clothes on!” as she shook her cane in my direction.

  I walked back up the path to number 108, grinning like an idiot. Leah Willett. Damn, but she was sexy. And I’d have her all to myself tonight, if I could convince Cade make himself scarce. That might take some doing in his present state.

  I stopped on the path and frowned. Cade was in a shitty mood today. Probably came from spending all night in lockup. Whatever the reason, he wouldn’t be excited about leaving the apartment tonight for Leah and me. Maybe we could end up at her place instead? Might be better than here.

  After I stepped into our apartment, I heard clanking pans in the kitchen. Cade must be hungry. Probably better to talk to him after he’d eaten something. So I started back for my room, when he called out from the kitchen, “Who’s the piece of ass?”

  My hand balled into a fist, which hurt like hell. Damn my fucking hand. “She’s not a piece of ass. She’s the receptionist from the ER. I left my driver’s license last night.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, stepping into the hallway, a frying pan in his hand, judgment flashing in his dark eyes. “You fuck her?”

  “No,” I replied, folding my arms across my chest. Not yet anyway. Not that any of it was Cade’s business. “She’s a nice girl.”

  “Turned you down, huh?” He shook his head. “I guess there’s a first time for everything.” Then he turned back for the kitchen with his pan.

  And it was a good thing he turned back. Busted up hand or not, I wanted to crash my fist right into his big mouth. Just because he’d let Kelsey fuck up his life didn’t mean he could take his anger out on me. None of Cade’s problems were my fault.

  Dinner! Why had I suggested dinner? Dinner had all sorts of connotations attached. I should have said coffee. Coffee would have been the smart thing to say. But I’d suggested dinner because I was an idiot.

  And Mom was going to kill me. I should have checked with her before agreeing to see Brody tonight anyway, but… Well, it had been so long since I had gone out. And Brody… Well, I really did like him. I should probably have my head examined for admitting that, but it’s true. He didn’t look at me like Mike Willett’s screwed up little sister. He didn’t look at me like poor Dr. Willett’s daughter. He didn’t look at me with disappointment like Mom did most of the time. He just looked at me, like he really saw who I was. And it had been forever since anyone had done that.

  I pulled into the driveway, then walked up the path to the door. I noticed the curtains in the front window swayed slightly and irritation washed over me. Crap! Winston must have spotted me and was running to the front door to make his escape again.

  So I carefully turned the handle and cracked the door open just a hair. And there, at the base of the door, one golden eye peered up at me.

  “Winston,” I complained, “move away from the door.”

  He blinked at me.

  “Mom!” I called through the crack. “Get Winston so I can come in.”

  Heels click against the tiles on the other side of the door and then Mom started cooing, “There’s my sweet boy. Come on, Winston. Leah wants to come inside.”

  As though my wants and needs had to be explained to the cat. I pushed the door open to find my mother in the foyer, cradling Winston like he was an infant and pressing her lips to the top of his black head.

  “You know he only tries to escape so you won’t do that to him anymore,” I said.

  Mom brushed my words off with a swish of her hand. “He loves it. He’s purring.” But she put him on the floor once I shut the front door behind me.

  “And you have a grandson who you can cuddle with whenever you want.”

  “I cuddle with Aiden all the time.” Mom looked suddenly offended.

  Darn it. Offending Mom wasn’t the best way to go about asking for a favor. “Just teasing,” I said.

  “You’re grumpy,” she complained, starting for the living room. “You’re always grumpy when you stay up all night.”

  “I had a biology test.” I followed her from the foyer.

  Mom glanced over her shoulder and said, “How did the test go?”

  “I think ok. Better than I thought it would, anyway.”

  “See.” She grinned. “You’ve got your dad’s genes after all.”

  That might be a stretch. But Mom was always in a better mood when she thought about Dad, which was odd since thinking about my father alwa
ys had the opposite effect on me. Having Mom in a good mood was to my benefit, however. I dropped into my dad’s old recliner and smiled at my mother. “Mommy,” I started.

  “Mommy?” Her brow shot upward. “You clearly want something. What is it, Leah?”

  “Well,” I glanced down at my sundress, fiddling with the sash. “There’s this guy…”

  “What guy?” I could feel her eyes narrow on me in judgment, but I didn’t have the courage to look up and meet her gaze head on. It was true, I didn’t have the best track record with guys, but it had been a long time since I’d run wild.

  “Brody. One of the guys in Jason’s band. And he offered to take me to dinner tonight and I was hoping…”

  “He’s one of Jason’s friends?” she interrupted.

  The two were hardly friends, but Mom adored Jason and admitting the truth wouldn’t help me any right now. “He plays bass to Jason’s guitar,” I said instead of lying, hoping she wouldn’t see through my evasion.

  “I guess it’s all right,” she agreed, and I wanted to leap out of the chair and spin her around.

  But I kept my composure and just smiled. “Thanks, Mom. I’ll tuck Aiden in before I go. I’m sure he’ll be fine without me.”

  “He’s watching Sesame Street right now.”

  I smiled. My little angel was a big fan of the Count. I think it was the laugh that captivated him. “He hasn’t had his nap yet, has he?”

  Mom shook her head.

  “I’ll see if I can’t get him to take one with me, then.”

  “That tired, sweetie?” she asked.

  I nodded, slowly. “I’m going on 32 hours with no sleep.” And I had a date. With Brody Campbell. I’d need to have a clear head or there was no telling what he might talk me into.

  “Well, go get some sleep then, Leah.”

  I left Mom and followed the sound of Big Bird waxing poetic over the number five. Aiden was in the TV room, giving the 101 Dalmatians purple spots, his dark head bent over his picture with a fascination that reminded me of my dad. Dad would have loved Aiden, and once more I felt a pit of emptiness in my stomach at the thought of Dad being gone forever. How different everything would have been if he’d never gone to Chicago, if he’d never been on the wrong street at the wrong time. Even five years later, the pain hadn’t dulled.

  “Mommy!” Aiden spotted me in the doorway. He jumped up from his coloring book and raced toward me. He threw himself at my legs and would have knocked me down if I hadn’t prepared for the impact just in time.

  I scooped him up in my arms and peppered kisses across his little face. “How is my big boy, Aiden?”

  Giggling, he wrapped his arms around my neck and held me close. And I let him just hold on and love me. There was nothing so wonderful in the world as holding my little boy, and I loved him with every part of my soul.

  After a minute, I shifted him in my arms and said, “Nana says it’s naptime.”

  He made a face and stubbornly shook his head. “I color doggies.”

  “I have to take a nap too, Aiden. Nana said so. You want to take your nap with me?”

  His silvery eyes lit up and he nodded. “We can color.”

  “We can color afterward,” I said. “But we have to sleep first.”

  I jostled him once more and then started for the staircase. Winston was right at my feet as though he could escape through an upstairs window.

  “Kitty,” Aiden said. “Good kitty.”

  Bad kitty, I thought, though I didn’t say so out loud. Aiden loved Winston and somehow Winston loved Aiden too. I mean, how many cats wouldn’t take off at a sprint upon spotting a toddler? But not Winston. He’d curl up next to Aiden and fall right asleep like they were the best of friends.

  I stepped into my room, the same one I’d had all my life. Then I placed Aiden in the middle of my queen bed. “You have to go potty?” I asked.

  He nodded quickly and then bolted from the room. Such energy. What I wouldn’t do to have even a fraction of it right now. I dropped onto the bed and scooted to the far edge, against the wall.

  Winston hopped up on the bed too and he looked at me with those golden cat eyes of his. “What do you want?” I asked, still annoyed he’d escaped in the middle of the night.

  Aiden rushed back into the room and started for the bed.

  “Did you flush and wash your hands?”

  His silvery eyes widened as though I’d caught him in a lie. “Be right back, Mommy.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. He was such a sweet little boy, always wanting to please me. He ran back into the room and scrambled up onto the bed and nearly smothered me so I could smell the soap on his now clean hands.

  “Ok, ok,” I laughed. “Come and lay down, sweetheart.”

  He snuggled against me and I draped my arm around him. He smelled like innocence, no tears soap and Cheerios.

  A second later, Winston plopped down on the other side of Aiden, yawning with his whole body before smacking his mouth a few times. Then the cat snuggled up against my three year old, resting his head on Aiden’s arm.

  “Good kitty,” Aiden said, stroking the black and white escape artist with his free hand.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Good kitty. Now try and get some sleep, sweetie. Mommy is very tired.”

  Leah Willett. Leah Willett. Just a few more hours until I could see her. I should have been focused on getting ready for my Corporate Responsibility class, but that hardly held my interest. Not like a certain brunette did. Where would we end up tonight? That question had been darting in and out of my mind all afternoon. And song lyrics had started nagging at me to write them down.

  “Shouldn’t you be on campus?” Daniel asked, dropping onto to the sofa across from me.

  Damn, I hadn’t even realized Daniel was there. “Soon.”

  An amused look settled on my friend’s face. “Why does it look like you’re up to something?” he asked.

  Before I could reply to that, Cade called from the bathroom down the hall. “He has a date.”

  Daniel frowned in the direction of Cade’s voice. “Yeah, ‘cause that’s so rare.”

  “Too busy messing around with the girl to pick me up from the police station,” Cade yelled.

  “I wasn’t messing around,” I growled back, glaring in the direction of the bathroom. I’d only told Cade that twenty times since Leah left that morning. “I was sleeping when you called, jackass.”

  The expression on Daniel’s face said he didn’t really see the difference between messing around and sleeping. And usually there wasn’t one. But I hadn’t been sleeping with Leah, not yet. Cade could give me all the shit he wanted to once I was sleeping with her but not until then. “I was sleeping,” I repeated to Daniel. “Out cold, asleep – sleeping. Not messing around sleeping.”

  “By the time I showed up,” Cade called once more, “he was outside in boxers, kissing her goodbye.”

  “And I did not kiss her,” I yelled back. “Get your damn eyesight checked.”

  Daniel seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, if the smirk on his face was any indication. “Didn’t kiss her, huh? What, are you losing your touch in your old age?”

  “She’s a nice girl,” I grumbled.

  A snort echoed from the bathroom.

  “She is,” I stressed. “Her brother’s a friend of Jason’s for God’s sake.”

  And at that announcement, the apartment went silent. Cade even walked out of the bathroom, zipping up his jeans, to stare at me. “I’m-too-busy-to-have-fun-or-show-up-for-practice-Jason?” His brow shot upward. “Really?”

  “Didn’t know he had any friends,” Daniel added.

  “Well, Leah says he’s her brother’s best friend.” That was what she’d said, surprising as it was to imagine Jason having friends, let alone a best one.

  “What’s her name, again? The receptionist?” Cade retrieved his MacBook from the coffee table and dropped onto the arm of the sofa next to Daniel.

  “Leah,” Daniel
replied, glancing at Cade’s screen.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, narrowing my eyes on my friends.

  “Going to Facebook,” Cade said, then he typed away on his keyboard. “Leah what?”

  “What are you going to do? Stalk her?” That felt creepy all of a sudden. I’d never even thought about doing that before.

  “You don’t think she’s looking at your page?” Cade asked, not bothering to look up from his computer.

  My stomach twisted a bit. “God, I hope not,” I muttered. There were some pretty wild pictures on there. Girl after different girl after different girl.

  “Just go to Jason’s page,” Daniel suggested. “You can find her brother from there. Follow the breadcrumbs.”

  “Cade,” I grumbled a warning, not that either of them paid me any attention.

  “Wow,” Daniel said in surprise.

  What? What had they seen? Had they found Leah? Was she on Jason’s page? I bolted from my spot on the love seat and walked over behind the sofa to look over the edge at Cade’s computer screen. There was nothing on the laptop except Jason’s home page. His arrogant profile picture, a panoramic shot of the Smoky Mountains as his banner, and…

  “Shit,” I said.

  “How in the world does he have forty-eight hundred friends?” Cade asked in wonder.

  The number was staggering, especially for Jason Cole. He was by far the least social of all of us. He never wanted to hang out. He never wanted to sit back with a beer. He never wanted to do much of anything except sing and then leave. But apparently 4822 people on Facebook saw things differently. How the hell was that even possible?

  Jason’s surprising popularity worked to my benefit, however. It wouldn’t be easy for Cade and Daniel to find Leah’s brother if the plan had been to sift through Jason’s handful of friends looking for the guy. I rose back up to my full height, confident in their failure and said, “Well, good luck with your search.”

  Then I made my way back to my bedroom, shut the door behind me and opened up my own computer. Checking Leah out on Facebook wasn’t a bad idea, not that I wanted my friends to know that. I didn’t really want to share her or anything about her with them. But in the privacy of my own room… Well, her page could give me a little insight. What music did she like? Which movies? And… Maybe find out who her boyfriend was. Following those breadcrumbs Daniel had mentioned.