Another Life: Another Life Series #1

by Jasmine Denton

  As Shane came closer, he looked genuine and sincere, but she reminded herself to be wary.For all she knew, that story was complete bullshit and was only intended to lull her into this false sense of safety.

  He was quiet now, and she knew she had the floor. It was her turn to say something, anything. She wanted to tell him the truth: that his story suddenly made her understand exactly what was motivating him, and the idea was sweet but she thought she was too far gone for help. And she didn’t want to drag him back down to that dark place he’d obviously worked so hard to overcome. “So that’s how you get off,” she found herself saying. Once again, she couldn’t control her tongue. Her mind and body were on separate pages and now, she was stuck on defensive mode. “By acting like the big hero to the poor damaged girl.”

  His eyes widened, just enough to let her know it stung. Then he laughed lightly, shaking his head, like he’d known all along that this conversation would be too heavy for her. “Ouch,” he said quietly, standing from the pool table. “Anybody ever tell you that you’re like an electric fence? Get too close and zap!”

  Good, she thought, then it worked. Now he’d never know how much that story rattled her.

  With a smirk, he headed over to a cabinet on the other side of the room. Opening it, he took out a pair of boxing gloves. “Why don’t you work out some of that frustration?”

  She followed his gaze to the punching bag suspended from the ceiling. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. You’re obviously pissed off about something. You can let it stew and stew and stew, or…” He swiped the bottle from her hands, prompting a sound of surprise from her. He offered her one of the gloves instead. “You could try letting it out.”

  Reluctantly, she pulled on one of the gloves and held her other hand out. He slid the thick, cushioned mitten around her hand. “This feels silly,” she said.

  “I know.” Taking her by the shoulders, he guided her over to the punching bag. “Just give it a try.”

  She threw a half-hearted swing, but the tough, thick leather absorbed it with barely a sound. Hearing Shane snicker prompted a small spark of anger and she tried again, a little harder this time.

  “Plant your feet,” he said. “Tuck your elbows in and keep your right arm relaxed, but tight.”

  “Oh, is that all?” With a little difficulty, she positioned herself as he instructed. She swung a solid punch at the bag and caused it to move a little.

  “That’s good,” he said, walking around to plant himself behind the bag and hold it in place. “But you’re not putting your anger into it. You obviously don’t like to talk about your problems. So don’t. Hit about them instead.”

  “Yeah, that sounds healthy,” she chuckled.

  “Just do it,” he said. “Think of something that pisses you off.”

  The first thing that came to mind was the little girl he’d described, and how tragically everything went wrong from there. Using that as her starting point, she gave the bag a hard punch. Next, she remembered the way she’d felt when she woke up in the hotel room, tricked into a marriage withJulian.Swinging with her left arm, she scolded herself for being stupid enough to believe Julian would destroy the evidence instead of keeping it. She was always doing stupid things, and getting herself into mess after mess.

  “That’s better,” he said, his voice encouraging. “Picture the one who hurt you and let them have it.”

  In her mind, she was running through the woods, searching for safety. Running to avoid getting attacked again by someone she’d once trusted. Like her mind was directly connected to her fists, she began to wildly vent with heated, powerful blows.

  She was stuck here, trapped by all the things she couldn’t say. All because in one moment of madness when she’d decided she wasn’t going to take it anymore, she’d gotten herself way in over her head. And along the way, she’d lost the only thing that had made her years of suffering worthwhile.

  As she angrily punched away, her mind gurgled up old wounds and memories from the darkest places. Things she never let enter her mind suddenly found their way in. She remembered the child Anne had ripped from her arms. Anne was always so quick to assume Cameron was beyond saving, so when her disappointing, rebellious niece got herself knocked up, she’d given her only once choice: adoption. It was for Cameron to decide if the baby went to an agency or to Anne, and she’d chosen the option that kept him in her life.

  Stupidly.

  If she’d been thinking clearly, she would’ve known that watching her own son being raised by another woman would be absolute torture. She would’ve realized that hearing Brady call Anne “mama” would break her heart. But that was a lesson she learned the hard way.

  Though she hadn’t realized it, she’d been hammering at the punching bag with force she didn’t even know she had. With one last punch, she was sucked back into the present. Winded, her breathing came in heavy, ragged gasps and she realized her cheeks were wet with tears. She was afraid to raise her eyes to meet Shane’s, knowing that she would see his empathy, and afraid he would see exactly how much pain she was hiding. Backing up, terrified by the show of vulnerability, she pulled the gloves off her hands and threw them down.

  Only then did she raise her eyes to meet his, and she knew he could see her. The real her, beneath the masks of sarcasm and sexuality. It was enough to send her running.

  She turned, heading straight for the bottle on the coffee table. He said nothing as she chugged half of what was left, leaving only about two inches of alcohol in the bottom. It was as if he understood that she needed it, and she appreciated his silence.

  While her breathing slowed, she walked over to the patio doors and looked out at the rain storm. Flashes of lightning lit the sky periodically, followed by a clap or two of thunder. Water flowed from the sky in never-ending streams, drenching the earth below.

  She felt Shane come up behind her, and in the glass door’s reflection she could see his face and the non-judgmental, comforting look on it. “My mom would take me outside to play during storms,” he said, smiling a little. “She’d point to the sky and say, ‘the rain washes everything clean, gives us a chance to start over.”

  Chapter Seven

  Shane sat on the couch, watching a poker game on television. His feet were propped up on the coffee table. The doors across the room were open to reveal Cameron sleeping on his bed. Around three in the morning, she’d reached the exhausted stage of intoxication and gotten so sleepy that he’d guided her to the bed, ignoring her drunken offers to join.

  Every once in awhile, he would glance over at her sleeping form and wonder what was going on inside her head. Just like he wondered what events had been replaying in her mind while she’d pummeled his punching bag. He wondered if she would ever let anybody know what was making her so sad.

  There was a knock at the door. The three short, firm rasps signaled Chad’s presence even before Shane opened the door to see him standing outside.

  “Funny thing happened,” Chad said, leaning against the doorframe casually. “I stopped in to see if you’d help me find Cameron because she’s flown the coop again, and surprise…her car’s parked outside.”

  “Yeah,” he started. “She got caught out in the rain. The roads were really bad, so—”

  “Sam’s been going nuts. Convinced she’s DUI’d herself straight into a tree. You couldn’t have called?”

  “As far as not knowing where she’s at, it’s not all that different from the last few years,” he said. “Except now you know what she does in her spare time and it has you freaked.”

  “Where did that come from?” Chad asked, stepping inside the apartment. One survey of the room and he discovered Cameron asleep. His eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  Shane realized how bad it looked, even before Chad found another piece of evidence.

  “Dude…” he warned as he reached down beside the couch.He picked up the empty bottle of Jack Daniels and turned a glare to his friend, his eyes full of question. “
What’s this about?”

  “It’s not what you think,” he said, and he began to explain about Cameron’s car getting stuck in the mud. “She was going to go home and drink anyway, but she said she was dreading it because she knew you guys would only yell at her. So I invited her over here.”

  “How cool of you,” Chad quipped sarcastically.

  “She just needed some space. Somewhere to chill.”

  “Yeah? And what did you need?” He waved the bottle. “A quick fix?”

  Shane narrowed his eyes. “You think I was drinking with her.”

  “Were you?”

  “No,” he said, his stiff voice coming out more hatefully than he’d intended. “And I hope that someday you won’t look so doubtful when you hear me say it.”

  “You don’t need to be around this, man. She’s no good for you.” His tone was steady and certain, and Shane knew that Chad had made up his mind on this one.Chad was often coming to conclusions based on judgments and half-truths, and once his mind was set, there was no changing it. “Not with the way she lives.”

  “You’ve got the wrong idea.”

  “Oh, come on!” Realizing he was shouting, Chad stopped and rolled his eyes. Reluctantly, he walked over and closed the doors to Shane’s room, shutting Cameron inside. Turning to Shane, he continued in a low, controlled voice. “You’ve had your eye on her since the second she got here, don’t pretend you haven’t. Then you give her the job and carry her home when she’s drunk. Just what are trying to do, exactly?”

  “I’m just trying to help her,” he said. “Why is that so hard for everyone to understand? Because I had to spend half the night convincing her that I didn’t lure her here under false pretenses, too.”

  Quiet, and finally listening, Chad sank to sit on the couch. “I’m sorry. It’s just…I mean, you realize how this looks.”

  “Yeah, you’ve made it clear,” he said with a frustrated sigh. “But I’m just trying to help her the way you did for me. And if you drag her out of here the way you did at the bar the other night, she’s going to hate you. You already have her thinking she can’t come to you. You want to prove her right?”

  “Shane, you’re projecting a lot onto this. You had reasons for doing what you did. Your life was hell, you had no guidance. It’s different.”

  “I don’t think it is,” he said. Uncomfortable under Chad’s scrutiny, he headed over to the entertainment center and dug out two controllers for his Xbox 360. “I mean, I don’t know what exactly is pushing her to all the things that drive you crazy. But I know it’s something. And you can’t rush these things.” He offered one of the controllers to Chad as he sat down next to him on the couch. “You know how it works. They tell you when they trust you, on their own timetable and terms. We just have to wait it out.”

  Chad was quiet as he let Shane’s words sink in. “When did you get so wise?”

  He shrugged. “I had this friend who taught me all about being a decent guy.”

  ***

  Sitting at the bar in the Tavern, Sadie nursed a cocktail while looking over notes for her show later. Though she was trying to work, she couldn’t help but think about Chad, and how unexpected it’d been when her feelings for him grew. Growing so much in a few short years, apparently into much more than he was ready for, given how the attempt at a double date turned into a debacle.

  She’d been there for him when Amy broke his heart, pulled him out of some dark times, listened for hours about the guilt he felt. And she’d gone into it expecting nothing more than to help, but she had no control over her heart, or what it wanted. For the last year, she’d struggled to hide these feelings and remain his friend. She even kept dating as a way of making herself forget about wanting a relationship with him, but every time he smiled at her, she just wanted to blurt out ‘I love you!’

  Now, as she nursed a broken heart along with her drink, she was reminded of all the reasons she’d kept her feelings for Chad hidden. She’d known it’d be too much for him to handle and he would freak out. And he had freaked. Even though he’d acted cool, she could see that her confession rattled him.

  Maybe she should talk about unrequited love on the show tonight, she realized. Leaning over her notebook, she started to jot down notes on the topics she would touch on.

  A shadow crossed her page as someone blocked the light, causing her to look up. Seeing a guy with a beer in his hand, and several others on his breath, she rolled her eyes. He had that ‘I’m going to hit on you’ cheesy grin.

  “Can I buy you a beer?” he asked.

  “No thank you,” she said, turning her attention back to her notebook.

  “Aw, come on, Sadie.”

  Glancing up, she looked at him suspiciously. “I didn’t tell you my name.”

  “No, Ethan did.” The guy leaned against the counter, coming closer to her. “He said you’re a real wildcat in the sack.”

  On reflex, she felt her mouth drop open. After the initial shock wore off, she realized she should’ve known Ethan was just another bragging college jerk. And she remembered a few instances where Chad had tried to warn her, but she’d been stubborn.

  The guy seemed to skillfully pick up on the humiliation. “I know he’s a jerk,” he said, trying to salvage his pick-up, “but I can show you a good time.”

  The shock and embarrassment quickly turned to anger. “You know what; you might be on to something there.” Leaning in close to him, she reached for her drink. Then she dumped it on his head, covering him in chunks of blue ice and vodka. People turned to look as he gasped from the shock of the cold drink. They started to laugh, pulling out their phones to take pictures.

  Giggling, she set the cup back on the counter. “You were right, that was fun.”

  “You’re a bitch,” he said, shooting her a glare.

  When he leveled that angered look on her, she felt something go completely still inside her. And she realized she felt like she was in danger.

  “She’s just not interested,” a male voice said from somewhere behind her. Turning, she looked over her shoulder. Eyes widening as she looked at the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. Dressed in a pair of blue-jeans and a clean, bright white button up shirt, he looked like he’d just stepped off the cover of a J. Crew catalog.

  The guy turned his glare on the cuter one. “Yeah? And who the hell are you?”

  “Just a casual observer.” The guy stepped up and took a bar stool a few seats away from Sadie. “But don’t worry. I think you still have a chance with Rosey Palm and her five friends.”

  The guy shot him a dirty look before walking away.

  Sadie chuckled as the loser walked away defeated. “Asshole,” she muttered as she turned back to her work.

  “You showed him,” the other guy said. “Nice moves, by the way.”

  “Thanks,” she said, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “He was a pig.”

  “Guys can be imbeciles,” he said with an agreeing nod.

  “You say guys like it doesn’t include you,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Oh, don’t be fooled,” he said with a light laugh. “I’m the biggest imbecile out there.”

  She chuckled. “Well, at least you’re honest.”

  “Hey, I recognize your voice.” He swiveled on the barstool to look at her. “Say something else for me.”

  He put her on the spot and she froze. Finally she managed to come up with a not-so-smooth, “What do you want me to say?”

  “That’s it!” He snapped his fingers with a triumphant grin. “You’re the girl from Southern Comfort. Sadie, right?”

  She felt herself blushing. It never stopped being strange when people recognized her from the show. “That’s my show,” she said, with a nod. “Are you a listener?”

  “Since I got to town a few days ago,” he said, giving her a smile that could make any girl weak in the knees. “I like the quirky outlook you have. But I gotta say, I thought you’d be blond.”

  “You’d be surp
rised how much I hear that.”

  “I like you better as a redhead,” he said. “It suits you.”

  “Thanks for the fashion tip,” she said, although she’d always been fond of her auburn colored hair. “So, you’re not from around here?”

  “I’m from up North,” he said. “So, I’m wondering, if I offer to buy you a drink, will you pour it on my head?”

  She laughed. “No, probably not.”

  “Great.” He stretched his arm across the empty seats between them to shake her hand. “I’m Julian.”

  Taking his hand, she felt herself smile. “Nice to meet you, Julian.”

  ***

  Cameron shoved the stick straight into her attacker’s eye. He stumbled back, horrified, screaming while a mix of blood and ooze started pouring out of the wound. She stood to her feet, braced and ready for him. Seeing the pain he was in, seeing the horror, brought a sick little smile to her lips.

  Then she kicked him and beat at him with her fists. And she kept kicking him until he fell to his knees, then to the ground. He curled up in an attempt to protect himself, but she was lost in outrage. Years of bottled up pain spilled out and she screamed like a madwoman as she took her revenge. Without even realizing how she’d gotten her hands on his knife, she plunged the blade straight into his gut and finally felt her anger cease. It felt like a guitar string had snapped and, though her rage was gone, now everything was out of tune, off kilter.

  She stumbled back. Breathless, panting. The rapid sound of her heartbeat was all she could hear. Boom, boom, boom…

  Huddled on the ground, blood pooled around him. He wasn’t moving. Wasn’t breathing. And an entirely new fear was born.

  As soon as she made it back to her car, she called Julian for help. In minutes, she saw his headlights through her rearview mirror. A car pulled up behind her, but she waited to make sure it was Julian.

  A feeling of relief washed over her when she saw him. Shoving open her car door, she ran and wrapped her arms around him. Clinging to his solid, familiar body, she took a slow deep breath of relief and gratitude. Julian was here now. He would make everything better.