Beautiful Burn (Maddox Brothers #4)

by Jamie McGuire

  The Tyler on the ground wasn’t sure what to think, while the one standing was clearly ready for war.

  Zeke pointed to the Tyler I’d just mauled. “Ellie, that’s Taylor, Tyler’s twin brother.”

  “Oh, fucking hell,” I said. They weren’t just twins, they were reflections. I couldn’t see a single difference. “What … why didn’t you tell me?” I cried.

  “Shit. That’s Ellie?” Taylor asked, holding up his hands, palms out. “You didn’t tell me she worked here!”

  Tyler pointed at his brother. “You didn’t even get her fucking name before shoving your goddamn tongue down her throat?”

  “Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Taylor said, sitting up slowly. “Don’t act like you haven’t done it a thousand times, fuck stick.”

  “You know better than that shit, Taylor! We always make sure. What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “She…” he said, looking at me. “I asked about Zeke! I asked her about you! She didn’t act like … she didn’t say anything!”

  “Did you say my fucking name when you asked her, or did you just ask about your brother? It’s not the first time someone’s been confused.”

  Taylor shrugged, sheepish, and Tyler moved toward him.

  I held out my hands. “I kissed him!” I blurted out.

  Tyler froze.

  “I kissed him!” I said again, touching my chest with one hand, the other still held out toward Tyler. “This isn’t his fault!”

  Taylor stood up and brushed snow and mud off his coat and pants, red-faced and teeth clenched.

  Tyler glared at his brother. “I owe you one, dick.”

  “Fine, you owe me one.” He glanced at me. “Nice to meet you, Ellie.”

  “That’s it?” Tyler growled.

  Taylor’s jaws danced beneath the skin. “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding.”

  My shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry, too.”

  Taylor disappeared behind the storage building with Zeke not far behind. Tyler rolled back his shoulders and looked down on me with disappointment in his eyes.

  “No,” I said, pointing at him. “You don’t get to be jealous. You barely know me.”

  “I’m not jealous. That was my brother, Ellie.”

  “Please,” I sneered. “Like this hasn’t happened before. Just based on the forty-five minutes I’ve spent with both of you combined, I’m fairly certain you’ve shared a dozen or more women at some point. Maybe without even knowing it.”

  “No,” Tyler said, nearly pouting. “We have a system. It usually works.”

  “I have to go back in.”

  “Ellie?”

  “Yeah?” I said, annoyed.

  “Were you telling the truth or were you just trying to avoid a fight?”

  “What?”

  “You said you kissed him … thinking it was me.”

  “So?”

  “I thought you said you didn’t do repeats.”

  I sighed. “I’m going to be straight with you, Tyler. I fucked up. My parents cut me off. I’m broke, and I need this job. I did something terrible to my sister, and I’m trying to change so if and when she finds out, she’ll know I’m not that person anymore.”

  One side of Tyler’s mouth curled up, and the same dimple on his left cheek appeared.

  I pressed my lips into a hard line. “This was just a weak moment. I don’t do repeats. Especially, definitely not now.”

  Tyler processed my words, nodding once. “Fair enough.”

  I breathed out a laugh. “Okay, then. Enjoy Colorado Springs.”

  “Colorado Springs?” Tyler asked, confused. Recognition lit in his eyes, and he seemed embarrassed for me. “Oh. That’s Taylor.”

  My cheeks burned. “I’m glad I’m staying away from you. The twin thing is too much for me sober.”

  Tyler laughed and reached out, offering a low, small wave as he began to walk away. “Goodbye, Ellie Edson. It’s been fun.”

  “Fun Ellie is dead. All that’s left is broke-and-alone Ellie,” I teased.

  Tyler stopped. “She’s not dead. Just transitioning. Like a butterfly.”

  “That’s deep, Maddox.”

  “I’ve been deeper,” he said with a smirk, pulling his cap down low, just like his brother had less than ten minutes before, and walked away.

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head, pulling open the back door. Wick and Jojo nearly fell forward, and then pretended—poorly—to be doing something other than eavesdropping.

  “Am I fired?” I asked.

  “Fired?” Jojo asked. “Hell no! That’s the most fun I’ve had at work since Daddy built this place!”

  Wick held up a cigarette and squeezed by, and I followed Jojo inside. She went to her desk and I went to mine, staring at my computer for a full minute before I could focus.

  “Ellie?” Jojo called over the speaker.

  I pressed the button. “Yes?”

  “Did you quit cold turkey?”

  “Um … yes?”

  “Daddy is nine years sober. We’re impressed.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. No more breaks today.”

  “Understood.” I let go of the button and covered my eyes with my hand. The new Ellie’s paint wasn’t even dry, and I’d already managed to ding the first door that had opened. I rubbed my temples, feeling another headache. I wanted a drink; my mouth felt dry, and my mind toyed with having José stop at the liquor store on the way home.

  “Ellie?” Jojo said from the doorway, startling me.

  I pulled my hand away from my face. “Yes?”

  “You’re going the right direction. No one does anything perfectly the first time. It’s going to be okay.”

  No one could have said anything better to me in that instant. Those three simple sentences set my soul at ease.

  “Thank you,” was all I could manage.

  Jojo winked at me and returned to her desk.

  I clicked a few times to navigate to the computer’s settings, and then selected Change Username/Password.

  USERNAME: ELLIE2POINT0

  PASSWORD: RIGHTDIRECTION001

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Bluegrass played through ceiling speakers placed throughout the MountainEar building. I thumbed through a stack of pictures from the recent half marathon, shaking my head.

  “You don’t like the music. I figured you were a rock chick,” Wick said, walking into my office.

  “I tune out the music,” I said, laying the pictures down on my desk, fanned out. “It’s the pictures. They’re terrible, Wick. Who took them?”

  “She’s right,” Jojo said, sitting on the loveseat across from me. She crossed her legs, her snow boots still wet from her walk inside. “I’ve seen them. They suck. You’ve got to quit letting Mike turn in that crap. Just quit using him period.”

  Wick frowned. “There’s no one else.”

  I nodded toward Jojo. “Her coverage of the art walk was stellar. Why not just use Jojo?”

  Jojo smiled and stood. “Because Jojo has an office to run.”

  “Who took those?” Wick asked, pointing to the frames on my desk.

  “Oh,” I said, turning them slightly. “I did. Just something to remind me what I’m trying to do.”

  Jojo walked around my desk, picking up a frame holding a picture I’d taken at my parents’ house the weekend before. I had snapped just half of the black and white portrait of Finley hanging in my parents’ main hall—taken when she was just fourteen. Even back then, she was stunning.

  “You took this? Who is this?” Jojo asked.

  “My sister,” I said, my voice quiet. I hadn’t spoken to Finley since I’d woken up next to Sterling. She had left me a few voicemails, but she also understood that I might not want to chat about her vacation by the sea while I was stuck in a snow globe.

  “It’s actually pretty good,” Jojo said. She looked at Wick, and he agreed. She picked up another frame, and then set it down. “What camera are you usi
ng?”

  I shrugged. “Just a point-and-shoot my sister bought me. A Nikon, I think. It’s over there.” I pointed to a bag in the corner.

  Jojo strutted over and rifled through my things, pulling out the camera and holding it up. “I started with this one. I can teach you a few basics over lunch. Take some pictures tonight, and show me tomorrow.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because your job description might broaden.”

  “I’d love to do lunch, but I’m sort of on a budget. I brought a sandwich from home.”

  “It’s your fourth payday. You can’t afford lunch yet?” she scoffed. When I didn’t answer, she continued, “My treat. Don’t bother arguing. I’ll win.”

  Wick nodded. “She’s right.”

  “Okay. I have a few things to wrap up first.”

  Jojo left for her desk, and Wick disappeared into his office, closing the door. I was glad he was in a good mood. Thoughts of Sterling and the many possible reactions Finley could have about our moment of temporary insanity ran on a loop in my brain, and I was working on maybe three hours of sleep.

  I finished answering Wick’s emails, and then pushed my roller chair away from my desk. The phone buzzed.

  “Ellie, line one,” Jojo squawked over the speaker.

  “For me?”

  “Yep.”

  I picked up the phone and pushed the button for line one, wondering if it was a bartender complaining about something not working at Turk’s, or Mike hoping I’d give him good news about his crap pictures.

  “This is Ellie,” I said, waiting for several seconds until the voice on the other end began to speak.

  “I’m … I’m sorry to call you at work. Congratulations on the job, by the way.”

  I hunched over, as if that would help to muffle the conversation. “You can’t call me here, Sterling.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. But Finley isn’t returning my calls.”

  I rolled my eyes. “She never returns your calls. Stop being paranoid, and stop calling me. Don’t think I don’t remember you passing me whatever the fuck that pill was. What did you do? Roofie me?”

  “I—this isn’t my fault.”

  “Then whose fault is it?” I hissed. “I don’t even remember what happened.”

  “Neither do I!” he snapped. “You were upset. It was supposed to just make us chill. It was something new I scored from Preston.”

  “Preston?” I hissed. “You gave me something you got from Preston? You could have killed us both!”

  “You didn’t have to take it. You can’t put this all on me.”

  “I trusted you,” I said, gripping the phone and trying to yell at him as quietly as possible. “But you’re right. I accept my part in what happened. You might love her, but she’s my sister. I’m trying to turn things around so I can prove to her that—if she does find out—I’ve changed.”

  “You can’t tell her,” Sterling said, sounding desperate.

  “I won’t. But you know best of all, Sterling. Finley always finds out. She knew I cut her Barbie’s hair and she wasn’t even home. We hosted a birthday party that weekend. It could have been anyone, but she knew it was me.”

  Sterling laughed once. “I remember that story.” He was quiet for half a second. “You’re right. We’re fucked.”

  I closed my eyes. My lips skimmed the speaker as I spoke. “This is not we. I don’t want to talk to you anymore, Sterling. You’re on your own.”

  “Ellie…”

  I hung up the phone and sighed, pushing away from the desk and gathering my things for lunch with Jojo.

  She was standing by the door waiting for me when I rounded the corner. I followed her to her Outback and ducked inside, hugging myself for warmth. Jojo seemed oblivious to the cold, twisting the ignition like she wasn’t wearing huge sleeping bags for gloves.

  “You brought your camera, right?” she asked.

  I held up my bag.

  “I figured we’d try Camp’s Café. The food isn’t farm-to-table or organic or any of that shit, so it’s tourist free, and one of the quieter places, so I can show you some tricks on your Nikon. I’m excited to see what you can do. You seem like a natural.”

  I laughed once.

  “What?” Jojo asked, pulling out onto the road and poking at the heater setting with her mittens.

  “That’s what Finley said. My sister.”

  “Well, she was right. Maybe we can start covering things other than the farmer’s market and wandering wildlife.”

  Jojo parked in the alley in a space meant for the townhouses spanning the entire block. She didn’t seem to be worried, stepping out and slamming the car door. We walked together, and I followed her past dumpsters and oil vats through a dirty screen door into the back kitchen.

  “Jojo!” one of the cooks called.

  Jojo waved, and then gestured for me to follow her past the pantry area, beyond the grill, and then the cash register.

  “The same!” Jojo called. “Two!”

  The woman behind the counter nodded and yelled back to her staff. “Two Jojos!”

  We pulled off our coats, scarves, gloves, and hats, and sat them beside us in a booth by the window.

  “You have your own sandwich? That’s kind of cool.”

  “Not really. I just order the same thing every time, and you’re going to love it, too. A fried biscuit with avocado, a medium fried egg on top, and their special sauce. It’s Korean or something, which is weird for a country cooking kind of place, but it’s f—it’s good. Trust me.”

  I frowned. That didn’t sound appetizing at all, but it was a free meal and better than turkey meat on plain wheat bread, so I wasn’t going to complain.

  I handed Jojo my camera, and she told me all about exposure, aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. She had me play around with the different creative modes on the camera—the P, A, S, and M—showed me how they were used, and then educated me on why they were superior to the icon modes.

  By the time I scarfed down the weird but delicious Jojo biscuit, I was already adjusting the camera and taking a few shots of the café and outside.

  Jojo clicked through them, shaking her head. I bit my nails, waiting for judgment.

  “Ridiculous,” she said. She handed me back my camera. “You really have an eye. Wick is going to shit, because he’s getting ready to lose his assistant.”

  “No,” I said, waving her away. “Really?”

  Jojo grinned, putting her elbows on the table and leaning in. “Really. You’ll still be helping at the office and cleaning his coffee table, I’m sure, but you’re going to be great. I can tell.”

  “I’m not a journalist. I can’t write. I paid someone to do my papers in college.”

  Jojo made a face. “You had to write papers for a degree in ceramics?”

  I closed my eyes, embarrassed. “Yes.”

  Jojo cackled, and I laughed with her, really laughed, for the first time in a long time.

  “Thank you,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “I didn’t know I could laugh like that sober.”

  Jojo rested her chin on the heel of her hand. “I know you’re supposed to be some kind of family fuck-up, but you’re not that bad. I can’t imagine you’ve changed that much in a month.”

  “It’s amazing what detox and responsibility will do for a girl,” I said, only half-teasing.

  “You’ve been doing so well. Not one slip-up.”

  “It’s hard to drink or buy weed when you’re broke. And even if I had, I wouldn’t tell my boss.”

  “I’m not your boss, and you’re not a liar. It’s not just about the money, Ellie, and it’s kind of sad, because I’ve been watching you work so hard, you’re still waiting to get it wrong.”

  “That’s not true,” I said, shaking my head and fidgeting with my water glass.

  Jojo breathed out a small laugh, and then began gathering her things. “Let’s go. You have work to do.”

  Jojo dropped me off a block from the magazine,
and I bent down, glaring at her through the open passenger side window. The exhaust was puffing from the back of her car, and my breath didn’t look much different.

  “Really? Is this photography Survivor? It’s like nine degrees.”

  Jojo waved at me. “There are some interesting things this way. I want to see how you see it.”

  “Fine.”

  “See you in a bit,” she said with a shit-eating grin.

  My camera was cold against my skin, and I struggled to change the settings with my stiff fingers while Jojo pulled away, heading for the back lot behind our building.

  I turned around, seeing an old house, and leaned back to see the antennae. I took a practice shot and checked it, tuned the settings again, and took another. When the display filled with my shot, I smiled. Jojo was right. Automatic mode sucked ass. It was a world of difference knowing how the adjustments would affect the picture.

  I walked down the road, away from the MountainEar, getting lost in taking shots and then watching how the quality changed with the different variations of ISO, shutter speed, and exposure time. I took close-ups of leaves with snow, roofs with snow, broken down cars covered in snow, windows panes with snow … There was a lot of snow in my shots, but I made it work.

  “Did you get fired?” Tyler, or Taylor, said from across the street. “Zeke and I have a bet going how long you’ll last.” He was squinting one eye against the setting sun, and I turned around, noticing it was peeking behind the mountains. I pulled back my coat sleeve to look at my watch. I’d been outside in freezing temps for two and half hours and had barely noticed.

  “Which one are you?” I asked, putting away my camera.

  He chuckled. “Tyler. Are you an insurance adjuster or something?” he asked with a smile.

  “No. I’m taking pictures for the magazine now.”

  “They must be hurting for help,” he teased.

  “Fuck off,” I said, turning to walk the three blocks back to my building. Tyler had been standing in front of his station. I hadn’t realized I’d walked that far, either.

  “Hey,” he called. I could hear his boots sloshing against the wet street and crunching against the rock salt before he reached me. “I was kidding.”

  “So was I,” I said, continuing down the sidewalk.