by Kat Bastion
He pressed the automatic door lock and a loud click sounded before he slammed his door shut and ran off.
Inhale. Exhale.
My legs began to bounce too as nervous energy spun tighter and tighter inside me. I needed to tear off after him. I could convince myself he wasn’t in his right mind and didn’t realize that even with the doors locked, I wasn’t safe against some thug with a gun or a baseball bat. But really, a need to somehow protect him from an unknown threat, and an overriding curiosity about the man who shared very little about his life, won out.
I jumped out, relocked the doors before shoving mine shut, then ran after him into the lobby. The elevator doors were just closing. I watched as each floor number momentarily lit up until the one farthest right stayed illuminated: 5.
Searching around the corner, I found the stairwell.
“Piece of cake,” I muttered under my breath as I leapt onto the first step, then jogged upward. “Like a metal mountain.”
Echoes bounced off the walls from my footfalls.
My thighs began burning between the third and fourth floors. On my way up to the fifth, my pace slowed.
An incredibly steep metal mountain.
Sucking serious wind, I reached the fifth-floor landing. But before I opened the door, I heard a low creak then a louder clang from somewhere above. I glanced up, contemplating. Only five floors total. That had to be the roof.
I inhaled deeply, trying to calm my breaths. Then I grasped the handle and eased open the fifth-floor door. I leaned my head inside the hall. All was quiet. No hum of the elevator. No footsteps or voices.
I chewed on my lower lip, then stared upward again. I figured the odds were fifty-fifty. Darren either went to the roof, or a tenant was up there smoking a joint—or growing an entire marijuana garden. Hell, maybe on Tuesday nights, the building threw a rooftop barbeque.
Steeling my nerves, preparing myself for whatever unknown lay ahead, I pivoted on my heel and jogged the last flight up to the rooftop. I’d already gone rogue by leaving the truck. No point in wimping out now.
Cool air feathered over my face as I climbed the last few steps. The door stood ajar a few inches, propped open with a weathered red brick.
Muffled voices filtered through the crack as I pressed a palm to the cold metal door and pushed it open. The familiar creak sounded out again after I stepped through, but I gripped the edge of the door, preventing it from crashing into the brick.
I moved away from the door, creeping forward, drawn toward the voices. A dark figure came into view, beyond a cluster of vent stacks.
Darren. I knew his posture anywhere: wide stance, arms crossed, which broadened his shoulders and made normally large him seem even more imposing. His head tilted slightly, expression softening.
He inhaled a slow breath before letting it out. “Please, Lo. Get off the ledge.”
My heart shot into my throat. Ledge?
A few more steps, and I reached the vent stacks. Five feet in height, they no longer hid me from view. Still, I hovered in the warmer air beside them, trying not to intrude.
“No, D.” A female voice. “You don’t need to save me. You can’t. I just…needed you here.”
Another couple of steps to the side, and I’d be able to see who “Lo” was. Well, her shape mostly. Two industrial lights on either side of the stairwell door behind me cast the pair hovering near the building’s edge in hazy shadow. All I could make out was that she had tousled dark hair and wore a faded jeans jacket.
He opened his arms, reaching for her. “You’re scaring me. I hate it when you come here.”
“No!” She blasted an open palm toward Darren.
I froze, terrified of what she might do.
A broken sob tore free from her throat. “I…just needed to be here with her. And you.”
One more step brought me a little closer. Then another. Some internal need drove me slowly forward, as if I could help more than just Darren.
A rock crunched under my shoe.
Both of them jerked around to face me.
“I told you to wait in the truck,” he growled.
“Who’s that?” The girl asked, brows furrowed. She twisted further around to face me.
My focus was stuck on her precarious position, and how she now had one hip hung over the edge of her perch. I’d done that. I’d made her turn, possibly worsening the situation.
In the dim light, her features struck me as familiar, but I couldn’t place from where. I swallowed hard, already committed. “I’m Kiki.”
“Sounds like a pet’s name.”
I let out a short laugh, mostly from nervousness. Then I clasped my hands together in front of my chin, silently pleading with her, Darren—the universe at large—that my presence in this unpredictable standoff would only be a good thing.
Darren narrowed his eyes at me.
I shrugged. “You asked me to stay in the truck. I took your request under advisement, then declined.”
Lo snorted.
I dropped my hands to my hips. “And it is a pet name. Kiki is short for Katherine.”
Darren recrossed his arms, continuing to glare at me.
“I’m Logan.”
“And she was just about to come away from the ledge,” Darren grumbled.
“No. I wasn’t. Kiki was about to join me.”
I was?
Unbelievably, his expression hardened further. “No, she isn’t.”
The challenge in his booming voice pricked the daredevil side of me.
“Yes, she is.” I had no idea what made me say that, or why I stepped the rest of the way toward them. But I went with the crazy idea, heart pounding faster and faster as I approached the ledge on the other side of Logan.
When I glanced down at her, a flash of bright pink glimmered from amid darker locks of hair. Recognition hit. The girl with the guitar from his garage band.
Only back then, I’d thought they were close, romantically. Now, I didn’t get that feeling. Too much irritation hummed in the air around us and none of it had to do with me being there.
Darren simply stared at me, jaw dropping with an incredulous expression, while I lowered myself down with tremendous care.
Yeah…no way in hell I’m biting it off the edge of a building tonight.
Logan gave him a put-out look. One that said trust me.
When Darren still didn’t move, I tilted my head, giving him what I hoped was a reassuring look. “I’ve got this.” I mouthed. Then I nodded toward where I’d been standing, where I’d been able to hear their conversation more clearly.
His jaw shut and he cast me a doubtful expression. But he finally moved away from us and toward the shadowed area of the vent stacks.
“Nice to finally meet you, Kiki. I knew someone had to be dragging Darren away.” She leaned toward me, lowering her voice. “Bet he didn’t tell you about me.”
“No,” I admitted quietly. “Didn’t realize I was a secret either.”
She shrugged. “He’s pretty protective of me.”
Everything began weighing heavier as information was revealed—against Darren’s plan.
And as the seconds ticked by, a phrase he’d said more than once kept repeating in my brain. It’s complicated.
I had a strong feeling she was the complication. “Nice to meet you too, Logan.”
She glanced at me, narrowing her eyes a fraction as if assessing my worth. Then her lips twitched and she gave a slight nod. Like she’d decided to induct me into the members-only club the two of them belonged too. “I’m Darren’s sister.”
Okay. That suddenly made sense.
I huffed out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
Then I waited. Because my gut screamed that it was still more complicated than that.
Darren…
There they were. The two people in the world I was crazy about. Worried about.
Logan and Kiki.
Standing in an acoustical sweet spot, I could hear every
word. Every frustrated sigh.
“I don’t come here to jump, you know.” Logan leaned back on straightened arms, her hands gripping the bottom edge of the worn brick.
“No?” Kiki glanced at her.
Logan shook her head. “She jumped.”
There it is.
Felt like a gut punch every time.
A long pause followed. Almost a full minute ticked by. Finally, quietly, Kiki asked, “She?”
Tipping her head back, Logan exhaled hard. “Our mom.”
Kiki gasped softly. “I’m so sorry.”
My eyes never left the two girls most important to me, my sister, who my whole world revolved around, and Kiki, who’d unexpectedly breathed new life into it. But both leaned backward toward the building, sitting inches from one another. Safe, for now.
Logan let out a heavy sigh. “I come here to feel close to her.”
Kiki glanced at her. “You do?”
“Yeah. She suffered on the inside. Me and D knew that. We tried to help. But depression wrecks a person. Makes them not be able to feel the good that everyone else tries to share with them.”
After another long pause, Kiki swayed a little closer to Logan and nudged her shoulder. “Sounds like you understand her.”
“I do.”
“You suffer from depression too?”
Logan shrugged, took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. “Yeah.”
Kiki nodded. Nothing more.
“Sometimes the meds help. Most times they don’t. But even when it gets bad, and I find myself up here, on the same ledge she stood on…in her last seconds…I still don’t want to jump.”
“Good,” Kiki said. “That’s good.”
I blew out a relieved breath. A part of me had hoped that’s why my sister often texted me from up here. She’d just needed me to be here with her, talk her away from the ledge. But she’d never opened up about the why’s of it. Maybe I’d been too fucking scared to ask.
“Means I’m not yet as bad as she was. We didn’t understand her.” Logan’s voice broke, and her head hung lower. Then she glanced up and sniffed. “Me and D didn’t get how bad it was, or we would have done something.”
My heart burned as I listened to my sister’s version of the story I’d lived. She paused long enough for another sob to tear free from her throat.
Kiki instantly slung an arm around her shoulder.
Logan leaned in toward the comfort. She’d never let me get close enough on that edge to touch her. But Kiki, she let in.
And none of it mattered up here. Logan needed something and Kiki could provide it. Meant more than anything I could’ve done.
Logan’s voice quieted to the point I had to take a few steps closer and strain to hear her above the wind. “I miss her. I miss…family.”
Her pain shredded me. I’d been so busy juggling responsibilities, I’d slacked off on the one thing that mattered—the very reason why I’d never gotten serious with a girl. Yet it all still fell short. I hadn’t been holding up my end of the bargain…taking care of my family.
Kiki squeezed her shoulder. “You busy this Sunday afternoon?”
Logan choked out a laugh. “Why? Wanna meet back up here in the light of day?”
“Nope. My brother, Cade, and his new wife, Hannah, are throwing a barbeque.”
“I don’t…I’m not sure.” Logan eased away from Kiki, tilting her head. “How many people will be there?”
“You have to come. There won’t be ‘people’ there. It’s family. Not just Cade and Hannah, but Ben and Mase, his friends. They’re like my brothers. And Chloe and Daniel are coming, they’re the owners at Hannah’s old bakery. And Ava, our dog.”
The spot in the center of my chest warmed—not a burning hole like a minute ago, more like an ember glowing back to life. Kiki hadn’t meant it’s her family. She meant they were Logan’s family too, our family, if we wanted to be included.
Instead of replying, Logan leaned back and swung her legs around to the roof side of the ledge, back to safety. She stood, then walked toward me. In the dim light, I saw dried blackish tear-tracks down her face, from all the dark mascara and eyeliner she wore.
But hope shone in her eyes as she lifted her brows. “Could we go?”
I roped an arm around her neck and kissed the top of her head, grateful as hell to have her by my side, safe and sound. “Yeah, we can go.”
When I glanced toward Kiki, she stood and brushed her hands together, dusting them off.
“Thank you,” I mouthed to her.
She let out a hard breath. Then a crooked half-smile curved her lips. She mouthed back, “You’re welcome.”
“Okay, ladies. It’s cold as fuck up here. Can we go home now?”
Logan wrapped an arm around my waist. “You’re giving me a ride home, right?”
“Damn straight, I am. With a lecture about walking this neighborhood at night.”
Or at all. But I didn’t say the last part. I got it now. Up on the roof, with Kiki to support her, Logan had shared more than she ever had with me.
And I’d thought bringing another person into the mix would be a bad thing.
Then again, Kiki wasn’t just any other person.
Kiki…
Darren and Logan didn’t live far from the apartment building we’d just come from: an eight minute truck ride. And Darren had lectured Logan about walking bad neighborhoods—at night—all the way home. Logan had answered with heavy sighs and placating Yes, D’s when he wanted her to promise not to go there alone.
I’d insisted we go to their place first–drop Logan off and get her settled before he took me home. She needed that. And curiosity had me wanting to see where they lived…where he went at night to lay his head down to sleep.
I wasn’t sure what I’d expected. But what I saw surprised me. The yard once had grass, but it had long ago died. Instead, a wasteland of dirt stretched between islands of brown matted plant-matter. Two dilapidated pots sat on the left side of each step that led to the front stoop. The cracked lower terra-cotta one had a faded garden gnome who had fallen on his back, cherub cheeks plumped into a smile. The deep blue glazed one held nothing more than dry soil. A wooden swing hung from the overhang to the right, its white paint cracking and peeling.
Logan pulled open a frayed screen door, the frame of which Darren held while she grabbed his keys from his outstretched hand. The wood door she unlocked was caked with years of dirt on its decorative trim molding. The windows were dark; cardboard secured by curling duct tape covered the bottom pane of the one behind the swing.
Once I stepped inside, my attention drifted toward the only light, where it had been left on above the stove. A white refrigerator had dozens of magnets on its side-by-side doors. A small round farmers table, with four spindled chairs tucked beneath, sat in the far corner near a large intact window.
“’Night, Kiki.” Logan’s flowery shampoo filled my next breath as she pulled me into a fierce hug, her tousled hair covering my face. “Glad I met you.”
“Me too.” I gave her a hard squeeze back.
Then she ran up a dark staircase. “’Night, D,” she called out when she reached the landing, not bothering to look back.
“G’night.” His voice was thready.
When I glanced over, he had a puzzled look on his face.
I frowned. “You okay?”
He blinked, then shook his head, his expression growing more bewildered. “Yeah.”
“Bullshit. What’s wrong?” Music suddenly blared from above, so loud it vibrated the ceiling.
“You mean, besides the fact I had to rescue her once again from a rooftop?”
“We,” I pointed out. “And your sister didn’t seem to need rescuing.”
“And yet you did. You rescued her. Me.” His eyes slowly widened as his gaze shot back up to the top of the stairs. “All this time I’d been keeping women away from here—away from her—because I thought she needed me. Thought she’d be upset or jealous of attenti
on I paid to someone else.”
“She does need you.” I put a hand on his chest.
He tore his gaze from the staircase and stared down at me. “She needs you too.”
The solemn tone of his voice startled me. And scared me a little. I backed away, then turned to survey the rest of the room. I gave a halfhearted shrug to divert attention, lighten all the heavy. “She’s a kid. Kid’s need love. How old is she?”
“Almost sixteen.”
“She driving yet?”
“No. Hasn’t shown any interest in it. When I offered to take her to get her learner’s permit, she changed the subject.”
I walked toward the fireplace, turning on a table lamp along the way. On the mantle, tarnished silver and worn wooden frames held photos of their family. All pictured the three of them. One was taken at the park. Another had them posing next to the Hershey’s Chocolate World sign. I picked up a third that looked like it had been taken at a county fair; rides twirled in the background above their heads. Their faces? Stuck through the holes of a painted scene, attached to the caricatured bodies of farm animals—his on a big bull with a tiny head.
“Maybe she doesn’t want to be that responsible yet.” I thought about how Logan had pined for family. Then I replaced the picture; I didn’t want to disturb their cherished memories more than I already had.
“Probably.” His breath parted the hair on the back of my neck.
I jumped, knocking back into him, startled that he’d moved so close without me realizing it.
On a hard swallow, I stepped away from him. For some reason, I suddenly needed distance between us. Even though just hours ago I’d nearly jumped his bones in a diner, then later in his truck. The rooftop had changed that. And being in his home only magnified the enormous pause-button on my libido.
The rest of his living room confused me. A metal rod had been propped between the far side of the mantle and the outer wall of the house. On the makeshift closet rod, flannel shirts hung from hangers beside a winter jacket. T-shirts were slung over the back of a green upholstered chair; its cushion held three pairs of folded jeans.
To my right, a faded striped couch had been mostly covered with a pale blue sheet. A flattened bed pillow with a matching pillowcase rested on one end. The other end had a brown, yellow, and orange crocheted afghan bunched into a ball.
