“The first time I met Scotty, I was in handcuffs because I’d just wrecked the hell out of the side of his garage.” I kept my voice even as her shoulders tensed visibly. “It wasn’t hard for the cops to find me because the blue spray paint I’d used on the side of his house was on my hands. I’d cut myself breaking the windows on his garage.”
She inhaled. “Why’d you do that?”
“Who knows?” I admitted. “I was seventeen and bored, and my friends probably thought I’d be too chicken shit to do it. Adele was really happy with me then, when the cops brought me home and told her it was only because of Scotty that I wasn’t going to have a misdemeanor for destruction of property and vandalism on my record.”
Claire was a loud thinker, I was coming to realize. Especially when she was trying to figure something out. And right now, she was trying to figure me out. She stared at that picture so hard, I was surprised it didn’t jump off the wall.
“No wonder,” she murmured.
I stepped closer behind her and took a slow inhale. It was stronger than it had been on the pillow, that incredible scent. I had to fight not to bury my nose in her hair, wrap my arms around her from behind, and glory in how warm and soft she’d be tucked into my body.
It was so clear she wanted to put me together like a puzzle that no one had sorted. But eventually, she’d see that it wasn’t as complicated as all that.
I was what my family thought. A screwup and a disappointment.
I was what Scotty thought too. A hothead who didn’t think things through.
“No wonder what?” My voice sounded rusty.
She turned and faced me, and I refused to budge even a single inch. But then again, Claire didn’t move either.
I inhaled deeply, and my chest almost brushed hers, that’s how close we stood. I wanted to kiss her. For a lot of reasons.
Because of how she’d looked in that yellow dress.
Because she still wouldn’t tell me why she lied in the first place.
Because she was trying to find something inside me that didn’t exist, something good and sweet and thoughtful that meant my parents hadn’t completely jacked me up.
“No wonder you turned out to be a good man,” she said quietly.
The breath caught in my throat.
She gently laid her hand over my heart, and I slid my palm up her arm to anchor it there. Her skin … it was so, so soft.
“I’m glad they didn’t ruin you, Bauer.”
Claire tugged her hand out from under mine and brushed past me, stopping to fiddle with the radio on the kitchen counter.
I braced a hand on the wall, pinched my eyes shut, and tried to figure out what was happening inside my chest after just a few words from her. Because that simply, that quickly, she’d completely ripped the rug out from underneath me.
The station she turned on was news, and she turned a few knobs to lessen the static.
“Well, everyone,” the disembodied voice said. “This is shaping up to smash the previous record snowfall for April in Vancouver, and it won’t be stopping for the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours. So stay safe, stay warm, and enjoy the snow.”
I turned my head to stare at her. Looks like I had some time to figure out the answer to my own puzzle—what the hell to do with Claire Ward.
CLAIRE
When I woke the next morning, I was hot.
And for the second morning in a row, completely disoriented. No blood-red curtains, no sprawling bed. Instead, muted gray light, a wood plank ceiling slanting up over my head, and when I tried to move and felt something warm on my chest, I blinked down.
Green eyes set in a patchwork face stared down at me from where she was lying and looking quite comfortable on top of me.
“Good morning, Agnes,” I whispered.
She opened her mouth for a plaintive meow, which made me smile.
Her brown and orange spotted tail twitched behind her, and her ears angled over her pretty face.
“I knew he was exaggerating.” Carefully, I lifted my hand and ran it from the top of her head down her back. Agnes shifted into my touch.
“You up, princess?” A voice called from the family room.
“Mm-hmm. A friend joined me in bed sometime last night.”
“No shit?” I heard his feet cross the hardwood floor and take careful, quiet steps up to the loft. Bauer’s head appeared, dark hair ruffled from sleep, and his jaw even heavier with growth, and he grinned sleepily. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Slowly, so, so slowly, Agnes turned her head in Bauer’s direction, flattened her ears and hissed.
My laughter was so loud that the cat took off from the bed like a brown and orange cannonball, disappearing behind the dresser tucked into the corner.
He came up a few more steps until his bare chest was visible.
“Of course, you slept without a shirt,” I mumbled, turning on my side and tucking the comforter against my chest.
“Are you kidding? I was roasting by the middle of the night. I told you that fire would keep us warm.” His eyes traced my face. “Sleep okay?”
I nodded. “I woke up hot too.”
Bauer wagged a finger at me. “See, you leave yourself wide open for comments, princess. I’d like it to be noted when I don’t take the bait.”
At my groan, he laughed, head disappearing back downstairs.
“I’ll make coffee,” he called out.
From my vantage point upstairs, my view of the outside didn’t suffer at all. Scotty’s cabin was small, yes, but there was something incredible about rolling over to see the wild expanse of tall, spindly trees, whipping, white wind, and the large, fluffy flakes that relentlessly fell.
What a strange, strange turn of events my life had taken in the course of one week.
It made me think about school as most things did. One of the most fascinating parts of what I was learning was about the consequences of one’s actions and how they could affect the people around you.
Children bore the consequences of how the adults in their life spoke to them, treated them, taught them, loved them. Or didn’t love them. For each action, there was a reaction. Sometimes it was big, and sometimes it was small.
I agreed to do something for my sister. In the grand scheme of my life, it was a small decision, fueled by feelings that had lingered for a span of time that could only be considered big.
The consequences of that small action were huge.
And I was still puzzling out in my head what they meant, and how my heart couldn’t quite decipher what to do with them.
The sounds of Bauer in the small kitchen, looking for grounds and trying to figure out the “stupid, ancient piece of shit machine” had me smiling, which was a starting place for what I knew in my head.
I knew that our evening had been quiet but still fun. We ate sodium and fat-laden chicken pot pies in front of the fireplace while he searched for something for us to watch in the small drawer of DVDs that Scotty owned. We settled on
Tombstone, and Bauer knew every single word. Occasionally, I caught a glimpse of him in the firelight, mouthing the lines.
He’d stayed on the chair, and I’d taken up residence under a blanket on the couch.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.