Author: Nyrae Dawn

I want to tell her it’s because secrets don’t reflect in the eyes of other girls. Pain doesn’t show, but I’ve already showed her other little pieces of me, which I want back. I’m not like Colt. I have no intention to stop running.

Anger replaces the urge to talk. Like a magic trick I didn’t know I could perform, one is replaced by the other and I don’t know how it got there. Or why I’m so pissed. Because she called me out? Because she doesn’t want me? Because my body is really jonesing for her? Or maybe because I really want to know about that look in her eyes.

“You make a good point. If you’ll give me my stuff, I’ll be on my way.”

She glances behind her again before going to her trunk and opening it.

“You’re acting sketchy and people will wonder what’s up,” I say. “Not that anyone in this neighborhood would care.”

“Sorry if I’m not used to passing drugs to people,” she hisses as she digs in her trunk, closes her fist around my stuff, and hands it to me.

I push it into my pocket. “My phone?”

“It’s in my house. I’ll have to go get it, but my brother’s home. Do you mind waiting here?” She’s back to that sweet voice. The girl next door that so contrasts the ghosts.

“Really?” I wonder about the hold her brother has on her. Why she would feel like she needs to hide the fact that she accidentally has my phone. “Afraid he’ll think you’re being a bad girl?”

At that she slams her trunk and I wonder if it’s the first time in her life she’s ever been mad. The tight lips and narrowed eyes look so foreign on her face.

“No. I just don’t want him to know about what happened last night. He already doesn’t like the idea that I work nights and that would make it worse. Not that it’s any of your business or anything.”

She tries to walk around me, but I step in front of her. “Wait. You’re going back to work there?”

She sighs and drops her head back. “Oh God, not you too. Do I have ‘please take care of me’ written across my forehead?”

“No, but maybe you should if you’re going back to work there alone. Are they hiring security or anything?”

Not my business. Not my business. Not my business.

“My boss is a tightwad, so I doubt it. It’s not as though they’re going to rob the same place twice, Adrian.”

It’s like a little shock to hear my name roll off her tongue. I don’t know why. I think she feels it, too, as I see her swallow.

“I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t shown up?” What would have happened if I had been a few seconds later, like I had been with Ash. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. There’s only a thin chalk line separating the two—nothing and everything. All it takes is a hand to wipe it away.

“Big strong man saves helpless woman?” she huffs, and tries to walk away again. For some reason, it makes me want to smile. I don’t know where it comes from, but maybe she reminds me of Casper in more ways than one. It’s funny watching the friendly ghost trying to be mad. “If you’ll move out of my way, I’ll go get your phone.”

I don’t know what makes me do it, but I step aside. I lean against the trunk of her car. The longer she’s gone, the more I wonder why I care. It’s her fault if she wants to go work there again. I don’t have it in me to watch over anyone. If I couldn’t take care of a two-year-old, I don’t know what in the hell makes me think I can do it with anyone else.

Or why I would want to try.

I flex my fingers, remembering the care she took on my hand. How her fingers felt. What it would have been like to let myself feel it.

“Here’s your phone.” She thrusts it into my palm. I didn’t even hear her come back.

She opens her mouth to say something, but it’s cut off when another female voice pops in with a “Hi.”

I groan, wishing like hell I had gotten out of here before this happened. Meetings come with questions and questions have no place in my life.

Delaney turns and standing there is Cheyenne and Colt.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“Nothing.” Cheyenne looks at me. Delaney. Back at me.

Damn it. It’s different with her. Or a lot of people maybe. There’s a difference between trying to look below the surface and trying to see something that isn’t there. Cheyenne’s going to want the make-believe. She’ll want to see something here that’s not.

When it’s obvious I’m not going to say anything, she holds out her hand. “Hey. We’re Adrian’s friends. I’m Cheyenne. This is my boyfriend, Colt.”

Delaney holds out her hand. “Um… hi. I’m Delaney. Nice to meet you.” The girls shake; then she grabs Colt’s hand and does the same. My eyes don’t leave him and I see the strange look he gives her, the way his eyes study her, and I’m about to ask him what’s so fucking interesting when I realize it doesn’t matter. I have no say over how anyone looks at her.

“She’s my doctor,” I tease, but when Delaney whips around to me, I hold up my hand to pretend that’s what I was talking about.

Colt’s and Cheyenne’s stares are all becoming too much. They feel like pressure bearing down on me, making me want to take my backpacking trip even farther.

My phone beeps and I wonder who it is. Want any excuse I can find to get out of here. To stop their stares and cut off the urge to tell her not to go back to work.

“I’m out of here.” As I make a move to turn, Casper’s hand reaches out and latches on to my arm.

“Wait. I need to talk to you.” She studies her hand on my arm like it’s a big deal that it’s there, and curiosity spikes inside me again, but then she’s pulling it away.

“Come on, Tiny Dancer,” Colt whispers in Cheyenne’s ear. She shivers and I imagine making Delaney do the same thing. There’s nothing sexier than making a girl shiver.

“Maybe we’ll see you around,” Cheyenne says to her.

As they start walking away, Colt looks back. For the first time ever, he taps his finger against the side of his head like I do, like I’ve done to him a hundred times, especially where Cheyenne is concerned, before turning around.

There’s nothing to know…

“Please.” Delaney’s plea pulls my attention back to her.

“You don’t have to beg,” I tell her.

“That’s not what I mean. Please don’t say anything. Maddox will want me to quit and without a job, we can’t keep this apartment and I don’t… I can’t go home.”

That’s what does it. The heartbreak in her voice and how it dances on her words and calls to something inside me that I don’t understand. Dance with me, it says, but I don’t do that and I won’t, so I take a step backward, knowing what I’m going to do and wanting to set the thought on fire.

Wanting to burn or bury this need in me to know why she can’t go home.

“I don’t even know your brother. Why in the hell would I tell him?”

“Thank you… Adrian. I appreciate that.”

I don’t let her finish before I’m walking away. I get in my car and drive. When I can’t drive anymore, I pull over. Grab my notebook and a pen.

Maybe nothing.

Playing

Front yard

Fine

Screeching

Maybe everything.

Forgotten phone.

Maybe nothing.

Gun in her face.

Maybe everything.

She can’t go home.

Maybe nothing.

I can’t go either.

Maybe everything.

Ignoring my phone, I drive again. Go until it’s late at night and my car’s coasting along on fumes again. Ironic that I’m doing the same, but I can’t just pull into a gas station and fill up. Can’t find a quick stop to make my worries go away.

When I’m not able to drive anymore, I pull into the diner.

Chapter Eight

~Delaney~

We’ve been crazy busy and I’m thankful for it. Usually it’s nice to have a slow night, but being around people is somehow comforting. Actually, there’s no somehow about it. I know exactly what it is. It makes no sense that I didn’t think it would be scary to be back at work so soon, but it is. It’s not often a girl has a gun pointed at her. The whole time all I could think about was Maddox and Mom. What it would do to my brother to lose me and wonder who would help take care of our mother.

I’m not sure he would.

Leaning over the counter, I reach for more napkins for table three. My back is to the restaurant when a loud crash sounds from behind me. I jump, my heart taking the plummet to my feet as I whip around. When I do, I come face-to-face with Adrian.

My hand flies to my chest as I let out a heavy breath.

“It was just a plate,” he leans toward me and whispers in my ear. “A little harder to come back than you thought?”

“Yes,” I say, not even considering lying. Why fight the truth? It’s always there no matter what.

Adrian doesn’t look like he’s taking the pleasure in it that I thought he would. Instead he sighs and asks, “Are you going to seat me?”

“That’s what the hostess is for,” is my reply when really what I’m wondering is why he’s back. I doubt he usually spends his evenings in diners, yet he’s been here numerous nights now.

“I’d rather have you.”

The way he says it shows he doesn’t mean being seated. I know what it is—that he’s trying to make me uncomfortable or to play some kind of sexual game with me. I’m not interested in games. He wouldn’t be either if he knew the truth.

“Excuse me, miss?” a customer asks, and I realize I’m clutching her napkins in my hand.

“I have work to do.” Before the last word leaves my mouth, I’m already walking away. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Adrian get seated. He’s in Lisa’s section, which makes some of the tension ease from my muscles. I won’t have to deal with him for at least two hours. What am I thinking? It’s not like he’s going to be here for that long anyway.

I stay busy for the next couple of hours. The whole time I’m distinctly aware of Adrian. That he’s still here, that he’s eating pancakes again. The way his finger plays on the top of the table as though he’s writing something with an invisible pen. I think about his poem and if he wishes he was writing one. If that’s something he does to deal with life. If he’s always written or only since my father took away that little boy.

An anchor lands on my chest, weighing me down with a million tons of guilt—for what my father did and the fact that Adrian doesn’t know.

We’ve slowed down slightly and I’m leaning against the counter, as though that will take the weight away. Lisa steps up beside me, nudging me with a smile and having no clue the storm of emotions twisting inside my head.

“He a friend of yours?” she asks.

“No,” pops out of my mouth. How can we be friends with so much between us? “I don’t really know him.”

“It’s a shame. He’s gorgeous.”

And he really is. All his features are dark—dark hair and eyes and even a bronze shade to his skin. Darkness lingers in those eyes and the set of his jaw. One look at him and you can tell he walks around with a bruised soul.

“Looks like he’d be a good time.”

Her words make me wonder if she doesn’t see what I do when I look at him. Maybe it’s like those ghosts he said he sees in my eyes. We’re bound together by this tragedy and even though he doesn’t know it, he still sees that thread tying us together.

“Hello? Earth to Delaney?” She snaps her fingers and I look at her.