Author: Cassia Leo

But I can’t shake the nagging voice in my head that tells me Chris would think this was way too soon. Why the fuck should I care what Chris would think? He’s the one who left me to go pursue his solo career—even if I did encourage him to leave. I knew it would happen, he was the best rock-blues guitarist I’d ever known, but I guess I never really expected to be left behind. So why the hell should I care what he thinks? He’s gone, probably fucking a new groupie every other night, or that Disney celebrity he was seen with three weeks ago.

Ugh! I hate that I even care enough to keep track of this stuff.

“Claire? Where did you go?”

Adam’s voice breaks through my troubled thoughts and I push aside that voice in my head that wishes it were Chris calling my name.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter. “This is why I meditate. To keep this shit out.”

He uprights my barstool and takes a seat on his stool again. He pats the seat the cushioned seat and I pretend not to notice that our knees are touching as I sit down.

“I won’t make you eat my gourmet mac if you tell me why you dropped out.”

The question shouldn’t stun me, but it does. It’s like a punch in the chest and I’m suddenly breathless as I try to imagine why Cora would tell him I dropped out.

“Did Cora tell you that?”

He shakes his head adamantly. “I took a guess and you just confirmed it. A smart girl like you doesn’t end up working in a small town café unless she’s running away from something. So what is it?”

I rest my arms on the breakfast bar and practically lean my face into the pot of pasta. “I wish I could tell you.”

“It’s easy. Just move your jaw and your tongue a little and—voila!—out come the words. It’s like magic.”

I push the pot away and bury my face in my arms. “I wish that were true.”

It’s true. I really wish I could tell him the truth. I wish I could tell everybody the truth. Keeping the secret alone is enough to make me grind my teeth in my sleep. This secret is eating away at me. The only thing that keeps it from consuming me is meditation.

“Does it have to do with money?”

“No, my tuition was paid for by the State of North Carolina.”

“If you tell me why you dropped out, I’ll tell you why I moved to Wrightsville Beach,” he offers, and he has my attention.

I sit up and look him in the eye. He nods at me as if to say, the ball’s in your court.

I want to tell him everything, from the day I arrived at the Knight Family’s house more than five years ago to the day I moved into this apartment almost three months ago, but I can’t. Everyone thinks they’ll understand, they swear they’ll understand, but when you tell them about the horrible things you’ve done they can’t help but judge you or worse pity you. I don’t want anybody’s judgment or pity. I just want to be forgotten and, if I’m lucky enough, forgiven.

“Sorry, but that’s a trade I can’t make.”

He doesn’t appear disappointed. He probably anticipated this. “All right. How about this?” He closes his eyes as he takes a beat. “If I can get you to tell me why you dropped out of school then you have to go back.”

I chuckle. “That’s funny.”

“It’s not funny. I’m serious. This is a serious bet. I think you desperately want to go back to school and I’m willing to put our friendship on the line in order to see that you make it back. What do you say?”

How the hell does he know so much about me from a conversation with Cora? The truth is I do want to go back to school. I was a Sociology major. My dream was to become a caseworker; a better caseworker than the half-dozen I had. I wanted to make sure that no kid felt the way I did, like a nuisance.

I arch my eyebrow and pretend to think about it, because I know he’ll never weasel this out of me. “What’s in it for me if I don’t give up my secret?”

“You get to keep your secret.”

“No, you have to do something.”

He lets out a deep sigh. “I’ll stop stalking you at the café.”

“And you’ll never try to kill me again?”

“I can’t promise that.” The sexy smile on his face makes my heart race and, for once, I’m a little worried about the security of my secret.

Chapter Six

Relentless Scheming

CORA JOHNSON CAN TAKE UP to twenty minutes to answer her front door. Sometimes she doesn’t hear the knocking and other times her joints ache too much to move swiftly. I have a key to her apartment—“In case I croak,” she told me, when she handed it over—but I purposely leave it in a drawer in the kitchen. I can’t help being a little superstitious, even though life has shown me that there is no order to the universe.

I knock once more and the plaque on the door rattles. The truth is, though I gave Cora the plaque for her birthday, I hoped it would serve as a reminder to me every time I walk out my front door. Where we love is home. After eight years of being kicked around, I had a home and people who loved me. Sometimes, I don’t know who I miss more, Chris or his mother.

Cora needs to hurry up and answer this door or I’m going to be late for work. I knock again and the door above my head opens. I don’t look up, but I can hear Adam’s feet tapping the steps as he descends. I cast a sideways glance at the bottom of the staircase, just to watch him from behind as he walks to his car, but he’s walking straight toward me.

“Good morning, sunshine. Did you get in some quality meditation time this morning?”

I try not to ogle him as he approaches me looking impossibly fresh and ready to tackle a day at the beach in his gray cargo shorts and Quiksilver tank top, which shows off the defined muscles in his arms.

“I did. I’m just checking in on Cora before I head to work.”

“Maybe she’s still asleep.”

“Cora is up before the sun every day. It takes her a while to answer the door sometimes, but I have to get to work.”

He places his hand on my shoulder as his eyebrows furrow. “You look worried. I can check on her for you.”

That one sentence coupled with the look of concern and the feeling of his hand on my shoulder takes my breath away. “Really?”

“Yeah, of course. I’ll walk you to work and I’ll check on her when I get back.”

“Walk me to work? I don’t need you to do that. I walk to work every day. It’s literally four hundred feet away from here.”

“I know, but I have to take this stalking gig seriously.”

I wish I didn’t feel even the slightest bit excited by this, but I am just a girl, and apparently I am easily impressed. Now I’m angry with myself when I should be annoyed with him.

“Fine. Let’s go.”

I storm off and round the corner toward the front of our little three-apartment complex and quickly make it to the sidewalk on Lumina.

“Where’s your friend? I thought you were roommates.”

The chill morning air that rolls in from the ocean is slightly briny and I inhale a deep, cleansing breath. The ocean breeze is definitely one of my favorite things about living in Wrightsville.

“She’s visiting her parents this weekend. I couldn’t go with her because I’m working today.”

“Do you always work on the weekend?”

“Pretty much. It’s been months since I got the weekend off. I don’t really have much else to do and I’ve got rent to pay.”

“Are you working next Saturday? I want to take you somewhere.”

“Yes, I’m working both Saturday and Sunday next week.”

We’re just a few feet away from the café now so he speeds up to open the door for me.

“Can’t you ask for the day off?”

“No, not to go on a date.”

“Who said it was a date?” he says with a grin and I roll my eyes.

I stop next to a display of espresso machines and lean in closer so I can whisper. “I can’t take a day off. You saw how I screwed up the other day. I’ve been doing that a lot lately and I need this job.”

He narrows his eyes as if he’s contemplating this information then he nods. “I’ll take care of it.”

“No! You have to go check on Cora.”

I grab fistfuls of his shirt to push him toward the door and he smiles at my feeble attempts to make him move as he stands solidly still.

“All right. Just tell me what I need to check on.”

I release his shirt and give him all the details to check for at Cora’s: check the cupboards to make sure she hasn’t run out of instant oatmeal packets; check the refrigerator for expired foods; make sure the cat hasn’t been getting into the trash bins; make sure none of the faucets are left running; and make sure her enormous Maine Coon, Bigfoot, has enough food and water.

“Doesn’t she have a caregiver?”

“Tina doesn’t get there for another five hours and she’s not the most attentive caregiver.”

“Got it.” He pulls me into a hug so suddenly that my face smashes against his solid chest and I laugh as I push him away. “That was awkward,” he chuckles. “The next one will be better.”

I turn my face to hide my uncontrollable grin as I walk behind the café counter.

Linda cocks an eyebrow as I approach. “Who is that tasty young thing?” she whispers as I pass her on the way to the stockroom to clock in.

I could clock in on the register, but I’m five minutes early and I need that five minutes to wipe this stupid grin off my face.

“I’ll tell you as soon as I clock in,” I say, pushing my way through the swinging door.

I sit in the folding metal chair, which Linda refuses to replace with an ergonomic desk chair, and pull my cell phone out of my jeans pocket. I dial Senia’s number because, though I know she’s still sleeping at 8:55 a.m. on a Sunday, I can’t hold in the events of the past day and a half any longer.

She picks up on the second ring. “What?” she groans.

I take a deep breath then spill everything in less than three minutes. When I’m done she’s silent.

“Am I crazy?” I ask. “Is this too fast?”

I’m not asking if this is too fast since Chris left, because he left a year ago. She knows what I’m asking and her silence has me twirling my hair nervously.

She clears her throat before she speaks. “Of course it’s not too soon. I told you last week, you need to stop being so afraid of people knowing.” She clears her throat again and I can hear her taking a sip of water. “Do you need me to fill in for you at the café so you can go on your date?”

I laugh because she doesn’t even work at the café, but she probably could fill in for me. There is very little Senia can’t do. “No. I’ll figure something out. I have a week to think of something.”

“Let’s conspire together, my love,” she says, her voice still thick with sleep. “I’m coming home tonight instead of tomorrow. Eddie is getting on my last fucking nerve.”

Eddie Goodman, Senia’s boyfriend of eight months, nearly drove his car off a cliff when she told him she was moving in with me for the summer. He’s possessive as hell and has serious attachment issues, but he’s also super hot and shares none of the same classes with Senia—a must for her. She hates dating classmates. When they’re not at each other’s throats, they’re sickeningly adorable together. I call them Enia even though Eddie hates it.

After we hang up, I sit for a minute staring at the computer screen before I clock in two minutes late. Now I have to come up with an excuse for Saturday. When I walk out of the stockroom, Joanne is staring at me from where she stands next to the giant espresso station. Joanne is twenty-two, two years older than I, but she’s super timid.