Present
We’d never slept in the same bed.
Of course, it wasn’t like we ever had a relationship. Just unbridled, stolen moments.
I looked over at him next to me, his head turned away as his bare chest rose and fell, and the morning light seeped through the drapes, making his skin glow and his eyebrows look like chocolate.
He brought me up here last night and told me to go to sleep, and I thought about arguing, but then I realized I didn’t want to.
I was tired. He was tired. Fuck it.
My arm laid next to his, my pinky brushing his, and I almost wanted to thread them, but if I moved, so would he, and I wasn’t ready for him to wake up.
Turning my head left, I gazed at Alex curled up on her side, facing me and holding the pillow under her head.
She wore one of Will’s T-shirts, and while seeing them together last night and how close they were hurt, I liked Alex. I liked her a lot.
She didn’t want to hurt me. I knew that.
I couldn’t help but smile a little. Her nose curled up at the end, almost like a Who, and I could see straight up her nostrils.
Not a single hair out of place on her entire body. Not a single one.
I shook my head and stared back up at the ceiling, trying to wonder if I should be weirded out that I was planted in bed between my first love and his girlfriend, but somehow it seemed like such a shallow thought in the grand scheme of things.
I rolled over, pushed myself up slowly, and climbed over Alex, gazing down at them both still asleep. Walking behind the privacy screen, I grabbed a washcloth, wetting it under the faucet of the tub.
Squeezing out the excess hot water, I pressed it to my face, closing my eyes and letting the warmth seep through and calm the ache in my jaw and on my eye where Alex had smacked me yesterday.
A bath sounded good, but I didn’t want to wake them up yet.
But just then, something brushed my leg, and I dropped my arms, opening up my eyes to see Alex sitting on the edge of the tub, peering up at me.
“Sorry I woke you,” I told her, reheating the washcloth under the hot water again.
“I’m fine.”
I wrung out the cloth and stepped up to her, pressing it to her cheek and the nasty bruise swelling under the skin.
She tried to take it, but I nudged her away. “I wasn’t going to leave without you,” I told her.
In case she doubted that.
I just hated myself, and it was easier to try to disappear than face the music yesterday.
“And him?” she asked. “Were you going to leave without him?”
I inched forward, my legs on both sides of her thigh as I gently patted her face.
“The best thing for him is to be as far away from me as possible,” I said.
But instead of trying to convince me otherwise, she just scoffed. “You’re such a coward.”
I tensed a little, but I kept my mouth shut, moving the hot towel around her face.
I wasn’t a coward about everything.
“Emmy, I gotta bring him home,” she told me. “Help me. I know you loved him. How can anyone not love him?”
A small laugh escaped through the lump lodged in my throat. True. I was glad to hear I wasn’t the only one susceptible to his power.
Everyone adored that boy.
“That man last night—that temper—that’s not who he is,” she whispered. “You know that.”
Do I? He’d been through the shit. She might’ve spent more time with him in recent years, but she hadn’t know him in high school. That Godzilla conversation yesterday was the first glimpse of the old Will I’d gotten since I got here.
“You know how to fight,” she said, sounding surprised.
I wasn’t sure if she was talking about our scuffle in the foyer yesterday or if she saw my match with Taylor the other day.
But I shook my head. “I just know how to get back up.”
“That’s half the battle.”
She studied me as I wiped her face.
“Kai owns a dojo in Meridian City,” she told me. “Did you know that? It’s where our family trains.”
I looked into her eyes, something unsaid passing between us, but I swore it sounded like an offer.
But she was deaf, dumb, and blind if she thought I was welcome there. I had a job to get back to anyway.
Hopefully.
I tossed the cloth down and rubbed my eyes, forgetting where Will set my glasses last night.
“You need another shower,” she told me.
“Speak for yourself.”
Three people in a small bed…we were all sweating last night.
I grabbed a comb on the small table and started working through my tangles.
“Micah and Rory are all right,” I informed her. “Taylor is a concern, but no one goes against Aydin’s orders that we’re not to be touched.”
“We or you?”
I narrowed my eyes on her. “What would Aydin have against you?”
Why would he protect me and not her?
But she just shrugged. “Nothing. He doesn’t even know me.”
“He seemed to know you,” I retorted.
He knew her name. He recognized her.
She didn’t say more, though, and we heard the floorboards creak, both of us spotting Will walking past and halting as soon as he saw us.
His hair was sexy-messy as his jeans hung low on his hips, the top button undone, and he just stood there, his eyes falling down and then back up again, taking us in.
I stood there in my tank and underwear, while Alex was still in his T-shirt and no pants.
“Fuck my life,” he grumbled, shaking his head and continuing down the stairs to his door. “Use the tub if you want. Clothes are in the bureau,” he called out. “I’ll go get some breakfast. Stay here. Both of you.”
The door opened and closed again, and I leaned over, starting the water.
“If you have an exit plan,” I asked her, “why isn’t he rushing to escape? I heard him yesterday. He didn’t want to leave.”
It was odd, wasn’t it? You would think he’d be ecstatic to be saved, but he didn’t look like he was happy she was here.
He didn’t look happy either of us were here.
Prisoners sometimes got so used to being inside, that it was scarier to leave. They had a home, three meals a day, a regimen…
Sooner or later, the familiar hopelessness was easier than the hopeful unknown.
But that wasn’t Will. He had a home, friends, money, opportunities…
We were missing something. Something he wasn’t telling us.
Alex shook her head, looking after him down the stairs. “I don’t know,” she said. “But if I know anything about Will, it’s not to assume anything. He knows more than we think, and he’s more patient than a crocodile.”
• • •
It had been days now. I still hadn’t shown up to work. I still wasn’t answering my phone.
A missing person’s report must’ve been filed by now. Had Martin been notified?
Not that he’d care, but he’d probably feel pressured to deal with it, in any case.
He wouldn’t find me, though. My best chance was to make my escape with Alex and drag Will out of here if we had to when it was time. I didn’t like the way Aydin looked at her yesterday. Something was going on.
In the meantime, I’d stay on his good side. If it took until the resupply team showed up, I didn’t want him locking me in the basement to hide me from them.
Will wanted the room to himself for a bit—to bathe, I presumed—while Alex disappeared into the tunnels to…do whatever it was she’d been doing in there. Will told me to go to my room and stay there, so of course, I ignored him and made my way through the greenhouse again to search for tools in the garden shed.
I no longer needed them to get into the tunnels, but they might come in handy for other things—weapons, carving out a hiding place, escaping…
Aydin, Micah, and Taylor worked out in the gym, and I wasn’t sure where Rory was, but this was my shot.
I headed out the kitchen door, across the terrace, around the greenhouse, and into the garden shed, hearing the waterfall around the other side of the house and feeling its mist.
What was this place like in the summer? An image flashed in my mind of me sitting on the balcony with a book as the water fell in the distance.
I nearly rolled my eyes. I’d better not be here that long.
Stepping into the damp structure, I spotted a worktable and grabbed a rusty old wrench, a hammer, and a couple of screwdrivers, trying to fit them all into my pockets until I saw the tool belt hanging on the wall. I smiled, reaching over and pulling it off the hook.
Perfect.
I tied the rust-stained belt around my waist, situating the load over my side instead of at my front, because I hated walking with a clunk of crap over my thighs. I’d realized that tidbit building the gazebo all those years ago.
I scooped up some nails and pliers, pausing as I thought about that tiny gazebo. A roof like a witch’s hat and constructed using aged materials that I’d salvaged from St. Killian’s long after it was abandoned. I’d wanted it to look used. Like it had always been there, maybe even before the town.
It wasn’t my best work, but it was my first, and finishing it was more of an accomplishment than I thought it would be.
It took so much longer than it should’ve because I stopped caring about everything, including my work, for so long. I went months without touching it, deliberately avoiding the village so I didn’t have to see it, and eventually, I’d forced the finish, getting it done without the chandeliers I’d dreamed about, because it would’ve been too painful to remember him every time I looked at it.
I didn’t want to build or design. I didn’t want to do anything because of him.
Nothing else mattered as I mourned the loss.
But I got it done. When I finally resumed my work, it was because, once again, I’d pulled myself up to my feet. Like the coffee table books, the gazebo was another trophy I collected for living another day.
But I’d never see it again. It wasn’t there anymore.
I left the garden shed, treading through the wet grass, but instead of heading into the kitchen, I detoured into the greenhouse, pulling the ladder off the wall I’d spotted in here yesterday and propping it up underneath the broken panel in the roof.
Climbing up, I sat on the top of the ladder and started reattaching the rusted chain, using my pliers to open up the link and re-thread it.
I didn’t give a shit about this place. I knew I was just making beds in a burning house.
But this was who I was, and I wasn’t going to wallow away my time, waiting for my heart to catch up to my head, and if it was something as simple as keeping my hands busy in order to survive Will Grayson and how much I wished I could do everything over again, then that’s what I would do.
The calm in the chaos.
The only other option was to waste my time thinking about things I couldn’t change. He hadn’t said he loved me back last night. I hadn’t expected him to, but if I had any doubt on whether or not he still did, I had my answer now.
The past was dead.
I squeezed the link closed again, pulling some wire out of my apron and reinforcing the link in case the weight of the windowpane made it split again, and then I climbed down, winding the crank on the wall. I watched as the panes lifted open in unison, and then reversed it to close them again.
A shot of pride hit me—the pleasure of solving a problem a familiar feeling that almost made me feel normal again.
This was the one part of me I’d keep. At the very least, I’d found work I enjoyed and was good at.
Setting the ladder back against the wall, I left the greenhouse, avoiding the bed of snakes hidden under the dirt on my left, and walked through the house, looking for anything else to consume my time.
Who had this house built and why? There seemed to be very few personal pieces in the décor. No family portraits or jewelry boxes or engraved clocks. Nothing that gave away the house’s history, or even where we might be, based on any text I’d found. I hadn’t researched the books in the library to see if they were in English, but everyone here spoke English, so…
Were there more Blackchurches? There had to be, right? In different parts of the world? There had to be a lot more than five sons misbehaving out there. The idea of some mountaintop house in Nepal, or cabins deep in the rainforest made my mind slip sideways. There was an army of little shits out in the world, no doubt.
I turned down the hall just before I hit the gym, and passed a set of double doors that had always been closed. On impulse, I stopped and opened them.
A smaller ballroom than the one I’d seen on the other side of the house spread out before me, and I stepped onto the dance floor, taking in the red walls and the row of gold sconces around all sides.
A chandelier sat crashed on the floor, and I shot my eyes up to the ceiling, but I couldn’t see well in the darkness. Walking to the window, I threw open the drapes, the dust flying and catching in my lungs, and I coughed and stepped back, examining the mess in the light streaming through now.
How the hell did that happen?
The gorgeous room of decorative woodwork, mirrors, and crystal gleamed in the light, the only thing wrong with the place being the broken light fixture and the glass scattered all over the floor.
The chandelier was wider than I was tall, leaning to one side with almond-shaped pendants strewn about. Sunlight from the windows reflected in the shards, casting little rainbows over the walls, and I tipped my head back, inspecting the ceiling in the light again.
Wires were torn, the electric winch that was used to lower it for maintenance and cleaning severed. I walked over to the wall by the door and turned the dial, the lights in the sconces along the golden walls illuminating.
I tipped my eyes up again, checking out the suspension gear which seemed to still be intact, thankfully. This light fixture had been on its way down for cleaning or repair when it collapsed.
All it needed was to be raised again.
But, of course, the winch rope was ruined.
I would’ve heard this crash in the house. It must’ve happened before I came. Maybe long before I came. This door had always been closed, so perhaps the cleaning crew never got around to dealing with it.
Leaving the room, I found the breaker panels in the basement and turned off the electricity flowing to that room before grabbing some rope nearby that they’d used to tie up their deer, and then the ladder from the greenhouse, hurrying back to the ballroom. I didn’t want to be stopped, and the great thing about this big place was that it was easy not to run into people if you didn’t want to.
Since the winch rope was busted, and there was no way to replace that here, I checked the connections on the chandelier to make sure nothing was pried or loose before I set up the ladder, using the hand-powered drilling tool I’d found in the shed to drill a hole into the wall near the fireplace.
Placing in the bit, I wound the crank, digging into the plaster, which normally would only take seconds with a drill, but I didn’t have a drill here, so it was like 1898 and churning butter for three hours so you could have biscuits for dinner.
I grunted, my muscles burning. This was for the birds.
I growled, releasing the drill and slipping the eye screw in, winding it.
I twisted and twisted, using every bit of strength I had to get it as tight as I could before climbing farther up the ladder—the full thirty-two feet—and straddling the top of it, doing the same on the ceiling, near the original output for the light.
The ladder teetered under me, and my heart skipped a beat, but I worked fast, screwing in the eye and then fisting it and pulling, testing my weight.
It was still no indication that it would hold the chandelier, but at least it held something. I was never content to just carry the blueprints. I liked helping in the construction.
And I loved to work alone. I thought that was why I favored the small projects at the firm. The more personal renovations.
Descending the ladder, I secured the rope to the chandelier, carried the rope back up the ladder, and threaded it through the eye hook on the ceiling, and then came back down, moving the ladder to the wall and slipping the rope through the other eye again.
I stepped back down to the floor, wrapped the rope around my hand, and dug in my heels, pulling strong but slow. The shards jostled and sang as they tapped against each other, but the chandelier didn’t even leave the floor.
Shit. I almost laughed at the muscles I thought I had when I thought I could do this.
It had to be a quarter of a ton. Breathing hard, I tried again, using my weight to pull and pull, but there was no way. Even if I got this off the floor, I couldn’t hold it.
“No, I’m coming!” I heard Rory growl.
I jumped. “Rory!” I called, dropping the rope and standing up straight. “Rory, can you come here?”
The next thing I knew, he was standing in front of the door, shirtless and sleepy-eyed like he’d just woken up.
Planting his arms on both sides of the doorway, he cocked an eyebrow but didn’t ask me what I was doing. Pretty sure he never gave a shit.
“Can you help me?” I asked, pointing to the chandelier. “It’s too heavy for me to—”
I heard him laugh, and then I looked back to see him gone, not even letting me finish my sentence.
Dick!
If he and Micah helped, it would take ten seconds. Did he have somewhere else to be today?
I twisted my lips to the side and studied the chandelier, trying to figure it out. There was always a way to solve the problem.
There was always a way to accomplish something I needed to accomplish.
Or… I smiled to myself, a lightbulb popping on. A way to get someone else to do something I needed done.
I wondered…
Dropping my tool belt, I left the ballroom and headed to the kitchen, immediately pulling out the butter, eggs, sugar, and all the other ingredients I had memorized from when Grand-Mère had me do the baking after she got too weak. She loved the smell in the house and wanted it to be part of my memories, so that when I inhaled the scent of sugar cookies or banana bread, I’d remember the happy times with her and my mom.
After pre-heating the oven, I dug out a couple of pans, a bowl, and began mixing the ingredients, stirring them into glossy, chocolate heaven, the smell reminding me of most of Octobers after a morning at the farmer’s market, while my dad raked the leaves outside.
I placed both pans in the oven, took an apple out of the bowl on the counter, and ate it, waiting.
The kitchen warmed, filling with the rich smell, and I could feel the hairs on my arms rising as my stomach growled.
“What the hell is that?” I heard Micah finally say down the hall.
I beamed inside but bit back my smile, hurriedly spinning around with my oven mitt as the timer went off. I pulled one of the pans out of the oven.
Setting it on the cooling rack, I stuck a knife in the middle and pulled it out, making sure it was cooked all the way through.
Micah entered, followed by Alex and Rory, and Micah’s gaze locked on the pan, climbing up on the counter like a cat and sexy crawling right for the sweets. He inhaled deep, closing his eyes. “Is that…?”
“Brownies?” Alex finished for him, gawking at me.
“You’re making brownies?” Rory asked.
I shrugged, pulling out a fork and handing it to Micah, but he just loomed over the pan and dug in with his fingers, hissing at the hot confection before gobbling it.
Rory’s mouth fell open, and I knew he didn’t want to want it, but he did. He plucked the fork out of my hand and dug in, both of them hogging down the brownies with no manners and zero control.
I mean, geez. It wasn’t like they couldn’t make them at any time. The ingredients were all here.
Quickly, I cut out a piece before they ate it all and slid it onto a plate just as Aydin, Will, and Taylor strolled in, the scent drawing their attention.
I handed the plate to Aydin, feeling Will’s eyes on me as he hung back by the door.
Aydin held my gaze, pleased, and he tried to take the plate, but I pulled it away, playing a little.
He laughed and grabbed it, immediately digging in.
I shot Will a look and turned around, shutting off the oven and reaching inside again.
“You should’ve put walnuts in them,” Rory said.
I turned around, showing him the second pan, the surface dotted with fucking walnuts.
Micah stopped eating, staring at the other pan with chocolate covering his mouth and teeth.
He reached for it, but I pulled it away. “I need help with the chandelier first.”
Rory hooded his eyes, but I could see the smile there, because he knew exactly what I was doing, and I won.
If he wanted brownies with walnuts, then…
He sighed. “Micah? Taylor? Help me out, please?”
Their shoulders slumped, but they went, leaving the room with Rory and heading back to the ballroom.
I cut two slices out of the new pan.
“Wendy and The Lost Boys,” Aydin mused.
“And that makes you Peter Pan?” I asked.
He chuckled as I handed one slice to Alex and pushed the other plate over to Will.
But Will shot out, slapping the plate and the pan, sending them both flying onto the floor.
Every muscle in my body went rigid as they crashed and broke, the dessert splattered on the floor.
I darted my eyes to his.
“This isn’t Neverland,” he said, coming up to the island and glowering at me. “If it were, you wouldn’t be here. Grown-ups aren’t allowed.”
My stomach sank a little, but I didn’t blink, even though my eyes screamed to.
Spinning around, he charged out, and Alex hesitated a moment, throwing me an apologetic glance before finally going after him.
Aydin watched me, but I didn’t give him a chance to insert himself. Turning around, I dug the bowl back out of the sink and began mixing ingredients again, keeping my hands busy, because that was the only distraction I had.
I got it. You don’t fit, so stop posing.
No surprise here. It didn’t bother me.
It felt like Aydin wanted to say something, but it was time to put his lesson to the test. Nothing happened to me. I happened to everyone else. Et cetera, et cetera…
After he left, I put the brownies with walnuts in the oven, cleaned the dishes, and made myself a sandwich that I didn’t eat, because Micah and Rory walked back in, and I didn’t want to be around anyone.
“Brownies are on a timer,” I told them. “Take them out and turn off the oven when it’s done.”
They probably wondered why I’d had to make a second batch, but I was gone before they had a chance to ask.
Just put it out of your mind.
Him wanting me with him last night wasn’t about us. I’d let myself enjoy it and let it mean more than it did when he swept me into his arms.
I never fit with him. I always knew it, because Thunder Bay was Neverland and the Horsemen his tribe, and I hated to play. I didn’t do fun.
And leaving town hadn’t cured me of that.
I drifted into the ballroom, seeing the chandelier hanging high above, its lights illuminated and casting a soft glow over the floor. They’d cleaned up the glass, turned on the breaker again, and I kicked off my shoes, turning around in the big, open space with my head tipped back.
That was why I loved building and designing things. Making someone’s world theirs. It was a chance to fly, and all I needed was a dumb, happy thought.
And I’d had one. Just one that I hung on to all this time.
Spotting a record player near the fireplace, I walked over and dug inside the chest underneath it, seeing a few dozen records stacked together.
There was everything from Mozart to Bennie Goodman to the Eagles, but nothing from this century. It had probably been that long since this place had been inhabited by a family.
I picked one out and slipped it onto the turntable, deciding to embrace everything I hated, including this dumbass song. The stylus hit the record as it spun, and “If You Wanna Be Happy” by Jimmy Soul started playing, and I immediately smiled, remembering my mom and dad dancing to this in the kitchen when I was about seven or eight.
My body moved, and I bobbed my shoulders, hopping around as I sang along. I spun around the room, the music filling the air around me, and for a few precious moments, the guilt and everything faded away.
Fuck him for thinking I was supposed to have everything figured out at sixteen. Fuck him for demanding of me what I couldn’t even give myself. He and Aydin and Martin were all dictators, and I never heard my own voice.
Ever.
And it was my fault. I should’ve said it louder. I should’ve screamed. I hated that I had to, but it was my fault I fell quiet.
I wasn’t a grown-up. He was wrong. I never grew. I was always this pile of dead leaves, blowing in the wind and letting the seasons, whoever they were, come in and change me and walk on me, and I never fought for anything.
I spun and spun, the tears streaming down my face until someone swept me into his arms, and I opened my eyes to see Micah spinning me around as I wrapped my legs around his waist.
He planted his forehead to mine, smiling gently as I started laughing, the saxophone vibrating throughout the room.
“If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life,” we sang, “never make a pretty woman your wife…”
And he spun and spun, and I started laughing so hard as I hugged him to me, catching sight of everyone else by the door watching us.
They must’ve heard the music, too.
God, I didn’t care. I punched my fist in the air, both of us shouting the lyrics like complete idiots. No one was going to tell me how to feel. Not anymore.
No one could make me feel anything I didn’t allow. I was in control.
And I was ready for an adventure.
