Anywhere But Here (19 page)

I cleared my throat awkwardly. “There, clean sheets, I promise.”

She hesitantly lowered herself to sit on the edge of the bed. It creaked a little even under her small frame.

I scraped my hand through my hair to the back of my neck. “Sorry, it’s not the most comfortable.” It was the same twin bed I’d had since I was ten, and even though I’d outgrown it a long time ago, it was what I had so I made do.

“It’s fine.”

I sat down beside her and handed her the plate she’d left sitting on the nightstand. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’m on a boat,” she chuckled.

“Try to eat more if you can. I promise it will help. And drink the water. That will make a big difference in the morning.”

She groaned. “This is going to suck in the morning, isn’t it?”

“Not going to lie, yeah it is, but it will suck less if you eat and drink the water.”

She took a couple more unenthusiastic bites and drank from the glass. “I just feel like I need to lie down.”

I took the plate and glass from her, returning them to the nightstand. “You can lie down, but you might want to take that off.” I pointed at the big tiara still stuck in her hair.

Her hand reached up and patted it. “Oh, yeah. I forgot I was still wearing it.” She pulled it free and then held it in her lap. “It’s pretty isn’t it?”

“Nah, not really,” I told her honestly. “But it looked pretty on you.”

She reached out and set it carefully on the nightstand and then scooted back on the bed before laying her head down on my pillow. My bed sat tucked in a corner, on nothing but a box spring. I grabbed my spare pillow and tucked it against the wall behind my back and brought my legs up onto the bed so I was sitting, stretched out beside her. She was on her side, her eyes open and seemingly staring at nothing.

“Does anyone know you’re here?” I wondered whether I needed to be worried about her mother or someone sending the police to my door to rescue Shae from this den of iniquity. Her eyes flitted to my face and she gave her head a shake.

“Do you want to call anyone?” I was out of minutes on my phone, but I could go get Derek’s.

“No.”

“Do you want me to take you home?”

“Not yet.” Her eyelids lowered. “I just want to lay here for a while.”

“Okay. You can lay here as long as you want.” I reached down and pulled the covers up over her. It only took about two minutes for her lips to part and her breathing to slow with sleep.

I couldn’t help but reach out and stroke my hand over her hair, only to find it stiff with whatever crap was holding it together. Her skin was much softer when I traced my thumb over her cheek. Her eyelashes fluttered a bit but otherwise she didn’t stir.

I was pretty sure that there would never be anything prettier than this girl, or anything better than seeing her head on my pillow. I wasn’t the kind of guy who could make a girl like her happy, or any girl for that matter. Relationships and me didn’t mix, and I’d unarguably done a lot of stupid shit in my almost eighteen years, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around how Black could have risked this, for what? For Daisy fucking Brighton? Or Tammy Palmer before her, and Amber Trout before her? I’d personally sampled two of the three, and wouldn’t touch the third, and there was, without a doubt, no way any of them stacked up against the girl sleeping beside me. No fucking way. No chance. How could I see that when he couldn’t?

The last few weeks had driven me crazy. Seeing her with him, knowing he was a selfish, ungrateful, prick. The only thing that kept me from tearing his damn head off was knowing at least she was happy in her ignorant bliss, but she sure as fuck wasn’t happy now. I no longer had any reason to let him keep walking around like a cocky bastard who could take whatever he wanted.

Once it looked like Shae was really out cold, I climbed from the bed and went in search of Derek. My brother’s friends were still all over the place, and it was a damn miracle Shae was sleeping through the music. Derek was in the corner chatting with some girl I didn’t know, but that wasn’t saying much. There were always new faces mixed in with the old at these things. Everyone looking for a good time, most looking to score a little something extra, be it the shit my brother and some of his buddies dealt, or just a warm body for the night, or both.

I always sent Trinity away, made sure she was clear of this place anytime my brother wanted to have people over, but right now I needed to call her back.

“D, give me your phone.” He didn’t hesitate to pull it from his pocket and toss it to me without taking his attention off the dark haired, pixie looking girl.

I dialed my sister’s number, hoping she wasn’t already sleeping at Angie’s. It was after midnight, but I knew those two girls well enough to know they usually stayed up all night watching their girly crap shows. She picked up after the third ring and I was glad I’d made sure she had minutes before she left tonight.

“Derek?”

“No, Trin, it’s Kell. I hate to do this to you, but I need you to come back home.”

“Why?” Instantly I could hear the worry.

“Everything’s fine, but uh, Shaeleigh Bradford is passed out in my bed right now and I need to leave with D to take care of something, but I can’t leave her here alone with Tuck and these assholes.”

“Holy shit, Kell, what is Shaeleigh doing there?”

“It’s a long story, one that starts with her boyfriend being a real piece of shit and ends with me going to have words with him, but like I said, I can’t leave until I know someone is here to keep an eye on her.”

“Yeah, of course, but can I bring Angie?”

“If her parents are cool with it.”

“They will be.” Angie’s parents didn’t keep much of a leash on Angie, but at least they were parents who stuck around and they were always good to my sister.

“I’ll send D to get you two, be ready in ten.” Neither of the girls drove.

Even though D had kept his eyes and his smile on the girl, he’d been listening, because the second I hung up, he apologized to her and pulled out his keys. I tossed his phone back and he pocketed it before strolling out of the house. I went back to my room to check on Shae and stayed there until D returned with the girls.

When they poked their heads into my room, I held my finger up to my lips, but waved them in. “She’s sleeping pretty hard, but maybe just check in on her every little bit in case she wakes up sick. And make sure she doesn’t roll onto her back, and that no one else comes in here.” Trin’s room was right across the hall from mine, so if she kept her door cracked she could keep an eye on mine.

“Okay, but what are you going to do brother? I know better than to believe you’re just going to have words with Jeremy Black.”

“You don’t need to worry about that, and don’t tell her where I went if she wakes up.” It was too late for that. A soft groan sounded from the bed. Shae was trying to sit up, her face distressed.

“Kellen,” she croaked.

“Yeah,” I hurried to her side.

“I don’t feel so well,” she whimpered and clutched her stomach.

“Let’s get you to the bathroom.” I helped her up, and she remained partly hunched over as I guided her to the bathroom, where she immediately dropped to her knees in front of the toilet and lost her stomach. She coughed and then heaved some more. Coughed and cried and repeated the process a couple more times before her shoulders slumped and she was nearly resting her face against the seat. I got her up and a rag to wipe her face and clammy skin.

Trin was behind me with a cup of water. I had Shae rinse and spit a few times before I dragged her back to the bed and sat her down. “Trin, maybe you have some shorts or pajamas she can borrow?’ I looked at my sister.

“Of course.” She dashed across the hall and returned a moment later with a pair of cupcake pajama bottoms and a matching tank top. I handed them to Shae and asked her if she needed any help. She stared at them and shook her head, but I wasn’t convinced so I left Trin in the room with her while the rest of us waited in the hall. When Trin called us back in, Shae’s dress was rumpled on the floor and Trin was pulling pins from her hair.

“Do you want to go home now?” I asked her since she was fully awake for the moment.

“Is it okay if I stay? It’s probably better if my mother just assumes I’m out partying all night than for her to see me like this.” She bit her lip and there was no way I could have told her no.

“Yeah, take my bed and go back to sleep. We’ll get you home in the morning.” I tucked her back into bed, but when I started to rise, her hand reached out and snatched mine, stopping me. I sat back down beside and dipped my head to press a soft kiss to her temple. “What it is, Shae?”

“I just want to say thank you,” she whispered. “I know I shouldn’t have come here tonight and I feel bad that you’ve had to deal with me, but thank you.”

“Don’t feel bad. I’d rather you were here than alone. Now get some sleep.” Her eyelids fluttered closed and I stroked my hand up and down her back a moment before I was sure she was back out. I stood to find three pairs of eyes fixed on me, all with different expressions.

D looked confused as hell, like he didn’t know what he’d just witnessed. Angie looked a bit amused and my sister wore a big ol’ grin. I ignored them all. “Trin, you call D if there’s an issue. D, you ready to go?”

“If you’re done playing Prince fucking Charming.”

The girls snickered quietly.

“Shut the hell up man and let’s just get this over with.”

Shae

May 5

Present . . .

I taped the flier to the campus community board and then pulled the remaining rolled fliers from my hoodie pocket. I felt like I’d taped up hundreds of these all around town today, but the stack left in my hand proved I hadn’t even made it through half. We’d printed two-hundred and the four of us had split up, each with a stack of fifty. The plan was to meet back at the shop when we’d all covered our area. I was covering everything around the University Campus.

Everyone would be downtown for the music and beer festival. To draw them into our closeout sale and introduce them to Books ‘N’ Brew–yes we’d settled on a name–we planned a free coffee tasting during the sale. It wasn’t beer, but I figured it still might draw people in.

Things had been coming together fast the last couple days, and now there were only two to go until we said goodbye to Didi’s Trinkets. Beach Town Roasters had been all in since we pitched our business plan, and sampled their brews. They were even sending a couple people on Saturday to run the tasting for us, and donating ten pounds of beans.

Looking at what was left of the stack in my hand, knowing I’d already hit every announcement and activities board on campus and a few in the shops around campus, I just wanted to take them and make it rain fliers and be done with them, but I sighed and looked around for the next stop. I thought I must be hallucinating when my eyes landed on two familiar figures across the street. There was just no way what my eyes were seeing was actually happening. It looked a lot like my mother was hugging Kellen outside of one of the campus buildings as a group of people emerged.

I must have blinked at least a dozen times expecting the scene to change every time, but it didn’t. My mother really was embracing Kellen and several other people I didn’t know who all dispersed after a minute. Forgetting about the fliers still needing to be hung, I crossed the campus and the street and followed my mother to her parked car, safe in the knowledge that Kellen had left in the opposite direction.

When I was just a few yards from where she was about to climb into her Mercedes, I called out to her. “Fancy bumping into you here.”

Her head snapped to me, and after a brief moment of surprise, she smoothed her features into a neutral mask. “Shaeleigh, what a surprise.”

I stopped in front of her car. “Really, imagine my shock seeing you so cozy with Kellen.”

“Are you trying to ask me something daughter?”

“Just wondering when the two of you became bff’s. Do you two get together once a week and rehash the good ol’ days, like ‘remember that time we ruined Shaeleigh’s life? That sure was fun, we should do it again sometime.’”

My mother’s lips pinched in a tight line. “So now you’re curious about my life, because the other day you made it quite clear you wanted nothing to do with me. I suspect this has more to do with that boy, so why don’t you ask him.”

“Right, I don’t know why I bothered walking over here.” I turned to leave.

“Shaeleigh, wait.”

I cast a glance back over my shoulder.

“I would really like to get coffee sometime. There is so much we should talk about so that when we see each other it isn’t this awkward, hurtful thing that happens between us. I heard you’re going to be staying in town, and I’d love to hear about what you’re doing with your grandmother’s shop.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready for coffee yet, Mom.”

She nodded like she’d expected my answer. I turned to walk away, but she called out after me.

“You know, I think about him every day.”

I froze, but didn’t turn around. “Doesn’t change a thing Mom. He’s still gone.”

“I’m so sorry I let you down, let both of you down. You’re father would be so disappointed, but after he died, I just . . . I just . . . losing him was too much for me.”

“And you think it wasn’t for me?” I spun around. “Yes you lost your husband, and I know you loved Dad. I know losing him was hard for you, but you didn’t lose me. I was still here and he was my dad and I lost him too and I needed you, but you may as well have died right alongside him,” she flinched, “because you were just gone. My mom disappeared and the woman left behind was someone I didn’t know anymore. I needed you so many damn times back then, but you didn’t want to be needed. Well you got what you wanted Mom. I don’t need you anymore.”

I turned and walked away, but not before I saw the tears start to fall. I hadn’t seen her cry since Dad’s funeral and I didn’t really know how to handle it now. I found the nearest receptacle and tossed the last handful of fliers in and walked the six blocks back to where I’d left my car, my mind a jumbled mess of emotions.

She had so many chances to crawl out of whatever miserable pit she’d disappeared into after Dad died. Why now? When it felt a little too late.

And what had she and Kellen really been doing here? It was going to drive me crazy until I had an answer. The easiest person to get one from would be Trin, but that would mean letting her see that I still had some interest in what her brother did. She would read something into it.

I didn’t mention seeing Kellen at all or the run in with my mother when I made it back to Didi’s. The other three were already there and finishing up displays for Saturday.

“I was thinking, we could set up the tasting right here.” Cici was standing in the spot they’d cleared in front of one of the big windows.

“That would work fine,” I tried to muster a little bit of excitement, but my thoughts were still distracted.

“Or if you don’t like it, we can move it somewhere else.”

“No, I like it there. That’s great.”

“Is something up?” Lizzie picked up on my mood.

“No,” I lied. “Just exhausted from walking all over town hanging fliers.”

“Tell me about it,” Trina piped up and they all seemed to share the sentiment.

After that I really did try to clear my head and get into planning for Saturday.

“I think so that it’s not quite as crowded in here, we should move a couple of the displays out onto the sidewalk,” I suggested, looking around. By the time we had the tasting set up, it could get crowded if we had very many customers at once. “I’m thinking with it being a music fest, we could put the records outside.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea. And what about hanging the wind chimes out there?”

“That’s good. Those racks would be easy to move out there and they’re not a breakable item, or an easy one for someone to walk off with. I’d still like to make sure we have one person outside at all times keeping an eye on things.” Everyone nodded their agreement.

“We can all trade off working the register and helping customers.” More nods. “If we get real busy, we might need a second person behind the counter wrapping and bagging things, and that reminds me, I found one package of packing paper in the back. It has quite a few sheets, but depending on how things go, we may need more.”

“I can pick some up when I have the business cards printed tomorrow,” Cici volunteered.

“Trin, did you get those designed?”

“Yeah, let me show you what I came up with.” She retrieved her tablet and then showed us the simple, but cute design.

I loved them. “They’re perfect. Not too busy, but still fun and I think they advertise the right feel.”

There were no disagreements, so she forwarded the design to the print shop we’d been working with.

“Okay, I think everything is good to go. Take tomorrow for yourselves and let’s be here to set up at seven on Saturday. I want to have the doors open by eight for the early birds. Whatever is left on Sunday we’ll donate. Then the next few weeks are going to be real busy if we want to transform this place in time to open for Summerfest.”

“We can do it,” Cici chirped excitedly, and the other two looked ready to take on the challenge as well.

“But first, on Sunday, we party!” Trin reminded everyone, and we cheered excitedly. Sunday was Trin’s birthday and Cici had convinced Luke, who apparently had a place right on the beach, to let us commandeer it for Trin’s party. She’d wrangled his help more than once over the past week, and watching the two of them, it made me all the more glad I didn’t go through with hooking up with him that night. There was some serious tension and chemistry between the two of them, and they both just danced around it. He seemed more than okay with her quitting and I got the feeling it wouldn’t be long before he’d had enough of the dance they were doing and staked his claim. I also got the feeling that she was waiting for him to do exactly that, but had no intention of make it easy on him.

“So you going to tell me what was really bothering you earlier?” Lizzie asked on the drive back to Didi’s house. It would be a long time before I stopped thinking of it and referring to it as Didi’s. Knowing better than to try and brush Liz off, I gave her a recap of what happened while I was hanging fliers.

“And you have no idea why they would be meeting? Could it have just been a chance run in?”

“I don’t think so, and even if it was, since when does Kellen hug my mother? They hate, or at least hated, each other. And it looked like they were coming from some kind of event or meeting. I just have no idea what kind of group the two of them would be a part of.”

“Book club?” She didn’t even buy her own suggestion. “Or maybe some kind of town meeting or committee. You said your mom was big into that kind of stuff. Maybe now that he’s a business owner, he’s gotten involved in the community as well.”

That one was only slightly more believable. It just didn’t sound like the Kellen I knew, or I guess used to know. “I don’t know, maybe.”

“You could always just ask him like your Mom said.”

“Maybe on Sunday. First we have to get through Saturday.”

Which turned out to be a bigger challenge than any of us expected.

When we all showed up at seven on Saturday morning, there were already people on the street, most of them vendors and event people setting up, but there were some poking their noses against our windows. At seven-thirty when I unlocked the door to let in Ben and his wife Jill from Beach Town Roasters, there were a few ladies who tried to finagle an early look. I sent them away and told them to come back at eight when we opened.

Ben and Jill got their set-up up and running and gave us the first samples of the morning, but they definitely wouldn’t be the last ones we came back for. At eight we carted the bins of records and the wind chime racks out front and put out the chalk sandwich board we made up with big colorful letters proclaiming the closeout sale to all passersby.

The ladies who’d been waiting to get in since seven were the first to come through our door, and they certainly left happy with the deals they snagged. We also made sure they tried the coffee and knew to come back when we re-opened as Books ‘N’ Brew. After that the next two hours passed with a steady trickle of shoppers in and out. Most found something they just couldn’t live without, and we were working out a rhythm, getting into the swing of it. By ten, the streets were growing more and more crowded, and even more street vendors had showed up with their food stands or arts and crafts booths. The first band could be heard on Fifth doing their sound checks, and by eleven the festival was in full swing. There wasn’t a slow moment for us after that.

It was better than we had hoped, but it meant we were on our toes the entire day, dealing with customers determined to finagle every last penny off they could on top of the crazy discounts we were already offering. Others wanted to talk my ear of with stories of Didi, which I both loved and hated. She was such a beloved lady, and known to cause a little ruckus every once in a while. Hearing these people’s memories of her brought a smile to my face, but the reminder that there would be no more stories and memories wasn’t any easier to take. So many told me what I already knew, that she would have loved that I was taking over instead of selling out. I was surprised at how many came up to tell me that my name was always on her lips and she loved telling anyone who would listen about her granddaughter.

We didn’t get as many of the younger crowd as we had hoped, but we’d expected as much, knowing that the trinket shop wasn’t a hot destination for them. We’d have the Summerfest to start drawing more of that crowd in. It was our hope that Books ‘N’ Brew would be a place that friends came to get together, hang out, talk, laugh and have a good time.

During a brief slow moment, I took a minute to check the numbers for the day, pleased with the totals on the printout. It was more than we’d hoped, even marking everything down so low. We were moving a lot of product. Nobody could resist a deal that good.

Trinity smacked her hands on the counter, startling me. “Angry Dragon alert, coming in the door.”

My head snapped to the door and sure enough, it chimed and in strutted the dragon queen herself, in a flouncy little, yellow summer dress and a pair of peep-toe wedge sandals that instantly gave me shoe envy. She pushed a pair of flashy sunglasses up into her hair, and looked around the shop like she had not a care in the world, eventually bringing her gaze round to me and Trin at the counter. Her lips spread into a wide, fake smile as she sauntered on over.

“Hey ladies. So good to see you Trin, and you too Shae. You ran out of the office so quick the other day, we didn’t get the chance to catch up at all, but when I heard you were opening up here in your grandma’s old shop, I had to stop by.”