Clallam Bay (A Fresh Start #2) (14 page)

Glancing over at Alyssa, I gave her a dirty look before getting up from my chair.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked, taking off before he could answer.

He followed me to the only place I knew we could get some privacy—the area behind the portrait.

“What the hell is it you want from me?” I asked, surprising myself.

He squinted down at the wall. “I just thought we could dance is all.”

“No.”

“No? We can’t dance?”

“Yes.” I shook my head. “No. I mean, that’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean, then?” he asked.

I motioned between us. “I mean what is going on with us? Why are you playing all these games?”

“I’m playing games?” He tried to be cute, but I ignored it.

“Is that all I am to you? A game?”

“What? Of course not. No.” He shook his head, looking more and more overwhelmed by the minute. I was beginning to wonder if he was even sober enough to be having this conversation.

“Then what? Why are you doing this to me?”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Coll brought his shoulders to his ears, gaping like a fish out of water. “Doing what, Hailey? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not doing anything.”

Sonia chose that moment to poke her head around the frame of her obnoxious engagement photo.

“Hailey, you think you could take Coll home? Jason drove him but now he’s driving me.” Tipping her head to the side, she made an effort to show us all her teeth. “‘Cause we’re married!” she sang out.

I almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation. Was she serious right now?

Waving away my drunk, married friend, I humored her. “Uh, yeah. Sure, sweetie. That would be fine.”

Only that certainly would not be fine. I didn’t want to spend any more time with him than physically necessary.

When I ordered him to get in my car, he folded into the passenger seat, no questions asked. It made me feel good. Powerful that he obeyed with no hesitation whatsoever. Like I was capable of making him do just about anything. Anything but actually talk to me.

We rode in silence. Every time I looked over, I found him looking out the window at the passing blackness.

I deflated a bit when I pulled into our driveway and stopped to drop him off. Even though I was mad at him, I didn’t feel like being alone just yet.

“Will you come in?” he asked, making my heart flutter around inside my chest. Like he knew.

“Why?”

“Because I want you to.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to leave it this way. Jesus.” Rubbing his face, he pushed the heel of his hands into his eye sockets. “Just come in. Please.”

This time it was my turn to obey. Pushing open my door, I followed him up the steps. I wrapped my arms around myself, waiting while he fiddled with and dropped the keys a couple times before finally getting the right one in the keyhole. Once we were inside, he took my coat, throwing it over the back of his couch as he motioned for me to follow.

Even though I probably should have, I didn’t take much of an opportunity to look around, too focused on where we were going and what we were going to be doing once we got there.

At the end of the hallway, he flipped on a light and I flinched, letting my eyes adjust to the brightness of his kitchen as he poured himself some water. He took a drink and then held out the cup. “Want some?”

Standing in the entryway, I shook my head. “No, thanks.”

He shrugged as if it were my loss.

“Why am I here again?”

“Because I asked you to come in and you agreed.”

“Seriously, Coll. What is it you want? You write. You don’t write. You act like you like me, then you don’t. So what is it?”

Looking over, his eyes roamed up my legs then back down to the floor before he turned back toward the sink to fill up his cup again.

Staring at his backside, I came to the realization that I didn’t know this man. Didn’t understand him and probably never would. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to anymore.

My stomach turned as I did, heading back out the way I’d come in, when his hand wrapped around my wrist. He pulled me into an adjoining room, shutting the door behind us. Pushing me up against the door, he pressed his lips to my neck.

“Don’t leave.” His breath was hot, making me momentarily forget my anger.

I ran my hands up his arms and over his shoulders, then I fisted them into his hair. It was softer than I imagined, like smooth silk sliding between my fingers. His palms felt big and demanding, roaming down my waist. They lit a fire over my hips, running the flames back up the insides of my thighs. I spread them farther apart for him, biting back a moan as his fingers dipped just under the edges of my panties. I involuntarily hissed when his teeth dug into my shoulder. He soothingly kissed where he bit.

“You’re drunk.”

“I’m good.”

Lifting the hem of my dress, he palmed my ass, pressing his groin between my legs. A few more swivels of my hips and I probably could have come.

“I missed you. You know that?” he asked.

I let out a breathy laugh, loosening my hands from his hair to rest them against his chest. I tried pushing him away but he didn’t budge, only pushed into me harder. I bit back another moan. No way was I was giving him the satisfaction of knowing how good he felt. How much I missed him, too.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you, just needed some time to think,” he swore, his lips working their way back up to softly sweep across my jaw. The deep tenor of his voice vibrated my bones, making me dizzy.

I didn’t want to be mad at him. I didn’t really have any right to be mad at him, but I was mad at him.

“What was it you needed to think about?”

“You. Us. How maybe we could … ya know.”

“We could what?”

Groaning, he briefly rested his forehead against my chest before looking back up.

“Dammit, don’t you get it? I want to be with you, Hailey. Now. Tonight.”

His fist hit the door right beside my head, and I flinched, almost scared to look back up at him.

Realizing what he was doing, he slowly backed off, sitting down on his bed once his knees hit the edge of the mattress. He studied me briefly before dropping his head in his hands and fisting his hair.

“You know, I knew it was a mistake writing you those letters.”

A sharp pain pierced my chest and I slouched back against the door. I closed my eyes and then opened them, finding my vision blurred. The room was spinning.

“I can’t be that guy for you, Hailey. I thought maybe I could … but I can’t.”

I wanted to ask why but my throat felt too dry.

“I hardly know when I’m gonna be around. If I’ll be around.” He kept going, making everything worse. “It’s dangerous out there. Do you understand that? I go out and I don’t know when I’m coming back,
if
I’m coming back. Can you honestly tell me that’s what you want? You seriously want to get attached to that?”

Too late.

I already was.

“I mean, what if we had kids?”

My stomach fluttered at the mention of doing something like that together. On purpose.

“I thought you didn’t think about stuff like that.”

“I didn’t. Now I do. All the fuckin’ time. I just sit around”—he gestured around the room—“fuckin’ thinking about it. And I don’t want my kids growing up like I did.”

“And how was that?”

“Second to a piece of shit just because he could foot half the bills. Being beat for dropping the ball, not keeping my room clean, ‘cause I was somebody else’s kid, who knows.”

I stepped away from the door to go comfort him but he held up a hand.

“Don’t. Okay? Just don’t.”

I stopped in my tracks.

“I’m headed back out tomorrow, that was what I was trying to tell you the other day.” He sniffed, wiping his nose on his shoulder before resting his elbows on his knees.

“This is all I have to offer.” He held out his hands before folding them together. “A little bit of time in between runs. And you know what I really want to do with that time?” He glared up at me.

“I want to eat. I want to sleep. And I want to fuck.”

His blunt admission hit me like a punch to the stomach.

Standing, he stalked over, placing a hand on either side of my head.

“And I want to fuck you.”

Grabbing my chin, he lifted it to look me in the eye.

“I don’t want to make you my wife,” he said, surprisingly ripping my heart in two. “I don’t need you to miss or mourn me like some clingy bitch of a girlfriend.”

I flinched as if the words had hit me. I couldn’t believe he was acting this way.

“I just want to eat your food, fuck you, then fall asleep in that bed over there. You telling me that’s gonna be enough?”

Trailing his fingers down the side of my throat, he waited, patiently letting me think about what I wanted. Only thing was, I couldn’t think.

Between the storm churning inside my stomach and the hemorrhaging from my heart, I couldn’t think at all.

“Think I got my answer.”

Removing his hands, he reached around me to open the door and push me out before shutting himself back up inside.

Palming the chipped wood, my other hand wrapped around the handle. I jostled it once before giving up. After a few moments, I left. Unable to think. Unable to sleep. Unable to hold back the tears when I later stirred with a thunderous warning that his truck would be gone again by morning.

“Hailey? Earth to Hailey. Come in, Hailey.” Alyssa snapped her fingers in my face, and I blinked.

“Sorry. What?”

She pointed back at my class, and I hesitantly glanced around her.

“They’ve been running amuck for the past twenty minutes. At first I thought y’all were playing a game. But when the first blood-curdling scream rang out I figured different. I came running over to find you and them like this.” She gestured around the room.

Different color marker covered half the desktops. Every toy had been pulled out of the bins and strewn out all over the floor. All of the kids were out of their seats and running around the room like the little hooligans they were. All but little Kaylee and Timmy. They were such a sweet kids. Maybe I should have given Timmy’s dad a call after all.

What?

No. No.

What was I thinking?

“What were you thinking?” Alyssa asked, and I gave her an incredulous look. How did she do that? “Hello! So help me. If you zone out again, I swear to God.”

“Swear to God! Swear to God!” one of the kids yelled as they ran by, stringing a roll of paper towels along behind them.

I frowned at the blank space in front of me before leaning back in my chair.

What was I thinking?

Thankfully, Alyssa didn’t push the issue but assisted me in rounding up and settling down the heathens instead. She even offered to stay after school and help me clean up, but I shooed her out the door, dead set on scrubbing desktops in peace. I needed the time to think. Even though I couldn’t remember what I was thinking about after I was done thinking it.

God, I was a mess.

The last place I wanted to be was home. I stopped by the bar to drown my sorrows in a plate of cheese sticks. Ordering them to go, I pulled out a stool and sat, looking over to find Russell sitting next to me.

“Well hey there.” Taking a drink from his tumbler, he saluted me with two fingers.

I hadn’t seen or spoken to him since that awkward day I’d hauled his drunk ass home. It seemed today wasn’t going to go much differently.

“Will you be needing a ride this time?”

He smiled around the rim then wiped his mouth. Setting the empty glass down, he slid it to the back of the counter and rapped on the wood with his knuckles. “No, I will not.”

“You need me to call you a cab?”

“Already have. Straight outta this place.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yep.”

“Where ya headed? Someplace warm, I hope?”

He huffed a laugh. “Hasn’t been warm up in Canada since The Great Fire of ninety-eight.”

“Canada? You’re going back home?”

“Sure am. Soon as Junior here gets me that drink.” His voice rose to get the bartender’s attention. “I suggest you go home, too. This place isn’t good for people like us.”

I wanted to be offended and had an urge to ask him what he meant by people like us, but I understood what he was saying. I had turned into my worst self since moving to Clallam, and I thought about going back to Chicago more and more each day.

The bartender set a another glass on the counter in front of Russell. He downed it then stood, tossing a few bills on the bar before putting on his coat. He patted me on the shoulder.

“You go on home, now. Ya hear?”

I nodded, and he headed for the door, leaving me to wonder if he had been talking about the bar or Chicago this whole time.

Tossing my order in the trash, I did as he said. I couldn’t remember the drive to the house. Couldn’t feel my fingers as they mixed up the hot chocolate I stepped outside to drink on the porch swing. I barely registered the sight of the bay or the sound of the waves hitting the side of the cliff.

But I was still going to miss them.

*

The restaurant I brought Alyssa and Sonia to had a certain romantic ambiance. I wasn’t expecting it to be so intimate with its low hanging chandeliers and such dim lighting. But then again, perhaps it was the perfect place for what I was about to tell them.

Or not.

“I’m going home,” I said, placing my elbows on the table and waiting for the fallout.

With a forkful of pasta at her open mouth, Sonia froze.

Alyssa looked at me as if I were crazy. “But we just got here. You haven’t taken one bite of your garlic bread. That’s very unlike you. Are you feeling okay?”

“No. That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?” Sonia asked, dropping her fork with a clank.

My eyes widened. “I mean I’m going home.” I hesitated. “Back to Chicago.”

“What!” they both yelled at the same time.

I ducked my head, scanning the room for any sign of a disturbance. But nobody was paying attention to the three crazy girls in the back, thank God.

“Yeah. My last day’s tomorrow. I start next week,” I said to my plate, wanting to sink down in my seat to hide under the table. But I held my ground. I was doing this. This was what I wanted to do. That was final.

“And when exactly were you planning on telling us this?”

“I just did.”

“Well, how long have you known about it?”

“They called a couple days ago.”

Alyssa gave me a knowing look. “Mmhm.”

“They’re desperate for teachers right now. I applied when I graduated but they wanted someone with experience.” I shrugged a shoulder. “Now I have it.”

Man, did I have it.

“Is this really what you want, or is this you running away from your problems?” She intentionally left out “with Coll” at the end. “Because they’re just going to follow you wherever you go, you know.”

Somehow, I highly doubted it. I doubted my problems would even notice I was gone. They hardly noticed when I was there to begin with.

“It’s not just that. I miss home. I miss my friends.”

“We’re your friends,” Sonia said, sounding like I just sat on and squished her heart. It made me feel awful.

“You know what I mean. I’ll miss you guys, too. But I have to go back right now. I just have to.” It felt like the right thing to do. The only thing to do. I was going insane sitting around eating my life away. The city had great distractions. Lots of museums and gyms. I was in desperate need of getting back to a gym.

Alyssa looked irate staring me down out of the corner of her eye. Sonia just looked utterly pathetic and sad, hunkering down into the corner of the booth.

“Gotta do what you gotta do, I guess.” Alyssa reluctantly gave me her blessing, and I nodded.

No longer hungry, we picked at our meals in silence, avoiding eye contact for the remainder of the ruined dinner date.

I couldn’t get back to the house fast enough to finish packing. I had a nine a.m. flight out of cloud-covered Clallam. A wide-smiling Amber was going to be picking me up in the land of the living where they didn’t go on month-long fishing excursions. The boys were just as immature, but at least I couldn’t be crushed by any of them. Not anymore. I knew what I was getting myself into in Chicago. Business suits and baseball caps. Everything I was already used to. I’d bet that was why I had been so attracted to Coll. I just wasn’t used to someone like him.

Yeah. That was it. Unfamiliarity.

I didn’t believe it myself as I was thinking it. No matter how much I tried to deny it, something about Coll had been different. I couldn’t explain it because it couldn’t be explained. The man put my finger in his mouth on our first meeting, for Christ’s sake. Who did that?

The more I thought about him the more pissed off I got, coming up with all these things I should’ve said to him that night.

I was a red, heaving mess, sweating all over when there was a knock at the door. My stomach turned until I remembered Coll had left the day after our little one-sided chat. If it wasn’t him, that only left two other people it could be. Opening the door to the sad faces of Sonia and Alyssa, we all started crying, simultaneously going in for a three-way hug goodbye.

*

Baggage claim in Chicago was like a pig trough at meal time. I had forgotten how busy and loud it could be and usually was. Everywhere. Something I used to be able to drown out and ignore. But not so much anymore.

After spotting my luggage on the third go-around, I was finally able to push through the crowd and grab it. I had to suppress a strong urge to throw an elbow into some old lady’s throat, which really wasn’t like me. Seemed I’d brought home a few anger issues along with the box of salt water taffy.

The sound of someone yelling my name across the terminal caught my attention. The crowd parted, and I took off for my best friend in the whole wide world.

Amber had a wide smile on her face just like I’d imagined she would. Her hair had grown out into a long, shoulder-length bob. A much better look for her than the horrific pageboy cut she’d gotten for some stupid guy.

Then again, maybe it was us who were the stupid ones.

“Oh my God. Get over here,” Amber said as she pulled me in for a snug hug. “I know we just saw each other over Christmas, but I missed you.”

Now, Amber I believed.

“I missed you, too. A lot.”

“A lot. A lot.”

We giggled, squeezing each other a bit tighter before letting go and heading for the car.

Amber talked about herself and what was new in her life off and on during the ride to her apartment. I was pretty sure it was to keep me from focusing on myself. She spit off facts and fun little tidbits she thought I would find interesting but really didn’t. Bless her heart.

“And I’m setting us both up on a blind date.”

“What? Amber, no. No! You of all people should know that I don’t feel like meeting anybody new right now.”

“Oh, calm down, would ya? It’s a blind date with a book.”

“A what?”

She nodded. “Yeah. At the library. It’s kind of like a book club where someone picks out a book and you have to read it, then we all discuss it at the next meeting. It’s got a new lounge area with sofas and bean bags and you can drink your cappuccino there. Sounds heavenly, doesn’t it?”

I had to admit, lounging around on a bean bag chair with a cappuccino in one hand and a book in the other did sound kind of nice.

“I guess that would be okay. But next time lead with that, would ya?”

Amber smiled at the road ahead. “Yes, ma’am.”

Once we made it back to her apartment, she helped me unload the bags I’d brought with me on the plane. The rest of my stuff I’d shipped, and it would be here any day now.

It meant a lot to me that Amber was letting me stay in her spare bedroom, AKA the couch, until I could find my own place. I’d considered staying with my parents, but I’d just tried that during my last visit. While staying in my childhood bedroom had been nostalgic, the novelty of the holidays had long worn off. It would have been too real for me to even think about trying to handle my mom’s questions at a time like this.

Amber’s healthy eating habits really helped me over the multiple humps of caffeine withdrawal. Three days junk food free and I was feeling a whole hell of a lot better. On the fourth day I joined Amber’s gym, which was conveniently just two blocks away. I was exercising on my way to exercise. It was great. It was perfect. Until the first day of school.

I’d heard horror stories of teaching curriculums in big cities versus smaller, more condensed ones. My class size doubled along with my anxiety. Testing, testing, and more testing consumed my days and took away from very important socially integrating activities for the kids. The parents seemed to know more about their child’s academic needs than I did, which made me look incompetent upon lazy upon uncaring. All of which I was not. But there was no telling them that this late in the game.

All the stress went to my upper back and shoulders. Sleeping on Amber’s lumpy couch wasn’t helping the situation. On more than one occasion I had to run away from the vending machines, which now took credit cards. Credit cards!

The whole entire universe was ganging up on me. I blamed Alyssa, who jokingly threatened she was going to put a hex on all things Chicago if I left. Said she’d make me come crawling back if it “kilt” her to do so.

I had to admit the thought was tempting. Things seemed to have been a lot easier back there in Clallam. Easier. Boring. At least, that was how I was remembering it. I missed the easy. I missed the kids. Especially Kaylee. I wondered if she was still there. If she was still with her foster family. I hoped to hell she was and I wasn’t just another person who had abandoned her. The thought made me want to sob like she had the day I announced I was leaving for another job. The whole thing broke my heart.

If I did go back, I didn’t necessarily have to move back into the rental. I could find an apartment. One not overlooking the water. All I had to do was stay updated on the boat schedules and steer clear of the only bar in town. It was that simple.

I was looking up flights when Amber walked into the room.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking up flights back to Seattle.”