Naked 2 : BAD (2 page)

The thought made her smile, until she remembered the pre-recorded message that had told her the call was coming from jail. Her smile faded.

Don’t think about it, she told herself. Just enjoy the moment.

“Okay, I’m just going to listen to you,” she said.

“Right now, we’re together. You and me, at the Seaside Motel. Close your eyes, Caelyn.”

She did as he said. She closed her eyes and held the cell phone close to her ear, wrapping the blanket around her body. “You sound…warm,” she told him.

“That’s because I’m with you, holding you close and keeping you warm,” he said.

“I’ve got my arms around you, and I’m running my fingers through your hair. Can you feel that?”

She nodded. “Yeah.” And strangely enough, she could feel it. Maybe it was a weird kind of hypnosis, but Caelyn could swear that she actually sensed his fingers slowly gliding through her hair, tickling her scalp.

“I put my lips up against the back of your neck and whisper, and you can feel my breath on your skin.”

She shuddered with the deliciousness of what he was telling her. “If only—“

“No ‘if only’s’. It’s real if you let it be real.”

“I’m trying my best.” She settled down again, trying to relax and picture what he was telling her.

“You know that I’ll protect you,” he said. “You can trust that.”

“How can I trust it? I hardly even know you, Elijah.”

“But you can tell, can’t you? You know what I’m saying is true.”

“I think I do, even though it makes no sense how I can trust you when I know almost nothing about your life, where you came from, anything.” But then again, she had seen Elijah risk his own life to protect her from Jayson. He was only in jail right now because he’d put his head on the chopping block for her.

“So trust me, then,” he said. “I’m there with you, right now, right this second. I’m talking into your ear, I’m holding you in my arms.”

She was relaxing now, somehow. His voice was melting her, allowing her to feel safe and secure, allowing her defenses to come down. But something even stranger was occurring.

Caelyn found herself getting turned on.

One moment, her eyes were closed and she was smiling, imagining Elijah running his fingers through her hair. The next, she felt her entire body getting hot, aroused by his voice. She realized suddenly that she wanted Elijah to talk about more than just holding her close.

“What else?” she asked, feeling impatient.

“What else?” he said, a little laughter creeping into his voice.

“I just—I like hearing you talk like that.”

He sighed, but it wasn’t a sigh of boredom. Rather, Caelyn thought that he sounded exasperated that they had to be so far apart right now. “I keep thinking about that night in the hotel, and how you came out of the bathroom in your towel.”

Caelyn giggled and put her hand over her face. “Oh my God, that was embarrassing. I practically fell on my face after running into you.”

“It’s okay. I liked it.”

“You did?”

“I did. A lot.”

She felt her cheeks flush even more. “That makes it a little less awkward to remember.”

“All this time sitting in a cell, the only thing I can seem to think about is how I should have kissed you that night.”

“Elijah—“

“No, let me say it. I regret that I didn’t even try.”

“I like that you were trying go slow.”

“I know, but now it might be a long, long time…”

“Remember to stay in the moment,” Caelyn said. “Like you told me to do.”

“Shit, I never was very good at following my own advice.”

Caelyn rolled onto her stomach. “If you were here right now, I’d kiss you,” she told him.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I would. Definitely.”

He chuckled. “Maybe some day we can reenact that night. You can run out of the bathroom in your towel and see how it turns out.”

Caelyn tried to picture it—her coming out of a steamy bathroom, towel wrapped around her torso, not covering any of her quite well enough. And then Elijah, standing there—his shirt would be off, his bare chest and biceps would be rock hard as she fell into him. And then they’d look into one another’s eyes, their lips slowly moving closer…

“You have no idea what I would do to you, Caelyn.” His breathing was deep and his voice was soft, promising. It wasn’t a threat, it wasn’t scary at all. She wanted to find out. She wanted to find out more than she could even stand to bear.

“I think I might have an idea,” she replied.

And then there was a beep beep beep on the line and a series of clicking sounds.

“Elijah?” she called out, sitting up in bed, eyes wide open. “Are you still there?”

But he was gone.

It was over.

The room was now empty, too quiet, and everything felt grungy and moist from the Florida humidity. The sense of loss was even more intense now, as if she’d had another chance with Elijah and he’d been stolen suddenly from her again.

It didn’t seem fair. It didn’t seem right.

All Caelyn knew was that she had many sleepless hours to go before she’d leave this awful, lonely room, and not much to do to pass the time but think and regret.

The night stretched out before her as a long, lonely road that she had to walk alone.

***

It was early the next morning when her flight landed at Logan Airport.

Caelyn had tried to sleep on the plane, but she’d been sitting in front of a little boy who enjoyed kicking the back of her seat once every two or three seconds. Between the seat kicking and him asking his mother what every single thing on the plane was called, Caelyn had remained very much awake for the entire flight.

So now she was exhausted from not having slept well, and worried about seeing her parents on top of everything else. But despite her anxiety about coming home, she still couldn’t stop thinking about
him
.

Even though they’d only spent a relatively short amount of time together, Caelyn could picture every feature of Elijah’s face so clearly—especially that sneaky little grin he used when giving her a hard time.

The plane pulled up the gate and the passengers began the slow process of filing out and into the airport.

The stewardesses smiling faces were an unwelcome sight to Caelyn. As they said goodbye and thanked all the passengers for flying with them, all she could think about was that nobody should be happy right now.

It didn’t seem real. Outside, Boston skies were heavy and metallic gray, which was in tune with how Caelyn felt. Her world had become foggy and the people around her seemed as insubstantial as those in a dream.

When she arrived at the gate, they were there; Mom and Dad, their faces tight and anxious, like their skin had been pulled back, forcing them to grimace slightly.

She walked slowly towards them, willing herself not to break down and cry.

You need to be strong right now,
she told herself.
You need to remember why you
came back. Be strong for Elijah, the way he was for you.

Once she reached her parents, Caelyn’s mother threw her arms around her and hugged her like she’d just come back from the dead. “Oh my God,” her mother said, into her ear. “You had us scared half to death, Caelyn.” And then she began sobbing, shaking as she held Caelyn tighter and tighter.

“It’s okay, Mom,” Caelyn said, wondering how things had gotten so turned around that she was somehow consoling her mother.

Her father wasn’t nearly as emotional. He gave Caelyn a big hug and then looked her in the eyes. “Are you all right?” he said. His lips were pressed together and his eyes were more serious than she was used to.

She nodded. “I’m okay.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” he said.

She shook her head. “Not now. Later.”

He frowned, subtly. Caelyn knew he didn’t like her answer. Better get used to it, she thought.

The three of them walked together, her dad carrying Caelyn’s bags and her mother leading them toward the parking lot where the car waited.

The attendant waved them through, and they drove out of the short-term parking lot and onto the highway.

Her father’s eyes glanced at her in the rearview mirror.

Caelyn turned her face to the window, watching the highway—all the cars heading to unknown destinations. She wondered where Elijah was this exact second in time? Was he thinking of her?

“It’s okay if you need to take a couple of days off,” her mother said, after a long bout of silence. “We understand that the pressures of an Ivy League education are probably much more stressful than you’re used to.”

“Anyone could get overwhelmed,” her father added.

Caelyn had to repress a smile. So they were assuming that she’d freaked out because of her school workload or something. She couldn’t really blame them—after all, she hadn’t told them anything, so they were forced to come up with possibilities on their own.

“You’re right, it’s been very stressful,” she said. Making them feel that she was giving them answers without really telling them anything—that was the key right now. Of course, she hated them believing that she was having trouble handling the academic pressure, but it was still better than telling them the truth.

***

After getting home, Caelyn’s parents allowed her to take some time alone in her bedroom, and she used it to get online and do some research about parole violations in Massachusetts, and what some of the possible outcomes were.

It wasn’t good news. Leaving the state was an automatic violation, and that alone could easily lead the parole board to decide to put him back in jail. What made things even worse was that going back to prison was pretty much automatic if you were convicted of a crime while out on parole.

Jayson bringing charges against Elijah was going to almost certainly mean that he would be going away for a long time. She didn’t even want to think about not having a chance to spend time with Elijah for two, three years—maybe even longer than that.

How could her relationship with Elijah survive him spending years in jail when they’d hardly been together in the outside world for more than a couple of days? It would never work. She would be in school, graduating, trying to make a career for herself, and he would still be sitting in a cell.

But worse than that—Elijah wouldn’t get a chance to be the man she knew he was capable of being.

After reading all of that stuff, she didn’t want to come out of her room.

Nothing seemed worthwhile to her but trying to hide from what her life had become. She didn’t want to see her family, or talk to anyone, or think about the hard decisions that had to be made.

But then there was a knock at her door.

“Go away, please,” she said. “I’m sleeping.”

“Mom wants you to come eat,” her younger sister, Deena, called from the hallway.

“I’m not hungry.”

“She made eggs and toast.”

“Not interested.”

“You better come,” Deena replied, a hint of warning in her voice now.

Caelyn sighed deeply, got up from her bed and opened the door. Deena was standing there with a self-satisfied smirk on her face. She was wearing a sweater, jeans and her light brown hair was pulled tightly back in a ponytail. A junior in high school, she seemed older than her years.

“Can you just tell Mom that I don’t feel well, and that I look awful?”

“You do look awful,” Deena said.

Caelyn smirked and nodded at her younger sister. “Thanks.”

“You said it first.” She looked Caelyn up and down. “You know, you really freaked Mom and Dad out. I heard them talking all night last night, and Mom was crying.”

“I wasn’t trying to freak them out.”

“Did you even bother to think about anybody but yourself?”

Caelyn glared at her. This was exactly like Deena, to try and turn this situation into something that could elevate her and turn Caelyn into the bad sister. Deena, for some reason, had always seemed to resent Caelyn for being a high achiever, had always looked for ways to bring her down and outdo her.

Caelyn didn’t feel competitive with her sister, but somehow, Deena must have gotten all the competition genes, because it never seemed to stop on her end.

“Dee,” she said, purposefully using Deena’s childhood nickname that she knew annoyed her, “I wasn’t trying to upset everyone. I have my own problems and my own life, and it’s not really any of your business anyhow. It’s between me and Mom and Dad.”

Deena folded her arms. “First of all, my name is Deena, not Dee. Second of all, it is my business, because Mom said it is.”

“How so?”

“You’d understand if you came downstairs and talked to Mom.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Caelyn grabbed her cell phone off the bed and followed her sister downstairs to the kitchen.

Her parents had changed into their work clothes—her father was wearing khaki’s and a button-down shirt. He was the manager at a large real estate office about forty-five minutes from home.

Her mother was dressed in a formal suit. Her hair and makeup were done and she looked pretty, but her frown lines were showing. She was a director of public relations of Bristol Farms, a food and beverage company that she’d been working at for more than ten years. She’d started in the manufacturing plant and worked her way up to a very high office position, something she was extremely proud of.

She was putting scrambled eggs and toast on a plate for Caelyn and setting it at her usual spot at the table.

“She didn’t want to come down but I told her she had to,” Deena announced, as she sat and picked up a fork.

Caelyn shot her sister a look but didn’t bother responding. She sat down.

“We’re glad you could join us,” her father said, looking appraisingly at her. He seemed about to say something else, then decided against it, and just bit into his toast.

Her mother wasn’t even looking at her.

Everyone started eating, and it was all too quiet and awkward.

Finally Deena sighed. “Can I tell her?”

“Tell me what?” Caelyn said. She’d barely touched her food—her appetite was nonexistent.

“That I’m in charge of you now,” Deena said, grinning.