Pulled Within (17 page)

My gaze slowly shifted back to him. “Got it.”

“Now start walking.”

I didn’t even try to give Bella a final pat. I just shouted “
Screw
you
” in my head and continued on to my car.

“IT’S ALWAYS SO NICE
to see you, Rae,” Mary said from behind the counter. “Are you here for your usual deposit?”

Mary had been waiting on me since I’d opened my accounts at Bar Harbor Savings Bank five years ago. Over the years, I’d learned that she had started working here right out of high school. She was in her sixties now.

Bar Harbor may have been a town that held many secrets, but it didn’t like change.

Neither did I.

“Thanks, Mary. I am.” I pushed the white envelope across the
counter. It held five hundred in cash. The same amount I always deposited.

“Missed you last month, dear. First time you skipped a deposit
since I can remember. I was worried about you. I’m glad to see
things are all right.”

Last month was the only one I’d ever missed. I wouldn’t let that happen again. And after a few more shifts, I hoped to be able to
make up for it.

“Lost my job…it took me a few weeks to find a new one, but I did. I’m back on track now.”

I had no idea why I told her that. Mary knew nothing about me other than I came in once a month and handed her an envelope filled with cash. But I was proud of myself for finally finding a job, and
Brady
hadn’t been around to share the happiness. Maybe I wanted
someone else to be proud of me, too.

“Of course you did, dear. Smart girls like you always find a way to land on your feet.” She opened the envelope and pulled out the
wad of bills, placing it all in the cash machine to be counted. She
began
to fill out a deposit slip while the bills riffled through the machine. “Savings?”

I smiled, keeping my face pointed directly at her. She never looked at my scar, so there was no reason to give her the good cheek. “Always.”

“Still, got to ask.” She gave me her full denture grin and wrote my account number on the top of the slip. “Getting a good little nest egg here. Someone taught you right. Must have been your mama.”

My mom was the reason I wanted to save, not the person who
had taught me to do it. That wasn’t something I could share with
Mary. I just continued to smile.

A text came through on my phone. It was Shane, wanting to
know if I was free for an early lunch. I wrote back asking where he wanted to meet.

“Can you sign this for me, dear?”

I glanced up, gently accepting the pen from her delicate, aged hands and signed the bottom of the slip.

“See you next month,” she said. It wasn’t a question. She knew it didn’t need to be.

“Yes, you will.” I took the receipt, waved good-bye and turned
for the door. Before I’d even gotten outside, Shane had sent another text with the name of the diner just down the street. I let him know I’d be there in a few minutes. The spa was just as close to the diner as
the bank was; I knew I wouldn’t have to wait long for him.

And I didn’t.

He opened my car door before I even had it in park. As I stepped
out, he opened his arms to give me a hug, keeping one hand on my shoulder and the other in the middle of my back. He knew the
proper touch. Whenever he embraced me, I breathed differently. My eyes closed. My face tucked into his neck. I could completely relax.

This was how a parent’s embrace was supposed to feel.

“Let’s get you some food, and you can tell me all about your
night
with Hart.” His eyes widened. “Not in
that kind
of detail, of
course…just in general.”

He kept his hand on my shoulder as we walked toward the
entrance. I glanced at him, noticing how his lips had spread into a smile and his ocean-colored eyes were completely avoiding me. “How did you know I was with Hart?” I hadn’t told him.

It had to have been Hart.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

Shane laughed. “He came to work this morning with the same look you’re wearing right now.”

“That’s impossible,” I laughed, although half of me liked that
thought.
“I just saw Drew and Saint a little while ago, so the look you’re
seeing isn’t related to Hart.”

“No?” He let out a deep chuckle and squeezed my shoulder a little harder. “I beg to differ. Knowing how you feel about Drew and
Saint, you’re looking way too happy for this to be about them. Besides, if it wasn’t for your expression, the sweatshirt is a dead giveaway…and the sweats.”

Shit.

I kept forgetting that I was still dressed in Hart’s clothes. I’d left the coffee shop, paid my cell phone bill, made my car payment and headed straight to the bank. I really needed to get back to Caleb’s to
change or grab all my stuff…or whatever it was that I planned on
doing. I still wasn’t sure if I was going to move into Hart’s.

“Just so you know, I slept in the guest room.” Since my clothes confirmed I had stayed at his place, I felt like I needed to explain myself. If there was anyone in the world I wanted to think decently
of me, it was Shane.

“You know, Rae, I always want to know when you’re happy. And if you’re not, I want to know that too, so I can help fix it.”

I wrapped my hand around his fingers and gently tugged on them. “You do that, even if you don’t realize it.”

He opened the door for me, and we walked inside the diner and seated ourselves.

“Have you heard from Brady?” I asked, opening the menu the waitress handed to me.

“Before we get into that,” he said gravely, “I need to know what
happened to you the night Hart asked for Caleb’s address. The
mystery of it all has been haunting me.”

I couldn’t lie to Shane. I had to explain things. But I didn’t have to
tell him every detail of what had happened. I didn’t want him
worrying, or knowing what kind of position I’d put myself in. And
he didn’t need to go ballistic and end up in jail over something stupid.
He hated Caleb enough for the influence he’d had on Brady. This
would send him over the edge.

“I’m fine. Promise.”

He leaned into the table, running his hands over the stubble on his chin that would soon turn into a beard. The guys in Bar Harbor got lazier in the winter and hardly ever shaved. It was something I liked, actually. “Are you living with Caleb?”

I hesitated, but nodded eventually.

“Had I known that was your plan, I would have tried to talk you out of it. Is that why you didn’t tell me?”

“No. It was just going to be for a few weeks until I saved up some cash.”

“You can take care of yourself, I know that. But it’s
November…and
then it’ll be December…and you don’t need this added shit right
now.”

Twenty-four days
.

I shut the menu and crossed my hands over my stomach. “I had coffee with Mom today, so add her into the mix, too.”

“Your mom, Saint and Drew all in one day? Christ.”

The waitress stood at the end of our table with a pad in her hand. She looked at me first to take my order. “Full stack of
pancakes with a side of extra crispy French fries, and a Coke.“ I glanced at Shane, a smile lighting up his cheeks. He knew how my stomach was during this time of the year, which was probably the cause of his expression. “Hell, if it’s going to force its way up later, at least I’m going to enjoy it while it goes down,” I told him.

He peered up at the waitress. “I’ll have the same thing.” She
collected
our menus and left our table. His hands folded together, and he
picked at his cuticles. There was dried glue on his thumbs.

I made myself look away from his hands.

“Back to Brady,” I said. “Have you heard from him?”

“Not yet, but he should be getting phone privileges real soon.” He paused as the waitress dropped off our drinks, letting her pass before he continued. “I chatted with his counselor this morning: he’s
out of detox
and doing okay. Things got pretty rough when he was going
through
withdrawal. The swelling in his face and the broken ribs they found didn’t help matters, and he had a cracked tooth that they had to deal with, too. But the counselor said Brady’s following all the rules, listening
and
participating. Can’t ask for more than that, can we?” His smile was hopeful.

I felt a little relief from Shane’s news, but not enough to relax
entirely.
Brady had only been in rehab for about a week. Now that he had
finally
detoxed, he’d have to deal with his demons. That was going to be
the
hardest part, made worse by the fact that I couldn’t be there with
him while he was doing it. When I’d lived with him and Shane, there had been so many nights when he’d held my hand as I’d sobbed out my fears and memories.

I wanted to do the same for him.

It killed me that it wouldn’t be possible.

“THE WAY HART
hauled you out of here, we weren’t sure when
we’d be seeing you again,” Jeremy said after he opened the door. He
acted as if he hadn’t spoken to me in days, which wasn’t true at all.

“I sent you a text while I was at work to let you know I was coming over as soon as I got back to Bar Harbor…and you
responded and you said that was fine,” I told him.

His eyes practically popped out of their sockets. His arms
wouldn’t
stop swinging back and forth, his feet taking turns to kick some
invisible ball into the air. “Oh yeah…yeah.
Yeahhhhhh
.”

I shadowed him to the living room and took my usual place on the couch, which put Caleb in between us. “Is he okay?” I whispered to Caleb.

“Been at it all day...and night. Ignore him. He’s long gone.”

“Shut it,” Jeremy yelled. “I ain’t gone, I’m…
goooooone
.”

He was so fucking high.

So high that he’d also forgotten that he and Caleb had been
texting me since the previous day. They wanted to know if I was all right after the peep show, and to let me know they hadn’t heard anything from Gary—the peeper.

Caleb handed me the blunt he’d been puffing on. After the missed
unknown
call I’d received while I was at work—the one that
left no
voicemail—I really wanted this weed. A part of me wondered what
Hart would think about that. We hadn’t really discussed whether he
smoked or not. Regardless, I filled my lungs and watched Jeremy
pull a
white rock out of his pocket. He used his knife to shave it into
powder.
The glass coffee table was already covered in dust from whatever
he’d snorted earlier. He used a credit card to scrape up those specks, too.

“Hart fucked him up real good,” Jeremy said, pulling the dollar
bill out of his nose and lifting his head from the table. He ran the back of his hand underneath each nostril. When his darting eyes finally found me, I saw how blown his pupils were. I couldn’t see his irises at all, and he had non-stop facial tics. The inside of his nose
looked raw, and it only
got worse when he snorted another line. “Fucker will be eating
through a straw for the next couple months.”

“He’s talking about Gary,” Caleb said.

I blew out a stream of smoke. “I figured.”

Gary was one of the few guys at the house that night who I
didn’t really know. He lived a few towns over and only showed up once in a while—usually when Caleb decided to splurge on a keg and hire some strippers from Bangor. I remembered the keg from that night, but I couldn’t recall any strippers. Maybe that was a good thing.

“Fat-ass won’t be coming here no mo’,” Jeremy said.

Caleb took the blunt from my hand and held it up to his lips. “Not just here at this house. That punk won’t be stepping foot in Bar
Harbor ever again. We don’t put up with that kinda shit around
here. Sent a few of my boys to relay that message to him.” I didn’t ask for any more details. The whole thing made me really uncomfortable. I was just glad it was over.

“Thanks for having my back, guys,” I said.

Jeremy nodded, although it was more like a drugged-out
double-
bob. He’d slid off the couch and was kneeling on the wood floor,
running his fingers up and down the sticky panels. His shoulders swayed to a silent beat.

The doorbell rang. Caleb gave the blunt back to me and got up to answer it.

“Do you hear that?” Jeremy asked.

I coughed out the smoke. “Hear what?”

“That noise. It’s a siren. A cop siren.” He scurried over to the
front
window, hiding under the ledge with only the top of his head
peeking
out. It was covered with a long set of blinds and curtains on both sides. I imagined Caleb’s parents had put those up when they’d
lived there,
and somehow they had survived all the chaos that had erupted.
Jeremy
lifted one of the slats, lowering his ass, bending his knees and
extending his hands forward. “Do you see a light?”

It was impossible to see anything. The slat was only open
enough for him to look out. “I’m sure it’s the headlights from whoever just rang the bell.”

“The bell rang?”

I took another long drag. “Yeah, just a minute ago. Caleb answered it.”

“Stop him.” He reminded me of a grasshopper as he looked over his shoulder to speak. “Stop him right now. Tell him to back away
from the door. Slowly…so fucking slowly. And close it. Close it
haaaaard
. They’re coming, Rae…they’re coming for me!”