Slow Burn - a Novel: The Elite (12 page)

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

She looked up at me and shrugged. “Sure.”

“Where’d you learn to fight like that? I saw you get in some pretty clean shots on that guy,” I smiled softly, hoping that she’d loosen up at the compliment.

Instead, she bunched up her shoulders and under my arm, I could feel her tense.

“Is that…not okay?”

After another few feet, she sighed and looked back up at me. “It’s okay. It’s just not something I like to talk about.”

“Oh,” I reeled back, feeling as though my toes could no longer find the bottom of the pool.

“Before I moved here, I was in a relationship, this junkie guy who treated me badly. I went through a few years where I didn’t feel good enough about myself to realize there was something outside the walls of our shitty little trailer.” She hesitated, glancing around as we entered the cul-de-sac where her home was located. “Anyways, he was mean to me sometimes. Mostly when he’d get drunk off his ass. When I tried to leave, he’d rough me up.”

My heart pounded and another wave of nausea rolled through me.

“I’m so sorry, Carly. That’s—God, that’s awful.” I shook my head, slightly dazed at trying to put together the pieces. How had the strong, independent, confident woman at my side come out of such a dark, abusive past? And how could any man ever treat her that way?

“It was,” she said simply. “It was a long time ago. The point of the story is that when I left, and got away from all that shit, I made a vow to never go back to that life again. Part of the new plan for my life involved moving here, thousands of miles away from him, and then of course, opening
The Siren
. And, I also got a lot of my confidence back by learning kickboxing and some other forms of defense and combat.”

“Wow. That’s really impressive, Carly. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“It wasn’t easy and, like I said, not something I put on my website bio to blast to the world. Hell, Aaron doesn’t even know all that…” she hesitated and looked up at me. The question evident in her eyes.

“I would never say anything,” I said, wishing she hadn’t even had that thought that I would betray her confidence. “Does Alesha know?”

“Not all of it. She knows that I moved after a bad breakup, but she doesn’t know the full extent of how and why it was so bad. Sometimes she looks down on me because I get after her about making her own life, her own future, but she thinks I only have the things I have, like
The Siren
, because our dad lent me the startup money. She wasn’t there to see the blood, sweat, and tears, the long hours, the utter exhaustion and stress that it took to get me here and to open my business.”

“She’s young. Not that it’s an excuse…”

“I guess.” She turned at the last house and started up the front steps. I followed behind and stopped beside her on the porch. With trembling fingers, she struggled to work the right key free from the loop. It took every ounce of my self-control to not reach for the keys and help her. But knowing Carly, she wouldn’t have wanted that.

After a couple of tries, she got it open, and we went inside together.

“Make yourself at home. Do you want anything to drink?”

“Hey, how about you sit and I’ll get you something.”

It wasn’t a question.

Her full lips pursed together, but before she could argue, I grabbed her shoulders, gently spun her around, and led her to the couch in the living room off the small entryway. She laughed as I sat her down and then lifted her legs up onto the coffee table, propping them up with a pillow. “Okay, okay. I’ll sit.”

“Good. Tea?”

“Sure,” she replied, still smiling.

Making tea was a simple enough task, but it took me a minute to orient myself with her kitchen. Thankfully, organization was one of Carly’s best skills—of the ones I knew about—and it didn’t take long before I had two mugs of chamomile tea. I delivered one to her and then took a seat on the couch beside her and sipped at my own. “Oh…ew…” I pulled a face and lowered the mug, looking down at the contents as though they’d personally offended me.

“Have you never had chamomile before?” Carly asked, eying me suspiciously.

I shook my head.

She laughed. “Well then why did you make it?”

“It’s supposed to be relaxing!” I chuckled at Carly’s laughter and let the beautiful sound soak into me, loosening the stress and tension of the evening.

“I’ll have yours then,” she offered, still smiling over the rim of her own mug.

“You’re welcome to it as long as you don’t mind the germs.”

Her eyes went dark and I wondered what was roaming around inside her pretty head. “I don’t.”

I sighed and leaned back. “This is an amazing couch.”

“Thanks. It’s kinda my happy place. Every day after work, this is where I’m camped out. I swear, at least three nights a week I fall asleep here and wake up a hot mess of eyeliner and lipstick.”

“Hot.”

“Totally,” she said, rolling her eyes. When they shifted back to me, a question was lurking. “What were you doing at the shop so late anyways? Have you
still
not stopped to read the business hours?”

“Very funny. No, I knew you were closed. But…I’d had a rough phone call with my brother and needed a little air. I figured I’d stop by and see if you were still slaving away. Maybe steal a treat.”

“You wanted to eat your feelings,” Carly said, grinning.

I chuckled. “Something like that. If nothing else—I knew you’d understand.”

“Yeah. I could teach a master course on dealing with pain in the ass younger siblings at this point…and you know what the sad thing is? We haven’t even spent that much time together. With such a big age gap, we were never really that close, and now it’s like I should be concerned with making up lost time now that we have things in common…or, at least we
probably
do.” She stopped to shake her head. “I don’t know. I give up. Maybe the right thing to do would be to ship her off to stay with our grandmother the rest of the summer.”

She didn’t sound convinced, but I knew she had way too much weighing on her mind as it was. She didn’t need me to point out the hole in her argument.

“Why don’t you go upstairs and get some sleep, you know, in a real bed. Alesha will turn up.”

She nodded, but there was a dark undercurrent in her eyes. When she didn’t move, I nudged her arm. “Whatcha thinking about?”

“I just—this is gonna sound stupid…but I don’t want to be here…alone.” She dropped her eyes to the remaining contents of her mug, swirling it thoughtfully. “Would you stay?”

“Of course. I’ll be right here,” I said, with a pat on the couch.

She nodded. “Thank you.”

After she polished off the last of her tea in one swig, she took my abandoned mug with a smile, and pushed off the couch.

“Goodnight, Nick. Thanks for…everything.” She pressed a kiss to my cheek and then started off towards the stairs I’d seen from the kitchen.

“Goodnight, Carly,” I called after her.

Carly

The crash of adrenaline combined with two mugs of chamomile did the trick and when I woke up the next morning, I could barely remember getting into bed. The moments leading up to going to bed came back in bits and pieces and surrounded me with warm comfort, knowing that Nick was sleeping downstairs on my couch. Protecting me.

“What are you doing, Carly?” I whispered to myself, smiling up at the ceiling.

I’d told myself he was off limits. A distraction. For all I knew, he wasn’t even going to be in town long term. There was no point in trying to start something up.

And yet…

I couldn’t get him out of my mind. It had been damn near impossible before the events of last night—but now—there was this new…
layer…
to our friendship. And I’ll be damned if it didn’t have me feeling all kinds of things I was trying to avoid.

I smiled as my thoughts drifted to Nick. He was such a wonderful man—what I knew of him. And sexy. It was like for a split second, my heart opened up and was ready to try and let him in and then Alesha—I bolted upright in bed.

Alesha!

My phone was lost in the pile of clothes I’d shucked off the night before. I leaned over the side of the bed, thankful it was low to the ground, and rooted through the pile until I found it. I flipped it over and saw a text message from the night before that told me she was on her way home.

I threw back the covers, slipped into a robe, and then decided to add a pair of pajama pants. Fully dressed, I ran my fingers through my hair, untangling some of the noticeable knots, and then raced downstairs.

The smell of coffee hit me first, like a comforting cloud.

I smiled and stepped into the kitchen, expecting to see Nick at the counter, preparing the coffee. But it was empty. Where was he? I searched the entire first floor and he was nowhere in sight. Circling back, I stopped in the kitchen and saw that my ancient, four cup brewer had been pre-programmed. And there was note on the counter in front of it:

Figured you’d need this. I had to get to work so I called Aaron to give me a ride.

See you later.

Nick

With a deflated sigh, I set the note down and poured a cup of coffee. Before I had too long to wallow in disappointment, I heard footsteps on the stairs behind me. I whipped around and saw Alesha strutting down the stairs in a black silk robe that barely covered her lady bits.

“Leash! What the hell is that?”

I’d never categorized myself as a prude, but since when did high schoolers buy lingerie?

“Where’s Nick?” she purred, ignoring my question altogether.

Well that explained the robe…

I rolled my eyes. “Really? This again?”

I dumped another inch of black coffee into the mug that Nick had set beside the machine. Looked like I was gonna need all I could get.

“What?” She batted her lashes.

“God, I don’t even know where to start right now…” I hadn’t been drinking the night before, but the pinched tightness at my temples was an eerily similar experience. I rubbed at the side of my head and sipped at the scalding coffee. “Alesha…” I opened my eyes and saw her crossed arms, pouted lips, and eyes ready to roll. “Ya know what, go change, first of all. I can’t even take you seriously like that.”

With a huff, she spun around, flashing her ass cheeks in the process, and stormed back up the stairs.

Cute.

It had been a long time since I’d even thought about the possibility of having my own children, and after dealing with Alesha—I was more okay than ever with the fact that parenthood wasn’t anywhere on the horizon.

“Happy?” I turned at the haughty question and faced Alesha as she marched back down the stairs, still wearing the black robe, but she’d added a pair of striped shorts underneath that were at least long enough to cover the basics.

“Ecstatic,” I grimaced.

“What’s your problem?”

I braced my elbow on the counter and leaned back. “Where were you last night?”

“Out,” she fired back, crossing her arms as she came to a stop a few feet away from me.

I frowned. “I called you a million times.”

“I know. Very uncool of you, Sis.”

My knuckles went white around my mug of coffee. “Alesha, there was a man outside the shop last night. He was looking for you.”

Her face brightened into a flirtatious smile. “Really? Who?”

“A criminal,” I barked, snapping the glowing grin from her face.

“What?”

“I was locking up and a man attacked me. He was asking for you but decided he could have some fun with me since you weren’t there,” I continued, keeping my tone clipped and matter-of-fact. It was the only way to hold back the ball of emotions still burning in my chest.

Alesha’s expression twisted. “Are you serious?”

I nodded. “Luckily, Nick was coming up to the shop and was able to pull him off of me before…before anything more serious happened. The man has been arrested.”

“Oh my God, Carly, I’m so sorry.” Alesha dropped her arms and raced to close the gap between us. I barely had time to set aside my mug before she threw her arms around me.

I returned her embrace lightly, still too angry with her to fully drop my guard. Not yet.

She pulled away and dropped her arms but stayed close. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but Alesha, do you understand how terrified I was when I couldn’t get ahold of you?”

She sucked in an uneven breath and nodded. “I’m sorry. I was…pissed. About before…”

“I realized that, but we had a deal and you broke it…
again
.”

In front of her, she clasped her hands and tugged nervously at her fingers. “So, when do I leave?”

Despite all the drama, I still hadn’t gotten around to actually calling our dad to make the arrangements for her to fly to New Hampshire. I’d told myself it was because I was busy, or that one more day wouldn’t matter, but in the end of it, there was another piece I hadn’t been willing to admit yet.

I didn’t want her to go.

She drove me crazy and last night, she’d scared the shit out of me, but I’d come to enjoy working with her in the shop in the morning, and while she was certainly not going to win any employee of the month awards—ironic considering she was my only employee—she helped me in the day to day.

I brought my eyes to hers and saw a sheen of tears coating them, making them glossy in the natural light from the window over the sink.

“I haven’t called Dad yet.”

A flicker of hope gleamed in her eyes. “So, I can stay?”

“Alesha, I’m tired of this bullshit tug-o-war with you.”

Kicking her ass out was my only shred of leverage—but I was getting tired of using it over and over again.

“I’ll work more hours and stay out of trouble,” she pleaded, holding up her hands like she was praying to me.

I considered her once more, my eyes lingering on the sheer edges of her robe. “And no more flirting with Nick, or any other age-inappropriate guy,” I added, bringing my eyes back to hers to make sure she wasn’t going to try and bullshit me.

Instead, I saw a spark of mischief. “Well I can’t help if they flirt with me…”