Unwrapped (16 page)

They'd been so close. Only weeks to go. But more than two
month's worth of frustration had finally snapped the thread holding his
patience in check. How could she not see it, damn it? How could she be so
fucking blind?

He ran his fingers through his hair.
Shit, shit, shit.

All he'd had to do was keep his mouth shut. Tweak his plans
a bit, romance her a little more, something.

Instead, he'd let Jeff's and Greg's announcement stir him
up. But damn it, he wanted to be the one holding the love of his life in his
arms, his ring on her finger, knowing they faced the future together. He even
wanted to talk wedding plans, for Christ's sake. How sick was that? But he'd do
the colors-and-flowers thing if it meant spending his life with Mia.

But now. . .

"You are so screwed, man," he said to the wind.

Near dawn, he finally pulled into his own driveway and
staggered up to his bed where he fell face first into sleep, still in the Santa
suit.

He dreamed of a sixty-foot Mia dressed in a blood-red elf's
costume. She snatched the diamond ring he'd bought out of his hand, squeezing
it inside her own mammoth palm. Laughing, she spread her fingers and dropped it
into the bottom of his Santa sack. When he looked inside, the ring turned into
a smoldering lump of coal and Mia disappeared, leaving only the echo of her
laughter behind.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Mia moved through Allison's house like a ghost, unable to
feel her extremities. Unable to feel her
self
. Eyes wide, painfully dry and half-blind with a grief she knew was
there but couldn't reach, she made her way to her car in a fog.

Pulling into her own garage created only a minor jolt. She
had no recollection of turning on her vehicle, much less driving home. No sense
of the passage of time. It could have been an hour, a day, or only minutes
since leaving the party.

Once inside, she dropped her purse on the kitchen counter
out of habit and glanced at the wall clock beside the door, but the numerals
held no meaning.

Upstairs, her movements mechanical, she readied for bed, her
mind a blank slate. She wrapped herself in her robe, intending to fall into a
stupor in her bed, but hesitated. Staring at her comforter and mounds of
pillows, all she could see was Derrick. She wouldn't sleep no matter how tired
she was, not there. The prospect of tossing and turning all night held no
appeal.

She made her way back downstairs instead and settled on the
couch to watch the sea rolling in, a blanket wrapped around her shivering body.
The steady drum of the waves on the sand beat inside her skull like a funeral
march. She stared and stared and stared, unable to think, unable to feel, or
cry, or scream, until the sun rose in the east and lightened the horizon to
rosy pink, pale orange, creamy yellow, and a new day began.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It seemed to Mia she had barely dropped into sleep in utter
exhaustion when she was woken by a fireman pounding on her door and asking her
to evacuate the premises.

Rubbing her gritty eyes with her fists, she wondered how on
earth she'd slept through the shouts, the sirens and the piercing shrill of a
fire alarm that seemed to be shrieking directly into her ear drums.

She stumbled outside to find her entire neighborhood
gathered on the sand in a loose circle while flames shot through the windows
and roof of the condo five doors down from her own.

Mrs. Hinkley!

In a panic, Mia pushed through the crowd, searching for her
elderly neighbor. Organized chaos reigned. People and fire hoses snaked
everywhere. Murmurs of faulty wiring, no, smoking in bed, no, a coffee pot left
to boil dry, made their way through the crowd. Mia didn't care what had caused
the blaze, only that her friend had gotten out of the house safely.

Firefighters manned the roofs of the houses immediately
adjacent to the burning home, and black smoke boiled into the sky. It was like
a dance, a terrible tango as the flames and the firefighters advanced and
retreated, only to advance again, each striving to gain the upper hand.

With every step, Mia's fear mounted, until finally she spotted
the regal white head. Relief surged inside her heart with a dizzy roar. She
made her way to Mrs. Hinkley's side and wrapped her in a hard hug.

Gayle Hinkley, a spry eighty-two-year-old widow with
bouffant white hair and designer jeans, faced the fire consuming her home, her
chin raised high, her eyes dry. She held the struggling Rambo in a firm grip
and called out encouragement and instructions to the firefighters in a voice
roughened by decades of cigarettes.

"Isn't that always the way?" she said to Mia,
disgust ripe in her tone. "I finally quit smoking six months ago, and my
house decides to take up the habit."

Not quite sure what to make of that observation, Mia gave a
half-laugh and a sympathetic nod and stayed silent.

The fire company fought hard, but the house was fully
involved. The chief delivered the bad news they already knew. Her home was a
total loss.

The elderly woman gave a sniff and said, "Well, at
least none of the other houses were damaged. Thank you for your efforts. Now,
may I borrow your phone? I need to contact my insurance agent."

Mia stayed with her while she dealt with the preliminary
fallout from the fire and gave her statement. Once the rest of the neighborhood
was cleared to reenter their homes, she invited Mrs. Hinkley to a late breakfast
and to stay with her for as long as she needed.

Over eggs and bacon that tasted like ash in Mia's mouth, her
neighbor made lists and placed an impressive amount of phone calls on Mia's
cell, while Rambo nipped bits of toast from her fingers. She dialed every
number from memory, a feat Mia didn't think she could accomplish if her own
phone went up in flames. She made a mental note to memorize at least a few key
numbers on her speed-dial list.

Like Derrick's.

His name popped into her head like a corn kernel exploding
in a pan of sizzling butter. The fire had driven everything else out of her
mind, but now it all rushed back, bringing the pain with it.

He loved her. Was
in
love with her. How? When? And what on earth was she going to do about it?
He—

"—right?"

Mia shook herself. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Hinkley, what did
you say?"

"I asked if you were all right, child. You look like
you just lost your best friend."

How right she was, Mia thought, but still, shame rapped her
on the top of her head with its Guilt Stick. Her neighbor had just lost
everything, even the classic car in her garage, and here Mia was worrying about
her own problems.

"I was just marveling over how calm you've been,"
she said. "You've lost your home, all your possessions, everything, yet you're
sitting here calmly dealing with the details. I don't know if I would have your
fortitude."

"Nonsense, darling," Mrs. Hinkley said briskly.
"Those are just things and can be replaced. I have my memories, and I have
people who love me. That's all that matters."

All that matters, Mia thought. Had she just lost the one who
mattered most of all?

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Two hours later, Mrs. Hinkley waved farewell from the front
seat of her daughter's Volvo, Rambo perched on her lap with his front paws on
the dash. The sharp tang of smoke still stung the air from the fire. It hazed
the beach, now empty of onlookers, and curdled Mia's stomach.

Beyond tired, beyond emotion, she returned anxious messages
left by Allison, Jeff, her mother and a few others about the fire, keeping it
brief, then headed upstairs to shower the fumes out of her hair. She dropped
into her bed, but it was no good. Her room was no longer hers alone. Derrick
had imprinted himself on every surface. His warm, spicy scent wafted from her
sleepwear—his old t-shirt and sweats, items she'd grabbed out of habit
and a need for solace. And from her pillow from countless nights spent snuggled
up together, fully clothed but entwined like lovers.

His voice echoed from every corner. Memories of late-night conversations
and shared laughter swirled through the air. She'd never laughed so much in her
life as she had in the past two-and-a-half months with him.

A note he'd left under her windshield wiper sat on her
dresser, along with a stack of florist's cards, movie-ticket stubs and a
program from the night they'd seen
Wicked
at the theater. They'd gone to a late supper after the play, dressed in their
theater finery—Derrick in an elegant black suit and herself in a slinky
red satin dress that had skimmed her curves like a lover's caress. He'd ordered
expensive champagne and stared into her eyes while a violinist serenaded them
at their table, his fingers curled around hers or lightly tracing the inside of
her wrist.

Despite their current estrangement, Derrick was still her
greatest source of comfort and security. Mia wrapped herself more snuggly into
his old clothes, burying her face into the depths of her pillow and surrounding
herself with his essence as though it were his arms coming around to hold her,
to reassure her that everything would be all right.

He'd said they'd make the three months seem real. Had he
gotten caught up in his own game? As well as they knew each other, she'd never
seen this coming. Even in her own weakest moments, when she might have allowed
herself a fantasy or two of them becoming a genuine couple, she'd never dreamed
he might harbor such feelings.

To her knowledge, he'd never said those three words to
anyone else. Not that way. They'd said 'I love you' to each other, sure, and
Allison, and Jeff, countless times, but that was different. And more
importantly, she didn't believe in that sort of love and hadn't in years.
Right? A fact he knew perfectly well. So what could he have been thinking?

Yes!

What the hell was he thinking? Falling in love with her and
dumping all that on her shoulders. What. The.
Hell
. He couldn't possibly expect her to return those
emotions, knowing how she felt about romantic love.

Her mind leaped on that train of thought and stoked its
engine, even as a small voice in the deep recesses of her heart whispered,
Liar
.

Anger was so much better than grief. And she was angry, she
discovered, really angry. How dare he play such mind games with her? He'd
ruined everything! Went back on their deal, then left her to handle the fallout
alone.

Well, she wasn't having it. And once she figured out exactly
what she wanted to say, she'd tell him so. Up close and personal.

Satisfied with her new plan, righteous anger burning away
the consuming grief, Mia found her eyes drooping and slumber finally creeping
up on her. She settled further into her blankets gratefully, desperate for
sleep.

The echo of Mrs. Hinkley's voice claiming love was all that
mattered followed her down into restless dreams of chasing Derrick along the
winter-chilled beach through a thick bank of billowing fog, calling his name.
No matter how fast she ran, he always stayed just out of reach.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

She woke after only an hour, disoriented and achy. Her eyes
burned with fatigue and smoke exposure, and her cheeks were damp as though
she'd been crying in her sleep.

Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she sat with her
head in her hands, her thoughts a chaotic whirl, adding to her sense of
displacement. Loud banging echoed up the stairwell from her front door. The
sound of knocking must have been what woke her from her nap.

Now what?

Mia tossed her furry pink robe over Derrick's ancient UCI
t-shirt with the anteater logo nearly worn away from repeated washings, and
hauled on the drawstring of his sweats to tighten them around her waist.

The banging sounded again when she was halfway down the
stairs, a sharp counterpoint to the pounding already going on inside her skull.
The headache must have come on while she was sleeping. It worsened with every
step, until she was nearly cross-eyed with pain by the time she reached her
door and flung it open to discover Derrick, his fist raised in mid-knock.

Surprise stopped her breath.

Her heart constricted in her chest and her vocal chords tied
themselves in knots. She wanted to ask what he was doing here, wanted to
deliver the monologue she'd yet to devise, explaining just how out of line he'd
been and how much he'd hurt her and exactly how he was going to make everything
go back to the way it had been. How he would fix the whole mess.

Instead, her tongue and brain forgot how to communicate with
each other. All she could do was stare at him the way he was staring at her,
his hand still raised to bang on the now-open door.

Time seemed to stop, and her heart along with it.
What—

Lowering his arm, Derrick cleared his throat. " Can I
come in?"

He had dark circles beneath his eyes, as though he hadn't
slept much, either. He looked as tired as she felt. Tired and sad.

Mia nodded, not trusting her voice, though part of her wanted
to throw the door closed in his face and run back to her bed, pretend she'd
never heard his knock, pretend she hadn't seen that look in his eyes. Her skull
was going to split in two.

They moved into her family room, all the vibrant colors in
her furniture washed to charcoal by the dim winter light spilling inside from
the beach. Outside, the grey day and leaden sea reflected the landscape inside
her heart—heavy and barren and cold.

Derrick took a seat in front of the window, so Mia curled
into the corner of her couch, her feet tucked beneath her, her fingers worrying
the drawstring in his old sweat bottoms. The ache in her head intensified with
her struggle to keep her seesawing emotions under control.