Wrecked (Crystal Book Billionaires) (12 page)

“I’m sorry if I was too hard on you today.”

I stared at him. “Really?”

He nodded slowly and rubbed his palms together. “Yeah.”

I lifted a shoulder, seeing an opportunity. “Thank you. I understand, of course.” I looked down at the floor. “I’m sure your opinion about me still hasn’t changed.”

He didn’t say anything.

Damn it. You’re supposed to say it has changed!

He shifted his weight on the couch. “Can I ask you something?”

I looked back up at him. “All right.”

“It won’t be the most tasteful of questions.”

“I would imagine not.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I bit my tongue. I really needed to be more careful.

“I heard that your dad owns a big pet store chain.”

Crap.
Here it came. How much was I going to admit to? If I told Luke that my family had lost its entire livelihood and was now essentially broke, I ran the risk of him seeing straight through to my plan.

“Yeah.”

His eyes didn’t waver, and suddenly, I was the one shifting uncomfortably. Something about Luke made the prospect of lying to him horribly painful.

He went on. “I heard that he lost the company.” He licked his lips. “Is that true? You don’t have to answer, of course.”

Well, at least Luke knew how tacky the question was. So he’d been raised with
some
sense of manners. Although he’d hardly displayed them in the last two interactions we’d had.

I quickly looked away, desperate for the sight of anything but his eyes. My gaze fell on a photograph on the opposite wall. In it, a mom and tow haired baby laughed in the middle of a green field.

The moment stretched on, and I still wasn’t sure whether or not it was in my best interest to answer.

“Forget about it,” Luke finally said.

Tough luck. No doubt, in my silence, he’d gotten the “yes” he expected to hear.

I set my latte on the table. The cold glass had begun to numb my fingers minutes ago.

“Brie liked you,” Luke said, the tone of his voice flat.

I eyed him. “But you don’t.”

He opened his mouth, then shut it.

“Forget about it,” I said, doing my best to imitate the timber of his voice.

He laughed and the sound of it was so beautiful I joined in. For a few seconds, we were just two regular people, enjoying coffee and a laugh together.

His chuckled faded and the moment ended. Abruptly, he stood.

“I need to go.”

“Yeah, me too,” I said, knowing how pathetic it sounded. No doubt he knew I was just trying to come across as busy myself. Truthfully, the only thing I had to do was go back to the house and catch up on my reality TV.

He headed for the door and, too soon, disappeared. Grabbing my iced latte, I slumped back against the couch. My eyes drifted towards the back of the shop, to where the bookstore section sat.

Hm. I wonder if there are any books with tips on how to catch a man.

Standing, I headed for the books. The counter was clear of customers, with no one but the auburn haired barista. She peeked curiously around the side of the espresso machine at me.

“Hey,” she said.

“Uh, hi.”

She grinned. “Who was that guy you were talking to? Your boyfriend?”

I guffawed. “Hardly. Maybe in an alternate universe.”

Her face wrinkled. “Aw. Too bad. You guys looked really good together.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, her compliment actually making me feel worse.

“You gonna look at the books?”

“Yeah…” I glanced over at the shelves and then back at her. “You don’t have, like, a dating section do you? Or like a relationship section? I guess that’s what you would really call it.”

“Oh, hell yeah we do. And we just expanded it. It used to be, like, half a shelf. But now it’s a whole bookcase.” She came around to the end of the coffee bar. “Come on. I’ll show you. Are you looking to catch a man?”

I laughed. I liked this girl. For some reason, her straight forwardness put me oddly at ease.

“How did you know?”

Grace

“H
ow was your first day at the food pantry?”

Those were the first words out of Uncle Joe’s mouth as the three of us sat down to dinner. I swallowed my too-large bite of casserole and considered the answer.

I settled on, “Good.”

“That reminds me,” Aunt Ginger said. “I heard back from my friend. You know, the one who has the terrier. She still needs someone to come and walk him during the day while she’s at work. I told her you’re volunteering at the food pantry now, but you could do it after you leave there, since you’re only there a few hours each day. How does that sound?”

“Good,” I repeated, plastering a smile on my face.

At least walking dogs would be easy. Heck, I was already getting pretty used to walking anyway, thanks to being stranded without a car.

Which reminded me… maybe if I called my dad and got really emotional he would find it in his heart to buy me a car. Nothing fancy, of course. At that point, I would have taken the cheapest used car on any lot, as long as it ran.

Dad and I spoke every few days, but the conversations were always stilted and awkward. I knew he was sorry, and he knew I was unhappy, and we both knew there was nothing either of us could do about it.

I’d checked my bank account after I’d gotten home from Freddy’s earlier, and things were not looking good, monetarily speaking. My dad usually automatically deposited funds in there at the beginning of each month, but he’d already made it clear the next deposit was never coming. All I had to sustain me for the foreseeable future was July’s allowance. Would he automatically dismiss my need for transportation so easily? I sighed. Probably.

“You know what,” I said, perking up. “That does sound really good.”

It wasn’t like Luke and I were running off to elope any time soon. Having some spending money wouldn’t be bad.

“Great,” Aunt Ginger replied. “I’ll give you Bethany’s number, and you can call her back.”

“What’s the pantry like?” Uncle Joe asked his plate.

“Small.” I struggled for more adjectives. “Um, clean, I guess.”

“It’s such a great thing that young man has done,” Aunt Ginger sighed. “He’s a real gift to the town.”

He had his pros and cons, sure. If he could stop being so judgmental, he would turn into the perfect man.

“How many people go there for food?” she asked.

“Brie — the lady who works there — told me there are about three hundred families on the list right now.”

Aunt Ginger made a murmuring sound. “That’s a lot.”

“I only met one of them today. I was in the back the rest of the time.”

“They must be so grateful,” Aunt Ginger said.

“I don’t know.” I took a sip of water. “The lady I met didn’t seem it. I was trying to talk to her, and she was totally cold.”

“She was probably embarrassed,” Uncle Joe said.

I fiddled with my fork. I hadn’t really thought about that possibility.

“Imagine if you had to go to a food pantry,” he went on.

The very idea made my stomach churn. Just moving to North Carolina had been bad enough. Having to completely live off the charity of strangers?

A shudder traveled through my body. I would rather be dead than have everyone back in L.A. know just how far I would have fallen.

“Also,” Uncle Joe continued. “You don’t know what the woman’s going through. People usually end up at food pantries because they’re desperate. They’ve got nowhere to go.”

His words were starting to develop into a lecture, and I didn’t like it. I nodded and looked away, hoping he was done.

“Anything else happen today?” Aunt Ginger asked.

I barked out a laugh. “Where do I begin?”

I started cutting up my green beans into bite sized pieces. After a moment, I realized how quiet the room had become. Slowly, I looked up.

Aunt Ginger and Uncle Joe were both looking at me, waiting for me to go on. They were truly curious about my day.

“Uh, well…” I trailed off and swallowed hard. God, I wanted to unload about what happened with Rainy. I was afraid if I so much as mentioned it, though, I might dissolve into an emotional mess.

“Have you talked to any of your friends back home?” Aunt Ginger asked.

If that wasn’t a sign, I don’t know what is.

“Yeah,” I croaked. “I talked to my best friend, Rainy.”

“What kind of name is Rainy?” Uncle Joe interrupted.

Aunt Ginger glared at him.

“I know,” I agreed. “It’s kind of stupid. Her dad’s an actor, and her mom used to be a model.”

“Ah,” Aunt Ginger said, though I’m not sure she actually got how that explained everything.

“An actor?” Uncle Joe asked, laughing over his words. “So he’s a waiter?”

“No, he’s actually Dwayne DeFavre.”

Uncle Joe’s eyes went wide. “No shit.”

I laughed out loud. It was the first time I’d ever heard my uncle cuss.

“But what about Rainy?” Aunt Ginger asked.

“Oh. Right.” The dark cloud was back, hovering right over my head. “It turns out she’s anything but my best friend. She’s, uh, been seeing this guy I like behind my back.” I gripped my fork tighter. “Actually, I don’t just like him. He and I kind of had a thing going.”

“You’d gone out with him before?” Aunt Ginger asked.

“Yeah.” Something like that.

Aunt Ginger frowned. “That’s not very nice. But Rainy told you what was happening?”

“Yeah, after I forced it out of her.”

“I’m sorry, Grace,” Aunt Ginger murmured. “I had the same thing happen to me in high school. My best friend Amy started going out with this guy I had a crush on. He was the cutest boy in school too and on the football team.”

“What happened?”

Aunt Ginger pursed her lips. “We stopped talking. In the long run, I realized the boy wasn’t a big deal. They come and go, you know. But what Amy did by going behind my back showed just what kind of a person she was, so I made new friends. Maybe that’s what you should be doing. You’re here in Crystal Brook now, anyway. There are lots of nice young people around.”

I didn’t know how to respond. Somehow I felt it would be near impossible to find anyone in Crystal Brook who shared my interests.

“But what about Dwayne?” Uncle Joe asked. “Can you still get me his autograph?”

I stared at him, trying to figure out if he was being serious.

Yep, he was.

“Joe,” Aunt Ginger softly reprimanded him.

*

I set my alarm for two hours early the next morning, making sure to give myself more than enough time to get ready for my second shift at Community First. The night before, I’d run over my interaction with Luke in the coffee shop a dozen times.

Had it been wishful thinking, or was he actually warming up to me? Despite everything he said, of course.

The arches of my feet ached from doing so much walking in heels the day before, so I wore ballet flats. Just to make sure Luke didn’t think I was dressing down on his behalf, I pulled on a tight leopard printed skirt and a low cut tank top.

Even though it was the middle of summer, I dug out the hot pink beanie I’d brought along. I was going to bike to the pantry as slowly as I could in order to avoid fly aways, but the hat would help with that.

The bike ride took about fifteen to twenty minutes and gave me the tour of Crystal Brook that probably wasn’t in the guide books. Taking the residential streets away from downtown, I ended up crossing underneath the Interstate and then turning onto Highway 70.

It was a slightly questionable route, but when I’d expressed my concern to Uncle Joe the night before he’d sworn there was nothing to worry about. I honestly didn’t feel that way. The closed down buildings with boards over their windows gave me the creeps. There were some houses in the area, but they were all run down, with either uncut grass or indoor furniture sitting on the front porches.

I sped up when I got to the highway, forgetting all about my hair in an effort to get to Community First before I was abducted.

Luke’s SUV was parked in its usual spot on the side, and as I got out the bike lock Uncle Joe had picked up for me, I started coming up with reasons why he might need to give me a ride home. A flat bike tire was the obvious one. A stomach ache was another good excuse. That one was more preferable since I wouldn’t have to actually puncture my tire with a nail.

Then again, if Luke thought I was sick, he wouldn’t make any move to kiss me, no matter how much ground we gained on the car ride home.

I secured the lock to the bike rack and hurried inside. Brie sat in the office chair, just the top of her gray hair visible above the counter.

“Is that you, Gracie?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s me.” I stopped in the doorway to quickly straighten my skirt and smooth the ends of my hair.

Brie stood up. “Oh, your pink hat is so cute.”

“Thanks. Where’s Luke?”

“In the back. He looked like he could use some help. Why don’t you go see if he needs you?”

“Oh, I’m sure he does.”

Brie winked at me, and I felt sure she got the double meaning of my words. No doubt she was used to seeing women fawn over the guy.

Luke was at the far end of the storage room, checking things off on a clipboard. When I opened the door, he looked up. For a second, it seemed as if he were about to smile, but then the softness left his eyes, and his whole face turned rigid.

“Hi,” I said.

He jerked his head in a poor imitation of a nod and returned to whatever he was doing.

“Brie said you might need help.”

“No, I got it.”

I looked at the piles of boxes in the room. They filled up nearly every square inch. About half of them were open, and the rest were closed. By the look of it, Luke was in the middle of some kind of inventory.

“You look like you need help,” I said and took another step into the room.

He didn’t answer, and the silence hurt. Just yesterday I thought we were making some gains in our relationship, but apparently he was still intent on pegging me as the bad guy.

I strolled towards him, trailing my hand along the boxes on the way. A few feet away, I stopped. The way his body tensed up revealed that he was all too aware of my close proximity, despite the fact that his eyes were still trained on the paper in front of him.