Authors: Brandy Jellum
Both eyes are on me again. I take a deep breath. My stomach is in
knots, and my knees begin to bounce up and down. “What do you
mean?” I ask hesitantly.
“Who do you want to stay with?” Reid asks. “This bonehead…” I
can’t help but smile, and I see Eli’s eyebrows furrow. The smile quickly
disappears off of my face, and I glance back to Reid. “Or do you want to
stay with me?”
“With you.” The words are out of my mouth before I realize what
I have just said. I hear Eli take a sharp breath and curse. I open my mouth to say something but shut it quickly. Eli is leaving, heading
towards the door, and I stand up to go after him. He stops just at the
door, staring at me, and his eyes are full of hatred. I stop in my tracks
and frown. Eli shakes his head and then slams the door behind him.
I’m ready to cry again. I begin to fumble around with the bag, trying
to place the last few things Eli had brought out of my room into it.
Reid’s hands cover the top of mine, his body close to me, and I feel his shallow breath on the back of my neck.
“Here…” he whispers. “Let me do it.”
I nod my head and move to the side. Reid is quick to pack my things.
He disappears down the hall and reappears a moment later. He grabbed
the pillow off my bed. He holds it up and smiles gently. “I thought you
could use something from home to comfort you.” I smile back at him and nod. With the bag packed and ready to go, Reid offers his hand
to me. Instead, I smile and walk past him to the front door. I hear Reid
exhale a deep breath, and his footsteps fall into place behind me.
REID’S HOUSE IS NOTHING
like I expect it to be. Being the nephew
of a man who ran the most successful agent house, the nephew of a
billionaire, as well as a man who has millions himself, I honestly expect
more. Another thing to add to the list of surprises. While in the dark I
can’t see much, I know his house sits on a lot of acreage. In the moonlight,
I see nothing but trees and hills for miles. His house comes into view as
we reach the end of the long, narrow, tree lined driveway. What it lacks
in size, it makes up for in beauty. His home is crafted out of logs, offering
a warm, welcoming feeling. Of course, his home is bigger than an average house, but isn’t as big as I thought it would be. I was expecting
a gigantic
mansion, filled with more rooms and bathrooms than a single man needs,
just to show off his wealth. Seeing his house is almost like
a slap in the
face. Maybe he is right? Maybe I have judged him too quickly without
having all the facts. Reid pulls his car right in front of the house, jumps
out of the driver’s seat, and rounds the car to let me out. I place my hand
in his, trying to ignore the energy pulsing under my skin, and laugh.
Reid raises an eyebrow and smiles. “What is so funny?”
“This… is not what I was expecting,” I answer honestly. He smiles
again and closes the car door behind me. He quickly drops my hand.
In the dim light illuminating the house, I see his hand curl into a fist and
release several times. He turns and heads inside. I follow him, noting the sudden change in his mood. He is tense.
Reid opens the door for me, standing off to the side, and motions me to go in first. As I step over the threshold, I suddenly wish he is
carrying me.
What the hell?
Where did that come from? I shake my head
and continue to walk into the house. The scent hits me intensely. The
same woodsy aroma I smelled on him that night at the diner. The door
closes behind me, and I hear the locks click into place. Reid starts to flip
on the lights, revealing a large, open room. I glance around, immediately
taken aback by the beauty of the interior. The crossbeams are intricately
carved above, and across the room is a large fireplace made of stone
with a large mirror hanging above it. One oversized white couch is placed
in front of the fireplace, and two wooden end tables with lamps resting
on top of them are placed at the ends of the couch. It isn’t much. In fact, it’s almost as barren as my office. Off to the right is a large open
kitchen. To my left is a large set of wooden steps, and I presume that’s
where the rooms must be. Just like any log cabin, everything is made out of wood.
“I’ll go get my blankets and some stuff out of my room and bring
them downstairs.”
I turn towards him and
tilt
my h
ead
to the side. “That isn’t
necessary
,”
I tell him.
Or is it?
Reid tenses again. He seems as though he’s about to
say something but stops himself from saying it.
“I only have one room upstairs, besides my office.” I stop my jaw
from dropping and stare at a painting of a sweeping landscape on the
wall next to me. “Unless you don’t mind sharing…” I glance back at him
and see him smiling. It’s not his usual smile. It’s one that doesn’t quite
reach his eyes, which are a hauntingly dark color. “Because in that case…
we can go to bed right now.”
“I can sleep downstairs then…” I say. Reid straightens his stance,
stares hard at me, still smiling, and shakes his head. I’m not going to win
this argument. “Fine… it probably is best if you sleep downstairs then.”
Reid’s smile drops, and I would do almost anything to see him
smile again. Even one of the half faked smiles he does. “It probably is.”
Without another word, Reid ascends the stairs and disappears out
of sight. I hear him shuffling around upstairs, opening and closing
things, and I move into the living room. The only difference between
my office and his living room is that he actually has pictures. A few are
of himself with another boy and a girl. They all look strikingly similar.
Most of the photos, however, hold the same slightly older woman in
them. Some of them are just shots of her, caught off guard or unaware
that the photo is being taken. Others have him next to her, in several
different places across the world. A photo of him and the woman in
front of the Great Wall of China, in front of the Eiffel Tower, on the
beaches of with white sand, and one of them at Disney World.
I walk around the living room, gazing at photo after photo. Whoever
she is, she brings out a side of Reid I have never seen before. In all the
photos, his eyes are light, almost a green color. A total contrast to the nearly black eyes that I have become all too familiar with. I hear Reid
clear his throat behind me and quickly turn to face him. I feel my cheeks
warming up, embarrassed that I have been caught staring at what is obviously private moments of his life. He drops a pillow, comforter,
and a change of clothes on the couch before walking towards me. Reid
stops next to me. I see out the corner of my eye that he is tense. I watch
as he picks up the photo of him and the woman at Disney World. He sighs and releases a deep breath.
“My mother.” That is all he says. I turn my attention towards the
photo in his hands. Relief fills me as I discover the woman who covers
the walls and mantle is his mother. He places the photo back on top of the mantle, and I see his hand shaking. I feel his eyes on me before
I turn towards him. He is standing close, I can smell the scent of his
cologne and the woodsy mixture. “I think it’s best that we get some rest.
You’ll find the room ready upstairs for you. There’s a bathroom off
to the side of the room if want to take a shower or a bath.”
I nod my head and turn to leave the living room, feeling like I have
been dismissed. I pause on the stairs long enough to see him pull another
photo off the mantle and run his finger over it. I swear I hear him let out
a soft sob as he places the photo back where it belongs. In that moment,
my heart breaks for him. It’s clear that he loves her. I wipe the tear that
slides down my face and head upstairs to the room.
***
I can’t breathe. I can’t move. I can’t make a sound, frozen in place.
The nightmare is back, only it’s different this time. A slideshow of
tonight’s events and the events from six years ago blur together as one
never-ending movie. I am coming home from the club and open my
apartment, only to find that it’s my mother tied to the chair instead of
Jacob. She’s already dead, though. Her throat has been slit. My father
and Jacob appear, both holding knives with sinister grins on their face.
They’re coming towards me, both ready to attack. Just as they are about
to lunge at me, I am forced awake by the sound of my phone beeping.
I jump up in the bed, sitting up and leaning over to flick on the
light. The lamp casts a dim glow across the room, which is similar to
the living room downstairs. Wide and open, barren of all things except
for the large carved wood bed I am sitting in and the grand wooden
dresser with a large mirror on it. Up here, I see no photos, no paintings,
just the bed and dresser. I grab my phone off the pillow resting next to me, the screen flashing with one new message. I unlock the screen,
hoping it’s a response from Eli. When he refused to answer my phone
calls and text messages before I fell asleep, I sent him an email. My
heart stops, and my body tenses when I see that it isn’t from Eli but
from the unknown sender.
From: Unknown Sender
Talk about blast from a past! How was that reunion with dear
Robert and your ex-lover yesterday? Sorry it didn’t go quite according
to plan. It’s a shame that Robert didn’t get to finish what your father
set out to do six years ago. That’s okay though. I’ll just have to finish
it for him. Soon enough. In the meantime, don’t be getting too cozy
in that log cabin. You’ll be leaving soon. Remember, Elizabeth, you
can run but you can’t hide.
I throw my phone across the bedroom, shattering it against the wall into a million pieces.
Great, now I don’t have a phone.
Maybe it’s for the best. If I don’t have a phone, I can’t get any more
emails. I sigh heavily and lean back against the pillow. I just start to
drift back to sleep when a loud crash followed by the sound of breaking
glass startles me, and I jump out of bed. I take the stairs two at a time,
and I am immediately engulfed by a black cloud of smoke. I cough while
flailing my arms around to try and clear the smoke. I walk into the
kitchen where Reid is sweeping up shards of broken glass. The smell of burnt food hits me, and I start to laugh.
Reid looks up from the ground, and our eyes connect. “What
happened in here?” I laugh again and circle around the island.
“Be careful,” he says. I stop walking, narrowly missing a piece of
glass near my left foot. “I, uh, well…” He rubs his temple, leaving a streak
of black smudge behind. “I thought you could use some breakfast.”
That’s when I notice the morning light pouring through the sky
lights in the kitchen. How is it possibly morning already? The room was
completely pitch black upstairs. I could’ve sworn it was the middle of
the night. “I closed the blackout curtains when I was upstairs last night.
I thought you could use the uninterrupted sleep,” he says as though he
read my mind.
It wasn’t completely uninterrupted.
I think of the email on my phone, and the fact that I now need to get a new cell phone. Reid discards the
remaining pieces of glass into the trash can. I walk across the kitchen
and open the windows to clear the remnants of smoke. Reid follows suit
and opens the French style doors in the living room that lead to a large
wooden deck.
“What exactly is it that you were trying to cook?” I eye him curiously.
He leans against the island, his cotton drawstring pants hang low on his
waist, revealing his sexy v-cut of muscles, and I can see all the lines of
his defined shirtless chest and abdomen. His hair is a slightly disheveled
mess. His eyes aren’t dark, but they do have bags under them like he
didn’t sleep last night. He looks absolutely mouthwatering. I could just
take him there against the counter, savoring every taste of him.
“I’m not too sure exactly,” he admits and laughs. He runs his hand
through his hair and sighs. “I’m not very domesticated.”
That’s the understatement of the year.
I pick up a dish towel draped over the handle of the oven, walk
over to Reid, and smile. “You’ve got a little smudge there,” I say and
proceed to wipe his face off. Reid takes in a sharp breath. I feel my own
breath catching from being so close to him. He reaches his hand up and touches my hand. He smiles and slowly exhales.