Starless Nights (Hale Brothers Series Book 2) (24 page)

WHY AM I so nervous to have her over? I’ve known her forever and she’s already been here. This is not a new thing, but even as I think this thought, I know that’s not the truth. Whatever this is tonight, it may or may not be the start of us.

She’s right. I’m not the same person that I was before. What if she doesn’t like this version of me? I mean, how do you explain to someone just how different you are? When I look at her, I see strong, determined, creative, glass half full, and love. She’s perfect and whole, whereas I feel broken, and most days, I’m struggling just to hold all of the pieces together.

The change occurred over the last year, after my dad went to jail. When I was younger, the things that my dad said and did to me, I thought I deserved. That for some reason, I hadn’t earned his love and affection. In my mind, as a kid, from day to day, it was what it was because I believed him.

Now that I’m older, I’ve slowly been able to put things into a little bit better perspective. I know what he did is all on him but it doesn’t change the fact that I was his chosen target and I was never loved. Who doesn’t want to love their own child?

This is a hard pill to swallow.

But then I think, what if she’s changed too and I don’t like this new version of her? I really don’t know much about her anymore, and maybe I’ve built her up into being someone that she isn’t.

The doorbell rings and I run my hand through my hair.

Taking a deep breath, I walk over and open the door.

I’m met with huge sparkling blue eyes and wild long strawberry blonde curls. She smiles at me and once again, my whole world bursts in to color. She brightens everything. She always has.

“Hey,” I say to her.

Her smile widens and I find myself smiling back.

“Come on in.”

“Thanks, it smells amazing in here.”

I want to tell her that she smells amazing as she walks past me and I’m hit with her scent of lavender.

“So, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that you cook.” She hands me a bottle of wine and looks around the loft.

“You brought wine?” I smirk at her.

“Yeah, Ali came over and told me that I couldn’t come here empty handed and needed to bring wine. She gave that to me.” She’s looking at me a little sheepishly and I let out a laugh.

“That’s funny, because she came over here earlier and brought me a wine opener, along with four glasses, telling me that I must always be prepared.”

Her eyes light up and she grins.

“Do you know anything about wine?” she asks, while following me into the kitchen to grab Ali’s opener.

“Nope. I guess we can learn about it together.” I pour us both a glass and hand her one. We tap them together and say, “Cheers.”

She smiles at me while we do this. I will never get tired of watching her smile.

“Did you know, the ritual of bumping glasses with a “cheers” started way back in ancient Greece? They did this to make sure no one was trying to poison them. Bumping the glasses together at the right angle makes the drink spill from one into the other. Basically, it was a courtesy of the host to drink the first cup of wine to show his guests that he didn’t intend to poison them.”

Leila nods her head slowly as if she is seriously pondering my factoid. “I didn’t know that. But I did read once that if women drink wine, it increases their sex drive.”

I choke a little on the wine and chuckle at this. “I think I like yours better.”

“You would,” she says grinning at me, and leaning against the kitchen counter.

“So, back to your original question of why I know how to cook, after Drew and Ali left, Mom slipped in and out of these depression spells and someone had to take care of her and Matt.”

She frowns.

“How is Matt?”

“He’s okay I guess. He texts me nonstop throughout the day. He’s never really had friends that I know of, so I always try to text him back as soon as I can. He wants to come here for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I told him okay.”

“So, you’re not planning on going home for the holidays?”

“No. I think that Drew and Ali are headed home for Christmas and New Year’s. They did the whole Times Square thing last year and once was enough for them.”

“She mentioned that. I guess I had just assumed you would go too.”

“Nope.” There’s disappointment on her face. Was she hoping to spend the holidays with me?

She twirls the glass between her fingers. She just got nervous, and I don’t want her to be nervous here.

“Dinner’s ready if you’re hungry.”

“I’m starving. How can I help?”

“You can grab the wine, our glasses, and I’ll get the rest.

“Okay.”

Leila walks to the table and takes a seat. In the middle of the table I set down steaks, asparagus, french fries, and cupcakes. She watches me and smiles. My heart skips a beat. I’m so happy she’s here.

To me, dinner was a huge success. Leila and I spent most of it really just trying to play catch up. We talked about everything from how I was liking New York, how school was going for both of us, the publicity she’s received after the fashion show, my tennis schedule, and even who has the best takeout pizza in the neighborhood.

After dinner, I decide it’s time to start having a few bigger conversations with her. I’m not going to ask her every question that I have, but there are a lot of holes, and I think we need to open up a little more about the past. Some answers would be nice.

“So, tell me about Atlanta. What happened to you after you moved?”

Her face falls a little and I wonder if I’ve asked the wrong question. She pushes her plate to the side and reaches over for a cupcake.

“Well, remember how we were going to move over to the mainland and rent a house?”

I nod at her.

“After the fire, because my dad couldn’t pay the mortgage, the insurance company wouldn’t pay us. We lost everything. My dad didn’t have a job, we were living off of his very tiny retirement savings from the military, and all of our belongings were gone, except for what we took to Aunt Ella’s. What were we to do? Where were we supposed to go?”

Watching her relive this in her mind, breaks my heart for her. As a kid, something like a fire and the house burning down is really sad, but we don’t understand the grownup responsibility side about what comes next. If our house had burned down, we had enough money to move into another one. It never occurred to me that Leila’s parents didn’t.

“My dad sold my mother’s car and the three of us headed to Atlanta.” She peels the paper off of the cake and takes a bite.

“Wow.”

“Yeah, I overheard my dad and mom talking on the drive up. They thought I was sleeping, but I wasn’t. If staying at my grandmother’s didn’t work out, there was a shelter nearby that took families until they could get back on their feet.”

“A shelter?”

“For homeless families,” she whispers looking away from me.

The thought of Leila being homeless and having nowhere to live, makes my stomach hurt. I’ve always had this need down deep to want to take care of her. It wasn’t like I had to, it was because I’ve always wanted to.

“So tell me about your grandmother’s place,” I ask trying to change the subject.

“She lived in a retirement community. You know, one of those fifty-five and older places. Her home was one half of a duplex and it was a two-bedroom, one bath, with a small kitchen and a tiny sunroom that she turned into her sewing room.”

“Who was on the other side?”

“This little old man who I think was sweet on my grandmother.” She smiles at the memory.

“What was his name?”

“Paul Douglas.” She dips her finger into the icing of the cupcake, swipes some, and then licks it off her finger. She looks at me and I realize I haven’t said anything as I’m staring at her mouth in a haze induced stupor.

“That’s awesome.” I finally get out after clearing my throat.

“Yeah, he has a son who works at Coke and he found my dad a job right away. We couldn’t have been more grateful or thankful.”

“So, did you guys ever get into trouble for staying there?”

“No, we only had the one car, we kept to ourselves, and Mr. Paul liked us so it worked out okay.”

“You said the place was a two-bedroom, where did you sleep?”

“On the couch. It wasn’t so bad after I got used to it. The only problem we ever had was, after we got there I wanted to sleep all the time, and they wanted to sit around and rehash everything that had happened over the last couple of weeks leading up to that point.”

“You slept on the couch for two years?”

She nods her head taking another bite.

“That must have sucked.”

“It did.” She lets out a sad sigh.

“So, tell me what it was that you couldn’t show me the last time that I was here.” She sits up a little straighter and curiosity shines out of her eyes.

“Nah, I’m not going to tell you, I’m going to show you. Come on.”

She shoves another bite of the cupcake into her mouth and looks at the table. “What about the dishes?” she says around a full mouth of cupcake.

I chuckle. “I’ll get them later or tomorrow. Don’t worry about them.”

“You cooked, I should clean.”

“Next time.” I stand up from the table and go grab a beer out of the refrigerator. I’m hoping my message came through loud and clear that I want there to be a next time.

She follows and grabs her glass of wine, refilling it. We walk into my closet. I push the clothes to the side and show her the door.

“I never asked the guy who owns this place why the door is in the closet. I like to think it’s because there were shady mob activities going on here back in the day.”

“Sounds good to me. I like your theory and this is seriously pretty cool.”

I unlock the door, push it open, and together we climb up two flights of steps to get the top. At the top, I flip on a switch, unlock the bolt, and open the door. This door swings to the inside. Must be because of the snow. There is no way to shovel it from the other side and should it pile up, the door wouldn’t push open.

Leila and I walk out on to the roof and she gasps at the sight.

After I moved in, I purchased an outdoor living room set, along with a table and chairs. Matt helped me put it together. We strung up some white Christmas lights and we spent hours up here talking and listening to the sounds of the city.

“Beau, this is amazing.” I watch her take it all in.

“Thanks, Matt helped.”

“Do you come up here a lot?”

“Yes.”

She looks up and tonight there is a cloud cover preventing any star sightings.

“Can you see the stars from here?”

“Sometimes, not too often.”

She shivers and I walk over and grab a blanket out of a trunk. She smiles at me as I hand it to her.

“You know who else would love this is Camille.”

“Oh yeah, why?”

“She’s from the south. She always talks about how she misses the wide open space.”

“Well, I’m not inviting her over but you can if you want to. You girls can have all the fun up here you want.”

“I just might.” Her eyes sparkle as she curls up on the couch.

Leila and I spend most of the night laughing and reminiscing about the crazy things we did as kids. I don’t know if it was the wine, being outside, or just her getting comfortable with me, but she giggled and laughed so much that I wanted to bottle this night up and save it.

Sometime around 1 a.m., Leila looks over at me and tells me it’s late and she needs to go. As much as I would like to ask her to stay, I know that neither one of us is ready for that.

Walking her to the front door, the energy changes between us. She feels it and so do I.

She turns around, faces me, and looks up at me with her crystal blue eyes.

“Thank you for having me over tonight and for cooking dinner. I had a really great time.”

“I’m glad and me too. Maybe you’ll come back soon.” I give her a one sided smile.

“I’d like that.” She softly smiles, which causes my eyes to drop to her mouth.

Should I or should I not kiss her good night? Is it too soon?

To hell with it.

I close the distance between us and her back hits the wall.