Storm Shells (The Wishes Series #3) (2 page)

“Stupid boy,” she growled, stamping out of the room.

* * *

My mother stayed with me for hours that morning, trying to put my life back in order. From the couch, I could see her down in the bedroom, packing Charli’s belongings into boxes. It was brutal.

She eventually reappeared in the room waving something at me. “Adam, what are these?”

I lifted my head, glancing at the rings in her hand. “Her wedding rings.”

My mother pushed my feet off the couch and sat down beside me. “You mean to tell me that girl had these beautiful rings and wouldn’t wear them?”

“They didn’t fit her, Mom,” I muttered. “Nothing about this life fit her. Send them to Alex too.”

Finally she took pity on me. “I can’t bear to see you like this,” she said gently. “Why don’t you just call her?”

“No.”

“Fine.” She jumped to her feet. “I shall call her myself. Maybe I can talk some sense into her.”

As far as I was concerned, Charli had already come to her senses. That’s why she left my lying, scheming ass.

“You can’t call her,” I mumbled.

“Watch me,” she said, holding her phone to her ear.

I did watch her – and the look of horror that swept her face a few seconds later. It was a perfectly understandable reaction. Charlotte’s phone was charging in the kitchen, right where she’d left it. Now it was bouncing around the counter playing the ringtone she’d assigned to the queen – the theme tune from Psycho.

Mom ended the call. “Some days I could wring that girl’s neck.”

“But you miss her, right?” I asked, almost smiling.

“I do,” she admitted. “Terribly.”

* * *

I was hoping Ryan wouldn’t be there when I moved back in. But not only was he there, he had company.

My brother has a thing for blondes – the dirty kind – the kind who see no shame in parading around someone’s apartment wearing only a towel.

Thankfully Ryan was fully dressed, lounging on the sofa. His plaything was in the kitchen.

“You’re moving back in?” he asked, sounding less than thrilled.

“Yup.” I kicked the front door shut with my foot and lowered the box I was carrying to the floor. “Rule change.”

I didn’t need to elaborate. Ryan knew exactly what I meant. When we’d lived together before, we had a very strict policy about random half-naked blondes roaming the apartment, especially the dirty kind.

“Have you met Isobel?”

The blonde, who was fussing around in the kitchen, looked up at the sound of her name. She waved across at me. “Hi’ya,” she greeted in a strong cockney accent.

“Hello.” I looked at Ryan, smirking. “Broadening your horizons, I see. Shopping internationally now?”

“English girls are spectacular, Adam. It’s the Australians you have to be wary of.”

I shoved his feet off the coffee table and sat next to him. Both of us idly stared at dirty Isobel.

“Australian girls don’t make you food,” I muttered. “You make
them
food.”

Ryan lazily cocked his head. “Isobel’s a stewardess. It’s in her nature to serve.”

“You really are a dick, you know that?”

“So are you. That’s why you’re moving back in here all sad and alone.”

He made a valid point. I settled further into the sofa and sighed. Was I going to enjoy rooming with my slut brother again? No. But this was my new mediocre life. Until I could figure out a way back into La La Land, this was it for me.

December 10

Charli

Mitchell Tate always seemed to get me at my worst, but as usual he didn’t complain. Pathetically, he was probably used to it.

He’d borrowed Melito’s jeep to make the long journey to the city to pick me up. I was glad we had a long ride ahead of us. It gave us time to catch up.

Kaimte was still blissfully laid back, and so was Mitchell. The only aspect of his simple life that had altered was the absence of a few of our friends. Zoe and Rose had returned to England six months earlier, keen to get back to the real world. If Mitchell was heartbroken, he didn’t let on. “They still email me,” he said, shrugging.

“Do you ever write back?”

A huge grin swept his face. “I will, one day.”

Bernie and Will were also gone. They’d moved further north, skipping out late one night to avoid paying rent arrears to Leroy. Melito and Vincent were still there though, and made a big deal of my arrival by inviting us to a barbecue on the beach later that night.

Mitchell agreed instantly, rattling off a list of names of people he wanted me to meet. Like any transient town, there was a constant influx of new friends to replace those who’d moved on.

“So you’re still happy here?” I asked, pacing his tiny shack.

He set my suitcase on the wooden floor. “It’s the happiest place on earth. Give it a day or two and you’ll remember why.”

* * *

Within ten minutes of arriving at the shack, we were in the surf. Every particle of stress within me dissolved the second the water washed over me. Mitchell and I spent the next hour lolling near the water’s edge, tumbling in the low breaking waves and talking.

He was surprisingly curious about my New York life and all things Adam. “I thought you loved him.” He said it as if he was reminding me of something I wish I hadn’t said.

“I do,” I explained. “Completely and utterly. He just needs to learn how to love me.”

Mitchell frowned, shaking his head. I couldn’t blame him for being confused. “How long are you going to wait for that to happen?”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

“Don’t give him too long, Charli. Live your life. It’s not your fault he can’t get his act together.”

I loved Mitchell Tate. Not in the desperate-complete-absolute Adam Décarie kind of way, but I loved him. I wondered how things would have worked out if I’d loved him à la Décarie.

The girl who landed him would never endure living in a big city. She’d permanently live on a beach somewhere, never knowing the trappings of wealth or the pressures that come with it. On the downside, she wouldn’t own a single pair of shoes or a hairbrush for the rest of her existence.

“Heads up,” he called, warning me of the next wave. We both dug our hands into the sand, anchoring ourselves as it washed over us. I came out of it spluttering, making Mitchell laugh. “That was number nine, Charli.”

Alex first told me about the ninth wave theory when I was a kid. Of course he’d claimed it as his own, but plenty of diehard surfers and sailors are believers. The ninth wave is supposedly larger than those preceding it, making it the rogue of the set. Once it passes through, a new set begins.

I coughed again. “I’m a little off my game, I guess.”

“I’m not sure what your game is any more,” he teased. “You’re just a skinny girl who’s forgotten how to count water.”

“Do you reckon you can fix me?” I sounded surprisingly serious considering the idiocy of his statement.

He smiled. “You’ll be okay. Just go back to the beginning. Think of Adam as your ninth wave. The worst is over. Now the count starts again.”

“You think I should go home, don’t you?”

He nodded. “Alex will be glad to have you back.”

For the first time in a long time, I was open to the idea. Spending time with the one person who never let me down definitely had its appeal.

December 10

Adam

Dirty Isobel eventually checked out, leaving Ryan and me alone for the first time in as long as I could remember. And it was weird. Especially when he started talking.

“So. Have you heard from Fairy Pants?”

“No.”

“Do you expect to?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m here if you want to talk about it,” he offered. “I’d be happy to shed some light on why she dumped your ass.”

It had been a long time since my brother and I had come to blows. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, wondering how I’d fare if I punched him. I decided against it. It might make living together awkward.

“Thanks, but I don’t need your input on this one.”

Ryan leaned forward and dropped the TV remote on the coffee table. “Were you really expecting things to turn out differently?” he asked. “If you were looking for a compliant little Stepford wife, you married the wrong girl.”

“Shut up, Ryan.”

He grinned, sardonically enough to make me reconsider smacking him. “So what’s the plan for winning her back? It better involve buckets of glitter and butterfly dust or you’re screwed.”

I’d heard enough. I was almost out of the room when he spoke again.

“I was kidding, Adam. Charli doesn’t want glitter. She has enough floating around her brain already. Don’t go the gimmick route. It’s not her style.”

Infuriated, I turned back. “How the hell would you know what Charli wants? Why would I take the advice of someone who wakes up next to women he’s known less than twelve hours?”

“We’re not talking about other women.” He shrugged. “We’re talking about your wife. She’s not that complicated. Charlotte made it very clear what she wanted. Everyone heard her say it but you.”

He was wrong. I’d heard it a million times. All she’d ever wanted out of the deal was me. It was the one thing I’d never been able to wholly give her. That’s why I was on my own.

* * *

I wasn’t looking forward to the Christmas break. School was a great distraction for me. I headed to the library after my last class, determined to load myself up with enough study to tide me over until classes resumed in the New Year.

I found a quiet corner, settled in and began poring over the notes I’d taken in class. Even I knew it was excessive but I literally had nothing else going on.

Just as I was getting into it, a girl dumped her book bag down, sending my papers flying across the desk.

“Hey,” she greeted, either missing or ignoring the destruction she’d caused. “It’s Adam, right?”

I gathered my papers. “Yes, and you are?”

“Trieste Kincaid.” She sat. “I know, I know, you’re probably thinking I was named after the city in Italy, but I wasn’t.” I wasn’t thinking anything other than who was this girl and what the hell did she want? “My dad has a thing for the bathyscaphe called Trieste,” she continued. “You know, the one that explored the Challenger Deep back in the sixties?”

Overloaded, I’d lost the ability to think. “What’s a bathyscaphe?”

She giggled, a sharp sound that made everyone in the library look up. “Come on, Adam, keep up. It’s a submersible deep-sea research vessel.”

I stared at her, trying to clear my head of the nonsense. The fidgety girl with the runaway mouth didn’t seem fazed in the slightest. “Trieste, do I know you?”

“Not yet,” she replied. “But you will soon. You’re my new mentor. My third, actually. The other two quit.”

Signing up for the peer-mentoring program had been Parker’s brainwave. At the time I’d been less than enthusiastic. Now, sitting beside the hyped-up Trieste, I was even less enthusiastic.

“Look,” I began, trying to come up with a way of letting her down gently. “I’m really busy and –”

“You’re my last hope. If you dump me, they’re kicking me out of the mentoring program.”

She looked so pitiful that I thought she might cry. I had no idea how I’d handle her if she did – especially if she cried as loudly as she laughed.

“What are you working on at the moment?” I asked, taking a softer line.

She recovered instantly, unclipped her bag, took out a heap of papers and dumped them in front of me. “Constitutional Law.”

“So, do you need help?”

She giggled again and I dropped my head, shushing her before we both got kicked out. “No. I have excellent grades.”

“So what do you need from me then?”

“I’m not sure yet, but I’ll let you know. It’ll just be great to know a friendly face.”

I wasn’t friendly. I thought I’d made it obvious that babysitting a first year student was not high on my agenda.

“Where are you from, Trieste?”

She couldn’t have been local. The fashion police would’ve hunted her down by now. I’d never seen anyone pull off the toggle beanie look, least of all one with ears. Her thick black-framed glasses were a cute look, though.

“Army brat.” She pointed at herself. “A bit of here, a bit of there.”

I learned a lot about Trieste in the next minute and a half. She was twenty-one, but seemed much younger. She was on a full scholarship, and looking for a part-time job. She learned nothing about me and I planned to keep it that way. I figured I could help her out with a bit of study over the next few weeks and palm her off onto the next unsuspecting mentor.

After the quick Q and A session, I started packing my gear. I was confident of making a clean getaway until Parker approached the table. I would’ve dealt with a thousand Triestes over him. I hadn’t seen him since the Christmas party from hell.

“Hey,” he said.

I didn’t reply. I just stared at him.