These Things About Us (21 page)

At the end of the day I had spent too much money on clothes that were neither edgy nor lawyer-tame and sat in a sandwich shop with my five plastic bags, gobbling down a ham and egg sandwich, happily swallowing the meat.

I had gotten myself a National Express – which was the British equivalent of Greyhound – flyer and looked at all the destinations. I still had only the tourist visa, but I didn’t have the money for a plane ticket home. When coming here, I’d had a couple of fake documents to prove I was able to pay for my return to the United States. It had been cheaper to buy those from a first class forger than to buy the cheapest plane ticket back. I’d become an illegal immigrant.

I took out my pen and drew a fat, black circle around Oxford. I could pose as an exchange student. I might be able to work at a student coffee shop or a second hand shop that hired without asking too many questions once I found a way to get a fake student ID.

I could move on. I’d miss Wesley, Sierra and Alex. Maybe even Vince. I wouldn’t miss my mother. I wouldn’t miss the drunken pub patrons. And I sure as hell would not allow myself to miss the way Trace had cared for me.

I wouldn’t allow myself to miss Trace.

I’d pack my bags and leave first thing in the morning, buy a last minute coach ticket and never look back at the last few weeks.

Packed with a plan and new clothes, I made my way back to The Dirty Dungeon, facing the bus system like a real Londoner. If it hadn’t been for my accent, I would have blended in perfectly.

This time, I started taking long and deep breaths on the bus, so I’d be calm when I elbowed my way through the packed pub and relaxed if ran into Trace.

Against my expectations, however, the pub was empty. Completely. Jean wasn’t by the payphone. The bar had been abandoned. Something was very obviously wrong. The pub wasn’t closed on Monday nights. I took a few cautious steps inside and heard Alex’s voice from the office. He was angry, yelling at someone that it was not his fault, that this kind of thing just happened.

I stepped closer and heard Trace shouting back that no, those things didn’t just happen.

I had no idea if Alex would be around later or early tomorrow, limiting my chances to talk to him. They surely could continue their fight after I popped in to say I was leaving. I banged my knuckles against the office door and waited for an answer. Trace opened. I wasn’t able to meet his gaze. The sight of his broad chest already stabbed me in the stomach. Meeting his eyes would kill me.

“I want to talk to your father,” I said and heard my voice breaking.

“Kitty-”

“I
don’t
want to talk to you.”

Trace stepped aside, and I took great care to leave a vast distance between us as I walked into the trashed office. Alex’s desk had been wiped clean, the papers and pens and the computer screen scattered on the floor. His chair lay closer to the door than to the desk. My stomach twisted and that small voice of reason in my head told me to run and not get mixed up in this. But I still liked Alex. I cared about him enough to want to ease his problems. And I kind of wanted to take his side in a fight against Trace.

Alex stood by the window with his hands in his hair.

“What happened?” I asked, bending down to pick up the chair.

After several seconds of radio silence, Trace stepped up beside me and I made the mistake of looking his way, kicking my heart to the curb.
I had to admit it. My heart.
That’s where I’d begun to like Trace. That’s why it burned in my entire ribcage when he looked at me with his clear, green eyes and why it felt like he was cutting through my chest when I thought of that photograph.

“He gambled our lives away,” Trace said without breaking eye contact. “He promised he’d stop after the last time he almost ruined us.
But this time he did it. He fucked up.”

“What?” This couldn’t be right. Alex was one of the most down-to-earth men I’d met. For a moment it didn’t matter that Trace had used me.

“Fifty thousand pounds,” Alex murmured on the other side of the room.

“You just said forty thousand,” Trace said.

“Yes, I lied. It’s fifty thousand, Trace.”

“You lost fifty thousand pounds?” I asked, unable to hide the shock. “How?”

“Does it matter? I have to sell the pub. Last time, we had to sell the house. This time, it’s the pub.” Alex pushed a book from the shelf he was standing next to and it landed with a loud thud.

“Stop fucking up your office,” Trace said at the same time that I said, “I can help.”

I owed him. I had sworn on the very first day that I would somehow repay Alex for his help. He took me in and made sure I was cared for, when I needed it. He needed help now. It was time to return the favor. If I’d learned one valuable thing from my father’s scheming, it was that you didn’t leave debts unpaid.

“You can?” Alex’s eyebrows shot up. “No. I can’t take your money, Darling.”

“It’s not mine. It’s my father’s. He’s full of it. I can get fifty thousand if you need me to.” I hated the idea. I hated myself for coming up with it. I hated that I couldn’t leave Alex and his sons to fight for themselves.

“Hell no.” Trace grabbed my shoulders and made me face him, slicing me open wider as I took in his chiseled jaw and straight nose, the piercing in his eyebrow and his killer eyes. “Kitty, this isn’t your problem. It’s ours. You wanted to leave that life behind for good, and I’m not throwing you back into it just because my father is an idiot. We can get the money elsewhere.”

I looked at Alex. He dropped his gaze from mine in an instant. They wouldn’t get that amount of money anywhere. I had a feeling Alex wouldn’t get a loan with any bank.

“I’m not going back. I’ll just wait for my father to call and ask him for the money. It’s not that big of a deal.” It was a big deal. My Dad’s help came with a price that wasn’t necessarily money. “I can do this for you.”

“We’re not taking her help,” Trace pressed, talking to his father now.

Alex had already made his mind up. I could see it in his eyes. “Do you want to be homeless?”

“I’d rather be homeless than throw her into that shark tank.”

Stupid heart, forgetting so fast that Trace hurt me and jumping up and down because he seemed to care. What my heart forgot, I had to hold onto with every bit of common sense I still possessed. “You don’t get a say in this. Your father lost the money and I’m asking
him
if he wants my help.”

Alex worked his jaw. Trace must have gotten that from him. He flexed the same muscles when he was thinking really hard about something or when he was frustrated about something. “I don’t want your help, Darling. Especially when it comes at a price for you. But I need it.”

“Then it’s decided.”

“Kitty, don’t.”

“Shut up, Trace. You don’t have to pretend you like me anymore. I am doing this for your father because I owe him, and then I’m going to leave.” I wrapped my arms around myself and turned to Alex and ignored that he was trying to puzzle out what had happened between Trace and me. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I talked to my dad.”

“Thank you,” he whispered, lowering his eyes.

“I hope you stop gambling. I won’t make it a condition because that stuff never works, but I hope you realize that you have a problem and you have to change if you want to keep your pub and your family.” I stole another quick glance at Trace – big mistake because he was watching me intently. “I should go upstairs. Make sure my phone is charged.”

Of course he followed but I didn’t have the power to run. My muscles stung and my mouth was as dry as if I’d swallowed sand. It had been a long day.

“Please, don’t,” I said as I walked up the stairs, not turning around to him. “I’m too tired to listen to any kind of explanation.”

“Poppy and I weren’t together,” he said anyway and I rolled my eyes, although he couldn’t see.

“Right. You just like taking intimate pictures with strangers and having their eponymous flowers tattooed.”

I thought I’d proven my point because he didn’t reply, but he still followed me when we reached our floor, and when I kicked my door shut, he caught it and closed it behind him. “Look at me.”

“I can’t.” I really didn’t feel able to withstand that sort of pain again, so I kept my back towards him as I dropped the shopping bags on the bed and dug through my backpack for my phone.

“Fine. Just listen.” I couldn’t
just
do that either, because I sensed him moving behind me as I plugged in the charger for my phone. I heard the rustle of his jeans and I smelled his unique scent and I felt the warmth rising from his skin when he came so close I could easily lean back against him. “I killed her. That’s why I never mention her. It’s been 17 months and I have barely talked about her or what happened.”

My throat was clogging shut, cutting my breath short. He must be kidding. I knew people who were as close to murderous as you could get. Trace wasn’t like that, was he? They said women choose to be with men like their fathers, but Trace… he couldn’t be like Dad. I sucked a shaky breath into my lungs and tried to get the plug into my phone, but my hands were trembling so bad, it took three attempts before I pulled it off.

“She was my best friend. She trusted me and I abused that trust for a little fun. It’s not a guilt thing. It’s not like I just blame myself for her death. I’m fully responsible.” I heard the lump building in his throat and how he fought through it to keep talking. “I never told anyone but right afterwards, I saw her for weeks. Just from the corner of my eyes or reflected in a window. I was miserable, haunted by my own memory. Then, for a while, I had reached a point where I just expected her to be there. I went into my room and started talking to her about music and only when I turned around, I realized she wasn’t actually there. And then she became nothing but a faint memory. Except for when I tried to close my eyes. The second I did, everything was on repeat in my head. The song, the rain, her cry.”

He stopped and I didn’t know what to say. He was as honest as he was when he was singing and I didn’t know how to reply.

Had it been a dare? A lost bet? A promise? All sorts of scenarios raced through my mind. Trace, holding a gun at Poppy’s forehead. Trace, being drunk and daring Poppy to jump off a bridge. I couldn’t… I wasn’t… I stayed still and breathed in and breathed out, waiting for him to speak up again. “You look like my dead best friend. That’s why I couldn’t stand looking at you. I hated you for reminding me of the blood on my hands. But you’re nothing like Poppy. Looking at you, I can’t see her anymore, Tony.”

I flinched when he said my real name. Coming from him, it almost sounded wrong. I dug deep to find my voice, “What happened?”

“The band had a gig in Bristol and she was riding home with me in Mum’s old car. It was pouring. The rain was like a thick, white curtain but I was still riding the high from the crowd cheering for us. I was binged up and reckless and I wanted to prove that I succeeded at everything I did. She didn’t need proof. She knew I was exaggerating but she laughed and joked along. It turned out, I can’t keep a car under control with one hand and draw a portrait with the other hand. The car spun out, crashed through the traffic barrier and we went flying. That’s what I hear when I try to fall asleep. I hear the barrier breaking and I hear Poppy screaming my name on the top of her lungs and that bloody Billy Idol song on the radio. Always the song. I don’t remember what I saw when we crashed. I don’t remember the pain. But there’s the chorus of Rebel Yell.”

An accident.

I spun around and almost collided with his chest. His face was scrunched up and right then it was him, avoiding to look at me. He looked healthy on the outside, but inside he was in pain because he’d been stupid in a car. He’d behaved childish. He had made a mistake and it still hurt him. All the anger I had stowed vanished into thin air and was replaced by the incredible need, physical and emotional, to take care of him for once. To be the strong one for a change.

My body was magnetically drawn to him. Resistance was futile. I wrapped my arms around his mid and pressed my face into his sternum. I wanted to let myself fall into the sensations tingling through my body as much as I wanted to give him as much hold as I could. He wrapped an arm around my mid and the other hand went into my hair, holding me tight against him.

He shouldn’t have kept Poppy from me but I understood why he had. The guilt was eating him up and he wanted to talk about it as much as I wanted to bring up the nights of dancing naked on pool tables. I couldn’t fathom how much harder it was when your stupid behavior had such a big impact.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered against his chest. “Remind me not to run away again until I know the whole story.”

“Remind me not to let you.” He grabbed a fistful of my shirt and said, “When I came here to explain and you were gone…” I heard him swallow. “I thought I’d die. I freaked out. Damn, my room looks much worse than the office.”

I couldn’t deny that at the same time that I felt bad about bringing this sort of misery down on him it felt nice to be important enough to have a room trashed over me. “We’ll clean it up later.”

Several seconds passed and in the silence, I could hear his heart beating only inches from my ear. It was a fast but steady rhythm and I pieced together why he’d punched Wesley and why he’d paled when he caught me in his brother’s bed. Why he’d freaked out when we were out in the rain. Why he’d asked me not to leave when he’d been drunk. Everything made sense. And Wesley turned into a major douchebag. He’d known all along what my presence put Trace through.

“When I left in the morning, I went to her grave. It sounds crazy, I know, but Poppy used to be the only person I actually talked to. I have no idea how this heaven and hell thing works but I had to tell her about you in case she’s not watching. So I spent my morning talking to an ugly headstone about that girl I could fall asleep next to, the one that could be a real pain in the ass sometimes. She does odd, sweet things like blushing, rambling, trying to hide behind her hair and concentrating on the breaths she takes when she tries to keep control. She’s afraid of her past and doesn’t realize that she’s much stronger than it. She also has the hottest fucking tattoo I’ve ever seen.”