Change of Heart (11 page)

“It’s time for you to go home! What part of that didn’t you understand before?”

“My home is wherever you are,” he says, not dropping the smile from his face. Of course he has to be charming. Now. After all this time.

Kate sighs, and I turn to glare at her, raising my eyebrows in a “what the hell?” gesture. She shrugs in response. Again, what the hell? I swear my roommate has been compromised by an alien force. Or she got laid, but in this circumstance, the alien force is a more likely scenario.

When I look back to Decker, I see he’s standing now, brushing the grit off his clothes from lying on the dirty concrete.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” he asks, gesturing to Kate.

I groan, realizing Decker clearly isn’t going anywhere. He’s going to stick around until he gets whatever it is he came here for.

“Decker, this is my roommate Kate. Kate, this is Decker.” They both smile winning smiles and shake hands.

I shake my head and go back inside. I think I need to go back to sleep. Or maybe I
am
still asleep and this is just a dream. Decker isn’t still here. Kate hasn’t been invaded. And I am going to wake up any minute feeling rested and ready to tackle a new day.
 

Chapter Sixteen

Decker

Casey’s roommate, who I know to be Kate from Casey’s stories, introduces herself and invites me into the apartment after Casey had stomped off. Kate’s a sweet girl. She seems pretty put together, a lot like Casey, which makes me feel better considering they have been rooming together since freshman year. I’m glad she wasn’t paired up with a nut job like I was.

My freshman year I’d roomed with another guy from the baseball team. They kept the jocks together by sport since we had to arrive to campus early and kept the same insane schedules—early mornings and the occasional late nights when traveling for games. My roommate back then, John Lechance, was a junior. Usually they don’t pair upperclassmen with lowerclassmen, but they had a hard time placing John, so they stuck him with me. It hadn’t taken me long to figure out why. The guy was a loose cannon. I gave him the benefit of the doubt as long as I could, but when I discovered he was using steroids, I drew the line. No way was I going to be around that shit. I made it playing ball on the college level without using performance enhancing drugs; I wasn’t about to risk being accused of using because my stupid roommate was. I told Coach; there was an investigation, and John was kicked off the team and expelled from the school. My double was a single for the rest of the year, and I was paired up with someone much cooler sophomore year.

The front door opens right into the living room, and I take a look around as I step inside. It’s modestly decorated, with a cream-colored sofa and loveseat and dark wood coffee and end tables. The apartment is an open floor plan, with the kitchen and dining area on one side and sliding doors leading out to the balcony on the opposite side. Abstract paintings hang on the wall behind the television, and picture frames dot the wall behind the couch.

I start to follow Kate to the kitchen, where Casey is sitting at the table with her head in her hands—undoubtedly frustrated beyond belief that I’m still here—but one of the framed photos on the wall catches my eye. I’d recognize that picture anywhere. I have one copy framed in my room at home and another stuck to my pin board in my dorm room.

The picture is of me and Casey on our seventh birthday, blowing out the candles on our joint birthday cake. I remember clearly how I wanted an
Iron Giant
theme and she wanted a
Fantasia
theme. Our moms settled it for us and chose a
Toy Story
theme with both Woody and Jessie. It was the first of many birthdays we had spent together growing up, and the first of many where our parents had to intervene and force a compromise. In fact, we never missed one until college. I thought about her on that first birthday away when all my teammates were going out with their dates for Valentine’s Day. I hadn’t asked anyone out, not that there weren’t any possibilities. I just couldn’t stomach the idea of spending even a moment of that day with some meaningless chick. That had always been my day with Casey. I thought about her the two birthdays after that, too. How could I not?

Shaking off the feeling of nostalgia, I walk into the kitchen and take a seat at the table across from Casey. She peeks at me between her fingers, and I grin at her attempt to glare. She’s so damn adorable when she’s mad.

“I thought I told you to leave,” she says, though it’s muffled through the hands she still hasn’t removed from her face.

“Kate let me in.”

“I need a new roommate,” she grumbles.

I laugh. “I think she’s great.”

Casey removes her hands from her face and full on glares at me. She’s getting really good at that. “Seriously, Decker. What. Are. You. Doing. Here?” She enunciates each word as if I don’t understand English.

“I told you. You mean the world to me, Case. I’m here to prove it to you. I’m not going anywhere, so you’d better get used to it.” Her expression shifts slightly at my words and I have a glimmer of hope, but, just as quick as it had appeared, she’s back to glaring at me.

“You have finals.”

“I made arrangements.” I raise my eyebrow at her in challenge.

Her eyes narrow. “I don’t want you here.”

“Yes, you do. You just don’t know it yet.”

“Dammit, Decker!” she raises her voice and smacks her hands on the table. “This is my life. You’re not a part of it anymore.”

Her words hurt, but I know she’s only saying what she’s saying because she’s trying to push me away. She’s hiding something. I can feel it. I spent most of the flight here analyzing her behavior when she’d been home. There wasn’t anything telling, but something was off…not quite right. And I’m determined to find out what it is.

“Casey, we became best friends when you shared your cookies with me.”

From somewhere behind me, I hear what sounds like choking. Casey rolls her eyes, leans to the left to see behind me and calls out, “Not those kinds of cookies, you pervert! What the
hell
did you do with my roommate?”

“Sorry,” Kate’s quiet voice calls out.

“I thought Kate was your roommate,” I ask, choosing to tackle the easiest part of what she just said first.

“She is,” Casey shakes her head as if trying to clear it. “She’s just being weird today.”

“What kind of cookies is she referring to?”

Casey groans and closes her eyes, her lips moving silently as if she’s saying a prayer—probably the serenity prayer. Finally, she tells me “She used to call her virginity her “cookie” as a code word. Kind of like how Monica called hers her ‘flower’?”

I look blankly at Casey. I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about. “Who is Monica?”

She groans again, “From
Friends
!”

Right, because that clears everything right up. Clear as mud. I blink once and continue to stare at her blankly.

“Whatever,” she says, shaking her head, clearly exasperated by my presence. “I know you well enough to know you’re not going anywhere. And I’m tired of arguing about it. At least I am today.”

I look at her and take her in,
really
take her in for the first time today, and I see she looks exhausted. Kind of like how she looked when she arrived home that day. I know better than to point out when a woman looks rough, so I take a different approach.

“You must be tired from your trip. Why didn’t you just fly? I only had to leave this morning and I got here before you.” She leans back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. She’s taking a defensive stance. Interesting.

“I don’t like to fly,” she says simply, shrugging her shoulders and raising her eyebrow as if waiting for me to challenge her. I want to fight with her about as much as she wants to fight with me right now, so I let it go.

“It’s not for everyone.”

Her eyes widen at my response, or lack thereof. “No, it’s not.”

I look at the clock on the microwave, eight p.m. I haven’t eaten since I grabbed a slice of pizza at the airport on the way to the cab line. I’m starving and right on cue my stomach growls.

“I was about to order some take-out, want something?” she asks, surprising the hell out of me. My eyes dart from the clock to her face, but her vacant expression doesn’t let me know what she’s thinking.

“That would be great, thanks,” I carefully agree, not knowing when the volcano is going to erupt again. “I didn’t rent a car, and I’m not sure a cabbie would appreciate taking me to get something to eat
and
finding me a room for the night.”

She looks thoughtful for a moment, then stands and grabs a folder from some big organizing thing hanging on a door off to the side of the kitchen—a laundry room maybe? She sets a menu from a health food restaurant in front of me. When I’d been playing baseball, throughout high school and until my shoulder got screwed up in college, I was a clean eater. I wonder if she’s throwing this out there because of that, but I know better than to question it when she seems to be extending an olive branch. I don’t want her to think I don’t appreciate her kindness.

I tell her my order—a turkey and avocado wrap with fresh veggies—and she calls it in. I smile when I hear her order the same thing, only hold the onions. We always had the same food tastes. Whenever we’d go out to eat together, we’d always end up swapping plates halfway through the meal. It was our thing. We had a lot of “things” back then, and I can’t help but wonder if we will get the chance to make new “things.”

Our late dinner is excellent, the side of mixed fruit surprisingly hit the spot. I catch Casey eyeing me head to toe as I lean back in my chair and stretch my legs out with my arms over my head. It tugs at something inside me, something I thought might have been dormant between us. Not to mention it gives me hope that she’s thawing out. Or maybe she’s just too exhausted to fight.

“Do you have the number for a cab company?” I ask, breaking her trance.

She startles, blushes from having been caught staring, and looks over at the clock on the microwave. “Decker, it’s almost ten o’clock. You can stay in our guest room tonight.”

“I don’t want to impose-” She clenches her jaw and gives me one of those looks, and I shut my mouth right up. You know the look…it screams, “are you serious right now?”

“If you didn’t want to impose, you wouldn’t have followed me across the country, now would you?” she says calmly with her hands flat on the table in front of her.

“Right,” I nod. “I appreciate this, Case.”

“It’s fine,” she says, getting up from the table. “It’s just for tonight. You’re going home tomorrow.” She fixes me with another glare before picking up her plate and taking it to the sink.

So much for letting that one go. But I’m not going to argue with her. I know deep down she knows damn well I’m not leaving, no matter what she says. I get up and help her clean up the kitchen. Kate had already eaten dinner before she came home earlier, so she didn’t join us and has remained in her room the past couple hours.

Casey warns me that the guest room is in between her room and Kate’s so I have to be quiet. What the hell did she think I was going to do once I went to bed? Blast my music? Do sit ups and grunt? I dutifully nod and follow her down the hall. She points out the bathroom I’ll share with Kate, Casey has a private bath off her bedroom and clearly doesn’t want me near her bedroom. Then she points to a door on the right—beside the bathroom—which she says is Kate’s room. The room across the hall from Kate’s is hers, and the room at the end of the hall, in between the two, is the guest room.

The guest room is really nice. It’s painted a light green. There is a dark, cherry wood, queen-sized sleigh bed in the middle of the room, flanked by a couple matching nightstands. A dresser sits off to the side by the window, and a closet with a pocket door is on the other wall.

“My parents would stay in here when they visited. It’s why we got a three bedroom,” she says absently.

I stop my perusal of the room and look at her just in time to see her eyes well up with tears. I set my duffel down on the bed and step over to her, pulling her into my arms. She folds into me willingly, and I can’t say it doesn’t make me feel good she came to me so willingly. I half-expected her to swat me away.

Hope.

“Will it ever get easier?” she asks, referring to the loss of her dad, I’m sure.

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” I say, resting my cheek on top of her head. “But I’ll be here for you every day until it does.”

She exhales a big breath. I’m not quite sure if it’s out of frustration or if she’s relieved to have me here, because, in the very next moment, she wraps her arms around me and gives a light squeeze.

Chapter Seventeen

Casey

When I wake in the morning and the events of the previous night unfold in my mind, I can’t believe I allowed Decker to spend the night. Even though he was only in the guest room, it was still a moment of weakness I can’t afford to have. But what was I supposed to do? Leave him to take a cab and end up at some roach motel because he couldn’t do proper research and find a decent place to stay?

No matter what happens between us—or happened between us—I can’t do that to Decker. It doesn’t make a difference how angry I am with him or how much I try to push him away, he’ll always be that six-year-old little boy with the bright green eyes and crazy red hair who’d helped me when I skinned my knee.

I’m sitting at the kitchen table with a big mug of decaf steaming in front of me, rubbing my head with both hands. How did things get so screwed up? I mean, I know how they got screwed up three years ago, but presently? I’m not so sure. I had known there was a chance I’d see Decker when I went back home, I thought I was prepared for that—and maybe I was—but for him to have followed me to California? There is no way I could have prepared myself for that turn of events,