Come to Me Recklessly (10 page)

A sound of resignation left me, and I turned back to the door, guarded as I drew it open. Aly stood there with her fist halfway to the door, and it was pretty clear her next knock was going to come with much more force than the last. Beside her on the stoop, Ella was all tucked and protected from the sun in the comfortable shade of her fancy stroller, lost in the sweet abyss of sleep.

“Samantha,” Aly whispered on a sigh. It was pure relief all bundled up with a silent apology.

“Hey,” I said, chewing at my lip, not knowing exactly what to say or do. The sane part of me told me to tell her to go away, to just leave me alone and let bygones be bygones instead of dredging up the past, because I didn’t think I could handle feeling this way much longer. From the moment I spotted Aly in that store little more than a week ago, a disturbance had settled over my life, my axis shifted and my foundation rocked.

I needed to get back on solid ground.

The insane part of me widened the door.

She fidgeted, dipping her chin as she inclined her head. Those same deep emerald eyes – eyes just like his – that had hounded me in my thoughts and chased me in my dreams since I’d run from her house the night before were doing their best to get a read on me. “I was just in the neighborhood,” she finally said, her voice cracking as she went for a joke, and Aly split a pleading, hopeful smile.

And there was nothing I could do. Soft, affectionate laughter trickled up and out.

“You were, huh?”

She swayed innocently, widening unassuming eyes as she went for it. “Figured since I was already nearby and I
just
happened to notice your car in the driveway, not that I was keeping tabs or anything, I should stop in and say hi since I wasn’t sure when I’d be in the area again.”

My heart did that erratic thing, that quivering tremor that stoked the anticipation of impending change, a feeling that rang as a promised warning that I knew clearly I should heed.

I
knew
I should.

Instead I stepped out into the heat and pulled the door shut behind me, all the while berating myself for once again being drawn to Christopher’s sister. I couldn’t help it. There was something good and whole about her, something lacking in all my other acquaintances, something that made me sure she really cared.

Somehow, even under all these nasty circumstances, I knew she was truly my friend.

Sunshine poured down from overhead, and Aly lifted her face toward it, drawing in a deep breath of air, before she leveled the most earnest expression on me. “I am so sorry, Samantha.”

Her apology made all the chaos inside me rise to the top. Moisture grew in my eyes, and I did my best to blink it back, but it was no use. I found myself swatting away the tears that slipped down my cheeks.

“You don’t have to apologize, Aly. I knew what I was getting myself into, going over to your house.” I glanced behind me at the latched door, dropping my confession to a whisper. “Part of me wanted to see him again. I just didn’t know it was going to hurt so badly. It was a mistake. One I’m willing to take responsibility for.”

One I wouldn’t repeat.

She flinched. “Don’t say that.”

“How could it be anything else?”

But I guessed Aly couldn’t have known the way things transpired, the cruelness Christopher seemed to get off on, his words meant to bite and sting.

The guy was a straight-up pig. A deviant asshole.

“Everyone there last night loved you, Samantha.”

A mean streak of pettiness pounded through my veins, and I crossed my arms over my chest. “Everyone except for your brother and his girlfriend.”

The second I spouted it, I felt bad, because that wasn’t me. That was part of the problem. Christopher fueled unnatural things in me, a passion that was too strong. So strong it made me bitter and weak.

I hated him for it.

“Maybe,” she admitted with an unsure lift of her shoulders. “I honestly have no clue what was going through my brother’s head last night except for the fact that he was just as upset as you were.”

Flustered air shot from my nose. “I seriously doubt that. Your brother doesn’t care anything about me.”

Aly scoffed. “I know Christopher very well, and I can most definitely assure you that he
cares
.”

A dispute was on the tip of my tongue, where I let it die, because there was no sense in arguing what I already knew to be the truth. My voice softened. “None of it matters, Aly. Like I told you before, what’s done is done. I never should have gone to your house. Your brother broke my heart
.
” I fisted my hand at my chest, allowing myself to be the most honest I’d been in a long time. “
He broke me.
I never should have acted like it was okay to set foot back into his world.”

“But what if I want you in my world?”

“Last night Christopher made it perfectly clear he doesn’t want me anywhere near you.”

And for my own health, I knew I shouldn’t be anywhere near him.

It seemed to be anger that pursed Aly’s lips. She shifted her feet, her words hard and pleading. “That’s not Christopher’s decision to make, Samantha. I like you. My entire family likes you, and so do my friends.” I went to protest, and she cut me off. “And don’t say Christopher doesn’t. You know I’m not talking about him.” She shrugged as if the rest of the circumstances didn’t matter. “I want us to be friends…” Her tone tightened with strain. “It feels like we need to be.” Sadly she shook her head. “And honestly I don’t know how to make that work if Christopher’s not a part of that equation, too.”

I blinked through my confusion. This time it was my turn to try to get a read on her. “Let me get this straight. You’re asking me into your life, knowing by doing so I’m making the conscious decision to get in your brother’s line of fire?”

“You have a boyfriend, Samantha… who you’re
living
with. Obviously you’ve moved on. But it’s also obvious both you and Christopher are harboring a ton of resentment toward each other. I’m asking you to make an effort to let that bad blood go so both of you can truly move on.”

I choked over bitter laughter. “Let it go?”

That was impossible.

Glancing to her feet, she seemed to contemplate what to say, then lifted her sincere gaze back to me. “I’m not asking you to hang out with him. But I
am
asking for you to hang out with me and be okay if that sometimes means he might be there.”

This was crazy.

“I don’t understand why you care so much, Aly.” There was no outrage in the question. I just needed a straight answer.

“There’s just something nagging at me not to let this go. Last night, I couldn’t sleep, worrying about you and how to handle this, because I felt like I lied to you after I invited you over and promised Christopher wouldn’t be there. I felt your good-bye last night, and I know you meant it to be permanent.”

Intently she stared at me, as if she was trying to get me to see something that was so clear to her. “I have to believe there’s a reason for all of this… you living less than a minute away from me. Don’t you?”

“Maybe it’s a coincidence.” A terrible, brutal, breathtaking coincidence.

An ironic smile spread over her too-pretty face. “No. I don’t believe in those.”

Neither did I. But that didn’t mean fate was always on my side.

“This morning Jared and I had a long talk about this.” She paused before she drew in a deep breath and continued. “I’m
inviting
you to come back to my house next weekend.”

That dreaded anticipation balled up in my chest, making it difficult to breathe.

“Jared’s little sister, Courtney, is coming to spend the week with us to celebrate her sixteenth birthday. And before you ask, yes, Christopher will probably be there. But so will the rest of our friends and family, and we want to make this the best birthday Courtney has ever had. We’d love for you to be a part of it. It would mean a lot to me if you were there.”

God, for a second I was wondering if Aly might be just as manipulative as her brother, luring me in with kind words formulated to sway my trusting heart.

I felt guilty just for thinking it. Aly was sincere, even if she might be blind, too good to see the bad in her brother. She struck me as the type who refused to see the negative, believing instead that there had to be some sort of positive in every person, in every situation, even when it was so objectively obvious there was nothing there worth redeeming.

I used to see things the same way.

Until her brother crushed all my belief.

“Please, Samantha… just give it a chance. If it turns out you and Christopher can’t stand being in the same room together, then we’ll keep our visits to coffee and, if you’ll have me, here at your house.”

I chewed at the inside of my lower lip, willing myself to form the correct response.

No.
 

Instead I said, “I can’t handle your brother treating me the way he did last night. It was horrible, Aly.”

“I’ll talk to him. I promise I won’t let that happen again.”

And I found myself uttering that fateful word again. “Fine.” And again, I wanted to run, to escape inside and never have opened the door.

But what I wanted most was the chance for a redo. To get that answer I’d wanted, because the only thing last night’s encounter had done was left me confused.

God, I had to be completely out of my mind.

She threw her arms around me and hugged me. She rocked us as if she couldn’t get me close enough. “I always liked you.” Her statement was almost urgent.

“I always liked you, too,” I whispered hoarsely.

A gust of disquiet whipped straight through me. This time I didn’t feel just unbalanced and lost. I felt as if I’d been pushed over the ledge and was in a free fall.

Aly pulled back, all traces of heaviness erased, and she squeezed my upper arms in her hands. “See… we were supposed to meet. Target has everything… lost friends included.”

I giggled in spite of myself, wiped away some of the residual tears I could feel drying on my face with the back of my hand. “You’re ridiculous. You know that?”

Deep laughter rolled in her chest. “You have no idea.”

Then she took a step back, her brow lifting in question as she released the brake on the stroller. “Saturday?”

It wasn’t so much a question as she was looking for confirmation.

“Saturday.”

She swiveled the stroller, ambling casually down the sidewalk.

I watched them until they disappeared, listening to the soft incantation of Aly’s voice as she quietly sang to her daughter.

On a weighted exhale, I opened the door and stepped back inside.

Ben stood at the end of the hall. “Who was that?”

“A salesman.”

The lie left me before I had the chance to think it through.

Ben harshly shook his head. “You’d think those assholes would get a clue from the
NO
SOLICITING
sign in the window.”

I shrugged. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

“That’s because you’re too unassuming.”

I wanted to laugh.
Unassuming
didn’t come close to describing it.

He raked an easy hand over his head. “Let’s get out of here and get something to eat. I’m starving.”

“Sure.”

I was still feeling antsy, and getting out of the house was the best idea Ben had had in a long time. I slipped on my flip-flops, grabbed my keys and bag, and headed out to my car. I slid into the driver’s seat, because Ben preferred for me to drive so he could mess with his phone.

Once we were both settled, I turned over the ignition and backed out onto the street, carefully easing through the quiet neighborhood and rounding the corner. I did my best not to bring any attention to Aly, who was still two houses away from her own, the large wheels of the stroller eating up the sidewalk as she took long strides behind it.

Not that he’d notice anyway, the man absorbed in his phone.

Maybe it was time he did notice. Because if I was going next week, then Ben was going with me. I was finished with Christopher making me a liar. He’d always had me lying to those who mattered most.

Not anymore.

A gasp flew from me and I slammed on the brakes. A big monster of a truck squealed to a stop when the driver did the same, and we came to a screeching halt less than a foot away from each other, the truck pointed at the front left quarter panel of my car. I’d been too occupied with my own thoughts to notice the stop sign that intersected the street running along Aly’s and the main one that led out of the neighborhood. I’d almost hit this truck, which could probably run right over the top of my hood.

Stupid.
 

That gasp died in my throat when I locked eyes with the driver – emerald eyes that sparked wild and fierce before they darkened to a dangerous obsidian, deep enough to match the ebony of his hair, harsh enough to make my heart thrum savagely at my ribs.

“Would you watch where you’re driving, Samantha?” Ben scolded, shaking his head as he turned right back to his phone. “I swear to God, you’re the worst driver I have ever ridden with. Why I even let you drive, I don’t know.”

I gulped down my shock and completely ignored Ben’s assholery, and instead focused on trying to quiet my thundering heart. I pressed down on the accelerator when Christopher didn’t seem to be going anywhere. His hard stare was fixed on me, clearly urging me to make the first move and go.

As if he were again demanding that I get out of his life.

A downpour of confusion rained over my head when he refused to break away from my eyes, like he’d done last night, keeping me trapped in this tangled web of a man who I knew would suck the life right out of me.

I drove around his truck, both of our expressions stretched wide in blatant shock and outright hatred, flexing in something else I didn’t want to recognize. Something that spread like a wildfire beneath the surface of my skin.

I tore my eyes away and forced myself to focus ahead, trying to ignore the throb that took a straight descent to the juncture right between my thighs.

Foolish, foolish girl.