Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (95 page)

“I’m not in
the mood for visitors today, Kobe.”

“Come on,
man. I don’t want to yell back and forth through the door. Phoebe told me. Let
me in.” Fuck! I drug my ass up off the floor and went over and let him in. He
was as dishevelled as ever, but he gave me a disapproving look. “Have you
eaten?”

I turned and
walked away from the door. “No. I’m not hungry.”

“You need to
eat. I’ll fix you something. You look like you need some caffeine, too. Which
way is the kitchen?” I pointed and he left me where I stood and went into my
kitchen. I heard him opening the refrigerator and cabinets and banging and
slamming things around. Against my will, he had stimulated my curiosity. I wondered
for a second if he’d intended to and then I remembered it was Kobe. He rarely
did anything with that much purpose in mind. I went over and pushed open the
kitchen door. He was at the counter slicing mushrooms. “Nice set-up you’ve got
here. Do you cook often?”

“No. My
mother sends a woman in to clean and stock the place once a month. She does the
shopping.”

“Oh, well
these are nice digs. You should cook.” I pulled out one of the chairs and sat
down to watch him. Once he finished slicing the mushrooms, he moved over to the
coffee pot and started that. Then he slowly moved back to the stove and turned
on the burner. Somehow, watching him perform these mundane tasks calmed me.
Once again, I had the silly idea that this was exactly what he intended. By the
time he was finished shuffling back and forth, he’d made two vegetarian
omelettes. He sat one down in front of me with a mug of coffee. It seemed wrong
somehow to eat when I missed Summer so badly, but my damned traitorous stomach
had other ideas. Kobe took the seat next to me, dumped salt on top of his eggs
and instructed, “Eat.”

I ate and
surprisingly, it was delicious. When I finished, I poured myself another cup of
coffee and sat back down. “Why, Kobe? Did Phoebe say why?”

He finished
his last bite and then he put down his fork and said, “She loves you.”

I chuckled,
not happily. “That makes it make even less sense. If she loves me, then why
wouldn’t she stay? I would have taken care of her. She could have had anything
she ever wanted. I would have let her have anything she ever wanted.”

“Man, you
don’t get it – that’s exactly why she left.”

He was right.
I really didn’t get it. I get that she’s stubborn and proud, but if you love
someone and they love you, then what’s wrong with taking care of each other?
“Just a simple note may have helped.”

“No, it
wouldn’t have. She wasn’t going to tell you where she was going and she wasn’t
going to say that she loved you right before she left…that would be cruel. She
did what she had to do, man, with as little pain as possible.”

“Fine, I’ll
get over the note. I still don’t understand the other.”

“She can’t be
who she needs to be if you give her everything, man. She’s a cute girl. You and
I both know that a girl who looks like her could have found a man to take care
of her a long time ago if that’s what she was looking for. She doesn’t want to
be pampered and coddled like your pretty little society girls. She wants to be
at a place where she can be a partner to the man she loves, not a princess.
Phoebe thinks that Summer will come back when she’s ready. You should be ready,
too.”

“You think I
should just sit here and wait for her to come back?”

“No. I think
that would only piss her off, too, from what I know of her. I think you should
live your life, make yourself happy. You won’t ever be able to make a woman
happy, any woman, if you’re not happy yourself.”

Hippie
mumbo-jumbo, but somehow, it made sense. I knew that I had to go on with my
life. That much was never really in question. The question was which path I
should take. If I took the job my father had for me, I’d make a lot of money,
I’d be here in case Summer came back, and I would be miserable. Summer knew
that. If she comes back and I’m gone to Bali, she’ll understand. She knows.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SUMMER

NINE MONTHS LATER

“Order up!”
Jace called out, way too loud as usual. I brushed the loose strand of hair back
out of my face. My back and my feet hurt, and my head felt like it would
explode. The smell of bacon grease and pancakes has permeated my skin and embedded
itself in my nostrils. I even smell it after I get home and take my shower
every night. But when all is said and done, it’s beats old piss and booze.

“Summer!” The
major drawback of having a job is putting up with people like Jace. On the
streets, I would have just told him to fuck off. Here…well, I’ve told him to
fuck off once or twice, but then I still have to work with him all day, which
sucks. Just the sight of him in the morning makes me mad. For some reason, he
has made it his sole purpose in life to torment me. I went over to the window
and slid down the plates. I rested one on my forearm and the other two on my
palms. “It’s probably cold by now,” he grumbled as I walked away without a
glance in his direction.

I sat the
plates down in front of the three young men who were waiting for them. “Do you
guys need more coffee?”

“No, we’re
good on coffee. Brandon here would really love your phone number, though.”

The one
called Brandon was staring down at the table. His face was as red as a beet. I
smiled as pretty as I could and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t have a phone.”

They giggled
like little girls. I didn’t go to high school, so I never knew how silly
teenaged boys could be until I started working here. We’re down the street from
some fancy prep school and the boys love this place. The girls, not so much.
Jace’s portions are large and greasy. A teenage prep school girl is much too
worried about the size of her jeans for all of that. “Your address then,” the
one who seemed to be the leader said. “He’d love to take you out on the town.”

“Maybe when
Brandon is grown up enough to ask for it himself, we can talk.” The poor kid
was probably not even eighteen years old yet. He looked like one of those guys
whose body grew much faster than his face and even his brain matured. He still
wasn’t looking at me. The other two laughed as I walked away, and when I got to
the counter and looked over at them, Brandon was looking at me. He was a cute
kid; I’ll give him that, but a kid for sure. I had just turned nineteen, but
when you add in my years on the street, it’s more like thirty-five. Besides, I
have turned down every offer I’ve gotten in the past nine months anyhow. The
closest I’ve come to “a night out on the town” was the over eighteen club
downtown that I go to every so often with my roommate Matt. I don’t need that
kind of complication in my life.

“Summer!” My
body jerked and I’d be willing to bet that the asshole was smiling behind me.

“What, Jace?
I’m standing right fucking here.”

“Don’t curse
at me.”

“Don’t
fucking yell at me. What do you need?”

He slammed a
plate up onto the stainless steel lip of the window. It had a giant biscuit in
the center of it and a big bowl of gravy. “It’s for table nine, remember?”

“I remember.
Why can’t you just sit a plate up there underneath the warmer like a normal
person, instead of a crazy one?”

He smiled. I
remember when I started here six months ago how attractive I thought he was.

Now, I just
think he’s an asshole, plain and simple. “Because I’m not a normal person.”

“Ain’t that
the truth?” I picked up the plate and carried it over towards table nine. I was
almost there when the diner door opened and I was caught staring into the face
of Derek’s friend, Lance. I looked down at the floor quickly and slipped past
him, but it was too late, he’d seen me. What the hell was he doing here? I had
a hard time imagining he was just in the neighbourhood. I tried to linger at
table nine when I dropped off the biscuit, but I could feel him still standing
there behind me the entire time. When the people at the table I was hovering
over started looking uncomfortable, I was finally forced to turn back around.
Lance was still looking at me and smiling like he just found a wallet on the
sidewalk.

“You can take
any table you like.”

“Summer.”

I grit my
teeth and just got it over with. “Lance. Please don’t tell him you saw me.”

“I’m going to
take that table over there by the window. Before I leave, you’re going to take
a break and come over and sit with me. We need to talk.”

“I’ve already
had my break.”

“Take another
one.”

“You’ll have
to discuss that with the big guy behind the grill. Coffee?”

“Yeah.”

I watched him
go sit down with a lump in my throat and butterflies in the pit of my stomach.
What did he want? Surely, Drake has moved on by now. I have…for the most part.
I went and got the coffee pot and a menu. Taking a deep breath, I walked over,
poured him a cup, and sat the menu down in front of him. “Just let me know when
you’re ready.”

“Summer,
please sit down.” He was resorting to please; I’ll bet that was hard for him. I
looked around. Table nine was good and the three boys were still lingering over
their breakfast. No one else was here. I glanced behind the counter. I could
see Jace glaring at me. Fuck him. My work is caught up. I slid into the booth
across from Lance.

“I’ve
literally got two minutes, so talk.”

“Okay, you
broke my friend’s heart. He’s not the same. He hasn’t been the same since you
snuck out on him without so much as a note or a goodbye.”

I’d gone over
and over that in my head so many times. If I had waited and tried to say
goodbye, he would have talked me into staying. If I had stayed, he would have
changed all of his plans for me and me for him, and we would have ended up
hating or at the very least resenting each other later on in life. I never
wanted Drake to hate me. “So is that what you came to say?”

“You think I
drove all the way up here to tell you that?”

“I have no
idea why you drove up here. I have no idea how you found me.”

“Phoebe.”

Fucking
Phoebe, I’m going to kick her ass. I called Kobe’s shop a few weeks ago to see
if he’d seen her and she answered. I just missed her and wanted to find out how
everyone was doing. I thought if I could trust anyone not to tell where I was,
it would be her. She told me that she and Kobe are living together now and she
works in the shop. She sounded happy, and I was so happy for her. Now, I’m just
pissed. Just wait until I get a chance to go see her. I looked up at Lance and
he was still staring at me with those damned intense brown eyes.

“So, what
else?” I kept the emotion out of my voice. I keep telling myself it’s been a
long time and I hadn’t really even known Drake that long. But no matter how
long it’s been, I still feel that ache in my chest when I think of him. He was
my first love. Maybe that ache never really goes away.

“Drake will
be home for a couple of weeks. Go see him.”

“I don’t have
time or money for a trip to California.” The day I left, I bought the cheapest
bus ticket out of the state. It took me to Bend, Oregon. I lived on the streets
for two weeks before I met Matt. He was advertising for a roommate. I wasn’t
going to be able to rent a place in my name because of my history, so I gave it
a shot. I was honest with him, and he and I really hit it off. He’s twenty-four
and works at an auto shop restoring classic cars and trucks. He’s laidback,
easy to get along with, and in six months, he hasn’t hit on me once. It was
perfect.

I registered
for classes at Community College and started hitting the pavement every day
trying to find a job. I had no work history and no qualifications, so it was no
small task. Jace had a sign in the window when I walked by one day three months
after I came to Oregon. I walked in when he was desperately alone and he hired
me on the spot. We’ve had a hate/hate relationship ever since, but he hasn’t
fired me yet. My life has just recently become safe, warm, and comfortable. I’m
not about to shake that up with the kind of drama Lance is proposing.

“Okay, then
I’ll tell him where to find you.”

“Why? What
good would it do for him to see me now? It’s been almost a year. I’m sure he’s
moved on.”

He gave me a
hard stare and said, “He went on with his life, but he hasn’t moved on, Summer.
I told you, he’s different.”

“And, that’s
a bad thing? I mean, everyone changes.”

“Yeah, it’s a
bad thing. He’s just going through the motions. He’s not happy.”

“And, you
think seeing me would change that?”

“It would at
least give him closure. That bothered him a lot, you not saying goodbye. Not
knowing where you went or if you’re okay bothers him, too. I don’t know if
seeing you will make him happy or not, but I’m tired of seeing my friend
miserable, so it’s worth a shot.”

“Summer!”
Jace was booming from the kitchen again.

“I have to
get back to work,” I told Lance.