Equilibrium (15 page)

Chapter 18

T
he sound of her gasp jolted Laura awake. The same three times a week godforsaken night terror she’d been having for a month.

Fully clothed, she sprawled on top of the covers, her head crooked at an unnatural angle. The nightlight’s glow didn’t squelch the image of blood on her hands, the thick taste in her mouth, or the pressure behind her eyes. She went into the bathroom and threw on the cold water, then gargled the rancid taste from her mouth till her tongue throbbed with mint. When the water turned to ice, she washed the image of spectral blood from her vision. The pressure behind her eyes required a different sort of release valve.

A peek into Troy’s room confirmed he was asleep. She could hardly believe he was the same boy whose crying jag, exactly one week ago, had kept the house awake through the night. Earlier today, she’d even considered canceling his appointment with Dr. Harvey. But then, she’d thought of the many well-meaning acquaintances that asked her how the kids were doing. She could live without the pity in their eyes, but it reminded her of what she knew too well. The fact bipolar disorder could crop up anywhere between early adolescence and young adulthood necessitated another decade of her vigilance.

In Darcy’s room, Laura gave thanks that young ones recovered from physical illness so quickly. By six o’clock, Darcy’s color had returned to normal. She’d sprinted down to dinner, taken seconds of the spaghetti pie, and gulped three glasses of water before embarking on a steam-the-paint-off-the-bathroom-walls shower.

Laura leaned over her daughter’s sleeping form. “I’d do anything to keep you safe,” she said, reiterating her oft-whispered promise. She thought first of how Jack had coerced Darcy into keeping his dangerous secret, and then she thought about Nick. The way he’d straight-faced lied to her after Darcy sneaked out of the house to be with him sent up warning flares. That boy was not good for her daughter.

Downstairs, Laura nestled into her office enclave, settled into her desk chair. The desk lamp spotlighted her free-writing journal; a near-iridescent light reflected off the blank pages and warmed her face. Too edgy to plot fiction, Laura unleashed her real-life worries onto the page. Her purple pen sailed across the pages.

The journal was like a truth detector. She didn’t need to mince words when she admitted how she felt about Jack:
angry
, or about her children:
protective
. But when she wrote the word
Aidan
, she stopped, her hand hanging in midair.

A few months ago, Laura had promised Maggie and Elle that after Jack’s one-year anniversary, she’d
consider
dating again. She’d thought, maybe she’d go on a few dates to placate her friends and let them fix her up with Sean, the Greenboro police officer with the bluer than blue eyes, or Carl, Maggie’s widower friend from New Boston. A date meant nothing. She wouldn’t even have to tell the kids, unless one date led to another, unless dating turned into a lasting relationship. And what were the chances of that?

Elle had burned through so many relationships that whenever she told Laura about a new guy, she’d refer to him as her future ex-boyfriend. Most romantic relationships failed.

Earlier tonight, Troy had knocked on Aidan’s door to share his book on New Hampshire rail trails. Darcy was harder to win over. But the way Aidan had helped Darcy, the way he did not judge . . .

Laura could never date a man who was developing a relationship with her children, much less date a man who was living in her house. She snapped the journal shut.

With her gaze unfocused, she let her mind wander to the character sketch she’d written weeks ago about a girl dreaming of an authentic life. A girl hiding—

The studio door creaked open, and Laura startled, held her hand to her heart. Aidan’s laundry basket peeked into the mudroom and shouldn’t have come as a surprise. She’d told him the laundry room was open for business any time of day or night. The hum of the washing machine and dryer, and the tumble of clothes worked like a white-noise lullaby for her and the kids.

“Hey, there, my insomnia friend,” Aidan said.

Aidan’s presence filled the room, and Laura sat up a little taller, breathed a little deeper. “Hey, yourself.” Aidan’s lingering gaze stripped away artifice, and she flushed, as if he’d read his name in her journal. As if he were pushing her to complete the entry and name her feelings for him.

“How’s Darcy doing?”

“One hundred percent recovered,” she said.

“Glad to hear it.” He stepped closer and glanced at the journal on her desk and the pen she was clutching between her fingers. “Don’t let me interrupt your midnight musings,” he said, and dashed into the guest bathroom with his wash, leaving an empty space beside her.

Behind the closed bathroom door, the washing machine’s rusty door squealed open. Seconds later, the ancient machine rumbled to life, and Aidan emerged sans laundry basket. He headed for his apartment’s open door.

“No guitar playing tonight?” she blurted out before he could walk through the door.

Aidan turned back around. “Nah, not tonight. Music’s the thing after a long day at work. Didn’t need it tonight.”

“Too mellow to create?” she asked, thinking of Jack’s creative process, thinking of her own. Too mellow posed the same challenge as too edgy.

“I’ve never thought of it that way.” He grinned. “Whether I’ve had a good or bad day, the guitar unravels me.”

“You use it to process life.”

He considered her, then shook his head. “Don’t need to process life. More like, life inspires the music. Work’s part of life.”

“You love your job.”

“It’s goofy, but I do.” He angled his feet toward her and leaned against the bookcase. His gaze turned thoughtful, and he drew his forefinger across his bottom lip, a gesture she’d noticed this afternoon. Once again, the gesture drew her to his mouth and made her want to press her lips against his inspired half smile. “Whether it’s been a good or a bad day, I love it.”

“Tell me about a good day.” Laura dropped her purple pen into the mason jar at the back of her desk. She rested her elbow on the desktop, her chin in her hand.

Aidan’s bright gaze cut through the mudroom’s low light. “Guy brought in his nineteen-year-old daughter, complaining of an intense headache, stiff neck, and spiking a fever. Told the dad I suspected bacterial meningitis, and I’d need to do a spinal tap. Poor guy nearly fainted.”

“And?”

Aidan’s mouth turned down at the corners, but his eyes smiled. He nodded. “Tap turned up what I’d thought. Told the dad what I’d found. Told him he’d done the right thing. Thanks to him, we caught it early. After a course of antibiotics, his daughter will recover just fine. When the dad realized he wasn’t going to lose his daughter, it was like . . .” Aidan’s gaze drifted, searching for a word.

“Pure joy,” she said.

“Yeah, that’s the word I was looking for. Joy,” he said and looked right at her. “You’re good with words.”

“Words are my life,” she said, and then amended her statement. “I mean my work.” She shook her head. “Used to be, anyway.”

“You write, like Jack did?”

“Mostly I edited his work,” she said. “Helped him with gathering research, revised, revised, revised.”

“But you didn’t write your own stuff?”

“Well . . . some.” She shrugged. “But I never got very far with it.”

“Anybody read this writing of yours?”

“Just Maggie and Elle. Oh, and of course, Jack.”

“What did Jack have to say?” Aidan asked.

Laura envisioned Jack sitting next to her, breathing down her neck, and hogging all the air. “Not his cup of tea. Too sweet, too trivial, too optimistic. Didn’t make the reader want to reconsider life, if you know what I mean.” Didn’t make the reader want to shove the barrel of a gun in his mouth.

“But you love writing,” he said.

“Oh.” Heat pulsed her cheeks. “Well.”

A grin split Aidan’s face. “I bet you’re good.”

She shrugged again, thought of the hard to believe compliments she’d received from Elle and Maggie: talented, original, as good as the novels on their favorites shelves. Aidan caught her gaze and held it, as though he could see the praise she held close to her heart.

“I bet your—I bet Jack Klein’s wrong,” Aidan said, and Laura wondered whether he was avoiding the words
your husband
. “Any chance I could read Laura Klein?”

Laura’s exhalation whooshed out of her. “Wow, I wasn’t expecting that question.” No one new had asked to read her writing in years, at least not anyone whose opinion of her she cared about. Her head grew light with heat, which only made her blush harder.

Aidan took half a step in her direction, and the glint in his eyes gave him away. He thoroughly enjoyed flirting with her and making her squirm. Forget logic. She thoroughly enjoyed flirting right back.

“C’mon, you’ve heard me play guitar,” he said. “Fair’s fair.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“Close enough. They’re both creative expression. Me, strumming away the blues.” He leaned over and performed a wink-quick air guitar riff. “And you, tapping away whatever it is you tap away,” he said, and pantomimed her fingers typing.

She wrinkled her nose and tried to keep a straight face. “I don’t think so.”

“Come on. Come on.” Aidan’s drawn-out words warmed like sweet talk. His forced pout tweaked her pulse like a dare.

Laura giggled. “No.” What if he read her writing and he agreed with Jack’s opinion? She imagined Aidan didn’t favor relationship novels. He looked more like the action-adventure type. He’d never straight-out insult her. But one look at his unable to lie face, and she’d know. Heaven forbid, he said something purposely vague like he’d found her writing interesting. Translated into English,
interesting
meant
torture
.

Aidan folded his arms, sighed. “What are you, chicken?”

“Excuse me?” Laura said. Right now, Aidan assumed he’d like her writing, but what if her writing disappointed him?

What if she disappointed him?

Aidan tapped his foot. From his mouth came strange noises, strange clucking noises. How old was he?

Laura glanced at the ceiling, imagined Aidan’s squawking rising through the floorboards and angling into the kids’ rooms. “You’re going to wake up the house.”

He grinned, and the flash from his eyes could’ve served as a lighthouse for ships.

She was an idiot.

“Cock-a-doodle—”

“On the shelf behind you!” she said, and he held a finger to his lips.

“Now you’re talking.” He glanced at the jam-packed bookcase. “Where?”

She hesitated, wondering how she could take back her words.

Aidan smiled and chicken-flapped his arms.

“All right already,” Laura said, and inhaled so she wouldn’t pass out. She took half a second to decide which manuscript to give him, and then got it herself. The tale about losing and finding love wasn’t a romance, but contained enough romantic elements to make Jack squirm.
It’s fluff, Laura. You can do better than this.
But what if she didn’t want to?

Aidan held out his hands, as if he understood her manuscript was like a baby to her.

“Here you go.” She placed her baby in his hands. “Whenever you get to it, no rush.”

“Uh, I was going to read it right now. Between switching loads.”

What had she done? Her mouth fell open. The backs of her knees went soft, like when she’d await one of Jack’s critiques. Jack would insist she sat by his side while he read, and she’d try to predict his thoughts from his rapidly darting gaze, the subtle nuances of his changing expressions.

Aidan smirked. “See you in a few,” he said, and slipped into the studio.

Thank goodness. Laura opened and closed her journal. She tried catching the story train of thought Aidan had interrupted, but failed. Her stomach growled.

In the kitchen, she put enough water in the kettle for two cups of tea, reminded herself not to burn down the house. She wondered what Aidan’s face looked like as he read her work. Whether his lopsided dimple deepened. Whether his mouth turned down in sympathy when he read a bittersweet passage. She wondered whether he was thinking of her.

By the time Aidan returned, she’d finished the tea, the kettle had grown cold, she’d wiped down and reorganized two spice shelves, and her hands were sweating. She dried them on the dish towel overhanging the stove handle.

“Back so soon?” she said, and avoided his gaze.

Aidan stood next to her. He leaned against the counter. His attempt to torture her with silence couldn’t have lasted more than two minutes. He cracked up, turned to her. “I thought for sure you’d want to know what I thought.”

She forced a deadpan expression. “What did you think?”

Aidan rubbed his hands together. “Thought you’d never ask,” he said. “I’ve come to two conclusions, derived from several thoughts. I thought your—what would you call it, writing voice—sounded a lot like Jack. Not the type of story, heck no, but some of your word choices. A bit of the, umm, music.”

Laura’s stomach tightened around the warm tea. “You’ve read Jack’s work?”

“Oh, sure, sure. Who hasn’t?”

“Lots of people.”

“You’re changing the subject,” he said, and his smile warmed her toes. “The writing’s unique, the observations fresh.”

“You went to medical school?”

“And I took Professor Pearlstein’s creative writing class as an undergrad.”

She tilted her head. “You write?”

“Got a B, which I didn’t even deserve. Should’ve been a C. Hey, I write music, not novels.” He paused. “As I was saying, the writing’s sensual.”

“You didn’t say that.”

“You helped Jack with his writing? You were the assistant behind the genius?”

“His right-hand girl.”