Light Unshaken (Unveiled #2) (16 page)

Dee cracked a laugh but then grew pensive again. “I’m not gonna give up on Tito.”

He didn’t even realize the kind of faith he had, did he? His scabs might leave a reminder of the fight, but Tito’s damage hadn’t scarred his heart.

“Hope the center won’t close before then.” He hung his head. “I know you was really countin’ on those grant funds.”

I stretched my arm around his shoulders. “We’ll figure something else out. Courageous, remember? C’mon, say it.”

“Aw . . . Miss E.”

My look of persistence left no room for argument.

He tilted his head and rolled his eyes. “I am courageous.”

“Now, how ‘bout you try that with a little heart this time.”

“I am courageous,” he roared with a twinge of pacifying flare.

I squeezed him and pushed him off the bench. “You got it. Now, here.” I grabbed my purse and pulled out the number two pencils I’d meant to give him earlier. “These are for tomorrow. You should get on home. Get some sleep. And don’t forget to eat a good breakfast in the morning.”

“Thanks,
Mom
.” He stopped on the other side of the fence. “And don’t worry. If anyone messes with me on the way home, I’ll whip out my lethal weapons.” He brandished a pencil in each hand with the sharpened side pointing outward.

He disappeared from sight, and I headed inside. On my way to my desk, I smiled at A. J. “He’s a good kid.”

He started toward me. “And you’re an amazing woman.”

“I seem to remember Dee mentioning your name in the mix of influencers.”

“And yet you’re the one person he singled out to talk to tonight.”

With a folder in my hand, I waved off his comment and huffed my unruly bangs from my face. A. J. stopped an inch away, his expression consuming me. I backed into my chair. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You don’t make it very easy on me sometimes.”

I lowered my chin and bundled my tattered cuffs under my fingers.

He brushed back the hair caught in my lashes. “It’s not fair for you to be this beautiful.”

Beautiful? “A. J., I’m in jeans and a sweatshirt.”

“Exactly,” he said, unabashed.

I ran my sneaker tip along the crease between the floor’s black and white tiles. Why couldn’t all lines be that straightforward? I stashed my hands in my pockets, pulled them back out, and tucked my arms over my stomach. My phone call with Austin blazed to mind.

“A. J., I—”

“I know.”

I looked up toward eyes still holding mine. Honest. Vulnerable.

My cell’s ring pulsed between us and hedged A. J. a safe distance away. “I’ll be outside.”

Finding my voice again, I answered Riley’s call.

“Emma, I’ve been trying to reach you all day. I have something I need to tell you.”

chapter twenty-three

Time

Extended?
Whoever said time healed was a liar. Or maybe just delusional. Time stole. Always had.

Of course they’d extend Riley’s stay in Nashville. They probably never wanted him to leave. Not if he’d won their hearts the way he had mine. Same as he’d win the hearts of countless fans. And I was supposed to be supportive in any direction his career took him.

I’d been through all this a dozen times since our call got cut short last night. My thoughts shouldn’t have still been going around in as many circles as it was taking for Trevor and me to find an empty parking spot.

What were we thinking, hitting up Southwest Broadway during the lunch hour?

I raked a hand through the top of my hair and tried not to stare at the person in the car right beside us. “Jae couldn’t have picked a better time for us to meet her here?”

“She doesn’t have much flexibility on when she can tutor.” Trevor splayed his hand toward a corner Irish pub. “Besides, what could be better than an afternoon in Portland?”

I could think of a few. Nothing I’d done all night or morning had distracted me enough to forget about Riley’s phone call. Memories of being with him in the city weren’t bound to help.

Riley’s ringtone clashed into the music on the stereo. I ignored his call as I’d done the last three times and switched it over to vibrate. I needed some more time.

Trevor hit the gas pedal, raced the car up two feet, and stomped on the brake again.

I clenched my innocent seatbelt. “I’m glad you’re driving. This traffic is maddening.”

Leaving one hand on the steering wheel, Trevor slumped in the driver’s seat and cocked his head toward me. “Dangerous driving’s my specialty.”

“Who are you, James Bond?”

“Em—”

My waving arms intercepted his witty remark. “There’s a spot. Go, go, go!”

He grinned. “Hang on. I’m about to show you how we roll in the city.”

With the front tires skimming the curb, he swerved onto the narrow side street before I could grab my door handle for leverage. He slammed on the brakes a car-length in front of the open spot. My whole torso flung forward and back.

I glared at him. “Nice.”

“Just trying to make sure you get the full Bond experience.” Looking in all three mirrors, he parallel parked the car. “See. Not even a scratch on the bumpers.”

“Congratulations.” I opened the door and almost dropped to kiss the sidewalk and the sweet taste of freedom.

“Oh, c’mon,” he said from over the hood of his Outlander. “Even
you
have to admit that was impressive.”

I leaned over the doorframe onto my folded arms. “What’s wrong? You worried I might be doubting your mad skills?”

Trevor strutted around the front bumper toward an adjacent parking meter, my question obviously not worthy of a response.

He flung his hands in the air in a hallelujah motion. “Ha. Even the parking meter recognizes talent. It already spotted me fifteen minutes.”

Figures it would have leftover time on it. My head circled with exasperation. “Only you have that kind of luck, Trev.”

“Nothing to do with luck.” He filled the overly accommodating parking meter with a handful of quarters and nudged me forward. “C’mon, Jaycee’ll be wondering where we are.”

A gust of traffic stopped us at the busy intersection. Orange warning signs blocked off the sidewalk to our right. A jackhammer shrilled into the clamor of engines and car horns.

I elbowed Trevor. “I can see you working on a construction crew like that, except you wouldn’t need a hardhat. Your head’s inflated enough to take any blow.”

“You think that’s funny?” He looped his arm around mine. “I’ll show you funny.” A quick glance in both directions rolled into a sprint across the street with me toted by his side.

I caught hold of the crosswalk sign on the opposite side and swung around it twice before planting my boots on the sidewalk. His laughter overpowered my gasps for breath. I launched at him. He jogged backward, keeping a stride ahead of each of mine. Looking past me, he freed my hand from its death grip around his coat. “Um, Em, I think we better keep moving.”

The crosswalk light released an incoming stream of coffee travel mugs and briefcases funneling onto our heels. Hurried commuters continued along the transient street without peeking up from their smart phones to see someone obstructing their regular path.

Trevor and I maneuvered to the edge of the sidewalk closest to the street, out of the congested pedestrian traffic and into an obstacle course of street vendors and bus stops.

Next to one of the stands, a middle-aged businessman embraced a woman who must’ve come to meet him on his lunch break. He draped his suit jacket over her shoulders and kissed her cheek. Cupping her elbow, he led her to a nearby bench. She sank into his side and snuggled her head beneath his chin the same way I’d seen Mom do with Dad a thousand times.

Austin’s goldsmith spiel screened to memory. Our parents faced the toughest fire imaginable and still hung on with a love capable of enduring anything. Maybe fires weren’t the problem. Maybe I was.

Hands in my pockets, I tucked one side of my coat over the other. What was up with this weather? Life wasn’t cold enough as it was? I kicked my boot tip against an uprooted chunk of pavement.

Trevor inched beside me. “Ease up on the aggression, girl. You didn’t take enough out on your seatbelt earlier?”

Good thing he was there to distract me. “Keep talking smack, and you’re next.”

He hopped dead in front of me so I crashed into his back. Chuckling, he curled an arm around my shoulders and lowered his head in front of mine. “How about you just tell me what’s up instead?”

I fanned him away until he backed that impish grin out of my face. He strolled beside me without pushing, same as Austin had done that day on the beach. Why did my brother always have to be right?

A few steps farther, I peered back at the couple we’d passed. “At the end of summer, no one could’ve convinced me I wasn’t ready to get married. I thought for sure I knew what it meant to love Riley. Thought I was strong enough to be everything he needed from me.” Had I been lying to myself this whole time? Gotten it all wrong?

“Sometimes, I feel like I’m defective or something. You know? Like too broken to mend. How can I expect Riley to marry me if I’m not whole?”
Whole
. The word shook inside me from one hollow space to the next.

“I think your view of marriage is a little skewed. And don’t worry, you’re not defective.”

I grunted in disagreement.

Big mistake.

He dragged me toward the nearest bus stop and approached a stranger wearing a beat-up backpack over a dingy, dark gray hooded sweatshirt. Clumps of greasy black hair poked out from under his hood above a glazed expression.

Trevor tapped Grease Boy’s shoulder. “Excuse me, sir.”

The guy removed his earphones and looked us up and down.

“Excuse me,” Trevor repeated, completely straight-faced. “Does this girl look defective to you?”

“Oh my word.” Mortified, I shoved Trevor behind me. “I’m sorry. You have to excuse my friend. He’s a little . . .” I circled my finger in the air around my ear. “Disturbed.”

I pinched Trevor’s leather coat sleeve and lugged him away from the curb. “What’s wrong with you? Is it your sole goal in life to embarrass me? And really, Trev, haven’t you ever heard the expression, ‘stranger danger’?”

Trevor’s bellowing laugh obliterated any chance he’d taken me seriously. “Okay, A: it’s not my
sole
goal in life, but definitely one of the more enjoyable ones. And, B: ‘stranger danger?’” He laughed full throttle again, arms crisscrossed over his folded-in-half stomach. “We’re not toddlers.”

I wrenched my hand through the top of his hair and craned his head toward Creepy Guy at the bus stop, whose slimy grin now linked straight to us.

“Um, maybe you’re right.” Trevor grabbed my hand and hightailed it around the street corner. We backed against the brick building and tried to catch our breaths between laughs.

A moist breeze raced between the buildings. I raised my hood. My hair was getting frizzier by the second.

Trevor peeked around the corner like a clandestine agent.

I laughed. “Good thing you got the whole James Bond persona down.”

Ignoring me, he eased back around. “Jack the Ripper just got on the bus. Think we’re in the clear.”

I flashed him an exaggerated I-told-you-so face.

“Okay, that guy could definitely fit into the defective category. You? Not so much.”

“Why is that not comforting?”

“Em, I doubt Riley wants to marry you because he thinks you’re perfect. We all carry brokenness into a relationship. You work through it together. You mess up. You give grace. Repeat.” He patted my arm. “Welcome to Marriage 101.”

“Thanks, Professor Know-It-All.”

Trevor puffed out his collar. “Well, I
am
sort of an expert at the giving grace thing.”

“Oh, really?”

“Have you met my fiancée? Man, the things I have to put up with. And that roommate of hers?” He scrunched his face into a look of hopelessness. “Forget about it.”

I slapped his arm with my sleeve. “You just wait ‘til your fiancée and her roommate join forces. Then we’ll see who needs grace, buddy.”

“Story of my life.” He rested his hand on my shoulder, all traces of joking laid aside for however brief a moment. “Seriously, I know it might feel like you’re not ready, but you and Riley have what it takes to make it.”

I stared back at him, grasping onto his belief in us. My cell buzzed in the quiet. I tipped it out of my pocket.
A. J.?
I swiped the screen. “What’s up?”

“It’s Dee’s mom.”

My hand found my stomach before my voice found volume. Multiple layers of dread coalesced in seconds. “What happened? Is she okay?”

He released a pained exhale. “They roughed her up pretty good, but she’s recovering. Trey’s at the house with her. The police are taking her statement.” He exhaled again. “Looks like Tito’s warnings aren’t over.”

Would they ever be?

My boot slid down the wall.
Dee.
No telling what he’d do. Words strained against dry swallows. “Is Dee . . . ? He didn’t . . . ? . . . Tell me he’s okay.”

An engine in the background rumbled in place of his response and kicked up my pulse five notches.

“A. J.?”

“He’s okay. Just a little shaken up,” he said calmly.

Was he downplaying his response for me? “What aren’t you saying?”

A car horn blared in the distance, and I couldn’t tell if it was from my end of the line or his.

“He took off after them when he got home and found her.”

Another coarse swallow. Hand on my head, I turned away from Trevor and shut my eyes.
If they hurt him, so help me.

“I went patrolling as soon as Trey told me what happened. I found Dee on West Burnside. He was just sitting there. Kept mumbling in Spanish. Something about Tito’s kid brother.”

My hand slid down to the opposite hip. I balled the side of my coat in my fingers. “But you said he’s okay, right?”

The car engine cut off. “He’s going to be fine. Listen, I just got back to the center. Trey wanted me to wrap up a few things for him.”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “The other kids need you. I’ll let you go.”

His keys rattled into the sound of a door opening. “Em, I don’t want you to be worried, okay? I only called ‘cause I knew you’d kill me if I didn’t.”

His warm laugh curled around me and relaxed my shoulders.

“Try to keep your mind off it,” he said. “And tell Trev to bring me home an espresso, would ya?”

I turned to Trevor and smiled. “Will do.” Lowering my cell, I breathed in his assurance. Dee and his mom were okay. That was what mattered.

Trevor lifted off the wall. His expression showed he caught enough of the conversation to follow what was going on. “It’s gonna be all right. All of it. Just give it some time.”

I blinked, my lashes the only things not frozen. “What’d you just say?”

He squeezed my arm. “Give it time. Things are going to work out.”

Two furled maple leaves circled down the sidewalk. My thoughts ran after them, the past chasing the present.

He angled in front of me. “What?”

“Sorry. Nothing.” I zipped my coat up to my chin. “It’s just something my dad used to say to me.”

Without prying, Trevor pointed behind me to the destination we’d been trying to reach for the last forty-five minutes. “See, the road has a way of getting you where you’re going, even when it takes longer than expected.”

A bell above the door chimed as we entered. Jaycee turned from a merchandise shelf in the back of the café. Trevor’s face lit up the way it always did when he looked at her. “And it’s worth every stop along the way.”

Jaycee waved us down. “It’s about time you guys got here.”