Love Me If You Dare (Safe Haven) (10 page)

He
hadn’t gone more than a couple of steps when he turned and cocked his head,
studying me.

“What?”
I asked. It was absurd to feel self conscious after what we’d just been doing,
and I knew it, but the way he was looking at me peeled away all of the layers
that I liked to hide behind.

“We’ve
both changed,” He said, dipping his head in acknowledgement. “Once, you
wouldn’t have been caught dead skinny dipping, or even rock climbing”

“And
once you would have been the one to take your clothes off first.” My voice was
wry, but I was pleased that maybe, maybe he was finally starting to see.

Though
I might have started out that way, I was no longer acting the way I did just to
keep Ella alive. This was me, take it or leave it. And I was convinced that,
while some wild streak probably lingered somewhere in Dylan, he really had
pulled his act together.

Nodding,
point made, Dylan turned back to continue on his way to the shore.

“Never
say I don’t know how to treat a lady,” he called back over his shoulder as he
crossed the sand, seemingly unembarrassed to be naked but for a pair of plaid
boxers that were dripping wet and clinging to his skin.

My
mouth parted with surprise as I remembered how... excited... he’d been only
moments earlier. I wondered how he was hiding that.

And
then I had to laugh. The fishermen had stopped in their tracks and were
watching Dylan and I with mouths agape. With a levity that I hadn’t seen in him
before, Dylan saluted the men.

With
a grin he scooped up his track pants and pulled them up over his hips.

“Nice
morning for a swim.”

I
couldn’t help it. I laughed again, a deep sound that came right from my belly.

I
felt lighter than I had in a long, long time.

A
week after Dylan and I had been caught skinning dipping at Fish Lake, I was
feeling at loose ends. Serena and Maddy had eked out as much time as they
could, but had to get back home—Maddy waitressed year round to give herself
spending money, and had scored full time hours for the summer. Serena was on
scholarship, and was spending the summer working as an assistant to one of her
professors, running experiments on the students who had chosen to take intro
psych in a condensed version. Plus she had Alex.

In
other words, they both had a purpose for the next few months. Unlike me, who
was still drifting, unable to even land an interview in Fish Lake or any of the
neighboring towns.

I
tried to shrug the sense of failure off as I pushed a spindly shopping cart into
the small grocery store that sat at the end of Main Street. Just like you’d
expect, one of the wheels had a mind of its own, and because of that I wound up
shoving the cart through the automatic doors of the entrance rather more
forcefully than I’d intended.

“Piece
of shit,” I muttered to myself as I jolted into the produce section. I reached
for a bunch of bananas, taking grim satisfaction in the way the smooth, Easter
egg purple polish I’d applied the night before clashed with the mottled yellow
of the peels.

I
was wondering if I’d made a mistake in coming back home. I hadn’t had any more
luck finding a job here than I had back in Connecticut—with the way the economy
still was, people were holding on to any job they could with teeth and nails.
And I’d hurt Joel a hell of a lot in the process.

I
winced at the thought. I hadn’t talked to him since our halting conversation
the night I’d gotten here. In fact, I’d been so wrapped up in Dylan, in my mom
and my memories of Ella that I hadn’t even thought about him.

I
picked up a plastic carton of sliced watermelon, trying to add up my grocery
budget in my head. I was running low on funds, and I wasn’t about to ask my mom
for money, not even if it was for the groceries that disappeared when I put
them in the cupboards, though I never actually saw her eat.

As
I shopped, it felt like I’d gone back in time, back to when I was the glue that
held our household together. This made me think of Dylan, of our last
encounter.

Of
how I hadn’t heard from him for a week. I knew he was away working, but
still... I’d thought he might text, or something.

I
had nothing to base that hope on. If I had no idea what was going on between
us, then I didn’t imagine he did, either.

“Kaylee?”

It
took me a moment to locate the blonde head amongst the bright bunches of
bananas.

“Hey,
Caroline.” I was happy to see her, but my smile was a bit forced. I hadn’t
talked to her since the night of the party, and I knew she’d want to know what
had happened with Dylan.

“Oh
my God, I was just about to text you.” She wheeled her cart towards mine, and I
noticed grumpily that hers didn’t have a bum wheel.

“Oh?”
I braced myself for the onslaught of questions. Being Caroline, she wouldn’t be
offended if—
when
—I brushed them off.

But
I would feel like a bitch.

“Are
you still looking for a job?”

I
blinked, startled. This wasn’t the question I’d expected her to ask.

“I
am, actually.” Unbidden, excitement sparked to life. Not only did I need the
money, but I was feeling lost without some sense of purpose.

Being
back home was affecting me more than I’d thought it would. I hadn’t lost all
sense of myself, but back here it was easier to remember the girl I once was.

Caroline
hadn’t stopped talking; I forced myself to tune back in.

“...so
Nate was talking to his uncle, the one that lives in Frenchglen. His uncle told
him he had a job opening, and did I need something for the summer?”

Okay,
I was officially excited. I just needed Caroline to finish her story.

“But
I’m working down at the lake for the summer. So I said I knew someone who would
be awesome.” She beamed at me, finally done. “Only if you’re interested, of
course.”

“Oh,
I’m interested.” I pulled my cell phone out of the pocket of my cutoffs and
opened it to enter a new contact. “Who do I have to call for an interview?”

Caroline
laughed, the same sweet, tinkling laugh she’d had back in elementary school.

“No
interview. He needs someone, like,
stat
. We told him how responsible you
are, what a hard worker. He wants to meet you but said that if you’re anything
like what we said you were, the job is yours.

I
stared at her, lips parted in surprise, even as guilt wormed its way into my
gut.

Responsible.
A hard worker.

I
wasn’t sure that either of those things described me anymore.

But
I needed that job, if not for the money, then for my own sanity. I couldn’t
spend the next three and a half months wandering aimlessly around Fish Lake,
picking my drunken mother up from the martini bar and mooning over a guy who
hadn’t bothered to contact me in a week.

“Thank
you Caroline. Seriously.” I punched the phone number that she recited into my
contacts list, relief and excitement warring for precedence.

I
had a job. Halle-freaking-lujah.

I
leaned in for a hug as we promised to get together for coffee the next week. As
I pulled back, she dropped the question I’d been expecting.

“I’ve
been meaning to ask... was it all okay after the party? With Dylan, I mean?”
Though my initial response was irritation, Caroline’s face showed nothing but concern.

I
didn’t have to worry about her running around town spreading rumors, I reminded
myself. This was Caroline. The chick who’d just done me one hell of a solid.

“Oh,
it was fine.” I waved my hand in what I hoped was an idle manner, trying to
dust off her question. “He was just surprised to see me. He didn’t know I was
coming back for the summer.”

“Didn’t
you keep in contact with him after you left?” Caroline’s brow furrowed, and I
realized that no matter how many long distance texts we sent to keep in touch,
if you weren’t around someone day to day there were so many details that could
be missed.

“No.”
The word was forced out of lips that were suddenly numb and cold. “No, he was
Ella’s friend, not mine. Remember? You guys used to party together. I wasn’t
part of that crowd, except for you.”

Caroline
tilted her head and studied my face. She often came across like a silly party
girl, but one of the reasons we’d ever been friends in the first place was
because she had a brain hidden under all of that fluffy gold hair.

“Maybe.”
She pursed her lips. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, suddenly
wanting to get out of the store. Then she arched an eyebrow at me.

“A
couple of tourists caught ‘some guy with a bird tattoo’ skinny dipping with ‘a
hot redheaded chick’ at the lake last week.” Her eyes searched mine, the hint
of a smile of her face.

I
choked on my own saliva as I tried to swallow past the sudden knot in my
throat.

“Oh?”
I had thought that I would be mortified, but instead I found myself wanting to
laugh. “Hmm.”

“You
harlot,” Caroline finally said after watching me for a full minute. I feigned
innocence, blinking at her with deliberately wide eyes.

“I’m
sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Turning, I examined a stack of
pineapple far more closely than they needed to be.

“He
always did pay a lot of attention to you.” Caroline grinned when, startled, I
dropped the pineapple I was holding back onto the pile and whirled to face her,
incredulous.

She
winked at me and sashayed out of the produce section, with one final little
wave over her shoulder.

Damn
it. That beyotch always did need to get the last word.

***

H
ours
later, I had a heavy tote bag of paper over my shoulder, my pink laptop in my
arms, and a buoyed sense of self as I walked into town.

I’d
called Nate’s uncle as soon as I’d gotten home and put the groceries away. He’d
asked if I could come right out and sign the paperwork—and then he’d given me
my first load of work.

Data
entry. It was boring as hell, but it paid better than anything I’d hoped for.
And the best part was that I only had to actually go into the office, twenty
miles away in Frenchglen, once a week to collect the next batch of data. As
long as I got it all done on a weekly basis, it didn’t matter when or where I
worked.

Right
now I was craving some caffeine and some apple pie. I planned to set up my
laptop in one of the back booths at Twin Peaks and get started on my new job.

Automovation
was quieter than usual as I passed, the shrieking from the other day missing.

“Don’t
do it, Sawyer.” I told myself to keep on walking, though every fiber of my body
wanted to stop in and oh-so-casually see if Dylan was there, hanging out with
Jax.

“And
what if he is? What if he’s back and hasn’t gotten in touch with you?” I
lectured myself even as my steps slowed, working with a mind of their own.
“You’re going to feel like shit. Just keep going. Go to the diner, get some
work done.”

“You
answering yourself too, Sawyer?” A voice called out from inside the shop. I
flushed, caught in the act as I turned to find Jax waving me in.

“No.
Not answering myself yet.” Self-conscious, I ran a hand through the curls that
I’d allowed to fall free today and followed Jax’s waving hand in.

“Where
are you off to?” Jax nodded at the laptop snuggled in my arms before lowering
himself to a long, flat trolley on wheels. Lying down on his back, he used feet
clad in work boots to slide himself under the car.

I
winced as he did.

“Don’t
you get claustrophobic under there?” I raised my voice so he could hear me. “And
I’m heading to the diner for some coffee. Got some work to do.”

“I’ve
been doing this since I could walk, so no.” There was a thump, followed by a
string of curses that tinted the air blue. When Jax wheeled himself out from
under the car, he had a streak of grease on his nose, and his hair was standing
on end.

It
was rare to see him any other way. Automovation had once been his dad’s, and
he’d worked there his entire life.

“I
have coffee,” he repeated, gesturing to the small stretch of counter beside the
old fridge. “Set up your computer here. Keep me company.”

For
one quick minute I wondered if he was flirting with me. But then I remembered
Jax with Maddy, the way he’d brushed her off so smoothly that her feelings
hadn’t been hurt.

Jax
didn’t flirt, at least not in a way that meant anything. I had a newly
developed hunch as to why, but I had no business asking him.

“All
right.” I decided after a long minute. Why the hell not? I didn’t have so many
friends in Fish Lake that I could afford to push away the ones who weren’t off
put by the tragedy of my life.

“How
do you take your coffee?” Jax pulled some kind of wrench looking thing from his
tool box and slid it into his pocket at the same time that he pulled a plain
green coffee mug from a shelf above the warmer.

“However.”
I waved my hand at him as I gingerly cleared a spot on the bench of his work
area and opened my computer. He set a mug of coffee that smelled acidic and was
thick as tar on my tongue at my elbow before returning to his work on the red
sedan, seemingly content with the silence.

Or
maybe not so content. I’d barely opened the program that Nate’s uncle had shown
me how to use when Jax cast a curious look at me from over his shoulder.

“Why
do you need to work for the summer? Your parents are better off than most.” The
way that he said it told me he didn’t mean any insult, he was just stating a
fact.

And
it was true enough. Though my parents had never been rich, by Fish Lake standards
they were pretty well to do. My dad still did well, and he shuttled enough
money to my mom every month to keep a roof over her head and alcohol in her
freezer.

“I...”
I stared down at my hands, frozen on the keyboard. The purple polish that had
been so perfect only that morning in the grocery store now had a large chip on
one thumb, big enough to be all that I could see.

“When
I was younger I felt entitled. Like, my parents had money, so Ella and I should
have whatever we wanted.” It wasn’t a nice thought, but it was the truth. Ella
had felt the same way, and her allowance had gone straight up her nose. “I
don’t feel that way anymore. They’re paying for my school, and that’s plenty.
I’d feel bad just sitting around on my ass all summer.”

And
I can never repay what was lost because of me,
the nasty voice in my head added. I deliberately squished the thought and
shoved it out of my head.

“Dylan’s
coming back tonight.” Jax tossed this at me before sliding back under the car
again, giving me a few minutes to pull myself together.

“Oh?”
I thought I did a pretty good job at sounding nonchalant. The raised eyebrow
that Jax cast my way when he was visible again told me he knew better.

“Yep.
Nick’s landing in town again tonight too, with his new girlfriend. Kayla.” He
made a face. “Kayla. Kaylee. That’s going to be confusing.”

“I
get dibs.” I said absently, my mind worrying things over.

Excitement
that Dylan was going to be back warred with irritation that he hadn’t bothered
to call me all week. I decided to cling to the anger.

It
was easier to deal with than the alternative.

“I’m
going to have a little party here tonight. You gonna come?” He asked.

It
was on the tip of my tongue to refuse. Wouldn’t it just be awkward, me hanging
out with the people who had once partied with Ella? Me mooning around after
Dylan when, after a week of obsessing, I was no longer sure if he would even
care or not?