Fighting For Air, page 26
“Apologize.” I watch him fight for a deep breath, his chest expanding slowly. They stare at each other for a long time.
I hear a little noise to my right. When I glance over at the smallest occupant of the table, my breath catches. She’s crying, wiping at her cheeks quickly like she already knows at the age of four that she should hide it.
“Caden.” I reach up and grab the fist nearest to me, squeezing it. He looks down, then follows my gaze to Cassie. His stance completely shifts when he sees her. Very calmly, he sits down and smiles.
“I think you’ll have a lot of fun dancing with Aubrey.”
I plaster a smile on my face. “Heck yeah. I’m better than those silly classes anyway. No annoying little girls who can’t dance.” I wink at her and she giggles, wiping another hand down her face.
“I was the best in my class.” She informs me.
“I believe it.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Caden stand up and walk away from the table. I keep my focus on Cassie, the smile remaining. “By the time Caden gets you back into classes, I’ll have you dancing so good you’ll be better than the teacher.”
“Awesome!” Her eyes are wide open and completely dry now. I glance at her plate and notice that all the chicken is gone while the asparagus is untouched. I grab a spear and turn my attention back to her. She watches me sniff it and make a silly face.
“These taste good but they smell gross.”
“They taste gross too.” She sticks her tongue out and shakes her head. I giggle.
“Try one.”
“No way.”
“I promise, they’re delicious. My favorite, actually.” It’s a white lie. I do like asparagus, but it’s not my favorite. She watches me apprehensively, her little eyes in slits. Then, very slowly, she grabs one spear and brings it to her mouth. I watch her take a tiny bit and chew way too long. Then she takes another and smiles at me.
“It’s good!”
“I told you.”
“Wait a minute, are you eating your veggies?” Caden slides back into his seat and smiles over at the two of us. Cassie nods and lifts her asparagus up to show him before focusing her attention on it. I look at Caden and wink at him. He leans in and kisses the hair above my ear.
“Thank you.”
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Caden
It takes me less than a minute to get an apology from Caitlin. I knew it was an act for Aubrey but I honestly didn’t expect for her to change course so fast. Before I even closed her bedroom door behind me, she was apologizing.
We agreed that she’ll stay in her room and cool off, but I remind her that she’s more than welcome to join us for a movie or something later. The automatic eye roll gives me a clue that I won’t be seeing her.
When I come back down, Aubrey and Cassie are giggling together, eating their asparagus. I haven’t been able to get her to eat vegetables unless they’re doused in cheese or cooked inside a dish. That fact, along with seeing Aubrey change Cassie’s tears into a smile, makes my heart melt.
I lean into Aubrey and give her a kiss against the side of her head, whispering a little thank you. She scrunches her nose the way she always does.
Cassie eats four more spears before announcing she’s done. Aubrey agrees and together, the three of us clear the table. I take Caitlin’s food and push it into a Tupperware container before plopping it in the fridge. Aubrey promises Cassie that they can start dancing in a minute and Cassie skips out of the room, singing a song from her new favorite movie. Once she’s gone, Aubrey rests her hip against the counter.
“What was all that about?”
“She’s adjusting.” I shrug but she doesn’t look convinced. “We have good days and bad.”
“Are the bad days when she decides to be a vegetarian?”
I can’t help but laugh, air blowing through my nose. “Usually, yes.” This reminds me that Caitlin does need to eat something. I reach up into the cupboard and pull out the peanut butter. “Can you grab the jelly from the fridge? Should be on the door.”
Once I’m done making the sandwich, I plop it on a paper plate and sigh. Aubrey kisses my shoulder, her lips making me shiver despite the cotton of my shirt.
“Maybe she’ll want some chips.” She points around the kitchen and raises an eyebrow like I should tell her where they would be. I point to the cupboard next to the one with the peanut butter. She grabs the Doritos and pours some onto the plate next to the sandwich. Then she totally throws me off. “Do you mind if I bring it to her?”
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Aubrey
I knock on the door three times and hold my breath. A sixteen-year-old girl should not be this intimidating.
“Can I help you?” Her eyes shift from the plate back to my face. I think I might see some sort of twitch in her expression but I’m not sure.
“Caden wanted you to eat.” I offer her a smile. “No meat.”
“Funny.” She reaches out for the plate and I hand it to her. We both stare at each other for a few seconds, neither of us knowing what to do now.
At the same time, I say, “Well,” and she says, “Do you?”
I nervously smile. “You first.”
“Do you want to come in?”
“Oh, yeah.” She moves out of the way and waves a hand at her room like she’s presenting it to me. It’s nothing like I imagined. I figured it’d be full of depressing stuff, maybe a lot of black. The room doesn’t match her at all. It makes me wonder who she used to be before her life got flipped. “It’s nice.”
“I guess.” She stands by her bed, picking at the corner of one of her pillows. “My mom picked most of it out.”
“Yeah, my mom used to do that too. She had terrible taste though.” I laugh at the memory of my room growing up. It changed at least twice a year, always whatever my mother wanted it to be. I started decorating my closet my own way because she never thought to repaint in there, and it was a little act of rebellion. At least until she found it when she went to hang up my dry cleaning one morning.
“I liked it at the time.” I look at her and notice that she’s staring at the paint on the wall like it’s disgusting. It’s a medium shade of purple. My favorite color.
“We could paint it.” She smiles over at me like it’s the craziest idea.
“I doubt Caden would approve.”
“Oh, he’s a grump, but I think he’d be okay with it.” I put my hands on my hips like I’m approaching a new mission. I suppose I am. Operation bonding. “You know what would look cool? A chalkboard wall.”
“A what?”
“Oh, come on. You’ve probably seen them online. You use chalkboard paint and then you can draw and write with chalk on the whole wall.” I wave my hand in the air as if I’m painting the wall in front of me. She stares for a moment, her eyebrows crinkled.
“That’d be sweet,” she decides with a nod. I do a small circle, taking in the whole room before pointing at the wall across from her bed.
“It’d probably look best if you did that one. That way you don’t have to work around the door, or the window. And the wall behind your bed wouldn’t work because you’d get chalk dust all over your bedspread.”
She laughs and picks up the bright pink fabric. “That might not be the worst thing.”
“Right.” I laugh with her. “We can replace that too.”
“That’ll cost money.” The words are laced with both anxiety and guilt. Despite how much she gives Caden a hard time, she obviously understands what he’s going through.
“We’ll figure something out.” I watch her fight with herself for a minute. Then she shakes her head.
“I can’t.” Like brother like sister, I suppose.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Aubrey
The rest of the night unfolds easily. We watch Cassie’s favorite movie all the way through, even though she falls asleep fifty minutes into it. I tell Caden it’s because I’ve never seen it before, but it’s really because I want to torture him. He figures this out when I start singing one of the songs along with the movie, calling me out on my lie. Since we’re alone, this earns me a fake glare followed by a heated kiss.
“Spend the night,” He whispers as his hand travels up my back.
“What about the girls?”
He gives me a smirk that’s full of mischief. “I’ll sneak you out.”
“Okay.” I pull away, earning a pout from him. “I just have to call Myla and let her know.”
“Oh, alright.” He stands up and makes his way to the spot on the floor where Cassie is lying. She’s passed out with her hand still in the bowl of popcorn. “Meet you here in five?”
I nod. He picks his sister up carefully, cradling her in his arms. I can’t help but study the way his muscles ripple with the movement.
I’d be okay spending the rest of my life trying to memorize his perfection. His flaws too.
The charger where my phone is plugged in is across the room. When I get there, I see that I have three missed calls, all from Myla. I groan and call her back. She answers on the third ring.
“I was about to send out a search party.” Her voice is full of humor, but anxiety is right underneath it.
“It’s not that late. I told you I was at Caden’s.”
“I know, but with everything, I was worried.”
It’s understandable. The nice thing is, even though she’s been worrying about it, for a few hours I nearly forgot about everything. “I’m sorry.”
“Sigh. Don’t worry about it, I’m just being a dweeb. When will you be home?”
“Um,” I smile innocently, hoping she can sense it through the phone, “Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow, huh? Tsk tsk.” I can tell by her tone that she’s joking. “You’re such a slut.”
“Shut up. I’ll see you for breakfast.”
“Yeah, yeah. Goodnight.” She hangs up and I stare at my phone for a moment. I’ve been avoiding checking my email, just waiting for the inevitable moment when I’m officially kicked out for not paying. Caden still isn’t back. Now is as good a time as any.
The first email catches me completely off guard. It’s a confirmation that my tuition has been paid. As in, money, somehow, made its way into my school account.
“Hey, you.” I jump, my phone clattering to the ground.
Caden picks it up and hands it back to me. “I really need to stop sneaking up on you.” When I don’t laugh, he drops his smile and asks what’s wrong.
“Someone paid my tuition.”
“Maybe your mom?”
“No way. She would have called to rub it in by now, I promise.” He stares at me and I can see his mind working as fast as mine was. His smile slips.
“You think it was him?”
“If he’s dealing again, he would have the money.” I shrug. “Actually, either way he probably had money stashed places. It could for sure be him.”
He lets out a low whistle. “I don’t know. That’s a decent chunk of change.”
“He was part of something really big.” I see his expression change from slight amusement to deadly serious. His stance changes too.
“How big?”
“I don’t know. Big enough. He used to launder money through a local business, he bought a brand-new challenger with cash, and every time I needed anything, he gave me at least a hundred dollars. The people at McDonalds were not impressed when Myla and I showed up with a one-hundred-dollar bill just to buy two milkshakes. If all that doesn’t add up to enough, there’s the fact that he was part of something big enough to make people disappear. To need to have conversations with people about dead bodies. To have someone trail his girlfriend twenty-four-seven, handing in official reports.”
He clenches his fists and practically growls. “What was his name?”
“Caden,” I begin to argue but he interrupts.
“No. Tell me.” He runs a hand through his hair and looks at the wall. When he turns around his face is full of grief. His lips move but he doesn’t speak. I can’t tell him. He’s proving that right now.
“I don’t want to talk about this, okay? Maybe it was someone else. Maybe it was-”
“What’s his name? Tell me now.” The words are cold and disconnected. I don’t like the way they sound coming from him.
“Please don’t speak to me like that.” I hear my voice tremble but I keep my chin up. He immediately softens.
“I’m sorry.” He runs a hand down his face. “I’m sorry. I’m just worried about you.”
“Don’t be. I’m safe.” I walk towards him and wrap my arms around his waist. “I’m spending the night. Is this really what you want to do?”
He leans down, wrapping his lips around mine. He shakes his head and mine follows suit. I let out a nervous giggle. “That’s what I thought.”
Chapter Eighty
Caden
She stops to pee on the way to the bedroom. The moment she shuts the bathroom door, I head to my safe and take out my loaded glock. All it needs is a bullet in the chamber.
I stick it in the first drawer of the bedside table and head back downstairs, double checking that everything is locked.
When I return to the room, Aubrey is in nothing but one of my flannel shirts, the buttons undone in front of her chest so I can see just a peak of the flesh underneath.
All my anxiety about her ex disappears as she climbs onto the bed and lifts herself up to her knees. “What took ya so long?” Her words are taunting, fingers dragging slowly up her bare thigh.
“Sorry. Checking-” I don’t finish my sentence and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t care. She just gives me a knowing smile and waits patiently for me to come to her. It doesn’t take long.
We collide at the edge of the bed and I quickly push her up until her head is resting on my pillow. I take a moment to stare at the image before me. Her dark brown hair is a wild mess against my soft white sheets and my flannel is pushed up under her armpits now, exposing her bare stomach. I start kissing there and work my way down.
“Caden?” My name is followed by three little knocks on the door. If I don’t answer in the next ten seconds, Cassie will just come in.
“I’m coming, sweetheart.” I rush to the door in panic mode, hoping Aubrey has enough time to cover up. With a deep breath, I swing the door open, revealing Cassie with the hair on one side of her head fluffy and her blanket dangling from her fingers. “Nightmare?”
She nods, her bottom lip trembling. She’s been having them ever since we lost my dad. My mother told me it happened about once a week but Caitlin claims it happened more. Apparently, Cassie learned my mother wasn’t the one to go to, since she went through stages where she was convinced my dad was fine. Everything was fine. Cassie having nightmares would shatter the illusion.
“I don’t,” the words are thick with emotion and she chokes on them, her big eyes watering. “I can’t lose you.” She starts sobbing, and for a moment I forget that she’s only four. It’s easy to do when looking at a girl who’s been through so much.
“You won’t baby.” I pick her up and cradle her head against my shoulder. Her tiny body shakes every other second as she violently cries. This doesn’t happen as often as the nightmares. Usually she calms herself down before needing to come to me. “I swear. I won’t ever leave you.”
I turn my body so I’m facing Aubrey instead of Cassie. She’s sitting on my bed, the blankets pooled around her breasts. She looks beautiful and, more importantly, sympathetic. Most girls would be totally over this situation right not. I mouth a thank you to her and she waves me off. I love that most about her. She’s been through shit too. We’re messed up together.
“Why don’t you go potty, and then you can come to bed with us?” Aubrey asks Cassie. I stand still, facing the empty wall. There’s no reason I deserve someone so damn perfect. What other girl would let a four-year-old crawl into bed with her when she’s supposed to be getting laid?
Cassie runs to the bathroom, little bare feet slapping against the hardwood. The moment she’s gone, I dig in my drawer for a pair of shorts and a shirt for Aubrey to put on, then get in some myself.
When Cassie comes back, we look like two normal people, ready to go to bed. Well, besides the fact that I’m still hard and Aubrey keeps biting her lip, I’m pretty sure on purpose, to drive me wild.
The three of us settle in, Aubrey reaching over to turn the lamp off. Cassie burrows under the blankets, one hand clutching her small blanket and the other resting on my arm. “Caden?”
“Yeah, Cass?”
“I love our family, even though it’s smaller now.” It takes me a moment to respond, the emotion making my throat feel tight.
“I love it too, Cass.”
“Aubrey?”
She shifts to look down at Cassie. “Yeah?”
“We have extra room, if you wanna be a part of it?” It’s the most innocent, yet loaded question I think I’ve ever heard. I feel Aubrey shift again. When I look over at her, I see that she’s staring at me above Cassie’s head. In the dark, I can’t tell her expression.
“Yeah, Aubrey,” I whisper. “I think we can squeeze you in.”
Her hand reaches across the tops of the pillows to rest in my hair. I reach up and hold it there. “That’s the best offer I’ve ever gotten, Cassie. Count me in.”
Chapter Eighty-One
Aubrey
The stack of textbooks is intimidating, but the glass of wine Myla places on top of it helps.
“I think I’m going to fail.” I accept the wine and chug half of it. “Whoever came up with the idea of midterms should be burned at the stake.”
“Preach.” She drinks her own wine and grabs the first book from the stack. It’s a biology book, and its presence makes me cringe. Myla will be an amazing teacher, but whoever is willing to study math and science past high school is a sadist.
“So, Halloween this weekend.” She peeks over her wine glass at me. “Are you going out with me?”
