Page 28 of Fall Into Me

I didn’t dignify that with a response either.

“Have you told heranythingthat you rehearsed in the mirror over the last two years?”

“I didn’t rehearse anything in the fucking mirror.” I had, but that wasn’t the point.

“Man, your balls are going to besotoast when she finds out!” He reached out and shoved me in the chest before he turned on his heels and headed straight into Cali’s café.

The moment I noticed that the town of Darling had gone up for active evaluation and scouting, I went straight into my father’s office and told him I wanted to take the lead on it. I couldn’t stand being in the same room as him. Aside from the day I told him I’d take his offer on the job he’d extended my way for the last eight years, I hadn’t gone in again until that moment.

I always knew it was a possibility that his sights would be set on Cali’s town. I saw it on the list of prospects a year ago, and I knew what they’d do to it.

It was fucked up that I’d helped tear apart other towns. Fundamentally changed them from the inside out. I knew it made me a bad person, not caring in the slightest that I did because this had never been about them. It had always been abouther.

In my desperate attempt to be as unsuccessful as possible, in some fucked-up attempt at proving that I was nothing like my father, I had been twenty-six, and the only qualification I had was working at a shitty bar.

After Cali left, I applied for at least forty jobs. Every day for a month, I applied. I went for interviews and handed out résumés,and every time, it was the same. A dubious look and the same fucking question:Is this all the experience you have?

I’d started working at Heavenly Horns as soon as I left home, and I never stopped. Every time I had the opportunity to move up, to manage the bar, I always said no. I didn’twantto be successful.

It set me apart from the monster who made me.

It also meant I had nothing to show for myself. No savings, no retirement, nothing.

You can’t give someone everything when you have nothing. I’d backed myself so thoroughly into a corner that the only option I had was to walk into Mackenzie Co. and take the job he was offering.

And then all I had to do was walk in and tell him I wanted Darling, and it was mine.

My father had stood up and walked over to me, placing a hand on my shoulder while he looked up at me and told me he was proud of me. I just stared at him and imagined all the different ways I might be able to kill him.

The little bell above the door tinkled, letting everyone know that we were entering.

It was early in the morning, and there was an older lady sitting right in the middle of the café, paper in hand, who turned to eye us with equal amounts of curiosity and apprehension.

“I heard the coffee here is shit,” Ash called out just in time for Cali to round the corner, a tray of cookies in her mitten-covered hands.

To her credit, she onlyalmostlost the tray. Fumbling it in tandem with the cascade of emotions that blurred across her face, and then she was jumping.

Honest to God, like a five-year-old at a birthday partyjumping.

“ALBERT!”She screamed the name, and the lady who was still watching us sloshed her coffee in a jolt of surprise. Cali pretty much threw the cookies onto the counter next to her and ran for Ash. He caught her running jump, arms banding around her back, and a face-crinkling grin split his features.

I would be fucking damned if it didn’t hurt.

I think it might have been the first time I’d ever seen Ash touch anybody voluntarily, but the shock of it was short-lived compared to how it felt seeing him get the greeting I wish I could have had from her. Even though I knew we’d both gotten the greeting we deserved from her.

It felt wrong to watch their reunion. Ash and Cali had fallen into the sibling sort of friendship that you only find once or twice in a lifetime, with friends who feel more like family. It occurred to me only then, selfishly, that Ash had lost her too, and Cali had lost him.

Cali’s delighted laughter dissolved into small, shaking sobs. I watched one tear fall from her closed eyes and run down her cheek and decided I had punished myself enough for now and moved past them to the counter.

The rustle of fabric was the only telling sign that their embrace had come to an end. Even the somewhat nosy patron had turned her attention away.

“Hey, Allen.” Cali’s voice was hushed, and I closed my eyes against the pain that rang clear through her words. “Missed you.”

“Hey, Chloe” Ash’s voice was reserved too, quiet. “Missed you too.”

It wasn’t justified in the slightest, but their whole interaction pissed me off. I knew going from feeling guilty about the cause of their distance to being aggravated about how long they hugged was not a regular reaction to have.

I didn’t fucking care.

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