Page 2 of Tangled Desires

“Still, I am sorry.” I swallow the clogging of emotion trying to pull me under. A couple more hours, then I can be done holding it all in.

“Don’t be, please. Tell me something good?” I ask her, playing the game we’ve been playing for years now. Whenever one of us is having a rough day, the other will ask this question.

“Well, there’s a hot man coming your way, ma chérie,” Naomi says, stepping away and moving toward my mother’sheadstone. I watch from my peripheral vision as she squats down, being careful with her heels and skirt. She places a kiss from the tips of her fingers to my mother’s name before doing similar to my father’s. Then Naomi stands up, nods my way, and moves to a seat near the back of the tent the cemetery has set up.

“Hello, Miss Skye.” He extends his hand to take mine. I’m unsure who he is, but then again, I didn’t know most of the others.

“Hi, I’m sorry. I don’t know your name.” He’s an older gentleman, judging by his salt-and-pepper hair, the crinkles around his eyes, and the way he carries himself. I’d peg him somewhere around his late fifties or early sixties.

“That’s because we’ve never met. I’m your parents’ estate attorney, Scott Bennet. I would usually wait until a day or two later, except your mom made me keep a promise.” I let out a light laugh. That is so classically Melody Skye.

“I’d like to say I’m surprised, but I’m not.” I look around and notice mostly everyone is gone, minus the Marines, and now I’m feeling guilty for keeping them here as long as I have.

“Then it’ll come as no surprise to you that she wants you to restart your life. She’s asked that you donate the contents you don’t want, keep what you’d like, and I believe her words were, ‘be at peace and live as much of your life as you can.’” That sounds exactly like something she’d say. I’m sure Mom wouldn’t know the timing of how things would go. I start to tune the attorney out until he says, “There’s a home in Whispering Oaks. They’ve rented it to a long-term tenant for a while, but it’s currently sitting empty. Mrs. Skye mentionedyou loved that place more than anything, and your father wouldn’t sell it when you moved away because of her.” I close my eyes, remembering the years we spent in the small town, living next door to my then best friend and boyfriend and love of my life, and making that pact of ours.

Jagger Steele assaults my memories one after the other again.

God, back then, life was so much simpler.

“Ma chérie, we must leave. Mr. Bennet said he’d follow up with you in a few days, but we really must let these fine men go.” It isn’t until I feel Naomi’s hand on the back of my elbow that I realize I’ve completely zoned out.

“Oh, right. Thank you.” I offer my hand to him again. He shakes it and then takes off.

The home we stayed in the longest growing up, one where I made friends, where life seemed to be going amazing. Then Dad came home with a look on his face I knew all too well. He shook his head, telling me everything without any words, and I did the one thing I probably shouldn’t have. I ran to Jagger, telling him the news and crying in his arms. I sometimes wonder where he is now, especially because we lost communication all those years ago.

Maybe he thought I was some silly girl, and when I brought it up to my mom, she mentioned boys get busy. Now, looking back, I’m pretty sure she’d been trying to make me feel better. Back then, I felt like my teenage heart was being torn in two. Jagger was my first real heartbreak, and those are the ones you never forget.

1

JAGGER

Present Day

Work,sleep, repeat, and in between those three things, I’ve been doing what I do best: looking for the only high that calms my nervous system, the next adrenaline-thumping, death-defying activity you can find. I’ve done a lot and seen a lot—swimming with sharks, bungee jumping, mountain climbing, and sky diving to name a few. All of those were tame compared to what I did last weekend, going silent, telling the guys I needed a weekend away and making sure no one knew what I was doing. It’s my usual way of operating, only this time, I was running from my past and a certain person:Lyric.

Fucking Jude mentioning her being back pissedme right the hell off. She left and never looked back, and now she’s in Whispering Oaks.

The times I go dark means no phone, no watch, no laptop, no tablet, and half the time, no one knows where I’m going, and there isn’t much service as it is. In fact, I make sure it’s that way, if at all possible. This last weekend, though, had me puckering my butthole and hoping my feet landed safely on the ground. I’ve been trained, gone through every protocol there needs to be, and still, this one rattled my cage.

Base jumping in New River Gorge Bridge. I trained, went through every possibility of what could happen, and had to sign a release waiver of all waivers. It’s a good thing I have my affairs in order, because there was a real possibility I wouldn’t make it back in one piece. The company I went with is legal; the safety factor is what they couldn’t guarantee. I’d looked into other areas, choosing not to go out of the country since we’re currently slammed at Jagged Edge Construction with no end in sight.

The thing I haven’t done yet is admit to my friends and family what I did. They know I’ve got an addiction that doesn’t consist of drugs or alcohol. They’ve been around long enough to realize this is who I’ve become. I hit puberty and became wild and reckless, speeding around town, racking up tickets, and being a menace to society. It didn’t matter that I was in sports; nothing could hold me back. There weren’t enough hours in the day to monopolize my time or wear me out.

Fucking hell, I gave them gray hair long before they should have had any. Mom made jokes that the reason she was at the hair salon every four weeks like clockwork wasbecause of me. Luckily, before I did anything stupid like wrap my car around a tree or do harm to someone with my bullshit, Dad funneled my energy elsewhere.

He took me to a drag strip, got me hooked, and we started working on a project vehicle, leaving me with little time to be young and dumb. This way, it was legal, safer, and gave me the rush I needed without giving my parents a heart attack or putting myself in an early grave.

It helped for a while, until it wasn’t enough anymore, and once I turned twenty-one years old, I moved on to other shit. They weren’t too impressed at first, then Dad made a comment about me being so much like his own dad, that he understood. I still have the hot rod we worked on and I still occasionally race; it’s currently sitting in my garage, covered with a sheet, with not so much of a scratch on the pristine paint job. Every now and then, when I can’t get away from the job for more than two days, you’ll find me on the track pushing myself to the next limit, fine tuning my car, and seeing what I can add or take away to make it faster.

I did the responsible and adult thing and sent a message to tell the guys I made it back last night before calling my parents to do the same. I’d have much rather sent a text than to have a conversation with my mom, who repeated everything I said to my dad, except neither of them likes to respond. They also don’t have their read receipts turned on, which makes it difficult to know if they even looked at their phones. They’re not technology driven in the least; they still put tape across the camera on their computers and have a landline. Which is what I called them on hoping they’d both pick up to make it easier to relay the message. The beepingof the other line did me a solid, and I hung up faster than the speed of light, because Mom started in on questioning where I’d gone and what I’d done.

The only people who knew where I went were my group of friends; it’d be hard to hide since I used Tysen’s private jet to drop me off and pick me up. Then there’s Jude. He tracks every last one of us with the fancy app he developed. There’s nowhere to hide when it comes to our friend group. Even when my devices are turned off, Jude can still track my location. I learned this a few months ago and quit bothering with trying to keep things quiet. The one thing I did learn was to stay at a hotel away from where I’d be to keep him none the wiser.

I thought after talking to my parents, I’d be in the clear, except my luck didn’t run that far. The group chat went off way more than normal, and while I’m usually the one shooting the shit or, how my friends like to say, starting shit, I did something I’ve never done before. For years, I’d have my phone on me, minus the time I’m out on an adventure. Last night, it became too much. I could feel the walls closing in on me. The house I built from the ground up seemed like a cage. The outdoors didn’t relax me. Nothing seemed to be working. The dinging and vibrating of my phone only amplified the mayhem spinning in my head, and for the first time in I don’t even know how many years, I tossed my phone in a drawer and walked away.

It's now Monday night back in Whispering Oaks, and my day started at six o’clock this morning with going over contracts, plans, and bids. By noon, I was over it. The coffee I had earlier in the day long since lost its effect. My eyes weredone with looking at paperwork of any kind. I grabbed my phone, which I continued to leave on silent, though now it was turned on, but I’d yet to go through all the notifications that have piled up.

Instead, I went around to the job sites, looked at what needed to be done, and got to work. The need to get my hands dirty, to get my mind in the right frame to be any kind of company, was exactly what I needed and what I was after. A new job we’d picked up needed heavy demolition. The crew started earlier in the day, and when I showed up, I went to work right beside them.

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