Page 26 of Drifting Hearts
“It’s amazing what they can make with the most random things.”
“Right. Here, you have twenty minutes to make an appetizer out of squid ink and quail eggs.”
“Don’t forget the orange Jell-O and the deep-fried Oreos.” A shudder tore through me.
“They make it look… well, easy is the wrong word. But doable.”
“I can barely cook boxed macaroni, but I am an expert at microwave cuisine.” I watched Kieran from the corner of my eye. He was far more interesting than the contestants. And more attractive. I’d always thought he was good-looking, right from the moment I met him.
“Do you cook?” I asked because I’d do anything to keep him talking. I dreamed of his voice sometimes, low and soothing and so deep I could feel it resonate in my chest when he spoke.
“I can cook, but I don’t cook as often as I should. Cooking for one gets boring and then I always have leftovers.”
“You can cook for me.” I’d meant it to be a joke, but it didn’t sound that way. It sounded as needy and desperate as I felt. I’d gotten the feeling over time that Kieran was as lonely as I was, but for different reasons. Kieran was lonely because he kept himself too busy to notice. And I was lonely because I ruined everything I touched.
Kieran looked over at me. Unless I was going crazy or seeing things that weren’t there, his gaze was headier than usual. I’d had men look at me like that before, but none of them thrilled me the way Kieran did when he looked at me. It was probably a figment of my imagination,the tiny shred of attraction I saw in his eyes, but I’d hold on to the delusion for as long as I could.
“I don’t think I could do much with deep-fried cookies and quail eggs.”
“Darn. And here I had my heart set on that.”
“I’d make you something easier to digest.”
“I’d kill for a helping of good, old-fashioned shepherd’s pie. No quail eggs or squid ink required.”
“Good, because I’m fresh out. Oh, shit, she cut herself.” Kieran pointed at the contestant on the screen. With just a few minutes left on the clock, a cut could be disastrous.
“I hope she didn’t bleed on anything.” Sitting in a hotel room watchingChoppedand talking like we were friends… the normalcy of it took my breath away. For months now, I’d felt like there was nothing normal about my life. Even before I was attacked, I’d felt like a little kid lost in an amusement park. But there were no parents for me to find. No one to take my hand and make sure I got out of there in one piece.
And everything after the attack had been this calm, serene, unreal experience. My brain often had trouble reconciling my new existence with my old one. I’d waited for months to feel any kind of normal, any kind of peace, and I found it watchingChoppedin a hotel room with Kieran Taggart.
My attraction to him had grown to astronomical levels. There was no way Kieran would ever return my feelings because, despite my best intentions, I’d developed those too. Even though I knew I was an obligation to him. A project. A broken thing he worried would break more things.
As long as I was at Patricia’s, I wasn’t concerned about what would happen. It was everything that came after that worried me. Left to my own devices, I could imagine how easy it would be to fall back intobad patterns. Even though my therapist assured me that recognizing patterns of destructive behavior was a good thing, I couldn’t help but think that it just meant I’d know exactly how bad I was fucking up as it was happening.
When I’d taken the money from Archer, I believed I was doing a smart thing. That the money would be back the next day and no one would know any different. But it wasn’t. Because the only sure thing in gambling was that losing was inevitable.
Soon the cast would come off my arm, I’d have a job, and I’d have to go out and be on my own again. The prospect of it seemed lonelier than before. The idea of it made my skin itch. I wasn’t good on my own. Living with Patricia had been the best thing to happen to me. I was never by myself for long periods of time. There were house rules I had to follow. The structure helped keep me grounded and the idea of leaving it terrified me. The closer I got to being physically able to go, the less I slept.
Which was how I ended up falling asleep before dinner time. Somewhere between the entree and dessert round of the second episode ofChopped, my eyelids grew heavier and I gave up trying to keep them open.
Kieran’s presence trickled into my dreams. I wasn’t sure it was him at first, but his deep voice was embedded in my memory. I couldn’t tell what he was saying, but he sounded angry. Unable to take his anger, I tried to run away, but something latched onto me. It pulled my arms behind my back. Pain radiated up my side as the first strike landed.
Kieran’s voice grew louder, angrier the longer the attack lasted. Then the world tilted and shook. It must have been an earthquake. Everything shook so hard my teeth rattled.
Then Kieran’s voice changed, growing closer and louder.
“Clay. Wake up.”
I gasped in the darkness. The first thing I was aware of was that there was no light in the room beyond a faint glow from the streetlights coming in the window. My chest squeezed painfully.
“Dark.” My voice was hoarse and as Kieran scrambled to flick on the bedside lamp, I became keenly aware of how gross I was. Drenched in an ice cold sweat, the stinking stuff of nightmares, my entire body felt like a clammy, nervous palm.
“Shit. Are you okay?” Kieran pulled me to him and I went, weak as a kitten. Shaking like a leaf.
“Yea—no. I don’t know.” I choked on my words, stumbling over them like I was drunk.
“Do you have nightmares often? Mom hasn’t mentioned anything.” Kieran wrapped his arms around me even though I shouldn’t let him. Finding solace and security in Kieran’s embrace was dangerous.
