Page 20 of Salvaged Heart
“Well, good job I didn’t sign one, then. Looks like you’re on your own here.”
He let out three of the most dramatic tuts I'd ever heard. “Oh, but you see, Anderson Leighton Carmichael, the third…” his voice dropped an octave on the last bit, “you did.” He laughed a throaty laugh that would have made me follow him anywhere.
I was fucked.
This would be, without a doubt, how I died.
I met his eyes and held up a finger for emphasis, “One bite, and if I am doing this, then you are too.”
“Deal.” He held out his hand for me to shake.
“Deal.”
The waitress, God bless her, was ready with milk and wet towels as we counted down three, two, one and plunged large spoonfuls of Vindaloo into our mouths. The regret was instantaneous. But not being a quitter, or at least not at that moment, I fully committed and swallowed it in a big gulp after barely two chews. Beckham’s cheeks were puffed up like a hamster’s, and he shook his head, unable to get his throat to cooperate.
“Down the hatch, Beckham. Don’t break our deal.” I mocked him, trying to hide the searing pain in my stomach as the spices settled. I could feel the first of what was sure to be many hiccups fighting its way out of my chest.
He closed his eyes, breathed in heavily through his nose, and gulped the curry down right at the exact moment the first painful hiccup burst from my chest. His eyes flashed open. Another one ripped through me, a smile spreading across his face.
“So-fucking-worth-it.” He chuckled when the third hit.
“I hate you.”Hiccup.“I hate you.”Hiccup.
“You love me.”Hiccup.“Best friends forever.”Hiccup.
Not even the wink that followed could soothe my aching chest.
“You don’t…”Hiccup“need to share”Hiccup“your deep truth today”Hiccup.I took a couple of large gulps of milk, which seemed to help almost immediately. “Turns out I already know you’re a fucking masochist.”
11
BECKHAM
Saturday night, I found myself hovering in the doorway of Anders’ room, watching him sketch furiously in his notepad. He had been spending a lot more time drawing recently. He even asked me to pose while working on something around the house so he could quickly flesh out a rough draft, capturing the way my body was angled and how the light entered the space. I knocked once on the frame of the open bedroom door, and his eyes rose slowly to meet mine.
“You lost?” He grinned.
He had been doing a lot more of that, too. Happy, content Anders was quickly becoming one of my favorite people, and while it might have been a little self-absorbed to think I had contributed to this change in character, it warmed something in my soul nonetheless.
“Nah, I just got off the phone with Laurel. Wanted to stop by on the way upstairs and see how that ankle was doing.”
He had landed on it awkwardly earlier that day by stepping backward from what he thought was the bottom run of the ladder, which was actually the third. But the way his ankle wastucked underneath him instead of propped up on the pillow like I had told him to, let me know it was fine.
“It’s good. Thank you for checking in.” There was a slightly awkward silence before he added, “Come in, stay awhile.”
The way he said it sounded more like an order than a suggestion, but I floated across the threshold anyway, perching on the edge of his bed.
“How was Laurel?”
“The same as always, busy.”
When she first left, exactly a week ago, she’d texted constantly, updating me on her progress in finding a last-minute place to stay, looking for updates on the house, and checking to ensure Anders and I hadn’t killed each other. I’d sent her a picture that Monday of me holding a hammer menacingly inches from his skull while he pretended to be focused on installing new outlet covers. This Laurel had not found amusing. At night, she would call, and we would talk for an hour about our days before one of us inevitably drifted off mid-sentence.
Now, the texts came through less often, and yesterday, she'd skipped our nightly call altogether. But she was busy, I got that, and I was running out of interesting ways to describe fixing and painting things to her, which took up most of my day. Sure, there was my budding friendship with Anders, which I could have discussed, but that felt private, almost like a secret only the two of us shared. Plus, every conversation Laurel and I had contained some version of the same overplayed warning about not trusting Anders, keeping one eye on him, and being careful about getting too friendly. I wasn’t ready for her judgment, so I didn’t bring it up.
“Laurel is the only person I have had sex with.” I don’t know why I said that, and the look of disgust mixed withwhat the fuckthat was written all over Anders’ face told me he felt the same. “That was my last truth for the day. I still owed you one.”
He sighed, setting his sketch pad down. I noted the drawing he was working on was one of me instead of the home’s interior. “That was a truth I probably could have lived without.” He chuckled. “But thank you for paying your debt.”
