“Thank you, sir. I’d like to chat more, but I gotta get back to work.”
“You do that. I’m so happy for you,” I said.
I got back on the phone and talked with the foreman for a little while longer on when that project was going to wrap itself up. I had people ready to move into those places, and I promised them they’d be able to move in before Thanksgiving. He reassured me the project would be wrapped up within three weeks, so I made a mental note to forward that information to those who had already purchased the homes we were building.
I knew they’d be as excited to move in as I was to wrap up this damn project.
That project had taken the longest, which was why I’d chosen someone who didn’t have any substance abuse problems. That man was one of the four homeless men I’d ever taken on who didn’t have any issues with addiction coming in. I wanted to help someone, but I needed them to be attentive from the very beginning. This development that was about to be finished was the first official neighborhood we’d ever decided to build into, a project that had been going on for well over a year.
As I drove back to the office to log all the information I’d collected, my mind to wandered back to John. The way that homeless man had been so thankful for what I’d given him, it reminded me of a time where John had been truly thankful for something I’d done.
It was the second time he’d gotten himself clean. I’d traveled all the way to Los Angeles to be with him during the last leg of his detox. He refused to do it in a hospital, and I refused to let him do it alone, so we compromised. I would leave him the weekend to do what he needed to do, and then Monday morning, I’d show up and walk him through the rest of the way. Drew had been pissed for ditching him with the company that week, but I didn’t care. My brother needed me, and it was the only time he’d ever truly reached out to me.
I’d smoothed his hair back while he dry heaved into a bucket and held his head up while he drank water. I sat up with him night after night while he shivered and shook, trying to distract him with stories of how we used to explore while we were at the cabin.
My mind switched over to the painting Hailey had left on my doorstep, the painting of the cabin that had sparked everything and connected us in ways I never really realized until that very moment. Hailey had known my brother, that much was for sure. So logically, she knew details about his life before he died. I didn’t know what types of details or what he might’ve told her, but I couldn’t the feeling that she knew me.
After all, she was at the bar. How did she know what bar to come to? How did she know whose life we were celebrating?
Did she know me even before we’d met?
I honestly wasn’t sure how I felt about that idea. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this woman knowing me before I even knew she existed, this woman I’d fallen in love with and allowed myself to succumb to. Had she preyed on me somehow? Had she tracked me down intentionally?
There were some people who would argue it was a comfort that she knew my brother and could regale me with stories I didn’t know about him, stories of him in L.A. while we were all back in San Diego wishing and hoping he’d come home. She probably had anecdotes that would make me smile and laugh, but the truth was, none of that made me feel better.
It didn’t make me feel worse, but it didn’t make me feel better, either.
Either way, I couldn’t contact her. As much as I hated it, my body still craved her. I still thought about her at night when I lay in bed alone. I still thought about her while I was in the shower, wishing her body was pressed against mine. I still thought about her whenever I got into my truck. I thought about how her hand would always slip effortlessly into mine whenever we rode around in it, taking in the ocean breeze and enjoying each other’s presence.
But most of all, she’d lied to me time and time again, and I didn’t trust that she wouldn’t do it again. She could open her mouth and try to tell more lies to dig herself out of this hole. I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. I didn’t know what part of the story was fabricated to try and get my attention and what was true. Her words still swirled around in my head while I tried to make sense of them.
Needles and murder and threatening voices. That couldn’t be right. John had gotten himself into many things and took many wrong steps in his life, but throwing himself under the bus for someone wasn’t something he did. For all the good that John had inside of him, he was always out for himself. He didn’t want to accept any help from any person, and everything he did, he did to forward himself and no one else.
The mere idea of John telling some random artist he’d help her with some bullshit like that wasn’t something I could believe. It had to be false. It had to be wrong.
She’d lied to me from the beginning, and I couldn’t put it past her to lie in the end.
I gripped my steering wheel hard as I pulled up to the office. I hurried up the steps, taking them two by two as I held onto all my files. My mind was obsessed with her as I barged through the door, slamming my stuff down as I groaned. Why couldn’t I let her go? Why wouldn’t she just go away?
I knew what I could do. I could have a one-night stand. I could go out, find some pretty little thing, buy her a drink or two, and really rail myself into her. The alcohol couldn’t wash her from my body, but I bet if I found myself dipping into another pool or two of women who couldn’t keep their hands off my tattoos, it would erase the memory of her body by replacing it with another one.
I could find myself a woman with long, blond hair and long, thin legs. I could find the absolute antithesis of Hailey to wet my lips with. I could move on to curvier women, showing my body it could find the same wonderful pleasures with their curves like I could with Hailey’s curves.
That way, I wouldn’t be tempted to go back to Hailey and back to the sure thing I knew she was. All I had to do was step out into the nightlife of San Diego and find myself all the beautiful sure little things walking around this bustling city.
That’s exactly what I would do.
I’d find myself another woman to lose myself in.
That way, my mind would drift to her instead of Hailey.
Instead of the woman who had sucked my soul from my chest and drank it down for her own entertainment.
Chapter 4
Hailey
Fall was beginning to crisp the San Diego air. The tourists had retired, and the ocean had become its frozen cove. The smell of pumpkins and apple cider was already permeating the air, and the diner across the street was already advertising their pumpkin spice milkshakes. Halloween was one of my favorite times of the year. It brought about so much inspiration and happiness to those who found the beauty in its costumes and morbid decorations.