I’d spent years and years fooling others, but never myself.
Regardless of our fighting, I couldn’t let her think I didn’t want a relationship with her. I was demanding one.
I sent her a last message.
You could not be more wrong. Come home when you’re ready to talk about this like adults.
* * *
I jolted awake and squinted around the living room. Jesus Christ. I yawned and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. What time… It was dark in the apartment, so Alessia must’ve come home. The only light left on was a small lamp on the entertainment unit.
Shit. One in the morning. She hadn’t woken me up when she returned.
That irritated me.
I hated fighting with Alessia.
Correction, I hated not resolving the fights quickly. We were actually champs at fighting. We both got heated and took our frustrations out on each other, but we didn’t mind it. Neither of us was too proud to admit it when we were wrong, and we didn’t hold grudges.
What I despised was going to bed angry.
I shouldn’t have fallen asleep on the couch.
I grunted and stood up, then walked over to Alessia’s door and listened to hear if she was up and walking around. I doubted it. I couldn’t hear anything, anyway.
I knocked quietly.
“Alessia?”
No response.
I carefully twisted the doorknob and opened the door. She’d fallen asleep with the light on her nightstand on. The sheets rode low and were twisted around one of her legs. Her back was exposed, and so was her other leg. She’d drawn it up a bit, revealing her thigh too.
Did she have to be so goddamn gorgeous?
My gaze traveled across her room, and I took in the differences between us. She was neat; I wasn’t. She cared about matching colors and things like flowers and candles; I didn’t. Her room was tidy and nice. Simple. Bed at the center, two nightstands, a chair in the corner with some clothes over the back, pictures on the walls… Pictures of us, mostly.
I had those too. Okay, I had two pictures in all, but both had her in them.
Alessia turned a room into a home. She was the heart of our restaurant.
She was everything.
I sighed and walked into her room to turn off the light. And to get a glimpse of her face. She slept on her stomach, her wavy hair fanned out.
I lifted a lock of her hair and twisted it gently around my fingers.
Creep.
I let go and flicked a glance at the lamp, and I— What was that…
There was a note on the nightstand that had her nickname for me on it. I couldn’t not read it.
Good morning, tesoro
You look so peaceful when you sleep, and I admit I watched you a bit. I don’t want to wake you up, but I have to step out. Before anything happened between us, I made plans with someone. A date. Sounds so wrong now. But since I’ve already canceled on him twice, I want to at least apologize in person. I changed our lunch plans to coffee, though. It shouldn’t take long. Then I hope we can talk…? Last night meant everything to me.
Yours, Alessia
I set down the note again and pinched the bridge of my nose.
Last night meant everything to me…
She’d left the note on the side of the bed I’d fallen asleep on, too. Then I’d rolled toward her side, only to find it empty. From there, I had left the bed and walked out.
I was the dumbest motherfucker on the planet.
Twelve
Adam Grady
It was time for bold gestures.
I was up with the sun the next morning, and first I drove up to Westslope to pay a visit to Jameson. If I bought him coffee, he offered to meet me out of the sticks, an offer I couldn’t refuse. He lived in the middle of the forest, and I was short on time.
Westslope was the biggest district in Camassia. The smallest section was right before the bridge, and it consisted of a couple diners, the worst pizza place in the continental US, a church, a school, and a strip mall. It was a cluster of lumberjack civilization before the forest took over, and that was where I met up with my youngest brother.
The baby of the Grady family was over forty, but that didn’t stop him from acting like a child before his first caffeine hit.
He looked like he’d had a rough night. Though, knowing him, it was of the kinky variety.
“Do you own any sweats that don’t have a stain or a hole in ’em?” I asked, holding the door to the diner open for him.
He grunted and lifted a pierced brow. “Strange question comin’ from the family redneck.”
I let out a laugh.
He didn’t know what a redneck was.
No more words were exchanged until we were seated in a booth and he’d taken the first sip of his shitty coffee.