A Shattered Moment (Fractured Lives 1)

“What? You overestimate me. I’m just a servant of the people.”

“Yeah, right. I think I can manage now, by the way.” I began to squirm so he would put me down.

“Oh, sorry. Yeah, I guess you can walk the rest of the way, huh?”

“Obviously. Lead the way.” I straightened my clothes before bumping into his backside.

“Here we are,” he said after taking one step forward.

“You shit.” I slapped him on the arm for good measure.

He unlocked the door and I smirked, stepping into his apartment. It looked fairly nice, but glancing around, I could tell it was what you would call “guy” clean. One of the cushions on the couch was slightly askew, hinting that there might be something beneath it. The entertainment center looked like a halfhearted attempt had been made at dusting, judging by the leftover trail of grime that was visible. Still, I had to admit I liked it.

“See, not too shabby, right?” Bentley asked, shoving a stray sock out of sight that was poking out from under the couch.

“What are you doing there?”

“Fixing the carpet,” he lied, smoothing a hand over the spot where the sock had just been.

“Won’t you forget that’s under there?”

He grinned at me, flashing a pair of dimples. “Nah, besides, my mom gives me novelty socks for every holiday.” He laughed, lifting the pant leg of his jeans to reveal a black sock covered in white skeletons.

“Wow, you weren’t lying about celebrating every holiday.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Told you. We take our holidays seriously. My mom was bumped from one foster home to another growing up. Needless to say, birthdays and Christmas were pretty much nonexistent for her. When Dad asked her to marry him, he vowed to make every holiday special. I guess you could say my sister and I reaped the benefits.”

“You have a sister?”

“Oh yeah, but actually she’s not into the holiday thing anymore. She’s younger than me, but thinks she knows everything.”

“That’s cool. Holidays used to be a big deal with us, too . . .” My voice trailed off. I shouldn’t have been surprised that we had ended up here. This was why I avoided talking to anyone. It was hard to get personal without the subject of family coming up at some point. Tanya told me it was part of the healing process, but I had no idea how that was possible when everything seemed to remind me of my friends.

Bentley looked at me like he was trying to get a read on what I was thinking. I’m sure he was asking himself how he’d gotten stuck with such a dud.

“So, are you ready to do some celebrating?” he asked, rubbing his hands together.

He had a way of lightening the mood, I’d give him that. It was nice to be with someone who was able to let things roll off his back. Doom and gloom just didn’t seem to be in his DNA. “You did promise me chocolate.”

“And chocolate I will deliver,” he said, heading toward the kitchen. I trailed behind him and watched as he pulled a large box of brownie mix from the cabinet.

“You’re making brownies?”

“Correction: we’re making brownies. Will you get the eggs out of the fridge?”

“Oh, we’re making them?” I opened the fridge, nearly laughing out loud at the contents. There was an entire shelf dedicated to Red Bull and beer, while another held about a half-dozen jugs of milk. Squeezed in the space of the final shelf was a pizza box with a leftover Chinese food container and a carton of eggs perched on top. I would have expected nothing less from an apartment of guys. “You have a calcium fetish or something?” I asked, closing the door.

“More like a cereal fetish.” He opened one of the cabinets to show me what looked like more than a dozen boxes of cereal crammed inside.

“Holy crap. That’s a lot of cereal.”

“It’s chea

p. Well, for us it’s sorta free.”

“Free?”

“Yeah. Chad’s parents gave him their BJ’s Warehouse credit card to buy a few things for the apartment. He just neglected to give it back.”