Chapter 16
Juliette
I didn’t want to admit it, but Bridger had done me a favor.
Gordon was still in recovery mode and was in far too much pain to even attempt getting up the stairs.
With how fragile his ego was, I wasn’t shocked he hadn’t asked me for help to get him up there.
I didn’t care, though. I much preferred it when he was downstairs and far away from me.
My long tedious days finally had some spark and color to them.
I had set up another one of the blank canvases Bridger sent me about an hour or two ago, and I was already making good progress on it.
I had forgotten how much fun it was to be creative, to take all the places I saw in my head and bring them to life, even if they were only on canvas.
I got to paint deep blue oceans and golden grains of sand and little houses that homed what I imagined were the happiest of people.
My free time was over for now, though. I was in the kitchen, washing lettuce and spinach in the sink and as soon as I was done with making dinner, I’d give Gordon his painkillers and then run upstairs and finish up my current project. My fingers were fidgeting to get a hold of my paintbrush again.
Colander filled with greens in hand, I kept it under the sink, all that cold water rushing, but then another sound hit me. Footsteps, hard and heavy. I knew exactly who they belonged to.
It would have been easy enough for me to pick up the phone and call the cops and tell them that the man who had been breaking into houses all over the state was in my house. That wouldn’t have been an easy thing to do at all when I really thought about it.
“Are you gonna stand there all day or are you gonna help me?” I asked, setting down the colander and moving over to the stove. Those steps got louder as they followed me, the kitchen filling up with whatever cheap cologne he wore that blended in too well with those traces of cigarette smoke.
“You want my help?” Bridger asked, suddenly standing to the right of me at the stove.
“How is it that you’re so good at getting into my house?” I asked.
“You have a really shitty security system.”
“It wasn’t always so bad. Ever since you showed up, it doesn’t seem to work at all. Even when we got a new one after the first incident.”
From the corner of my eye, Bridger offered me a lazy shrug. “It’s not my fault I’m so good at it.”
The air fryer on the counter went off, beeping loudly and a little obnoxiously before I switched it off and pulled out the rack.
At least the garlic bread was done now. I focused on that, not able to bring myself to look at Bridger just yet.
I could hear his footsteps as he walked right by me, his hand gently grazing along my lower back. The feeling made me shudder.
“Wait, how much food are you making?” Bridger asked.
On the stove was a pan for the bolognaise, a pot for the pasta and a second pot boiling with potatoes, and then another pan for my food—grilled chicken and the salad I had been washing before Bridger once again snuck into my house.
“Gordon’s a big eater,” I answered.
“This is all for him?”
“Well, not the chicken.”
“But the pasta and the sauce and the bread and the potatoes?”
“Those are for him.”
“I’m gonna spit in his food.”
“Don’t do that.” I laughed. “It’s not a big deal. I’m used to it now.”
“What are you eating?”
“Why do you care?”
“Just wondering. You eating that rabbit food you spent five minutes washing?”
“It’s not rabbit food,” I said, finally turning to face him.
That was a mistake. I shouldn’t have done that, because his eyes were locked right on to me, and there was something in them that made it so hard to pull away from his gaze.
Dark eyes. Unblinking. Unreadable. What was he thinking? “It’s healthy.”
“Mhm. And you gotta eat healthy, right? How else will you get pregnant?”
“He read about it online.”
“Then it’s gotta be true…” His voice trailed off. “You didn’t used to eat like that when we…”
I flipped over the small chicken breast designated to me, my eyes on Bridger at the same time. “When we what?”
“When you used to come over to my house.” He scratched a finger against the back of his neck. “There were some nights where I couldn’t get you to leave thanks to my mom’s cooking.”
I smiled at the memory for a tiny second.
I would never admit it to him, but Bridger’s house always felt like my real home.
I had spent a lot of time under his parents’ roof.
Their house was cozy and warm, the walls a welcoming blue with photos all across them, showing off Bridger from the day he was born to his first day of school.
I could almost feel myself traveling back there, to those days after school when I told my parents I was studying in the library but really, I was there on Bridger’s couch, tucked under a handcrafted blanket his mom had made while we watched a movie. I was eighteen and so, so in love.
“How are your parents?” I asked quietly. “Are they okay? Your dad called you the other day, right? I hope everything is alright…”
“They’re good,” was Bridger’s low answer.
“Just good?”
“Yes.”
I paused, eyes stuck on my chicken before I forced myself to ask the next question. “Your dad. How… How is…”
“He’s good. Happy. Much happier now that he’s not in Chicago. They live in North Carolina now.”
“North Carolina?” My head snapped to the side to look at him. They had talked about wanting to move there all the time, to get out from the too big city of Chicago and find some flat green land. “Really?”
“In Windsor. Some little country town. Mom always wanted to go there. Dad too.” His brows rose. “If you remember that…”
“I remember. And good. Good for them. Do they know what you… get up to?”
“No,” he said lowly, amusement flickering in his eyes.
Something devious was there too. I had a feeling he took joy in his role.
“I mean, they knew what I used to get up to when they still lived here, but that was all small-time stuff. I couldn’t ever tell them about what I do now. I don’t wanna drag them into it.”
“You dragged me into it.”
“Not on purpose.”
I flipped the chicken over with some tongs. “What did you do with all that stuff, anyway?”
“Sold it.”
“For how much? To who?”
He gave me a look. “I can’t tell you.”
“Who am I gonna tell?”
“You might tell Grandpa in there if he ever wakes up.” He nodded to the side, over to the living room. “I guess the Matlock reruns knocked him out, huh?”
An undignified snort left me at that, the sound taking me aback for a second. It had been a little while since I was allowed to make that noise. “He’s not that old.”
“Every time I come into your house I’m tempted to kill him. I keep waiting to catch him on a day where he’s on his own, but every single time, you’re in here with him. Why’s that?”
My fingers gripped the tongs a little tighter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Do you have to babysit him?”
“Ever since you hurt him, yes.”
“If I was you, I’d just up and leave.”
I held in a laugh. “And do what?”
He eyed me up and down, all slow and deliberate. “Whatever you want, because it seems like you don’t get to do that anymore. You know, I’ve walked around this whole house. Fucking hideous, by the way, like all these homes I break into. Money can’t buy taste, huh?”
“Did you come here to critique Gordon’s interior designer?”
“No. I just think it’s weird how there’s not a trace of you in here—besides all that fancy shit in your closet. Almost like… you’re just here to play a part and bought all the right costumes to do it. But I can’t find you in this house. I can’t find you anywhere. It’s like you just disappeared.”
I cleared my throat, eyes stuck on the pan. On the chicken. On how small it was and how hungry I felt.
That was a common occurrence to the women in my family.
They got married and then they faded away.
It was bound to happen with me too. Except I didn’t want that to happen.
I wanted to live the life I always wanted.
To feel the sand under my feet, the water pooling around my ankles, the hot sun on my skin.
I had always wanted too much out of life, though. That was my fault.
There was a pause. A long one. Time stretched on as we both stood there in the kitchen, the pristine walls and floor boxing me into a place that I hated with every last bit of me.
With a man I didn’t think I’d ever see again even though I still dreamt of him.
Bridger drew in a breath, short and shaky, and I could see him tensing up.
“Do you love him?” he asked, the words coming out all sharp and jagged. Like just asking the question alone angered him.
“Why do you care if I love him?” I asked.
“You used to tell me that you loved me. Maybe you just say it for fun. Maybe you don’t ever mean it, but I meant it every time I said it to you.”
Hot tears started welling up in my eyes before I could fight them off.
I kept my lips pressed firmly together, trying to hold off that cry that was there on my lips that was just seconds away from being pulled from me.
My eyes stayed in front of me, gaze glued to the pan. Don’t look at him. Don’t, don’t, don’t.
But I still whispered out my next words. Still spoke to him. Still let him stay there in my kitchen instead of calling the cops and having him thrown right back where he belonged. “You think I didn’t?” I asked.
“Sometimes I wonder…” he said. “One day you were mine, and then the next… I only got one hour of sun.”
The visual had me wincing. “Do you think I wanted that for you? I didn’t want to see you punished, Bridger, but you did what you did. What did you think would happen?”
“I would never hurt you the way you think I’m capable of, Juliette. I would never even think about doing something like that to you.”