Chapter Fifteen – Abby
My heart pounds so loudly in my chest I can hear it, like a soundtrack to a horror movie. It thumps and thumps in quick, hard rhythm, and an icy feeling crawls over my skin. I stand in front of a closed door, in a hallway that’s terribly familiar to me, but at the time, I don’t recognize it.
The door in front of me, though, I do recognize. It’s burned a hole in my brain. That, and the inexplicably shiny doorknob that currently calls my name.
I shouldn’t go in there. I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t, and yet…
yet my hand reaches for the doorknob all the same.
It trembles as it moves, and the closer that hand gets to its destination, the louder my heart pounds, until I swear I’m hooked up to speakers somehow.
There’s no way a heartbeat can possibly be this loud.
My fingers curl around the knob, and I push open the door—and the moment I do, the loud heartbeats stop. I see something I never should see: my sister in the tub, the water a bright, vibrant red.
Her face is tilted to the side, so I can’t see it, but I see everything I need to. The blood-red water. The way her right arm hangs out of the tub, her fingers loose. How pale her flesh is. The knife that rests on the tiled floor, sporting her blood on its sharp edge.
My breath catches, and just like that I’m frozen. Frozen in time, frozen where I am, just fucking frozen. I can’t even say her name.
And then my dead sister turns her head, something she most definitely should not be able to do. Her eyes are glazed over and glassy, and yet she opens her mouth all the same and says, “You were too late. You’re always too late.”
The only thing I can do, the only answer I can give? A scream.
Firm hands jerk me awake, or maybe I was already waking up; either way, when my eyes dart open, I find a shirtless Ezra leaning over me, his hands cautiously on my arms as he shakes me gently.
“Oh, thank God,” he whispers once he sees I’m awake and alert. He sits on the edge of the bed, hunching over, and rubs his hands on his face. The early morning sunlight streams in through the window on the far side of the room, but it’s enough light for me to see just how concerned he is for me.
I remember the dream: it’s the same dream I have every now and then, memories twisted into a never-ending nightmare. But it’s not the dream that has my focus; it’s the man on my bed. The, again, very shirtless man.
Royal has the prize for the bodybuilding competition in the house, but Ezra is a close second. The man is super tall and those abs on his chest are nice to look at. And those tattoos? Phew. I need a fan.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, slow to sit up. As I do so, the blanket falls, revealing my low-cut nighttime shirt. Ezra keeps his gaze averted, as if he’s scared to see the top curve of my tits or something.
Prude.
“I was going to get some coffee from the kitchen,” he says. “Just walking by, when I heard you… screaming.” That last word he says quietly, as if he’s not used to saying it. “I wanted to make sure you were okay, but it looked like you were still sleeping—”
Right then, another large presence lumbers into the room: Royal.
He wears nothing but gray sweats that leave nothing to the imagination, his bulging muscles on display.
I swear to God he flexes as he looks all around the room, like there’s an intruder or something.
“What the fuck’s going on?” He loses some macho points by yawning, though.
“Ezra beat you to the punch,” I dryly say.
Royal frowns slightly, and he frowns even more when someone turns the corner and literally runs right into his wide back. He doesn’t move an inch, but the one who ran into him stumbles back and winces.
“Christ, you’re a brick wall,” Hawthorne mutters, pausing to fix his glasses before he peers around the muscular man at me and Ezra on the bed. “Is everything okay in here? I’m pretty sure I heard screaming.”
Jeez. Scream a little in your dream and in real life and apparently there are three men in this house ready to do something about it. I don’t know what they thought I was screaming about, but it is kind of funny they each came a-running.
“I’m okay,” I say. Even Ezra gives me a long look after that one, no longer keeping his gaze averted. Well, I should say, no longer keeping his gaze averted from me. From my tits? He’s definitely still avoiding those. The others are too far away for me to tell exactly where they’re looking.
When it’s beyond clear none of them believe me, I say, “I’m fine, really. It was just a dream.”
“Call me crazy,” Royal says with a semi-grumpy-sounding harrumph, “but you don’t seem like the type of person who has nightmares.” The others all nod in agreement, the jerks. “What the fuck kind of nightmare could have someone like you screaming?”
I force a chuckle, although the blasted sound comes out flat and uninspired. AKA very clearly fake. “Everyone has bad dreams every now and then. I can’t control what I do when I’m in one. Really, I’m fine. You guys can go. I’m going to try to grab a few more winks.”
Royal doesn’t look like he wants to go, but he doesn’t argue with me. He’s the first to duck out of the room. Hawthorne is right behind him, although he tosses me a lingering look and an expression I can’t read before he goes. Ezra, on the other hand, remains right where he is, on the bed.
“Go,” I tell him.
“It wasn’t just a nightmare, was it?”
His blunt question makes me shake my head and shrug him off.
“Yes, it was. You guys are acting like I’m the weird one, but seriously, everybody has nightmares, even you, I’m sure.
It’s no big deal.” The more I say, the less certain I sound, probably because Ezra’s blue gaze currently stares holes through me.
“What was it about?”
Come on. Even he has to know I don’t plan on telling him, so I’m not sure why he bothered to ask. “Don’t worry about it.” This time, when I say it, I’m firm. Well, firm while also being borderline pissed off.
I need him to drop it.
Ezra doesn’t take the not so subtle hint. “Was it… about who you lost?”
“Jeez,” I say, tossing the sheets off me and getting up.
I meander to the closet and throw open the door, picking out a new set of clothes for the day.
“I don’t go probing about your past.” I technically share this closet with Hawthorne, although I have kind of taken it over.
Whoops. I pull out a plain t-shirt and then move to the dresser to grab some jeans.
“Actually, you do.”
“So is this payback or something? Are you suddenly a shark smelling blood in the water?” I turn to face him, and, without warning, I strip out of my pajamas. Foolishly, I hope the action will cause him to leave me alone, but in the end, all he does is avoid looking at me.
Ugh.
“That’s not it,” he says, his stare now off to the side.
I slip on the shirt and then yank down my pajama shorts, and I’m slow in putting the jeans on.
“We aren’t friends. We’re not even coworkers.
You and I are barely acquaintances,” I tell him as I button the jeans.
“I’m kind of stuck here. You and I—we don’t have to know each other’s deepest, darkest secrets.
We can live in the same house, eat the same food, use the same bathroom; but we don’t have to be anything more.
” A frown tugs on my face. I can’t help it.
Okay, this might be me getting a taste of my own medicine. I now understand just how annoying it is. Lesson learned. I’ll leave the guys alone when it comes to their past. If they don’t want to talk about it, they don’t have to. That thing with Hawthorne when I was cutting his hair? A one-off.
“I don’t know your baggage, and you don’t know mine,” I say once his gaze is on me. You know, once he’s sure I’m clothed and not standing there in my bra and panties. “And that’s A-Okay, as I’m sure it’s A-Okay with you.”
His brows come together, and he says not a single word as he watches me walk to the door.
What could he say? There’s nothing he could possibly say that would make me share my past with him. Nothing.