Elle
It’s been seven days since I’d last seen Jaime.
A week since Gant Auclair tried to ruin my life.
Three days since that angel of darkness visited me.
Three days since he paralysed me, pressed his warmth against me and wrapped his wet tongue around my nipple. Seventy-two hours since his gentle, exploring fingers played with the peach fuzz I’ve yet to shave. Then it all went black.
My throat and thighs clench at the memory. I dreamt of Gant so often, even before the hospital…were they all just dreams? Nightmares that I’d secretly craved? The way he moved me around like the little doll he always said I was…
I shake my head and get back on track. I’m not about to go down that slick, slippery path in broad daylight.
Right, where was I?
Three days since Hale took me in, and three days of gruelling renovations that left us severely sleep-deprived.
Yesterday was the first day I was allowed on my feet for short bursts, and the surprising lack of pain made me overly ambitious today. An hour ago, I’d decided that I was sick of wheeling around Libellule’s dark walls.
The club needs more liquor for the grand opening, and I need actual sunlight. The moody ambience was only playing into my dark thoughts, so I volunteered to place the order. Hale’s been swamped with party planning, the handymen for things we couldn’t do ourselves, plus an excess of deliveries. Rie Rie couldn’t be trusted to pick out popular alcoholic brands for anyone under fifty-five, and she’d undoubtedly put in the wrong pin for the company’s debit card Hale gave me this morning.
I sigh as Rie Rie’s sweet and clueless face comes zooming to the forefront of my brain as the cab Hale paid for whips around a curb. Stassi and Zedd’s birthday party will bring in nine hundred guests. The club’s full capacity. There’s no way Rie and I could work the floor alone even if my feet weren’t fucked and yet Hale still hasn’t hired new workers, as he’s penny-pinching to get the renovations done.
For a pampered rich boy, I’d expected him to have soft, delicate hands and two left feet, but he’d surprised me. I’d instructed him easily from my wheelchair, as he pushed the floor buffer around for hours before getting on all fours to patch the gouges with wood filler. Stassi dropped by with cappuccinos and croissants this morning to enjoy the show, and I’d left them finishing up the last section of wallpaper.
With the lights dimmed, our DIY upgrades were passable, but we’d left the leaking roof untouched. If Hale’s calculations, based on Stassi and Zedd’s party alone, were right, he could fix the roof by next month. In the meantime, we’re praying that no one performs rain dances. Now that I have a stake in the club, I need it to succeed, perhaps even more so than Hale does. He may not like his mother right now, but he has her. She’s his backup. And me?
Mothers.
Jaime….
I glance out the taxi window as it lurches to a stop in front of The Watering Hole. Jarett’s favourite place to get plastered is the last place I want to be, but it’s the closest liquor wholesaler. Besides, seeing its grimy murals of drunken safari animals is better than staring at the club’s walls. No matter how stunning it is, the new forest green dragonfly wallpaper is painfully embossed into my brain from how many times we had to fix a crooked piece.
I slip from the cab and swallow the bubbling dread in my stomach as I walk like a newborn deer to the front doors. Jarett’s long gone, I tell myself as the familiar scent of air-conditioned smoke and stale peanuts hits me. If I could accept that Jaime didn’t give a damn about me and neither did Gant, then I could face a simple liquor store.
Just twelve more steps, I prod myself along as I zone in on the bar, already desperate to take a seat. I damn near sprint toward it and let out a sigh the moment the pressure is off my feet again.
There’s a poster on the cork bulletin board. Unlike the others that have littered the board since I was a child, the colours are vibrant, alerting me to its newness. It’s a picture of a band that’s going to perform this weekend. I lean forward for a better look, hoping it’s no one popular enough to compete with Stassi and Zedd’s party. As I squint at the unfamiliar faces, relief washes over me when I realise our crowds won’t conflict. The band members can’t be under forty years old.
I skim the font. “That Night.”
Mum’s favourite band. No, not Mum’s. Jaime and Jarett’s favourite band. The two J's who I’d exorcised from my life.
Tearing my eyes away from the glossy poster, I focus on the burly bartender instead.
“?” he asks, when his broad back whips around so he’s facing me.
“Hi, Harod,” I say with a nervous chuckle.
“I knew it was you,” he says, his bushy grey brows lifting. “I saw you with some girls a few weeks ago.”
Aria had used her ID when we’d bought the alcohol for me to practice bartending with. That was before I knew Hale owned Libuelle. The minute I spotted Harod during our shopping spree, I hid behind my plastic curly wig.
I nod. “I need to place a big order. Can I get the catalogue?”
The Watering Hole was still stuck in the nineties, never bothering with a website.
Harod’s smile falters at me cutting the conversation short.
He’d never done anything to me, but he was there a half dozen times when Jarett had, in his bar, where a nine-year-old shouldn’t have been. And that was enough to make me despise him.
“Sure, sure,” he says, eyeing me curiously. “Long time no see, huh?”
“Hmm,” I mutter dismissively, taking the dog-eared catalogue he’d pushed across the counter.
He grabs Libuelle’s liquor licence in exchange but barely looks at it before handing it back. I doubt its absence would’ve stopped him from accepting my money.
“I thought Jarett found another spot and abandoned us,” Harod prods as I scribble down my choices on a notepad. “Then he just shows up again out of the blue.”
The pen tip comes scratching to a halt and I damn near break it from the pressure against the notepad.
Harod’s eyes are shining with mirth when I finally give him the time of day and look up.
“What?” I ask, my veins running cold.
Harod nods gleefully. “He came in for a drink the other day. It was good to see him.”
“N-no, he didn’t,” I blurt. He couldn’t have.
“Ordered his regular,” Harod says, grabbing a filthy rag to wipe the bar top. He’s no better than Rie Rie. “A bit quiet, but it was definitely him.”
I swallow, my intestines free-falling. “Was he alone?”
Harod pauses his wiping to look thoughtfully up at the rafters. “No. But the person he was with seemed too young to be a friend. More like a nephew helping him out. He was a bit loopy. I guess they hit another spot first.”
“A nephew? Someone my age?”
He nods.
A nephew. My cousin…
“Did he have blonde hair? Grey eyes?” It comes out in a rush that Harod finds amusing.
“I don’t be free-falling into men’s eyes to know, Ellie.”
Ellie. I fucking despise that nickname as much as I hated this place and everyone that came along with it. I bite my lip to stop myself from telling Harod as much.
“But he was blonde and pretty tall, yeah.”
My stomach clenches, and bile coats my tongue.
What the hell was Jarett doing back in town?
Do the Auclairs know? Does Gant know?
If Sylo knows Jarett, he must know that Jarett’s my father, right? Does that mean Sylo’s in on everything? Does he know that his father killed Madame and nearly killed Gant, too?
“You said he was out of it?”
Harod tilts his head. “He was finer than you seem. You look like you’re about to pass out. Want a drink? On the house. Your father’s spent enough.”
I shake my head and push the notepad with my list and credit card toward him. “No. Um, when will the order be ready?”
He scans my handwriting and taps away on the handheld credit card machine before shoving it beneath my nose for the PIN. “I think we have everything in-house already. If that’s the case, we’ll deliver it by Thursday.”
One day before the opening. That was cutting it a little close.
“It’s urgent. If there are any delays or shortages, please call me,” I say, ripping the receipt off the machine before scribbling down Libuelle’s number at the bottom of the list. “ASAP.”
He nods and I hobble out into the bright sunlight knowing damn well I should sit at the bar and stay off my feet until my ride’s here. It could be ten minutes or more, past the time I could stand. That aside, I didn’t put it past Gant to pop up on me. Sure, Hale had seemed to keep his word, but I’m not naive enough to think that our pact will last. I may have got rid of the phone Gant gifted me two years ago, but somehow, I’m sure he’ll use his paranormal powers to track me down and torture me again. He was a winged fiend after all, walking through walls. He probably has some freaky echolocation power in his ball sack. Still, I’d rather sit on the pavement than stay in the Watering Hole for a second longer.
Jarett’s back. After all this time?
Why? Why now?
My ass barely grazes the pavement before I hear that dreaded nickname again.
“Ellie?”
I look up, shielding my eyes from the sun to peer into the last face I want to see.
Or is that Gant’s?
“Jaime,” her name slips from my lips, and her pathetic smile, as if everything is fine, slips too.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, instead of the question I know she wants to ask, ‘Why are you calling me Jaime instead of Mum?’
Because I don’t have a mother. I never have, and I finally understand that I never will, I answer mentally.
“I don’t have to ask why you’re here,” I say, nodding at the bar. “Jarett isn’t in there.”
She knits her brows. “Why would he be? He’s been missing for years.”
So Harod hadn’t told her. Yet.
“I just came for—”
“A drink? Well, I didn’t assume you came here to see me,” I say, leaning left so that she can sidestep me and reach her destination. “Your new pastime awaits.”
“That’s not exactly fair. I wanted to see you, of course I did, but I couldn’t visit you in the hospital. You banned me from the visitors’ list. I tried.”
On day two. And I’d banned Gant too, and yet he made a way.
I cringe away as she slides onto the pavement to sit beside me.
“Look, I know I embarrassed you on your big night. I messed up. Royally. And I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am.” She tries to touch my arm, but I give her offending hand a scornful look, and she drops it into her lap.
If it weren’t for my bum feet, I’d already be two blocks away to get the fuck away from her.
“But after I learnt why you were in the hospital, don’t you think that’s a bigger topic for us to discuss first? Why on earth didn’t you tell me about Gant Auclair? That he was at your school?”
“What would you have done?” I ask boredly.
“Something!”
“How? You would’ve pulled me from Beaulieu and taken me where? And with what money? Or are you forgetting that you blew that ten grand and you’re homeless now? So what? Would we sleep together in your car with no heat? The car you’re going to lose, plus your life or your freedom from drink-driving because you can’t stop fucking drinking all because your bum ass husband left you?”
“—”
“ What? ” I hiss, finally glaring at her and meeting her mossy green eyes and the second I do, memories flood me.
I suddenly remember the way she ran to Sylo’s father and away from me in favour of who she thought was Jarett.
“You’re right and wrong,” she says, a tremble in her voice. “I have a flat. I got our old one back. The one we fled from because of the Auclairs.”
I snort. “The one with the fond memories of hiding beneath the Formica counter while Jarett tossed dishes at us? Were you being sentimental? Reminiscing and hoping the Auclairs would show up and take us out for good?”
She shakes her head slowly. “I ran into our old landlord after I dropped by the deli to ask if they’d take me back. Even if only part-time.”
Minutes tick by, and I hate myself when I ask. “Did they?”
She nods with a hopeful smile at my curiousness. “They did, full-time. And with my new salary, I can afford our rent because the home was abandoned this entire time. So long as we don’t demand any repairs from the landlord and we handle it all on our own, he rented it to me for practically nothing. An as-is sort of thing. It’ll probably take me a few weeks to clean it properly, but…”
“I take it you aren’t scared of the Auclairs any more then.” With Jarett back, maybe she should be.
“I’m tired of running,” she says, suddenly sounding exhausted. Living out of your car for weeks with only beer for fuel will do that to you. “I want to get back to normal. That’s what I’ve been trying to do while I couldn’t reach you.”
“Normal?” I snort. “Like when Jarett was around?”
“He isn’t around, .”
“What if he suddenly came back?”
“He won’t,” she says firmly. “He’s gone, and I’ve finally accepted that.”
No, you haven’t.
“Look, I know you don’t want to talk to me — ”
“So why are you talking to me now?” I snap, searching the street for a banana-yellow saloon. Where the hell is my ride-share?
“What do you mean, why? , I have no idea what’s going on with you. I was so worried and frantic when I couldn’t find you. When everyone on that blasted campus was whispering about all that blood . About the rigged pointe shoes.” She shakes her head as if she’s still in disbelief. “They told me you went to the hospital, but no one could say which one and when I couldn’t find you on any public ward, I lost it. Until I tracked you down to that fancy private hospital where I couldn’t get in. Where the security told me you didn’t want to see me.”
“I didn’t. I still don’t,” I say bluntly, watching a red saloon roll by.
She swallows. “But Gant Auclair can see you, take care of you? He took you there, right? To that expensive hospital. Why? After everything he’s done—”
I shake my head. “Why do you care? It’s not like you’re any better than he is.”
“Of course I care! Ballet is your dream. It’s always been—”
I wince, and she looks at my feet.
“Your feet…” A pained gasp shakes her shoulders. “What has that demon done to you?”
“Nothing worse than what you’ve done to me,” I say flatly. “Then what you let your beloved husband do to me.”
“—”
“Don’t touch me.” The nerve of her to look affronted as I shrug away from her grasp! “Don’t try to help me. All you ever do is make things worse.”
It’s her turn to flinch.
“All you do is make me have to step in and help you. Help us. I can’t help you any more! I’m trying to help myself finally.”
“.”
“You’ve taught me an invaluable lesson early on. No one cares about me. I’m trying to learn to care about myself. To take care of myself because what choice do I have? You? ”
Which is to say, none at all.
“I get it. You’re angry,” she says finally, her lip trembling as a sheen of tears I’d seen a million times before coats her green eyes. Is that all she deduced? That I was merely angry?
“I’m not going to push you. You are an adult now, and whenever you’re ready, you can come to me. You can always come home, and I’ll be waiting for you.”
There’s a jiggle between us then she’s sticking out a key and the sunlight bouncing against the chrome damn near blinds me.
I ignore it and her.
“And I’m not here for Jarett. Or a drink. I haven’t drunk since the night of the play.”
“Do you want a reward?” I snap.
“I came for tickets,” she says, suddenly hoarse. “My favourite band’s playing this weekend. They used to uplift me. I figured I could use a pick-me-up right about now. One that doesn’t involve a can.”
“Congratulations,” I sneer.
She’s still holding out that damn key and once she realises I’ll never take it, she slips it into my coat pocket. Then, she hurries into the Watering Hole for her preferred choices while leaving her daughter at the curb like rubbish.
What else is new?
She could’ve sat and waited with me even if I was being a bitch. Waited to see that I’d gone and that I’d gone safely. She could’ve mentally embraced me even if I wouldn’t let her physically. I didn’t want her to stay, but the fact that she didn’t, regardless of my words, just proves my point.
A chill curls around me despite my warm coat, and not for the first time since waking up in the hospital do I think about how much I miss those warm, seemingly safe embraces. The ones I never got many of before. Before I fell into Gant’s arms. Into his trap. His warm trap.
And it’s cold here.
So fucking cold and lonely.
And miserable.