Chapter 2 Jessiah #2
I made for a door next to the bathroom, pulling clean clothes from one of the shelves, ignoring as usual the fact that most of the space was full of cardboard boxes.
It was more of a storeroom than the walk-in closet it was supposed to be, and I shut the door swiftly behind me.
I should have gone through Adam’s things a long time ago, but I’d been putting it off for a while.
Two years and eight months, to be exact, which was when I’d moved in to Adam’s apartment.
My brother had once joked that I could have his place if he ever kicked the bucket, so there would always be somewhere I could call home in New York City.
When he died, I wanted to honor his wish.
Despite what he’d said, though, living here had felt totally wrong at first, in the home that Adam had bought and fixed up the way he’d wanted.
I thought it would kill me to be confronted by his death every day—not to mention the guilt.
And it almost did. There had been times when I could hardly breathe, I was choking so hard on my own grief.
I would go running, staying out for hours, afraid to come back to the apartment.
But eventually I noticed that, in a way, it brought me closer to Adam.
To live where he had lived, eat where he had eaten, sleep where he had slept.
It forged a connection where there wasn’t one, could never be one again. And when it hurt, I didn’t complain.
I let out a breath, steering my thoughts away from my brother before pulling on a black hoodie, grabbing a pair of dark jeans from yesterday that were still draped over the back of the sofa, and throwing the stuff from my surfing trip into the laundry basket.
My stomach growled indignantly—my last meal had been yesterday evening.
I should really eat some breakfast before I had to get to SoHo for my appointment.
I grabbed some tomatoes, took eggs and spring onions from the fridge, and selected one of the more chill playlists on my cell phone, letting it play through the sound system in the living room as I cracked the eggs, whisking them in a stainless steel bowl and seasoning with salt and pepper.
I was about to start slicing the onions into fine rings when my phone rang.
I wiped my hands and answered the call, putting it on speaker.
“Morning, Thaz,” I greeted my friend with a grin. If I knew him, he’d have rolled out of bed no longer than ten minutes ago. And not his own bed, either. “Up already?”
“Only just,” Balthazar declared on the other end with a hefty yawn. “It was a long night. Let me guess, you’ve been at the beach already.”
“Damn right.”
“You know it’s winter, right? Not exactly ideal surfing conditions this time of year, if you ask me.”
I sliced the tomatoes in two and began to dice them finely. “No shit?” I said sarcastically. “And there was me thinking I wear the wetsuit just because it looks good. Not because the ocean is forty degrees or anything.”
Thaz laughed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pour salt in the wound.”
“You didn’t.” I tipped the eggs into the pan with a pep. “What’s up, man? I know you’re not calling on a Sunday morning because you miss me.”
“Well, that too, for sure—but also, I have an invite to a party tonight,” he said. “And I thought maybe you’d want to come. It’s opening night at a club downtown. I worked on the campaign. Could be good.”
I turned down the heat on the stove, keeping an eye on the omelette. “A club? Which one?” One of those high-society places, no doubt, where people went just to be seen in their ridiculously expensive wardrobes.
You’re high society, too, a voice in my head reminded me.
Yes, but not willingly, I replied defiantly. And I tried my best to get out of it.
“It’s called Down Below, on Church.”
“On Church? You mean that old steak restaurant?” That place had been closed for years and hadn’t found any new tenants. Which didn’t surprise me, since it wasn’t the best location. I wouldn’t have advised anyone to open a venue there.
“Yeah, I know—it’s bold.”
“More like a suicide mission,” I observed dryly.
“That’s why you should come.” I heard the grin in his voice.
I realized what he was getting at and rolled my eyes good-humoredly. “Okay, so this isn’t a friend date—it’s work?”
“It’s work and play,” my buddy pointed out.
“It’s a great concept, Jess. Authentic, elegant, but not too fancy.
And the two guys running the place are solid.
I wouldn’t ask otherwise.” It wouldn’t be the first time he’d steered me to some location or other, having first seeded the rumor that I was planning to be there.
It was a marketing tool. Everyone knew that if I turned up to the opening night of a restaurant, bar, or club, it meant the place must be promising.
This was part of my inheritance as Christopher Coldwell’s son, and the result of the last two years of hard work.
I let out a sigh and took the pan off the stove. “What’s in it for me?”
“Drinks on the house and my eternal gratitude.”
“I already have that.”
“You can never have enough of my eternal gratitude.”
He’d already won me over—but there was my other commitment to think of, too. “I do have to go to an award ceremony with my mother tonight,” I said, flipping the omelette in the pan with a practiced hand. “Until around ten, I guess. I could come after that.”
Thaz made a disapproving noise. “Come on, how long do you have to be Trish’s chaperone? What does it say in your contract? I know she made you sign one.”
I turned off the stove. “It’s not that bad.”
“It is. You hate those events like the plague—as well as everyone who goes to them, and all the pomp. You used to do anything to get out of them, and if you couldn’t, nine out of ten times you’d cause some kind of scandal.”
Oh, I remembered. Very well. But I wasn’t sixteen years old anymore, I was twenty-three, and these days I wasn’t so hell-bent on rebellion.
“Times have changed, Thaz. You know why I’m doing it.”
“I know. But you can’t be your mother’s date until the end of time just because you’re worried about who she’ll force to go in your place.” He sounded very serious all of a sudden.
“I’m aware,” was all I said.
“So tell Trish she’ll have to go to her boring functions by herself from now on. Those millionaire snobs don’t appreciate your charm. I do.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that, but I didn’t want to get into it. “I’ll try to get away as soon as I can, okay?”
“Okay. See you tonight.”
“See you later, buddy.” I ended the call, getting a plate from the rack for my omelette and sitting down with it at the counter. My phone was now playing “Everything That Isn’t Me” by Lukas Graham.
How fitting.
As I ate, I drew a pile of mail toward me that had lain untouched on the far side of the counter.
I started sifting out the bills and marketing flyers, but when I saw the last envelope, I stopped dead.
It wasn’t the letter itself that stopped me in my tracks—it looked like a wine promo—but the name on the envelope. Adam Coldwell.
The letter was addressed to my brother.
I let out a breath, my heart beating painfully against my ribs.
It wasn’t even that unusual for me to get Adam’s mail.
It had happened all the time after I moved in.
Every month I’d sat down and gone through it all, writing letters and emails to the senders—mostly marketing agencies—to let them know my brother was no longer alive.
It had been a kind of ritual, a recurring torture from which I’d hoped in vain for respite.
But for the last few months there had been nothing in my mailbox for Adam, and I’d thought it was over. How stupid of me.
As if it would ever be over.
I scrunched up the flyer and tossed it, with all my strength, as far away from me as I could.
But that shitty piece of paper snagged on the edge of the couch and dropped onto the cushion, bright white against the dark green, eyeing me accusingly—or so it felt.
So I got up and fetched it, to put it in the trash.
But when I sat down to eat again, my omelette suddenly tasted like cardboard, and my thoughts were darker than ever.
After my father died when I was fourteen, I’d thought I’d been through the darkest period of my life.
Far from it. Adam’s death had knocked me off my feet far worse than anything else ever had.
Maybe because he was the second important person in my life who had gone before their time.
Perhaps, as well, because I hadn’t been around to stop him making a fatal mistake.
The mistake of falling in love—with a woman who led him first into her world…
and then dragged him over the edge to his death.
Valerie Weston.