Chapter 4
Elinor
Ifeel twitchy. I mean, I always feel twitchy. I’m a bird. Hyper-alertness is in my DNA. But today I feel extra twitchy. More like agitated and uneasy.
“Watch out for smooth-talking strangers,” Meredith told me as she left to take Carolyn to yet another doctor’s appointment.
That was right after she gave me a massive hug and thanked me for everything I’m doing.
She doesn’t need to thank me. She’s basically my mom, and I owe her my whole life.
And Carolyn is kind of like my auntie, and I’m real worried about her.
Whenever I tell myself I’m too tired to go do promo after my shifts at Sinner’s, I remember that we’ve got to do everything we can to help her get better.
One good thing that’s happened is I have a new roommate.
Tiana is a sweet girl, and turns out she used to be a short-order chef.
So, she’s working in the kitchen now, which is great.
Before she started, we had to shut the kitchen down some days because it was impossible for me to cook the food and run the bar by myself.
So, it’s actually pretty quiet in here for once. I try to keep busy, polishing all the glasses and the silverware, but my birdy-senses are tingling and my attention keeps flitting around the room.
Of course, my bird hasn’t been able to settle since three nights ago, when Blake Waldgrave crashed back into my life. All those memories I thought I’d stuffed in a deep, dark place burst out again, and my mind has not been a peaceful place. At all.
I wasn’t always a target for bullies at high school. Yeah, I had scraggy braids and thick glasses, and I might’ve walked out of the school bathroom with my skirt tucked into my pantyhose one time. But mostly, I was just a quiet kid who grew up in foster care.
I got rejected by my birth family. I was thrown out of the family nest—literally.
Someone found me in a cardboard box on the sidewalk and took me to a fire station.
One of my foster parents’ real kids told me this one day, full of glee.
You were so ugly, no one wanted you. All scrawny, with those big, weird bird eyes.
She found the social worker’s report in my foster parents’ files and showed it to me. It was all true.
The cardboard box contained a note saying, Not one of ours. Darn cuckoo must’ve laid an egg in our nest.
I was lucky someone handed me over to the authorities, and I didn’t just get thrown in the trash.
None of the foster families wanted to keep me.
I was too weird looking. Too introverted.
I kept running away and trying to get back to the family that didn’t want me.
I don’t remember this part so well, but apparently I kept getting obsessed with people I thought were my family, and trying to break into their houses.
Eventually, I got sent to a group home and I spent the last six years of my childhood there. It wasn’t so bad. People pretty much ignored me. And at high school, it was the same. I was just a weird loser. Then as I got older, I realized I was smart. I was good at math and English.
And that turned out to be my downfall.
After that, things got real bad. Bags of shit dumped in my locker. Porn pictures stuffed in my schoolbag. Kids spitting on my lunch tray. High school was like one giant booby trap. Everywhere I went, there were feet stuck out to trip me; braying laughter in my wake—
Creak—
The bar’s front door opens. Darn hinges need oiling.
I turn around to greet our latest customer—
And freeze.
It’s him:
Standing in the doorway. Sexy as hell in a fresh white T-shirt that shows off his massive shoulders and chest. His glowing, pale eyes lock onto mine, and all I can do is stare.
My brain has turned to mush. Guess it’s still processing the fact that the guy I’ve been fretting about all morning in now right here in front of him.
He looks so good, I want to punch him.
A half-smile tugs at one corner of his ridiculously lush lips, and he strolls up to the counter.
I back up a bunch of steps and scowl at him.
“What are you doing here?” I demand, trying to ignore the tremors that have taken hold of me. My body is lighting up in his presence. I know it means something, and I don’t appreciate it one bit.
“Looking for you,” he says simply, and his gaze traces across my features. Somehow it feels like a caress, and I can’t stand it. I’m disgusted with myself.
“I thought I told you to leave me alone!” I spit out.
He narrows his eyes. Which makes him look even sexier. “I believe your exact words were, leave me alone, Blake Waldgrave.”
A dart of alarm goes through me. I’d forgotten that part.
My crow ruffles her feathers, tries to look intimidating. “That’s your name.”
“But how did you know that?”
I work my jaw back and forth. He has absolutely no idea who I am. And that just makes me as mad as hell.
I wasn’t planning to tell him, but the words tumble out:
“We were at high school together.”
He stiffens, his pupils constricting. I watch his face, waiting for that spark of recognition to appear, followed by the inevitable disgust.
But his face remains blank. His confusion is almost cute.
Almost.
He tilts his head, kind of playfully. “Are you sure—?”
“How did you find me here?”
A ghost of a grin chases across those lush lips of his. “I asked around pretty much all the towns between here and Arndale. This was the only one where people told me to fuck off. Figured I had to be on the right track.”
I stare at him in confusion. He seems so cool. Self-deprecating. Nothing like that arrogant asshole I remember from high school.
His smile gets broader.
That winning smile that gave all the girls wet panties. Well, not me.
“I came to tell you, I mean good different. And I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“You don’t remember me at all, do you?” I come up to the bar. “Which is kind of funny, because I still think about you and your friends real often.”
I brace my hands on the bartop. My heart is beating so hard it’s making me dizzy.
“Let’s rewind to…oh, seven years ago.” I give a mock dreamy sigh.
“I and all my nerdy friends were busting our asses at high school. Finishing our assignments on time. Trying to get good grades. Meanwhile, a bunch of jocks were fucking around, playing sports, failing at school. Losing out on college scholarships.
“And one day, one of these jocks came up with an amazing idea: why not get the smart kids to do our work for us? So they hired a bunch of us to do their homework for them. To write their papers, take tests. I use the term hired loosely, because the poor kids didn’t get any choice in the matter.
They got bullied, threatened. Forced to work long hours.
Some of them were only sleeping three hours a night.
“I could take it. I’m a tough bird. But some of my friends weren’t. They were getting real run down. Their grades started to slip, because they didn’t get enough time to do their own work. And I hated to see my friends like that. So, I bust the whole essay-writing ring wide open—”
Blake is staring at me so hard, the hairs on the back of my neck are prickling, but I’m not going to quit now.
“I had a confidential conversation with the principal, explaining what was going on. And it worked. The nerdy kids got their lives and college dreams back. But someone found out that I was the whistleblower, and my life turned to shit.”
His massive chest swells, and I see his animal surfacing. This might be the final moment of my life, before he tears me apart. Every nerve in my body tells me to run, but I stay stock still, fix my glare on his light irises.
“You were that skinny little chick with long braids,” he says at last. “You always used to wear those plaid skirts.”
I nod slowly. “Yup.”
“That was you,” he breathes, and he scans me over and over, as if he’s trying to square the two versions of me.
I squirm under his scrutiny, and I hold my breath because, despite everything, a stupid part of me can’t stand to see disgust flickering across his face.
“I’ll be damned,” he mutters, half to himself. “The girl who felled the whole football team.”
“Elinor?” Tiana, the chef, calls from the kitchen. “Can you help?”
“What is it?” I go to see what she needs.
When I return, the front door is swinging wide open, and he’s gone.
Now he remembers me, he can’t stand the sight of me.
“Good riddance,” I mutter. But when I grab a glass from the dishwasher, it slips out of my hand and shatters on the ground.