Chapter Two
D o you feel it, too? Silver repeated the words Addison had spoken to him in the parking lot and shifted his weight, trying to get comfortable on her brother’s couch. Addison had climbed onto the guest bed wearing the linen dress and his sweatshirt and passed out. She hadn’t stirred when he lifted her to fold down the comforter and sheets and tuck her in. He took in her features as she slept. The tips of her blonde lashes touched the tops of her cheeks and golden freckles sprinkled the bridge of her nose. He’d had women in the past but had never shared a bed with one through the night. The space beside Addison, though, had looked incredibly appealing. Shaking his head, he’d turned off the light and forced himself out of the room, shutting the door behind him.
He had no doubt that his teammate Julian “Joker” Desmond would skin him alive for fantasizing about his sister but damned if he could help it. It was a miracle he hadn’t devoured her mouth in the parking lot with the lust brimming in her eyes. She was his teammate’s sister, though, and there were lines he couldn’t, wouldn’t, cross. Still, he didn’t deny feeling how the air stirred and crackled between them. What he didn’t tell her was that he’d never experienced that kind of instant, all-consuming attraction. The kind that made Addison dangerous. It wasn’t merely chemistry between them, but the urge to spill his deepest hurts and darkest secrets. The kind that would bring all that pain and anguish to the forefront of his mind.
For forty-one years, he’d kept the people in his life to a minimum. The loss he and his parents had endured was so profound, the mere thought of it tore deep, serrating through organs and bone. So, while his own sister had been torn from the fabric of their tight-knit family, he would sleep on Joker’s couch and guard his teammate’s sibling while she slept. He’d make her breakfast and take her back to the hospital to see her brother, all while doing his best to keep the shutters battened down on his agonizing memories. What he wouldn’t do was touch her. Wouldn’t untie her hair and fist the soft strands in his hands. Wouldn’t draw her lush bottom lip between his. He’d take her where she needed to go over the next few days while Joker and Sam were in the hospital, but he’d continue to steer clear of any attachment, no matter how hard she drew him. He closed his eyes. The past few days had been draining as they desperately searched for Sam. He pulled the throw blanket down over himself and tried to find sleep.
*
“Come on, Quinn! Stop messing around.” He grinned and shook his head. His sister was always cracking jokes and pulling pranks. She was supposed to be throwing him a pitch, helping him get ready for tomorrow’s tournament, and instead she was pretending to fall to the ground. It was a typical Quinn thing to do, but recently, she’d been so moody, it was nice to see some of her old playfulness. He’d never admit it to his friends at school, but Quinn was his best friend. Always had been. They were only a year apart.
They were playing the meadow behind their home, and she popped up from the tall grass. Something in her expression made him freeze. It wasn’t the shit-eating grin that had been on her face before she pretended to fall. She looked…confused. “Hey! You good?” His heart started to race at the blank look in her eyes. “Quinn?” He started running. Couldn’t shake the overwhelming sense of dread shrouding him. One minute she was staring at him with that vacant gaze and the next she was crumpling to the ground. He pumped his legs harder, but he didn’t seem to be moving forward. The grass and weeds sliced his hands as he gripped and tore through it to get to his sister.
Now that he was closer, he could see her body jerking and flopping. What was he seeing? What was happening to her? He dropped to his knees and grabbed her shoulder. She thrashed, smacking him involuntarily in the face. Her eyes rolled back in her head, so only the whites were showing. He choked, desperate for oxygen. Fear was smothering him.
“Quinn! Quinn! Quinn!”
“Archer!” Quinn was holding on to him, screaming in his face. Only…
He blinked once, then twice. He wasn’t in the field with Quinn. He was in Joker’s apartment. Addison was on top of him on the couch, hands gripping his shoulders like he was about to tumble to his death.
“Look at me, Archer,” she demanded. “Breathe in.” He did as she commanded because he couldn’t bring himself to do anything else. The pain was debilitating. Sharp. He opened his mouth and gasped. How long he’d been holding his breath he had no clue, but the oxygen burned through his lungs. His heart was racing, and after that initial inhalation, his breath was sawing in and out.
“Look at me,” Addison repeated, but now that the world was coming back into focus, he wanted to look anywhere but at her big green eyes and the concern that flickered over her gaze. Her hands left his biceps and framed his face. Her touch wasn’t gentle as she forced him to look her in the eyes. “That’s it,” she soothed. “Breathe in.” She breathed in through her nose. “Now out.” And exhaled through her mouth. For the next fifteen minutes, Addison kneeled over him, legs on either side of his waist, and forced him to breathe. Once it was regulated, she stood up in one graceful motion and pulled the throw blanket over him. She padded across the living room and opened the curtains, letting sunlight flood the room.
He looked away. For a long time after Quinn’s death, he couldn’t stand beautiful things. Sunlight, the quiet ripples of the Chesapeake Bay, anything lime green—her favorite color. It didn’t seem fair to enjoy a world she couldn’t see anymore. He’d never been particularly religious, but for the first time, he hoped like hell there wasn’t an afterlife, because witnessing the devastation of those she’d left behind would’ve killed Quinn twice. A blast of chilled air caressed his sweat-soaked skin. The clank of mugs sounded from the kitchen. The hiss of coffee sputtering out of the machine. Normal everyday things. It always baffled him how the world could go on when his had stopped.
Addison came back into the room and knelt at his side. He hadn’t moved. Not yet. The pain of the nightmare had fucking gutted him. She lifted the damp towel to his skin, running the cool terry cloth over his face. There was a prickle behind his lids, and he closed his eyes, but not in time to stop the tear from leaking from the outer crease. He blinked when he didn’t feel the cloth, but the soft press of lips kissing away the tear instead. Her mouth moved to his eyelids. His nose. His chin. There was nothing sexual about her actions. She was soaking up his pain. Soothing him without words. Addison might be nearly eleven years his junior, but she was an old soul. Her care reached him in a way no counselor or psychiatrist had been able to in the past.
He opened his eyes to find all the sharp edges and fractured pieces of his torment reflected in Addison’s gaze. He hadn’t asked her to shoulder a burden she knew nothing about, but she had. She had eased some of the acidic rage that poisoned part of his soul. Took some of the ache from his heart. She moved her fingers over his face, applying pressure at his temples and forehead. Slowly the headache he didn’t realize he had faded, and she stood up once again and left the room. When she returned, it was with coffee. He sat up and made space for her on the couch. It wasn’t like him to stay in one spot for over an hour, but he was still in a haze, torn between reality and the dreamlike trance Addison cast over him. Wordlessly, she handed him the black coffee, then sat in the center cushion with her legs folded beneath her. She closed her eyes and tilted her chin toward the sun, steam rising from the mug like a trail of incense.
The coffee jolted him more fully awake. His gut reaction was to apologize, but he had a feeling that would upset her. They’d just shared something incredibly intimate, and she’d given him part of herself to help him bear the pain of loss that still whipped through him like a hurricane.
“My sister’s name was Quinn.” The tremble in his voice couldn’t be helped. Even his teammates were unaware he’d once had a sister. He wasn’t trying to pretend she hadn’t existed. He held her close in his heart, but talking about her was too much. Not a day went by when he didn’t think of her. When he didn’t try to make her proud. Make his life worth something because she would’ve changed the world with her smile and intelligence, and somehow his beautiful, vibrant sister had been taken and not him.
“We were playing ball outside our house one day when she had a seizure. That’s not what killed her, though. Really, the symptoms of her disease started much earlier that year.” He paused for a minute to breathe past the lump in his throat. “We just didn’t know what to look for. Moodiness at first. She was clumsier than usual, but she laughed it off. For the first time in her life, she was having trouble in school. It wasn’t until the seizure, though, that she was diagnosed with juvenile Huntington’s disease. It’s been called the Devil’s disease, and it is. Watching Quinn lose herself, her independence, as her brain rapidly degenerated was hell on earth. Death was the only thing merciful about the disease.”
Addison was silent for a few moments, then cleared her throat. “What were some of her favorite things?”
He wasn’t sure what kind of reaction he was expecting, but it wasn’t that. He closed his eyes and sucked in a quick breath. It had been so long since he’d let himself remember. “Banana pancakes, roasting marshmallows over an open fire, cats. There was this big orange one that came around looking for food sometimes. My mom would always wonder why we went through turkey for sandwiches so fast. The thing was huge. She loved that fucking cat. One day she let it in the house, and it never left.” He could still picture the way she lugged it around, one hand beneath its front legs and the other on its backside, its gut protruding as it was cuddled like a baby. It took him a second to realize he was smiling. “Thank you,” he said, dumbfounded.
“You don’t need to thank me for anything,” she said over the rim of her coffee mug.
“You gave me a happy memory. One that I could smile about.” His eyes burned and he could barely see because of the moisture filling up the corners, but he could spot the way Addison’s eyes glazed with tears of her own.
“They’re all there inside you. All the beautiful things you shared. Take them out one at a time, Archer. They’ll help you heal.” Addison stood up. “I’m going to make us breakfast.”
He took a lightning-fast shower, and when he stepped out, the scent of banana pancakes drew him to the kitchen. There was a thickness in his throat as he took the first bite. Addison gripped his hand across the table. She was right. All the memories were right there. Ones he’d forced himself to push away for self-preservation. Maybe if he unpacked them slowly, one beautiful memory at a time, he could have part of Quinn back with him.