36. Comfort And Hugs
COMFORT AND HUGS
“Am I interrupting you?” Brenna asked the next morning.
Maybe she jumped out of her skin when the buzzer went off five minutes ago.
She’d been in her apartment alone for two hours.
Ash had spent the night, he’d held her in his arms and she let him.
That alone said how messed up she was in the head.
That she was craving that kind of contact all night.
The protection she never felt she’d gotten and so desperately wanted.
“I’m just working,” she said. “I could use the distraction.”
Because her job was on the boring side.
Maybe that was part of her problem.
She loved to write. Loved to read. She wanted to put her own story on the pages in front of her and just stalled.
Now, there was so much in her mind to get out, but it was being overrun by the real threat she was living.
Talk about frustrating. Maybe her mother was right—it just took time.
So she was doing what Rory suggested. She was free-writing scenes that maybe made no sense.
Ideas and characters she’d love to have.
She didn’t want to lose a piece of the inspiration, even if she hadn’t officially started her book.
She was putting out the words of what she was actually living.
What she was going through. What she was feeling.
And damn it all, it was almost like therapy she should have done years ago.
“I wanted to be there last night,” Brenna said.
“There was no reason everyone had to show up so they could see me cry.”
Brenna moved to the kitchen and made herself a cup of coffee. “I don’t know that I’ve seen you cry more than a handful of times. And even then, it was catching you trying to hide it.”
“It’s a sign of weakness.”
There she was again, letting Jenny Murphy screw with her head and mess with her thoughts.
“No, it isn’t,” Brenna said. “Don’t let anyone tell you that. There is nothing like a good cry to cleanse you.”
“You never cry at anything other than movies.”
“That’s right. So when I’m feeling particularly stressed or edgy, I watch one I know is going to make me bawl for at least thirty minutes.
You know,” Brenna said, turning to face her after she added creamer to her cup.
“The kind where your sinuses swell up so much that you can’t breathe through your nose and you talk like you’ve got rags in your throat. ”
She laughed. “I don’t need to watch a movie for that. It happened last night.”
Embarrassingly in front of Ash.
But he’d held her so tenderly that, in the end, there was nothing to even be embarrassed about.
Getting in her own head again.
Brenna set her mug down and moved closer to hug her. She put her hand up to stop the motion.
“Nope,” Brenna argued. “Not letting you have your way. I need a hug. Just a quick one. I promise.”
She stood still while Brenna wrapped her up in comfort.
Was she itching to return it?
Hell yeah.
But it’d just worry her sister if she did, so standing like a statue was her wall. Her defense.
The thing she always did and that would cause her sister to laugh.
Just like what happened.
“Do you feel better?” she asked when Brenna stepped back.
“Yep, I do. How about you?”
“I got lots of comfort and hugs last night.”
“From Ash?” Brenna asked, her voice gone all soft and squishy. Like two teens discussing their latest crushes.
“Yes,” she said sarcastically.
“Don’t be that way. Mom said you love Ash.”
Her nose wrinkled. “She shouldn’t have said that.”
“Come on, Skye. We’ve all seen it for weeks. I think the boys just needed to put up a token fight. No one really has a problem with it.”
“I didn’t think they did.”
Brenna pointed her finger. “You absolutely thought Corbin would. You even asked me not to say anything.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s different.”
“No, it’s not. We are no blood relation to the boys. I know that. I know you do too.”
“It doesn’t feel it in times like this,” she said, her voice dropping along with her head as she mumbled the words.
“And remember that,” Brenna said. “For years, I’ve always thought maybe I wasn’t loved as much because I wasn’t theirs, but I realized in time that isn’t the case. They don’t treat me any differently than they do Tate and Corbin.”
Skye saw that too. She also knew all of them struggled even if they didn’t speak the words. “Do you think Corbin and Tate felt like they lost some of their parents’ attention because we came into the house?”
Brenna shrugged. “No clue. Do you want to ask them?”
“No. But maybe they resent us.”
“Now you’re being crazy. There is no resentment there. None I’ve ever seen.”
“But Holden works for the business like Corbin. Like maybe Corbin thought it’d all go to him. Or him and Tate and now Holden is there full time. Even Keegan, though we know Keegan really wants to be a full-time sheriff.”
“I don’t waste my time trying to figure out what is in other people’s minds and you shouldn’t either. I’d think you’d have enough on your plate.”
She sighed and sat on the couch, her sister following. “I do. And I’m not sure I want to talk about it because I don’t want to cry again. I feel like such a wuss. In the beginning I was like this is awesome. I’m doing my part, I’m reporting the news. I’m going to catch a bad guy.”
“You’re doing all of that.”
“But it changed. It’s not what I thought. Like I told Mom. I should have just walked away.”
“Don’t do that to yourself. You can’t change the past. None of us can and we shouldn’t even try. Embrace your present and your future.”
“I’m trying. I really am. Do you think I’m that hard to be around?”
“Are you asking as your sister? Or as a friend to know if like Ash might get sick of you?”
She picked the pillow up to chuck at her sister’s smirk, but when Brenna held the coffee cup in front of her, she put it back down.
“Got you to react. Just like you used to,” Brenna said, laughing. “You’re not hard to be around. Or I never thought so. But our lives, we have things in common that so few can say.”
“Good for them,” she said.
“I know. I feel it too. Let’s talk about Ash.”
“What about him?”
“You’re in love. We know it. Things are good?”
“When he’s not mad at me, they are,” she said, the snort almost coming off like a cough.
“I want to say he shouldn’t be mad at you about what is going on. It’s not like you can control it.”
“I want to though. Maybe that is the problem.”
“We all want to control more than we should because I think so much of our lives were out of our control.”
She nodded. “I think so too. And it’s really hard to let go of something.”
“But you’re trying,” Brenna said. “I can see it. I hope Ash can too.”
“He can. He does. Maybe when this is over, things can settle into something normal.”
Brenna waved her hand. “Who wants normal?”
“Right now, I’d take it in a heartbeat.”
And hours later, when her phone rang, interrupting her work again, she reached over to see it was from Kyle.
She was dreading this call.
All she knew was that Detective Brown was going to reach out to him last night and she’d heard nothing else.
Did they talk yet?
How was she supposed to play this if they hadn’t?
“You can do this,” she said to herself. “You’ve talked to him more than a handful of times. Just act like it’s another day.” She picked her phone up, slid her finger across the bar and said, “Hi, Kyle.”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Kyle shouted.
Her heart was hammering in her chest. “What do you mean?” she asked. It was best to just play this off as if she didn’t know what was going on.
“I just spent over an hour with the lead detective on the arson case. Somehow, they think I’ve got something to do with it.”
“Like what?” she asked. She wasn’t so good at playing dumb.
“Don’t give me that shit, Skye. You wrote that last article. You pushed buttons. You came to me with that story. Not the other way around and I made sure Detective Brown was aware of it.”
She gulped. Were they going to think it was her again?
Was she going to be questioned as the arsonist?
No, if that was the case, she would have been contacted already. Wouldn’t she have?
“What happened? What did he ask you?”
“I got a line of shit that they have to look at anyone benefiting from what was going on. The stories you’re writing. There is no way they would come after me unless someone told them my reactions to what was going on. That I was thrilled with the stories.”
She closed her eyes. “They said that?”
“They insinuated it,” Kyle snarled. “Like they were trying to get a reaction out of me. As if I haven’t been around the block enough and know how they work.”
“I’m sure you told them it was ridiculous.”
“Of course I did,” Kyle snapped. “I get that way with all the stories that get traction. But then they had to point out my past. My history. There was no reason for anyone to go down that road. Again, that has to only come from you.”
“I haven’t looked into you,” she argued. It was the truth. She just wasn’t volunteering who had done it.
“I don’t give a fuck,” Kyle hissed. “I gave them everything they asked for. I showed them where I was when these emails came in. Thankfully, most times I was home or working and had proof. No way I could send emails from locations where I wasn’t anywhere near.”
She blew a breath out. More pissed at herself for even bringing his name up. “Then there isn’t a problem.”
“Oh, there is a problem. One for you. If you think you’re going to get any more work in this town after this stunt, you’re nuts. I don’t even know if it’s not you trying to make a name for yourself. You’ve got that fireman boyfriend. Maybe he’s been giving you ideas.”
Her hand was shaking, the phone barely touching her face, her fear of dropping it was great enough that she put it on the desk and hit the speaker button.
“You’re grasping because you’re pissed at me. I didn’t do anything. I’m the victim here. Not you.”
“You keep telling yourself that. I agreed to continue to cooperate with the police, but after this, you’re done. Don’t come to me for anything. You’ll be lucky if you can get anything printed in this area once I spread the word.”
She thought of Gale and before she could stop herself, said, “That’s defamation. Do you want to go down that road?”
“Don’t push my hand, Skye,” Kyle said. “You’ll regret it.”
He disconnected the call after that.
All that shit that Clay found on Kyle had to be true. She just saw a completely different man than the one she’d been dealing with.
She pushed back from her desk, walked to the kitchen to get a glass of water, took a long drink that did little to cool her tight, scorched throat.
Then she picked her phone up and called Ash. She wasn’t going to keep this from him.
She didn’t want to keep anything from him again.
But he wasn’t going to be any happier than her.
Seemed like they were back to square one.