Chapter 6 Anna
SIX
ANNA
“I’m going out,” I call across the house, swinging my coat on with fast, shaking hands, and charging toward my front door while Dean cleans our breakfast dishes, stacks the dishwasher, and hums.
He won’t stop humming Christmas songs!
“I’ll be back in a while.” I grab the doorknob and yank it wide, only to shiver as an icy blast of wind races through my bones. “Don’t rob me or anything while I’m gone.”
“Wait!” He darts out of the kitchen and skids into my living room. His chest is still bare. His face is still bruised. His entire freakin’ body is a cornucopia of red and purple and what I’m pretty sure is the shape of my headlight stamped into his ribs.
He looks me up and down, his gaze an infuriating slow sweep that touches my legs. My hips. My belly. And worse, my eyes. “Maybe I could come with you?”
“I thought you were in hiding?” I dig through my pockets and find my scarf from the last time I wore it. Tugging the soft material out, I wrap it around my neck. If I keep wrapping and give it a little tug, this whole nightmare might end. “The point of hiding is to not be seen, no?”
“I never said I was hiding.” His lips quirk into a playful, lopsided grin.
“You assumed. And call me crazy, but I kinda wanna hang out with you. You’re prickly and mean and not very tolerant.
Which is the weirdest thing, cos I like my women prickly and mean and not very tolerant.
” He takes a single step forward, smirking arrogantly.
“What can I say? I’m a competitive man by nature. ”
You’re a wanted felon—probably—and I’m losing my mind.
“I’ll be back later. We can hang out and bask in our intolerance then.” I turn through the front door, smiling a smile that invites a man to fuck off, then I yank the door shut and face the rest of the world.
Will SWAT raid my home soon? Should I leave the place unlocked?
Doing so might save me a few dollars in hinge repairs once this is all done.
Gulping the gelatinous, icky lump of ew before it solidifies in my throat and chokes me to death, I skip down my porch stairs and head right.
I don’t even bother walking to the road before heading Mel’s way, I simply cut through my yard, then the neighbors’ yards.
I stride among mangers and wise men. Strung lights, and baby dolls. I ignore the horrors of Christmas decorations in the day—way worse when inflatables lie lifeless on the lawn—and jogging across the icy, crunchy path, I dash onto Mel’s front porch and slam the side of my fist to her door.
I bang once. Twice. I try for a third, but the door swings wide and Mel’s baby blue eyes, round like saucers, latch onto mine.
“Finally!” She grabs my jacket and yanks me inside, locking up behind us and immediately going to work taking my scarf off. “What the eff, Anna!” She pushes me against the wall. Very bridezilla of her. “What the eff!?”
“Okay…” I choke out a nervous, rasping laugh. “So, remember how you said you could tell something was up, but I was being vague and non-informative about it all?”
“You have a man in your home who claims to be your brother but isn’t?
” She grabs my arm and tows me along the hall, through the living room and into the kitchen.
Ignoring Nick, who waits by the back door, equal parts amused and wary, Mel releases me and stomps around her peninsula counter.
“Okay.” She nods. Shakes her head. Nods again.
She looks a bit like a pro wrestler readying for a bout, hyping herself up and feeding off the crowd’s energy.
Finally, she stops, gulps, and nods again. “Okay. I’m ready.”
Cautiously, I drag out a stool and perch on the edge. “You sure?”
“Yeah. Go. Who the hell is Dean, because he sure as shit isn’t your brother.”
“Well—”
“And since we’re on the topic, he doesn’t look at you like you’re his sister! He eats you up with his eyes, Annaliese, and does the smirky smirk like he knows he’s cute and goofy.”
“You think he’s cute and goofy?”
“No! He thinks he’s cute and goofy.” She plops her elbows onto the counter and stares hard. “He’s about our age, and your mom and daddy were the most loved-up couple I ever met in my whole life. For him to be your brother means one of your parents was diddling on the side.”
“Diddling?”
“Stop repeating my words back at me! He’s not your brother, so who the hell is he and why is he all busted up like he is?”
“I hit him with my car.”
Nick barks out a spit-flying, chest-heaving, ear-splitting laugh and claps his hand over his mouth. His eyes water and his shoulders shake. “I’m sorry,” he giggles. He giggles! “Go on. Pretend I’m not here.”
“You… what?” Mel roars. “Like… on purpose?”
“No, not on purpose!”
“And then you brought him home?! Are you insane?”
“It happened right after I finished talking to you last night. My phone battery was dying, so I was looking for my charger cable. I took my eyes off the road for like, two seconds, but when I looked up again—”
“BAM!” Nick howls. “Mowed that motherfucker down.”
“Do. You. Mind?” I scald the man with my fiery glare. “I’m trying to have a private conversation with my best friend, Mr. Ramos.”
“Go ahead.” Heaving, he swipes his eyes. “Continue. I’m not here.”
“Anna!” Mel lunges across the counter and grips my jaw, yanking my face back around. “You hit that poor man? And… what? Decided to bring him home like he was a stray puppy? That’s not how society works!”
“I panicked,” I groan. “I swear, I thought I killed him, Mel! I didn’t just hit him. I drove through him. Flipped him straight over the top of my car and everything.”
Nick loses it, sobbing and giggling, bracing a hand on the wall and pinching his nostrils and lips closed with the other. “I’m sorry.” He’s red in the face, bouncing all over. “I’m just…” He rolls his wrist. “I can see it. Just flying…” He wheezes. “I can’t wait to tell Elena about this.”
“You can’t tell Elena! You can’t tell anybody.” I swing my gaze back to Mel. “You shut him down, Melanie! I’m already in so much freakin’ trouble. More witnesses means more time behind bars.”
“He won’t say anything. But make it make sense, Anna! You were driving recklessly? Your dad would be turning in his grave.”
I knock her hand away and snarl. “Don’t talk about him. Or his grave. Not this week, Melanie.”
“But I—”
“That wasn’t cool. I already have enough shit to deal with, so dissociation is how I handle the rest. I hit Dean with my car, thought I killed him, didn’t, and when I planned to call an ambulance, he told me not to.”
“He was just hit by a car!” she explodes. “He doesn’t get to decide if an ambulance comes or not.”
I shove up from my stool, too anxious to sit, and pace her kitchen. “It happened, he refused medical care, so I brought him home. Then I wrapped his shoulder and prayed like hell he’d live through the night.”
“Oh my God.” Groaning, Mel jams the heels of her palms against her eyes. “What a freakin’ mess. Why’s he lying about the brother thing? He could’ve said he was visiting you.”
“Carter turned up last night.” I push my fingers through my hair.
“I panicked, because of the whole dying stranger on my couch thing. He wanted to talk to me about the wedding and date-y stuff, and he was clearly side-eyeing my new guest. When he asked who Dean was, I stupidly blurted out that he was my brother.”
“Smart.” Nick swipes moisture from his eyes, turning and leaning against the wall. “Did you leave your intelligence back in law school, or…?”
“Shut the hell up! It gets worse.”
“Worse than running a man down and not reporting it?” Mel questions. “How could it possibly get worse, unless…” She gasps, covering her mouth with her hand. “Oh my gosh. Did he die?” She looks toward the front of her house. “Was it internal bleeding? This is why we get medical help, Anna!”
“He didn’t die! Jesus.” I stalk around the counter and stop in front of my best friend. We’re the same height, almost the same build, so when I step into her line of sight, I capture her focus and take her hand in mine. “You know those heists we’ve seen on the news?”
Her face drains deathly white. “Stop it.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s one of those guys,” I groan. “He says he was out exercising last night, but he was wearing jeans and may or may not have been in possession of a ski mask.”
“May or may not?” she explodes. “What do you mean may or may not?”
“I mean, the law is kinda strict on this stuff, and plausible deniability matters.” I draw a shaky breath. “I think he’s hiding out, which is why he didn’t want to go to the hospital. I think he was running from a crime scene, which is why he was on the road. And now he’s just…”
“In your house! Slept in your living room, just a single, unlockable door away from my best friend! What if he killed you, Anna? What if he chopped you up and stuffed you in the walls?”
“Oh, geez.” I drag my palm over my face and ride a magic carpet into the depths of insanity for a single beat of my heart. “Pretty sure we’ve had this conversation before, except it was you destined for the walls, and it was me screaming about making better choices.”
“Anna!”
“I don’t feel threatened by him.” I sigh. “I should. He’s muscular, and claims to be a professional fighter, which means I really should worry he’ll pummel me to death. But he just…” I let my words trail off, shaking my head.
“He just what?” She cups my face. “What?”
“He seems a little nutty, I guess. And obnoxious. Physically, I know he could hurt me, just as easily as Nick could hurt you. But I don’t think he would.
He may be running from his own thing, which means hurting the lady whose home he’s staying in just isn’t on his mind.
He’s looking for a few days under the radar—”
“And you’re willing to give him those days?” she moans. “Just like that?”
“I…” I pause. Consider. “I dunno. I suppose I can afford to host the weird, goofy guy, since filing a police report about the accident will get me in trouble. This week already sucks, and adding charges to my rap sheet sure as hell won’t help.
If I’m careful and don’t ask questions about the heist thing, I can tell a judge I had no clue I was harboring a criminal. ”
“Oh my God.” Mel grabs her own face, digging her fingers in just enough to create white spots on her skin. She breathes—one, two, three in—and exhales—one, two, three, out. Lowering her hands, she broadens her shoulders and blinks, blinks, blinks. “I always knew you’d crack someday.”
“What?”
“It’s Christmas week.” She spins to her fridge and whips the door open, perusing its contents and straightening out again with a plated slice of cheesecake in her hand.
“Christmas has been your downfall for too long, and now…” She rips the plastic wrapping off the cake and tosses the trash onto the counter.
“Now, the beginning of the end has begun. I knew piling a dumb wedding on top of an already crappy week would be too much.” She fists the slice in her palm and bites a chunk off the end.
“My intentions were pure, but the consequences were, obviously—” She takes another bite. “—catastrophic. It’s all my fault.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It’s completely my fault! Last year, you didn’t put up a tree.
The year before, no decorations. The year before that, you went on vacation in the southern hemisphere just so you could avoid Christmas altogether, and the year before that, you sat with your dad in the hospital.
” Another bite. “I allowed you all these years of avoidance, and then this year, I thought cool, I’ll give you something new to focus on. ”
“You’re putting a whole lotta importance on the date of your wedding, baby girl.”
“I was trying to help! But all I did was push you over the edge. And now… now…” Bite. “Now, you have a strange criminal in your house, and that criminal has, like, twenty-three abs.”
“Eight, I believe. I’ve counted them a couple of times, but each time I got to six, my brain did this weird thing.
It’s like…” I lift my hand, tilting it to the side to show her what I mean.
“In my mind, I see syrup dripping onto the eight abs. And then my throat goes dry, and my stomach turns tingly. It’s all a bit strange, really, and then—”
“It was a lot of abs!” she snarls. “I’m so glad we’ve cleared that up. Sadly, we still have the dangerous criminal in your house issue, so I suggest we focus less on pouring syrup onto his stomach and more on finding solutions.”
“Why don’t we ask your fiancé? That smartass had plenty to say a moment ag—” I swing my eyes across the kitchen and stop on… emptiness. No Nick. No smartass. No Ramos with tears on his cheeks.
Gulping, I spin in place and search for six-and-a-bit-feet of always-has-a-comeback. “Where’d he go?”