33. Painted Windows & Pained Companions
Painted Windows & Pained Companions
It’s crazy how quickly you slip into a routine.
How effortlessly it comes, to be beside someone despite all your time apart.
Like two pieces of a machine snug together.
A temperate October gives way to the chill of late November, Thanksgiving coming to pass with little fanfare.
Even the obligatory call from Mom sliding over my nerves easier than ever before.
Not too hard when you spend the duration of the call nestled in your best friend's lap, his long deft fingers lazily tracing the lines on your palms, making you bite your lip to stop from giggling. I listened to the stories of my half and step-siblings' achievements, all the ways they were making her proud, all the ways I never stood a chance. This year it didn’t leave me crying in bed, wondering why I hadn’t been good enough.
Why they couldn’t look past their hatred for each other long enough to love me.
I’d nearly died of laughter when Gideon noticed tears welling in my eyes, promptly took the phone and told my mom to enjoy her holiday.
Her shocked, questioning use of his name seconds before he hung up.
He’d shifted me, forcing me to face him and ground his hardened cock into the fabric of my jeans until I came, shuddering in his lap seconds after.
I do my best to hide my smile as I dip my brush in the light blue, trading the fall leaves and adorable scarecrows tossing a football around with their blushing cheeks for equally as happy snowmen on the windows of the alterations shop.
Technically, it’s my day off, but Gideon is busy with an out-of-town client, so rather than get backlogged with the window painting requests, I decided to get ahead of the game.
I’m starting up another wistful daydream about watching him fix up my dad's truck. His toned arms exposed for once, not wrapped and hidden in a stiff suit as he tinkered under the hood. My eyes dart to the behemoth of a truck sitting more reliably now in the parking lot before another car slips in beside it, my good mood evaporating immediately. Jess doesn’t bother with any pretense that she hasn’t been looking for me specifically as she all but slams the door, stalking right up to me, leaving me no choice but to look like the coward I am and hide or acknowledge her.
“Audrey!” she starts, her nipples straining against her white tube top, her faux fur coat hanging open and doing nothing to warm her. My own fingertips are red. When winter started this year, it seemed determined to make us pay for the long summer we’d been gifted.
“Hey, Jess. I ugh—"
She cuts me off, and this time irritation sparks in my chest. “Look, I know you probably don’t want to talk to me, but—"
My knees groan in protest as I stand, laying my brush down on my palette.
“You know, you’re right, Jessica. I really don’t.
The shop is closed anyway, you know how the Johnsons feel about loitering.
” Mrs. Johnson, in her sweet, old lady way, had politely banned the siblings after they’d shown up drunk during one of my shifts a few years ago. The ban has stood.
She ignores me entirely. “Has Altman interviewed you yet?”
“Altman? Why would he?” I hadn’t even realized he was still around.
She stiffens, but even that seems haggard. Her hair is greasy, and even from here I can smell body odor on her. “He should be by any day now. You need to call me after you guys talk so—"
“What? I’m not calling you, and he has no reason to come by,” I huff, placing my hands on my hips. “When was the last time you got any sleep? You look like—"
“Shit, yeah. In case you forgot, my brother, you know, your boyfriend was murdered,” she snaps.
The silence that hangs between us only lasts seconds, but it feels far longer.
“Jessica, I think you should leave.”
She steps forward suddenly, making me take a step back, upsetting my brush-rinsing cup. The muddy paint water inside spills onto the sidewalk. “No, fuck that, not until I know you aren’t going to lie for him.”
I scoff despite the quickening of my pulse. “Lie? I have nothing to lie about. Your brother overdosed in the woods because he was a miserable addict.”
“He was at your house!” she booms.
“Bullshit! You need to go now, Jess—"
“No!” she pleads and I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone go from enraged to exhausted so fast. “Listen, Altman believes me. He’s not even talking to Mom anymore.
Just me. He’s been coming to the house and doing these interviews around town.
There were fingerprints on the last one, Audrey.
They found his fingerprints,” she implores like I’m missing something that’s so clear to her, and my heart gives a little pang at the tears welling in her reddened eyes.
“Whose fingerprints? Bryan’s?”
God… she flinched at his name. “No, the Marionettist, Audrey. They have his prints now, so Altman wants to have my brother exhumed, but Mom is being a stupid fucking bitch about it.”
I’m silent for a second, my mind trying to keep up with her rushed speech.
“What does the Marionettist have to do with your brother? That’s states away—"
“No, Altman doesn’t think so. You know Bryan didn’t fucking overdose, Audrey. You know that, you have to tell them the truth about Gideon. He worked on those girls, all of them, and he had every reason to want my brother gone.”
The sudden anger in my chest nearly knocks the breath from my lungs. “Oh, fuck off.”
“Listen to me, Audrey! You need to stay away from him!”
“Stop,” I warn, my hands shaking at my sides. My own dad's voice booms behind hers in my mind, that day I’d hit him and screamed. I’d sobbed and begged to see my best friend. The memory shakes loose something horrible, letting it unfurl deep in my chest.
Panic I can’t quite place, can’t find the origin or cause for, but it's deep, putrid.
“Ask yourself honestly, why is Altman still here, huh? It’s not for my piece of shit brother unless he thinks it’s connected to his case somehow.
For fuck's sake, the dude is all over the news! He’s the lead investigator in a high-profile serial fucking killer case, Audrey, and he’s hanging around here!
What is the only connection between the two things?
Did Bell’s dick kill off all your brain cells? !”
She’s rambling now, but I barely hear her. The panic attack is making my pulse whoosh deep in my head. My breath is rising and falling roughly, my head light, but she keeps screaming. Her desperation filling mine.
“Shut up!” I scream so hard that my voice cracks. “Shut the fuck up!”
The bells on the door jingle, and suddenly Mr. Johnson's colossal frame is blocking hers, crowding in on her as she starts yelling at me.
I back up, bumping my wet paint, smearing it across the window and staining the back of my coat.
An ugly choked sound leaves me as Mr. Johnson ushers me into the warm shop, the smell of coffee brewing while he worked the books today.
“Hey, Auds, enough of that. God, are you okay?” His loud, boisterous voice is far from light or joyful, and it grates on my frayed nerves.
Gideon isn’t leaving.
He’s not.
Nothing has changed.
It’s okay.
It’s okay.
He won’t leave.
My own reassurances barely make a dent in my panic, my hand clutching my chest as I hyperventilate.
“Shit,” I hear him mutter as he leaves me to head behind the desk. The second he finishes out the number and lifts the receiver to his ear, I nearly jump out of my skin to slam my finger on the base, ending the call. “I’m alright,” I gasp. “Don’t call Gideon.”
His grayed brow furrows, both of us staring at each other in confusion for a moment.
I want Gideon, of course, more than anything. He’d fix this. I know that, but…
He can’t go.
God, if he leaves me again, I won’t survive it.
I won’t.
If he thinks things are bad enough here, he might leave.
I couldn’t—
No, Gideon is all I have.
My lungs tighten again, making me pant, my finger still on the button, damn near holding it hostage.
Mr. Johnson finally rights himself. “Head home for the day, Auds. Make sure—"
I clear my throat, forcing my shaking hand away from the phone. “I’d like to finish up, actually.”
“I don’t think—"
“I’m good,” I offer him a watery smile. “She just… I just—"
“She won’t come here again, not unless she wants to forcibly sober up in the detox tank at jail.”
I nod. “Thank you.”
My legs are numb and off-kilter as I head to the bathroom to splash some water on my face, wiping away where it smears my makeup.
By the time I’m back in the cold, picking up my brush, I barely feel the weight of it between my fingers.
Barely move as I stare at the smeared snowmen. Their happy faces muddy and lost.
Later that night, dinner is tense… a thousand questions battering around in my mind as Gideon lifts a spoonful of chicken dumplings to his lips, taking a bite.
I ignore the tantalizing bob of his throat as he swallows.
I’d never thought swallowing could be sexy, but here we are.
Thankfully, my panic attack and the pungent embarrassment that followed it earlier have made my vagina a little braindead—er… clitdead?
But he’s staring.
That stare.
The one where he knows something is up, and he won’t give me a second to breathe until I spill it.
He lets his spoon clank loudly against his bowl, his eyes boring into my skull like an ice pick.