Chapter 1 #2
The ugly truth was: I came with too much baggage (those personal reasons I was mentioning before). And I had no interest in imposing them on a good guy with great friends and an easygoing style who did not need my crap weighing him down.
I’d grown up with the dysfunction. I’d built up the muscle mass to carry it. Sean had muscles—plenty of them; I mean, good lord—but they weren’t the right kind.
And the thing was, when there was a breakup within a friend group, people took sides. Lukas would side with Sean. Elli would have no choice but to side with Lukas. Then Jen, Amy, and Parvati would side with Elli because they’d all been friends for years.
I was the newcomer to the group, and I hadn’t come with my own set of friends, so there’d be no one to side with me. If things went south with Sean, I’d be booted from the friend group. I couldn’t take that hit.
“He’s a good guy,” Elli insisted.
“I know he is.”
In fact, Sean was super nice. When Lukas had been injured in a game, it was Sean who’d come to check on him. And when Lukas had been brutally attacked by his own father, it was Sean who’d come to tell Elli and tilted her to Lukas’s bedside at a Montana hospital.
“Lukas vouches for him,” Elli hinted.
“Cool,” I said, desperately wanting out of this conversation. “You can tell Lukas I appreciate him looking out, but Sean is a no for me.”
“Why?” Elli asked, practically whining because now that she’d found her happily ever after, she wanted the same for the rest of us.
I couldn’t tell Elli the truth. First, I didn’t want her to wonder why I had no friends of my own. Second, she’d tell me I was being ridiculous and there was no way I’d ever be booted.
But history told me otherwise.
So, I scrambled for a different explanation and gestured at myself, indicating my vintage-inspired gabardine romper. It was a knockoff—I still couldn’t afford the real thing—but it had been all the rage in Paris last fall.
“Cute,” she said. “What of it?”
“Sean wears flannel. Not even new flannel. He’s like a hockey-player-lumberjack.”
“So?”
“He’s a dryad, Elli. A tree nymph. He lives in the woods. Hardly the center of fashion.”
“So?” she repeated.
“We don’t match.”
And that was just it. We didn’t go together. And it wasn’t just about our clothes, or the fact I was human and he was fae, or even the fact he had a huge group of good friends and I’d been alone my whole life.
“Lukas and I don’t match either,” Elli pressed.
“Yeah, but you two have a long history,” I reminded her. “Since you were teenagers. That makes up for a lot.”
Lukas had been best friends and teammates with Elli’s older brother, Evan “Rogue” Rogan. Now they were teammates again, though their friendship seemed more strained than I would have expected. I didn’t really understand why, though it had to be based on more than Elli and Lukas’s love affair.
The bakery door opened and… Oh my god. Seriously?
I don’t know what expression Elli saw on my face, but it caused her to glance over her shoulder just as Sean Speak-of-the-Dryad Murphy walked in.
He gave us a chin lift and a confident smile, then headed for the bakery counter.
I leaned forward and hissed at Elli, “What the hell?”
“Swear to God,” she whispered, drawing an X over her heart. “I had nothing to do with this, but…”
“But what?” I asked.
“But Sean did call Lukas right after you and I hung up, and….” She glanced at the bakery counter.
I didn’t dare follow her gaze. No matter how easy Sean Murphy was to look at, I did not look. Not at that long luxurious brown hair. Not at that shit-eating grin. Definitely not at his moss-green eyes.
Elli’s gaze returned to me, and she bit her bottom lip. “Lukas might have mentioned we were going out for donuts.”
My phone vibrated on the table, and I glanced down at the screen. It read, Minnesota State Correctional Facility.
Elli must have looked, too, because she asked, “Your brother?”
“Yeah.”
My big brother, Braden, was recently incarcerated (again). This time, he was awaiting trial on several counts of felony fraud and something called theft by swindle. I wish I could say these charges represented the stupidest things he’d ever done.
“Are you going to answer it?” Elli asked.
“No. I’m hanging out with you. He can leave a message.”
Braden’s calls from jail, prison, or even the occasional flophouse rarely went well. He either wanted me to put money in his account, or he was putting our mother on blast for never visiting.
He never mentioned our dad because neither one of us had any expectations when it came to him—good or bad.
“He can’t call whenever he wants though, right?” Elli asked.
That was true. And I had missed his last call. “He’ll call back later.”
“Hello, ladies,” Sean said, coming up behind me.
Oh, God. I’d nearly forgotten about Sean.
I immediately took back everything I’d just said to Elli. It was about time my brother proved himself useful. I answered the phone.
First came the canned message: “This is a collect call from…”
The message paused, allowing my brother to insert his name, “Braden Jones.”
“…an inmate at the Minnesota State Correctional Facility. You are advised that this is a recorded line. Do you wish to accept the charges? Press one for yes. Two for no. Presione tres para espanol.”
“Who’s she talking to?” Sean asked, pulling a chair up to our table.
Elli mouthed the words, Her brother.
I pressed one to accept the call and turned my body away from them. “Hello?”
“Ki-Ki?” my brother asked, his voice sounding higher than normal.
It always made my heart hurt when he used my childhood nickname. “Yeah. Hey, Braden.”
“Ki-Ki, listen,” he said, “and listen closely.”
My stomach clenched. Braden’s calls never started like this, and his words gave me a shiver.
I stood from the table and walked several feet away to an empty corner of the café.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing’s wrong.” Now, Braden sounded annoyed. More like himself. “Just listen.”
“I am listening.” I made the mistake of glancing over my shoulder, and my eyes met Sean’s soft green ones. He looked both curious and concerned.
I sliced my eyes to the floor.
“In about an hour,” Braden said, “you’re going to get a delivery.”
“Like a present?” My birthday was coming up and even though Braden had never bought me anything before, I wondered if I was about to experience a rare moment of thoughtfulness.
“What? No,” he said, dousing my hopeful glimmer.
I gritted my teeth and recentered myself in reality.
“Just…when they show up,” he continued, “do whatever they say. Okay?”
“Who’s ‘they?’” I asked. Did he mean one of my asshole delivery drivers? Because forget that. I wouldn’t do anything they said, unless they begged me to kick them in the balls. Especially Darrel.
“I don’t know,” Braden said impatiently. “Whoever comes to the door. Just do what they say, and everything will be fine.”
“What do you mean ‘fine?’ Why wouldn’t things be fine?”
“They won’t hurt you.”
I blinked at the wall. Was that supposed to be comforting? What kind of crap was my brother into now, particularly since he was already in prison?
I glanced around the café, expecting to see someone watching me and wishing Braden had called about his usual complaints: money, our mother’s non-visits, and how he’d been “fucking framed because the fucking cops were always out to fuck him.”
“Kiera?” he asked. “You still there?”
“I’m here.” My thoughts raced, trying to make sense of what he was telling me.
“Just do what they say and don’t screw me over.”
I was about to protest and ask when he thought I’d ever screwed him over, but he kept talking.
“Because if you screw this up…I’m as good as dead.”
“What?!” I whisper-screeched, then glanced over my shoulder. Elli and Sean were still watching me closely.
I forced a smile and rolled my eyes as if to say, My brother. Such an idiot—but in a playful way. Not the way I really meant it because he’d just implied he was going to be whacked if I screwed something up—something I didn’t know anything about. Oh my god! I was going to kill him!
“Braden—”
“Gotta go.”
Disconnect.
“Braden? Braden?!” I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared down at the black screen. My pulse thudded like a drum in my ears.
Slowly, I made my way back to the table, but I didn’t sit.
“Everything all right?” Sean’s voice sounded like it was coming at me from deep underwater.
“Totally.” I bent to pick up my purse from the floor. What did Braden say about the delivery? It would be at my apartment in an hour? “Sorry, Elli. I forgot. I…um…have a chiropractor appointment.”
She jerked her chin back. “You see a chiropractor?”
I was a terrible liar. Great at secrets. Terrible with lies. I made another quick glance around the bakery.
“Before you go…” Sean said.
Then he said something else, but I didn’t hear it because I was too focused on the picture window, halfway expecting to see Braden’s asshole associates outside, watching me.
Still, I responded to Sean with, “Should be fine,” because I knew I was acting weird. I wanted to assure both him and Elli that everything was A-Ok.
No one seemed to watching from outside on the sidewalk. I’d have to check the backseat of my car though. That was Safety 101.
“Really?” Sean asked.
“Really.” I shoved the last bite of donut in my mouth—yeah, I was nervous, but only a psychopath left a maple glaze behind.
“Call me later?” Elli asked.
“Of course. Sorry about this.” I pulled my keys from my purse, wove them through my fingers like brass knuckles, then took what was left of my coffee to-go.