Blaze (Blaze #1) (10 page)

“Huh?”

“Nothing.” I toss my phone on the cushion
between us and retrieve my glass.

“Is that Gabriel?”

“You said one of the forbidden words.
Drink.”

“Damn it.”

We had agreed not to talk about work or
exes, both very sensitive topics for me. My phone buzzes again and
I can see without lifting it that it’s the same caller. I frown for
a moment then shake my head.

“Oh! You said her name before. Drink.”

James pours and we drink.

“I’m glad you came out with us tonight,
Kate.”

“Well, you didn’t give me much choice, did
you? When the three of you showed up at my door it was either leave
quietly or wait for my neighbors to call the police because of the
noise.”

James lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Nat was
definitely enthusiastic.”

“I think it’s adorable you’re too nice to
say my best friend is an incident away from being a public
menace.”

He shrugs and says, “Well, Dave seems to
like her.”

I’m laughing as he leans forward and kisses
me softly on the lips. I immediately compare it to kissing Gabriel.
James doesn’t have lips as full as Gabriel’s, but the kiss is nice.
We only break apart when my phone dances between us.

UNKNOWN

“Who the hell…”

James fills our glasses once more as I stare
at the screen, contemplating whether or not I should answer. I make
up my mind, take the offered glass, and set my phone on the coffee
table.

“Here’s to, if it’s important, they’ll leave
a message.”

James smiles, takes his shot, and then says,
“Let’s go upstairs.”

All tenderness is gone from his kisses once
we’re in James’ bedroom. I step out of my skirt and watch as James
lifts his shirt over his head. He’s no slouch, but he’s not nearly
as fit as Gabriel.

Stop it, Kate. Stop it. You’re here to
forget.

James goes to his knees, kissing around my
navel. A warm tickle flutters through my stomach and I gasp. Almost
immediately I feel something acidic at the back of my throat. I
manage to say, “I’m sorry,” before I take off running towards the
nearest door.

I shut the door behind me and then land hard
on my knees at the toilet. The lid is barely up before I empty the
entire contents of my stomach.

James raps lightly on the door. “Kate, are
you okay?”

I let out a sound somewhere between a grunt
and a groan, but it must have been in the affirmative because James
doesn’t knock again.

When the waves of nausea finally subside, I
wash my face with cold water. I use my finger and some toothpaste
to clean my mouth and finish up by swishing two capfuls of
mouthwash.

I try not to look as mortified as I am when
I reenter the bedroom. James is in his king size bed, the blanket
pulled up to his waist. I crawl into the bed next to him, but
remain on top of the covers.

“The water is for you. Think you can handle
a sip?” He nods towards a glass of water on the nightstand.

“Maybe later. Like, next week later. I just
want to lie here till everything stops vibrating.”

The bed shakes as James repositions himself
so that we’re spooning. I can’t help but, again, notice the
difference: we do not fit together like puzzle pieces.

It’s only as
I’m about to walk into work that I put my hand into my pocket and
suddenly realise I don’t have my phone.

Shit, SHIT
, I
think angrily and check and double-check my jacket, my jeans, my
bag. I’m standing on the street getting more and more anxious and
angry with myself for not making sure I had it before I left the
house.

Finally, when
it’s completely obvious that it couldn’t be in any of the places
I’ve checked three times, I give up.

Great
, I think,
going up to the tiny little office I’m going to be stuck in for as
long as I’m still here.
With my luck Gabriel will call right as my phone
is sitting next to my bed.

I haven’t even
had the chance to turn my computer on before Amy’s walking into the
room and my stomach tenses. She hasn’t had it out with me yet, but
I know it’s coming – she’s going to make my life hell for trying to
get out from under her thumb.

But Amy
doesn’t look angry at all. She leans up against my desk and gives
me a sympathetic look – the last thing I’d ever expect.

It’s a wonder her face doesn’t break
I think sourly.

“Kate,” Amy
begins, then pauses. She sighs.

“
I’m not
sure how to say this,” she says, “but I got a call about ten
minutes ago from your mother. It’s about… Matt.”

And just like
that, I can’t breathe, because I know what’s coming.

Amy leans
forward and takes one of my cold hands in hers. Her touch is
surprisingly soft and warm.

“
Your
mom tried to call you, she said,” Amy says. “But she couldn’t get
hold of you so she called here. Matt’s been taken to hospital. She
wouldn’t tell me the exact circumstances, but I got the impression
he’s in a lot of trouble.”

I stand
up and sit down and stand up again, my thoughts racing. I knew,
I
knew
this was
coming. When I’d spoken to him I could hear it in his
voice.

“Shit,” I
breathe out, trying to calm myself. “Um, thank you. I don’t know
what to do, and… shit.”

Amy arches an
eyebrow.

“Well… you
have to go back home,” she says, and my jaw drops. Amy sighs.

“I know we
haven’t always seen eye to eye,” Amy says, and she smiles gently,
and sadly. “I think you are worth so much more than you are doing,
and it frustrates the hell out of me to see talent like yours
wasted. Wasted on doing busywork, or wasted on chasing authors
around so Madelyn can eat out at expensive restaurants a couple
extra times a week.”

I manage, with
an effort, to close my wide-open mouth.

“Oh come on,”
Amy says. “Did you think I was being such a hardass because I enjoy
people thinking I’m a bitch? I couldn’t believe Madelyn was trying
to send you out. I know talent when I see it, Kate. And I see it in
you.”

She rubs her
hands together briskly and stands up.

“But that will
have to wait until you get back,” she says, matter-of-factly.
“Right now I’ve approved leave for you, so get out of here and sort
out whatever needs to be sorted out.”

I grab my bag
and, still reeling from all this, walk to the door, gabbling thank
yous to Amy all the way.

My hand is
turning the doorknob as Amy calls my name and I turn back. Now that
doesn’t have her stern mask on, I can see I was wrong about her
face. It’s actually friendly. And sad.

“Good luck
with Gabriel Call, too,” Amy says. “I know how hard it is to have
your heart torn in two.”

For an instant
one of her hands to moves to the other, and I can see a pale band
around her finger where a wedding ring used to be. Her eyes meet
mine and for a moment there’s a shared sympathy between us. Then
she clicks her tongue and scolds me out the door and back out onto
the street.

It’s an hour later and I’m frantically
throwing things in a suitcase. My head’s a mess; every time I put
something in I remember I need something else and I have to
rearrange everything. There’s clothes and computer cords and
toiletries scattered all over my tiny bedroom. I’ve got my phone
cradled between my chin and my shoulder. My mom’s voice, thin and
stretched with worry, is in my ear.

“What did Matt
say
, Mom?” I demand,
and I screw up my face as I step on something sharp. “Why the
hell’s he in hospital?”

“I don’t
know
,” her frustrated voice
comes back. “The last thing he said to me was that if anything
happened, he wanted you to know that he loved you.”

My stomach is churning as I sit down on the
bed and look for whatever’s stabbed into my foot. It’s one of the
long pins I use to hold manuscript samples together.

Probably one of Noah Drake’s
, I think
sourly. But I don’t have the time to care about him right now.

I let a long breath out. Mom’s quiet on the
other end of the line.

“It’s going to be OK,” I say. “If he’s in
the hospital then the doctors are taking care of him, and that’s
where he needs to be. I’m going to catch the very next flight up.
I’ll be there before you know it.”

I can hear that my mom’s trying to hold back
tears.

“He’s the sweetest boy I ever knew,” she
says. “And he deserves better than this.”

“Yeah,” I say, and I’m so empty. “Yeah.”

*

It’s late afternoon and I’m sitting in SFO,
waiting for my flight to start boarding. My phone is buzzing in my
hands and I look at the screen, not really paying attention. It’s
Gabriel, for the third time today. I haven’t answered any of his
calls, haven’t checked my voicemail.

The airport is all white with high, vaulted
ceilings. People are moving everywhere in spots of color, their
clothes standing out against the starkness of the walls. I’m
jealous of all of them, jealous of their lives. How easy they all
have it.

Across the airport I can see a girl who
looks to be about my age. She’s wrapping her arms around a tall,
sandy-haired guy whose face breaks into a huge smile as he lifts
her off the ground. In my hands, the phone stops ringing.

Why does it all have to be so hard,
I
think.
Why can’t I just be happy like everyone else? Why can’t I
just have something that works? Without all the trouble, without
all the misery?

I have to blink back hot tears. An older
lady looks at me then glances away quickly and buries her attention
back in her glossy magazine.

“Now boarding,” the voice rings out
overhead. “United Flight 181 from San Francisco to Anchorage.
Please form a line at the gate.”

For a moment I look at the missed call from
Gabriel. Then I turn my phone off and shove it down in my pocket.
There’s a leaden feeling in the pit of my stomach and I don’t think
I’m ever going to stop feeling this sadness.

*

It’s early evening and I’m trying to nap but
it won’t come. Maybe it’s from all the coffee I’ve been drinking
today. But more likely it’s because I can’t stop my thoughts from
racing. Every time I try to calm myself I get maybe five seconds of
peace and then my mind overwhelms me. Matt and Gabriel. Gabriel and
Matt.

I try to convince myself that I don’t care
about Gabriel.

Ha how silly,
I think.
I really
thought I loved him. When I meet the man I’m going to marry I’m
sure I’ll laugh about how starstruck I was.

And then his face reappears in my memory,
how the lines of tension and arrogance smoothed out while he slept,
leaving behind how beautiful he is. And I have to swallow the
misery down tight so I don’t wail out loud in the confines of the
airplane.

Matt. Jesus, Matt, what’s happened to
you?
I think. There’s a bitter laugh inside me when I realize
that the way to stop thinking about Gabriel, behind me in his hotel
suite in San Francisco, is to think about Matt, ahead of me in his
hospital bed in Fairbanks.

Tears well up behind my eyes and I have to
put my hands over my face. No one else is watching me. At least… I
hope not.

How did everything go so wrong?

*

It’s midnight and I’m standing in front of
the window in my Anchorage hotel. The night is broken by the sheets
of white snow falling softly from the sky.

The airline has put me up here for the
night, in this tiny little hotel room with a too-big bed that fills
most of the room. Snow has rolled in and all outbound flights from
Anchorage have been delayed for I don’t know how long.

I didn’t have any more calls from Gabriel
when I turned my phone back on. I don’t know if I’m happy or sad
about that.

Standing here staring out at the night makes
me think of Gabriel’s suite. Despite myself, I wish I was back
there. I wish he was standing behind me, to wrap his arms around
me, to be the strong center of the world.

He’d be able to fix everything with Matt. As
strange as that is to think, I know he could.

Eventually I give up, and wrap myself up in
the thin hotel sheets and pull the heavy blanket over the top of it
all, curling up into a little ball. Far from everyone I know, now I
can let myself sob.

Sleep, when it finally comes, isn’t much
rest at all.

The Cold Ridge airport is nearly empty this
early in the morning. Less than a half dozen people are waiting at
the gate when I deplane. I go through security quickly and without
incident. When I reach the main part of the building I can see from
the window that my mother’s car isn’t parked outside. There’s a
police officer near the entrance and two bored ticket agents behind
the desk.

I reach into my purse for my phone, worried
that my mother being late means something has happened to Matt.

“Katy?”

The cop is walking towards me and I do a
double take from him to my phone and back again.

“Sammy?”

He smiles easily and says, “Just Sam
now.”

I’d last seen Sam Bowman the year before I
left home, and he bore just a passing resemblance to the man before
me now. He’s heavier, but it looks to be all muscle. His dark hair
is cut short and close to his head, and his green eyes are no
longer hidden behind glasses.

“Okay, Sam. Or should I say Officer Bowman?”
I’m sure I look ridiculous staring at him with my mouth open.

He bows his head for a moment and when he
looks at me again he’s blushing slightly. I see a flash of the boy
I used to know.