Breathe Me (7 page)

“You working tomorrow?” Joss interrupted my thoughts, waving me over to the Dairy Queen for a cone.

I shook my head. “No. Mandatory furloughs on Mondays now for half the staff. We rotate each week. Can you believe that? The hospital makes a killing, and they still mess with our wages one way or another.”

Joss handed
me a cone, plain, just the way I like it. She took a huge bite out of her chocolate-covered ice cream and talked with her mouth full. “That’s just horrible.” Grabbing a napkin, she wiped up the chocolate smeared across her chin.

“Yeah, it
is, but what can I do? I just need to deal with it, maybe find a new job.”

“Maybe you
can help Sasha with his coffee shops. Didn’t he say he owned several of them?”

“
Now who’s insane? Why would he need help? I’m not asking him for anything, so forget it.”

Joss rolled her eyes again
and shook her head, groaning as though she’d tired of me. I was done with her helpfulness—and her shopping therapy, for that matter. I’d gotten nowhere fast.

“You’re so
hardheaded, I’d get a concussion if I head butted you.” She smirked at me and took another lick of chocolate ice cream.

I gave her a c
rass smile and winked. “I know. And proud of it, too.”

THE VIBRATION RESONATED
across my comforter, stirring me from my daydreams. The ceiling came back into focus while my eyes stung and made me blink rapidly. It brought prickling tears to my dried out orbits as I briefly wondered what the noise was. I rolled over on my bed and found the phone still going on its endless purring dance across the edge of the blankets before it teetered off, followed by a crack of plastic on the hardwood floor.

“Oh
, crap!” I scurried to the side of my bed and spied my phone on the floor in three pieces. I sighed and scraped up the parts. Stuffing the battery in and the back plate back on, I pressed the power button and waited impatiently as the screen illuminated once more. At least the gorilla glass on the smartphone could take a beating. I was constantly dropping it, and it had the dents to prove it.

The ceiling fan hummed above me
, and the luxurious breeze made the room feel refreshing. The heat of the day had worn me out, and my attempt at a nap had been useless. Waiting for the screen to flash back on, I rolled onto my back. Wearing boy shorts and a spaghetti string tank, I was still sweating a swamp and felt a film of stickiness all across my skin. I’d taken a shower earlier, but the heat, paired with the swampy moisture we sometimes got in the valley, was unbearable.

The phone chirped in my hand, reminding me why
I was holding it. Scanning through the screens to my text messages, my face paled as I read the words. It was a message from Sasha.

Got a surprise 4 U, B ready @8pm

Doesn’t anyone write in English anymore? Or call for that matter?
I sighed and flicked my eyes to the digital clock at the top of the screen. It read 7:35pm.

Sitting up
, I stumbled off the bed, barely catching myself before landing on my bum. Even so, I stubbed my toe on the large wooden bench I had at the foot of the bed, which sent a paralyzing jolt of pain up my leg. Groaning, I hopped over to the bed once more. “Crap, Crap, Crap!”

Biting my lip, I waited momentaril
y as the throbbing pain subsided, rubbing my foot over and over. Finally able to stand, I got back up and headed toward the closet. I flung open the doors, scurrying to find a suitable outfit before I jumped into the shower. I grabbed a pair of jean shorts and a black tank top, hoping he wouldn’t come while I was in the bathroom.

Tossi
ng everything onto the counter before cranking the shower on, I pondered our last encounter and prayed he had a short memory. I peeled my sticky clothes off and had one foot in the tub when I remembered I hadn’t texted him back. So I tiptoed back to the counter, grabbed my phone and one-handedly texted him back.

How’s 8:15? I just got up
from a nap. In the shower. Sorry.

At that, I tossed the phone onto my clothes and hopped back under the spray,
squirting shampoo in my hair and soaping up my body before I had even rinsed it all out. I jumped out but was already sweating again as I hurried to get dressed. I yanked my brush through my hair until it hung like slick snakes over my shoulders then slapped on a thin layer of makeup and lip-gloss when I heard the doorbell ring.

“Gonna have to do,
” I mumbled. I did a once-over and frowned at my wet hair. I hoped it would dry in sleek waves and not poof out into a rat’s nest.

The bell echoed
across the walls once more, and I cursed as I dragged ass to the door, hopping about as I slipped my flats on. Finally, pulling the locks loose and swinging the door open, I glanced down at my cell phone. 8:10pm.

“Five more minutes would’ve been nice.”
I clamped my lips shut for the snarky slip and pasted on a fake smile to cover up my annoyance. Sasha leaned on the frame and ignored my snap. Instead he held up a single yellow rose and threw me a genuine smile.

“What…
what’s this for?” I stuttered and reached up, clasping my trembling fingers around the stem.

“It’s not the s
urprise, but it reminded me of you. Beautiful and fragile but also strong. It just felt right to get you this one rose.” He shifted on his feet as he waited for me to respond. I wasn’t even sure I’d heard him right. Nothing clamped me down more than a compliment. How this man always managed to surprise me gnawed at my senses, eroding down that rusty, solid metal wall I had so carefully built. It was somewhat irritating and yet made me stop and rethink for minute.

My
suspicions kicked into overdrive as I upturned the corners of my mouth and batted my eyelids. “I’ll go put it in some water before it withers.” It gave me some time to turn away, my face falling as I took a deep breath.
No more panic attacks, please….
“So what’s the surprise?” I asked, distracting myself by looking for a vase and snapping the stem to shorten it.

“You’ll see.”

I peeked around the counter of my small kitchen bar and watched him as he casually walked around my apartment. He was studying the carefully-placed pictures lined all across the walls. They were photos of my family, smiling with toothy grins in different scenes of our lives. I had taken most of them myself, but some were by my father, who’d been an avid amateur photographer. There were scenes of different natural landmarks from across the country. We had traveled a lot on vacations when I was younger, and he had set up his tripod in every single place we’d been. It’d gotten to the point where me and my brother would groan and complain endlessly when he would go about setting up the tripod. “Not another picture!” we’d bitch and moan.

What would I give to have those annoying moments back?

“Piper?” Sasha’s voice broke through my memories, and the rush of water from the faucet I’d left on pulled me back to the vase on the counter. I filled it and stuffed the rose into it. “Ready to go?” I said.

“Yeah.” H
e eyed me like he wanted to peel the layers off, one by one. Or maybe his assumptions were mounting on who I now was, six fateful years after he’d known me. “These pictures, they’re amazing. Did you take them all?”

I shook my head and felt a scarlet heat rush across my cheeks. “Some of them are mine.
Some were done by my father.” I walked over to the wall and glanced up at the many pairs of eyes staring back at me. “This one was at the Grand Canyon. It was cold as hell on the Northern Rim that day. This one was at Yellowstone National Park, near some of the geysers. Those things reek!” I gave a small laugh but cleared my throat as our annual family portrait next came into view. It was the last we’d taken together. The last time my brother, mother and father had stood before that notorious tripod and smiled at the lens, oblivious to the bleakness of the future. The picture was three years old.

They were dead now. Long gone
, in a freak plane accident. Just like that. Gone.

The sting of tears prickled at my eyes and I swerved away, heading to grab my purse a
t the entrance table and check my drying hair one more time in the ornate silver mirror on the wall above. It was drying well into soft spirals which looked like I’d done the style on purpose. I shook off the sadness and turned back toward Sasha, who was watching me intently. Once again, I forced a smile across my face, grateful he didn’t ask many questions.

“Let’s go.”

Sasha

SHE WAS STUNNING
, and the way her hazel-brown eyes glinted with a sheen of tears building and the slight pink blossoming across her face as she stared at her family’s portrait made me want to run to her, pull her into my arms and kiss her gently, even though I knew she would pull away almost immediately. She was utterly alone, but she didn’t have to be.

“Really
, where are you taking me? You know how much I hate surprises.” Her voice echoed from the passenger side of my sedan. I saw her eyes flash as I opened the door for her and she slipped into the clean, new leather interior. She made it obvious that she hadn’t ridden in too many fancy cars before. I was happy to see that I’d impressed her somewhat, even if she had pushed away the surprised look in the hope I hadn’t yet seen it. But I
had
seen it. That was all that mattered.

“You’ll love this one.” I smirked, knowing it was going to make her a little flustered. I knew s
he didn’t like surprises, I’d known her well at one point in our lives. How quickly she’d forgotten the good between us. I always surprised her back then, knowing full well it would piss her off. The memory made my lips twitch into a small grin. Those days had been the best of my life, yet I had thrown them away like a fool. Here I was, years later, making up for it big time.

“Nice set of wheels.”

“Thanks.”

“Guess your business is doing really well from the looks of
it.”

“It’s
doing pretty good.”

“Why’d you
pick me up in a taxi yesterday?”

“
My car was being repaired. The AC wasn’t working right. In this heat, have to get it done ASAP. Plus….” I grinned as I waited for her to buckle in. “Sometimes it’s nice when someone else is driving.”

“That’s for sure.”

I turned the radio on, and Smash Mouth blasted through the speakers. It reminded me of my high school, and I left it on. Piper didn’t seem bothered and even started bobbing her head to the beat.

“
You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“
Tell you what?”

“What the surprise is.”

“Nope.”

She si
ghed and leaned on the window, staring glumly through it. She may have hated surprises, but I knew she would love this one, she just didn’t know it yet.

“Okay, when I hit that signal up there, close your eyes.”

She whipped her head around to face me, her eyes wide like I had a horn growing out my forehead. “No! Why?”