Graceful Ashes (7 page)

My eye roll pulled a chuckle from him. I went back to my salad and silence hung in the air as we both turned our attention to our food.

As I speared the last tomato in my bowl, Hendrix cleared his throat. My gaze lifted to his and I watched as he wiped his mouth with the white napkin and dropped it onto his empty plate.

“Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself, Zoey?”

His low voice vibrated through me as a chill rolled down my spine. But not the creepy kind of chill, the kind that caused you to bite your lip with want. I was in serious need of getting my hormones in check when it came to Hendrix.

I took an extra-large sip of sweet tea to coat my dry throat. “What do you want to know?”

“Whatever you want to tell me.”

My fork clanked against the bowl as I released it. Now he was putting me in the hot seat. I stared out the large window beside me. “I moved here from Chicago a year and a half ago to pursue dancing. It’s been my entire life since I can remember, so I’m trying to make a career out of it. But I’m not so sure that moving here was the best step to take anymore. I miss home, my brother and his wife, and most of all…” My throat tightened as tears pricked my eyes. “I miss having the ones I love close. I hate being lonely.”

I closed my eyes as I turned my face back to Hendrix and smiled sadly once I opened them. He reached across the table, linked his hand with mine and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“You don’t have to be alone, Zoey. That’s one choice you can make. But I completely understand what you’re saying. I’ve been alone for far too long myself.”

The depth of our conversation was like a sharp knife spearing my heart. I couldn’t handle much more without breaking down, and the last thing I wanted to do was have a break down with a man that didn’t know my story, let alone really know
me
.

“We really need to head back.” I slipped my hand from beneath his and collected my backpack.

“Yeah,” He cleared his throat and dug into his front pocket before throwing a wad of cash onto the table. “We should be going.”

“Y’all have a good day!” Jean called out from behind the bar and waved goodbye.

“Nice to meet you.” I smiled and waved as we left the diner.

Hendrix walked in front of me without saying a word. I felt like an asshole for ignoring his admittance of being alone, but I couldn’t handle the onset of emotions he was bringing to a boil inside of me. I was good at closing off emotions, but Hendrix always seemed to pull them out of me. Keeping things at bay was going to be hard with him.

“I can catch a cab back.” I broke the silence as he reached his motorcycle.

He bowed his head and his hands gripped the leather seat on his bike.

I watched his back expand as he took a deep breath.

He exhaled slowly then turned around. “There’s no need in that. I brought you here, I’ll take you back.”

“Okay.” I spoke softly as I slipped the helmet on my head.

Hendrix stood there watching me with sadness swimming in his eyes. Then without saying a word he mounted his bike and I slid on behind him as it roared to life. The day had unfolded to be something I wasn’t expecting, but I honestly didn’t know if I would change a thing. Mainly because I was able to spend time with the one guy I’d been hoping to see again, even if our time together had been odd and an array of emotions.

Chapter Seven

My feet are killing me.

I fell open-armed onto my bed, the mattress bouncing me as the decorative throw pillows flopped around beside me. Practice with Mrs. Vurdo and the rest of the class had been a complete bust. Hendrix had gotten into my head at the diner. Then his lack of conversation when he dropped me off had thrown me into a whirlwind of confusion that I hadn’t been able to shake.

After the practice session, Mrs. Vurdo asked if she could have a word with me. I was hoping to get out of there without hearing her thoughts regarding my performance, but I wasn’t that lucky.

When she asked if I had something personal going that was distracting me from dance, I denied it.  I could tell by the change of her worried look to more of a “I wasn’t born yesterday” look that she knew I was lying. But how could I admit to her that something was holding me back, when I didn’t know one hundred percent what was keeping me from giving dance my full and undivided attention? My mind and body seemed to have taken a one eighty without looking back.

My scholarship depended on me being one of the top students in my class. But why couldn’t I get my head into my dancing? Was I hell bent on rebelling or was I desperately craving a change in my life. Neither of those was an option because throwing away the opportunity for a career in dance would be the biggest mistake I could make. Not only would Tegan be disappointed, but so would Talon. The last thing I wanted to do was be a disappointment in their eyes…especially Talon’s.

So instead of going with Clara to yet another party, I decided to lock myself away in my apartment for the night. Convincing her I was staying home was more of a hassle than giving in and going with her, but finally she got the point that I wasn’t budging and she let me be. Not without a promise that if she needed me to pick her drunk ass up I would.

I kicked off my shoes and pushed up from the bed. My body screamed with every move I made. Even though my dancing sucked ass during the run through, I had overused my muscles because I hadn’t been properly stretching during my days off from class. Yet another instance of Zoey slacking.

In the bathroom, I turned the faucet more toward hot than cold and stripped off my clothes. A nice warm shower was what I needed to relax my sore muscles. As I stepped under the fall of the water a heavy sighed passed my lips. The spray beating down on my shoulders was almost instant relief for the soreness. I rolled my head around on my neck and turned to face the waterfall. My eyes closed as I stepped fully under it and allowed the warm water to pour down my face, to my chest, and to the floor of the tub. My mind was void of everything that had been burdening me recently. The peace and silence was soothing as I took a step back and inhaled deeply before letting out the breath.

“I need a spa day.” I said aloud. “That would be the best thing that could happen for me right now.” I laughed, knowing that wasn’t goin to happen.

The sound of my phone ringing broke my relaxing trance in the shower, but I did my best to block the faint melody of my ringtone. I squirted shampoo onto my hair and worked up a lather. Not even a full minute later my phone sprung to life again. A rare occurrence in the life of Zoey Fisher.

Unless bad news was tied to the other end.

My heart raced as I frantically shut the water off then wrapped a towel around my body. As I opened the bathroom door open, my phone quit ringing and I silently cursed. I wiped my hand on the fluffy white towel secured around my body and unplugged my phone from the charger just as it sprung to life for a third time. Talon’s name flashed across the screen and I felt my heart drop.

I squeezed my eyes shut and sent up a quick prayer.
Please don’t let this be bad news.

I swiped the answer icon on the screen and held the phone up to my ear.

“Zoey?”

Talon’s unsure voice came from the other end.

“Please tell me everything is okay,” I said faintly.

Silence hung in the air for what seemed like eternity, but in reality was merely a couple seconds.

“We’ve been trying to get a hold of you all day. Why haven’t you called either of us back?”

Talon ignored my question to ask his own.

“Answer mine first,” I demanded.

Talon sighed.

He did that a lot when I ignored his request, but I wasn’t a child anymore.

“We’re having a girl!”

Tears instantly filled my eyes as I covered my mouth to muffle the cry that escaped me. My cries were from the anticipation that something bad had happened mixed with the news that I was going to have a niece. “I’m so happy for you and Tegan!” I choked out through my tears.

“Damn, Zoey! You’re more emotional than I think Tegan was when we found out,” Talon teased.

A laugh bubbled up my throat as I wiped away my tears and pulled myself together. “I’m sorry I hadn’t called either of you back. It’s been a day from hell. No, I don’t want to talk about it. Yes, I’ll be okay tomorrow. I don’t handle stress well, you know that.”

“I do know that. But if things become too hectic there, you know you can come home anytime. Whether for a day, a week, or for good, Tegan and I will stand behind you on your decision. We just don’t want you to have any regrets. You understand that, right?”

My brother was the voice of reason. The one person who would talk sense into me when I didn’t know which way was up. But I couldn’t lay my burdens on him when he and Tegan had received such wonderful news. His life had been full of stress and heartache until Tegan came into it. I didn’t want to bring him down again. I would have to find a way to figure out my stuff on my own.

“Do you have any names picked out?” I quickly changed the subject.

“Tegan has suggested a million different names since we left the doctor’s appointment. I can’t even keep up.” He laughed. “But as soon as we know, we’ll let you know.”

“You know she’s going to be the next tiny dancer of the family, don’t you?” My tears had subsided and a large smile spread widely across my face.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Water dripped down my face, but when I wiped it away I realized it was shampoo I hadn’t rinsed out of my hair. “Hey, I have to go. I need to finish washing my hair.” I laughed.

“Sorry for the back-to-back calls. I didn’t think about them freaking you out and I should have.”

“It’s no biggie. I still love ya.”

“You better. Give Tegan a call tomorrow, she’d love to hear how you feel about being an aunt to a beautiful niece in a few months.”

“I will. Talk to you soon.”

“Love you, Zoey.”

“Love you too.”

I plugged my phone back into the charger and padded into the bathroom. Looked like I’d have to retake my shower since only half of my hair had been shampooed.

Resisting the closing of my eyelids was like fighting off the flu—an uphill battle. You simply had to let it run its course. In this case, I needed to succumb to sleep and drift into a relaxing slumber, but most likely that wouldn’t happen because for nights I had been dreaming of the same damn burning house that had haunted me since I was a very young girl. I didn’t want to experience another nightmare where I woke up even more exhausted than I’d been before I’d gone to sleep. But trying to dictate how your night’s sleep went wasn’t something a person could do. At least not in my case.

The movie I was watching on my laptop was a clichéd story where girl meets boy, but boy doesn’t like girl in the way girl likes boy, so she does everything in her power to be someone she truly wasn’t. Definitely not my cup of tea, so I closed the computer. The only light on in my apartment was the lamp on the edge of the computer desk, which felt too far away to worry about turning off.

I tucked a hand beneath my pillow and attempted to drift off to sleep, hoping and praying I wouldn’t spend the night being haunted by my past. Just as my body relaxed, I heard a faint knock at my door. I wasn’t expecting anyone to stop by. Maybe Clara had taken a cab here instead of to her to own place. But why?

I made a beeline for the door and peeked through the peephole. Talon had instilled that safety measure into my head because you never knew who could be on the other side of a door. He was right. I wasn’t expecting the person who was standing on the other side of mine, and honestly I was a bit taken back.

“What in the…” I whispered.

I stepped back so they couldn’t see me through the peephole as they stepped up and knocked again. My heart thundered within my chest as I debated on whether or not I should open the door. A part of me wanted to crawl back into bed and pretend no one was there, while a bigger part of me wanted to open the door.

I opened the door.

His back was toward me as I spoke up. “Hendrix?”

Sure enough, he spun around with his hands shoved into his front pockets and a mega-watt smile spread across his gorgeous slightly rugged face.

“Hey.” He rocked back on his heels.

His usual vibrant navy eyes were hazed over and bloodshot. Obviously he was high, which made the fact that he was standing outside my apartment even odder.

“What are you doing here?”

“Cute PJ’s.”

He avoided answering my question by bringing attention to what I was wearing.

Then it hit me…

I hadn’t paid much attention to what I
was
wearing. My eyes dropped from Hendrix bloodshot ones to my tiny bright pink tank top that had a black silhouette of a ballet dancer. But the tank top didn’t both me, what did were the short as sin night shorts I was wearing. They were the shorts I kept for myself, no one else saw them. Because they were as skimpy as a pair of boy short undies.

My arms instinctively crossed over my chest as I hid my lower half behind the door and blushed furiously. “What are you doing here, Hendrix?” I asked again.

He pulled his hand from his pocket and shoved it through his messy hair. “I was…um…thinking about how we left things earlier and I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what exactly?”

Hendrix sighed heavily. “Sorry for being an asshole. I was pissed because you didn’t acknowledge what I said to you about being alone so I ignored you when I dropped you off. You didn’t deserve that.”

I was completely surprised by his apology. Hendrix didn’t strike me as the type to apologize very easily, let alone go to someone’s place to do so. Yet he was standing before me offering up a sincere apology. That meant something. Even if he was high as hell.

“Thank you for apologizing.” A shy smile adorned my face.

“I’m surprised you’re home.”

Speaking of home.

“How did you know which apartment was mine?” I lifted an eyebrow.

Hendrix laughed.

His deep chuckle was music to my ears, and my smile widened.

“The chick down the hall who randomly throws parties told me.”

“She knows who I am?”

“She actually did.”

I was amazed by what I was hearing. The infamous chick who threw parties on my floor was nameless to me, but yet I wasn’t to her. How odd.

A bellowing laugh escaped my lungs and echoed down the hallway. “Is it bad that I don’t have a clue as to what her name is?”

Hendrix joined in on the laugher. “Hell, I go to her parties and I don’t even know her name.”

We were both cackling so loud that I was afraid someone would complain since it was late so I waved Hendrix in and shut the door. My laughter died down as I realized that he was standing in my small apartment, no longer laughing, but taking in every inch of the place that I called home for the time being.

My private sanctuary was no long private.

“This place definitely suits you.” Hendrix turned his attention to me.

I slouched back against the door.

He stepped until only inches separated us.

I forced myself to speak, even if our proximity seemed far too intimate. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” My reply was barely above whisper and my minty breath danced in the tiny space between us.