Playing with Fire (7 page)

The blasted phone started up again and he whipped the towel to the floor. That’d teach him to leave the damn thing on.

He went to the bedroom and picked it up. The number on the display wasn’t familiar. Relieved it wasn’t his family, he pushed the talk button. If he’d remembered the date, he never would’ve answered.

“Derek? This is James. Julie’s brother.”

Derek braced himself against the shakiness and nausea that started up. He’d recognized the voice immediately. They’d watched
The Mummy
together at Julie’s parents’ house on Thanksgiving last year, just weeks before the fire. He hadn’t spoken to James since her funeral.

He didn’t want to speak to him now.

“Hello?” James said.

Derek gave serious consideration to hanging up.

“Derek. You there?”

“Yeah.” Derek’s voice sounded rusty in his own ear.

“What’s up, James?”

It was James’s turn to hesitate. “I was just thinking about her. Figured you probably were, too, since it’s her birthday and all. Missing her. You know?”

Derek’s throat clogged with emotion. “Yeah.” Damn it all, he hadn’t realized it was her birthday. June 4.

“She’d be twenty-eight today,” James continued.

“Yeah.” What else could he possibly say? That maybe if he’d tried harder she’d still be here to celebrate?

“You doing anything in honor of her birthday?”

Derek rubbed his fingers back and forth over his eyes, where a throbbing pain now centered. “Just working. Maybe I’ll have a shot for her.” Or a bottle.

“I was thinking of going out for a triple-dip cone from Coneheads.”

Julie’s favorite dessert. From her favorite hangout, near her apartment in Dallas.

Rocky road on top, mint chocolate chip in the middle, Heath crunch on the bottom.

“You should do that,” he managed to say into the phone. “Hey, James, I need to get to work.”

“Yeah, man, I know. Just thought I’d say hi.”

“Later.”

Derek pushed the end button and leaned his head against the bedroom wall. He’d wanted pain and now he had it in spades. Rushing over him like sheets of torrential rain that soaked him clear through. He was drowning, fighting for oxygen. His chest seemed filled with a swirling blackness and cold, dark grief.

Back at Christmastime, he’d toyed with the idea of proposing to Julie, but had decided her birthday would be better…less distracting. Today. He would’ve been engaged today.

The blackness boiled inside him, begging for release. He lurched around and punched the bedroom wall with everything he had as he swore a long stream of the vilest words he could think of. And that did about as much good for his pain as a dog raising a leg and pissing on a four-alarm fire.

She eyed the bright red halter top hanging in the closet, but chose to layer a couple of tanks instead. The halter felt too revealing whenever she tried it on, even though some might say it was modest.

Stuffing ankle socks and tennis shoes into a bag, she slipped on some sandals and rushed out the door, determined to walk and enjoy the late-morning sun on the way to her very long shift. She couldn’t figure out how Derek could work these hours day in and day out. Her first objective was to hire people he could trust so she could force him to take a day off each week.

The sky was cloudless and the sun beat down on her. Clusters of people dotted the sand—families with young children, teen girls and leather-skinned elderly couples working on their tans.

Macey watched for the first sight of the straw-roofed bar down the beach. When she finally spotted it, weird things happened to her insides, all because she knew Derek was there. This time it wasn’t just anticipation of seeing him, though. Doubt made her drag her feet.

He really didn’t want her here. In essence, he’d sent that message when he’d refused to let her stay with him. And last night he’d made it clear yet again that he didn’t want her to interfere. Didn’t want to do anything to get over his grief.

Who was she to try to break through that steel wall he’d erected? She wasn’t special to him, regardless of her feelings for him, which, she realized, had only deepened in the few days she’d been here. Never mind her determination to keep them in check, or his efforts to push her away. If she wasn’t careful she’d make a fool of herself, trying so hard to help a man who didn’t want any help.

It wouldn’t be the first time she’d made a fool of her self, though. She really had no alternative but to stay and keep trying to get through to Derek. Because she couldn’t stand to leave when he was, well, like he was. He would hurt her along the way and she’d just have to deal with it. She could nurse her wounds later.

When she walked into the bar a few minutes later, though, she was surprised to find only Andie and Ramon, who really did look like an eighteen-year-old kid instead of the twenty-three years his application said he was. About a dozen customers were waiting around the bar to be served. She jumped into action and told Ramon to shadow her.

“Where is he?” she asked Andie as they stood side by side mixing drinks. Today Andie looked just like the Harley girl she was, sporting a bandanna to keep her long hair back, and a tee with a freaky skull design on it.

“I figured you’d know. I haven’t seen him.”

“Has he ever been late before?”

“What do you think?”

“He’s never late,” Macey said. She told Ramon what to ring up, and handed him the two fuzzy navels. “Have you tried to call him?”

“His phone’s not on,” Andie said.

“Fabulous.” But her sarcasm was out of pure frustration. Worry niggled at her.

Her stomach was churning almost two hours later when the flow of customers finally slowed down and Derek still hadn’t appeared.

“I have to go find him,” she told Andie, who’d just returned from wiping the tables clean. “Can you two cover me?”

Andie frowned at Ramon.

“We’ll be fine,” he said, sending Andie a goofy grin. “I can draw a mean beer.”

Macey stifled a laugh. Ramon had a crush on the resident bad girl. Andie didn’t even hint at a smile, which was how she was, Macey had learned.
Sunshiny
and
Andie
weren’t words used in the same sentence unless you were talking about the weather.

“Go now,” Andie stated. “The dinner rush will kill us if you’re not here.”

“I’ll be back before that,” Macey said, not allowing herself to think about the possibility that she might not find Derek before then.

“You can take my car,” Ramon offered.

“I was going to walk. It’s not far.”

He tossed her his keys. “It’s the blue Lincoln parked on the street. A big boat. Can’t miss it.”

Macey took his keys and, before leaving, grabbed the book she’d stowed under the counter a couple of days ago. She handed it to Ramon. “Study up.”

“
The Bartender’s Bible.
Sweet. Thanks.”

“Are you going yet or what?” Andie asked impatiently.

Macey hurried to the street and glanced around. She spotted the Lincoln with no trouble. It was hard to miss, about twice as long as any other vehicle around and a nauseating powder-blue with a dent in the side. Probably almost as old as she was.

The door was unlocked—no one would try to steal this beast—so she climbed in and put the keys in the ignition. Surprisingly, it started right up and she pulled out onto the street. She hoped she could find a regular parking place at Derek’s. Parallel parking this thing would take her a week.

Thankfully, there was a spot, and—double bonus—Derek’s black pickup was parked right next to it. Maybe he’d just overslept and her worry was for nothing.

She glanced into his bedroom, not expecting to see his legs stretched out on the floor near the door. Her heart skipped a beat when she did. “Derek!”

“What?” His tone, impatient, annoyed, startled her.

She entered the room and stared down at him in his exercise shorts and tattered red muscle shirt, propped against the wall. He looked like hell. His hair was disheveled, and he was slouched so much it had to hurt. His eyes were bloodshot.

“Are you okay?” She knelt next to him and touched his cheek.

He flinched away from her. “Don’t.”

“What’s going on? You’re hours late for work and you look like you’ve been drunk for the past week.”

“Don’t I wish.”

He had yet to make eye contact. Macey’s adrenaline was pumping and she scooted closer to him, until her knees ran into his thigh. “What
happened?
”

Then she spotted what he held. The photo of Julie.

“Oh,” she said quietly, her heart breaking. She longed to climb on his lap and wind her arms around him, to tell him everything was going to be okay, but…

She’d heard all the usual trite phrases at age ten, when her father had died. They were just empty lines people tossed out when they didn’t know what else to say. She’d promised herself never to use those on anyone.

She picked up his left hand and lightly traced his fingers. She’d never really noticed how big his hands were before, how strong. As she wove her fingers with his, she felt the calluses from years of work, saw the white scars and noticed several recent scratches. Then she glanced at his right hand. The knuckles were scraped and bloody. Starting to bruise.

“Did you get in a fight?” she asked.

“With the wall. I won.”

Macey spotted a gaping hole above them, a couple of feet to the left. “What’d the wall do to you?” She looked again at his swelling knuckles. “Are you sure you won?”

She might as well have been talking
to
the wall for all the response she got. Maybe hole number one could use a friend. Rolling her eyes at the stupidity of punching walls, she stood.

“Derek. What the hell is wrong with you? I know you’re grieving, but what happened today?”

He sat there in silence for so long she wanted to kick a reaction out of him.

“Today’s her birthday,” he finally said, his voice so quiet and full of anguish that Macey barely heard him. “I’d planned on asking her to marry me.”

Macey had no words. She sat down heavily, straddling his legs just above his knees, giving no thought to the contact now, too wrapped up in trying to somehow assuage his pain even though she knew she couldn’t. She took both of his hands in hers and squeezed them.

Derek raised his chin and stared at the ceiling. Swallowed hard. “Sorry I skipped out on work.”

“We did okay. But I was worried. I wish you’d told me what you were up against. I would’ve understood.”

He met her gaze head-on. “I forgot it was her birthday, Mace. She’s only been gone for five months and I’m already moving on, acting like I don’t care. Forgetting the date I was going to propose.”

“You’re not acting like you don’t care. I can tell you care, can tell you’re mourning her in every single thing you do.”

“I forgot her
birthday.
”

“No offense, but I’ve seen no evidence of you moving on, Dare. You’ve practically stopped living.”

He shook his head and looked away.

“You know something? There’s no right way to get through this. When my dad died, I thought there was. Thought I was supposed to talk about him to people who paid respect,
avoid
talking about him to my mom. I even thought there was a timeline. After a month, I should’ve felt better, right?”

“You were just a kid.”

“Oh, so there’s a
What to Do When Someone Dies
handbook for adults now?” She narrowed her eyes, frustrated that she couldn’t help, that he was so hard on himself. “You know, I can’t tell you how to grieve. But I can tell you that you need to quit beating yourself up.

Quit worrying about what you do or don’t feel.”

“Bossy.”

“We’ve established that. And while I’m at it, one more thing. Quit punching walls, because I seriously think you lost on that. Your hand looks terrible.”

“It’ll be fine.”

She stood. “You should take the rest of the day off.”

He ran his beat-up hand through his hair and flinched, which told Macey his knuckles hurt worse than he was letting on. “I need to work.”

“The world won’t stop spinning if you take one night off.”

He rose from the floor slowly. “I can’t stand being in this place for the rest of the night. I’ll come to work.”

That she could understand. “Okay. If that’s the case, get your butt in the shower. You smell like a gym. And call Gus. He’s worried.”

He stared stubbornly at her and then lifted the muscle shirt over his head, revealing that sculpted chest that had been burned into her mind since she’d watched him sleeping. Before Macey could react, he lowered his shorts.

“Going to stay for the rest?” he asked.

She couldn’t help it; she looked down, thinking he’d surely left his underwear on. But holy cripes…nope. She averted her eyes, not quickly enough. He was staring at her, saw her reaction, which had to be all over her face because she’d never been able to hide a thing. Her cheeks warmed.

Derek’s lips twitched into a humorless near smile.

“Careful who you boss around.”

He turned away and walked to the bathroom and, Lord help her, she couldn’t
not
check out his butt. Just for a second. Long enough to see that it was as beautiful and perfectly toned as the rest of his body. She whipped her eyes back up and wanted to sink through the floor when she realized he’d looked over his shoulder and again caught her staring at him. She hurried out of the room to wait at a safe range. Like maybe Alaska.