Tailspin (Better Than You) (7 page)

Within three minutes, the noises from the party have changed from shrieks of laughter to screams of panic. People pour onto the previously somewhat empty deck, some of them taking the ten foot drop into the sand but most of them barreling through the crowded stairs. I lose track of Clementine and feel my heart begin to beat wildly against my chest.
What if she gets hurt? What if she gets away?
I’m conflicted again, despite my attempts to remain unaffected. Part of me wishes for her to escape while the other part wants nothing more than approval from my squad and Chief. Before I’m forced to make a decision, like going and finding her myself, a few of the SWAT guys run out onto the deck, take the ten foot drop like it’s nothing, and start running after someone very specific. They tackle Clem to the ground, roughly pulling her hands behind her back and securing her wrists with a zip tie. I shove a fist in my mouth and bite down to keep from screaming. I have to physically will myself to stay in this gazebo.

It’s worse than watching them do it to Hannah. At least in the end she was able to find out that I was nothing but a liar and a fake. Clem’s head whips back and forth, as if she’s looking for someone, probably her brother and most likely for me, too. She’ll always wonder what happened to me; if I ditched when the cops came or before. She’ll think I didn’t care enough to save her. She’ll think I abandoned her. She’ll think that the last eleven weeks was nothing but a lie.

And the worst part is, all of it is true.

9

February 17
^th
, 2009

              Bright morning light filters into my room, blinding my aching eyes with its intensity. I had too much to drink last night. It’s too early to be up. All I can think about is sliding the covers over my head and pretending like I don’t have a million things to do today. Emily seems to have other plans, though, as she barges into my room and lets the door slam against the wall.

              “Where the hell were you last night?” she yells. I can feel the vibrations of her high pitched voice against my skull.

              “Damn, Em, lower your voice.” I wrap the pillow around my head and squeeze my eyes shut. Maybe if I ignore her then she’ll go away.

              My arms are nearly ripped out of my sockets as the pillow is pulled free. “Nathan. Seriously. What’s going on?”

              I sigh and meet her eyes as best as I can. “Nothing’s going on, Em. I was…working.”

              She narrows her eyes at me. “Working.”

              “Yes. Working.”

              “Until four in the morning?” She sits on the edge of the bed. “And your work involves drinking? I swear to God it smells like someone doused your room in a bottle of whiskey.” She scrunches her nose.

              “Don’t worry about it, okay? I’m sorry I was loud and I woke you up, but it won’t happen again.” The truth is, I
was
working. I’ve been in on this assignment for the past two months and I’ve made absolutely no progress. They drink a lot, but no one’s made any of the illegal stuff known to me. I’m hoping that’ll change, and soon, because living this life of drinking all night and working all day is really fucking things up. “What time is it?” I ask her as I look around the room.

              “It’s just past noon,” she says as she stands.

              “Shit. I’m supposed to be at the bar to interview a few people.” I stand and take a deep breath, waiting for the ground to stop tilting underneath me.

              “Joshua’s at school, in case you were wondering.”

              “How did he- wait,” I say and look at her. “Why aren’t
you
in class?”

She rolls her eyes and turns her back on me. When she’s at the door, she turns and says, “Interview, remember? I told you like twenty times this week. You really need to get your shit together, Nathan.”

And then she slams the door and my head throbs in response. I dress quickly and rush out of the house, making it to the bar just before one. There’s supposed to be two people interviewing, according to Kait, and the first one should be here already. I turn the corner, walking towards the bar, and see a girl in insanely high heels walking up to the door. She stumbles a bit and I reach her just in time, slipping my arm around her waist and saving her from a humiliating fall. Her dark hair fans over her face as she tips forward, and then she turns in my arms and lifts her face to mine. And I’m stunned. She’s beautiful, in an exotic way, with eyes like melted honey and skin that looks smooth and silky. I’m overcome with the strangest urge to run my fingertip across her cheek, just to see if it’s as smooth as it looks.

I realize I’m staring, but she’s staring at me, too. Straight into my eyes, like she’s looking for something she swears is there. My eyes flit down to her lips, to the corner that has a little bit of dry skin. I want to lick it away. “You okay?” I ask softly, afraid to break this moment or scare her away but more afraid of what I might do if I don’t let her go. She steps back, out of my arms, and I immediately miss the warmth of her body against mine.

Tugging on her shirt, she says, “Sorry about that.”

Now that she’s farther away from me, I realize that she looks familiar. I know her from somewhere, but I just can’t place where. “It’s no big deal.”

Her face…I just can’t think of where I might know her from. Maybe she’s a regular? One of the girls’ friends? “I have to go,” she says. “Interview.” She hooks her thumb over her shoulder, towards the bar.
My
bar.

I smile, glad to know that I’ll have the chance to talk to her more. I want to know her name. I want to feel her skin underneath mine. But first thing’s first- “You’re right on time, then,” I say, and she looks confused. Holding out my hand, I add, “I’m Nathan. I’ll be interviewing you.”

Her honey eyes drop to my hand as she tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. I see her shoulders rise slightly and then drop, as if she’s taking a deep breath. It’s as if she’s mentally preparing herself to touch me. She puts her tiny hand in mine and smiles. Again I find myself fighting the urge to never let her go.

“I’m Logan,” she says, and realization hits me at the same time as her sweet as sin voice. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Suddenly, I know where I recognize her from. Her face is one of the ones I was forced to study before taking my current assignment. She’s Logan Reynolds, girlfriend of the douchebag I got wasted with last night. The air around us is calm, blowing softly and carrying the sounds of the beach and laughter our way. I’m tempted to tell her to turn around and go home, to leave this bar and no, she can’t have a job. But there’s just something about her, something that makes me want to pull her into me and keep her safe.
She can get you closer to them
, a voice whispers in my head.

Then I’m speaking, before I’ve even made a conscious decision. “Let’s head inside and get started.”

I can hear the click of her heels against the wood floor as she follows me to the office. Once I’m sitting at the desk,
her
file in front of me, I start to think. Logan. What kind of a name is that for a girl? My eyes gloss over her information, picking up on the stuff I missed before. Where
she
worked before, why
she
was fired, how much experience
she
has. I’m going to kill Kait for withholding this information.

“So,” I say, breaking the tense silence, “it says here that you worked in a restaurant for a little while? What did you do?”

She smiles and I can tell it’s fake, as if I’m wasting her time. “I started off as a hostess and then I moved to waitressing.”

I drop my focus back to her application; anything to keep from staring into her soul sucking eyes. “This says you were there for six months. Why did you leave?” As I wait for her answer, I run my hands through my hair. It’s long, curling around my ears and tickling my neck. I should get it cut, but I don’t have the time. I barely have the time to breathe, yet here I am, stalling this interview.

“We had a small disagreement,” she says with a slight twitch to her left eye.

It doesn’t seem like she’s willing to elaborate, and I’m not sure if I want to know the details anyway. I nod and pretend to read her application again. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Sighing, I lean back in my seat, racking my brain and hoping to come up with an answer. “Honestly, Logan, you have no experience bartending and you don’t have good work history. You’re not a very safe bet,” I say, mostly thinking out loud.

Logan suddenly seems to grow in height, sticking her shoulders back and flipping her hair away from her face. She stands, then smiles wide, her face completely transforming in front of my eyes. It makes me want to apologize, for some strange reason. “Thanks for your time, Nathan,” she says politely. As she’s walking away, I stare at her ass. I’m not going to lie. Her jeans are skin tight and she’s thin and tall. There’s nothing about her that doesn’t scream perfection.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t give you a chance,” I call after her. Apparently I’ve made up my mind. Her hand is wrapped around the doorknob, but she stills when she hears my voice. I rise and round the desk, coming to stand just a few feet away from her. When she turns to face me again, I ask, “When can you start?”

“When do you need me?” she shoots back. It catches me off guard, but only for a second.

“Tomorrow night. Five o’clock. Wear jean shorts, a black tank top and black sneakers. Be ready to work hard. It’s ladies night.”

Face serious, she nods. “I’ll be here.”

She turns to leave without another word, but before she’s out of the door, I call her name. My hand drifts up to her hair, seeming like it doesn’t belong to me anymore, and grabs a strip of the soft strands. “This,” I say, feeling the strings between my fingers, “Has to be up. Don’t be late.”

And when she walks away this time, I let her, all the while hoping like hell that she comes back.

~~

              As I’m walking into the house, my phone beeps. It’s a text message from Danny, but I ignore it. There’s no way I can go out again tonight. “Joshua, Emily,” I call out as I kick off my shoes. My whole body feels sore, like I’ve been on the field or at the gym, neither of which have occurred in a long time.

              “In here,” Emily calls back. I walk into the living room to find them both sitting on the ground, leaning over the coffee table which has books and papers and pens covering the whole surface.

              “What are you guys doing?” I ask.

              “Homework,” Joshua replies at the same time Emily says, “Nothing.”

              “Okay,” I say and then walk over to Joshua. “Do you need some help?”

              He shrugs his shoulders and keeps writing. It looks like English homework, but it’s been so long since I’ve been in school that I could be wrong. “What are you working on?” I ask, trying to engage him in some semblance of a conversation.

              “It’s a book report,” is all he says, never once looking up.

              The silence that follows after makes it clear that I’m not welcome. They’re giving me the cold shoulder, and it makes me afraid that we’ll go back to that insufferable silence that followed Mom and Dad’s accident. I can’t let that happen.

              “Look, guys, if something’s bothering you, just tell me. We can’t go back to this,” I motion to the considerable space between us, “again. It wasn’t any good last time.”

              Emily sighs and finally looks up at me. “We’re not going to stop talking to you, Nathan. We’re just mad. Like, normal, mad. Not completely-shut-you-out, mad.”

              I nod. “Right. Sorry. I didn’t realize there was a difference.” The sound of pen on paper picks up again. I rub the back of my neck. “So, uh, what can I do to make this better?”

              Emily lets out a snort. Joshua just keeps writing. I’m finding out that twelve year olds can be very stubborn. I don’t remember being so pig-headed when I was twelve. “But seriously, how can I make this better?” I ask again.

              “You can start by not hovering,” Emily says. I back up a step but don’t retreat like I think she wants me to. “That’s a little better, I guess. We just want to know where you go all the time. You say you’re working, but then you come home and you’re, like, flammable.”

              “Flammable?” I ask.

              “Yeah cause you’re, like, made up of alcohol, you know?” I give her a look that says,
not in font of Joshua,
and she rolls her eyes. “Whatever. We just want to know what you’re doing.”

              Dropping to the floor, I let out a long sigh. “Would you believe me if I said I couldn’t tell you, or else I’d have to kill you?”

              Joshua, who’s been watching our exchange silently, finally laughs. “Are you Spiderman? Or Superman? Cause that’d be kind of lame, because of the spandex and all, but kind of awesome, too.”

              “Can we not get into the whole super heroes thing, please?” Emily insists.

              “This is a serious topic, Em. We can’t have a bunch of guys running around in tights and-”

              “Nathan! Stop trying to change the subject!” I laugh at her expression, exasperation and irritation, and behind it, a tiny little smile because she’s trying so hard not to laugh, too. “We’re just worried about you, alright?” she says seriously.

              I grasp Joshua’s shoulder and look straight into Em’s worried eyes. “Please don’t worry, okay? I’m okay. My job is…hard…but I’m okay. You just have to trust me on this one.”

              Emily looks like she wants to say more, but finally nods her head. “Fine. I guess this is the perfect time to tell you that I got a job.”

              “Awesome, Em. Where at?”

              “The wine bar down the street from Dad’s,” she says, holding my gaze. It’s a challenge- I can see it in her eyes. She’s waiting for me to freak out. I’m trying really hard not to.

              “Why there?” I ask calmly.