Smoke & Mirrors by Skye Jordan

9

Logan

Iturn into the motel’s driveway, and the first thing I see is Isabel’s Jeep—gone.

“Goddammit.” I hit the steering wheel with my palm.

I park and sit there a minute, getting my shit together. The puppy, who fell off the seat and has been wandering around the passenger’s footwell, puts his paws on the seat, trying to get up. When he can’t, he barks at me. Okay, it’s more of a yip than a bark.

I reach down, draw him into my lap, and tell him, “I’m so fucking stupid.”

She told me she wasn’t staying. Whatever issues she has with her ex are her problems. I can’t solve them. Her circus, her monkeys.

But that doesn’t make me feel any better. I still have to pay back the money I borrowed from the guys. Maybe she’s trying to avoid seeing Maya again. Maybe she patched things up with Cocksucker and she’s headed back to New York. I sure as hell saw my mother go right back to my father no matter how abusive he became. It ultimately cost her everything.

“Some people just get their wires crossed,” I tell the puppy. “Sometimes they just can’t break that nasty cycle.”

I’m disappointed and annoyed Isabel is one of them. She seems so, I don’t know, sassy and independent. She acts like she’s her own person, not like a woman who’s been beaten into submission.

I climb from the truck and set the pup on the ground. He follows me to the office, where I grab the keys inside the door and head toward room seven. Between the office and Isabel’s room, the puppy conks out and lies down. He’s had as busy a night as me, up every time I was.

“Dude, the ground’s cold.” I go back, pick him up, and stuff him into the front pocket of my hoodie. “We’ve got to get you a winter jacket.”

At the door, I push the key into the lock, but stop and stare at the window. There are blinds covering the glass. Two-inch wooden blinds. The nice kind you can get cut to size at big-box stores like Home Depot.

My heart thumps with an extra beat, and I push the door open to find the room neatly organized, all of Isabel’s clothes still here, folded into piles, bed made, another set of blinds over the second window. And it smells clean. Like lemon-and-pine clean.

In the bathroom, I find a slew of cleaning supplies lined up against the wall between the toilet and the shower, which now has a shower curtain, and a smallish makeup bag on the counter. She’s put one of those over-the-door hooks on the bathroom door, and a towel hangs there. I touch it and find it’s still wet.

All the air seeps from my lungs, and my muscles relax. I know I shouldn’t care whether she goes or stays. This is just a wake-up call. A reminder not to get into her. She may have been up front about not staying, but she’s not telling me the truth about what’s going on with her. I have to catch pieces of the problem by overhearing phone calls.

As I return to the apartment, I look into the windows of other units. Some look the same, but some have clearly had work done.

Just as I open the apartment door and get another whiff of lemon and pine, her Jeep pulls into the lot.

She hops out and looks at me warily, like she’s expecting something bad. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

After a second, she saunters toward me carrying a pink bakery box. “How was your shift?”

I drop the pup inside the office where it’s warm and close the door. He instantly starts a what-the-fuck whine. “Busy. Looks like you worked at Natalie’s this morning.”

“I don’t know if working is the right word. More like making a mess and slowing down the process.” She offers me the box. “She did send me home with these for you, though. Chocolate croissants.”

“You weren’t planning on giving them to me, were you? You were just going to sneak them into your room and eat them all yourself.”

“Truth be told, I was going to eat every damn one.” She pushes the box toward me again. “Save me from myself.”

“Don’t have to ask me twice.” I take the box and set it on the hood of my truck.

She’s wearing torn jeans and a hoodie with the Fashion Institute of Technology logo on the front. Her dark hair is twisted into something that resembles a crazy-ass bun, and she doesn’t have one stitch of makeup on. She’s fucking gorgeous.

But that doesn’t mean I’m into her. Because I’m totally not.

I lift my chin toward her room. “Looks like you’ve been busy around here.”

She shrugs. “Doing what I can.” She tilts her head and squints at me, reading me in a way only she can. “Oh, man. That ‘getaway money’ comment at the fire station wasn’t a joke. You really thought I’d bail.”

I shove my free hand into my pockets and open my mouth to thank her for helping Maya out, but she shakes her hair away from her face and says, “I’ve got to go. I’m helping Mike out today. His daughter’s got some emergency dental thing.”

Mike is the head cook at the Cockloft, and his daughter, Tori, often comes in after school to hang with him in the kitchen. “How in the heck did you get corralled into that? I can go. Cole and Tucker are headed home too.”

“I guess it was an early appointment, because he came into Natalie’s just after she opened to try to let you know he was going to be in late. Natalie says that when you’re unreachable, it’s because you’re involved in a call or in a remote area where there’s no cell service. He wasn’t sure how long the appointment would take because she had to be sedated, but he told me what needs to get done, and I can totally handle it.” She pulls the paper from her back pocket and waves it at me. “See? Look how short this list is. Pffft, cake.”

I make a grab for it, but she pulls it out of reach. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Isabel.” I go after it again, and she turns away.

“Hands off,” she says, laughing. “I made the promise, I’ll follow through.”

“You’ve already worked this morning.”

“So have you. It’s no big deal. It’ll give me something to do.”

“Maybe you should use that time to sleep.”

“I could say the same to you.”

She keeps turning in circles so I can’t reach the paper, and it becomes a contact sport when I wrap both arms around her to keep her still. But she’s holding the note at arm’s length, which I can’t quite reach, even with my front side very intimately up against her backside. The feel of her makes me forget all about what we’re fighting for. All my mind can register is the roundness of her ass against the front of my jeans. The fresh strawberry scent of her shampoo. The way she fits me.

“Oh my God.” I keep my hands on her arms, even though she drops them. While my little head is awake and ready to party, my big head has floated back through the years. “You still use that shampoo?”

She glances over her shoulder, and she’s not fighting me anymore. Her breath is quick, and her body relaxes against mine, increasing pressure in all the right places. A gnawing sensation I haven’t felt in a long time sinks into my stomach, my pelvis, between my legs.

“What?” she asks.

I stare at her questioning look, completely unable to remember what she’s asking about or how we got in this position. A position where I could just lower my head to have my mouth on hers. “What, what?”

“What did you say about my shampoo?”

Oh, right. “You used to use something strawberry.” I don’t want to let her go. I really, really don’t. I’m even wondering if dropping my mouth to her neck to see if she still tastes familiar would be as bad as kissing her mouth. Then her phone rings, and she doesn’t reach to answer it.

It’s a reminder of all that’s happening with her, everything she won’t talk about, and there’s no telling how long she’ll be here before she’s gone again.

I force myself to unwrap my arms and step back. “Thanks for helping Maya last night. I can’t imagine what a mess it was to change a tire in that weather.”

She turns, facing me. “I’ve been in that situation, and it’s no fun. It also didn’t seem like a safe place for her to be stranded for any length of time. No big deal.”

“How did that go, exactly?” I have no idea how once-inseparable best friends turned mortal enemies who haven’t seen or spoken to each other in a decade would look.

“Better than expected.” She seems as surprised by her answer as I am. “We fell back into our smart-ass bickering like no time had passed. I finally took the opportunity to apologize for the whole scholarship debacle. But in the end, she didn’t want to be here while I was here, so she went to Portland to see friends.”

There’s no mistaking the hurt in her voice, but I don’t have time to say anything because she suddenly comes forward and pokes me in the chest. “You told her about us. We had a deal. A pact.”

I tilt my head. “I don’t remember telling her anything about us. I mean, what’s to tell? It was just—”

“A pact,” she says.

“Right.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“Maybe. Quite possibly.”

She sighs dramatically, shaking her head. “Men. God. So glad I’m not into guys anymore.”

My brows shoot skyward. “You’re not into guys anymore?”

“Get that dirty thought of me and some other hot woman out of your head. I’m off men—as in taking a total and complete sabbatical from your species.”

“We’re more of a gender, not a species.”

She drops her head back and stares at the sky. “This. This is only one of the many reasons I’ve taken several giant steps away from your gender.” She gestures toward me with Mike’s list. “I’m done with men until further notice, which will never come, by the way.”

“Then you really don’t need this anymore.” I pluck the paper from her hand, but she’s so damn quick, she snatches it right back.

Then she does something totally unexpected—she shoves the paper into her mouth, a determined look on her face.

“What the—”

She mutters something to the effect of “Top secret…my eyes only.”

I bark a laugh while she chews on the paper, her expression silly, but pleased with herself. I laugh so hard, I have to brace my hands on my knees. And I can’t. Stop. Laughing.

“Stop it,” she grumbles. “I’ve got a top-secret assignment here. You’re so rude.”

I laugh and laugh and laugh. Tears flow from my eyes, and I can’t catch my breath. I’m doubled over, an arm across my belly.

“This ain’t half bad,” she says around the mouthful. “I can see why goats like this stuff. Mmm, fiber. Maybe I’ve got a goat gene in my family. That would explain a lot.”

I fight to catch my breath. “Jesus Christ, stop.”

“Come on, am I right?”

Still trying to catch my breath, still bent at the waist, I look up at her. “You’re probably going to get lead poisoning from the pencil.”

Her eyes go wide, she turns her head, and spits it out, and I’m laughing again, my back braced against the grill of my truck.

“What in the hell is wrong with you?” she says, mock mad. “Laughing as I infect myself with lead, and you call yourself a healer, or a savior, or whatever the hell.”

“I’m kidding. Everyone knows there’s no real lead in pencils.” I grab her hand and pull her into me, where I wrap her tight, which elicits a round of pretend choking. “Damn, it’s good to see you."

She wraps her arms around my middle, but still acts like she can’t breathe. “You’re not exactly a string bean anymore, and you’re crushing my lungs.”

I let her go and catch my breath, wipe my eyes. “I was never a string bean.”

“If you say so.”

“Okay, if you’re determined to go to the bar—”

“I am.”

“—I’ll catch a few hours of sleep, then come in and help.”

She makes a face. “That might not work out well. I’m pretty possessive in the kitchen.” Her voice shifts into a mad scientist. “And there are rolling pins and meat tenderizers and knives. Shiny, shiny knives—”

“Then, I’m sure we’ll have lots of fun.” I put my hand against her forehead and give her a gentle push the way I did when we were kids. “We’ve got a scrimmage against the cops tonight. You should come. You can watch the puppy.”

“I don’t do puppies.” Her mood shifts into something I can’t quite read. “And why are you playing a game on a Monday night?”

“Because it's the day most of the team could get off. And I’ve never met a woman who doesn’t melt at the sight of a puppy.”

“You have now.”

That’s…curious. “Then Tucker’s going to get an earful, because he said a firefighter with a puppy would draw women like moths to a flame.”

“A: why would you ever listen to Tucker? And B: I doubt you have much trouble drawing women.”

I’m not going there. “You should come. The guys and their wives or girlfriends will be there. Lots of people to talk to, and you said you want to get to know people in town.”

Over the course of those few sentences, I realize I want her to come so she can see how fun it would be to live here. Somewhere deep in my psyche, I must want her to stay. I have no fucking idea why. I’ve never felt anything more for her than friendship. And, okay, lust. So whatever the hell just went on in my head, I can’t explain.

“Never mind,” I say, wishing I could pull the offer back. “You don’t have to come. I don’t even know why I suggested it.”

“Because you’re a good guy and you like to see other people happy.” Her assessment is somber, but sweet. “We’ll see. No promises. Now, go get some sleep while I seize, convulse, and froth at the mouth from lead poisoning.”