Chapter Ten
Eden
I ducked into Brickwood Coffee on Bedford Avenue just as the heavens opened, releasing a summer shower I hadn’t anticipated. When I left my apartment, it had been hot and sunny. I ran my fingers through my sweaty hair, scanning the room for Ava. The shop was small, with rustic wood walls, and a ceiling made of vintage crates, the air rich with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Bearded hipsters hunched over laptops sat at a tall wooden table down the middle and a few customers were sitting at the round tables by the windows, but Ava wasn’t here yet.
I stepped up to the counter and gave my order to a short, wiry guy with dark hair and red-framed glasses. “Could I get a large iced coffee, please? And leave room for milk.” I indicated with my fingers how much room he should leave. He handed me a plastic cup and a marker. I drew a line and handed the cup back to him.
“Do you want the French roast, the Kenyan, the Costa Rican—”
“Which one is the smoothest?” I’d never been to this coffee shop before, and I didn’t get so many choices at my local shop. “You know…without—”
“The bitter aftertaste?”
I smiled. “Exactly.”
He held up his hand. “Leave it to me. I’ve got you covered.”
“I trust you. You seem to know a lot about coffee.”
“I’m a trained barista. Coffee is my life,” he joked. “Anything else? Bagel? Muffin? Cinnamon roll?”
“No, thank you. Just the coffee.”
“And a large black coffee,” a voice behind me said. I’d know that gravelly voice anywhere. What was Killian doing here?
“Your usual?” the barista asked, his gaze sweeping over Killian who I hadn’t looked at yet. The barista seemed to be appreciating the view though, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out he was gay. “Or did you want to try—”
“The usual,” Killian said, cutting him off.
The barista nodded. “Good choice.” He was still staring at Killian, making no move to get the coffee. I needed to see what was so swoon-worthy, not that Killian wasn’t always swoon-worthy.
I turned to look at Killian who was running his hand through his wet hair. My gaze traveled down from his broad shoulders to the wet T-shirt clinging to his body, displaying his toned, hard body, every muscle clearly defined. Good Lord, were those eight-pack abs? I’d obviously checked out his body before. How could I miss it? It was like a work of art, chiseled by a sculptor, but in a wet T-shirt it was even more spectacular. I was imagining him stripped bare of the T-shirt. Stripped bare of all his clothes. I lifted my eyes from his chest to his face.
Busted.
He was smirking at me.
“Did you just smirk at me?”
Still smirking, he stepped forward and handed the barista a twenty-dollar bill. In all the confusion of ogling Killian’s torso, I forgot about paying.
“Hey, wait. I’ll pay.” I dug around in my bag and pulled out some cash, offering it to the barista who was already handing Killian his change. I tried to give Killian the money, but he scowled at me like I’d offended him.
“Thanks.” I stuffed my money in my handbag and slid it onto my shoulder. “I’m meeting Ava. I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Same here.” His gaze glided over my body, scanning me from head to toe, his eyes so heated I was surprised I didn’t burst into flames. When he was done, he leaned in close and whispered in my ear, “Now we’re even.”
“Enjoy your coffee,” the barista said. He handed us our coffee and gave me a sly wink.
Heat flushed my cheeks as I walked my iced coffee over to the service counter and busied myself with adding milk and two sugars. God, it was hot and steamy in here. It took me ten times longer than it should have to perform this simple task. My motor skills had been severely compromised, and Killian was standing too close to me, in all his wet T-shirt glory. Coffee made, we carried our drinks to a rickety table too small for Killian, let alone me and Ava. It was like the kids’ table at Thanksgiving. I took a seat facing the room and slid my phone out of my bag. Nothing from Ava. I typed out a quick text and hit send. Help, I need back-up. ASAP.
Where are you? Killian is here.
Two seconds later, she replied.
I’ll meet you at the gallery in an hour.
I frowned at my phone. Double-crosser. An hour? I’d be done with coffee and finished at the gallery by then. I sighed and slid my phone into my bag. Killian leaned back in his chair which he’d pushed back to accommodate his long legs and…well, the rest of him…and took a sip of his coffee, his eyes on me.
“Ava isn’t coming.”
Killian rubbed his hand over his face and laughed.
I arched my brows. “Was that funny? Did I miss the joke?”
“The joke’s on us.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.” I was still thinking about yesterday when he and Louis were running in the park. I only caught the tail end of their conversation when I turned off my music. Was Louis talking about me or someone else? Louis tried to cover it up, so I figured it wasn’t me. Besides, Killian didn’t need tips. Women gravitated toward him and didn’t seem to notice or care that he didn’t turn on the charm. All he needed to do was show up and all the work was done for him. Was I so shallow? Falling for him because of his looks? No, there was a lot more to Killian—I just wasn’t sure what it was. “You’re probably busy so if you want to go…”
“Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“I was just giving you an out,” I guided my straw to my mouth and took a sip of my coffee.
“What if I don’t want an out?” he challenged.
I shrugged like it didn’t matter to me one way or the other. And it shouldn’t matter. But it did. I was happy he wanted to hang out with me. “Then I guess you can stay.”
He chuckled and lowered his gaze to my right hip as if he had X-ray vision and could see through the fabric of my black tank dress. Didn’t hurt, my ass. It was a lot worse than a needle scratching the skin. I couldn’t imagine sitting through all the hours of tattooing like Killian must have done to get a full sleeve. I left the shop an hour ago with full instructions from Jared, puffy red skin, and a bandage covering my tattoo. I promptly went home and changed out of the shorts chaffing my skin into a dress.
“Did you go through with it?” Killian asked.
I nodded, unable to keep the smile off my face when I thought about the set of wings on my hip. Killian’s smile matched my own. I loved his smile. I loved the dimples and the little lines that crinkled around his eyes. Adorable.
“You’re different outside of work,” I said, observing his relaxed posture.
“Different how?”
“More relaxed.”
“You caught me on a good day. It won’t happen again,” he joked.
I laughed. “Do you like running a bar?”
“It wouldn’t be my first choice, but I’d rather run a bar with Louis than work for someone else.”
“I can’t imagine you working for anyone.”
“Well, there you go,” he said.
“What would be your first choice?”
“Stunt man,” he joked, fixing his gaze on the hand holding my coffee. I didn’t do a thorough job of cleaning off the paint. “What were you painting?”
“Just…an abstract painting. I paint a lot after work. I can’t sleep when I get home.”
“Neither can I.”
“So, what do you do?” I asked, taking a sip of my coffee.
“Last night I watched a movie. Listened to music. Cleaned the kitchen. And fixed a broken cabinet.”
“You were busy.”
“Sometimes I do all those things at the same time. Just to keep it interesting.”
I thought about what he said and laughed. “Wow, you have skills.”
“Oh yeah, I have skills.” He made that sound dirty. I was imagining what kind of skills he had that were in no way related to watching TV, listening to music, cleaning, or DIY. His mouth, hands, and body…they were all very much involved.
“I was talking about…you know, multi-tasking.”
His lips twitched with amusement. “So was I.”
My face heated, and the heat traveled south. I guzzled my iced drink to cool off. Stop thinking about Killian naked, running his warm, calloused hands over your body and…yeah, cool it. That would be a disaster. I worked with him and, more importantly, I was working on myself. Last night, in a moment of weakness, I stalked Facebook. I stopped posting months ago, but I hadn’t shut down my account, so I still had access to all my old ‘friends.’ Luke hadn’t posted anything in months, but Lexie more than made up for it.
After tripping down memory lane and poring over pictures of me and Luke at the prom, at Homecoming, at Penn State football games and tailgate parties, and a million photos where we looked like the happiest couple on the planet, I tortured myself with the present-day photos. Lexie at different stages of her pregnancy. Luke, the proud father-to-be, with his hand on her pregnant stomach. “He never misses a doctor’s appointment. World’s Best Daddy,” she wrote. Lexie and Luke with his parents. By the pool. Family dinners. The baby shower—Cassidy and Lexie with their arms around each other. Traitor.
But I considered it a small victory that I didn’t end up in a puddle of tears. When I shut my laptop, I concluded that I didn’t envy their life. My greatest fear was getting trapped in my hometown for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, that didn’t make the betrayal easier to accept.
Killian was watching my face. “So many loud thoughts. I can barely hear myself think.”
I sighed, and it was also loud.
“That bad?” he asked, sounding like he genuinely cared.
“Yeah. I did a stupid thing last night.”
“What did you do?”
“I stalked my ex-boyfriend.” I wasn’t sure why I was spilling my guts to Killian all over the coffee shop, but he didn’t seem fazed by it.
“Literally?”
“Virtually.”
He took a sip of his coffee. “Was he your Prince Charming?”
“Once upon a time. But someone else got the happily ever after.”
“He’s an idiot.”
I laughed a little, but I didn’t want to talk about Luke with Killian. I wanted to talk about Killian. “What does your tattoo say?”
He looked at his arm, as if he needed confirmation. “Non Desistas Non Exeiris. Never give up, never surrender.”
I thought about it for a few seconds. It sounded familiar and then I remembered why. “You inked your skin with a line from Galaxy Quest?”
He shook his head. “Yeah.”
“That’s awesome. My brothers would love that. They were so into that movie. We watched it so many times, we knew all the lines.”
“Connor used to love it.” He looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time. “But nobody ever guesses it’s a movie reference.”
It was a stupid movie, but if you took the humor away from the quote it had a deeper meaning. I got the feeling Killian wouldn’t ink his arm with those words unless they meant something to him. Maybe it was his life motto. Never give up, never surrender.
“What’s your tattoo?” he asked.
“Wings. For my mom. I’m not sure if I believe in Heaven, but I like to think that if there is a heaven, she’s an angel, watching over me.” I scrunched up my face. “Does that sound stupid?”
He shook his head. “Not at all. Your mom passed away?”
“Yeah. When I was twelve. Cancer.”
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, and I could tell he meant it.
“Yeah, me too. My mom was great.” Losing my mom left a gaping hole in my life that my dad tried to fill but sometimes he was at a loss. I still remember the panic on his face the first time I told him I needed tampons. It was almost comical. “She was a high school English teacher, but she was a good artist too. She taught me how to use watercolors and acrylics and how to sketch…I’m not sure how I would have treated her when I was a teenager. Probably horrible. But when I was young, we never had those mother/daughter fights like some of my friends did.” I looked down at my coffee, wondering how much hurt one heart could hold. “I miss her every day.”
“But it’s nice you have good memories.” He gave me a soft smile I’d never seen him use before. I’d caught the wistfulness in his tone, and I got the feeling he didn’t have a lot of good memories from his childhood. I hoped I was wrong and he had hundreds of good memories, just like I did.
Turned out that an hour in Killian’s company went fast, and we powered through so much coffee I was all jangly now. The summer shower had been a quick one and now the sun was shining again, and the air was hot and heavy. As promised, Ava was waiting outside the graffiti-covered art gallery, the bottom floor of a four-story brick apartment building. She looked cool and fresh in a 1950’s-style black and white polka dot dress, flip-flops, and cherry red lipstick.
Ava gave Killian a little slug on the shoulder. “You should come with us. Get a little culture in your life.”
Killian squinted at the art gallery and rubbed his jaw, like he was considering it, but his phone rang before he could give us an answer. He slid it out of his pocket and squinted at the screen. “I need to go.”
He turned on his heel and headed down Bedford Avenue, his phone pressed to his ear. I watched him walking away. Correction. Killian didn’t walk. He strode, stalked, or swaggered. Sometimes all at the same time. Ha-ha. Skills.
“So…how was your coffee date?” Ava asked as we entered the gallery, an all-white space with exposed pipes in the ceiling, and spotlights trained on the art pieces.
“It wasn’t a date.”
“No need to get all prickly. Did you have a good time?”
“It was fine. But Killian didn’t appreciate being tricked.”
Ava snorted. “Trust me, if Killian was unhappy about it you wouldn’t have enjoyed your coffee. He wouldn’t have stayed long enough to drink the coffee.”
True. But he stayed. We talked about a million things, some of them deep, and some of them fun and silly. We laughed, we had a good time, and I got to see another side of him, a side I really liked. Maybe that was my problem. I thought about Killian all the time. He took up so much headspace it prompted me to stalk Luke on Facebook. Why? To remind myself that guys couldn’t be trusted so I needed to guard my heart? Keep my walls up to protect myself?
It wasn’t my nature to be cautious, but I needed to be smarter and guard my heart more carefully. Not that Killian had ever given me any indication he was interested in me. Except maybe the way he looked at me in the coffee shop, the way he listened to everything I said and gave me his undivided attention. It made me feel like I was someone special to him, if only for an hour.
Ava and I wandered through the gallery, checking out the special exhibition called Destruction and Renewal. Abstract landscapes lined the walls and sculptures sat on Perspex cubes. I stopped in front of a sculpture made from scraps of fabric, recycled debris, wire, and string, all pieced together to create a three-dimensional art object.
Just as I was thinking that this Destruction and Renewal exhibit felt like my life, Ava beat me to it, “Looks like my life,” she mused, almost to herself.
“I know the feeling.”
“Did someone break your heart?”
“Yeah,” I said with a heavy sigh.
“It sucks.”
“Big time. But I’m working on rebuilding it.” I hoped it was true and kind of felt like it was. Maybe I was gearing up to let go of the hurt and pain and move on to a new and better version of myself. Like the art exhibit, the destruction was behind me and now it was time for the renewal. “Did someone break your heart?”
“Yeah,” Ava said. “But it keeps happening with the same person. I mean, he’s still a big part of my life. I’ll always love him. I just can’t be with him.”
“Did he cheat on you?” I couldn’t think of any other reason not to be with a person you love. Which just went to show how narrow my focus was.
“No. He’d never do that. He’s…damaged. I thought I could fix him. Like, maybe my love would be enough. But you can’t fix another person. And now he’s gone…and I have no idea if he’s okay or not.”
“Are you talking about Killian’s brother?” I asked, taking a wild guess.
“He told you about Connor?” Her gray eyes widened in surprise.
“Just a few things. Not a lot. And nothing about you,” I assured her.
“Wow,” she said, shaking her head.
“What?”
“Killian doesn’t open up to too many people. I mean, he talks to me and Louis because we’ve known him forever. But even with us, he holds a lot back. He’s never been the guy to pour out all his thoughts and feelings. He keeps it locked up tight.”
I’d already figured that out the day I met him. “He doesn’t tell me that much. It’s not like I really know him.”
“But he drives you home after work,” she pointed out.
“Only because he worries about my safety.”
“Yeah, he’s super protective. But he could just make sure you got in a taxi.”
“He said my apartment is on his way home.”
Ava shook her head like I still wasn’t getting it. “Trust me. If Killian is driving you home, he wants to spend more time with you.”
“I’m not looking for a relationship, and I don’t think he is either.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Everyone is looking for a relationship. Fighting it and not wanting it are two different things. And trust me, Killian wants it. He’s just too stubborn to give in to his real feelings. But hang in there. He’s worth it,” she said, as we exited the gallery.
“I’m sure he’s worth it. But, like I said, I’m not—”
“You know what I think?” Ava said, as if I hadn’t spoken.
“No. What?” If Killian was too stubborn and I was too gun-shy to start a relationship, where would that leave us? Nowhere.
“You’re his unicorn.”
“His unicorn?” I asked, glancing in the window of a vintage clothing store.
“You know, the dream girl. You make him laugh and smile and it’s so good to see. He’s been in a bad way—” She clamped her mouth shut. I waited for an explanation. Instead, she forged on with her unicorn definition. “You challenge him and don’t let him get away with everything. But you see the good in him. You genuinely care about him. And his friends love you. We’re Team Eden.” She gave me a big smile. “You make his life better.”
“I don’t think I do all that.” I wasn’t sure I did anything for Killian except drive him nuts with questions he usually doesn’t want to answer. But he usually ends up answering, anyway, albeit grudgingly.
“You baked chocolate chip cookies for him. And he ate them.”
“They were just cookies.” I wasn’t sure how this had anything to do with being someone’s unicorn. Which I wasn’t.
“He never eats cookies. Or any kind of dessert or junk food. Like, never ever.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged noncommittally. “He just doesn’t. But he ate your cookies. And I happen to think you’re perfect for each other.” Ava gave me a secret smile and now I knew what was behind it. Wishful thinking on her part, if you asked me.
Later that evening, while I was cooking spaghetti with jarred sauce in my postage-stamp-sized kitchen, I got a text from Killian.
How was the art exhibit?
Interesting
I sent him a photo of the sculpture.
He responded with a photo of a mountain of paperwork on his desk.
I piled a plate high with spaghetti and grated cheese and sent him a photo of my dinner.
Where are the vegetables?
They’re overrated.
Not even a salad?
I sent a photo of mini carrots and a cucumber, the only vegetables in my fridge. Dessert.
While I ate my dinner, sitting cross-legged on my living room floor, we texted back and forth about nothing important. I guess, for want of a better word, Killian and I were becoming friends.