Page 106 of Roses, Pearls, and Hot Summer Nights
I sank into the numbness, a familiar emotion, at least. The circumstances had changed, but the end result would always be the same.I have to leave. Every time.
The hours passed slowly.Four, not that the light traffic made it better. I didn’t have a book or the Lent brothers to occupy my time. I missed Phoenix’s head on my lap, Jeremy’s not-so-soft snore in my ear, Julian’s sighs, and the way Barrett would meet my gaze across the car.
With nothing else to do, I started to sketch. I could always call upon thePoor Relation. She wasn’t real, but she didn’t let me down.
But I couldn’t call her up either. Instead, I sketched their faces. I couldn’t have them, but I would have my fresh recollection of them, while I could still smell them, on paper. One by one, I drew them. I only had my pen, so they were all colored blue. Still, I recorded them as best I could.
I couldn’t erase so I would just start over, frustrated with my skill, the paper, and my medium. Page by page, I kept trying to capture them until my fingers cramped, and I threw my penacross the limo. It was the closest thing to a temper tantrum I ever allowed myself.
“Did you leave me here for this, Mom?” I didn’t know why I shouted at my dead mother. Rosalind had lost it, so maybe I could, too. “Did you leave me here so I could never stayanywhere? So I could be aloneallof the time?” I gripped my head. I wasn’t crying, but it felt like the repressed tears dammed up inside me, making so much pressure my head might burst. Then again, maybe all of my tears just dried up.
Rosalind said when she stopped being afraid, she was punished. I could get her feeling of being cursed, since any time I let myself be happy, I ended up shot down. I stared out the window at the passing traffic, as usual, with zero control over my destination.
29
Imust have dozed off at some point, because I woke up to the driver’s voice through the lowered divider. He let me know we approached Park Avenue, where he would drop me off at my Aunt Tricia’s home. As the car slowed, preparing to stop at the curb, the door to the car swung open, and Jeremy jumped inside. He shouted to the driver, “To my place. Don’t even stop here.”
“Yes, Mr. Jeremy.” The divider closed as the car pulled back into traffic as the door swung shut.
I blinked, shocked beyond belief. “How?”
“Helicopter.” He threw his arms around me. “Are you okay?”
“Are you?” I shook in his grasp, still not sure I could believe he was real. “You were arrested.”
He shook his head. “No, Princess, I wasn’t. They didn’t have anything on me. Dad’s partner handles criminal cases, and he was there when we arrived at the station. No one got arrested. Everything is being dropped. They let me go as soon as I walked through the door. But, when we got back, you were already gone. I couldn’t reach you, either. Then I found your phone smashed on the floor. Mom is out of her mind, ranting and raving aboutcurses.” He sighed. “I finally got the story out of Maria about how she threw you out. Then? I ran.”
“Oh, Jeremy.” I closed my eyes, snuggling into his neck. “This is what happens to me eventually, anyway. You should have just let me go. I don’t get to stay anywhere. All those places where I talked about the storms? I’ve been in all of them. I get thrown away.”
“Not by us. My mother lost her mind when Phoenix got taken. They kept her drugged up for three weeks, even after he was back.” Jeremy pulled away, but only far enough to take my cheeks in his hands. Then, he kissed and kissed and kissed me, drowning my ability to think until we reached his apartment building. When he pulled back, I couldn’t breathe. He said, “You’re living here with us. You aren’t going back there.”
I didn’t know if the legalities could work out to be that simple. “Is that allowed? I mean … I just got thrown out of the Hamptons. Can’t they just throw me out of here?”
“They won’t evenbehere for three months. If they try to send you anywhere, I’ll leave with you. Remember what Phoenix said? That counts for all of us. If you go, we go.” He smiled. “Come inside. It’s been a crazy day, and you have to be starving.”
He had chased me from the Hamptons. The very idea of it shined inside me like a beacon. No one ever did anything like that for me.Is it possible?Could I really have found the Real Deal?
I lay on his lap hours later, readingDunewhile eating pizza on the floor of the apartment when the other three guys rushed inside.
“Thank fuck, you’re okay.” Julian dropped to the ground and tugged me against him in a hug. “She haslostit.”
I breathed in his scent, so happy to be back in his arms. Then Barrett. I finished up with Phoenix as they all sank to the floor. “Jeremy said I could stay here,” I told them.
“You’d better.” Barrett kissed my cheeks. “We told you we hated the beach.”
“Really hate it,” Phoenix said then laughed.
The universe had tried to take them from me, but so far, they stuck around. What did that mean? I was terrified to try to figure it out.
“Baby?”Julian kissed my back. “Kit’s here and he wants to talk with us for a minute. Granny, too. He wants to talk to you, also. I know it’s ridiculously early, but take a minute and come out, okay?”
I rolled over to see six a.m. on the clock, and I blinked in surprise.Their father is here?Is he going to throw me out?Were they getting arrested again? Phoenix, who had his head against my back, lifted his head. “What?” he asked.
“I know.” Julian shook his head. “But we all have to get up.”
We’d stumbled to bed maybe three hours earlier. We dragged mattresses around into Barrett’s room, the biggest, so we could sleep in there together. Phoenix got to his feet. “How did he wake you?”
“I happened to be peeing when he banged on the door.” He shrugged. “Come on, let’s move.”
