Читать книгу Switch - Меган Харт - Страница 9

I finished my shopping just before noon. I had only two small bags of groceries, the bare minimum to get me through until payday. I’d left a few bucks in my wallet on purpose, though, for one reason. I didn’t need a large coffee with extra cream and a gooey cinnamon bun, but I wanted them.

Located in the building adjoining Riverview Manor, the Morningstar Mocha teemed with people out for a caffeine fix. A few joggers, bundled against the cold, filled travel mugs at the small stand in the corner holding the sweetener packets and jugs of milk and bins of creamer containers. And in the corner, my corner, the seat I took because it was in the smallest table and I was usually alone, sat my elevator eye-fucking buddy, Mr. Mystery.

Was it synchronicity? Or serendipity? His wasn’t the only familiar face there. I spied a few people from my building, one or two I recognized as Mocha regulars, and of course I knew the girl behind the counter. Her name was Brandy, and you couldn’t miss her. She chewed gum like cud.

I deliberately tried not to stare at him while I ordered my coffee and bun, but he was still there by the time they arrived. Still there when I’d dumped my mug full of sugar and cream. He wore a white, long-sleeved shirt beneath a black concert T-shirt and worn jeans that suited him nicely. His hair looked as if he’d run a hand through it a few times or just rolled out of bed. He had a large mug in front of him, still steaming, and a plate with the remains of a bagel slathered with cream cheese and lox. He was staring out the glass onto the street, empty but for the occasional weekend-traffic car cruising slowly past. In front of him sat a pad of legal-size paper, white not yellow, and in his left hand he held a thick-barreled pen. A worn leather bag rested at his feet as faithful as a hound.

The lighting inside the Mocha was golden and indirect, but late-winter bright sunshine shafted through the plate-glass window and across his face. I wanted to stare and drink in the fine-featured grace of him. The casual beauty. The crooked twist of his mouth as he bit down on his lip in concentration, the furrow of his brow. The way his hand curled around the pen caressing the paper.

Fortunately for me, he was still staring out the window, absently doodling, when two people in matching tracksuits slammed into me and knocked my coffee and cinnamon bun all over a couple, who looked as if they hadn’t yet gone to bed, sitting at the table in front of me.

The fitness twins were very kind. They bought me new coffee and pastry and replaced the party-kids’ bagels, soaked through by my spilled drink. They did it all with a fanfare that smacked a bit of “look at me, what a good person I am,” but they did it. I didn’t dare look at the man by the window until all the fuss and feathers had died down. When I did, finally, my fresh mug was burning my palm and my eyes had blurred from the dip in my blood sugar. I didn’t want to shove the entire bun into my mouth, but a dainty nibble wasn’t going to get the goods down my throat and into my stomach fast enough.

He glanced over at me as I was licking icing off my mouth. He smiled. I paused, coffee halfway to my mouth, and smiled back.

I thought for sure he’d say hello, but maybe without the allure of my fuck-me pumps all he could manage was the grin. Maybe he didn’t recognize me as the woman from the elevator. Or more likely, he didn’t care.

He got up, papers and pen already tucked away in his bag, garbage cleared from the table. He slung his arms into a plaid flannel shirt I hadn’t noticed hanging on the back of his chair and eased the strap of his leather bag over one shoulder. He left the Morningstar Mocha without a backward glance, which allowed me to stare after him without fear of being caught.

He’d left a crumpled discard to the window side of his chair, on the floor. With a quick glance around the now-empty coffee shop to see if anyone would notice me being a total snoop, I vacated my seat and took the one he’d just left. It couldn’t have been warm from his ass, or at least I shouldn’t have been able to feel it if it was, but I imagined heat. I knew I shouldn’t pick up the paper, or smooth it out in front of me. I knew, especially, that I shouldn’t read it.

But I did, anyway.

I didn’t learn the secrets of the universe. I didn’t even find out his name. He’d mostly been scribbling and doodling, with a few chicken-scratch phrases I could read but didn’t understand here and there on the paper. Looking over it, I should’ve felt dirty. I only felt disappointed. But what had I expected, a hand-written autobiography listing his education, career and medical history?

Still, I smoothed out the creases as I finished my breakfast and folded the paper in half. Then half again. And again, until finally I’d turned a legal-size sheet of paper into a palmful of secrets. It wasn’t any of my business. I had no right to keep it. It weighed there as heavily as a handful of lead, and yet I couldn’t manage to toss it into the trash.

I did wish, though, that I’d lingered over the coffee. River-view Manor doesn’t have a doorman, and the front-desk staff was there to accept packages and take care of problems, not keep anyone from entering the building. The building had security cameras in the elevators and on every floor, but no real means of keeping anyone out who wanted to be in.

Part of me wasn’t surprised when I turned the corner of the hall to see Austin waiting for me in front of my door. Another part wanted to turn and run away. I lifted my chin instead, wishing again I’d at least bothered to wear makeup, though honestly he’d seen me look way worse.

“What are you doing here?” I bent to put my bags down so I could pull my key from my purse. When I stood, Austin’s eyes were on my face, not my ass. Now, that surprised me.

“You didn’t answer my calls.”

I fit the key into the lock, but didn’t turn it right away. “I meant, what are you doing here?”

“I called your mom.”

I unlocked and opened my door and pushed it, but didn’t go through. I turned to look at him. My irritation must have been clear on my face, because he held up his hands right away as though I meant to punch him. “My mother told you where I lived?”

“Your mom always liked me.”

I blew a sigh that fluttered the fringe of my bangs off my forehead and then pushed through the door. I left it open behind me, as much of an invitation as I could bear to give. He followed and shut the door. Softly, with a click, not a slam.

I put my bags in the kitchen and kicked off my shoes. Austin stood still and watched me without making any move to sit. He looked around the apartment with interest, then shoved his hands deep into his pockets and rocked on his heels while I took my time unpacking and putting away my groceries.

“Can I sit down?” he asked finally, when I’d made it clear I wasn’t going to offer.

“Do you have to ask?” I kept my back turned as I sifted through the change from my wallet. I found a Wheatie penny and set it aside to put in my collection, then washed my hands thoroughly with soap and hot water. Money is one of the filthiest things a person can touch.

When I turned to look at him, he was still standing. We stared at each other across the expanse of my unimmense living room until I nodded. He sat the way he always had, legs sprawled, taking up as much space as he could.

I took my time cleaning the kitchen, wiping the counters and scrubbing the sink with bleach-infused powder. I even emptied the garbage pail and took the trash out to the chute at the end of the hall. I expected Austin to be restless or irritated by the time I came back, but he’d found a copy of a Robert Heinlein novel inside the pile of books and magazines thrown into the straw basket next to the couch and was flipping through it.

“It doesn’t have any pictures,” I said from the doorway.

Austin put the book on the coffee table. “This is nice.”

He hadn’t risen to the bait, though I’d made a point of pushing one of his buttons. “The book?”

“The coffee table,” he said, still not rising.

“It was Stella’s.”

Austin nodded, like that made sense. “Glad I didn’t put my feet up on it.”

It took me an actual five seconds before I realized he was trying to tease me without pissing me off. He was actually just…kidding. I knew how to handle him trying to seduce me or piss me off. I didn’t know how to take that.

“I miss you,” Austin said.

The words were hard to hear, and I don’t mean because he spoke too low, or mumbled. They were hard for me to listen to because I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want him to miss me.

I sat across from him, instead. The recliner’s springs sometimes poked through the faded material, though I’d tossed a fleece throw over it. One did now, and I winced as I shifted.

“I do,” he said, as though my expression had been in response to his statement and not a coil of wire in my butt.

“Austin.” Nothing else would come out.

He shrugged. I hadn’t fallen in love with him because of his way with words. Back then it hadn’t mattered if he spoke more with his hands than his mouth. Back then we’d both been young and dumb.

“You look good, Paige. This place,” he gestured, “it’s nice.”

“Thanks.”

His hair used to be bleached almost white by the sun, and he wore it so short I could see his scalp. When I ran my fingers through it, my nails scraped skin. Now it fell forward over his ears and forehead and was the color of wheat in a field, waiting to be cut. His eyes, moving over my face, made me think he was waiting to be cut, too.

I almost couldn’t do it. I mean, the night before I’d let him put his tongue down my throat and his hands all over me. When the warmth of him wafted over me, I wanted to close my eyes at how familiar it was. How easy it would have been to take him by the hand and lead him to my bedroom.

I kept my eyes open, a lesson I’d been taught a long time ago but had taken me a long time to learn. “I don’t miss you, Austin. Last night was a mistake.”

“C’mon, Paige. Don’t say that. We were always good together.”

“We haven’t been together for a long time,” I said, not quite as evenly as I wanted.

“It’s not just the sex.” Austin leaned forward, too, his hands on the knees of his dirty denim jeans. A white spot had worn through just below his kneecap, not quite a hole, but on its way to becoming one. “I didn’t just mean that. I can get laid anytime I want.”

“I’m sure you can.” I got up, my arms folded across my chest.

He got up, too. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

I wasn’t going to bend. Not over the chair, not over the bed, and not over this. “It doesn’t matter how you meant it. I think you should go.”

“Same old Paige,” he said with a shake of his hair. “Still hard as nails, huh? Hard as a rock. Can’t ever give me a break.”

“You don’t need a break from me. Besides, you can just get laid whenever you want. Look, Austin,” I said when it looked as though he meant to speak. “We can’t keep doing this.”

“Why not?”

I studied him deliberately until I couldn’t hold in the sigh any longer and it seeped out of me like air from a nail-punched tire. “You know why not. Because fucking doesn’t solve every problem. And we had a lot of problems.”

He crossed his arms and looked stormy. I didn’t point out the arguments we’d had about money, about religion, about monogamy. I didn’t remind him of the nights he’d gone out for a few beers with friends and had come home smelling of perfume and guilt, or that it didn’t matter whether he had or hadn’t fucked anyone else, it was that he was content to choose a night with his buddies over staying home with me. I didn’t bring up the times I’d said I was studying for school when I was really someplace else, with someone else.

“I just want you to be happy, Austin.” I meant it.

He leaned back and frowned more fiercely. “You want me to be happy so you can feel better about yourself, that’s all. So you don’t feel so bad about what happened.”

The truth of that stung me like a wasp, smooth-stingered and able to jab more than once. “I think you should go.”

Damn him, he didn’t. He moved closer and cupped my elbows in his palms so I had to uncross my arms to push him away or let him snuggle up close. I put my hands on his chest, but didn’t push. His muscles beneath the tight T-shirt were hard and firm. He leaned, and I didn’t pull away. If he’d kissed me, I’d have been lost, but if he’d ever thought he knew me, he proved himself wrong again. He didn’t kiss me. He spoke, instead.

“I’m your husband.”

I pushed my arms straight. His hands slid from my elbows along my arms and fell away at my wrists. I stepped back, my hand against his chest preventing him from following unless he pushed me, too. Austin looked for a second as if he meant to try it, but didn’t.

“I have a folder full of paperwork that says otherwise,” I told him.

“Okay, so not officially. But you can’t tell me—”

“I can tell you anything I want, so long as it’s true,” I shot back.

“Can you tell me it’s true that you don’t miss me, too? Not even a little?”

“I miss fucking you,” I said flatly. “The rest of it? Not so much.”

Austin grinned and spread his fingers. “It’s a start, right? I’ll call you.”

“I won’t answer.”

“I’ll call again.”

I pointed at the door, and he went. I waited until it closed behind him before I gave in to the urge to sigh. What is it about bad boys that make them so, so good?

I’ve known him since kindergarten. Austin. In my elementary-school class photos, more times than not, his freckled face is beaming from the row behind me. In one, we stand beside each other, our grins showing the same missing teeth.

In high school, we had nothing in common. Austin was a jock. I was a gothpunk girl with multiple piercings and a tattoo of a dragonfly on my back. We shared college-level classes and the same lunch period. I knew who he was because of his prowess on the football field. If he knew me it was maybe because I was one of the girls every boy knew, or maybe just because we’d been in the same school since we were five. We didn’t say hi when we passed in the halls, but he was never mean to me the way some of the boys could be. Austin never called me names or made crude invitations.

In the fall of our senior year, Austin went down under a pile of boys pumped up with testosterone and fury. We won the homecoming game, but instead of riding in Chrissy Fisher’s dad’s 1966 Impala convertible, Austin took a redlights-flashing ambulance to the Hershey Medical Center.

He recovered, nothing miraculous about it. His body, bones broken and skin torn, healed. Nobody ever said he’d never play football again. Austin simply never did.

Nor basketball, either, and in the spring, not baseball. By then his chances of going to anything other than community college had vanished along with the scholarship offers, but if he ever cared he wasn’t getting a full ride to Penn State, he never said so to me.

And by then, he would have. By the time our senior year ended, Austin told me everything.

We were an odd couple, but nobody shunned us for it. I didn’t hear whispers in the halls. No jealous cheerleaders tried to pull out my dyed-black hair, and no slick rich jocks tried to convince him he was better off without me. We didn’t go to the prom, but only because we decided to stay home and watch soft porn and fuck, instead.

When I told my mom we were going to get married, she hugged me and wept. Her belly poked between us—she was pregnant with Arthur, then. If she suspected I wanted to marry Austin as much so I could move out of the house as for passion, she didn’t say anything.

When we told his parents, his dad said nothing and his mother’s eyes dropped to my waistband. She didn’t ask me if I was pregnant, and she must have been surprised as the months of our marriage passed and my belly stayed flat, but no matter how she might have felt about the prospect of me as a daughter-in-law, the idea of a bastard grandchild must’ve been worse.

I wore a thrift-store wedding dress and Austin wore a suit of his dad’s we’d paid the dry cleaner to take in. In pictures, my thick black eyeliner and my spiked black hair make me look pale, wan. Tired. Scared, even.

The truth is, I was happy.

We both were, I like to think. At least at first. Austin went to work for his dad’s construction business, and I kept up work at my mom’s shop. My granddad had died and it was hers, full-time, and now that she had Arty, she couldn’t spend as much time with it, so I managed the shop.

We were happy.

And then, we weren’t.