“Mm, mm.” Earl stares after Pixie’s retreating form. “I love watching that girl walk away.” He makes another appreciative throat noise, and my fists tighten around the rickety ladder as I fold it up.
“Easy, Earl,” I warn.
I swear to God, between Ellen and Pixie and all the assholes that gawk at them, someone’s going to get their face smashed in.
A gravelly laugh tumbles from his mouth. “Nothing about that girl looks easy.”
I sigh. Tell me about it.
After a few more repairs, I finish for the day and head back to the front desk to collect my mail. Angelo is leaning over the counter, speaking to Haley in his thick Jersey accent.
“Vivian Whethers was trying to get a martini from me before breakfast had even started. That woman can drink her share of liquor, I’ll tell ya that much.” He leans closer to Haley like he’s spilling some huge secret. “And I swear to God she leaves her sticky fingerprints all over my bar top on purpose.”
Haley giggles. “She probably wants to leave her sticky fingerprints all over more than just your bar top.”
“Well, that’s too bad for her.” He winks at Haley. “ ’Cause Vivian ain’t my type.”
I try not to make a face as I step behind the desk. I’m pretty sure Angelo and Haley are sleeping together, which is unsettling because Haley is sweet and bubbly and Angelo is… well, terrifying.
He’s nearing fifty, but carries himself like an angry forty-year-old. He’s built like a bulldog and resembles one too, with his shaved head, golden canine tooth, oversized jowls, and sleeves of tattoos. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a mob boss with minions and a shovel resting beside a bulk supply of hand sanitizer in his trunk.
“How goes it, Levi?” he says, turning his head in my direction.
“It goes.” I frown at the beige envelope topping the pile of mail Ellen set aside for me. Its placement is no accident.
“Good to see you’re finally picking up your letters,” he says. “They’re an eyesore, ya know.”
“Oh, I know,” I say. They’re hurting my eyes as we speak.
Gathering the stack, I go up to my room and toss the top letter on my desk, where it joins five other beige envelopes. All unopened. All making my chest tight.
I’d rather fix a thousand chandeliers than deal with one of those envelopes.
5 Pixie
“I will pee on your bed.” This is my big, scary threat.
Levi used all the hot water again this morning, so I marched into his room in a rage. I never go into Levi’s room. It’s a personal rule of mine.
Our relationship—if you can even call it that—works because it’s simple. We never talk about the past. We sometimes argue. And we always stay out of each other’s business.
But here I am, in the business of Levi’s room, gripping my towel as cold, wet hair drips down my back. I haven’t had a hot shower for four days. Four days. This nonsense has got to stop.
“You seem stressed.” Levi, whose jeans are so low on his bare hips that I can tell he’s going commando, tilts his head. “You know what you need? A nice hot shower… oh wait.” He gives me an impish smile.
I might just pee on his bed right now.
“Joke all you want, Levi. But the next time you’re out fixing a broken window or a fire alarm, I will sneak into your room and pee on your bed.”
I’m dead serious here. If I don’t get a hot shower tomorrow, I really will pee on his bed. Or at least find a cat to come pee on his bed. But either way, there will be urine on his sheets and I won’t feel bad about it.
The impish smile grows. “I can think of better things for you to do in my bed, Pix.”
Silence.
If his plan was to make me uncomfortable by flirting with me, it totally backfired. Because the second those words left Levi’s mouth, his body stiffened in awareness and the space between us became electric. So now we’re staring at each other’s lips and we’re both breathing heavier than necessary, and neither of us is really dressed.
I shift in my towel and feel the material slip a bit as I pull my eyes from his mouth and try to coax my face into a look of something less come-and-get-me and more ew-you’re-pathetic.
I’m gearing up for my comeback—which will be brilliant and kick-ass as soon as I nail it down—when his eyes drop to my chest, and all the air leaves the room.
He’s not looking at my cleavage.
He’s looking at the raised red scar peeking out from the top of my towel. The scar that cuts diagonally across my torso, running from my left hip bone to the top of my right breast. The scar I normally keep hidden under strategic shirts and dresses.
It’s hideous and jagged, but I don’t hide my scar because it’s ugly. I hide it because it’s a reminder of pain and loss. And Levi’s eyes are fixated on it.
Pain. Loss.
My heart starts to pound and I no longer care that my shower was cold or that we have weird sexual tension. I don’t care about Levi’s forearm muscles or the way the bathroom smells like his soap.
I care about my scar and what it means. It hurts me. It hurts him.
It’s the only thing we still have in common, the only thing we absolutely avoid, and now it’s glaring at us—marked on my skin in permanent red, rising along with each of my breaths.
The horror in his eyes has me hollowed out and helpless, and I have no words. Unable to speak, I numbly turn and head down the hall to my room, shutting myself inside a millisecond before my body starts to shake. I lean against the door and try to take a deep breath.
I’m fine.
I’m fine.
I hear Levi’s bedroom door slam closed with a heavy thud, and the vibration runs down the wall and shakes against my back.
He’s not fine.
I’m not fine.
6 Levi
Fuck.
I clench my fists until my arms are shaking. I want to hit something, and I want to scream. God, do I want to scream.
Fuck.
I shove my hands in my hair. I grit my teeth. I stare at nothing.
I slam my fist into the wall and throw my weight behind it, welcoming the sharp sting that smacks against my knuckles and travels up my arm. I punch the wall again and this time the plaster cracks, giving me an odd sense of satisfaction. Another punch and the drywall gives way, leaving a hole, as crimson streaks of blood run between my fingers. I beat at the wall until the pain catches up with me and my fist begins to ache and throb.
Standing back, I rub my uninjured hand across my mouth and survey the destruction. A giant black hole stares back at me as a few leftover pieces of bloodstained drywall crumble to the floor.
Ellen is going to be pissed I broke the wall. But hell.