Author: Cassia Leo

Fuck. I want her so fucking bad. Rachel’s right. I have to man-up and tell her.

The doorbell rings and I pull on my T-shirt. I grab my crutches and hobble out of the bathroom. When I reach the top of the staircase, my mom is leaning out the front door, hugging someone.

“Let her in,” I say from the top of the stairs.

My mom lets go and opens the front door wider, but it’s not Claire.

“Come on in, honey,” my mom says, beckoning the girl inside.

Her loose, light-brown curls are pulled back into a neat ponytail that tumbles down her back. She looks a bit timid as she steps inside and flashes me a shy smile. Something about her looks very familiar.

“This is my new assistant manager at the shop,” my mom continues. “Do you recognize her?”

I do my little hop routine down the stairs until I reach the foyer to get a better look at this girl. She looks very uncomfortable as I look her over, taking in her round brown eyes and full lips. I can’t tell if she’s wearing makeup and she’s dressed pretty plainly in jeans and a black T-shirt bearing the bakery logo.

“Melina?”

Her eyes light up when she smiles. “I can’t believe you remember my name.”

I can’t believe I remember it either. She stayed with us for less than three months when I was fourteen. She was twelve and I tried my hardest to stay away from her because I was going through all sorts of changes. Girls were just beginning to change from pests to conquests and I didn’t want to go there with her. She was incredibly awkward—braces, frizzy hair, hand-me-down clothes.

She’s still a little awkward, but only in the way she carries herself, not in her appearance.

My mom closes the door behind Melina. “Come on in, hun. I have that cake stand in the kitchen.”

I’m tempted to watch her as they walk into the kitchen, but I restrain myself, which is a good thing because right then the doorbell rings.

“I’ll get it!” I shout toward the kitchen.

I open the door and Claire is standing on the doorstep looking more beautiful than ever. Her soft blonde hair hangs loose over her shoulders and she’s wearing a regular pair of skinny jeans, but it’s the shirt that makes me want to take her upstairs and rip her clothes off.

I stare at the shirt for a moment, incapable of tearing my eyes away. “You cannot do this to me.”

“Do what? Senia gave this to me a couple of days ago and I thought we’d get a good laugh out of it.”

She steps inside and I sigh as I get a closer look at the Chris Knight T-shirt she’s wearing.

“Where’s your mom?” she asks as she sets her purse and car keys down on the small table in the foyer.

I want to pull her into the coat closet and slip my hands under her shirt, but then a dark thought hits me. Maybe she only wore the shirt so my mom doesn’t go ballistic on her over Abigail.

“She’s in the kitchen with one of her employees. Come upstairs with me. I want to show you something.”

She eyes me and my crutches warily. “Maybe I should go alone. Is it in your bedroom or mine?”

“I’m not a cripple. I go up and down these stairs all day long.” I hand her my crutches. “You can carry those.”

She rolls her eyes then follows after me as I make my way up the steps, gripping the handrail so I have to put very little pressure on my right leg.

“That leg is never going to heal if you do this all day.”

“It’s healing up just fine. Cast should be off in eighteen days.”

“Claire!” My mom’s voice is a bit shrill with surprise. “Was that you who rung the doorbell?”

I look over my shoulder at Claire and she looks a bit frightened. “Yes, ma’am.”

My mom shakes her head. “Oh, stop with the ma’am stuff and you should not be ringing the doorbell. This is your house. Come here and meet Melina.”

Melina comes out of the kitchen carrying a large white cake stand. I recognize it as the one my mom used for my birthday cake in May. It was the first cake stand she got before she opened her bakery. There must be some big event going on at the shop for her to allow Melina to use it.

Claire looks at Melina for a moment before she glances back at me. It’s just a split-second look, but I swear there was a trace of jealousy in her eyes.

She leans my crutches against the handrail and descends the stairs. She gives my mom a hug before she turns to Melina and holds out her hand. “I’m Claire.”

Melina takes her hand and my mom beams as if she’s introducing long lost sisters.

“Claire, this is Melina. She was with us for a few months just two years before you showed up.”

Melina and Claire share a quick handshake before Melina casually moves toward the door. “I should get going back to the shop now. Nice to meet you, Claire.”

She glances up at me and I raise my eyebrows, but I don’t say anything. I don’t want to give Claire the idea that I know this girl even though she did stay with us a billion years ago.

“Nice to meet you, too,” Claire says as my mom opens the door for Melina.

My mom closes the door and looks up at me with utter contempt. “Jesus, Christopher. She came to me a few weeks ago because she had aged out and needed a job. She’s going through a really hard time. You could have been just a little more courteous.”

I roll my eyes because I am not going to be courteous to a strange girl who obviously makes Claire uncomfortable.

Claire squints at me for a second before she rushes out the front door. My mom looks confused then quickly follows after her.

Damn this leg! I hop down the steps and grab my crutches from where Claire left them. By the time I make it onto the front doorstep, Claire and my mom are returning up the front walk. They both look serious, then I spot a hint of a smile on Claire.

“What was that?” I ask as she enters the house ahead of me and holds the door open for me.

“I just wanted to give her my number in case she needs someone to talk to.”

My mom enters behind me and I stand inside the foyer watching them. I know my mom. She wants to be angry with Claire because of Abigail, but Claire is not going to allow that.

God, I fucking love her.

“That was very kind of you,” my mom says to Claire. “But we still have some things we need to talk about. You go ahead upstairs and let Chris show you his little surprise then we can talk.”

I make my way upstairs as quickly as I can, before my mom can interrupt again. Claire follows me into my bedroom, though I sense a bit of reluctance as she enters.

“I’m not going to try anything. I know you have a boyfriend.”

She winces at the word boyfriend then shakes her head. “I don’t have a boyfriend. Adam and I broke up.”

I want to tell her how happy this makes me, but her face screws up, as if she’s in physical pain, and I’m suddenly mad as hell. Did this motherfucker break her heart?

“I didn’t know that. I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not. This is what you wanted.”

“Claire, I want you, but I don’t want to see you in pain.”

She closes her eyes as she heaves a deep sigh. She’s trying to hold it together. “What’s the big surprise?”

I think of the box of photos my mom found in her room the other day while searching for Claire’s diary. I was so pissed when I found out what she had been doing, but I quickly got lost in the pictures. It was the box of photos I hid in her room after I left to L.A. because I knew my mom would leave Claire’s room as is. I didn’t trust her to do the same with my room. I looked through that box of pictures the other day and found moments I’d long since forgotten. I hoped that giving her the pictures might spark some forgotten feelings inside her, but now I can’t bring myself to put her through that. She doesn’t need me pushing myself on her right now. What she needs right now is a friend.

“It can wait,” I say as I nod toward the bed. “Sit down so we can talk.”

“I don’t need to talk.”

“Don’t pull that on me, Claire.” I rest my crutches against the dresser and sit down on the edge of the bed as I pat the mattress. “Talk to me.”

She sits next to me, but she stares straight ahead at the mirror above the dresser. “I can’t talk to you about this.”

I don’t want to hear about her problems with Adam. I think I’d rather break my leg again than talk about this with her, but I’m nothing if not a complete fool when it comes to Claire.

“You can talk to me about anything, babe.”

She glances at me and I nod to encourage her. “He left for Hawaii four weeks ago and everything just fell apart. He said we should take a break so we don’t hate each other by the time he gets back.”

“So you two are getting back together when he gets back?”

“I don’t know.”

She looks miserable. This is not how you treat someone you supposedly love. This guy is a fucking idiot.

“Do you want to get back together with him when he gets back?”

She sighs again as she stares at the carpet. “I don’t know. I….” She looks at me then shakes her head. “I can’t talk about this with you. This is too awkward.”

“Awkward?”

She smiles. “Yes. It’s very awkward.”

“You know what’s awkward? You sitting there talking to me about your breakup while wearing that shirt. I think you should take it off and this would get a whole lot less awkward.”

She presses her lips together to suppress her smile. “Really, Chris? You’re talking to me like that at a time like this?”

I can sit here and argue with her and make little cute comments back and forth or I can do something.

I reach across and trace my finger lightly over the side of her cheek. She only flinches a little, but I can see her body tense.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve been dying to touch you since we broke up.” She leans forward and hides her face in her hands. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

She shakes her head as she takes a moment to compose herself. Finally, she pulls her hands away from her face and wipes a few tears away.

“Claire, I love you and I just want you to be happy.”

She looks at me, her eyes are rimmed red, and it’s as if she’s seeing me for the first time. “How can you still love me after everything I’ve done to you?”

“How can I not? You’re the fucking love of my life. You don’t stop loving someone just because they’ve hurt you. Yes, what you did hurt me, but I gain nothing if I stay angry with you. But I might gain everything by forgiving you. You’re my everything. I just want you back.”

She gazes into my eyes and before I can change my mind I take her face in my hands and kiss her.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Claire

HE TASTES MINTY AND I recognize the flavor of his brand of toothpaste—the toothpaste I had to stop using last year because it reminded me too much of him. I want to push him away. I don’t want to kiss Chris. But my curiosity gets the best of me.

Not counting the kiss that didn’t really happen two months ago, this is our first kiss in over a year. How can we still be so in sync? I can anticipate the movement and pressure of his lips, every graze of his tongue, and I respond exactly the way he wants me to. No one can kiss me the way Chris does.

This thought makes me sick and I instantly push him away. “Stop.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to.”

He looks as though he can’t decide whether he should be pissed or understanding. “You felt that. Don’t tell me you didn’t feel that.”

“Please don’t do this,” I say as I stand. “I came to talk to your mom.”