Pulled Within (5 page)

Before she opened it, we both adjusted our bras. “Your nipples are going to ache by the end of the night,” she warned me, “but the money will be well worth it. Promise.”

I laughed, my smile spreading as wide as it could. “They already do! I’ll tough it out.” The bra felt like a set of clamps, not just holding me up, but binding me, too. There was pain starting in my shoulders and in the center of my back where the straps dug into my skin. But pain was part of my life.

All that mattered at that moment was how much money I was going to make.

Her fingers tapped my wrist. “I figured I was going to like you. I was right.” She released me and moved through the open door before I got a chance to get a good look at anything besides her black nail polish. “Those are yours.” She pointed toward the row across from us. “Mine is the row to the right. Let me know if you need me.”

With the pad in my hand, I walked to the first ten-top and began taking their orders. Christy was right: they mostly wanted beer. But their tips were consistent, and they drank fast. After a few rounds, I
started ordering ahead so their drinks would be ready before they asked for them. That allowed me to turn the bottles even faster. The players seemed to appreciate not having to wait, and their tips started to increase.

Every hour, we took a fifteen minute break. Those moments
went by so fast, I barely had time to sit and take a sip of water before we had to report back to our tables. My feet throbbed inside the boots; my nipples had been hard and aching for hours from the constant
rubbing and squeezing of the bra. The spilled beer felt like glue on
my fingers, and every part of my body reeked of cigarette smoke. Still, none of that mattered. Cash was building in my apron. The wad had become so big, I had to break it up into two separate folds, and the other pocket was almost overflowing with chips.

“Rae?” a man said from behind me.

I was setting my last bottle on one of the tables, and I froze from the sound of him speaking my name. The depth of his husky voice was a sound I knew without having to see who it belonged to—not
just because I’d heard it so often, but because it used to vibrate
across my skin and sear into my memory.

I didn’t turn around. I just kept facing the table.

I wasn’t ready for those eyes, that mouth; those hands, so
achingly familiar. The memory of them hurt. They’d left me too suddenly to represent anything but pain now.

“Rae,” he repeated. “It’s me.”

There was nowhere to go. If I wanted to move around him, I was going to have to turn and face him. So I did…but slowly. I kept my breath in my lungs so he wouldn’t see how he’d knocked the air out
of me. My stare moved from the ground to his boots. I didn’t
recognize
them…and of course, I wouldn’t have. Why would he still have the
same boots he’d had so long ago? But they were definitely
something he’d wear
—
full of style and terribly expensive.

My eyes moved up the height of him. His dark jeans outlined the muscles in his thighs, and his shirt hinted at what was beneath the thin material. I knew what was under it: the feel of his skin, its taste, its smell. I knew the warmth of his arms, and how much it had stung when they’d released me…forever.

When my eyes reached his neck, my entire body stiffened. My
mouth turned dry and my hands started to shake. The tray was
empty,
so I flipped it around and clutched it against my chest like a shield.
“Hart Booker,” I whispered. It was so loud in that room from all the
chatter and the clanking of chips. But he nodded, and I knew he’d
heard me. Then I dared to look at his face…finally. A few days’ worth of medium-brown scruff covered his cheeks. His eyes
—
the
lightest blue,
almost silver
—
glimmered back at me. They weren’t always that color, but when they were, they could be the most honest eyes I’d ever looked into.

It felt like I’d been swept up in a storm of moments from my past, a whirlwind of every memory from every year we had been
apart. The heat from those memoires turned my face red. Sweat covered my body. Lightning flashed around my cheek.

I couldn’t stop it.

I didn’t want him to see me like this…in this outfit, in this
casino. So scarred.

Where the fuck was my umbrella?

“You’ve been walking by my table all night,” he said. “You look so different…I wasn’t sure it was you at first. But I’m glad it is. I was hoping I’d see you while I’m in town.”

You look so different
…

Hart had graduated high school and left Bar Harbor when I was
a sophomore. The scar came my junior year. It was a part of me he hadn’t seen, a part that hadn’t existed the last time we were in each other’s presence. The way my body was angled, he could see the
whole thing, and I couldn’t change that now. I was frozen. I hated that he still did that to me.

He’d broken me.

So how was it possible he could still affect me like that? Or that I would allow him to, after all these years?

“You’ve worked here for a while?” he asked.

Did it really matter? I wasn’t sure why he was talking to me now…he hadn’t even told me he was leaving Bar Harbor. I found out from his friends…and from him not returning any of my
messages. No
good-bye, no explanation. No call after all this time. And now he
wanted to ask me questions about my
job
?

What about
me
? What about what
I
felt?

“Rae?”

“Yes,” I said. What had I just answered? “I mean, no, I haven’t.”

He was several inches taller than me, but he was somehow able to look up at me through his lashes. His gaze was more than intense. It shook me. It wrapped its power around my limbs, my body. It felt as if the ground beneath me was convulsing and quaking.

“Are you living up here in Bangor?” he asked.

I held the tray even closer against my body as my stare traveled from his eyes to his lips. They were pale red, full, and hinted at the
grin
that used to melt me—that was melting me now, in spite of
everything. “No,” I finally said. “I’m still in Bar Harbor.”

“Do you have a place in town or
—
”

“Boss man just walked in,” Christy said in my ear, standing directly
behind me. She pressed close to my side as I forced my attention
toward
the entrance. She was right; Kevin had just walked in and was
scanning the room. “He’s going to check your tables and make sure all the players have drinks. Just wanted to warn you.”

“Thanks,” I whispered over my shoulder. A gasp came through
my lips when I reconnected with Hart’s stare. He was stirring up emotions
that I couldn’t control. I had for so long, and I wanted to now…or
maybe
I didn’t. I was too swept up to know. But I couldn’t lose this job
before it had even really started. “I’ve got to go.”

“Okay. I’ll catch up with you later.” His lips remained apart, like there was something more he wanted to say. But he didn’t. He didn’t turn around, either.

So I did.

And I instantly regretted it.

As much as he’d hurt me—and as much as I needed to check on my tables so I didn’t get fired on my first night working—something was pulling me toward him. But when I turned around to tell him
I’d find him after my shift, he wasn’t there anymore. I did a quick
search of the other aisles, the chairs, the backs and fronts of everyone nearby. I found nothing. He was gone.

I knew I was running out of time so, using the notes I had taken earlier, I hurried into the back room and ordered the list of beers that
were the most popular at my tables. Packing the bottles onto my
tray, I returned to the main room just as Kevin was checking my row. He
nodded as I passed and continued to watch while I traded the
players’ empty bottles for full ones.

I kept up the same pace the rest of the night until last call. Time hadn’t dragged at all, but my feet certainly had and my nipples felt
like they were on fire. My apron was full of cash and chips, so that was what I’d focused on—and on Christy, who had pulled me into the back room to go over the closing duties after we’d dropped off
the last round of drinks.

When she went to the bathroom, I took the opportunity to peek into
the poker lounge. Most of the tables were empty except for the
stragglers who were sitting around bullshitting and a few other players waiting in line at the cashier window. None of them were
Hart.

“We have to stock the glasses, refill the napkins, and make sure the station is clean. Then we can go home,” Christy said from behind me. I hadn’t realized she’d returned, or that I was still staring at the exact place where I had spoken to him.

I felt like I was standing outside after a storm had passed,
surveying the devastation. Broken branches and leaves and tiny pebbles had collected around my feet. The sky was black; I could taste the earth in the air. As I took my first step, my shoes squeaked with moisture.

I was completely drenched.

“DO YOU KNOW
what the rain is?” he asked.

I was curled in a ball in the corner of the couch. A candle flickered on the table. It was the only light in the house; we’d lost power from the storm. He’d even let me take the candle into the potty with me, but he told me not to flush. I kinda liked that. The noise the toilet made could be so loud and scary at night.

I pulled the blanket even tighter around me. “No…what is it?”

“It’s the tears from all the people who cried today. The sky pulls them out of all the tissues and sleeves and holds them up there until it’s full. Then, it comes raining down on us.”

A chill ran over me, covering my skin in tiny bumps as I remembered how mean the rain had sounded. It felt like our house had been shaking. “Why did the storm sound so angry?”

“The sky doesn’t just take tears; it also takes the sounds that people make. That yelling you did while you cried this afternoon came right back at us, didn’t it?”

I couldn’t control my temper sometimes. I wanted to. I tried really hard
to. I just didn’t want Mommy to go to work because Darren got so sad
whenever she left. And what made him sad, made me sad.

“So if I cry softly, it won’t thunder as much?”

“Come on over here, Rae.”

I glanced toward the rocking chair where he was sitting. The candle lit up his face and his open arms. With the blanket still around me, I tiptoed over to him. He pulled me onto his lap, tucking my legs into the side of the chair and wrapping his arms around me. We swayed back and forth.

“You’re a good girl. You have no reason to be shedding those tears, and especially no reason to be yelling like that.”

Back and forth.

Mommy said I was a strong girl, a smart girl. He always said I had the prettiest smile of all the girls he’d ever seen. Strong, pretty girls didn’t need to cry. Darren didn’t need to cry, either. I wanted to tell him that, but he was in his room. He was always in there. He said he didn’t like hanging out anywhere else in the house. He was so silly.

I stretched my hands out of the blanket and placed them on top of his.
His knuckles were so rough and hard. Chapped like my lips after I cried.
They held me tight, but it didn’t hurt.

“Rest your head on my chest and let’s see if we can get you to sleep. It’s past your bedtime, my good girl.”

I pressed my cheek against his shirt. It was soft. Much softer than his knuckles, and the hairs around his neck tickled my nose.

Back and forth.

“I want you to think of good things. Pretty things. No more rain
tonight, only rainbows.”

His fingers moved out from under mine and he ran them through the loose strands of my hair. My eyes closed. My breathing slowed. His thumb dipped onto my neck, but the rest of his hand stayed in my hair.

Back and forth.

“You’re such a good girl, Rae.”

Back and forth.

***

“
Stooooppp!
” I screamed as my eyelids flew open. There was a
noise
other than my own voice, coming from somewhere around me. I
ignored it. My hand immediately reached for my face, blotting the skin from the corner of my eye to my mouth. There was moisture, but it wasn’t thick or metallic-smelling like blood. It was from the tears.

And my scar was still there.

Every time I touched my cheek after one of my nightmares, I
hoped my fingers would pass over clear, unmarked flesh. That would never happen. But it didn’t stop me from wishing.

I tried to slow my breathing, clawing the scarf off my throat and unbuttoning the top of my jacket. There weren’t any hands around my neck, but it felt as if there were…as if they were squeezing all the air out of me. I couldn’t breathe deeply enough.

I needed to concentrate on something other than hands.

His hands.

The noise…it hadn’t gone away. It was an annoying mix of ringing and vibrating, and it was coming from the seat next to me.

My phone.

“Hello,” I said as I answered.

“Ms. Ryan, it’s Vince.” Brady’s landlord.
Shit.

I used my sleeve to wipe the tears out of my eyes and off my face. Then I dragged it across the driver’s window and the inside of the windshield to clear the condensation. The glass finally revealed that I was in the parking lot of the casino. My brain had been too foggy to remember this when I’d woken up from my nightmare. I’d only planned on taking a short nap after my shift. I’d been so damn tired. Something told me I slept a lot longer than I intended.