Cookie Cutter (10 page)

I reach for my water bottle to hydrate myself but quickly realize, I didn’t bring one. I usually get water from the fountain because I’m usually out there, with the weights and don't’
need
a bottle. But in here . . .

I blink my eyes when they go fuzzy and I stretch my neck out in a circular motion to try and blow this feeling off. I was feeling a little woozy about ten minutes ago but figured I’d lose some sort of self-imposed bet if I gave up at that point so . . .

Push . . . push . . . pedal . . . pedal.

When my body leans to the right, I can’t seem to pull myself back upright again.

“Carter, are you okay?” I hear someone, Iris maybe, asking me.  Her voice is muffled and I go to look at her.

Next thing I know, I’m hitting the floor and my head cracks against something hard and cold. Gasps and some screaming. Then everything goes black.

* * *

“Hey.”

I can only open one eye, and only half way at that. There’s a soft, low voice above me and the smooth graze of fingers across my head. I’m not sure where I am yet but I know I’m laying down. And I know I like the way it feels to have Iris Alden’s hand in my hair.

I breathe in some oxygen.

“Iris,” I croak. “Where --”

“Shhh,” she says.

“Do I have a concussion? Because I can’t think of another reason you’d be this nice to me.”

She laughs again. “No concussion, just a lump.”

I hum from her touch. It’s soothing my aching head but more than that, it’s soothing me.

“What the hell happened?” I keep my eyes closed but try to push myself up into a sitting position.  The last thing I remember is . . . “Ah, hell.”

I fall back down and Iris giggles, although, I can tell she’s trying to hide it. I squint my eyes open and give her a hard look. As hard as I can with the dull ache in my neck, that is.

“I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard,” she admits. Her nose wrinkles and its cute as hell. “It being your first time and all.”

Now she’s mocking me.  Naturally, I defend myself.

“I was dehydrated.”

“Mmm-Hmmm,” she says.

Her hand is gone now, so I cover my face with my own but it’s not the same. “And you did that on purpose.”

Iris laughs again. “I did.”

I move my hand away,
lame imitation,
and peek up at her hovering over me. “You’re rotten to the core, Iris Alden.”

“I feel horrible.”

She sounds sincere but the look on her face is priceless. Like the cat that swallowed the canary.  Or, the one that tried to kill her spin class co-student anyway.

“You should – I could have died, you know.”

“I am so . . . sorry.”

“Good.” I feel better now. Whether because I’ve laid here long enough, or because bantering with Iris does that, who knows.  I sit up and lean back on my elbows.

Her lips twist up like she’s getting ready to tell me something I don’t want to hear, but I don’t care. It’s too entertaining, the way she licks them and then bites the bottom one, before she starts.

“They’re not going to let you drive.”

And the lips take a back seat for a moment.

“What? I’m fine, I just--”

“You should let me drive you home, it’s the least I could do.” The lips are back in the front seat.

I pretend to think on it. “Well, you’re probably right. Let me get my stuff.”

“It’s right here,” she says, grabbing my bag from the floor to show me.  After a few thank yous to the staff for giving me a cot to lie down on for a while, we’re off.

The ride home is quiet at first. Iris seems uncomfortable.  Sad maybe.  And now that my head is getting back to normal, I remember how off she seemed earlier.

“Something bothering you Iris?”

She looks over at me, then back to the road but doesn’t say anything so I try to lighten up the moment a little bit.

“Besides the fact that I haven’t driven a stick in about fifteen years?”

I put my hand over top of hers to help shift.

“I was actually referring to the fact that you seem . . . quiet. Aside from your attempted murder in spin class, that is.”

She lets herself laugh and follows it up by sucking in a long deep breath of air through her nose.

“Bad day, I guess,” she starts to say, then, softer than before she adds, “bad week.”

“I take it this bad week had to do with men coming off as superior based on your efforts to make sure I know I’m not.”

She doesn’t come right out and say I’m right but she does admit, “I shouldn’t have taken it out on you, I really am sorry, Carter, you’ve been nothing but nice.”

“That bad, huh?”

She gives me a small smile. “My boss hit on me earlier in the week . . .” she confesses, out of nowhere.

“No shit.” I’ve known guys like that. They were all over the place at my old job with Dad’s firm, which is ironic considering they are all lawyers and know the consequences of said actions.

“It’s not
that
big of a deal, I guess, but it was so . . . gross and now everything’s just . . . weird.” She pauses and I think maybe that’s all she’s going to give me, even though really, she doesn’t need to give me much more to get that whole situation must suck for her.  Then she continues with, “And then I thought my ex had taken care of this thing.”

“Thing?”

“Yeah, with my tags and he didn’t, but then it really wasn’t his fault it turns out; only when I went to take care of it I realized . . .” she takes in a huge breath of air. “Not only are my tags expired but my license is expiring like . . .”

The clutch grinds and I wince. I reach over to help her out but she gets it going smooth finally. “…today! So I take all the stupid forms that they require for me to renew which is great except I apparently don’t have my
original
birth certificate, even though it says original right down at the bottom.”  She growls out at the road. “And the guy at the DMV was
such a jerk
and now, not only do I have to pay and wait for my birth certificate to be mailed from Maryland but I’m going to miss the deadline and I’m going to owe
another
fee on top of all the ones I’ve already paid, and I don’t have time for this . . .
shit
. . . with the carnival in two days!”

Iris takes a deep breath and she is suddenly calm. Like, scary calm.

“It’s just
really
bothering me that I let this slip through my list of things to do. Like
really and truly
bothering me. It’s like I’ve begun the early stages of alzheimers.”

My mouth is frozen in mid-thought but I can’t seem to get anything to come out. I’m still trying to process exactly what she said. I did ask for it. Iris backs off after she studies my expression.

“I’m not used to having someone to unload onto, I guess.”

“No one?” That can’t be right. She knows a million people in Spangler alone.  

But sure enough, Iris nods.

“What about that BFF chick?  Meg?”

She shakes her head as she drives. “She’s sick of me by now. Her life is so spot on: where she wants it to be – I try not to bog her down with my problems.”

“That’s what friends are for though, right?”

She doesn’t say anything this time, and I get the feeling there’s more to it all than she wants to let on.

“Ah, crap,” she mutters as we pull up to my house.

“What?”

Iris breathes steadily in through her nose and out through her mouth, as she puts my truck into neutral and pulls on the emergency break. She grabs her purse and towel from the gym, opens the driver’s side door and juts her chin out toward her house. There’s a dark Cadillac coupe de something pulling into her driveway. I get out of the car and follow her home, even though I’m sure she wasn’t expecting me to. She doesn’t tell me not to.

“Who is that?”

She whispers like she doesn’t want anyone, especially whoever this is, to hear. “My ex.”

Immediately, following that bombshell, and as we are right up on the vehicle, she smiles.

He exits his car like he’s been watching us this whole time and he wanted to time his appearance perfectly.

“What’s he do?” I ask, because, a Caddy? Really?

“He owns a local rental car agency.”

Ah.

I gotta say, he doesn’t seem too much like he’s Iris’s type – with the greasy blond hair and the cocky strut like he walked off the set of Saturday Night Fever or something. Hellooooo, seventies.

“Hey Izzie?”

Izzie?

“James,” she says, politely but not friendly, I notice. “I didn’t know you were stopping by.”

He shrugs like he’s been a bad puppy or something. “Thought since you were having problems with the bills I’d come by and give you a hand.”

“Not bills, James. Bill. Singular. And I don’t need a hand. I just need to go home and take a nice, hot bath.”

“Oh cool, I’ll help you.” He gives her an evil smile and waggles his eyebrows.

I want to punch him right in the nose. I hate dicks like that. Does he not know the definition of the word “ex”?

Iris holds her smile. “No thanks.”

Go Iris!

He acts like he finally notices me to deflect the fact that he got shot down like a pro and says, “And who’s this?”

I put my hand out before Iris can say it for me. “Carter Blackwood, I just --”

“The house flipper,” he says, cutting me off. “Good to meet you, Carter.”

He takes my hand and tries to give me the old
I can shake hands harder than you can
routine but I’m ready for him.  Despite this fact, he’s taken the wind out of my sails with his proclamation but before I can ask him how in the hell he knows who I am, Iris beats me to it with a simple look in her ex’s direction.

“I still know people, you know, Iris.” He seems happy to get one over on her somehow and I like the guy even less than I did when he assumed she’d want to take a bath with him.  Not that there was much to like in the first place.

“Where’s your car by the way?”

“My car?” she says, still baffled by his knowledge of who I am, I suppose.

“Yeah, you know, that thing you drive around in and forgot to pay the registration for?”

He’s at least sounded playful up to this point, but the way he talks to Iris now is downright insulting. So of course, I intercede.

“It’s at the gym.”

“Right,” Iris adds. She’s fidgeting though. He clearly makes her uncomfortable. “You see Carter here --”

I step in, again. “Wanted Iris to learn to drive a stick shift.”

She looks at me like I’ve committed one of the seven deadly sins. I wink at her. He doesn’t need to know our business.

“Good friends are you, then?  So good you want to take time out of our Iris’s day and teach her to drive a stick?”

“That’s right. But last I checked, she isn’t anybody’s Iris. She’s just Iris.”

He chews on the inside of his mouth. I can hear the squeaky, seldom used wheel starting to turn in his brain as he thinks over what I’ve said. Am I dating her? Fucking her? He has no clue, and he hates it. And when he turns to Iris for an explanation, she gives him nothing. She’s too busy gawking at me like she doesn’t understand a word I’m saying.

“Well, I’ll give you a ride back and we’ll pick up your car and then go over the bills.”

He’s pushing it. And for a split second, I think Iris is going to take him up on her offer but something in her expression changes. Like it all just clicked for her. A bright light shines behind those eyes of hers. I have to guess she’s not angry with me for saying what I did.

“I’ll get Meg to take me, James, don’t worry about it.”

“I can give you a ride back,” I say but she shakes her head, shooting me down as well.

“You need to go lie down,” she insists, without further explanation to
James.
Then she smiles and waves to him as she heads for her friend’s house.

“What about the bills?” he calls out after her.

“I’ve got it under control, James, don’t worry!”

We’re left standing there like a couple of idiots, staring each other down when she’s gone.  I’m not one for idle chit chat with asswipes so . . .

“I’m gonna go . . .” I nod toward my own temporary home.

“Yeah, me too, I guess.” He backs away toward his car.

He’s backing out of the driveway and I’m checking to see if Iris just said all that to get rid of him but she’s not coming back from Meg’s place.

“I’d be careful with that one, if I were you,” a sultry voice warns me from somewhere.

I glance over to my right to see who it belongs to. A shortish, athletic looking woman with black cropped hair smirks over at me from her doorstep and gives her semi-drawn in eyebrows a single bounce for me. She’s wearing a black leather mini skirt with tank top and army boots and at first glance, she seems like she might be heading out to get into trouble somewhere but when she adds, “He’s quite the manipulator.”