Crushed (15 page)

“Wha
t’s that?” she demanded
. S
he narrowed her
eyes and inhaled.

“What do you think?”
Reece asked as he waited for her
to buckle up.

“Butterscotch hot chocolate with a shot of espresso?”
He nodded and she
was
already reaching for the cup that
she knew she
shouldn’t take.
But the shot of espresso? She
needed it.
She
al
most blurted out the words ‘
Oh, I love you,’ in gratitude but she stopped her
self.
Butterscotch hot chocolate was her favorite drink.
One day last year,
Reece had de
cided
to throw in a shot of
espresso. When he thought
she needed the caffeine. She’d decided it was the perfect mix.

“There’s a caramel roll in the bag by your feet,” he said.

He kept his eyes on the road
. F
or a ridiculous minute
she
was frustrated that h
e didn’t look at her at all. Then she reminded her
self
that he wasn’t supposed to look at her
. That would only cause problems.

“You
didn’t need to do that
,”
she said as she
scooped the
white paper
bag off
of
the floor. “But thanks.”

He just shrugged.

“And thanks for picking me up. I know it’s kind of out of your way,”
she said as she
carefully pulled the sticky roll out of the bag.

“Not a problem.”
After a pause, he
continued.
“I almost had to cancel. My dad took my keys away
a few days ago
. Luckily Mom intervened. P
ointed out I needed my vehicle for this assignment.”

“What did you do this time?”
she
asked in a voice dripping
with
light sarcasm.
She
assumed
that
as usual, Reece
hadn’t
really do
ne
anything.

He shrugged again. “Same old, same old.”

She
took a bite and chewed slow
ly. She
was honestly surprised that there was still
that much
tension between
Reece and his dad. Considering she assumed she
was the cause of most of their tension
.
She had
thought things would be better now.

“My parents separated over the summer,” he finally blurted out.

“I’m sorry,” she
told him. “I had no idea.”

He flicked a glance her
way. It was full of annoyance. “Yeah, I know,” he said.

“What happened?”
She set her
c
aramel roll down and turned so she
was facing him.
She
knew his parents’ marriage had been rocky for a whi
le. For as long as she
’d known him
and
probably even longer than that
.
And while his home life wasn’t the same kind of mess that
hers
was, it wasn’t all neat and tidy either.

“Do you care?” he asked. His voice
had a harshness to it
that she
didn’t recognize.

“Of course I care.”
His tone hurt but as far as
she
was concerned, he had every right to use it with
her.

He kept his eyes on the road
.
She
watched as he clenched and unclenched his jaw.

“Well,” he finally said, “basically my dad is an ass. Mom’s put up with him for years.
She f
inally had enough. He moved out. T
hey went to marriage counseling over the summer
.
I guess things are better now because a few weeks ago, he moved back in.” He shrugged.
“Sometimes I don’t know how they ever ended up together in the first place. But Mom
says that
the stress of the business is wearing on him. And I’m supposed to want to take that
over someday?” he scoffed. “Then again, it’s probably
my
fault that he’s stressed. Because I
don’t want to take over
.”

She knew
exactly how Reece fe
lt
about taking over the family business.
“It’s not your fault your dad is the way he is.
You
should be able to choose
your own future.
”

He sighed and looked at
her
. “How about you? What’s going on with you? And don’t tell me
‘
nothing
’
because I can see that’s not true.”

So much for my concealer
, she thought.

She
shrugged. “I don’t really want to talk about it.
”

“You know, you can still talk to me. We were friends. Before we were anything else.”
Cleo
had nothing to say to this. No words that would suffice. Or make sense. Or explain
why
she
couldn’t. “But you won’t,” he guessed.

“I can’t, Reece,
”
she
said as
she
fidgeted with
her
cup.
She
’d already abandoned the caramel roll.

“You can’t talk to me?” he asked. Anger
, surprise
and sadness mingled
in his tone.

She
shook
her
head.

“Why?”

“Because, it’s just too hard.”

He
scoffed in disbelief. “Hard for you?
You
broke up with
me
. Remember?”

“I wish I didn’t.” The words flew from
her
mouth, bypassing any filter.

Reece
pulled up to the curb of the address he’d memorized. Then he
stared at
her
for a moment, incredulous
.

“Didn’t what?” he finally demanded.

She
knew what he was asking.
She
wished
she
didn’t…
what
?
Didn’t break up with him? Or d
idn’t remember
how awful that day had been
?

The answer to that was
both
. But
she
could hardly say that.

She
shook
her
head
, grateful they
were stopped
.
She
could jump out before
she said things she
couldn’t take back
. A few p
eople had gotten there before them
. T
hey already had rakes in their hands
.
She
waved to
a girl named
Janna
.
Janna
was giving Cleo
a look that clearly
questioned
why
she
was in Reece’s vehicle
. “Let’s just go. We’re going to be late.”

“So what?” he demanded as he grabbed
her
arm. His hand slid down it until his fingers tangled with
hers
.
She
didn’t mean to squeeze his hand but
she
did and he
forced a smile.
“So what if we’re a few minutes late. Just
talk
to me. That’s all I want.
”

What
she
wanted was to ask him
…
W
hy Mia
? That girl had always been horrible to
her
.
She
was sure that it was because
Mia had
always had a thing for Reece. She
’d
berated
Cleo
over everything f
rom
her clothes to her hair to the shadows under her
eyes.
Once she went so far as to
childishly
say
, “Oh, Cleo, you look dreadful.  Like the walking dead. You
must take after your mother.” She
’d never told Reece about that one. Some things
were
just too hard—too degrading—to repeat.

She didn’t
want him with Mia. Almost anyone but Mia. But
with
him having a girlfriend
, it
was
one of the few things that help
ed her to keep her
self in check.
It wasn’t
as though
she could
say
,
Hey Reece, I don
’t like your current girlfriend. C
ould you pick out one I feel more comfortable with?

She
decided it was safer to not ask the question. What was the point? Besides,
she was sure Mia had been
right there, waiting
.
Cleo had
practically handed Reece over to her
, tied up in a bow, ready to be snatched up
. It made it easier to stay away from him knowing that he was involved with someone
else.
She
just wish
ed
it was anyone but
her
.

“
Talk to me about anything
. We can do that, can’t we? Just talk? There’s no reason we can’t at least be friends.”
When
Cleo
hesitated he questioned it.
He looked defeated and his tone was resigned.
“Or is that not okay, either?”

“We can be friends,”
Cleo
a
greed. T
hough
she
couldn’t imagine how that would ever work.
Not with the way he sent her heart fluttering and her stomach aching with missing
him so much.

“Good,” he said with obvious relief.
“
So tell me about Luci. How is she?”

“She’s good.”
Cleo
told him about her two new friends.

“Twins. I bet Luci just loves that,” Reece said with a smile. “So is she liking middle
school?”

“She’s
loving the library,”
Cleo
admitted, smiling back.

She
jumped when there was a tapping on the window behind
her
.
She
turned to see an elderly gentleman wrapping on the glass with his cane.
She buzzed her
window down.

“
Are you two going to sit in there canoodling when there’s work to be done?” he asked.

Cleo
wasn’t sure
exactly
what
canoodling entailed
.
She
was pretty sure it was more than what
she and Reece
were doing at that moment.

“No sir,”
she
said as
her
fingers slipped from Reece’s hand. “We’re ready to get to work.”
She
hopped out, not looking back at Reece
. She
couldn’t bear to see the look he
’d
had on his face when he’d asked
her
to talk to him.

“Grab a rake!” Janna cheerfully called.

She pointed to where t
hey were and
Cleo
snatched one up. Then
she made her way over to a man she
assumed was “Ala
n”, the person in charge that they
we
re to sign in with. As soon as she
had that taken care of,
she
worked as close to Janna as possible so that
they
could chat.

Because if
she
was talking to her,
she
wouldn’t be able to chat with anyone else.

The first time
she felt someone’s hand on her bottom she
’d instinctively thought it was Reece’s. Janna’s wide
-
eyed look of surprise matched
her
own when
she
turned to find it was the elderly man with the cane. He winked and walked away. Over
the next hour, he came back a few times and things just continued down the path of
weirdness.
Cleo
was relieved when
they
were finally done for the
morning.