Heart Breaths (14 page)

“We’ll talk tomorrow, okay?” I said, turning to walk toward my apartment door.

“Fine,” she pouted.

I looked toward the car. “Thanks for taking me out tonight. I’m really glad I went.”

She smiled back. “I’m glad you came, Maddie.”

Waving goodbye, I turned and walked up to the little apartment on top of the café. Tired, face covered in the remains of some very tacky makeup, and feeling a little freer than I had the night before.

Maybe tomorrow night I’d actually burn the
New York Times
.

Chapter · Fourteen

“I heard you have a golden voice,” Grandma said to me the next morning.

“Where did you hear that from?” I asked, confused.

“From Janet Darson, who heard from her sister-in-law, whose cousin was at Billy Bob’s last night.”

I gaped at her. “Wow. I heard about things like news traveling fast in small towns, but that’s just crazy.”

Grandma smiled. “Honey, the paparazzi ain’t got nothin’ on gossipy old Southern ladies,” she said.

“Apparently not,” I said, still a little overwhelmed by the speed of the grapevine. My mother and her friends had been like that, but only with people they knew. With people who knew them.

I had no idea who Janet Darson was, or her sister-in-law or her sister-in-law’s cousin was. But apparently they knew who I was.

“All those talents you’re hiding away,” Grandma tsked. “Now, can you take your talented lungs and check to see if the soup is done yet?”

“My talented lungs?” I repeated, bewildered.

She shrugged. “I don’t know, it sounded right in my head.”

“Your head sounds like a dangerous place,” I said, smiling as I turned toward the kitchen, not before being hit with a flying towel.

“Maddie!” called Noie as she came flying toward me, her hair bouncing in its little ponytail.

“Hey, big girlie,” I said, catching her and giving her a hug. “How are you?”

“I’m three!” she said, still thrilled at the fact that her age had changed.

“That you are,” I said, agreeing with her. “Noie, who are you here with?”

“Daddy,” she said. “He’s coming soon.”

“Does he know you left?” I asked, staring at her suspiciously. For a kid who was terrified of strangers, she was pretty okay with wandering away from whoever was watching her.

“He knows,” Gabe answered, walking toward us, clad in a T-shirt and shorts. Dear God. There was nothing the man could wear that I didn’t want to rip off of him.

What the hell was with me? I hadn’t been like this in years. I never lusted after Crawford this way. Never lusted after Ravi this way. With Ravi it had been calmer. More of the slow and sweet.

Gabe?

I wanted to rip his clothing off and bite him.

Listen to yourself!
I scolded myself as I smiled at Gabe. He’s standing here. With his innocent three-year-old daughter. She can probably hear what you’re thinking, and you’ve just corrupted her forever.

“Hey,” I said, still a little unsure how to act around him, especially after the last time I saw him.

“You headed to the beach?” he asked.

I nodded. “Always,” I said, starting toward the beach again, still holding Noie.

“You know, she can walk,” he said, his lips quirking upward as I walked with Noie clinging to me like a little monkey.

“Yeah, but she’s conserving her energy for the beach,” I said, smiling down at her.

“We’re going to make a sand castle, Maddie!” she told me, bouncing a little in my arms. “Daddy said that if I kept my panties dry at night for the whole week, then we could make a big sand castle and then eat ice cream for supper.”

I squeezed her to me, savoring her excitement. “Dry a whole week? Wow,” I said. “You really are a big girl now.”

“I know,” she said, hilariously smug. “Because I’m three.”

“Ice cream for dinner?” I said to Gabe, eyebrows raised.

He shrugged. “It seemed suitable,” he said, comfortable in his parenting choices. I respected him for that, I realized. For the confidence he had with raising his daughter. Because regardless of his mother pitching in, and regardless of the days Sam watched Noie, it was all Gabe.

“You’re winning Daddy of the Year,” I said as we reached the beach.

He looked at me, his eyes strangely vulnerable. “You think so?” he asked hesitantly.

I nodded. “I wouldn’t have said it if it weren’t true,” I said. “You’re doing a great job with her.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Sometimes I don’t know.”

I smiled, remembering the days I would panic as I watched Devi eat mac and cheese for dinner for three nights in a row, picky girl she was. “That’s part of being a parent, isn’t it?” I said. “The constant overwhelming terror that you’re doing something and everything wrong, and your kid is going to turn out all messed up because of it.”

He nodded, raking his fingers through his hair. “At least twice a day,” he said. “And then I feel like a neurotic old lady, which is always pleasant.”

I laughed.

He turned to me as Noie squirmed out of my arms and ran to find a good space to build her sand castle. “Are you okay talking about things like this?” he asked gently. “I don’t want to upset you.”

If it wouldn’t have been such a weird thing to do, I would have patted my heart, I was so touched. “I’m okay, I think,” I said. “Well, not okay okay, but okay enough to talk about the parental complex.”

He was silent for a minute, watching Noie crouch down and pat a pile of sand. “I should go,” I said. “Leave you and Noie to your sand castle building.”

“Why do you keep leaving?” he asked, looking a little frustrated.

I looked at his face, and then back at Noie, who had decided she had found the perfect spot for her sand castle. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t possibly. “Because nobody ever stays,” I answered. “So I’d rather be the one to leave.”

“That’s kind of selfish,” he said calmly. “And presumptuous that you think everyone’s going to leave you.”

I ignored the first part of his statement, and focused on only the second part. “It’s not presumptuous if it’s true,” I said. “Have fun castle building.” I turned and walked back toward the boardwalk to shake off the anger that had suddenly welled up inside of me.

“You sure you can’t come out tonight?” Sam asked, disappointed.

“Yeah, sorry,” I said as I lay there on the porch. “I’m really not feeling well.”

“You sure you’re okay?” she asked. “You’ve been sick a lot lately.”

I ignored the nagging feeling in my stomach. The one wondering if there really was something wrong with me, or if I was just pretending so well I started to believe myself.

“Yeah, it’s just my period,” I said, which was true, at least tonight. Except for my cramps were not nearly as bad as they could have been. “I’ll be better company for you tomorrow, I promise.”

“You need me to bring you anything?” she asked, her voice laced with sympathy. “God, periods suck.”

“Nah, I’ll be okay,” I said. “Thanks, though, Sam. Really.”

“Call me if you need anything, okay?” she asked, sounding like a little mama hen.

“I’ll call you,” I said.

“And get a cell phone, dammit! Do you know how hard it was to track you down? Freaking nearly took the FBI getting involved before I got this phone number from Grandma.”

I giggled a little. “Maybe tomorrow,” I said, not planning on getting a phone the next day. I was okay without a cell phone.

“Feel good,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said, putting the phone down next to me.

What had I done to get so lucky to find Sam? Chalk that to my ever-growing list of reasons I was not going to go anywhere near Gabe.

It would kill me if I lost Sam’s friendship.

I had missed having friends.

Closing my eyes, I let myself drift, feeling the wind coming from the beach ripple toward me, the night sky winning the ever-present battle of humidity. I wished I had a piano here.

Wrenching my eyes open, I stared at the sky.

I hadn’t played piano in three years.

You haven’t done most things in three years, a voice snapped in my head. Maybe it’s time to get your head out of the sand of self-pity you buried it in.

Hmm.

Sands of self-pity.

That kind of sounded weirdly poetic.

It was something Ravi would have said.

I looked around, trying to see if I could sense anything. Ravi?

No, you moron, it’s your own damn mind. Stop trying to see ghosts, and start getting your life together.

Apparently, my own damn mind was quite the bitch.

Rolling my eyes, I picked myself off the porch floor and walked to bed.

Tomorrow morning, I was burning the damn
New York Times
. Really.

My alarm clock rang, startling me awake. Rubbing my eyes, I glanced blearily at the clock. Which idiot had thought it was a good idea to wake up this early?

Then I remembered the
New York Times
, waiting for me on the kitchen table.

Get Maddie’s Life Back Together, Step One.

Get rid of any reminders of your scummy, asswipe of an ex-boyfriend and your smug, supercilious sister. Climbing out of bed, I scrounged around the kitchen until I found matches and a pot of water, in case something went wrong.

It wasn’t too windy yet, which was a good thing, because I didn’t want to burn anything unnecessary. Gathering the newspaper, I walked down the stairs to the backyard. If I was going to be burning things, doing it away from any furniture was probably a smart idea. Placing the newspaper on the sandy ground, away from the grass, I struck a match. Touching it to the corner of the newspaper, I watched it begin to burn. Tossing the match into the middle of the paper, I lit another one and touched it to the opposite corner.

“Burn,” I muttered as the flames began to grow. “Burn.”

“Maddie, what the hell are you doing?!”

My head shot up, and I nearly toppled over. Gabe.

Shirtless Gabe, with a fine sheen of sweat covering his chest… Oh, my Lord. “Gabe, what are you doing here?”

He scowled at me, his face furious. “I run here in the mornings,” he said, gesturing to the path behind the café, leading toward the boardwalk. “What the hell are you doing, Maddie?”

“Burning a newspaper,” I replied.

“And what’s wrong with recycling?” he asked.

“Not nearly vicious enough for me.”

His eyebrows raised. “Not nearly vicious enough?” he repeated.

I shook my head. “It needed more violence than just recycling,” I explained.

“Oh,” he said, very obviously confused, and probably also a little freaked out by me. Not that I blamed him. It was the crack of dawn, and I was there in my pajamas, lighting bonfires.

Shit.

My pajamas.

I glanced down, hoping that maybe I was wearing something mildly sexy, or at least something that covered much of anything. Nope. Faded, ripped T-shirt, material so thin from the amount of washings it had gone through, and a pair of teeny, tiny boy shorts.

And no bra.

Crossing my arms and hoping he hadn’t noticed, I looked at him. “You can keep running,” I offered. “I’ve got water for it if something happens, and when the newspaper is burned enough, I’ll put it out, I swear.”

He glowered at me, grumpy.

“I would offer you coffee, but I haven’t made any yet,” I said. “Go run and stop by the café on your way to work and I’ll give you enough coffee to act like a semi-human for the rest of the day.”

“I drank a cup of coffee already,” he said, scowling.

“Well, obviously one isn’t enough. Go run,” I said to him, practically making shooing motions, except for the whole no bra situation.

He stood there, not moving.