The Light of Day

THE LIGHT OF DAY

(a beyond the horizon novel)

By Kristen Kehoe

To anyone who has ever had to battle to see tomorrow.  Here’s to you, one day at a time.

Copyright © 2014 by Kristen Kehoe

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing.

This is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

When you’re twenty-two and watch every dream you’ve ever had drain down the toilet in just under two minutes, there’s not much to do except bend over and take it.  People try and cheer you up, try to make you see the glass half full and all of that bullshit that some optimistic prick has made millions writing about, but you know it isn’t, and it won’t be because one look at the doctor’s face when he took out the x-rays confirmed what he hadn’t yet: you’re done.  Find a different dream.

I was twenty-two and six days old when this occurred.  Twenty-two and six days old and six months away from my senior season and the truth of the Major League Draft, the one that I had been working toward my entire life.  I’d gotten the call, the green light, the go ahead to begin the future I’d always wanted.  It was my second call, second to the one that had already come the previous March, but I’d declined my June draft pick and chosen to finish my career at ASU, to go my senior year and get bigger and stronger, and because, really, all I wanted was a title.

What I got was a busted elbow and a crushed career.  Yeah, I shattered that fucking half full glass.

Now, at almost five months past my twenty-second birthday and the day my future was shattered, I’ve got a hangover on the horizon and my eye on a brunette who walked in an hour ago.  She’s tall, long and curved, not bony like most girls I’ve met in the past few years, but healthy looking.  No nose candy or other recreational drugs for this one.  Nope, her skin’s too clear, her curves too toned. 
Healthy
is how I’d describe her.  And fucking stacked.

I can’t see her eyes well from here, but I’m sure they’re clear, too.  I haven’t seen her drink anything but water since she came through the door, and I haven’t looked away from her in the hour she’s been here.  That’s also something new.

In the past few months, there’s been little to keep my attention for more than a few brief moments, which is why I took medical reprieve from classes with the intent of going somewhere else next semester and starting over.  Just the phrase makes me drink from my cup.  Starting over.  Finding something else.  Looking beyond what I was to what I can be, which isn’t what I wanted to be.  Fuck.  Not even Jack can cure that thought, no matter how deeply I gulp him down.

Another look at the brunette has my eyes finally meeting hers.  I recognize the golden haired angel she’s standing next to, but I can’t place her at the moment.  I haven’t slept with her, that’s for sure; too innocent.  The brunette looks clean, but there’s something darker about her, something mysterious, like a secret that she’s wearing on the outside, showing the world without saying a word.  The angel next to her looks just that: angelic, sweet, pure.  I’m not pure, and I’m not looking for it.  I’m looking for hard, rough, mind numbing… something.  Anything to finish what the alcohol can’t and make me forget for a while.

I keep my eyes on the brunette as I set my drink down.  It lost its appeal an hour ago when I saw her, and as a result the drunk I was headed toward has now softened to a buzz.  I can’t explain the pull that I feel, but I can say I don’t want to let it go. It’s been too long since I’ve felt this need, this force to do something besides wallow and I’ll be goddamned if I skip over it. 

Standing, I wait for the ground to settle beneath my feet and take my first step toward her.

Chapter Two

Cora

When your cousin asks you to be her maid of honor, you accept, even if the thought of it makes you want to vomit, not because you don’t love your cousin, but because the idea of happily-ever-fucking-after is a joke you’ve been sold one too many times.  Worse than that, looking at your cousin makes you want to believe in it and that just pisses you off all over again.

              Despite how nauseous the whole idea makes me, I watch as Mia stands at the rather large party hosted by her fiancée’s teammates at some house on the ASU campus, waiting for the love of her life to arrive home from some baseball trip, and I can’t help but be just a little envious of her.  She has it, and if ever someone has a chance at happily ever after it’s her.  And she deserves it.  Maybe this is one of those times that justice actually comes to those who deserve it and Mia, the nicest, most giving person I’ve ever known, is getting hers in the form of finding someone who loves her beyond all bounds.  And maybe that’s why mine has never worked out; I don’t have a nice bone in my body, and rehabilitated or not, I’m no better a person sober and celibate than I was drunk and promiscuous.  Drunk just gave me an excuse for being a bitch.

              “You okay?” Mia asks me and I nod.  No way I’m going to tell her that being at a party a week before her wedding is making me want to find a razor and end it. 

              “The question is not if I’m okay, cousin, the question is if you’re okay. We’re closing in on your last days of freedom. Any wild wishes you need to live out before the big day?”

              She laughs and shakes her head before sipping from her drink, her first and I’m betting only for the night.  Yep, where she’s a poster child of self-control, I’m the opposite.  Eleven months clean and I still think about taking a quick drink, finding an easy mark who’s looking for the same thing and checking out for a few hours because it’s nicer in the dark than it is in the world.

              But the world always comes back, I remind myself, and when it comes back after a night of overindulgence, it’s a lot uglier than it was when you checked out in the first place, and so’s the person you wake up with.  So, instead of giving in to my urges to drown myself in a bottle and/or a body, I grab some water and sip from it, keeping an eye on Mia as she watches the door for her betrothed while scanning the room and observing those people around me. 

              As expected, there are more girls than guys, but that’s because we travel in packs.  Well, most of us.  I never have.  Mia has been my one and only true friend since we were little and when I was growing up I thought that was okay.  Other girls were the enemy, my competition, the person who stood in between me and whoever I wanted and so I rejected them, making sure to stay alone.

Now, at almost a year sober and celibate, I’m realizing that connections and relationships are necessary in order to live.  I can’t explain why, except that without people I want to find that dark hole and sink.  It’s Mia who’s pulled me out time and again since our freshman year of college, when I decided I was going to be the person my mom always thought I was, but Mia wouldn’t let me sink all of the way.  At the end of our sophomore year, she’d had enough and sent me to rehab, a thirty day detox where she visited me every chance she was allowed.  Not because she wanted to check on me, but because she wanted me to know that I wasn’t alone. 

              Then I transferred cities, moved to San Diego to work and move in with her.  For the past year she’s been my backbone, my base, and now it’s time that I stood for her.  In seven days, she’s marrying her first and only love, and I’m going to stand there in the champagne dress she trusted me to choose and smile even if it kills me.  For Mia, I can do it, even if I’m still learning how to stand for myself.

              When my eyes meet the dark brown ones across the room, I’m surprised to feel the small jolt of electricity. 
Interesting
, is my first thought.  And
dangerous
.  I was in the game long enough to know a train wreck when I see one, and this gorgeous package has CRASH written all over him.

              From his seated position I can’t tell his entire height, but I’ve assessed enough men in my life to know it’s more than most of the guys here, an easy six-four or six-five.  I take in his shaggy brown hair that screams baseball player, with its curling ends and sun lightened spots that my trained eye knows are less calculated than those from a stylist.  His skin is olive, darkened to a bronze from what I can see on his arms, arms that are toned and long, strong, only marred by a distinct swirl of black ink on the inside of the left, but its shape I can’t tell.

              When Brown Eyes sets his drink aside and stands, I wonder if it’s smart to be looking at him.  When he starts over to where I’m standing, I go from wondering if it’s a mistake to knowing it’s a mistake to keep my eyes on his, and yet I don’t look away.

For the first time since I got out of rehab, I’m tempted by the opposite sex and not just the oblivion he can bring me, and for some reason that’s scarier.  I’m not thinking of safe and healthy, I’m not even thinking of alcohol, which is usually where my temptation comes from.  I’m thinking of his skin, warmed and golden from the sun, and how it would feel against my much paler skin, which suddenly feels cold as I look at him.  I want explosions, mind numbing explosions and warmth, touch and feeling, cravings that remind me I’m still alive.

              And that line of thinking is what sent me to rehab in the first place.  Straightening my shoulders, I bring myself up to my impressive five-nine—which has jumped to almost five-eleven thanks to my new Prada wedges—and meet Brown Eyes head on as he stops in front of me.

              “Name,” he says in a voice that’s low and scratchy, like he hasn’t used it in a significant amount of time and he isn’t happy about using it now.  And still, he commands my attention in a way that makes me sure he’s used to getting what he wants.

Shivers break out on my arms and I think,
well done
.  And then I remember that the girl I used to be is the one who would have responded to that in under twenty seconds, had his shirt off in double that.  I’m different now, because Mia believed I could be and because I want to be; deep down underneath all of this stuff and these feelings, I want to be different, too.

Uh-uh, Cora
, I tell myself. 
Explosions are only so fun, especially when someone else is lighting the fuse
.  Thinking that I need control so this doesn’t get out of hand, I quirk my brow.

“You first.”

Chapter Three

Jake

I don’t know who this girl is, but fuck if I’m not hooked.  The whiskey that’s swimming through my blood has no effect once I hear her voice, straight sex laced with challenge, but before I can take the bait she’s thrown back at me, the angel next to her speaks up.

              “Jake?”

              I’m not sober, but I’m rapidly getting there, so when that voice says my name a second time, it penetrates my brain enough that I look over and a name pops into my head.  Not just a name, rather, a face, a person.  A
friend
.  A sounding board when I was so drunk I couldn’t stop the words that spilled out of me all those weeks ago.  Shit.

              “Hey, Mia, how’s it going?”

              My words come out slower than normal from the thick tongue that’s stuck in my mouth and, though I know the room’s not actually moving, I have to lean on the bar next to her to keep my feet planted.  The brunette next to her is no longer looking at me with hooded, I-want-you eyes, but curious ones.  I hate curious eyes, even when they’re the color of the sea, gray and green swirled into the deepest blue you’ve ever seen and all wrapped into one stormy package meant to sweep you away from land and into the abyss. 

              As of late I’ve wanted that, the floating, the leaving, the darkness over the light, but with Mia next to her, Murph’s Angel as I’ve always thought of her, I know this girl isn’t mine for the taking no matter how badly my body wants to take her, even in its slightly fucked up state.

              “I didn’t know if you were going to be here.  Ryan said you were thinking of moving before second semester.”

              Mia’s comments bring me back and I look away from the siren and back at the angel.  “I was.  Am,” I correct myself.  “But I can’t let my boy walk down the aisle without me.”  I give her a grin and hope it looks more real than it feels.  When her return smile is small, I know I’ve failed. 

              “Jake,” she says a little quieter and I know what she’s about to say before it comes out of her mouth, so I shake my head.  No.  I won’t deal with it, won’t hear it, won’t talk about it so don’t fucking bring it up.  She reads my signal loud and clear and nods.  “Thanks for staying.  It means a lot to Ryan, and to me, that you did.”

              “Does that mean you’ll reward me and introduce me to Blue here?”

              I watch my siren raise her brows in curiosity and hope it’s not just because I want to meet her, but because she wants to meet me too.  Mia’s eyes—a clearer blue than those that seem to have bewitched me—widen briefly before she clears her throat and makes introductions.

              “Cora Whitley, Jake Ferrari.  Cora’s my maid of honor,” I hear Mia say and I nod.  “And my cousin.  Jake played… he’s a friend of Ryan’s from school.  And a groomsman,” she finishes as her cousin just keeps eyeing me.

              There’s a part of me that understands that I shouldn’t want to pursue this girl any further.  She’s Mia’s cousin, the one I know Mia doesn’t share a lot about, but who is more sister to her than her own; more, she appears to be her friend.  Mia and I have been tight for two years now, since her man and I started hanging out more and more, focusing on our prospective futures that were so similar.  Now, just Ryan is focusing and I am… not.  Because focusing hurts, which is why I’m standing in front of the blue-eyed brunette wondering how the hell I can forget who she’s related to and let her take the pain away, just for tonight.

              Even as I think it, my body starts revolting.  Nope, one night wouldn’t be enough.  Whoever this girl is, she’s made me care more in less than sixty seconds of face-time than anyone has in months. 

              When neither of us moves to shake the other’s hand and instead just stand there, Mia clears her throat and begins to make small talk about the wedding.  I push her voice to the back, content to stand and stare at Blue, with her gorgeous skin, long limbs and unabashedly female figure.  Goddamn, if I was even a shadow of the man I’d been she would have been mine forever, no question.  But now, well, now I want her to be with me because for some reason I’m sure she’s the one who can take the pain away.

              When Mia gives a small intake of breath, I check back in and glance over, ready to suit up and pummel anyone who’s touched her.  She might not be mine, but nobody fucks with my boy’s girl.  But instead of a stranger, it’s the man himself, and instead of fear on Mia’s face, it’s love.  Pure love.  Jesus.

              It almost knocks me back a step, that look.  The one that says she sees everything when she looks at him, just as his says he’s ready to give her anything as long as she stays his.  It’s painful to watch, painful to look away from.

              I can’t remember the last time I felt like that about something or someone.

              When I look over at my siren, her face tells me she feels the same but before I can lean down and ask her to take a walk, to get her alone and figure my feelings the fuck out, Ryan sets Mia down and grabs Blue.  I watch as her shoulders relax, as her arms go around him and her face shows genuine joy.

              Christ, if I think the angel is beautiful, her smile is nothing compared to my siren with her hesitant smile, the one that says she isn’t used to feeling this way, that maybe she doesn’t quite know how but that she’s learning.             

              I table that as Ryan releases her and leans toward me.  I hold up my hands and paste a smile on my face.  “You’re pretty, but if you kiss me I’ll kill you.”

              He just laughs and grabs my hand, bringing me in to pound on my back the way we always have.  I mock shove at him, smoothing my hand through my hair, adjusting my shirt and making a show of checking my clothes out.  “What’d they do to you up there, man? You’re holding on tighter than usual.”

              I make the joke because I don’t want the real answer.  Even Blue can’t touch my pain now, can’t get me to forget what I’m missing, what I blew.  And it makes me sick.

              As if he can tell, Ryan shrugs and settles his arm around Mia’s shoulders.  “Can’t a guy just be happy to see his girl and one of his best friends?”

              “As long as that happy keeps his clothes on, we’re good to go.”

              Blue snorts and Mia blushes from the roots of her hair to the tip of her nose when Ryan cusses.  “One time, man, and you got me drunk on moonshine.  What did you expect?”

              “A little decency and self-control.”

              “Yeah, well, your pretty face proved to be too much temptation.  Add in the tattoo and it was a package I couldn’t resist.”

              “You’re telling me.  I slept zipped in my sleeping bag with one eye open.”

              The banter with Ryan is easy, and it’s working its magic, bringing me into focus, away from the heaviness and the blinding ache that is memories, and the dullness that is alcohol.  It’s bringing me back to the here and now, with him and his angel and the siren behind me.  Alcohol or not, she’s gorgeous and she’s captivated me.  Cousin of the angel, though… that makes her different.

It’s one thing to hook up with a girl you know isn’t going to mean more than the night, as long as she’s on the same page.  And I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t changed a few girls’ minds and put them on my same page in the past few months.  But hooking up with a random and looking for a good time is a long way from hooking up with a girl who’s connected to you through two of the only people you care about.  Especially when said girl appears to be the only thing you might want to care about, even if you can’t.

              That thought halts me and has me easing back a little.  I don’t fucking like it—I don’t know this girl, don’t know why she sparked my Spidey-Sense until I had to look away from the group I was talking to earlier and focus only on her, don’t like that she has me thinking about feeling when all I want to do is
not
think.

Why is she my port in the storm when I’m comfortable drowning?

              “Keep glaring at me, baseball boy, and I’m going to make a scene and ruin your game with all these pretty females that are fluttering around, trying to get your attention.”

              That voice sends chills down my arm, not because it’s sexy—though there is that—but because it’s familiar, like I’ve heard it before and it was important to me.  When her eyes flash to mine, I see that I was right about her cover.

This girl is no angel, and for reasons beyond me I want to know why.