Trouble (Orsen Brothers #1) (10 page)

I grabbed my tea and sat down on the couch, propping my feet up on the coffee table. My phone buzzed incessantly in my clutch but I ignored it.

I wasn’t in the mood to talk. Not to Luna, not to Stephen, and definitely not to my mother. In fact, there was only one thing I was in the mood for, and my exhaustion wasn’t going to keep me from getting it. I grabbed my car keys and my purse and made a beeline for the door.

It wasn’t hard to get a fix when your drug of choice was sold in every supermarket. I grabbed two bottles of Pavlov off the shelf and made my way to the self-check out aisle to scan them. A cashier approached me and asked to check my ID.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s store policy.”

I nodded and fished the piece of plastic from my wallet, handing it over to her. She looked down at it and frowned, comparing the bright young woman I was at twenty-one to the person I was now before handing it back to me and walking off.

I stuffed the bottles in a plastic bag and slid my credit card through the machine. As soon as I was safely in my car, I twisted the cap off of one of them and took a long drink, exhaling a deep breath and clenching my jaw at the burn.

My mothers voice found a home inside my head every time I drank, drowning me in reprimands. But a knock on my window jolted me away from her. I lifted my head from off my steering wheel and squinted out the window at the familiar man standing before me.

He frowned and craned his head to look at me. “Venus like the planet?” he questioned, pointing to himself, “It’s Liam Orsen. From the hospital. Anders brother.”

Shit…

More proof that Poulsbo was just too damn small of a town. You couldn’t go ten feet without running into someone you didn’t want to see.

“Oh,” I said, clearing my throat and sitting up straighter. I glanced at myself in my rearview mirror and ran a hand through my hair, pushing the half-empty bottle of Pavlov out of sight. “Right...”

“So,” he laughed, raising an eyebrow at me. “Do you usually fall asleep in your car?”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” I retorted, “I was just resting my eyes for a second.”

But he glazed right over my response. “Do you want to get some breakfast with me?” he interrupted, leaning against my window.

“Sorry?”

“Breakfast,” he said, waving his hand at me, “my treat.”

I stared up at him in confusion. What was his angle here? I was sure that after the incident at the hospital, he certainly didn’t want to be friends. But instead of doing what I always did, which was assume until my brain spiraled into itself, I decided to ask him. “Why?”

He frowned and shook his head, not following.

“Why do you want to get breakfast with me?” I clarified. “We don’t know each other.”

“Oh come on,” he urged, his full lips curling upwards. “I owe you one for what you did for Anders. Besides, haven’t you ever heard the saying, ‘
strangers are just friends you haven’t made yet?’
”

I had, of course. I just wasn’t sure that it applied here.

I took in his appearance. He was dressed nicely, a pair of slacks and a weathered leather jacket acting as the focal pieces of his outfit, and his pick-up truck was a newer model with all the dings and whistles.

“Well?”

I licked my lips in an attempt to combat the dryness in my mouth. “Alright,” I relented groggily, feeling suddenly light-headed. “Breakfast would be nice I guess…”

The place was called Sparrows. It was a small diner in the center of town where homebrewed coffee flowed like water and people from every walk of life gathered for friendly conversation over heaping plates of breakfast.

I had been coming here since I was a kid.

It was the kind of place where the lines of rich and poor blended together and people dropped their pride and preconceptions at the door in exchange for a sense of camaraderie.

At Sparrows everyone belonged, even the slightly rugged man sitting in the booth across from me. A man with hair the color of coffee beans and piercing blue eyes that slowly chipped away at my resolves.

I could tell he had been though more than most. It wasn’t in any one thing he said, but more so in the stuff he didn’t say. He was a cynic dressed up like an optimist’s clothing. But he told me he found solace here, in the all American décor, off white walls, peeling leather booths, and checkered floors.

And while I understood that sentiment, that still didn’t change the fact that he was a stranger. I eyed the door with the creeping reminder that I could easily escape and walk back to my car if things got weird.

The restaurant buzzed around us, the muted voices of other patrons and clinking silverware filling in the gaps of quiet between us where actual conversation should have been. A waitress approached us and we ordered two house brewed coffees and breakfast specials—which consisted of eggs, toast, and bacon.

He opened his mouth to say something but seemed to think better of it. He was a secret personified and I found myself—against my better judgment—wanting to know more about him.

“What?” I questioned, studying him over the edge of my steaming mug. “You were going to say something weren’t you?”

He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. “Nothing,” he said, stirring a packet of sugar into his coffee “I was just going to thank you is all.”

“Thank me?” I took a bite of my toast and shook my head, raising an eyebrow. “Breakfast is on you.”

He laughed and surveyed the food spread out between us. “I know,” he said with a nod, “but you didn’t have to come.”

“Right well.” I shrugged and took a bite of my eggs. They were cooked perfectly. Nice and dry, just the way I liked them. “Sustenance.”

“So,” he spoke up, changing the subject. “How long have you been married?”

I sat up straighter and rubbed the faded band of flesh on my ring finger. “Five years,” I answered automatically, “but I’m not anymore. I mean…I won’t be soon.”

“No?” he questioned, stretching his muscular arms over his head, “why’s that?”

I frowned at him. “Do you always ask so many questions?”

He chuckled and held up his hands. “Hey, I’m just makin’ friendly conversation, that’s all.”

“Well asking someone you just met about the intricacies of her marriage is kind of crass don’t you think?”

“Crass?” He exhaled profoundly and flicked his eyes up at the ceiling, an elongated sigh leaving his lips. “Venus, has anyone ever told you that you’re a little…”

I rolled my eyes and waved my hand in the air, urging him to continue as I swallowed the food in my mouth.

“Tight around the gills,” he finished, taking another sip of his coffee and nodding. “Yeah, that’s it.”

“No.” I laughed. “I can’t say I’ve ever heard that one before.”

Liam opened his mouth to say something else but a well-endowed waitress in a low cut top approached our table and interrupted him. “We’re fine,” he told her with an easy smile, slipping a five-dollar bill in the band of her apron, his eyes never leaving mine. “Just some more coffee.”

She smiled and sauntered off, but not before looking back at him to swoon. I watched it all unfold and rolled my eyes. “You’re quite the ladies man aren’t you?” I spoke up when she was out of earshot.

He shrugged and smiled at me, rolling the sleeves of his flannel up his arms. I swallowed hard. Something about a guy’s exposed forearms always made me flustered. “That
jealousy
I’m detecting in your tone?” he joked, raising his eyebrows at me.

I balked and rolled my eyes. I was beginning to realize that Flirtation wasn’t like riding a bike. If you went long enough without doing it, it was very possible to forget how. “As if…” I muttered into my palm, feeling my cheeks flush of color as I looked out the window.

It was raining out.

Big surprise there…

“Oh come on,” Liam said in a childish tone, “I’m just having some fun with you, thas’all. You familiar with the concept?”

I clenched my jaw. The huskiness in his voice made my heart flutter involuntarily. “I know how to have fun, thank you very much.”

“Could have fooled me…”

“Jesus.” I shook my head. “Are all the men in your family like this?”

“Depends what you mean by
‘like this.’
”

I waved a hand at him. “I mean, do any of you actually
think
before you say or do anything?”

I must have struck a nerve because his smile quickly dissolved. He frowned and looked out at the rain, picking at an edge of the peeling tabletop.

“Sorry,” I spoke up after a few minutes in a softened tone. “I didn’t mean to—”

“No,” he interrupted, meeting eyes with me, “never apologize for saying what you mean. Besides, it’s all right. I actually wanted to apologize to you about that.”

“About what?”

“About my brother,” he said quietly, “I’m sorry he wasn’t more gracious to you. Anders, he’s just—”

He fell quiet and scrunched his brows, scratching his stubble-covered jaw as he searched for the words. “He hasn’t been right the past few years,” he continued, “not since his wife died.”

A lump surfaced in my throat. “That’s…”

“Yeah.” Liam nodded. “She meant a lot to both of us but it really hit him hard.”

“What was her name?”

“Nina.”

That was it…

That was the name he kept saying.

“Worst part was,” Liam continued, focusing on his coffee. His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “She was three months pregnant when she was killed. Course we didn’t find that out until after.”

My stomach tightened and the fluorescent lights above made me feel dizzy. I furrowed my brows and shook my head.

“What happened to her?” I questioned before I could stop myself. “I’m sorry. I mean…if you don’t mind me asking…”

Liam nodded and was quiet for a few moments. “Nah, that’s alright,” he breathed, cracking his knuckles. He kept his gaze focused on the window. “She worked here. There was this guy who came in all the time, well two of them I guess, regulars. Anyway, one night they got it into their heads to wait outside for her until her shift ended. Just wanted to ‘have a little fun with her’ I guess. But she fought back when those bastards made the moves on her. Ended up falling and hitting her head on a concrete divide. The impact killed her.”

Jesus Christ.

“Anders killed one of them,” he added quietly, “beat the other up pretty bad. Turned himself into the cops after.”

I sucked in a sharp breath and studied my hands. Suddenly my own run in with death seemed to pale in comparison.

Chapter 13

—

T H E N

“
You don’t value your life.”

Those five words, some of my mother’s favorite, vibrated in the back of my head as a team of paramedics worked on my unresponsive body—red lights illuminating their washed out faces. “Get an IV going!” one yelled to the other, shoving me into the back of the waiting ambulance.

I felt something prick me in the arm. I tried to speak but my tongue felt dry and weighted down in my mouth. The last thing I remembered before it all went dark was the sound of sirens and Luna’s worried face as the doors slammed shut on her.

When I awoke, I found myself alone in a dimly lit hospital room, attached to multiple beeping machines through a mirage of wires and tubes. I felt like some kind of science experiment. I tried to focus my eyes on something, anything, but the strain associated in doing so was too uncomfortable to bear.

“Hello?” I called out. My voice was hoarse and my throat felt like sandpaper. “Is anyone there?”

If this was purgatory it was ten times worse than anything I could have conjured up myself.

“Good luck,” a deep voice spoke up from beside me. I craned my neck to find the source and my eyes fell on a man stretched out in a bed a few feet away from mine. His arm was in a sling and his leg was extended in a cast. He was also covered in bruises.

“Sorry?”

He smiled at me and held up a small remote. “I’ve been buzzing for them for awhile.”

“Oh.” I sat up straighter and brushed my sweat drenched hair out of my face. A sour feeling bubbled in the pit of my stomach. “Well would you mind trying one more time?”

The man laughed and gave me a peculiar look. “Sure,” he said, “but don’t I don’t think they usually just ‘release’ people who try to…well you know…”

“Excuse me?”

He nodded at me. “Wait, let me guess, it was an accident?”

There was no point in trying to make conversation with him. “Fuck off,” I said, rolling my eyes and tearing my gaze from his.

He scoffed but continued to look amused. “What’s your name?” he pressed on, sitting up in his bed.