True North Book 3 - Finding Now Kate and Sam (6 page)

Now I picked up her phone. I’d have to get in touch with someone who knew her. I went through her contact list.

“What the fuck? How’s that possible?” I whispered. There were only four contacts
total
: Mom, Dad, U of W Faculty Office, and Soul-sucking Headshrink.

I glanced over the phone at her. She was incredibly beautiful and ridiculously intelligent, how was it that she had no friends?

Looking back at the numbers, I analyzed them. I had no idea where the area code for her parents was from, but it definitely wasn’t for the state of Washington. Soul-sucking Headshrink was a Seattle number. If the situation hadn’t been so serious I’d probably laugh at such a name.

            I held her phone against my lips, thinking. I certainly didn’t want to piss her off by calling anyone. I also knew that if she took a turn in the wrong direction, I’d be carting her ass to the hospital no matter what kind of fight she put up.

Breathing deeply, I let myself sit back down. Her apartment was impeccable. Not a speck of dust, very simple: a loveseat, a bed, a desk and a small dining table with only one chair. Everything was in earth tones. Something wasn’t right, though, but I couldn’t quite grasp what. I considered going through the drawers beside her bed, but thought better of it. I didn’t want to wake her up and make her think I was a dick or a thief. What kind of guy helps a woman out then goes through her shit?

My stomach growled, and I hoped Ms. Freak-Me-Right-the-Fuck-Out had something good to eat because I had already made up my mind that I was going to stay until I was satisfied that she was alright. I kicked off my Vans, making myself at home, and walked into the small kitchen space.

“Damn.” The air rushed through my cotton shirt as I walked, and I remembered her depositing the contents of her stomach onto me. I stripped out of my vomit dried shirt and looked under the kitchen sink for a bucket. Sure enough. I filled it with cold water and dropped my shirt in to soak then washed my hands and searched for sustenance.

“Of course you have no food in the house. You’re probably a fucking robot.” She had nothing in her refrigerator except for bottles of orange juice, milk and diet coke.

Rummaging through the cabinets I found half a box of plain graham crackers and Cheerios.

“Dinner.” I poured a bowl of cereal and milk and took that and my side order of crackers back to the love seat.

While I chewed, I studied the room. No television, no stereo system or docking station. There weren’t any magazines on the end table or books on the shelf.

“Personality.” I put my finger on what I had been trying to grasp before. The room had no personality or character whatsoever. There were no photographs or paintings or posters hanging anywhere on the walls or the fridge. No magnets or clocks, no trinkets or stuffed animals. The furniture could have been rented from a showroom; it all matched perfectly and had zero personal touches.

Quietly, I went back into the kitchen, rinsed my bowl and decided to check out the bathroom. A dark green towel set hung from a wooden dowel. A plastic bottle of Burt’s Bees soap sat at the edge of the sink. I opened the medicine cabinet: Band-Aids, a tube of Bacitracin ointment and cough syrup.

I chewed on the inside of my bottom lip before I said, “Fuck it,” and began opening the three small drawers on the side of the sink. The bottom two were empty while the top held a nail file, pair of scissors, tweezers and deodorant.

“What the fuck? How does she live with nothing?” None of it made sense.

I heard her cough and raced back to the bed. She spoke something unintelligible and shifted to her side.

I tried to tell myself she was alright, that I could leave now, but I didn’t believe it. And besides that, a part of me didn’t want to leave; I wanted to know why she lived like this. What had happened today? Why she was taking this crap-ass medicine and who the hell was Soul-sucking Headshrink?

Careful not to disrupt her, I covered her with the brown and white bed quilt and then settled myself back onto the loveseat and put a movie on my phone to watch. I had a feeling it was going to be a long night if she didn’t wake up and kick my ass out.

Chapter Five

“Use Somebody”

Kings of Leon

Catherine

Shadow in the blackest night

False hope is all I’ve got

There is no such thing as light

And now I am so lost

This wasn’t always me

I buried that one six feet under

So you could never see

Where I’ve hidden all that hunger

I’m not here (I’m shattered in a million pieces)

Scattered in the wind (My soul is filled with graveyard places)

I’m not here

You think you see me

But I’m far away from here

Snowfall covered trees

Veins too frozen now to bleed

Waiting in the dark

Maybe now I want someone to see

The final hour is coming

When the pain just might drown

And win the battle finally

If I am not found

“Hey.” Sam’s voice floated across the room, cutting through my thoughts.

I closed my poetry book and set it and my pen in my bedside table drawer. “Hey back at ya,” I said softly. I had woken up hours ago and had been startled to see him asleep on the loveseat. Everything that happened had come rushing back; the phone call, the panic attack, puking in front of Sam North. I’d had plenty of time to work through the embarrassment, now I was just grateful.

“You look a lot better.” He sat up and ran his long fingers through his hair, raking his bangs off his eyes. “I didn’t know who to call and I was worried about leaving you alone. I hope you don’t mind that I commandeered your couch.”

“No. I don’t mind. I might still be behind the building if you hadn’t been there.”
Or worse, someone would have called an ambulance and it would’ve started all over again.

“Nice place you’ve got here.”

I was glad he changed the subject. “Yeah it was a lucky find,” I agreed. “I made some coffee.” I pulled myself off my already made bed. I had showered and was now in a pair of drawstring shorts and a U of W sweatshirt. “How do you take it?”

“Black is fine.”

I brought him the mug and set it on the coffee table in front of him. “Thanks for what you did.”

He had no idea how hard it was for me to have a normal conversation. I had closed myself off for so long. I didn’t know what to say or even how to act. There was no “being myself,” because I didn’t know who that was.

Sam sipped at his coffee. “Zoka?”

“You know your coffees.” He made me want to smile, but even the idea of it made me feel guilty and sad, so I fought it.

He needed to leave.

“I’d offer you breakfast, but I don’t keep much food in the place,” I admitted.

“Yeah, I noticed that. But it’s a good excuse to ask you out for breakfast,” he said assuredly.

“I’m not a big breakfast eater.”

“Then lunch,” he said as if there was no question about it. “Oh, and I need a laundry room.” He stood up and stretched. He wasn’t wearing anything but a pair of dark jeans and his leather bands and a necklace—a thin suede strand with a silver pendant. He was
shirtless
and
barefoot
and looked like sex. I was still human, and he was chiseled hard marble covered with soft flesh colored in ink.

“Laundry?” I asked absentmindedly.

“Yeah, it got kind of messy yesterday and my shirt and sweater got the worst of it.”

OH MY GOD, I THREW UP
ON HIM
!
I was mortified. “I’m so, so terribly embarrassed. Please, let me replace the items, it’s the least I can do.”

“It’s okay,” he said calmly. “I found a bucket under your kitchen sink. They’re soaking.”

“I’ll take care of it. I’ll have your leather cleaned professionally too.” I got to the kitchen quickly and brought the bucket to the bathroom where I had a washer/dryer combo and threw them in.

“Jacket was spared.” He smiled like it was no big deal, while I wanted to sink into the floor. “So, what do you like to eat?”

I was struggling now. I thought of saying something sarcastic to show I wasn’t going anywhere with him. But I wasn’t an ungrateful bitch and couldn’t bring myself to do it, not after everything he’d just done for me.

“Lunch, then we’re even,” I insisted.

“I’m not keeping score, Jolie. If you don’t want to go to lunch with me, you don’t owe me a thing.”

Why couldn’t he be an asshole? It would be so much simpler if he were an asshole.

“I like Kells.” At least I could pick a familiar place.

“Kells. That’s the Irish pub?” He smiled.

“Yeah.”
What was I doing bringing him to my apartment and now bringing him to my only haunt?
I was all kinds of confused and I must have looked it too, standing in the middle of my tiny studio between the bathroom and him, not sure what to do with myself.

“Do you mind if I grab a shower first?”

“No! Of course not. Please do.” I diverted my eyes from his already half naked body so I didn’t imagine his wholly naked body in my shower. “Fresh towels are in the cabinet.”

“Thanks.”

I looked back up and he was wearing the sexiest smile I had ever seen. He didn’t walk, he sauntered into the bathroom.

I sat down on my bed, staring at the loveseat where he’d slept. The most insane desire spread through me to get up and lay down where he’d been. To feel his leftover presence. I imagined the warmth of him on the couch. My breath quickened. When you’ve closed yourself off from human touch for so long, the smallest amount can seem like so much. I closed my eyes and breathed through the craving.

Soon enough, I started my new battle. What the hell was I going to wear? It was a Saturday and I couldn’t go in my professor’s clothes, which would look more than stupid.
But
it would keep a wall between us and establish precedence.

I spoke to myself quietly. “Okay, I can do a pair of black business pants and a white blouse.” Not fully casual, but not entirely stuffy. I waited a moment. My heart didn’t palpitate so I guessed it was a safe choice.

I got dressed in the kitchen while he was showering and listened to him while he sang. He had a beautiful, melodic voice with a rough edge. He would obviously be a phenomenal singer behind a microphone.

A few minutes later he came out in his jeans with his torso still glistening with mist and his hair wet. I noticed a small black and silver yin and yang symbol pierced into his right ear.
What the hell is he doing here with me?

I wasn’t stupid, I knew what I
used
to look like—that girl would have loved the attention, but I wasn’t her. I was Catherine, his professor. This guy could have any girl he set his eyes on.

Oh … I got it.
Maybe he thought a roll in the sack would give him an easy A? But then I remembered he’d started the flirting before he knew I was the professor.

The buzzer on the washing machine went off. I threw his t-shirt in the dryer and laid his sweater flat on the rack.

He sat back on my love seat, sipped his coffee and asked, “So where are you from?”

Wrong question …
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” I diverted.

“Oh yeah? I told you a little bit yesterday. I’m from Williston, North Dakota. My family owns a lot of property that way.”

“That’s right, you told me the story about your friend … Nate, right?”

“Yeah, he married my sister.”

“How many brothers and sisters have you got?”

“Four brothers and a younger sister,” he told me. “Do you have any?”

I swallowed painfully hard and half-lied again. “That would divert some of my mom’s attention.”

“It was like that for a while for me and my twin Will.”

“There are
two
of you?” My voice cracked.

He laughed lightly. “Yeah. Will is my identical. But once our sister Jules came along, mom pretty much changed her radar.”

“So you have a close family?” I felt myself wanting to smile again.

“The closest,” he said. “So what about you? You’ve obviously obtained your PhD, and you said you were only four years older than me, how did you do it so fast?”

I had no life.
“I just decided to take accelerated courses and stayed focused.” Half-truths worked.

“Where did you go to university?”

“University of British Columbia in Vancouver.”

“I love that city!” he exclaimed excitedly.

“It’s gorgeous there,” I agreed.

“Did you ever go skiing on Whistler?”