Taking Turns (Turning #1)(69)

“Yeah, f*ck. I was gonna say you could go get some from your house. But you don’t do Christmas, do you?”

“I have nothing.” I laugh. “Not one twinkling light to my name.”

“That sucks. We should buy them together, but I have a conference call in an hour and I have to go to the office to get Robert’s computer because he’s got the presentation.”

“I’ll be fine, Quin. Just do your thing.”

“Sorry,” he says again as he leans down to kiss me. “If I can get out of this early, I’ll come back.”

A few minutes later he’s gone and I’m alone again.

I’ve lived alone since I was eighteen. Not always at that Little Raven house. That was a gift from my father when I completed my PhD. I had another, much smaller—and more homey—place just a few blocks from here before that. It wasn’t trendy or new. In fact, the heat barely worked in the winter and I was always wearing two pairs of socks to bed to fight the chill.

But it was my place.

The Little Raven town home has never felt like mine.

For one, my father purchased it as a surprise. A three-million-dollar surprise. Buying me things has always been the only way he’s showed me love. He was proud that day I graduated. Or maybe… he was just feeling obligated? Does it matter?

But this place came with all the same furniture they used to stage it for the sale.

So.

None of that stuff belongs to me. I have zero attachment to any of it. All of it. Whatever. In fact, the only things in that house that weren’t part of the sale contract, aside from the clothes and jewelry in the closet, are the things Smith brought along when he decided he lived there last week.

Fucking Smith.

I shake my head. I don’t want to think about Smith right now. It’s way too early in the week to think about Smith.

I reluctantly get up off the couch so I can take a shower and head down to Walgreens for leftover Christmas decorations.

“What should new Chella wear today?” I ask my closet. Almost all these clothes are new. I brought a few of my own things over so I can go to work in something that won’t start a new conversation about Elias Bricman with Michell on Thursday.

I opt for a pair of jeans and a festive red cable-knit sweater and then sit down on the floor to look over the boxes of shoes one of the guys must have purchased for me, looking to see if any have snow boots in them.

I pull out the larger boxes first. The first three are fancy boots. Not what I’m looking for. But the next ones are brand-new shearlings, like the ones I left here that very first night.

I lie back on the floor and smile at how f*cking clueless I was.

That’s when I notice the attic door in the ceiling and a short pull cord, wrapped around a metal hook.

“What the f*ck?”

I get up and go looking for a step stool that I saw in the foyer closet last week, and then stand on the top step and pull the cord.

I have to get down off the stool as I pull, because it’s one of those ladder things that extends to the floor. I move the stool out of the way, extend it to its full length, and then stare up into the black hole of an attic.

I’ve never been afraid of the dark, so I climb up.

There’s a small circular window up there and sunlight is streaming in, making a long stripe of yellow in the blackness. I crawl over to it and realize there’s a soft furry rug on the floor beneath my knees.

Outside I can see the Capitol building, the gold dome reflecting the sun like a beacon of hope in the snow.

I turn around and sit on my butt to take it all in.

It’s a… hideaway? Fort? I laugh as I try to find the right word. It’s a secret room.

And it’s filled with things.

On the far wall is a small Christmas tree.

I crawl around until I find a small lamp and flick the switch. Then I realize what this place really is.

Rochelle’s secret life.

She’s got a million pillows lining the walls. About a dozen small vintage carry-on suitcases stacked up in one corner. Blankets, and books, and trinkets that she so obviously loved and didn’t want to share with the men who controlled her life downstairs.

Wow.

I scramble over to the Christmas tree - it’s only about three feet tall. I find the switch for the lights and click it on. God, it’s so pretty. The whole thing is decorated with vintage cardboard images, hanging on to branches with small loops of twine, and gold garland that has definitely seen better days. There are old-fashioned glass bulbs that are too big and handmade felt ornaments that look older than I am.

Every wall is decorated with dandelions. Not the flowers. The seed heads.

I lie back on the fluffy pink rug and notice the ceiling has been decorated too. Only this time, along with the dandelion pictures, there are words written in what I can only assume is Rochelle’s hand.

I’ll fly away.

The entire gospel song—one I sang so many times growing up it makes my heart ache to think about it. The same one Rochelle was singing that day I met her down at Buskerfest. The lyrics have been scrawled in a pretty feminine handwriting over my head. More seed heads have been painted, pictures of them tacked and taped all over, so that the entire ceiling is a work of genius haphazard folk art.

It’s so… her.

So perfect with all its imperfections.

I sit up before that song gets stuck in my head and redirect my attention to the carry-on suitcases near the tree. They have the word ‘Christmas’ written on their lids in thick black marker.