Bait (Wake, #1)(109)

My body was there same as always.

But I was finally able to admit that my heart and mind was with Casey.





Thursday, December 24, 2009


IT WAS LIKE MY mind was somewhere else.

I was traveling all the time, trying to make the days seem like minutes and the minutes go by as fast as possible. There was no end.

I didn't sleep well.

I didn't eat like I should. I was on a mission. Hold my breath until she came back. Tolerate life without her.

Everyday my fingers itched to send messages to her. Sometimes they typed them anyway.

Me: Stop this. Please just get here.

Delete.

Me: I hate not talking to you.

Delete.

Me: How was your day?

Delete.

Me: I'm sorry I left you in Atlanta. I should have taken you back to the hotel and showed you how badly I wanted you for my own.

Delete.

Me: I love you.

Delete.

It was Christmas Eve. Lou and Betty were 0 and 2 for the holidays.

I spent most of the afternoon with my family, promising to come back the next day. Everyone was in full wedding mode preparing for Cory and Micah's big day the next week. The idea of another wedding repulsed me.

Carmen really stepped up. Since Micah's family lived far away and our mother was gone, she took Micah under her wing and did everything to assure that this family would have something to look forward to and be proud of.

God, I missed my mom and I was sure Cory felt the same way. With the wedding approaching, probably more.

I spent the afternoon with Foster. He was my kind of man.

He didn't ask questions.

He didn't look at me like I was something to be pitied.

He didn't mind that I opened my second beer only twenty minutes after my first.

I found presents address to him from Auntie Blake under the tree, and without asking anyone, I helped him open them.

She’d sent him baby toys and clothes and a book. The thing that caught my eye was he title, The Invisible String. I stared to read it and put my wingman out cold. I didn’t get to finish because Micah took the baby and I’d look like a fool reading a children’s book about loving someone from far away all by myself. He gave him a rain check.

Instead, after his mother shut down our party, I continued to drink and pretend to be interested in what everyone was talking about. Only chiming in when absolutely necessary.

I was glad Troy was there. He drank with me and if my memory served me right, he put my consumption to shame that night and my sister Audrey had to drive him home.

By nine o'clock I was calling a car to come and pick me up. It was just as well. I probably wouldn't feel like driving in the morning and I'd need another to come pick me up from my house.

I would sleep alone and most likely dream about Grant’s wedding to the woman I loved for the millionth goddamned time. But least I’d get to see her. How pathetic.

When I got back to the house, my house, my mom's house, the last place I'd seen Blake, I started a fire and docked my iPhone, playing Christmas music as I watched the flames lick the pecan wood I'd brought inside for the mild winter.

I did what I did every night.

I brooded.

I thought about her.

With him.

Were they having a merry Christmas? Exchanging presents and playing board games with their families? Where they arguing and going to bed angry?

God, what I would have given to be going to bed angry next to her.

I was nine sheets past three sheets to the wind. I'd had my fill of drink, but I was still up. Sleep avoided me like two north magnets those days.

My head sagged onto my chest until I heard a familiar voice, and it lifted itself to confirm who I was hearing.

Aly.

She was here in my living room.

“Casey?” she said, inquiring to see if I was awake. I hadn't moved, only tuned my ears into her presence.

She came to me where I sat in the chair that faced the fire, which was nearly out by then, and crouched down in front of me.

My eyes didn't want to look. I'll admit. It wasn't my finest moment. I'd stared so long at the burning wood that my eyes were dry and they watered when I shut them to ignore that she was there.

I didn't ask her to come. In fact, I'd done everything in my power to avoid her.

I never wanted to be a person who made someone feel less than worthy. I knew how she felt about me, but that still didn’t make me feel anything for her.

Yet, she was the one who was there. I needed Blake, but instead I had Aly. I hated that I knew how it would play out. I hated predicting the next few hours, but I was so damn lonely.

I craved Blake's touch, but I could have Aly's.

I was in misery.

Aly was a pacifier. It was wrong, but I was weak.

When she moved her hands to the tops of my legs, I turned my head away from her again. I wanted to resist, but then I thought of Blake nestled warm in her bed next to her husband.

I had been faithful to a woman who didn't know the definition of it. A woman I loved all the more for her crimes, because she committed them with me.

Aly’s hands wandered without my protest to halting their curiosity. We'd been together in our past. In my life pre-Blake. She wasn't completely foreign.

I was tired of fighting. I was tired of being alone.

I stood and took her hand. My feet weren't steady and my steps showed her exactly how much I'd consumed. She went with me anyway.