Saugatuck Summer (Saugatuck, #1)(77)
“Um . . . wow. Sure, that would be great, if I can afford the rent.”
She waved me off. “I don’t pay rent on it, except to help Geoff a little with the lease on the building. It’s the space above his shop. It’s got pretty much everything already except TV service, and really, who needs that when you have high-speed internet?”
And there it was, another solution to my financial situation just falling into my lap. Now that I’d had a couple paychecks from Geoff and Robin, in addition to what I’d made in tips playing at the coffeehouse—all of which was going straight into the bank and remaining untouched except for the occasional latte—it was looking like I might be able to cover at least most of the shortfall for next year. But only if I could continue to live rent-free, somehow. And here was Ling, offering that very opportunity.
Suddenly I was anxious and unsure again. Fuck. I hated being such an inconvenience to everyone. It seemed like no matter where I was, ever since I’d been in junior high and asking my aunt to drive me to choir practice, I was putting someone to more trouble than they ought to go to. Why did everyone else have to keep taking up my slack?
It was on the tip of my tongue to refuse, or insist on paying them something, when Jace appeared in the doorway, almost as though he’d picked up on my distress. My protest died unspoken as I remembered his words about accepting help when it was offered.
“Sure,” I said thickly, swallowing. “Thanks, Ling. I’d appreciate that.”
She smiled and that was the end of it. After we ate dinner, I packed up all my stuff, and Jace helped me move it to the cozy studio apartment in the office space upstairs from Geoff’s studio. It offered a lovely view of downtown Saugatuck and Kalamazoo Lake. Now that I was in a space where I wouldn’t disturb anyone else, I set up my keyboard and practiced awhile, banging my head against the brick wall of the impossibly complex piano part to “Opaline.” Eventually I switched to more mellow pieces, and Jace began to nod off on the sofa.
We were both too exhausted to do more than fall into bed and go to sleep, but I awoke in the middle of the night, wrapped around him, the big spoon for once, and suddenly I needed him one last time.
Afterward, I lay with my head on his shoulder, listening to his heartbeat slow.
“I need to catch up on some work I’ve been neglecting.” His lips brushed my hair. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it back up here this weekend.”
I tried not to sigh tragically. “It’s okay. I understand. Mo will be here anyway, and I’ve hardly gotten to see her in the last month, so I should probably try to give her my full attention.”
“All right. The next weekend I’d really like to, though. If you want me to.”
“Yeah,” I whispered, turning my face up to him for a kiss. “I want you to.”
And I really, really did. What was this ache in my chest at the prospect of not seeing him for nearly two weeks? Was this love, or at least the start of it?
I was pretty sure it was. Maybe not full-fledged—it was far too early for that—but there was definitely a seed beginning to sprout and take root.
I clung to him tighter and let it happen.
It’s only your shadow
Said it’s only an echo
So lie back down
—Casey Stratton, “Wither and Die”
Strange. With all my issues, I would have imagined that living alone would be the least of my problems.
I guess it sort of made sense, though. Until that Memorial Day weekend when Mo had left on Sunday and Brendan had arrived on Monday, I had only ever spent two nights in a house alone.
The first time was one of my very earliest memories. I had been four years old. My mother had just rented a house with her latest “boyfriend” (read: guy she picked up at a bar who would feed her and buy her beer until he got tired of her and kicked her out). There wasn’t even any furniture in the house, so I’d slept on blanket pallets on the floor with Colleen and Tonya, who were eight and two, respectively. Sometime in the middle of the night, we awoke to realize that neither Mom nor her boyfriend were there. To this day, I don’t know where they went. To a bar, to the store to get beer, I don’t know. It was so long ago and I was so young that I don’t even remember how it turned out—whether she came home while we were awake and searching for her, or if we eventually fell back asleep and found her there in the morning. All I remember was going outside into the darkened yard, scared out of my mind and sobbing at maybe midnight or 1 a.m., trying to find her.
It happened again a couple years later when I was in the first grade, shortly before child services took us away and placed us with our relatives. That time we awoke in the morning (probably on a school day) to discover she’d left sometime during the night. She didn’t come back until that afternoon.
After the first incident, I began having what would become a recurring nightmare throughout my childhood and well into my teen years—the only dream I can remember having as a child, in fact. In that nightmare, my family had all become vampires and they were chasing me, trying to kill me while I did the whole silent-scream/want-to-run-but-can’t-move thing.
That first night alone in Ling’s apartment, I awoke from the vampire nightmare for the first time in years. Only this time, the vampires were Jace, Mo, Brendan, Robin, Ling, and Geoff. I lay there in the dark, gasping for breath, my heart racing and my palms sweating, trying to remember that I wasn’t four years old, waiting for Momma to come home and make me feel safe again.