A Thousand Starry Nights

  He holds up his hands in surrender. “Relax, take a seat.” His features soften, and I foolishly let down my guard. “I came to say goodbye. I think we need to talk—you know, get some closure.”

  “Closure?” I take a few careful steps before deciding to plant myself across from him. Any minute now Carter will walk in. I texted him to let him know I was back. If not—Pepper will be to her desk soon enough. She won’t hesitate running in when I scream bloody murder.

  Henry smirks then quickly replaces his sour puss with a contrived smile. His hair is slicked back. He’s put on some weight, not fat, more like muscle. He looks healthy, sane, but looks have been known to be deceiving. Cher is a prime example of that.

  “What’s new?” He picks up a pen and repeatedly thumps it over the desk slow and erratic like the sickly heartbeat of our dying marriage. “Heard you’re no longer at your brother’s.” He flexes a dry smile. “Heard you’re finally bagging Carter.”

  A roll of nausea runs through me. Henry and I were married. It was tough as shit, about as fun as jumping on a bed of sharpened needles, but it was something. We took an oath before God to uphold and now I’m “bagging” another man. Irrationally, this smears me with guilt.

  “I talked to my lawyer.” I clear my throat. “She said we could have a hearing as early as June.” Stevie will have her baby, and I’ll have my freedom—a banner month will be had by all. It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact I’ve actually done it, I’m actually in the process of freeing myself from Henry’s cruel reign. Tragically I’ve been scheming to do just that since our ill-fated wedding night. A part of me knew the ruse was over before the honeymoon ever began. Our nuptials were the crescendo in an ever-building climax of head games construed by Carter and me. Once that preacher had me say I do, I felt the weight of the hammer fall on my head. It was game over, and nobody was declared the winner.

  “Sounds good.” His eyes dart over my features as if trying to read a tarot card—some ridiculous form of witchcraft only the feeble minded and those easily swayed by demons prescribe to. Again something Henry and Cher have in common. Why did those two ever break up? In truth, Henry was just a weekend fling of Cher’s. She was one and done, smart in that sense. But Henry is still busy studying me—looking for clues to some unknown mystery. I can see the wires in his brain misfiring as he tries to put me together like a puzzle. “You staying inside a lot? You look pale. Maybe you should venture out of the bedroom once in a while.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I? Besides, I hardly doubt you care about my health, Henry.” He smirks like a little boy getting caught throwing rocks at passing cars. “I did do one last wifely kindness for you.” In did it mostly for me and my unbroken femurs, but I leave my legs out of it for now. “I bet you haven’t heard back from that inmate-run glass company in a while have you?” Now it’s my turn to smirk. “Don’t worry, it’s a temporary gift. I’m making sure you sell the boat as an acquired asset in the divorce. You’ll be a gentleman and give me the entire proceeds if you know what’s good for you.”

  His eyes squint as he takes a moment to decode my kindness.

  “I know you paid them back,” he whispers, glancing to the window as if this were a game changer. “So you want the boat. And if not? You going to send your brother after me? Maybe your new boyfriend?” He barks out a laugh that bounces off the walls like a live grenade. His entire affect has gone from drywall to monkey on cocaine in a single bound. “I know exactly what happened, Aspen. That’s what I’m here to tell you. I’m still in control. You don’t get to win.”

  Henry gets up and stalks over to where I’m seated. Instinctively, I rise and take a few steps back. I’m fully expecting this to turn into a table chase game minus the lust that usually fuels it. I’ve always feared that one day Henry would bash my head in. About a month into our marriage, I grew afraid of Henry, and that feeling never left. Fear coated the inside of my heart like tar, stifling it from beating properly. He’s stifled my heart, my emotions, right from the beginning, and, still, I was too stubborn to leave. Every day I stayed with this maniac was an effort on my part to twist the knife into Carter’s heart. I never said I was an angel.

  Henry takes a few steps closer, backing me against the wall under my own free will.

  He huffs a dull laugh in my face, and I smell the cheap liquor on his breath. Rubbing alcohol. Henry’s breath has always been caustic as poison.

  “I knew you were fucking him the second you told me Lionheart was taking Jinx.”

  “That’s not true. That’s not how this went.”

  “You did that to me. You went behind my back and let that pig defile you. Who the fuck are you to leave me?”

  This is all about his ego, it always has been. Henry can’t exist in a world where a woman rejects him. The long string of waitresses he leered at over the years, the girls from the gym that nodded his way in approval—it hits me like a violent slap to the face. Henry has probably bedded them all.

  “Maybe it was just a little payback.” Not sure why I went there. I didn’t really cheat on him. “Have you ever cheated on me, Henry?”

  “Shut up, you stupid little cunt.” He pins my throat to the wall, and my head bounces like a rubber ball. His palm sits tight over my voice box, making it impossible to take my next breath. My hands claw at his fingers, and he removes himself in an aggressive manner.

  “Shit,” I wheeze, lying motionless, waiting for what feels like the right moment to bolt to safety.

  “It won’t last.” He strides to the door. “You will get what you deserve.”

  I stagger to my desk, rattled, and text Pepper to get the hell in here.

  “I saw him!” She bolts toward me with open arms. “I just saw him and called security. He took the stairs. I think he left.” She pulls me into a quick hug. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I think the reality of not having me as his squeeze box is finally settling in. God, I think he threatened me.” My mind swirls trying to make sense of his drunken words.

  It won’t last. His words swill in my mind, leaving their greasy residue over my doubts. You will get what you deserve.

  I look to Pepper with her large, owl-like eyes.

  “You think Carter and I will work out, don’t you?”

  “Oh, hon.” She pulls me into another quick hug. “I think you and Carter have forever written all over you.”

  “We do.” I nod, trying to convince myself of our invincibility. “In fact, I’d better let him know what just happened.” In a perfect world, I could rewind and go back to last week, making love to Carter until the sun comes up, indulging in heavy naps until our bodies ache for one another again and hit repeat on a loop. In a perfect world, Henry would be in prison for the crimes he’s committed against me, touching me like that, raping me for his pleasure, speaking to me like I were less than a worm that crawled from under a rock. Henry would aggressively be taking it up the ass in prison, and Carter and I would be lounging in our love. But this isn’t a perfect world.

  I check my phone. Carter hasn’t returned my text.

  “They’re out,” Pepper says, reading my mind. “Jinx is Cannon-free at the moment with the exception of your sister.” She tilts toward me with a twinge of pity. “Why don’t you go home? I can handle anything that comes up around here.”

  “Seeing that I haven’t put down my purse yet, I think I’ll take your advice.”

  * * *

  I take off. Pepper insists that security walks me to my car in the event Henry has another throat-squeezing surprise in store for me. I don’t protest. I like the idea of a big, buff man making sure I arrive at my Kinsley loaner of a car alive. Henry has me rattled, and perhaps my neck bruised. I examine it in my rear view mirror as the engine runs idle. It’s pink, no firm impressions of his fingertips, nothing overtly incriminating. That’s the way Henry operates, just enough infliction to cause pain, nothing to set off the authorities. God, how could I have been so stupid all these years tethered
to that madman? How did I survive twenty-four months without a spinal cord?

  I hit the road, still shaken from my run-in with Henry. My eyes flit to my rear view mirror with every third breath, waiting to find him in the background, following me, shaking his fist in the air with the promise of a broken jaw, but there’s nothing except a sea of minivans and SUVs, a red pickup with a cracked windshield and gardening supplies clogging up its truck bed. Not a single sign of that nefarious Porsche, and I’ve never been so glad not to see a sports car in all my life. I make it halfway to Shipwrecks before my phone goes off. I turn up the volume on the speakers as the Bluetooth kicks in.

  “Hello?” I try to mask my nerves with a fabricated sense of calm. Kinsley’s carefree, bubbly personality would be a good persona to hijack right about now.

  “Is this Aspen O’Tool?” A meek female’s voice fills the car. She sounds kind, but too much so. I recognize the type—one of the soft-voiced, soft-footed girls that couldn’t bear to stomp her sole on the ground. They bleed out their power with their tiny, meek voices until the mean girls of the world push them over just because they can. I should know, I used to be that meek girl until the mean girl stole my man. Not to say I was a sickly sweet honeysuckle of a girl because I wasn’t. I was simply too trusting, too involved, too in love to see that a hurricane was about to blow my world apart.

  “Speaking,” I shout a little more curt. It’s always such a pain in the ass to communicate this way.

  “You’re on the list of people to call in an emergency for Abby Cannon. She skinned her knee at the zoo today, and, although she’s totally fine, she says she doesn’t feel well and demands to have someone pick her up. I hope you don’t mind, but Mr. Cannon has you listed as his contact in the event we can’t reach him. His week, his rules,” she’s quick to add.

  “Oh, yes, no problem. I’m about ten minutes out. I’ll be right there.”

  “Perfect!” She rattles off directions, and I promptly change my course.

  What about Cher? I’m sure they tried her first. Carter and she have joint custody.

  As sad as I am for Abby, I’m giddy that Carter put me down as an emergency contact. This is all starting to feel official. I’m going to be a stepmother. For all practical purposes, I am a stepmother—and picking up a sick child from school is a very “stepmotherish” thing to do.

  I manage to hit all the green lights and arrive at the Regency Montessori Day School in record time. It sits up on top of a hill, mostly secluded from the exclusive neighborhood it’s tucked away in. It’s a bit of a drive from both Carter’s new home and Cher’s, but I’m sure this place met Cher’s stringent requirements—none of which are of the educational variety. Cher is more interested in her daughter’s social status than she is of her learning environment.

  I take the loop that reads parent pickup and spot a small, waifish woman holding Abby’s hand and backpack.

  I hop out of the car, and Abby screams with delight as she runs over and gives my knees a tight embrace.

  The woman scans me with a level of discontent reserved for IRS auditors and prostitutes. “Cher said you were pretty.” She raises her brows as if this were a crime, or a con, both probably.

  “You’re friends with Cher?” I ask, almost amused. Abby is well within earshot, so I abstain from any zingers willing to pop from my mouth.

  “Good friends.” She pecks the air with a tight nod, her eyes reducing to slits. A stunted silence lays thick between us.

  “Um”—I take up Abby’s hand—“I’d better get her home.”

  Abby chatters for an entire city block as we cruise past the quiet estates that line the edge of town and back onto the main thoroughfare. It’s still mostly barren out. The real traffic doesn’t pick up until three, and then that lasts right through rush hour. My mind buzzes to Carter. I should pull over and let him know his baby is safe with me—let him know she’s feeling fine. Is she?

  “How is your knee, honey?” I was so thrown by the waify witch I negated my first duty as a stepmother—to dote over my new daughter. I glance to the rear view mirror like a twitch and spot that dirty red pickup with its cracked windshield again. Huh.

  “I’m so short!” Abby screams through a laugh. “Hey, I need my car seats!”

  I laugh a moment at the fact she pluralized it until the word hits me in the face.

  “Car seat?” Oh shit! Carter and Cher are going to have my head for this. How old do you need to be before you get out of one of those things anyway? Knowing today’s overprotective society, the answer is probably seventeen. I scan the area for a shopping center. There’s no way in hell I’m going home without rectifying this grievance. For sure I won’t call Carter until I have her safely strapped in the back, or he’s going to regret ever putting me on that call list.

  I make a left and note the red truck in my rear view mirror mimicking my move like a well-timed ballet.

  A stale breath blows from me as my adrenaline rises. It’s stupid. I’m just being paranoid. Henry has my brain swimming with stupid scenarios. Sonic Glass is history. My petty theft made sure of that. Only, it wasn’t actually petty theft, more like a felony. A serious criminal offense. I’ve immersed myself in all things legal in my spare time. There isn’t one part of me that believes Henry is worth going to prison for. It was stupid. Lincoln was right. I should have borrowed the money from him. Pride comes before the fall my mother always says—another person I was never really good at listening to.

  There’s a giant red bull’s-eye on the sign of the plaza up ahead. Target is the exact place I can meet all of Abby’s car seat needs.

  “You want to do a little shopping?” I sing over to her, trying to pretend I have this all under control. And, in about fifteen minutes, and fifty dollars later, I will.

  “Yes! I love shopping! I needs—I needs a new DBD!”

  “Well, a new DBD is what you’re going to get.” She’s so cute. I can’t help but smile. Cher be damned, I plan on spoiling Abby today and well into the foreseeable future.

  A narrow side road cuts through the parking lot, so I make a turn into it instead of weaving through heavy traffic, and, sure enough, my new red friend speeds to catch up with me. Instinctively, I reach for my phone to call Carter, and the car jolts heavy to the left.

  Both Abby and I let out guttural screams as the car gets rammed from behind. I glance back at the driver of the red pickup. He’s wearing a ball cap turned backward, dark sunglasses hanging low over his determined grimace. He holds up a hand as if motioning an apology before backing his truck up.

  Was that an accident? It didn’t feel like one. My heart pummels against my chest at the price I’m going to pay for getting into a fender bender with Abby.

  He gets out of the truck and staggers over as if we’re about to exchange insurance policies, but what he pulls from his pants isn’t some innocent piece of paper, not his wallet by a long shot. It’s small and black and holds the promise of impaling my brain with fragments of metal.

  “Shit!” I put the car back into gear and hit the gas.

  The sunglass-wearing bastard jumps back in his truck.

  “Hold onto your seat belt!” I shout to Abby as her sobs grow increasingly louder.

  The truck comes at us like a demon out of hell, sending the back end of the car on a tailspin.

  “God!” I cry as my front tires leap over a concrete parking barrier. The red truck does it’s best to ass fuck my bumper as my car lashes back and forth uncontrollably, and, without warning, Henry’s words echo over this madness, you will get what you deserve.

  I catch a glimpse of Abby in the back seat, a look of fear frozen on her tiny face, and I lose it. There’s a wall of bushes to my right that look impenetrable. The truck makes a wide circle as he makes his way around to the driver’s side. Without giving it a second thought, I unbuckle Abby and snatch her to me as I leap to the passenger’s side. I glance back to see the stone cold look on the bastard’s face as his truck bullets toward me.
I jump out of the passenger’s door and duck into the bushes with Abby just as my car flies fifteen feet to the right. The entire driver’s side, the back panel where precious little Abby sat just five seconds ago is gone, smashed straight through to nothing.

  “Holy hell,” I whimper. Abby squirms, and I tighten over her with a death grip.

  I do the only thing I can think to do for our safety.

  Run.

  Carter

  Kinx—the club—a.k.a. Jinx’s younger, sluttier cousin, in the middle of the afternoon is more or less taken over by the coffee crowd.

  Cash sits across from me, in an abandoned area of the back, glaring at me from the rim of his beer as if I just ran over his dog.

  “What was it that you couldn’t talk to me about at the office?” I take a generous bite out of the Italian sub we hauled in from the deli next door.

  “I wasn’t expecting Lionheart to be here.” He glances over his shoulder at Lincoln a moment.

  “Yeah, well, get used to it.” I nod over at the jackass, inspiring him to turn away as if he didn’t see me. “I wondered where he spent most of his time.”

  “Merlin is where he belongs—back in his daddy’s dungeon.” Cash scoots his untouched drink away from him. “So how are things with you and Aspen?”

  I pause a moment before swallowing. That’s the second time Cash has asked me that question.

  “You said you had something important to discuss.” I put down the remainder of my food. “Why aren’t Ford and Carson here?” A hundred red flags go up all at once.

  Cash hooks onto my gaze and holds it serious as shit. “Because I didn’t want to embarrass you.”

  “Excuse me?” I can count how many times I have truly been caught off guard on one hand and have fingers left over. Once when Cheryl told me she was pregnant and then the moment I knew I lost Aspen. I’m wondering if this is about to pan out to be another one of those moments. “What the hell do I have to be embarrassed about?” An entire Rolodex of bullshit runs through my mind, but nothing quite registers as cringe worthy.