Damaged Goods

  I’d just launched myself on the Bennett sister heap of limbs and pillows when a loud knock startled us all.

  “What’s that?” Reese hissed, freezing below me.

  “What’s that? Are you for real, Reese? Don’t you mean who’s that?” Paige teased, giving Reese a hard shove that managed to knock both of us off her. “What do you think it could be? The boogeyman?”

  “No,” she snapped, sliding a bit closer to me. “But who’s to say it isn’t a raving mad serial killer? One who preys on young women caught in scary storms and power outages?”

  I kept my grin to myself. Then I remembered she couldn’t see me, so I let myself have that grin.

  “And who’s to say it isn’t Santa Claus himself, here to apologize for the years of forgetting to make a stop at our place, carrying a sack full of sweet presents we’ll never get if we don’t open that door?” Paige said.

  God, if they didn’t keep their minds healthy, they’d both find themselves deep in the tiny-pink-elephant land Mrs. Goods had wound up in. I’d always guessed that the people with the most wild of imaginations would experience the worst hallucinations if they let their minds slip into that place where healthy stopped ruling and paranoia took over.

  “I’d be able to get on with my life—alive—just fine, thank you very much.”

  “And what if jolly old St. Nick’s bag has a shiny new laptop with your name on it? Would you be able to get on with your life just fine then?” Paige threw back at her.

  Reese was silent for a few moments. “We don’t have a flashlight.”

  Which would be the first thing on my shopping list tomorrow. In fact, I’d pick up two.

  Another knock rapped on the door. Reese flinched against me and went to grab my arm right as Paige starting clucking at her.

  “Get the door,” Paige ordered between squawking like a chicken.

  “You get the door,” Reese replied almost frantically. None of us liked the dark—we’d lived in too much of it—but Reese seemed the most sensitive to it.

  “I’m not the one scared of the boogeyman being on the other side of it,” Paige said.

  “I’m not scared.”

  “Prove it. Answer the door.”

  “No! You answer it!” Reese’s voice went up an octave.

  I knew Paige was ready to snap back with something, so I stood and made my way gingerly to the door. “I’ll get the door. While you two keep arguing like a couple of old women.”

  “Don’t face-plant on your way there, Liv,” Paige suggested in a sing-song voice.

  I rolled my eyes. “Don’t leave your ass-kickers in the middle of the living room floor during a power outage.”

  The living room went quiet behind me as I stopped in front of the door. I didn’t know why I glanced through the peep hole. I’d fixed the burnt-out porch light weeks ago, but it wasn’t the one light immune to the power outage. Unfortunately. All I could make out was a bunch more black. I was about to tell the person on the other side of the door to identify themselves when another knock sounded at the door.

  “Liv? Paige? Reese? You guys okay? It’s Will.”

  I let out a long sigh, stopped wishing I’d grabbed a butcher knife, and unlocked the dead bolt. After Will’d been released from the hospital, it had been quiet up at the Goods’s trailer. I’d assumed he was taking his time recovering, so I sent Reese up with some chicken noodle soup a few days ago. I could have gone myself, but I wasn’t ready to see Will yet.

  But there he was, on our front step . . . so I’d just have to get ready to see him.

  “Hey, Will? How do we know it’s you and not some alien life form who’s taken over your body for the sole purpose of capturing us three earthlings and transporting us to your spaceship for all kinds of evil experiments?” Yet another over-imaginative moment from the mind of Paige Bennett.

  I sighed as I pulled open the door.

  The first step Will took inside, he tripped over the door jamb. “Fear not, little earthlings. It’s Will. In all my graceful glory.”

  I closed the door behind him.

  “Hey, Will. How are you healing up? Craving rattlesnake venom smoothies yet? I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to believe a snake bite is like a vampire bite, but instead of craving blood, I’m craving venom.”

  I sighed. At least Paige’s sarcastic repertoire wasn’t only reserved for me. She shared the wealth . . . because as sarcasm went, Paige had a seemingly endless supply of it.

  “Hey yourself, Paige. No venom smoothie cravings, but you’d better hope that snake bite of yours isn’t like a vampire bite, or else one morning you’re going to wake up slithering and slimy.”

  “Yuck,” Paige hollered from the living room.

  “Yep, turning into a snake is not near as sexy as turning into a vampire. Not as sparkly either.”

  “Hardy, har, har.”

  “You want a piece of pizza?” I asked Will, unable to see the faintest bit of him. I could hear his steady breath though, and it was just as calming as it was unsettling. “And let me follow that offer up with the condition that you can have pizza if I can find pizza.” Which is doubtful since I can’t even find my good sense now that Will has arrived.

  “I’d love some pizza. Whether you can find it or not. I’ve got a great imagination.”

  He also had a great way of carrying out that imagination in real life.

  “Girls? You want some if I can find it too?”

  It had gone quiet in the living room. That wouldn’t have been so strange if it was just Reese in there. It would have been strange if it was just Paige, and it was the miracle of the year for them to both be in the living room and silent.

  “And take our chances of getting decapitated again when you trip and fling deadly pizza slices our way?” Paige grunted. “No, thank you. Besides, now that Kill Bill’s a bust, I’m hitting the sack. I’m going to dream it in my sleep instead.”

  “You’ve seen it enough times to remember it scene for scene, word for word,” Reese chimed in.

  “And that comes in real handy when one finds themselves in a situation like this.”

  Will leaned in until his shoulder brushed mine. “Are they always like this?”

  I leaned in closer and whispered back, “This is a subdued night.”

  Will chuckled. “And I thought growing up with three brothers was bad.”

  “Yeah, well, you were wrong.” I nudged him before making my way—cautiously—to the kitchen. “Come on. Let’s see if we can round you up some pizza.”

  “Now you’re talking. That is the reason I came down here in a storm so nasty I was concerned the Wicked Witch of the West would fly by my window on her broomstick, cackling insanely.”

  “And here I thought you were just being a gentleman making sure three young women without a working flashlight were doing okay.”

  Will laughed a sharp note as he followed me. From the sound of it, he was stumbling over more obstacles than I was. “Boy, do I have you fooled.”

  I stopped when I knew I was getting close to the kitchen counter. Partly because I didn’t want to ram into it and partly because of what he’d said. Teasing or not, those words held a shadow of a truth. “Yeah, Will. You sure do.”

  And cue the shit card. I hadn’t exactly meant to say that out loud. In that tone. With that expression. At least, as the blackness had to be just as thick for Will as it was for me, he couldn’t see my serious, conflicted expression, but he definitely hadn’t missed the rest. It had been over a week since I’d last seen Will in the hospital, and I’d tried not to think about him and everything that thinking about him entailed—like confusion and uncertainty and elation and devastation and every other emotion that tipped the severe and intense scale. But that didn’t mean I’d succeeded. In fact, I’d failed so majorly, I was insulting every person who’d ever tried to not think about someone and succeeded even fractionally. It seemed I wasn’t up to the challenge of forgetting even a fraction of Will Goods.

/>   After the past couple of months, I was certain I knew what it felt like to be damned.

  “What do you mean by that, Liv?” Will’s voice was still far off, but he’d said it quietly enough I guessed my sisters hadn’t heard it. Or I hoped they hadn’t.

  Change the subject. Change it fast. “You didn’t happen to bring a flashlight with you, did you?” I asked, like nothing deep or profound had been about to take place between us.

  Will was quiet for a few seconds, probably waiting for me to answer his question. That wasn’t happening. Especially when my sisters were a room away. Especially when Will was in the same room as me. Especially when I didn’t have an answer to satisfy him. I kept myself busy scouring the counter for the invisible pizza while he stewed in his silence.

  Finally, he let out a long breath, and the kitchen floor groaned as he came closer. “No, I should have, but I didn’t. I can head back to my place and grab a couple though.” His voice was just as aloof as mine. It seemed Will was adapting to my sweep-it-under-the-rug attitude. That should have been a victory, but it felt like more of a defeat.

  “No, that’s okay. I wouldn’t want you doubling your chances of running into that wicked witch.” My fingers brushed a piece of pizza crust. Finally. Now to find a plate.

  “Hate to tell you, Will, but I’m afraid you’ve already run smack dab into the Wicked Witch of the West.” Paige’s voice was loud—louder—which meant she was joining us in the kitchen.

  “Oh, yeah? How do you figure that, kiddo?” Will asked.

  “You’re in here with Liv, aren’t you?”

  Between the two pizzas we’d made, there was almost a whole pizza left. One more piece lost into the black oblivion was a sacrifice I was glad to make. Lifting a piece, I aimed for the general area I’d heard Paige’s voice, took aim, and . . .

  “What the?!” Paige shouted a second after the slice left my hand.

  I grinned like the devil. “If you’re going to say witchy things, I’ll retaliate by doing witchy things.” When I imagined Paige’s expression as a cold, slimy piece of pizza smacked into her, I laughed.

  Will tried not to laugh too, but even he couldn’t help himself. Paige joined in eventually, and I even heard Reese’s soft laugh from the living room.

  “It’s too bad most of it landed on the floor, Liv,” Paige said as our laughter dimmed. She smacked her lips. “That sauce is the shiz.” Another smacking sound came from Paige.

  I could only guess she was wiping the pizza from her face and licking the sauce from her fingers. “It’s generic brand. From the half-priced shelf in the back of the grocery store since it was dented.” I went back to my plate search and scored a moment later when my hands landed on the stack of paper plates.

  “You sure know how to pick them, Liv,” Paige replied. There was an undercurrent in her voice, something I wasn’t sure I liked.

  I was about to ask her what she meant by that when a loud thunk, followed by a just as loud grunt, erupted around us.

  “Will!” I gasped, dropping the pizza and the plate as I moved to where it sounded like he was.

  Reese shouted, “Are you okay?” from the living room.

  Paige let out something that sounded like a sigh.

  “He drives for the end zone, he leaps into the air, crashes to the ground, and score! Six points on the board!” Will chanted in an announcer's voice. “I’m okay. Just another bout of clumsy at it’s best.”

  I still hadn’t quite recovered from the thunk heard around Death Valley, but Paige gave a note short of a giggle. “How can you manage to be even klutzier in a blackout? Aren’t you used to those?”

  My eyebrows came together. Paige and Will must have discussed his time in the Army and the blackouts that probably were a regular occurrence doing tours in the Middle East. Maybe after he’d found her, he’d attempted to keep her calm by babbling on about his life before the ambulance arrived, or maybe they’d talked in the hospital, or after. I wasn’t sure.

  “I’m going to repeat the great smartass Paige Bennett’s wise words and say . . .” Will was trying to sound stern, but it was clear from how he failed that he had little experience sounding that way. “Hardy, har, har.”

  “Damn, Will. You’re the king of comebacks,” Paige replied.

  I lifted an eyebrow in her general direction. Then I remembered she could see jack. Like the rest of us could.

  “Or . . . I mean . . . darn,” she corrected. Maybe my raised eyebrow was strong enough she could feel it. Good to know. “Now that I’ve been slapped in the face by a piece of pizza, reprimanded by my older sister for saying damn, and witnessed not one but two serious wipeouts, I’m calling it a night. Kill Bill dreams are calling.”

  “Night, Paige. Thanks for the almost girls’ night,” I called as her footsteps padded down the hall.

  “Yeah, well, Will must have missed the memo on the girls part. Unless you’ve got a certain piece of anatomy you’re keeping a secret from the world, Will.”

  I shifted in place. Not because of what Paige had said, crass as it was, but because I knew first-hand that as far as that general area on him went . . . Will was all man. And shit. Now I was blushing. So much that I could feel it seeping down my neck into my chest.

  “Goodnight, little smarty-pants. Happy snake bite dreams. I mean Kill Bill dreams,” Will called to her.

  “I think I’m going to call it a night too, Liv.” Reese’d been quiet for so long that the proximity of her voice startled me. A couple of small arms wound around me and gave me a hard hug. Of course Reese would be the one out of the bunch of us who could seem to see in the black.

  “Night, Reese. Thanks for coming to my aid earlier.” I hugged her back before she turned and moved across the kitchen toward the hall.

  “Well, you came to ours. I had to return the favor . . . even if it was just evening the score in a pillow fight.”

  “Hey, at least I’ve got one person watching my back. I’ll take it.”

  One bedroom door slammed closed—Paige’s. And one whispered closed so quietly I barely heard it—Reese’s. I hadn’t realized it when we’d been saying our good nights, but having them both in their beds, sealed inside their rooms, left me alone with Will. It left Will alone with me. In the dark again—alone. That energy came bursting to life before I could bolster my defenses against it.

  Damn, it was powerful. Too powerful to ignore. Too powerful to try to fight. So instead of trying to fight or ignore it, I decided to put some space between Will and me—like a whole room—to see if that would help. I’d just taken my first few steps toward the living room when I remembered what I’d been in the kitchen for.

  “Your pizza.” I snapped my fingers. I’d just have to deal with that energy winding through the air for a few more moments.

  “You know that’s not why I really came down here, right?” Will’s voice was quieter, closer.

  That only made me work faster. Picking up the same plate and slice of pizza I’d had earlier, I put the two together and held them out. I couldn’t tell where he was exactly, other than knowing he was close. Close enough to make my every nerve zap to life.

  “You’re here though, so you might as well have some since my sisters aren’t going to eat it.” With the way my stomach was flopping about, I wasn’t going to be eating any either.

  When the plate remained unclaimed, I took a few steps toward where I guessed he was standing. I took a few more steps until I bumped smack into him. My chest thrust against his, and if I hadn’t been holding the plate off to the side, our chests would have been smashing a greasy piece of pizza into his shirt.

  One of Will’s hands formed around my elbow while the other one grabbed the plate. Taking it from me, he set it on what I guessed was the dining room table. I’d lost my bearings the second Will stepped into the trailer, and I just as easily could have been on the moon as in the Bennett kitchen.

  “I didn’t come for the pizza,” he said in a low voice.

  I withh
eld a shudder when his thumb stroked the circumference of my elbow. “Then what did you come for?” My voice was almost as low as his, but ten times more unsure.

  “I came to make sure you were all right.” He stepped closer. I stopped breathing. “And I came to talk.”

  I shook my head. I whipped my head back and forth. “No, Will. I couldn’t talk about what you wanted to talk about in the hospital . . . and I still can’t talk about it now.”

  Will’s breathing remained steady. It was the only indication I could zero in on to gauge his emotions—to measure how he was taking what I was saying.

  “Please, Will? If you’re here to talk about . . . that . . . then you might as well just head back to your place. I can’t—I won’t—say a word about any of it.”

  As far as I was concerned, what had happened between us at The Body Shop stayed at The Body Shop. It was like the Las Vegas slogan . . . except minus the tongue-in-cheek meaning. I was dead serious when I meant what happened in that place needed to stay there. No, I still didn’t know why that was so important. All I knew was that it was.

  As was typical when Will was working something out, he stayed quiet for long enough that the silence became as loud as if we’d been using words to fill it.

  Finally, when his thumb felt dangerously close to leaving permanent circles on my elbow, he sighed. “Okay. No talking about the unsaid topic I tried to open up about at the hospital.”

  “And again just now,” I added with a mutter.

  “And again just now because I’m one persistent idiot.” Will’s tone told the kind of smile on his face—an amused one. “But how would you feel if we sat down and just . . . talked?”

  “Talked,” I repeated flatly.