Before Read online

  Dakota hasn’t been in here in a few weeks; I’m surprised to see her now. It makes me nervous; my hands are shaking, and I find myself poking at the computer screen for absolutely no reason. Her friend Maggy sees me first. She taps Dakota on her shoulder, and Dakota turns to me, a big smile on her face. Her body is coated in a light layer of sweat, and her black curls are wild in a bun on her head.

  “I was hoping you’d be working.” She waves to me and then to Posey.

  She was? I don’t know what to make of this. I know that we agreed to be friends, but I can’t tell if this is just friendly chatting, or something more.

  “Hey, Landon.” Maggy waves, too. I smile at both of them and ask them what they’d like to drink.

  “Iced coffee, extra cream,” the duo says at once. They’re dressed nearly identically, but Maggy is easily overshadowed by Dakota’s glowing caramel skin and bright brown eyes.

  I go into automatic mode, grabbing two plastic cups and shoving them into the ice bin with a smooth scooping motion, then pulling up the pitcher of premade coffee and pouring it into the cups. Dakota is watching me. I can sense her eyes on me. For some reason, this is making me feel quite awkward, so when I notice that Posey is watching me, too, I realize I could—should, probably—explain to her what the heck I’m doing.

  “You just pour this over ice; the evening shift makes it the night before so it can get cold and not melt the ice,” I say.

  It’s really basic, what I’m telling her, and I almost feel foolish saying it in front of Dakota. We aren’t on bad terms at all—we just aren’t hanging out and talking like we used to. I completely understood when she ended our three-year relationship. She was in New York City with new friends and new surroundings. I didn’t want to hold her back, so I kept my promise and stayed friends with her. I’ve known her for years and will always care about her. She was my second girlfriend but the first real relationship I’ve had up to now. I’ve been hanging out with So, a woman who’s three years older than me, though really we’re only friends. She’s been great to Tessa, too, helping her get a job at the restaurant she works at.

  “Dakota?” Aiden’s voice overpowers mine as I start to ask them if they want me to add whipped cream, something I do to my own drinks.

  Confused, I watch as Aiden reaches over the counter and grabs Dakota’s hand. He lifts their hands into the air, and with a big smile she twirls in front of him.

  Then, taking a glance at me, she inches away just a bit and says more neutrally, “I didn’t know you worked here.”

  I look at Posey to distract myself from eavesdropping on their conversation, then pretend like I’m looking at the schedule on the wall behind her. It’s really none of my business who she has friendships with.

  “I thought I mentioned it last night,” Aiden says, and I cough to distract everyone from the noise I just made.

  Fortunately no one seems to notice except Posey, who tries her best to hide her smile.

  I don’t look at Dakota even though I can sense she’s uncomfortable; in reply to Aiden, she laughs the laugh she gave my grandma upon opening her Christmas gift last year. That cute noise . . . Dakota made my grandma so happy when she laughed at the cheesy singing fish plastered to a fake wooden plank. When she laughs again, I know she’s really uncomfortable now. Wanting to make this whole situation less awkward, I hand her the two coffees with a smile and tell her I hope to see her soon.

  Before she can answer, I smile once more and walk to the back room, turning the sound up on my headphones.

  I wait for the bell to ring again, signaling Dakota and Maggy’s exit, and realize that I probably won’t hear it over yesterday’s hockey game playing in my ear. Even with only one bud in, the cheering crowd and slaps of sticks would overpower an old brass bell. I go back out to the floor and find Posey rolling her eyes at Aiden as he shows off his milk-steaming skills to her. He looks weird with a cloud of steam in front of his white-blond hair.

  “He said they’re in school together, at that dance academy he goes to,” Posey whispers when I approach.

  I freeze and look toward Aiden, who is oblivious, lost in his own apparently glorious world. “You asked him?” I say, impressed and a little worried about what his answers would be to other questions involving Dakota.

  Posey nods, grabbing a metal cup to rinse. I follow her to the sink, and she turns on the hose. “I saw the way you acted when he held her hand, so I thought I’d just ask what was going on with them.” She shrugs, and her big mass of curly hair moves.

  Her freckles are lighter than most I’ve seen and are scattered across the top of her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Her lips are big—they pout a tad—and she’s nearly my height. These were things I noticed on her third day of training, when I suppose my interest flared up for a moment.

  “I dated her for a while,” I admit to my new friend, and hand her a towel to dry the cup with.

  “Oh, I don’t think they’re dating. She would be insane to date a Slytherin.” When Posey smiles, my cheeks flare and I laugh along with her.

  “You noticed it, too?” I ask.

  Reaching between us, I grab a pistachio mint cookie and offer it to her.

  She smiles, taking the cookie from my hand and eating half of it before I even manage to get the lid back on the bin.

  Christian

  The connections we have with family are supposed to be soul binding. We’re supposed to love our parents and siblings and the rest simply because we are born with the same blood running through our veins. As a young child, he would question this. Was he supposed to love the stumbling man whose loud voice regularly woke him up on school nights? The man whom he would walk out into the living room and see there, leaning against the fireplace mantel in a struggle to take his boots off? The little boy would keep his body hidden behind the wall as he watched the man struggle and fall to the floor. Then he would hurry back to his room as the man’s boot hit the wall near his head.

  He hated those nights and he would count the days until his mummy’s friend who laughed a lot would come over. He would wish that his mum’s friend was his dad. Maybe this other man would take him places, he used to think. He remembered the man always carrying a book tucked under his arm. He talked about the books with the boy, telling him their plots, their themes, making him feel smart and grown-up.

  The first book the man gifted him he will always remember. That book quickly became the boy’s first real friend, and as he grew older and his mum’s friend came around less and less, he remembered missing him and missing the books during the long periods between visits. Still, even into the boy’s rebellious teenage years, when the man arrived, he always had books with him. The boy knew his mum loved her friend, but he had no idea just how much of his life was a lie because of that fact.

  The house is silent. I glance over at Kim, asleep on the couch with Karina lying on her stomach; the girl’s little hands are gripping her mum’s sweater. Kim fell asleep talking to her about me and my accent, telling our little girl that she will have the most adorable voice, a mixture of Mummy’s sweet tones and Daddy’s devilish accent. “Devilish,” she called it. As if the woman can afford to talk. She’s the most stubborn, devilish woman on this earth, and I love the hell out of her.

  Kimberly has gone from being my secretary to my business partner, and she has quite an eye for potential. Perhaps that’s why she married me. Or maybe she just really, really likes my son, Smith. It would be pretty hard not to.

  A pile of pages sits before me on the counter: a contract for the New York restaurant we’ll be opening in the next year. As exciting as it is, it’s nothing compared to my newborn. I’ve now expanded my investments in restaurants from Washington to New York to Los Angeles, but it’s nothing compared to the joy of getting to see this girl grow up before my eyes, something I’ve not been fortunate enough to have done with my other children.

  I glance over at my wife again; snoring louder than usual. So I do the sweet, loving thin
g and pull out my phone to record her. The contract can wait until tomorrow. I miss my wife. I watch her as she takes breath; the noise is horrendous.

  I press record and quietly walk over to the couch. Within five seconds, she opens her eyes, immediately glaring at the phone in my hand, and instantly I feel like an arse for disrupting her sleep when she gets so little of it anymore.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be working?” my love whispers, her voice soft and sleepy as she stretches her arm above her head, keeping her eyes on Karina.

  “Yes, my dear, but fucking with you is much more fun.” I laugh, and she kicks her foot out at me. Karina stirs on her chest, opening her little beady eyes to look up at her obnoxious parents.

  “Now you’ve done it,” Kimberly scolds me with a smile. She sits up and lifts Karina at the same time, and when I reach for my daughter, she gently places the soft bundle in my arms.

  “My beautiful little girl,” I quietly say to Karina, nudging her chubby little cheek with my nose. She yawns, and I see so much of my smile in her face. Smith and Hardin both have that same dimpled smile.

  I remember Anne and Ken discussing names for the little boy one night when we were all standing around in their kitchen. Trish’s belly had been so swollen that she couldn’t tie her shoes.

  “I like the name Nicholas or Harold,” Ken had suggested.

  Harold? No.

  Nicholas. Double no.

  Trish had smiled softly, rubbing her hand on her bump. “Harold—I kind of like that.”

  Admittedly, I didn’t hate the name—it just didn’t feel right. That boy was tough on Trish’s body, kicking her all night and growing so quickly that he stretched her skin to incredible lengths. He was a fighter, that kid . . . the name Harold—Harry—it was too sweet of a name, too calm.

  “It’s too common,” I’d interjected before Ken could say anything. “How about the name Hardin?”

  It was a name I had picked out for my first child while I was only a teen. As a little boy in Hampstead, I used to think I was going to write a great novel one day and the main character would be named Hardin. Not typical, but very convincing-sounding for old England.

  Trish sounded it out to see how it felt on her tongue. “Hardin. I’m not sure . . .”

  But when she looked to her husband—who I was so jealous of in that instant—he’d just shrugged, uninterested but trying to be courteous.

  “It sounds fine,” he said quietly.

  His shoulders did another shrug, and Trish smiled a weak smile. “Hardin? . . . Hardin.”

  “There we have it, then,” Ken declared, looking very relieved.

  Trish didn’t seem surprised or even bothered by his mild reaction to the choosing of their first son’s name. I cared, though, and I knew Trish really did as well.

  I would like to think that Ken would normally have cared, but he was in college and always busy, I had reasoned at the time. He studied so much, and rumors flew that he’d started snorting the devil’s candy while studying for his law exams. His pupils were usually dilated, but he had to study a lot, and I got that. I wasn’t anyone to judge him, but I knew he had been slipping on the facade of being a perfect dad to the little guy, trying it on uncertainly, long before the tyke was even here yet. That bothered me more than it should have, given the situation I’d gotten myself into.

  Two decades ago . . .

  The sun is hot, blazing for Hampstead in April. Trish lies beside me on the grass, the wind whipping her thick brown hair across my face, which she found to be the most entertaining moment of her entire sixteen years in this world. Most of the time she’s mature for her age, going on and on about her theories about the world and its leaders, but in this moment she’s choosing to be the eleven-year-old version of herself.

  I push her hair away from my face for the tenth time.

  “Weren’t you supposed to be cutting that gargantuan mane?” I ask cheekily as I scoot my body a few inches away from hers. Last week she claimed that she was planning to cut all of her hair off to prove some point, but I forget what the point actually was.

  Hampstead Towne Park is nearly empty today, so Trish’s laugh echoes off the trees enclosing us in the grass. We come here often, but most of the time Ken misses our meetings because he’s so busy.

  “I was considering it, but this is too much fun,” she replies. Trish rolls her body closer to mine and throws her brown hair across my face once more. It smells like flowers and a little bit like mint. It’s a scent that always pulls me in. Her body is pressed to my side, and she kicks her leg up over mine.

  I should move it, but I don’t. It feels too nice there.

  “What if babies were born with long hair?”

  Her question is random, but not one bit surprising. Trish Powell is known for her questions. What if this? What if that? It’s her thing, and I find it equal parts weird and cool. She’s so different from all the girls at my school—even the girls at the local university aren’t like her. Her wild hair was the first thing I noticed when I met her, and now it’s become the biggest problem in my Tuesday afternoon.

  “Did we really skip class to talk about babies coming out of their mums’ bodies with rocker hair?” I ask.

  I open my eyes and roll onto my stomach to get a good look at her. She has so many freckles. I want to connect them with my fingertips and watch her eyes flutter closed in delight.

  “No, I suppose not.” She giggles, and I follow her eyes to the shadow approaching us. Ken sits down on the grass, and I watch his eyes change from the moon to the sun as he studies Trish’s face.

  She smiles back at him, and Ken looks like he’s won the lottery as he makes his way through the tall grass. I can’t tell if she notices the way he looks at her. I’ve always noticed it—and gotten used to pretending it doesn’t burn like acid through my veins.

  It’s common knowledge that of the two of us, he’s the better man.

  The sun is becoming too hot on my skin, and I stand, shading my eyes with one hand. “I’m going to head out—I have a date,” I say, and wipe my hands on my jean shorts. Seeing their brown hue against the faded denim, I again marvel how I’ve gotten quite the tan over the summer. Trish mentions it almost daily. It must be from hanging out with her so much.

  Trish rolls her eyes and mouths something rather dirty to both of us. Ken flushes just a little in the apples that are his cheeks. His hair is growing long, looking ratty where it starts to cover the back of his neck. There are dark bags under his brown eyes from studying like a madman to prepare for his entry exam into law school. Ken Scott is the most stable student in Trish’s and my entire level; I have no idea how someone like him ended up becoming our best friend. I suppose Trish is a tad more stable than me. She’s firecrackers and sunshine, but she’s also cool stone and steady waves. She knows when to cut loose and when to be cautious and smart. I’ve always loved that about her.

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?” Ken says when I stand. He comes a little closer to me; he’s taller than me by a few inches. I nod, waiting for him to begin, but then seeing his eyes focus on Trish, I catch on that he means alone and gesture for him to lead the way. I follow him for about twenty meters, at which point he stops next to an old metal bench. He sits first and pats the empty space next to him.

  He’s acting so serious—should I be worried? A young couple walks past us, their hands linked together. Ken waits for them to pass and my worry to rise before he finally speaks.

  “I wanted to talk to you about something,” he says. His brows draw down, making him look much older than seventeen.

  “You’re not dying, are ye?” I push my shoulder into his, and he relaxes a fraction.

  He shakes his head. “No, no. It’s not that.” The noise he makes is half laugh, half nervous titter.

  What could he be so tense about? I wish he would just spit it out.

  “I-want-to-ask-Trish-to-be-mine,” he breathes out in one long syllable.

  Now I wish I could cram th
e words back inside his anxious face, or that maybe he was dying. Okay, not something so harsh, but something else. Anything else.

  “To be your . . . what?” I struggle to keep my composure.

  Ken’s eyes roll. “My girl, you twat.”

  I want to tell him that he can’t have her, that it isn’t fair that he’s the one who gets to ask her first. Give her a choice, I want to tell him. She was always supposed to be mine, I want to argue.

  “Why are you telling me?” comes out instead.

  My friend sits back against the bench and rests his palms against his knees. “I just wanted to make sure . . .” he starts, but the words are trapped behind his tongue.

  And in that sudden silence I realize I’m caught between being honest with my best friend and making him happy. It’s impossible to do both.

  I break into a smile, choosing his happiness over mine.

  I’m not surprised when Trish accepts Ken’s offer, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t hold on to some fraction of hope that maybe she loves me, too. She loves stability more, though, and so for the next year, I avoid every thought of Trish being anything other than my best mate’s girlfriend. Sometimes when they kiss in front of me, I catch her looking at me for approval after they’ve pulled away from each other. I keep that little morsel of hope alive, and it makes my year a very rough one. When I fuck, I think of her. When I kiss, I taste her.

  I have to stop.

  It’s an easy task at first. I stop comparing all the girls I date to her. She stops slipping her hand through mine when we’re talking. I begin to see the world differently now that I no longer think of her as a tether to home. She’s no longer keeping me here. Nothing is.