Best Kind of Broken

27 Pixie

I smell Levi before I see him, and this is why I have no business sharing a bathroom with the guy. If just the smell of him can drive me crazy, I certainly should not be anywhere near him when there’s hot water and soap involved.

“The sink’s broken?” he says.

I keep my back to him as I stir potato soup on the stove and point to the sink.

Things between us have been civil lately. Fake as hell, but civil. We haven’t argued in several days, but we’re not getting along either.

I’m not really over the erotic calf caressing Levi gave me last week, or the fact that it hurts him to be around me, but you know what? Screw him.

He’s not the only person who lost Charity. I lost her too, and then some.

I lost the only real family I’d ever known and the house I considered my safe haven. I lost my childhood friend and the keeper of the “best” part of our “best friends” heart-shaped necklace. The only thing I had left after the wreckage cleared was Levi.

And then I lost him too.

He promptly headed back to his life at college and left me behind in a town where nothing held any more significance for me and no one understood my pain.

Levi left me, and he didn’t look back.

Sharp bitterness heats low in my stomach as I think back to the many days and nights after the accident where I was too hollow to cry, and the only thing that kept me from tearing my hair out was the hope that Levi would come back home so I wouldn’t feel so lost, so alone anymore.

But he didn’t.

And then, when I was healthy enough to be discharged from the hospital so I could start my first semester at ASU two weeks late, I thought for sure Levi would hunt me down and at least say hello. Maybe give me one of his awkward boy hugs and just let me be silent against his chest for a moment. Like maybe if we embraced and pressed our broken hearts together, for a moment—just a moment—things might somehow be better.

But he didn’t.

The one and only time I ever saw him on campus was from across the library. I was seated in the back behind four textbooks when I saw him walk in through the squeaky double doors. He didn’t see me as he headed for the reference section, but just the sight of him, the visual confirmation that he was alive and breathing and twenty yards away from me, made my broken heart leap.

I immediately stood from my table with every intention of following after him and… and… and what, exactly? What was I going to say to Levi, who so clearly had nothing to say to me?

Where have you been?

Why did you leave me?

I’m sorry?

Why did you leave me?

Please forgive me?

WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME?

I had nothing to say to him then, and I have nothing to say to him now, which doesn’t seem to bother him one bit.

So yeah. Screw him.

My heart dips. I look at the soup.

Levi works for a few minutes, and the only sounds in the kitchen are the bubbling soup and the occasional clang-clang of his tools.

I shuffle about, finding mindless tasks to fill my hands. I’m stacking rolls and rearranging napkins and scrubbing the counter. Mindless.

I hear him growl in frustration and look over at his body, laid out on the kitchen floor, his head and shoulders tucked under the sink as he twists and turns things with his hands.

He’s got one leg stretched out along the tile and the other bent at the knee, and the blue T-shirt he has on has ridden up his stomach a little, so there’s this bronze patch of tight skin showing just above the waistline of his jeans.

I need a break.

Twitching my lips, I gingerly step over his lean, frustrating body with one quiet Converse sneaker and head to the dining room.

“Hey, Sarah.”

Oh God. Daren.

He stops unloading a crate of club soda behind the bar and leans over the counter on his elbows. “Have you decided to go yet?”

“Go where?” I watch Angelo move Daren off the bar, then wipe the whole counter down with a white bar towel.

“To the Fourth of July Bash,” Daren says.

“Oh yeah. That,” I say, as Mable comes in and sets a lavender-and-sunflower centerpiece on each table. It shouldn’t work, lavender and sunflowers together, but somehow it does. “Uh, no.”

He wrinkles his forehead. “No you haven’t decided yet, or no you’re not going?”

“I’m not going.”

“What? Come on,” he says. “Bring a friend. It’ll be fun. You’ll feel normal.”

The idea of “normal” does something to me, and I hesitate, buying time as I watch Mable straighten a fork on table six before going to the kitchen.

“Please?” Daren implores me with those puppy eyes of his again.

God, he’s such a whiny baby.

I sigh. “Fine. I’ll go.”

“Awesome.” He smiles.

“But not with you.”

His smiles drops. “Less awesome.”

I shrug. “I’ll bring a friend, and maybe we’ll see you there. Maybe.”

He smiles again. “I’ll take it.” He tilts his head. “So does this mean I’m forgiven?”

I lift my brows. “For kissing me without permission?”

“WHAT?” Angelo stops wiping down the bar and snaps murderous eyes to Daren. “You kissed Sarah without asking?”

Oh crap.

Daren looks like he might wet himself. “Uh, yeah. But I, uh, didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine, Angelo.” I give him a small smile. “It wasn’t a big deal. It was just a misunderstanding. We’re cool. I’m cool.” Angelo doesn’t look like he believes me. “Really,” I add. “I’m fine. I promise. And Daren already apologized, so see? Everything’s fine.”

Daren shrinks back as Angelo leans in to him and says, “I better not hear about you kissing any more ladies without permission. Ever. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“ ’Cause if I do, make no mistake. I will twist your head off, slowly, and shove it so far up your ass it comes out your throat; you hear me?”

Daren swallows. “Loud and clear.”

“Good.” Then Angelo goes back to wiping down the bar like he didn’t just threaten Daren’s life.

Biting back a smile, I turn and head for the kitchen.

I love this place.