The Broken One (The One Series Book 1) Read online

  Ceil and I grab a high-top table and order a couple of sodas while we enjoy the show. It isn’t long before a couple of guys are at our table asking if we’d like company, and I look over to Ceil, silently telling her it’s her choice.

  “We’ll try it out for a few minutes,” she tells them, giving nothing away. Her long, dark hair is laying over her shoulders in the braid I fastened for her and is complimented by her purple top. Ceil opted for a silk blouse and tight jeans tonight, which manages to look dressed up and relaxed at the same time.

  The blonde with bright blue eyes commences introductions. “I’m Allen, and this is Todd,” he says, gesturing to his redheaded friend with the rugged beard and gold-green eyes. He looks like a lumberjack, and I know this is Ceil’s mark without even asking.

  “Ceil and Caspian,” Ceil responds for us. It suddenly occurs to me that I didn’t tell her about Alexis, and I’m still pondering that when I realize one of them has asked a question.

  “I’m sorry, what?” I ask, a little embarrassed.

  “I asked what you do,” Allen repeats. Todd and Ceil are having a side conversation about the same.

  “I’m in insurance, how about you?”

  “I work in finance. Do you work for the big guy in town?” he asks.

  There’s really only one company he could be referring to, so I tell him that I’m more of a subcontractor and free agent at the moment and then ask, “What kind of finance?”

  It’s a little endearing how his face lights up at the question, and I can tell how passionate he is about his job. He’s telling me about how he helps banks who are about to go under.

  Allen is still talking when I see Booker walk to a table at the other end of the bar. The now-familiar but increasingly annoying flutter immediately rises in my chest, and I can feel the redness welling up under my skin, threatening to bloom. I think he’s alone until I see him pull out the chair for a petite brunette. The butterflies disintegrate when I realize it’s the same one from the other night. He got a second date after that shitshow? I’m still staring when Booker takes his seat, which is facing mine, and locks eyes with me. I feel myself flush deeper, and I pull my eyes back to Allen.

  Ceil grabs my hand under the table and squeezes. When I look over at her, I force a smile and say, “I’m going to the bathroom, I’ll be right back.” Ceil stands to follow me, but I tell Todd, “She loves this song, you better haul her ass out to the dance floor if you don’t want someone else to beat you to it.” I throw Ceil a wink and pat her on the butt as I walk past her. I know she wanted to come and be a good friend, but I’m not really sure what will happen when I hit the bathroom, so I need to be alone.

  In the restroom, I run cold water over my wrists and take a few deep breaths. I don’t understand why I feel sick right now. If I had less dignity, I’d lean down and drink the water straight out of the faucet. Grabbing a paper towel with a little more force than is required, I dry my hands and assess my appearance in the mirror. The redness in my cheeks has gone down, thank the stars. This bright yellow dress does not flatter me when I’m flushed. I rearrange it so the hem stops a bit higher up my thighs and pull my breasts upward so they strain a bit against its low neckline. Pleased with the result, I make my way to the trashcan and discard my paper towel.

  When I look up, Booker is watching me, his back leaning against the doorway, arms crossed over his chest.

  “What are you doing in here?” I sigh. I’m not even surprised at this point. Just tired.

  “This is a gender-neutral bathroom,” he informs me, pointing those two fingers to the stall with a urinal in it.

  I hadn’t even glanced at the stalls when I came in, so in fact this does surprise me. “Well, I was enjoying this place already, and now I like it even more,” I say, appreciating both the progressive thinking and the opportunity to think about anything besides the fact that I’m standing here alone with Booker.

  Booker looks appraisingly at me, so I study the room. I note that they have used ceiling-to-floor brick-style walls with real doors to separate the stalls, so there is no way anyone can peek in when a door is closed. There is also a toilet and small urinal in each of the stalls, which is a very nice touch. I look back to the oversized doorway of the restroom, noting the missing door for the first time. It must be removed to limit any kind of harassment.

  “This is a stand-up place,” I observe aloud.

  “It is. But I didn’t follow you in here to talk about social policy, interesting as it is. We’ve got other things we need to talk about,” he tells me, abruptly refocusing the conversation. “I stopped by your office yesterday and called you today.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “Why aren’t you going to write a letter for HR?”

  “How do you know about that?” I ask him. Then it hits me. “Wait, are you the one who told them?” My voice is incredulous.

  “I confirmed what happened when they asked me, but no, I wasn’t the person who reported it to them initially.”

  “Then who?” I ask.

  “I don’t know, Caspian. It wasn’t me. Who cares? Why aren’t you writing the letter?”

  Damn his relentless focus. “Because it’s ridiculous to ask that of me. If something more had happened, I would write the freaking letter, but it didn’t.”

  “He buried his face in your cleavage, and you think it isn’t worthy of a letter?” He sounds shocked, and a small blonde in a short skirt looks uncomfortable as she slides past us and closes the door to a stall.

  “That’s a bit dramatic, even for you,” I respond, though I begin to wonder if he’s right. I suddenly recall the feeling of Keisler’s face pressed against my chest, and a mixture of disgust, rage, and humiliation fills me.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Booker, I really don’t have the energy to do this with you tonight. Can’t you just go back to your date, and we can each pretend the other doesn’t exist for the evening?”

  “You’ve been doing a pretty good job of that already,” he says, reaching up and correcting a wayward curl that has managed to get caught in the strap of my dress.

  The song changes to a cover of “Demons” by Imagine Dragons, and I feel the change in my body instantly. My blood feels carbonated, and there is a vibration building from my bones. My skin starts to prickle, my face tingles, and the hair on my arms stands at attention. I can feel my heart beating in my jaw, in my stomach, in the air around me. The song fills me on a cellular level, just as it has every single time I’ve heard it. I know if I were alone, I’d peel off my dress and press myself against this cold floor, dignity be damned.

  But I’m not alone, and Booker is talking. “I have to go,” I tell him, walking past him to the side exit of the bar. His voice follows me, something about a date and Ceil, but all I hear is “Demons.”

  The door to the bar closes behind me, and I’m in an alley pressing myself into the shadows, pretending I don’t exist. I don’t even think. I just feel, and I am lost in it.

  After the melody from inside the bar finally changes to something I can’t make out, I pick up my phone and text Ceil.

  Me: Stepped out for air. Will you sic Allen on another girl?

  Me: Not feeling it tonight. Not sure I’ll be as polite as he deserves.

  A few minutes go by before my phone chimes a response.

  Ceil: Done. Want 2 go? I’m ready when U R.

  Me: No, you’re having fun.

  Me: I’ll be back inside in 5.

  A moment later, I hear Ceil calling my name. I step out of the alley to find her alone. “Let’s get some tacos!” she says enthusiastically, waving me down the street.

  “That sounds fantastic,” I admit, relieved.

  I don’t ask her if there was a particular reason she decided to steer me away from going back inside the bar.

  Chapter 16

  My office isolation plan is working out perfectly. I’ve come in early and stayed late every day this week. I’ve
worked with my door closed, strolled into the fishbowl just in time for meetings to begin, and dismissed myself from the room as soon as I’m no longer needed. The lack of distractions has sent my productivity through the roof, so I’m feeling really good about having a couple days away from the office when I shut everything down on Friday evening.

  I’ve been putting in so many hours that I’ve begun dreaming about policies, contracts, and DOI regulations. It’s definitely time for a break. I always know my brain has checked out when I get children’s songs stuck in my head, and I’m humming “She’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain” as I reach the elevator and hit the down button with my hip.

  A chime from my phone causes me to dig through my bag while I wait. I hear the elevator doors ding open and am about to step in when my phone slips through my fingers. Before I can stop it, it bounces directly into the half-inch gap between the floor and the elevator, and I stare in disbelief as it disappears down the shaft, then listen to the ting, ting, ting, and, finally, the sound of my phone shattering against the sub-basement floor.

  “Was that your phone?” Booker’s voice startles me, and I yelp as he steps past me into the elevator.

  “It was,” I inform him, and there is a strange elation running through me. I don’t much like having a phone tied to me. “I’m not even going to lie to you, I’m pretty impressed with myself right now. Not everyone could make that shot.”

  Booker looks astonished and shakes his head, “You would be happy about something like this.”

  “I’m not sure ‘happy’ is the right word, but you have to admit you don’t see stuff like that every day. I’d have filmed it, but I don’t have my phone on me.”

  He lets out an impatient sigh. Well, I thought it was funny. I feel my skin begin to warm as I step into the elevator and try to change the subject. “I didn’t realize anyone else was still up here.” Then, for reasons I cannot explain, I suddenly can’t resist poking the bear. “It’s Friday, shouldn’t you be out with the brunette?”

  “Did you call a car yet?” Booker asks, ignoring my question.

  “I’ll just have Sarah call a taxi.”

  “Sarah has been gone for hours, Casper. I will take you home.”

  “Don’t call me that.” Now I’m starting to wonder who’s the bear and who’s doing the poking. “I’m going back up to my office to call a cab.”

  “It’s just a ride home,” he tells me.

  I sigh my thanks. This elevator somehow feels smaller with just us in it. I think everyone’s heard a story including an elevator with some kind of aphrodisiac in the air, but I’ve always figured that was an excuse made up by horny people who can’t keep it in their pants. I stand corrected.

  I keep my eyes forward and stand as far from him as I can without being obvious, but it’s not stopping my mind from going places it shouldn’t. I imagine him pressing me up against the doors, sliding one strong hand under my blouse, the other into my hair. His lips tracing lines down my jaw and onto my neck as he slides those two delicious fingers into the waistband of my panties, stirring up an unreasonable hunger. I feel his manhood pressing hard against my inner thigh, demanding more, more, more.

  Ding.

  And I fall backwards out of the elevator onto my imaginary bare ass like the fool that I am.

  I’ve spent all week avoiding contact with this man so that I could erase this feeling and so that I wouldn’t have to see him constantly appraising me, looking for signs of damage. Yet here we are.

  When we step into the parking garage, he laughs and says “I guess you’ll have to take Josh’s advice and get a new phone after all. Maybe if you get a nice one, you’ll actually answer it.”

  “A cell phone is for my convenience, not anyone else’s.”

  “I think I’ve figured out why he calls you Casper.”

  He sounds a little bitter, and I know it’s because I haven’t responded to anything he’s sent, not that there have been many texts. One came in last Friday evening after Ceil and I left the bar. It said, I hope you made it home okay. And then a moment after that, Don’t forget to lock your door. They seemed rhetorical, so I just deleted them from the preview screen. On Monday morning at seven thirty he asked, Would you or the guys like anything from the coffee shop? I was already at the office and didn’t see it until our meeting at nine, so it was pointless to respond at that time.

  “Doubtful,” I scoff. “You don’t know Josh.”

  “I don’t need to know Josh to know why you’re Casper. I just need to know you.”

  “And you think a handful of conversations qualifies as knowing someone?”

  “That’s a little unfair,” he begins, but I already regret my words and don’t want to continue down this path, so I interrupt him with a wave of my hand.

  “You obviously want me to ask about your theory, so get on with it.”

  “It’s because you’re a ghost, disappearing without a word or a trace.”

  That’s a theory I’d never considered, and I find myself highly skeptical of it. Josh started calling me Casper the first year or so of my After. How would a quality like that be so clear so quickly? I’m not sure what’s less likely: my ability to act like a ghost at such a young age, or Josh’s ability to recognize and label that behavior.

  I know the only way to stop this conversation is to make Booker squirm, so I quickly reach for the perfect mask for the job.

  “Maybe he started calling me that because a ghost brought us together,” Callous Caspian suggests.

  “What do you mean?” Booker asks.

  “Dead mother for me equals new sister for him,” I tell him simply. I know this is bullshit. Josh wouldn’t make a joke of her death. He isn’t like me.

  I’d forgotten Booker doesn’t know my back story aside from her dying. The look on his face leaves me feeling guilty for my choice of words, again. He isn’t uncomfortable, he’s sad, and I suddenly have an overwhelming desire to take back what I said. I’ve never felt bad for the things I say when I’m behind the Callous mask. That’s the whole point of Callous.

  “I doubt it, though. Josh wouldn’t have started calling me Casper because of my mom, he isn’t like me. His sense of humor is lighthearted and playful.”

  “And yours is dark and disconcerting?”

  “My modus operandi,” I tell him with a flourish of my hand and a small bow.

  “But why?”

  “You ask a lot of questions that are impossible to answer,” I point out. There’s a tone of accusation in my voice. “People just are the way they are, there doesn’t need to be a why all the time.”

  “There is always a why,” he insists, then interrupts himself. “Should I stop by the mall for you to get a new phone?”

  “I can’t handle a store tonight,” I tell him. The thought of the mall makes me nauseous on a well-rested, high-spirited day. Too many energies in one enclosed space, all buzzing more closely to me than I can tolerate ... no thanks. On a day like today, I might actually commit a heinous crime under those conditions.

  “Well, you’re going to have to go at some point.”

  “Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll just slip back into the early 2000s when most people had a home phone, and the few people who did have cell phones only used them to call their friends and family after 7 p.m., when the minutes were free.”

  “You’re too young to remember that.”

  “Back when the best game on a phone was Snake, and the cameras were so bad, they literally duplicated beer goggles.”

  Booker laughs and asks, “How do you know all that?!”

  “Children see everything,” I explain. “I was little, but I remember when humans weren’t tethered to electronics. Don’t you find it disgusting that half of your family gatherings are spent watching other people on their phones? For god’s sake, I had to start the scrolling game at my last big family gathering to get people to stop showing me photos of their children and pets.”

  “What’s the scrolling game?”r />
  “It’s where you scroll further than they tell you in a socially unacceptable way. People are so worried you’ll see their nudes that they never show you their phone again. Plus, they put the word out about you.”

  Booker laughs again, asking, “And what if you actually did see a nude?”

  “The benefits outweigh the cost,” I inform him.

  “All so that you don’t have to see photos of their kids and grandkids?”

  “Correction: All so that I don’t have to see evidence of them capturing the moment rather than living in it.”

  “Maybe they want to remember it when they’re old,” Booker suggests.

  “Great, take a photo or two and print them off. It isn’t just that, though, is it? Social media isn’t something people do for themselves. It’s something they do for the Like, the brag, the comment. I went to dinner the other night, and the couple in the booth across from me had a beautiful family, one little boy and one little girl. The entire time they were there, they were scrolling through their phones while their children stared at them hopefully. I wanted to smash their faces together and tell them they were losing something they could never get back. Or worse, they’re stealing something from their children. I look too young to know what I’m talking about, though,” I say in a huff. I don’t know what drove this tangent, and I can feel my cheeks flushing from the embarrassment of my outburst.

  “It sounds like you would be a good parent,” he says thoughtfully.

  “God, no.”

  “You don’t want children?”

  “The point was that I don’t need a cell phone.”

  I realize we’re in my driveway, so I thank him and step out of the car. As I begin walking up to my front door, I hear a second car door close and footsteps behind me.

  “Do you have a house phone?” he asks. His voice is close.