Light Unshaken (Unveiled #2) Page 7

  “It’s nothing.” He slipped his fingers out of mine and gently dabbed a tissue to my chin.

  Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who’d been running on adrenaline. Now that it was beginning to drain, pain surged in its place. I steadied his hand, pulled the bloody tissue from my chin, and cupped the base of my neck.

  His forehead pinched. “I’ll be right back.”

  A minute later, he returned with a glass of water and a couple of pills. “Here.”

  “Thanks.” I sat up to swallow the pain meds. A rush of lightheadedness passed but didn’t shut out flashes of the night replaying through my mind. I started to get out of bed. “My phone.”

  A. J. eased me back down. “I got it.” He retrieved it from my purse and slipped it onto the charger next to my bed. Shaking his head, he smiled in a way that felt real for the first time in months as he swept a strand of knotted hair off my face. “Try to rest.”

  He’d almost reached the bedroom door when I sat up again. “Wait,” I called. “Thank you. For not leaving me at the office alone tonight. I don’t know what would’ve happened . . .” I shuddered at the possibility.

  He kept his back toward me and his hand over the light switch. His arm dropped to his side. Looking over his shoulder, A. J. smiled one last time and turned off the light.

  The weight of my eyelids took over. For the second time that night, everything went black.

  The morning brought a barrage of aching reminders of a night I wanted to forget. Fatigue tightened across my shoulders. Trying to sit up sent me right back down. Vague dreams of A. J. taking care of me gradually faded behind the light coming through the window until my clock blinked into focus. 11:00?

  I threw back my covers and pulled my cell off the charger. No missed calls. Just a text from after midnight.

  Sorry. Last minute rehearsal ran longer than I thought. Will call in the A.M.

  Residual aches from last night didn’t compare to the pain of missing Riley. My thumb hovered over the Instagram app. The need to see his face overpowered any reservation about what else I might see.

  He’d posted five new pictures. All from the recording studio. Behind the microphone, he came to life. Like he was made to be there. The band members huddling around him looked like old friends instead of new acquaintances. Same as the single girl in every picture.

  If she was his manager, shouldn’t she be too busy to stay glued to his side? Or maybe that was what managers did. Protected their interest.

  And maybe I needed another dose of pain pills more than I thought.

  I grabbed my water, forced my legs over the side of the bed, and steadied myself against the chair until my vision caught up with my movement. I traipsed toward the kitchen, groping the wall as a buffer.

  My feet skidded to a stop in front of the living room. Water from my cup splashed onto the front of my shirt.

  A. J. stayed the night.

  Fragments from what I thought had been a dream became clear now. He’d checked in on me each hour, probably afraid I had a concussion. A lump trekked up my throat.

  Stretched out on the couch, his strength and stoicism lay transformed into a scene of serenity. One I didn’t want to disturb. Dust particles floated in rays of sunlight streaming through the blinds like laser beams to tiptoe over without triggering an alarm.

  I kneeled beside him and studied his face. Thank God, it didn’t appear he’d been injured in the fight other than the scrapes on his knuckles. The stubble on his cheeks had surpassed a five o-clock shadow hours ago, but he’d lost his usual tension lines. If I woke him, they’d return the moment he realized he was still here. With me. Alone.

  Unless something had changed.

  I’d caught a glimpse of my friend in my room last night. Maybe I hadn’t lost him completely.

  I rested my fingertips to his face. “A. J.,” I whispered, “it’s time to get up.”

  He darted straight into the air and scanned the perimeter of the room as if a drill sergeant had awoken him in the middle of the night. It only took one look at his face to see boot camp would’ve been his preference. His cheeks matched the color of the much-too-short maroon blanket he’d pulled off the top of the couch last night.

  He scratched his hair. “I meant to slip out before you woke up.”

  I tottered to my feet and shuffled backward until my legs found the chair behind me. “Thanks for staying. That was really sweet of you.”

  He tossed the throw pillows into their designated positions in either corner of the couch. “How are you feeling?”

  I cradled the bottom of my head above my neck. “Nothing taking Advil for a few days won’t fix.”

  “Good, good,” he said while striding toward the front door. He stopped, already on the other side of the entryway, and looked behind him. His eyes met mine. For the briefest moment, they were as genuine as they’d been last night. “We should file a police report.”

  I met him at the door. “I’m not going to jeopardize our chance of getting funding. That’s probably exactly what those punks want. You’ve seen them on that street corner. Like they’ve been staking it out or something.” I tucked one arm under the other. “I don’t know what their personal vendetta is, but we can’t let them win.”

  A tendon in his neck twitched. “This isn’t a game.”

  “I know—”

  “Do you?” His jaw pulled tight.

  I gripped the door edge. Couldn’t he see I was trying to do the right thing for the center? We couldn’t afford any bad press right now.

  Face softening, he started toward me but backed up instead. “I . . . I’m sorry. I gotta go.” He hustled down the staircase. The exit door opened and sent a draft soaring in his absence.

  I locked up, sank into the corner of the couch, and balled one of the accent pillows in my lap. He’d only stayed because he was that kind of guy. I shouldn’t have thought—

  A ring from my cell pulsed into the stillness.

  “Good morning,” Riley said. “How’s my dance partner doing?”

  His sweet voice washed over me and drained the tension back down. “Better now.” If I closed my eyes, I could nearly feel the security of his arms.

  “Me too. Hearing your voice . . . God, I miss you, Em. Jake and I are about to pull a Ferris Bueller’s Day Off stunt. I’m telling you, he snaps at my fingers if I even mention seeing you without him. I’m gonna have to get a tighter leash before January comes around. No way that dog’s getting kisses before I do.”

  Our laughter triggered tears too close to the surface.

  “Hey, you all right?”

  Flashes from last night stormed in. I couldn’t tell him what happened. Couldn’t let him hear how shaken up I was. The last thing he needed was to feel guilty he hadn’t been there.

  “I just miss you.” My voice cracked. Better to get him talking. “How are things there?”

  “Amazing. I don’t know how I didn’t fall in love with Nashville the last time I lived here. You can hear live music from just about anywhere. The city holds this constant energy. Not sure how to explain it. It makes me feel . . . alive. You know what I mean?”

  “Your voice kinda gives me a clue.”

  “Sorry. It’s obnoxious, isn’t it?”

  I drew swirls over the microfiber cushion with my fingertip. “No more than Trevor’s.”

  “Oooh, now I know it’s bad. I’ll try to tone it down. It’s sort of hard to do here. Everything’s so . . . vibrant, I guess is the right word.”

  “Better than being in Portland?”

  His paused ached. “Just different.”

  My throat tightened. I squeezed the throw pillow and clenched back emotions I had no right to feel. Not if I really loved him.

  “Told you you’d thrive in every part of your career.” I lifted my glass of water to my forehead. “How’s the album coming?”

  “I can’t wait for you to hear it. The quality is so much better than that demo I made. Jess and I’ve been working non
stop to make sure we get a few great singles out of it.”

  “Jess?”

  “My manager. I told you about her, remember?”

  I downed the rest of my water and managed a garbled, “Mm hmm.”

  “It’s a good thing one of us knows the ins and outs of the industry. I’d be lost without her. Half the time, I feel like I’m barely keeping up with it all. No wonder there’s a coffee shop at every intersection. Jaycee’d be in heaven.” He laughed, sounding like he’d already hit up five shops before he called. “Though, she might’ve met her match. Jess drinks the stuff around the clock. Black. I don’t know how she stomachs it.”

  Probably didn’t, if the size of her waist in the pictures was any indication.

  “If I have to keep up this crazy schedule too much longer, I might end up drinking mine black too.” A note of exhaustion seeped through his animation. “I’m sorry I couldn’t call last night. Nick pulled a last minute rehearsal. We were there half the night. I keep telling myself all the pressure will be worth it.” Another sigh. “Wish you could be here, Em.”

  But I wasn’t there.

  I didn’t respond. Couldn’t. If I opened my mouth, I’d shatter the flimsy blockade shielding Riley from the geyser of emotions building since last night. Not that staying quiet helped. My lingering pause sent a proverbial red flag soaring through the phone line.

  “What is it?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

  Everything. “Nothing.” The angst from what happened probably had me overly emotional. “I’m just dealing with some stress from work.” My voice caught again.

  “Do you need me to come back—?”

  “No.” I couldn’t live with being the source of his regret if he gave up his dreams for me. Even if he didn’t think it’d be that much of a sacrifice now, he’d feel differently down the road. Clinching my arms over my stomach, I held the undone pieces inside.

  “Break’s over, Preston,” someone in the background called.

  “Just a sec,” he said away from the phone. “Sorry, Em. I gotta get back to rehearsal. We’ll talk more later, ‘kay? Love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  I pulled my legs up and wrapped my arms around them. With A. J. gone and Riley’s voice no longer nearby, the emptiness in the apartment closed in. I hugged my legs tighter and grasped for the courage the darkened street corner had swallowed last night. Whether or not I wanted to face it, the fight before me wasn’t over.

  chapter eleven

  Unstable

  I thought lying low for a week would help. Thought the distraction of classes might overshadow the images clawing into my thoughts every time I closed my eyes. But the second I pulled into the parking spot across from the center, the dark memories seeped into the car and held me against my seat.

  Don’t cower. I reached for the door handle. Another invasive flash tightened my muscles. The recurring nightmares I’d wrestled since it happened flooded in. I gripped the seat edge and rehearsed Jaycee’s sticky notes, but there was only one voice I wanted to hear. One person I needed. I grabbed my phone.

  “Riley Preston, leave a message.” The high-pitched beep ricocheted off the car hood.

  My jaw wouldn’t work.

  The note he’d written stared at me from the dashboard with words it was far past time to make my own. You’re braver than you think you are.

  I hung up without leaving a message and straightened the single pearl along the necklace Dad gave me. I’d kept my promise to him. Found myself. A sense of calling. And my internship was tied to it all. I wouldn’t let those thugs who attacked me undermine that promise. Staying away from the center for a while sufficed as a compromise after Trey’d carped about my decision not to file a police report, but a week was long enough.

  Breathing in, I lifted my chin and opened the door. Alone or not, you can do this.

  Trey peered up from a filing cabinet right as I stepped into the office. “Welcome back.”

  “Thanks.” At my desk, I dropped my purse in my drawer and appraised the piles overtaking my workstation. “Did you survive without me?”

  A. J. passed through the office on his way to the basketball court, a kid hanging from each arm. “Like you have to ask.”

  Trey’s throaty laugh seconded A. J.’s response.

  Grinning over the pair of them, I thumbed through my inbox. “Any word from my last grant request?” The flaps of a tri-folded letter lifted open from underneath a stack of bills. I scanned the first two sentences for the foreboding, unfortunately, but it wasn’t there. My heart jumped. “Trey, I can’t believe this. They’re interested.”

  “Were.”

  I looked up at him. “What?”

  “They were interested. Even came by earlier in the week. I thought all was a go, but it seems an anonymous call convinced them otherwise.” He eased the classroom door closed.

  Anonymous? My hand fell to my lap. “Those guys got to them, didn’t they? What’d they say?” And how in the world did they know who we were contacting?

  Trey slumped on the corner of his desk with the same heaviness pressing me deeper into my chair. “That there’d been a rape on the premises.”

  Heat climbed my face. “What?”

  “And if the staff can’t assure their own safety, how can they provide a stabilizing environment for the kids?” He folded his arms. “It’s a compelling argument.”

  Blood hammered in my ears. “It’s manipulation. And a lie.”

  “Doesn’t matter. The damage is already done.”

  I crumpled the letter into a ball. “I can’t believe I’ve been lying low for nothing. These guys have some balls. And does the foundation live in a bubble? Obviously there’s going to be danger and instability. That’s why we’re here. To help. Do they think you picked this neighborhood for the view?”

  Trey crossed the room and set a calming hand on my tense shoulder.

  My chest deflated into the back of the chair. “They didn’t even give us a chance to explain what really happened.”

  “Which is why we probably wouldn’t have wanted to partner with them anyway.”

  I studied his honest eyes. “Do you ever lose hope?”

  He craned his neck as he chuckled. “Not if I can help it.” He squeezed my shoulder. “It’s all about keeping perspective.”

  “I’ll be sure to try that.”

  His laughter followed him into the classroom.

  I didn’t care who those creeps thought they were. This wasn’t over. I lugged my notepad out from my drawer and keyed the last organization from my grant list into Google. The Success Foundation. Right here in Portland. Surely, they’d understand.

  I said a quick prayer while the printer inked the page with my plea to invest in the center’s mission. Setting the envelope in the outgoing mailbox, I exhaled a prayer. Please be the one.

  After spending almost an hour clearing a path to the bottom of my desk, I stretched my chair’s tilt mechanism to the max. An echo of A. J.’s banter with the boys out back joined the laughter Trey was instigating in the other room. In the middle of the two, I took in the sounds that made this home for all of us. We were going to be okay. We had to be.

  I stopped inside the doorway to the classroom on my way to file a stack of paperwork. The kids’ energy pushed the room’s borders the same way their precious smiles pushed the ones around my heart. Leaning into the jamb, I shook my head and grinned. Perspective.

  Laughs and hollers erupted from a group of boys at a middle table. A single face ushered into focus. The innocent smiles in the classroom clashed against the image of the sinister ones that had branded me with wordless taunts.

  The papers in my hand hit the floor and sprawled across the tiles. In one paralyzing sweep, the fear I’d banished in the car ripped straight through the hope that my nightmares were over.

  Heat flooded my cheeks with the memory of the attacker’s hot breath on my face. I cupped the base of my head. The imprint of the brick’s abrasive texture
crawled over my skin as if it were happening all over again.

  The room slanted. What was he doing here? Did they send him to make sure I kept my mouth shut? To find an inside way to finish what they started? Is that how they were finding out who our grant contacts were?

  I clutched the trim to keep my balance. Something urged me not to stare, but I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t move.

  Centered in a group of kids his age, the guy who left me in his friends’ hands that night laughed and joked as any normal high schooler would.

  He shucked off an oversized black jacket and spun the flattened bill of a bright red ball cap to the side of his head. While one of his friends dropped a beat, he drummed a pair of pencils over a notebook. And I simply stared. Not at a hardened assailant. At a regular teenager.

  He glanced up from the table. His chair dropped to all four legs. He looked away, his olive cheeks turning a shade darker than his hat. Yet even in such a short connection, he couldn’t hide the shame harbored inside eyes too young to carry it.

  The pull of two irreconcilable images gripped my heart in a game of tug-of-war I didn’t want to play. I had to get out of there.

  The door clipped my shoulder on my rush into the hallway. Bracing the water fountain with one hand, I dabbed cool water on my face with the other. Breathe. But the trauma from that night kept closing in—the anger, the fear. It backed me into the wall. Brave? My cell trembled in my hand. If I could just hear his voice, maybe I’d believe it.

  “Riley Preston. Leave a message.”

  Dang it. I ended the call before it beeped and shoved my bangs out of my eyes, hating that he was so far away, so unreachable.

  His ringtone jarred the silence. I flinched, swiped the screen. “Riley.”

  Blaring music assaulted my eardrum. I lifted the phone away.

  “Em?” he hollered. “I’m at a concert. Too loud in here. Can I call you later?”

  An inward wince wrung all sound from my voice.

  “Em? You all right?”

  Was I? “I’m fine.” My heart followed my foot down the wall to the floor. “Everything’s fine.”