Chelsea Fine - Best Kind of Broken

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.

I’m staring at the piping above me, almost finished with the sink, when I hear Ellen enter the kitchen.

“There you are,” she says to my legs. “The install guys just left, so it looks like our new fire alarms are up and running. But I’m going to schedule a drill tomorrow, just to make sure everything works properly. I’ll let the rest of the staff know, but I’ll need you to monitor the control box. Got it?”

“Fire drill. Got it.”

“Thanks, Levi.”

I hear her leave. As I finish tightening the last bolt, something thwacks my leg. Looking out from under the sink, I see Mable standing above me with a less-than-happy expression.

I sit up. “Did you just smack me with a spatula?”

“Yes. And I will do it again if I have to.” She’s dead serious.

I furrow my brow. “Is this about the whore thing? I know I was mean—”

She smacks me again.

“Jesus, Mable!”

“That boy was in the dining room talking to Pixie again,” she says.

I blink. “Who, Daren?” It’s all I can do not to say “douche bag.”

“Yes, Daren. And I don’t like him.” She puts a hand on her hip.

I exhale. “Get in line.”

She stares down at me expectantly.

I stare up at her, dumbfounded.

“Well?” she says. “Are you going to go get Pixie or what?”

“Why?” I stand up, immediately on alert with all these visions of Daren hurting Pixie and how I’m going to kill him when I find him. “Is Pixie in trouble?”

“Of course not.”

“Then what the—ow! Mable, quit hitting me.”

She points the spatula at me. “You are that girl’s whole life, Levi.” Her soft wrinkles bore into me. “Don’t you dare let her get distracted by some guy who doesn’t know how to love her.”

And whoa.

When did we start talking about love?

I narrow my eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She tosses the spatula into the sink I just fixed and makes her way to the exit. “You know exactly what it means.”

I woke up this morning determined to be pleasant, but the moment I saw Levi enter the bathroom, my emotional barometer cracked. And suddenly I wanted to fight. Badly. I wanted to kick and scream and yell and get all kinds of angry.

Because he was right.

Fighting doesn’t hurt.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” I wave my finger in the air as I barge into the small bathroom with him, setting my stuff on the counter and staking my claim to the shower. “My ass is taking a shower first.”

He looks at said ass, then shakes his head. “Your ass is leaving.”

He moves to pick me up and I skirt past his hands and duck under his arm, climbing into the dry shower with my clothes on.

“You want to get wet, Pixie?” He’s got his wicked smile on, and I hate that I like it. “Because I can help you with that.”

Of course my dirty head is going all sorts of naughty places with his words, and I fail to see his hand reach into the shower.

“What I want is a hot shower.”

He turns on the water and the spray begins to douse the tank top and gym shorts I have on. I purse my lips as he grins at my slowly soaking pajamas. “Wet enough for you yet?”

Our eyes meet and the air around us begins to sizzle.

Because now we’re both thinking about a whole different kind of wet, and the heat filling the small bathroom isn’t coming from the steamy water running down my body.

I refuse to break our gaze, so I wait him out. His eyes flicker briefly, like maybe he’s scared or nervous, but then they wander to my chest.

The wet tank top is hardly working as any kind of cover, so the exact shape and size and tightness of my nipples is very, very apparent.

I let him look. If he wants to be an ass, he can be an ass.

He lifts his gaze to mine, but then his cocky-as-sin expression falters for a moment. Like he forgot this was me, Pixie Marshall, standing pretty much naked before him. And the realization does something deep to his eyes and funny things to my stomach.

I suddenly want to cover my face.

Not my boobs.

Not my white shorts that easily show off how I’m not wearing panties.

I want to cover my face.

Because what he sees reminds of him of everything he can’t erase.

He stares into my eyes, and now I’m trapped in a deep blue sea of rage and regret and hurt and loss. And I don’t want to be there. I want to be anywhere else. Because the deep blue sea is filled with a million things I can’t bring myself to admit.

It hurts to think about his pain. It hurts to look at it. And it sure as hell hurts to swim in it.

But here I am. Swimming in Levi’s deep blue broken sea, and I’m drowning right alongside him, just as hopeless and helpless as he is. Two castaways in an ocean of pain, and we’re not even clinging to each other for dear life. We’re just watching each other drift to the ocean floor, where silence and blackness might swallow us whole and take away the sorrow.

For long seconds we stand there, staring at each other as water beats down on me. And then his eyes fall to my mouth.

Oh crap.

My eyes fall to his mouth as well, and the atmosphere ignites. Now we’re in this steamy, tense standoff—half in, half out of the shower—heads tilted toward each other and eyes locked on mouths. And I know I’ve already surrendered.

I know I’m mad at him, hurt by him, but when it comes down to it, I trust Levi with everything I am.

And he has me.

He has me when I’m seven years old and scared of monsters. He has me when I’m brokenhearted in the eighth grade because Tommy Marchim won’t take me to the Valentine’s dance. And he has me when I’m nineteen and in the shower with my pajamas on, searching his eyes for my hero.

He has me.

He’s always had me.

And I’ve never wanted to be had by anyone else.

He leans closer, and the steam from the shower surrounds us like we’re in our own private cloud. Right here, right now, yesterday, tomorrow—whenever he’s near—I feel safe. Safe and loved. Because that’s exactly what I am, even if he doesn’t know it. Even if I don’t deserve it.

I lean in closer too, not seeing anything other than Levi’s body and a swirling cloud of hot fog.

Our faces are so close together I can feel each of his exhales sweeping over my cheeks. The silver flecks in his eyes glisten in the droplets falling all around us, reflecting off the white shower walls. The spray drowns out all other noise and makes it seem as though we’re enclosed in our own little white rainstorm.

I trace my eyes along his scruffy face, taking in the small dark hairs that dust his jawline and match the color of his long eyelashes. Then my gaze roves over his full lips, and I absently lick my own.

And then he kisses me.

Like he was born to do it, like everything about him knows exactly how to kiss me. His lips fit to mine perfectly, and it’s nothing like our first kiss.

It’s desperate and starving, and blindly passionate, as we crush our mouths together in the white downpour.

I kiss him back like he’s my very last breath, like I’d die without him—and maybe I would. I part my lips and our tongues meet, sliding over slick textured surfaces, as they dance and wiggle and taste and lick. And it’s just… so… perfect.

I rise up on my tiptoes, trying to pull his mouth into mine because he’s too far away. His tongue glides along the soft flesh inside my mouth. He’s still too far away. I bring my hand to the back of his neck and tangle my fingers in his hair, tugging and making a noise of protest because I’m so damn short and can’t reach him the way I want.