The end of his speech was no longer gentle. Not that the words had ever been gentle. Nothing about this, us, was gentle. It wasn’t some kind of easy or joyous reunion. It was torture.
He hadn’t moved. He was still watching me, waiting for a response.
But what in the actual heck did I say to that? A part of me knew what to say.
Nothing.
It wasn’t the time to say anything. It was a time to jump back into his arms. To kiss him and let the years dissolve around us.
But I couldn’t.
I was afraid.
And not too proud to admit it.
“Polly!” The voice cracked through the moment.
Both Heath and I moved our gazes to a group of people storming through the hall.
Jett was front and center.
Oblivious, and likely wasted, he bowled forward and snatched me into his arms.
“Babe! You missed the show,” he said. “I’d be mad at you, if you weren’t so cute.” He kissed my forehead. “And because we’re doing an encore show in your living room.”
People shouted “fuck yeah!” in response to this, as the small crowd pushed past all the emotional demons that had filled up the hall with their instruments, with their half-full beers.
Heath stood in the middle of it all, unmoving, glaring at Jett. Or more accurately, his arms around me. Jett noticed this, belatedly. He moved and slung his arm around my shoulder. “Oh hey, dude.”
Jett looked the part of an indie rocker. He had silver on every single finger. Wore a ripped black tee. His skinny arms were covered in mismatched and random tattoos. He was wearing dirty Chuck Taylors.
But he really had a kind heart, which was what drew me to him.
“You a friend of Polly’s?” he asked.
Heath glared at me now. “I don’t know, am I, Polly?”
The question was much more than that. It was an invitation to step out of Jett’s kind and safe embrace into Heath’s harsh and dangerous one.
I painted a smile on my face. “Yeah, he’s a friend.”
Nothing changed outwardly on Heath’s expression.
But everything changed.
Chapter Four
Three Weeks Later
I wasn’t paying attention when a knock came at the door. It should’ve been something to pay attention to, considering no one knocked here. Most people walked right in. We operated on an open-door policy. Obviously I didn’t tell my family about that because they would get all judgy about it.
No one stole anything.
No one was hurt.
The world didn’t tilt on its axis because we didn’t believe in locked doors.
It was a little slice of peace, of magic, this loft. People came and went, they gave what they could, took what was offered and it worked.
Not something the outside world would understand because we were conditioned to think it didn’t work that way. That money and greed drove everyone. You could never get something for nothing, and people always had an ulterior motive.
Not here.
So the knocking thing was weird.
But weird was a construct. Just like normal. There was nothing constructed or constant about the lifestyle here, and that was the beauty of it. So I didn’t think much about the knock. It was outside the norm, but that was all the better.
Plus, I was focused on the pasta I was making. It wasn’t exactly working with coconut flour. Bringing white flour into this kitchen was pretty much taken as an act of war. Mainly because of the fact that modified grains were now used to produce said flour, and we did not support that.
“We could turn it into a savory cake,” Rain offered, swinging her legs from where she sat on the counter. She was sucking a lollipop, watching me and reading A Communist Manifesto at the same time.
We’d moved in within days of each other.
Became fast friends.
Even though she wasn’t exactly friendly looking on the outside with jet black hair, wore clothes to match the shade, her eyes always heavily made up with smudged eyeliner, she had piercings on her eyebrow and nose, tattoos crawling up her neck.
She exuded the mood of someone who was perpetually sad. Because people that wore black all the time and dressed like goths were all about violent music and misery, in society’s eyes at least.
But that was the opposite of the truth. She was perpetually happy. Never in a bad mood. Always smiling. Always positive. Despite the crappy hand life had dealt her.
I frowned at the mush in front of me. “Do you think it would bake without setting the oven on fire? I don’t want to do that twice in one week.”
That time I had been trying to make pizza with cauliflower. We ended up ordering in. The firefighters even stayed for a slice.
Rain shrugged. “Let’s find out. And if you do, then I’ll be able to get the phone number of that firefighter that was totally flirting with me. Plus, I’ve got a friend who works at a restaurant and can likely get us an oven real cheap, read, free.” She waggled her brows at me meaningfully. She wasn’t exactly averse to breaking the law. I knew she was some kind of hacker and I didn’t think anything she did on her computer was anywhere near legal.