Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

Belle

I don’t know where to start or what to do.

Nicholas. His name is Nicholas, and he—he told Lance and not me?

I shake my head to dislodge the thought. It’s the wrong one, the wrong thing to focus on. The things Lance said . . . I suck in a breath.

“Okay.”

It’s all I can think of, next to blowing up, next to screaming or crying, or whatever this pressure pot that’s getting harder and harder to keep locked down wants to do when it blows.

“Belle.”

I move, movements jerky, like my limbs don’t quite fit together. And the ground . . . it’s uneven, keeps moving.

Belle.

Belle.

That’s all he has. Right now, I’m betting he’s trying to string together some pretty words, just like Lance always did. Always does. Always will do.

I dig my nails into my palms, and I stare at him.

“I should have told you.”

That makes my breath rush from me.

It hits me hard, a dull thump to my guts, and I reel.

Nicholas. Saint. Whatever the fuck his name is doesn’t reach out.

He just says that.

There’s a tiny part that appreciates it, perversely likes the fact he doesn’t sugar coat, or try and weave a different story out of the threads that are suddenly scattered around us.

A tiny part.

“Yes,” I say quietly, “you should have. I . . . I have to go.”

“Let me give you a ride home.”

“No.”

This isn’t the place to talk, I know that. Right now, I don’t want to be pressed against him, feeling the blood beat through his veins, feel his heat and strength and the familiarity I’ve come to know, to love.

I veer from that word and turn, walking off, skirting the crowd. He doesn’t come after me, and I can’t shake the bitter-edged disappointment that makes no sense as it swoops in, leaving me hollow.

There are a lot of people now, and we’d moved off into a quieter corner, at the edge of the library. Behind me is Saint and . . . I scan the crowd.

The last thing I want is to go through there and put on a happy face.

There’s pain, I can feel that, but on top is the shock, anger, and an overwhelming need to do something.

Also, I’m going to have to get the bus.

I skirt the edges, taking the long way toward where my bus stop is. Behind me comes the roar of a motorcycle.

It stops. “Hey there, Pretty Belle.”

That’s not Saint.

Gravel’s on his bike, holding out a helmet. “Wanna ride?”

I get off his bike and hand him the helmet. Nomad is sitting on the steps, tail swishing, but otherwise, very still, like he’s picking up a vibe.

“Thanks.”

Gravel’s face is set, like he wants to say a whole lot, but he doesn’t.

“There’s a fucking saying, my girl, about books and contents and don’t judge and I’m a thinking that might apply to Saint.”

“Who?”

He looks at me and nods slowly, then reaches out to adjust the collar of my coat. “Fair play. But . . . ah, fuck, the ass’ll kill me, but I’ve known him since he was this high.”

Gravel waves a hand around his knee.

“So, you know he’s a liar?”

“Now, that ain’t you, kid.” He presses his lips together and blows out a breath. “He might not have as much finesse as me, but he’s a good one. Not a troublemaker.”

“He’s been working to get rid of people from here. Working for my greedy ex.”

He nods but doesn’t look surprised. “He named that damn cat. Stuck around. And I don’t think it was for the ex, y’know.”

“Sin seems nice, I?—”

“Yours. I meant yours.” Then he sighs like he’s said too much. “Don’t be a stranger, Belle, okay?”

I smile, digging it up from somewhere, and wave goodbye as he zooms off. Then I turn and trudge in, Nomad meowing and following.

Upstairs, I throw myself into baking.

Just cookies that, when cool, I box up for friends and those who might like a sweet thought. Because if I don’t do something, I might take my cast iron frying pan and hit one big, tall, bearded biker with a whole load of tattoos over the head with it.

Of course, he’d have to bend down for me.

Nomad just idly watches me bake. There’s no food in it for him and he wasn’t overly interested in dinner, so I suspect he was fed.

I’m just sliding the final tray into the oven when someone knocks on the door, and my heart goes crazy.

Not someone.

Nicholas. Saint.

A man who told my ex his real name and not me.

Crap, my heart also just hurts like it wants to cry. Because I think I know how I feel.

Before it was fine, I could deal. Now? I don’t want to have these emotions for him. Not the ones that I think are love.

He knocks again, and Nomad utters a soft meow. I stand, oven gloves in my hands, not moving.

Nomad mewls again.

“I know,” I hiss. “I’m a coward.”

“Belle, I fucking know you’re in there,” Saint says on the other side of the door. “Open up.” There’s a pause. “Before someone calls the cops and I’m arrested.”

I’m at the door before I realize.

“Maybe I should let them,” I say. Then I sniff. “Of course, your new best friend might rescue you.”

“You think I like the fuckwit.”

“I don’t know,” I snap. “Do you?”

His mouth lifts a little, but he’s wearing a frown, and his gaze . . . there’s remorse and something darker. “Can I come in, Belle? Please.”

“Sure. Nicholas.”

He winces. “Y’know, I thought I’d fucking told you.”

“Nope, there was something, I think about road names, and I never asked again, figuring you’d tell me.” I blink rapidly, eyes stinging and blurring.

I whirl away, taking in a sharp breath.

There’s still some whiskey here. I haven’t touched it since he brought it up here. I pour myself some into my glass of water.

“That’s sacrilege in some parts.”

I shoot him my sharpest look.

“Just fucking saying.” He moves into the kitchen, where I am, and leans against the counter.

On it’s my coffee cup from this morning, still with black coffee in it as I was running late.

He picks up the bottle of whiskey and pours some in, drinking it. “Not bad.”

“Are you trying to one-up me or distract me?”

“Is it working?”

“No.”

He sighs, running a hand over his head. “Should have told you my name. It’s worth noting there are a lot of people who don’t know anything but my road name.”

“Women?”

“Yes.”

“That you sleep with?” I want to hurl in a relationship with at him, but somehow I don’t.

My stupid heart might not like it if he points out the fact we’re not in one, not officially. Of course, my brain points out to my heart we’re not thirteen and since we’re having sex, and hang out a lot, it’s a relationship we’re having. Then again, what kind of relationship? And does it even matter now?

Those last two come from all of me. No answers seem to be around.

I don’t have anything for that.

Also, it doesn’t change what just went down and that sense of betrayal in me.

“Do you want the answer to that?” He looks at me, adds more whiskey. “Some I’ve been in relationships with do, some don’t. Sin knows. We were together a fucking long time. And you should’ve known too. I’m sorry, Belle.”

I nod tightly. I can’t even bring myself to call him anything but Saint. I can’t look at him and not think he might be the devil.

Because he’s working for Lance, he’s here, undercover. “The worst thing is I know what he’s like, his jealousy.” I swallow. “Lance doesn’t like losing and he thinks he’ll get me back.”

“He warned me off you tonight before we went to see the tree. I think he’s got your ring on him at all times.”

I shudder. The ring was nice, gorgeous. Not me at all. It’s a ring made for a pretty thing that sits on a shelf and is taken out to be shown off.

“Thing is, I know this is the kind of move he’d make, and I can’t believe I didn’t see it. But the fact you went and . . . not did it . . . but didn’t tell me, that hurts.”

Saint sets down the drink and comes up to me, easing mine from my hands and setting it down too, then he slides a finger beneath my chin. “I took it because it was a roof, cheap and it let me have a place for a little while. Then I met you.”

It hits me. “You saw Lance? Tonight.”

“So did you.”

But I snatch my head from his hand and scurry away, Nomad lets out a low meow that borders on a growl. Because I want to go and touch Saint, find a reason to forgive him, or tumble into another kiss, more sex. I pick up a cookie right as the oven bell dings, and I take a bite.

I go for the gloves, but he’s there before me, putting them on and pulling the tray from the oven.

The sight of this big, tattooed biker with an oven mitt and a tray of homemade cookies is so wholesome, so absurd that I nearly melt. But I can’t.

This isn’t about hearts and fleeting feelings for a man who doesn’t have a home of his own, one who travels the roads of America, bouncing from place to place. No, this is about a building’s worth of people. It’s about their homes, Christmas, having somewhere to live.

It’s okay for him not to worry about any of that, but none of us are him. There are old people, young people, and families in here.

This place is convenient and cheap. To move elsewhere for the same price? Some will be fine, like me, but most? It’ll mean way more travel, changing schools, some might have to move away.

“I meant,” I say, “before we went to the tree.”

I’m giving him a chance, the desperation claws at me. I need him to tell me he went to quit, that Lance got mad and claimed he still worked for him.

“I did.”

“Why?”

A muscle moves in his jaw and my heart breaks. “Belle. I signed a contract. But you know you’re better off with me here, so is everyone.”

“No, because you’re going to make sure everyone leaves.”

“I don’t want to do this for him. Have you looked at your lease? And all the things he’s adding on?”

“No, because he can do that.”

He just looks at me. “And you take that but get mad at me?”

“Screw you, Nicholas,” I snap, using his name. “You told me you never do things you don’t want to, so I guess you want to do this.”

“I think,” he says after a long silence, “I should go. I never meant to hurt you. And you were the last thing I expected. I didn’t sign to break laws. And, fuck, I’ll see you on the twenty-fourth, I guess. Be careful, read carefully.”

With that, he turns and starts to leave.

“Saint?”

He stops. “Belle?”

I’m an idiot. I know that. But I pick up one of the cookie boxes and go to him. “I made these for you.”

He takes the box and leaves.

I want to cry, But I don’t. Instead, I drink my whiskey and finish my cookie. Why on earth would he tell me to read carefully?

My lease isn’t something I pull out often. Esther was old school and her lease was paper. But the updated ones that Lance insisted on doing last time, where he changed over rent due dates, that’s electronic. So, I go to the living room pull out the original, and the electronic one and start to read.

When I wake in the morning for work, I’m still not sure why he mentioned it and I still hurt inside. Worse today. Not because of the whiskey. That’s still mostly in the glass I first poured.

Ready for work, I race down the stairs, trying not to think of Saint. A forlorn meowing makes me stop.

Nomad sits outside the door, looking up.

My heart sinks, and I turn on my sensible shoes and scoop Nomad up. Saint is gone. Or at least, he went out and isn’t back from the night before.

Which is something I don’t want to think about. I settle Nomad in at my place and feed him before I head to school.

I don’t see Saint the next day or the day after that.

Even though I’m bleeding inside, I tell myself I don’t care.

Hannah slides a glass of wine over to me at Finally’s and leans in. “Babe, smile.”

“I hate being told to smile.”

“There are men here. It’s almost Christmas, you can pick up some lonely Christmas meat.”

“Ewww.” But I laugh.

She snaps her fingers. “Just kidding. Never go home with lonely, desperate Christmas men. Unless?—”

“We don’t mention Saint’s name.”

“You just did.”

“You know what I mean.”

She sighs. “Have you seen him?”

“No. Nomad’s moved in for now, but he meows outside the door and some days he comes back late, sauntering in, warm, like he just got dropped off.”

Hannah sips her wine, and a guy approaches. She doesn’t look. “No. And go away. Please.”

The guy turns beet red and continues past us.

“You know,” she says, “it’s cute.”

“The guy?”

“The fact you and your biker separated but he still drops the kid off.”

Her words start to melt me but I shake my head. “The lease?”

All the fun vanishes from her expression. “I showed my lawyer friend. He says it’s a little odd changing the dates, but it’s within perimeters and the whole fee thing probably isn’t above board but you did say Saint improved the place, right?”

The words twist like a knife in me as I nod.

“That could be used as a reason. Point is, the fee thing will be harder. You know what I think? We need to see someone else’s lease.”

“I thought that too. But I can’t just ask.”

“Do it.”

“It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow. Everyone’s been so busy I’ve barely seen anyone. Even Mrs. Kovacs, who I would ask, is visiting with her son’s family in Portland.”

“If I was going to make a move, you know when I’d do it if I was that sneaky no-good Lance?”

“Tomorrow when it’s pick up rent day?”

She nods.

I pick up my wine, but my hand shakes, so I put it down. “I’m so worried about who can’t make ends meet. I’ve helped out a lot of the residents, but I only have so much. I don’t . . .” I suck in a breath. “I have money in a trust fund, not heaps, but thing is I can’t touch it until I’m thirty.”

“It’s not your fucking job to pay for everyone, Belle. Lance is the greedy asshole who should do that. His gran was decent. She’d kill him.”

“She’s gone.”

She slaps a hand on the table. “Tell you what, I’m coming tomorrow.”

“You’re expecting trouble too.”

“And I want a front row seat.”

“Ghoul.”

Hannah’s a woman on a mission. She’s gone door to door and warned people to stand together. So when Lance arrives, he’s met by the residents in the courtyard.

“Those who have paid, paid. Some can’t afford the extra money,” I say, “but rent’s paid.”

“Not all, but that doesn’t matter, Isabelle.” He looks past me. “Time to go. And today we change the locks. And with it are more charges for insulating your homes. I need that . . . oh, today. You all got the letters?”

I storm up to him. “You know no one got those letters.”

“Go away, Isabelle, I’m mad at you. I’ll forgive you, of course, but right now I’m furious. I thought you had better taste.”

“No one got those letters,” I say, ignoring his dig about Saint.

“They might be lost with the Christmas mail,” he calls out. “You all know how that is, but a simple check in on my website shows the new fees. So kindly get your stuff and go.”

I cross my arms as an angry ripple of noise passes through the residents. “That’s not how things work. How are you going to make them, Lance?”

“Like this.”

He pulls out his phone, presses a button, and a van rolls in. Men in uniform jump out. There are about five.

Private security guards by the looks, but before I can say a word, a motorcycle arrives, and my heart sinks.

Saint. Followed by all his friends.

Lance has gotten himself an army.

My heart breaks.