AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Get real, Cap.” I rolled my eyes. “I found him in the changing rooms after one of his stalking sessions.” Grinning, I added, “Suffice to say he hasn’t been doing much swimming with a cast on his arm.”
“Tell me you didn’t break his bleeding arm, Gibs.”
“Give me some credit, will you?” I snorted. “He tripped.”
“Over what?”
“The contents of his shampoo bottle.” I sprayed another dollop of cream into my mouth. “And my foot.”
“Nice,” he replied, sounding distant. There was another long pause before his voice returned on the line, this time all professional. “Listen, Gibs, I have to get ready for that meeting. I’ll see you this afternoon, okay?”
A pang of sadness hit me hard in the chest, making it momentarily hard to breathe, before I quickly got a handle on myself. “Give them hell, Cap.” Pinching the bridge of my nose, I forced another smile, even though I was alone in my room. “See you later.”
“Bye, Gibs.”
“Bye, Kav.”
When the line went dead, I stood there for a long time with the receiver in my hand, just staring out my bedroom window.
The sky was blue outside.
The birds were out.
The sun was shining.
It was another blissful morning.
And I wanted to scream.
4
Jagged Little Scars
CLAIRE
“Well?” Hugh asked, when I joined him at the edge of the pool after my interview. “How did it go?”
“Okay, I guess?” I shrugged, feeling slightly disheartened by my earlier meeting with his boss. “She said she would get back to me.” I looked to my brother for some much-needed emotional support. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Nah, if Kim didn’t like you, trust me, you’d know it.” Setting his mop down, he patted my shoulder and walked back to his deck chair. “I bet you a tenner you’ll get the job.”
“She was sort of terrifying, Hugh.”
“Yeah, Kim can be a fair bit of a ballbuster,” he agreed, eyes focusing on the bodies splashing around in the water as he spoke. “She has this hard, take-no-shit approach, but she’s fair.”
I wasn’t sure about that. My brother’s boss, from our brief encounter, had given me some serious Mr. Twomey vibes. I was half hoping that she didn’t call me back. Sure, a paying job would be super, but I enjoyed volunteering at the community pool, and I was a firm believer in life being about more than just a paycheck.
“Oh my god,” I choked out when a familiar blond shimmied into my peripheral vision. “What the hell happened to you?”
“I fell,” Lizzie explained, joining us at Hugh’s deck chair.
The fact that she was here wasn’t surprising. Her family had been members for years, same as ours, but it was the scar she bore that took my breath away.
I’d seen similar cuts on Lizzie’s body in the past, but not for a very long time. The faint scars that adorned her inner wrists had appeared in the months that followed her sister’s passing. After her parents put her in counseling, it seemed to stop. I thought she had it under control. Apparently not.
“On what?” I demanded, gaping at the huge, jagged, freshly scabbed cut going the entire length of her thigh. “A chain saw?”
“No, on a barbed-wire fence I was climbing over, actually.” Clad in a white bikini, Lizzie pulled her hair up into a makeshift ponytail and offered me a half-hearted smile. Scars or not, Lizzie was ridiculously beautiful. Like for real. She looked like some sort of angel, with a halo of messy blond hair. “It’s all good, Claire. It happened ages ago. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.”
