And the Sweet (Addiction Series Book 2) Read online

“I’d do anything for you, baby girl. You remember that.”

  Celia smiles brighter this time and my heart twinges. Part of me wonders if the reason she pays no mind to the numbers coming her way is because of this. Because of Trey. Perhaps they are together now. Perhaps she’s moved on from me completely. Moved on, left me behind like I asked her to.

  Like I all but demanded she do.

  There’s only one way to find out.

  TWO

  I think I’ve paced the entire block three times by the time the staff of Coco Pazzo finally emerges. It’s just after midnight and though it’s winter, the night is thankfully not bitingly cold. I stand off to the side, hoping to be out of view so I don’t look like a fucking creepy stalker or serial killer.

  Groups are huddled together, conversing about their night, what their plans are for the following day until their next shift starts, and whether or not they should go get pancakes before heading home.

  It takes ten full minutes of watching people exit the front door before Cecelia and Melody leave. The bouncer, Trey, is at the door as they step out.

  “You girls good to get home?” he asks them. I watch him pull keys from his pocket and lock the door, shutting the fence too.

  “We’re good, big guy. Tips were good so we’re taking a cab tonight,” Melody smiles at him before lifting on her toes to plant a kiss on his cheek, making him blush bright red. I really don’t think I’ve ever seen that shade on a human. Though Trey is a pasty white guy, so I guess maybe it’s possible. But more than that, his reaction to Melody has me wondering about his association to Cecelia. Wondering if I misread another situation.

  “Okay, well, call me if you need anything.”

  Both girls nod at his imposing posture accompanied by what appears to be a very affectionate smile.

  “See you tomorrow.”

  I’m momentarily startled, forgetting everything I was just thinking.

  Cecelia’s voice is quiet, barely a whisper. The rasp is still there; in fact it seems more pronounced. Before it had only ever sounded like that when she was upset and crying. Or really excited about something. But this, it’s the first time in months I’ve heard her speak and my breath is lost. My heart begins thumping, my skin prickles under a cold sweat and butterflies begin fluttering like crazy in my stomach.

  It’s been so long since I’ve heard her sound so meek, so uncertain and nowhere near the strong and confident woman she had been the last few years of our relationship. This girl, with her demure appearance, and her lack of voice is nothing like the girl I remember, the girl I knew.

  I almost wonder if this is an act. I still don’t know for sure about Celia’s relationships with some of the guys from the fights, but it could make sense that she would play this quiet and sad girl so people have sympathy for her, all things considered. Then again, I’ve never seen her actually look so fucking defeated before. She isn’t even trying here.

  And that thought is confirmed as I see Trey offer her a troubled smile and a flash of his eyes at her companion who just shrugs as though she has no idea what is going on.

  “Have a good night, girls.”

  The trio parts way and I watch Trey watch them for a bit until he’s forced to disappear around the corner heading north. The two girls keep walking south, and I realize if I’m going to have any chance at all, I need to get ahead of them and make it seem like it’s coincidental that we’re running into each other. At this time of night. In this part of town. No big deal. Jogging ahead, trying to keep from being seen on a nearly desolate street, I cut across and then turn around to head back toward the restaurant and that’s when I see them both notice me.

  I slow my pace; I don’t want to scare either girl but I also don’t want them to wonder why I may be breathing heavy. As I get close to the curb, Cecelia notices exactly who is walking toward her and she stops. Frozen, dead in her tracks.

  Melody comes to a stop too, looking at Celia with wide eyes. Then those eyes find me and I can see her appraising me, wondering who I am, what my deal is. She’s wondering what made her companion stop like she did at the mere sight of me.

  “Cece?”

  She either doesn’t hear Melody speak to her or she’s too stunned to respond. Either way, Celia keeps her wide shocked eyes on me. “What are you doing here?” Her voice is barely a whisper, barely a breath. Celia lost her accent long before I did, sounding more like she really is from Chicago, but in this moment, I hear her Texas twang come through.

  “You know this guy?” Melody asks, her tone taking on a note of irritation. I’m not sure what the irritation is toward, but I can tell she’s not pleased.

  “Hi, Cecelia.” I swallow hard, shove my hands in my pockets and continue to stare at her while trying not to overwhelm her. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  I realize belatedly how bad that sounds as Melody narrows her eyes at me. “Who are you? Who is this guy, Cece?”

  “You told me to leave you alone. I was just following orders,” Cecelia answers softly, ignoring her friend, coworker, whatever they are to each other. I won’t lie and say her words don’t make me cringe. I really told her, the one person I’ve known and trusted the most to stay away from me. Even if she betrayed me, I can’t believe I said the words I actually said to her. “What are you even doing here?”

  It’s the second time she’s asked. I try to focus on that question, try to push aside the guilt that’s bubbling up faster than a volcano inside my chest. “You just disappeared. No one knew where you’d gone, if you were even alright. I heard some things. Scary things.”

  “I’m sure you did.” For the first time all night, I see fire spark in Celia’s light brown eyes. She’s angry at me, at my words and I realize, once more, how bad they sound.

  “Shit, sorry. That didn’t come out right,” I try to defend but she’s started walking, grabbing Melody, who has gone silent, watching our exchange until now when I hear her ask once again what’s going on. “Cecelia? I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “You’re forgiven, have a good life.” She’s walking faster now, but she’s shorter than me by a few inches and my stride is wider. I catch up to her easily wanting to reach out and take her arm but knowing she’ll probably try to punch me if I do.

  “Please, I’ve been so worried about,” I begin again, coming right out with it. “I heard you were drinking, that people saw you completely hammered and I didn’t want to believe it. I had to find you. Make sure you were okay.”

  She stops and looks up at me. I can’t identify the myriad of emotions that pass over her face. But the scoff she gives is obvious. “Worried about me? That’s funny. Even more funny is not wanting to believe something you heard about me. Too bad that’s too little too late, Chace.”

  “Jesus Christ, Celia, please?” I beg, my voice cracking as my desperation makes itself known. “I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

  I think I have her, that maybe she’ll stop and listen, but all she does is throw up a hand as a taxi pulls up to the curb. I hadn’t even heard it coming.

  “What do you want from me?” she asks as she pushes Melody into the waiting cab with quiet promise to explain. “You heard things about me? Good for you. Not the first time right? But just so you can stop feeling obligated to look out for me, assuage you of my charge; I’m fine. Perfectly fucking fine.” I can see she’s trying not to cry and I want so badly to wrap her in my arms. “I’ll make sure to keep out of the way of anyone you may know so you won’t have to hear any more stories about me. I’m sorry for being a burden on you once again. Goodbye, Chace.”

  She jumps in the cab and the yellow car peals away with a squeal of the wheels. I can’t chase after her, I wouldn’t even be able to find her now that she’s in a car and the street is empty once more. If it wasn’t for the smell of exhaust, it would almost be like she’d never even been here.

  My hands find my hair, longer than I’ve ever had it in all my life, and I pull.
Hard. Tears come to my eyes and I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with the force gripping the strands of dirty blond. I have no idea what to do now. No idea, once more, where to look or how to act.

  She walked away. Again.

  And those things she’d said…fuck, they lance right through me. I can’t breathe. I feel like I might be having an anxiety attack. My chest is constricting, my vision blurry. I drop to my knees as I try to get my breath back. I’m so lost; so completely void of any idea of what I should do or even how.

  Realizing I can’t stay on the corner like this, knowing someone has probably seen my freak out and is either calling the cops or an ambulance, I stagger to my feet and head toward the train station.

  By the time I get home, I’m frozen, though I don’t know if the temperature dropped or if I’m so dejected my body has turned cold. The only thing I do know is I have to find a way to at least get Cecelia to speak to me, to truly talk to me. Because tonight didn’t prove that she’s okay. It may have shown me she isn’t hooking up with random guys or drinking, at least not tonight, but it didn’t tell me if she’s okay.

  I know she’s not and I need to fix that.

  Given the way I’m treated like a pariah now amongst the guys since it was my associations that led to our clusterfuck, given the way no one but a few of the really stupid groupies gave any kind of damn about Hayley after everything blew up, I know a I’m the reason Celia isn’t okay. It doesn’t matter if she fucked half the world. The way I treated her over just the possibility, because truly, I have no proof, well, it’s beyond deplorable. And I need to make up for that.

  If she really did betray me, yes, it fucking hurts. My heart is shattered at that. The only woman I have ever cared about…the possibility tears apart my soul. But I’ve torn her down too. Degraded her. I think I might have broken her and the last time someone did that…well, I don’t want to think about that because I don’t want to compare myself to him.

  I resolve to go back to Coco every night until I can get through to her. At least apologise for my behavior, even if what we once had is too broken beyond repair. I don’t want to leave things the way they are.

  I can’t leave things the way they are.

  THREE

  Three weeks.

  Three fucking weeks pass without any sight or sound from Cecelia.

  Every day I go to my job, take a detour by the place she called home when I knew her, and try to keep my focus on my task at hand. It’s getting harder and harder though to not give in to despair and I worry it’ll start showing in my work and I can’t lose my job. No one has said anything to me yet, but I know people are starting to notice something isn’t right with me.

  Every day after I get off work, I go to Coco hoping to see her. And every day, she’s not there. I wait inside a few times, sweet-talking my way past Trey who thankfully hasn’t heard about my fuck-up with Celia, but see some spritely blond working the bar with Melody. I begin to panic, wondering if Cecelia decided to quit just to avoid me. Once upon a time I’d have considered it an overreaction but now…fuck. She really is doing exactly what I’d stupidly told her to do and what she so fiercely promised she would do.

  I can’t imagine it would have been so easy for her to find a new job though.

  On one side, that gives me comfort. She needs to work. We’ve both always needed to. So she has to turn up sooner or later. This job has always treated her decent and given our lack of experience or college education, no one wants to let go of a good thing. But then another side wonders if maybe she’s not working because she doesn’t need to anymore. Every horrible scenario I can come up with flashes behind my eyes as I consider what has happened to make her not be at her job.

  But then it’s like someone somewhere realizes I need something to go on, something to stop the insanity from completely overwhelming me.

  I’m standing against the side of the building, watching patrons leave, watching new ones arrive. I’ve just got off work, so it’s early still in the evening and I was too antsy to go home first. I sigh heavily and look toward my work boots, look at my faded and dirty jeans. I didn’t go home tonight to change so I can’t go in but I’m still hoping to see Celia. Though it’s been weeks, I can’t give up.

  Pulling my heavy work coat around my body, I see black Nike’s appear in front of me. Looking up, I notice sleek black slacks under a gray pea coat. Further up, I see flaming reddish-orange hair braided over one shoulder and bright pink cheeks on smooth pale skin. It’s funny how I never really noticed her full appearance before this very moment, my mind solely focused on Cecelia.

  “You’re Chace, right?” an uneasy tone asks me.

  Dumbly I nod. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m Chace. You’re Melody, right?”

  She looks me over, eyes scrutinizing my appearance, and no doubt my presence here. “Why are you here?” she asks without answering my question. Or asking how I know what her name is since I can’t remember Celia mentioning it when I saw her last.

  I inhale deeply. I don’t want to piss this woman off. “I just want to talk to her. I don’t know where else to look.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you want to talk to her? Looked to me like she didn’t want to talk to you.”

  “Because I’m sure I hurt her more than anyone ever has before and I want to fix that.” My shoulders sag as I admit that out loud. Thinking it and saying it are two different things. Finally acknowledging what I’ve done verbally is another kick to the gut. “I just want the opportunity to make sure she’s really okay.”

  “What makes you think she isn’t?”

  “When was the last time you saw her smile and it wasn’t forced?” I retort back.

  The bright hair bobs with the nod I’m given. “Yes. My name is Melody.” She keeps her hands inside her coat pocket. But the glare she had been giving me softens. “Cece changed shifts with Rina. Probably figured it’d throw you off and so you would leave her alone. Clearly she was wrong.”

  Running a hand across my neck I release a heavy breath. Looking at the petite red-head in front of me, I contemplate whether or not she’d be willing to tell me which shift Celia now has. Given the type of restaurant Coco Pazzo is, it really could be any. Realizing I can’t fuck around anymore, waste any more time, I go for it. “There any chance you’d be open to divulging which shift that would be?”

  “I don’t know,” she hesitates and I feel my shoulders drop. I could stand outside this place all day everyday if necessary, only I can’t lose my job and that plan would definitely guarantee my job is gone. “Why should I help you? Really? You tell me you hurt her real bad, that doesn’t exactly strike confidence. Especially since I don’t know how you hurt her. It could be horrifying. It could be dangerous. As far as I know, you could just be out to hurt her again.”

  Two things strike me as I listen to Melody explain why she has doubts about me. All of her reasoning is sound. More than sound. Because it’s true, she doesn’t know me. And she doesn’t know what’s gone on to determine if I’m a good guy or not. And that’s what strikes me. And I feel like an idiot for not figuring it out sooner.

  First, Cecelia has kept everything that’s happened to herself. She really has ‘suffered’ in silence. No one knows about our fight. No one knows about anything that went down, how she nearly killed Hayley, how lies were exposed. Because I know if that weren’t true, Melody wouldn’t even question who I am. She would know instinctively that Celia and I have a history. A long, staggering and tragic history together.

  She would hate me. No matter what.

  Melody doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know who I am or what my business is with Cecelia. It’s interesting to realize. I’d spent so much time wondering why Celia kept her life, her time spent away from me such a secret that I never realized she’d kept everything a secret. Ricky still doesn’t know how Celia and I met. He knows we knew one another as teens because we were young when we first got to Chicago and were struggl
ing before she found his ad and I found Frankie and Brock’s. But other than that, he doesn’t know we were addicts, trying to make the best of rehab and the shitty hand we’d been dealt.

  But Melody had never even heard of me before that night a few weeks earlier.

  It breaks my heart to realize the why behind Cecelia’s behavior.

  Cecelia Santos spent her entire life closed off from everyone. Her mother’s dangerous life, using, hooking, they made Celia keep to herself, isolated from damn near everyone. There’s no way in hell she’d ever want to subject anyone to her life. And there’s also no way in hell she’d want anyone to shame her for the life she was forced to live. And the moment Sadie Jefferies died, leaving Celia to a father she didn’t know, a man who didn’t want her to begin with, well if not for the shortness of her time spent with Vinnie Santos, odds are high Celia never would have brought anyone around even then.

  So while we left behind Houston, we hadn’t really left its ghosts behind.

  I realize as I stand looking at Melody, that perhaps Celia carried her ghosts with her even more than I did. Shaking my head at how foolish I’ve been for the last nearly eight years, I feel my heart shatter. I thought it’d shattered before, that the betrayal I’d felt from before was the end of it, but I was wrong. This, realizing how completely isolated Cecelia has been from the moment she was born, even up to knowing and being with me; it’s ended me.

  “Are you okay?” I hear Melody ask and I realize I haven’t said anything for several moments, no doubt not helping my cause.

  “I’m sorry. Yes, I mean no, I’m not okay. But I really do need your help,” I hear my voice come out desperate, almost as desperate as I feel. “Though not physically, I did hurt Cecelia, but it was because of a terrible misunderstanding. Someone said something that wasn’t true and I believed them rather than ask Cecelia and I hurt her feelings as a result. I just want a chance to make it better. To fix my mistake.” I downplay the magnitude of what happened between Cecelia and myself. She hasn’t told Melody anything, and I’m not interested in divulging our sordid history to her. But I need to give her something to make her help me.