CHAPTER ONE - ISLA
“I’m so sorry, Miss, but I can’t let you check out a library book when you have a dollar twenty-three balance due on your account. The system won’t allow me to override it.”
“I… but, I somehow left my wallet at home…” I frantically murmured to the older gentleman behind the checkout counter as I sifted through my Louis Vuitton bag. A fierce heat coated my cheeks as the embarrassment set in and sweat pooled at my hairline. The eyes of several other library patrons watching—judging—my every move grew heavy on my back. I bit my tongue to keep the tears that flooded my eyes from spilling over.
If my father could see me now, he’d be staring at me with a smug grin on his face, readying himself to gloat to whoever would listen, saying I’d come crawling back to my trust fund any day now. Since the moment I had left the house with my luggage in tow and hopped into my Mercedes S Class—which, unfortunately, he had paid for—I had been the object of his ridicule.
Actually, let's back up.
Since before I was born, I had been the object of his ridicule. His lack of confidence in me was not something he was interested in hiding.
It had been a long couple of years at college, and despite being excruciatingly tired of ramen noodles made on a stove that only worked half the time, I had refused to ask for any more help than the agreed-upon amount my mother sent me monthly. We bickered for weeks about how much I should receive and, ultimately; I had won. I would receive monthly deposits to keep my modest one-bedroom apartment’s rent paid and the utilities on. My parents also covered my car insurance and cell phone bills, so my primary responsibilities were food, gas, and anything extra I wanted to buy.
Fourteen hundred dollars.
Some months I had extra to spend, and other months, such as this, my empty wallet was “accidentally” left at home in fear I would spend my last few dollars on something stupid.
Poor little broke rich girl.
God, I still sounded like a snob.
The clearing of a throat snapped me back to reality. “I understand, Miss, I do, but perhaps you can come back later when—”
“Excuse me, sir? I can cover the balance for her.” A man who looked just slightly older than me stepped forward from his place in line with a five-dollar bill in his outstretched hand.
Words escaped me as I stared at this stranger who had just become my library knight in shining armor.
Short chestnut locks fell in front of his deep brown eyes while the rest hung haphazardly, looking like it desperately needed to be brushed. His light gray t-shirt clung to the muscles that were so clearly hidden beneath, looked worn and had pinholes scattered near the collar and hemline. My eyes traveled further to take in the rest of his appearance, and it conflicted me with what to think. He didn’t look dirty, per se, but he looked unkempt. It was hard to tell if he was poor or if he just didn’t care.
And I was judging. I was judging the man who had stepped up to pay my dollar twenty-three balance so I could check out a freaking library book.
Sometimes I really hated the way my parents conditioned me to think.
My mouth hung agape when he turned around and I finally got a good look at his face, not just his profile. His eyes were so dark, they were nearing black. I bit my lip to keep from salivating over his sharp features and the sexy slight bump in his nose as if he had gotten into one too many fistfights. He was everything I dared to dream about, and everything my father would hate. The sort of bad boy slash grungy ‘I don’t give a damn’ vibe he emulated made my heart skip a beat.
Trying my best to hide my idiotic smile, I could barely register a coherent thought as he paid the balance. The beep of the machine processing my book’s check out emitted into the air. My smile faded, bursting the lust-filled bubble I was caught in, as he thrust my now checked-out book into my hands and rushed past me to dart out the door.
“I—uh,” I stuttered, my brain catching up to his hasty departure, before I flew toward the door after him. I had to at least thank him, right?
The cool, early-fall air assaulted my senses as I stepped out onto the library's stoop. My library knight had just barely made it to the street corner when I screamed out, “Wait! Stop! Please.”
To my surprise, he heard me and stopped immediately, but didn’t turn around. I moved as quickly as my Jimmy Choo’s would get me to him and nearly collided into his back, my body gaining more momentum than I had expected. With his back still to me, I could see the movement of his chest rising and falling by the way his shoulders slightly rocked, as though he was angry and trying to rein in his temper. Still, he didn’t turn around.
“I—uh,” I stuttered again, finding it hard to formulate the words. “I wanted to say thank you. For paying my balance at the library. I left my wallet at home,” I lied, but I didn’t feel the need to explain the truth. “It must have fallen out of my purse when I sat it down on my entryway table. I should have double checked when I got home earlier, but I was so excited the text had come through from the library saying the book I put on hold was ready. So I just grabbed everything and ran out the door. I didn’t realize my last book was overdue and I would have a balance on my—”
“Do you always ramble when you try to thank someone for a deed that doesn’t deserve praise?” he questioned, his voice dry and petulant. Slowly, he turned his body so he could see me, pinning me in his gaze.
I stared at him with what I could only imagine was a shocked expression. People, especially men, weren’t typically curt with me. My entire life, I’d been treated like a porcelain doll, spoken to like a child, as though I couldn’t understand. Raised in a family where children were to be ‘seen, not heard’, and unfortunately it was something I had grown accustomed to.
The candidness was refreshing.
“Excuse me?” I questioned back, wondering if I had, in fact, heard him correctly.
This time, he turned to face me completely, and I sucked in a breath, overwhelmed by his very presence. “I paid your balance. It’s not a big deal,” he told me with a hint of irritation in his voice.
The entire world faded to black around me. The only thing I could see was him, and the only sound I could hear was the pounding of my heart. “It is a big deal,” I whispered, unable to look away from him. His eyes dipped down to my lips before snapping back to mine.
I was dying to reach out and touch him—his face, his arm, whatever I could.
What was it about him that made me feel like this?
His eyebrow shot up, and he assessed me through narrowing eyes. “It’s really not. Like I said, it was a dollar.”
“Dollar twenty-three,” I corrected, as he turned away again. Without thinking, I reached out, wanting to stop him from leaving. My fingertips brushed against his, and he instantly yanked his hand back like I had electrocuted him. He took a step away from me, his brows scrunched together in a glare. It still looked like he was about to flee, and the air constricted in my lungs. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”
He grunted, not giving me any more of his time, before he turned on his heel and walked away.
“Wait!” I shouted desperately, following him. “Please, wait a second. What's your name?”
His head shook slightly, but he didn’t stop again or give me the decency to turn around as he spoke. “You’re better off not knowing, Starlight.”
Starlight? What did that mean?
“What kind of answer is that? I want to know.” My tone was demanding, prissy. It was the tone I often used when I wanted to get my way—an art I had perfected.
He ignored me and kept going.
“I’m Isla, Isla Donohue,” I called after him, but his pace didn’t waver as he kept walking down the busy sidewalk. I, however, stopped walking and watched him weave through the bodies, never once turning to look back at me. My shoulders sagged and the feeling of defeat washed over me.
I hated not knowing if I would ever see him again.
My library knight in shining armor.
CHAPTER TWO - CALEB
Two paper bags stacked full of groceries threatened to fall from my arms as I struggled to unlock the front door of the piece of shit decrepit house I shared with my equally shitty old man.
Almost twenty-two years old and I was still living with my deadbeat dad, who still hadn’t learned when to put down the bottle.
Shoving the door closed with the heel of my worn sneaker, it slammed and shook the entire frame of the small two-bedroom, one-bath roof over our head.
As usual, dad was passed out on his old as fuck, blueish-gray recliner wearing only boxers and a stained wife-beater that barely covered his giant beer belly. His mouth hung open as he snored, with a bottle of Jack about to fall out of his grasp.
“Fucking cliché,” I murmured to myself as I readjusted the grocery bags and stomped into the kitchen. Setting them down on the kitchen counter, I started pulling the contents out of the bags to put them away.
I needed to get the hell out of this house, out of Ridgewood all together. This city had nothing to offer me—it never had. Nothing more than crushed dreams and a broken family. Can you even call it a family, though, when it’s just you and your alcoholic Pops?
Back in high school, I had dreamt of going off to college, living in a dorm, and partying my way through the semesters, just like the rest of my friends. But lady luck had different plans when I received acceptance letters to every single school I applied to, just no scholarships. Guys like me couldn’t afford college, let alone an Ivy, without a scholarship.
So, unlike my friends, I stayed behind, stuck in Ridgewood pushing through community college. Eventually, I transferred to Ridgewood University to finish the last portion of my bachelor’s degree in science. I made it through the years by applying for every grant and private scholarship I could get my hands on and financing student loans for the rest. It wasn’t ideal, but I needed to take things one step at a time. Step one was getting the degree. I needed that stupid piece of paper to get a move on with my life, and I wouldn’t stop until I had it. My degree would get me one step closer to being a forensic analyst. Later I’d figure out how to pay for it.
My curiosity about science began when I was young and wanted to play mad scientist by mixing random things together. But after years of watching true crime shows after my dad had passed out, drunk off his ass, I developed a new curiosity about things like blood spatter and evidence—crime scenes in general.
After many discussions with my high school science teacher on the topics, he encouraged me to pursue a career as a forensic analyst or something similar. I had no idea what it was, but after spending some time researching, it seemed like a solid option. And working for the police department would just be icing on the cake, knowing I’d have a job that’d pay me decently and give me something I hadn’t had in years: health insurance.
Yes, I had officially hit the point in my life where I was looking forward to having health insurance. My current job at the Pack N Mail gave me some money in my pocket and kept me fed, but the owner didn’t offer health insurance for part-time employees, which I had to be, thanks to my grueling school schedule. I had been maxing out my units to try to finish sooner—shave off a semester or more—eager to find a department that’d hire me on and allow me to gain experience in the field.
The closer I got to finishing, the more I daydreamed about which police departments I would apply to. With every hopeful glance at the map, my eyes wandering over different cities and states, the pit in my stomach grew. I would never leave Ridgewood. How could I?
It was because of my dad’s addiction to alcohol that I stayed. If I left Ridgewood, my old man would drink himself to death. He already basically did, killing off a bottle almost daily. Passing out, breaking shit. He was a messy drunk, and there were times I had to clean up his vomit and piss, too.
I hated it. But what kind of son would I be if I left town knowing it would ultimately mean my father would probably die?
I resented the life I lived and frequently wondered what type of life I might have if my mother had stayed.
The preemptive guilt of abandoning my dad had me in a chokehold. I was stuck. He needed me around to babysit him. Do welfare checks and shit.
Life had me by the balls and was laughing in my face, shitting on me every chance it got. It was as though I had a neon sign on me flashing “BAD LUCK STRIKE HERE”, because it was literally one thing after another.
That’s how it’d been all week long. My car’s dash had more lights on it than a Christmas tree, and a new light indicating another problem just popped up. My boss cut my hours this week because she had incorrectly scheduled another employee and had to make up their hours. And if that wasn’t enough, I completely fucked off and forgot about a huge test I needed to study for in advanced chem and probably fucking failed it.
Just when I thought I was really down on my luck, sitting at the library working on my anatomy homework, I saw her, and I suddenly felt like the luckiest bastard alive.
Isla Donohue. Isla.
Even her name was as mystical as she was. I had never seen such a strikingly beautiful woman until I saw her in the library, gnawing on the end of her pen, deep in concentration. Her stack of textbooks told me she was in college, thank fuck, because it was practically love at first sight and if she had been underage, I would have died. From the looks of it, she was taking business classes, which baffled me since the clothing she wore screamed money. I would guess she didn’t need to work a day in her life, but despite the shiny exterior, something told me she was more than what meets the eye.
For nearly two weeks, I felt like a stalker as I sat at a table directly on the other side of the shelves from where she sat, my position giving me the perfect vantage point to peer at her through the books.
Like. A. Fucking. Creeper.
Yet I couldn’t stop myself from taking the same table every single day hoping when she came in, she’d find her table, too.
And she always did, like the good girl she was.
My intention was always to watch from afar and silently worship the ground she walked on, but when she forgot her wallet and couldn’t check out her book, I could hear the wobble in her voice—practically see the quiver of her lip. She was embarrassed, and I wanted nothing more than to shield her from the embarrassment. Reflex kicked in and before I could stop myself, I had already made myself known.
The moment I opened my mouth was the moment I knew I had sucked myself into her orbit. Stepping out from a few people behind her in line, I offered to pay her balance, and I handed the guy a five. Once I could see the transaction was finished, I practically threw her book at her and bolted out the door as quickly as I could. The book I had wanted to check out was left abandoned on a shelf by the exit.
Maybe it’d be there waiting next time. Or maybe I’d forget the title and it wouldn’t even matter anymore.
I had to run. She was too pretty, too perfect. Too out of my league.
The world crashed down around me when she caught up with me, calling out for me to stop. To talk to her.
And then she touched me… I almost fucking lost it right then and there. The raw fucking need I felt to pull her body flush with mine and kiss the shit out of her—like I said, I nearly lost it.
Even her name was beautiful—one that’d haunt me in my dreams.
Isla Donohue.
* * *
The unmistakable sound of glass shattering pulled me from my dream and I groaned, rubbing my fists into my eyes to wake up. The red glare from the alarm clock on my bedside table read it was nearing three in the morning, and I cursed my father for whatever drunken stupor he had found himself in this time.
Tossing the comforter off my naked body, I stepped onto the cool tile and made my way to my dresser to grab a pair of sweatpants. My cock was half-mast from a hot dream when I woke, but now hung completely flaccid as I raked a hand down my face and made my way into the pitch-black hallway.
As I entered the living room, I could see my father’s legs perched on the couch while his upper body laid on the end table, illuminated by the moonlight coming through the broken curtains. A smashed bottle of vodka was on the floor below him, while a broken lamp hung between his grasp, dangling less than an inch from the shards of glass below it.
“The fuck, old man?” I growled into the room, knowing my words were to no one—he was out cold.
Taking my time, I walked into the kitchen and grabbed the broom and dustpan, carrying it back with me to my bedroom so I could slip on a pair of flip-flops I owned for situations like these.
Once back to where my father laid snoring, I removed the broken lamp from his hold and unplugged it, setting it down on the floor behind me before I cleaned up the glass. I didn’t bother trying to wake him up or move him, but I would clean up the glass fragments so he wouldn’t get hurt when he inevitably fell off the table and couch.
He needed help. Over the years, I had tried everything, but we couldn’t afford rehab centers, and the resources the city offered were worthless. He tried and failed more times than I could count. His sponsor quit on him, my mother left him, and I... Well, I’m still here, but evidently am not enough of a reason for him to get sober.
