Nix’s question is honest and sincere, but I never forget for a moment that he is related to Flynn and he is also protecting him. I remember all too clearly how suspicious he was of me when I first started working for him. He even admitted to me that he thought I might be scamming Flynn and that was why he was rude to me when I started.
I take a deep breath, and decide to go all in, because I’ve kept these feelings bottled up inside of me and maybe this will prevent an explosion. “Of course I feel for him. I feel for him a lot.”
“Then act on it.”
“I can’t,” I say lamely. Then I bolster my voice with confidence. “I won’t.”
Nix takes another sip of beer and looks at me with genuine curiosity. “Why not?”
“Because... I love my friendship with Flynn. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me—in my entire life. I’ve never met anyone like him, and never will again. I don’t want to lose that.”
“Why would you think you’d lose it?”
“Because,” I tell him, giving him my best, you’re-a-doofus look, “everything gets messed up when sex is involved. The friendship will die. He’ll only care about me for sex. I’ve had that... and it’s never worked out for me. The friendship is more important than getting my rocks off.”
And oh, God... how I know Flynn would get my rocks off. I’m betting he’d launch me so high, I’d orbit the moon. It’s a feeling I yearn for badly, but refuse to give in to.
“Rowan,” Nix chides me and I know he’s serious because he’s using my first name. “That’s not the way of it. Not all men are like that.”
“How would you know?” I snap, because I don’t want him to give me any more reason to hope for something I can never have.
“Because I’ve been there... done that. I was the guy that only wanted to get in the girl’s pants, and then I wanted to kick her out the door as soon as possible. I wanted that with Emily when we first hooked up.”
“Really?” I ask, suspicious he’s feeding me a line.
“Cross my heart. You can ask her. In fact, we agreed on a sex-only, no-emotional-involvement relationship. But it didn’t work out that way. Being with Emily... intimately... it opened up my heart to a whole new level of relationship. It strengthened my friendship with her. It made me want to help her, protect her, and love her even more. Sex doesn’t always kill things. It can strengthen... with the right person.”
“But how do I know Flynn is the right person? I mean, maybe he’s only destined to be a good friend to me.”
“Maybe he’s destined to be so much more,” Nix counters.
Yes... maybe.
I look Nix squarely in the eye. “But it’s not a risk I’m willing to take. Maybe isn’t good enough me.”
When I get back to the apartment, I take Capone on a long walk. Flynn had to go back into work today for another three-day shift and he left a note telling me he did all the laundry for both of us. My heart swells up in gratitude over his simple kindness. For someone that hasn’t been able to rely or count on anyone but herself for the past five years, I find a simple act such as that to be overwhelmingly endearing. I wish he were here so I could hug him, and I smile at the new Rowan.
Old Rowan was most definitely not a hugger.
I feed Capone and change into Flynn’s t-shirt. I have the apartment all to myself so I don’t bother with his gym shorts.
I’m restless, I don’t feel like watching TV, and I’m not much of a reader. So I boot up Flynn’s laptop. He told me I could use it any time, and I rarely take him up on the offer unless I’m scanning the news headlines.
Pulling up Google, I type into the search field “John Cleeden”. Too many results pop up, along with a bazillion ads for Ancestry.com. I clear the search and type in “John Cleeden Lewisville, Texas”. I’m immediately rewarded for what I was looking for.
And I settle in to torture myself.
The first article is entitled “Esteemed Judge Rules In Landmark Trade Dispute”. I don’t bother reading the details because I’ve read it before and have no desire to read it again. Trade disputes just aren’t my thing.
The next result reads “Charity Auction Yields Highest Result With Judge’s Donation”. It’s an older article but I click on the link and stare at the picture before me. It’s of a tall, distinguished man who I know to be currently seventy-one years of age. His hair is dark with silver at the temples, but that is about the only thing that belies his true age. He is fit and looks to be in excellent shape. His arm is around the waist of a petite woman, also with dark hair. I know her to be forty-five.
Hello, Mom and Dad.
The article goes on to extol the virtues of The Honorable John Cleeden, District Court Judge, and how his donation of $50,000 put the Kid Strong Foundation over their million-dollar goal for the year.
My dad is looking serious in the picture, and I believe it’s because he truly doesn’t know how to smile. My mom, however, is showing her pearly whites, eager to be in front of the camera, I’m sure.
I search their faces, trying to see if there is anything lurking there that would indicate how they feel about me. They don’t look like two people that have a missing daughter. While my dad doesn’t look overly thrilled to have his picture taken, they certainly don’t look forlorn or look to be in despair.
It’s as I thought. They don’t think of me at all, and even though I torture myself with this game every now and then, it never diminishes the hurt I feel.
Going back to the Google search field, I type in Anne Marie Cleeden. It returns 178,000,000 hits. I narrow it down... Anne Marie Cleeden, Texas. Three hundred and forty-eight results appear. I scan the first page, searching for the words I long to read.
Page after page I search but it yields me nothing. My parents aren’t looking for me. They could care less whether I’m alive or dead.
It’s what I should expect.
When I left home at the tender age of eighteen, withering under my parents’ lack of interest in me, my dad told me. He warned me well.
He said if I left, I would never be welcomed back. He said I’d be as good as dead to them, and apparently, I was.
16
“Okay... now reach in and start pulling out the guts.”
Rowan looks at me with only a small level of disgust on her face. “It smells horrible.”
“Stop being a baby and start gutting. Pretend those are Juice’s innards,” I tell her, throwing a grin over my clever idea.
She looks beautiful tonight with her hair pulled up in a ponytail and her face scrubbed of all makeup. She’s wearing an old Steely Dan t-shirt and faded jeans with holes in the knees. Casual and sexy at the same time.
Rowan grins back at me and dives in with both hands. Pulling out a huge glop of pumpkin guts, she throws it on the newspaper covering the table and says, “Take that you, bastard!”
I laugh out loud. “You tell him!”
She reaches back in and pulls out another handful. It hits the table hard and splatters on me a bit. “That’s for kidnapping me.”
Rowan pulls a third handful out. “That’s for chaining me to the bed,” she yells with a silly smile on her face.
Splat! The guts hit the table again and a few pumpkin seeds fall to the floor. Capone walks over and sniffs
