Damaged Goods_Ravenswood Read online

  See, Samir may be the owner, but lanky, bald-headed Max seemed to be the one all the staff deferred to. Go figure.

  Daisy gave him a kohl-lined glare, but there was little venom to it. His teenage glares could’ve stopped hearts. Or so he liked to think.

  “Be cool, Uncle Samir,” she mumbled.

  “Too old to be cool. Instead of wasting my fancy coffee beans, you can bring two glasses of water and some orange juice to table nineteen.” He enjoyed her look of outrage as he plucked the unfinished cappuccino from her hands. It looked halfway decent. He gave it an experimental sniff as he walked away, ignoring Daisy’s resentful mutterings. Fuck it. Coffee was coffee. He took a sip.

  When he returned to their table, Laura was pouring over the menu like it was Lord of the Rings.

  He slid into place opposite her and said, “What do you think?”

  She looked up, and the smile on her face was like an arrow to the chest. Not his heart, exactly. Just, you know… it kind of winded him, how brilliant she was. How her cheeks were still all sweet and round, and her hair was still long and straight as ribbon, and she still had all those freckles on her arms but not on her face.

  He hadn’t looked anywhere else but her arms and her face, obviously. Those were the safe zones. The rest of her, as he’d realised with his very first glance, was decidedly… unsafe to look at.

  But he wasn’t going to think about that. She was pregnant, and pregnant people were like the Pope, right? You had to treat them with total respect, even in your own head, just in case God was watching.

  “I have one complaint,” she said playfully, tapping the laminated plastic in her hand. “There’s an Italian flag on this menu, Bianchi, but I’m not seeing any Italian food.”

  “Ah, come on!” He grinned. “It’s a seaside cafe. You want me to put bruschetta on the menu, or what?”

  “I’m just saying. Seems like false advertising…”

  “There’s nothing Moroccan on the menu, either.”

  “But you didn’t put a Moroccan flag on the menu,” she shot back. “If you did, I’d be demanding Moroccan food, too.”

  “What if there weren’t any flags on the menu at all? Could I only serve recipes devised in international waters? Because I think I’m up to that challenge.”

  When she laughed, something inside him slotted into place. As if making her laugh was part of his life’s work, somehow. As if this was what he should’ve been doing all along.

  Maybe it was.

  Chapter Four

  “Guess who’s in town?”

  “Do I give a shit?” Hassan sounded irritated, but that didn’t phase Samir. Hassan always sounded irritated.

  “Sure you do. It’s Laura Albright.”

  The pause on the other end of the line was quite satisfying. Samir grinned, settling into the worn, leather chair behind the desk that dominated his office. A folder of invoices sat by his computer, waiting to be filed, but talking to his brother was far more important than keeping the accountant’s bill down.

  “Well, fuck,” Hassan said finally. “You’re joking.”

  “Would I lie?”

  “Lie? Never. Take the absolute piss? Yes.”

  Samir rolled his eyes. “Do you think I’m joking, then? Tell me. Really.” Because one person Samir could never fool was his twin.

  Another pause. And then Hassan said slowly, “I think you’re dead serious. You talked to her?”

  “Of course!” Samir’s smile felt too wide for his face. “We met at the beach last night—by accident, but what are the chances? She’s so different, now. But the same. Does that make sense? She asked about you.”

  Hassan laughed, which was rare enough to command instant attention. Then he said, “I should’ve known this would happen eventually. Fate wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  The words were confusing in themselves, but something about the tone of his brother’s voice set off an alarm inside Samir’s head. Not the danger siren; more the steady, uneasy whine that meant, tread carefully. Frowning, he asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Hassan, as always, didn’t hold back. “We are talking about Laura Albright, the love of your life, right?”

  Samir’s brows shot up. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “What’s in the water over there?” He chuckled. “Tell me, really; have you signed up for any military experiments, recently? Anything that might scramble your brain, I mean?”

  Hassan’s reply was typically unamused. “Shut up. You’re calling me because the object of your affections has returned, and you don’t know how to deal with your reawakened love. Do you want my advice, or not?”

  “I—Hassan, I haven’t seen her in years. What are you talking about?” Incredulous laughter lurked beneath his words, but the smile on his face felt forced. Plastic.

  “It’s rather simple,” Hassan said, sounding bored. “You met her. You fell in love with her. You never saw her again. You never fell out of love.”

  “I was fifteen.” Samir meant to sound playful, but the words were unusually serious. He picked up a stray pen and spun it irritably between his fingers. “Children don’t fall in love, Hassan. I liked her. I like her now. But you’re being ridiculous.”

  “That’s the silliest thing you’ve ever said. Of course children fall in love.”

  “Whatever,” Samir snapped. “The point is irrelevant.” Then the sound of his own impatient words hit him, and he dropped the pen. Fuck. He didn’t talk to people like that. He didn’t dismiss people, and he didn’t lose his temper.

  Especially not with his brother.

  Clearing his throat, he said, “Sorry. I’m sorry. God, you’re winding me up, aren’t you?”

  “No,” Hassan said. “I’m very serious.”

  Samir wondered absently how much it might cost to book a flight to the Falklands and throttle his own twin.

  Then his brother continued. “You knew her for six weeks, and in that time you grew almost as close to her as you were to me.”

  “That’s not tr—”

  “She was your first girlfriend and your first love.”

  “She wasn’t my girl—”

  “When she left, you started acting more like me than like yourself, and when you realised you’d probably never see her again you didn’t speak for weeks.”

  “I didn’t speak because our parents sent me off to a fucking academic prison, and because you weren’t there! It had nothing to do with her!”

  “Nothing?” Hassan asked softly. “Do you really believe that?”

  Samir’s tongue felt less like a muscle and more like a wedge of sawdust filling up his throat. He tried to remember how he’d felt, in those impossible weeks after Laura left, when his life had been turned upside down. Tried, and failed. All his mind spat out was a pile of generic teenage angst with a healthy dose of fear, separation anxiety, and, of course, pure rage. Rage bright enough to burn his parents alive.

  Which was normal, of course. Nothing to see here.

  Sighing, he ran a tired hand over his face. It did little to shove those remembered, exhausting emotions back into their box. “I get what you’re saying, Hassan, and maybe you’re right. I mean, I know… I know that Laura and I were very close.” I know I thought I loved her and I know she was my first and I know, I know, I know… “But things have changed now. Honestly, how did we even get onto this topic? All I said was that she’s in town!” He forced out a cracked, creaking laugh. “No-one would ever believe how dramatic you are.”

  “I’m not dramatic,” Hassan said flatly. “I’m a romantic.”

  Samir blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “That’s what Joey says.”

  A genuine smile tugged Samir’s lips at the thought of his brother’s husband. He could almost imagine the words coming out of Joey’s smart mouth. “I bet. Well, Mr. Romantic, you’re mistaken here. There is no romance on my horizon. For one thing, Laura’s pregnant.”

  “Inte
resting,” Hassan said.

  Samir arched a brow. “Is it? I believe it’s quite a common condition.”

  “Oh, yes. But I suggest that you’re in love with her, and your strongest evidence to the contrary is the fact that she’s pregnant. Which has nothing to do with you, or with your feelings. That’s what’s interesting, Samir.”

  “Hassan. You are making me tired. You are giving me a headache.”

  His brother’s voice was painfully smug. “For once, I get to irritate you? Excellent. How long is Laura staying?”

  She wasn’t stalking Samir, or anything. At least, that’s what Laura told herself, firmly and repeatedly, over the next few days. It was the omelettes, that was all. They were luring her in. The first one had been so good, and he’d refused to let her pay… Wasn’t that how drug dealing worked?

  It wasn’t her fault that he’d gotten her addicted to omelettes.

  It also wasn’t her fault when she kind of, sort of, accidentally wound up at Bianchi’s every day that week.

  The upside of spending so much time there, aside from the omelettes, was that Samir started sitting with her on his breaks. So they got to talk about things like what her sister Hayley was up to—not much, to Laura’s ever-lasting concern—and the recipes he was considering introducing to the menu.

  “Even though I think you’re wrong,” he’d added. “No-one around here really wants Italian food.”

  “They would if Max made it,” she sighed wistfully.

  “Oh, so you think he’s a better cook than I am?”

  “No comment.”

  Sometime during the week, the locals decided it was safe to start chatting with her. Maybe because she obviously knew Samir; maybe because Kelly and Daisy started talking to her too, asking questions about the baby and sharing pictures of Kelly and Max’s younger kids. Or maybe because Max himself actually ventured out of the kitchen one day to see her, which was apparently an unheard-of occurrence.

  “Just wanted to meet Samir’s mysterious visitor,” he’d said, smiling down from a truly unbelievable height. He was thin as a whippet, with warm brown skin and a manner so self-assured, it was almost... soothing?

  She could see why he and Samir were so close. She could also see why Max thought she was Samir’s ‘visitor’; she seemed to spend all her time at Bianchi’s.

  It wasn’t that she’d come here looking for him—she really hadn’t. She’d never thought she’d see him again. But that was a whole different story.

  She’d come here looking for peace. Happiness. The sense of belonging and tranquility that she’d only ever felt once before, for six precious weeks, in this little seaside town. And if she felt that most strongly when she happened to be at Bianchi’s—if she seemed like a calmer, purer, better version of herself when she was trading laughing barbs with Samir—well, that couldn’t be helped, now could it?

  When Max put vinegar all over her omelette because Samir told him that’s how she liked it, or when Daisy made her a perfect decaf cappuccino without asking, or when Kelly spent her breaks telling Laura about breathing techniques and cocoa butter… Laura felt like she might actually be able to do this, no matter what her sister said, what her mother said, what Daniel said. And that was a gift.

  But honestly? The best part of her day happened when night fell and the moon rose, and she met Samir on the beach.

  Chapter Five

  A week after Laura had arrived in Beesley, the moon wasn’t full anymore.

  But it still shone bright, and the night was clear enough that when she approached, Samir saw her coming. He watched her coming, in fact, and tried not to enjoy it too much.

  Unfortunately, he failed.

  The wind whipped her hair in wild swirls until she looked like some kind of goddess. Like a siren. He remembered the way she used to be when she hit the water, the way she’d transform in the ocean, and wondered if she still swam.

  She must. Everyone had a passion they couldn’t choose to leave behind, and swimming was hers.

  She sat beside him awkwardly, holding her little belly as she sank onto the sand. He resisted the urge to help her because she got all huffy whenever he tried. Honestly, it was a miracle she let him do anything for her at all. He had a strong suspicion that she only came into the cafe for regular omelettes. He was starting to wish that she’d come in just to see him.

  But the omelette thing was good too. After all, he hadn’t been joking about looking after her. His ridiculous brother was right about one thing: this woman had once been a girl who’d lit up his universe.

  The least he could do was pick up the slack left by every shitty human being who’d let her come out here to do this all alone.

  “Every time we meet on the beach,” he admitted, “I have this urge to say something dramatic.”

  She smiled, moonlight glancing off her plumped-up cheeks. “Such as?”

  “You know. We meet again. Something like that.”

  “Ah, Bianchi,” she murmured gravely. “I should’ve known I’d find you here.”

  He couldn’t help his laughter. “Yes! Like that. Exactly like that.”

  She gave a little bow, hair spilling over her shoulders. “Please, hold the applause.”

  Something about the familiarity of the moment—the easy belonging, the casual happiness—sank into his bones. It settled there, making him feel whole and anchored in a way he hadn’t for years. Here it was again, that thunderclap feeling of You’re for me, aren’t you? no less intense in adulthood than it had been during his teenage years… and beneath it lay a tingling undercurrent of something that felt powerful as a riptide, and just as dangerous.

  Just as exhilarating, too.

  But he wouldn’t let himself be dragged under. He couldn’t look after Laura while he was lusting after her, so he simply wouldn’t lust.

  Easy.

  She stretched out beside him on the sand, leaning back on her elbows, staring up at the starry sky. And then, after a moment, she said it. “What happened?”

  He’d kind of been waiting for this, and kind of dreading it, too. “When I stopped calling, you mean?”

  “Yeah.” There was no judgement in her voice, no accusation or even disappointment—but why would there be? They were adults now. The stormy emotions of back then were so far removed from who they were today.

  Even if, at that moment, Samir didn’t feel removed at all.

  He’d spent so long wondering if she’d hate him, or if she’d understand. If she’d believe whatever his parents fed her, or if she’d realise that their poison tongues were incapable of truth.

  Sometimes he’d wondered if she’d even care. If she’d notice when he disappeared.

  Apparently, she’d noticed. That thought shouldn’t cradle his heart so gently, should it?

  “It was silly,” he said, his voice heavy. He was already tired, and he hadn’t even told her the story. “I fucked up, and it was so ridiculous. The pettiest bullshit ever.”

  She waited patiently while he collected his thoughts, reining in the echoes of that long-ago anger and frustration. When he spoke again, he was secure in the knowledge that Laura would most definitely listen. She’d listen like no-one else could.

  Maybe that was why he’d never really told anyone else. Maybe he’d been waiting to tell her.

  “So I wanted some cereal,” he began, and then he had to pause, just to laugh. How could a story like this start with such an innocuous phrase? I wanted some cereal. I wanted some cereal, and then my life fell apart. “I went to the kitchen, made the cereal, ate it by the sink. Washed up, put everything away. You know how they were.”

  He saw her nodding in the low light. Then she made a soft, encouraging sort of noise—the kind that said she was right there with him, but she didn’t want to interrupt. See, she always knew exactly what to do. She always got things just right, at least as far as he was concerned. He used to get things just right with her, too, but now… sometimes she seemed so different, he wondered if he’d eve
r learn her again.

  Well, he probably wouldn’t have time to. She was here to have a baby. So she’d have it.

  And then she’d leave.

  “About an hour later,” he went on, “there was this racket from the kitchen—shouting, plates smashing, all that shit. So I ran in because I thought maybe Hassan… I don’t know. I thought he was in trouble, and I wanted to help. But he wasn’t there. It was Dad throwing the plates, and Ma was standing there watching him with that look she used to have…” He narrowed his eyes, because he couldn’t describe it so much as he could reflect it. He’d grown up with that look. The look that meant she was about to slice him open on that tongue of hers, just to watch him bleed. And then throw him to his father’s big bad wolf.

  “Dad was flipping out because I didn’t clean up after myself. I left the milk out, the cereal out, mess all over the counter, dirty bowl by the sink. But I didn’t. Obviously I didn’t, because Jesus, I’d never be so fucking stupid. I swore it wasn’t me, so he called Hassan in. And Hassan, of course, swore it wasn’t him.

  “But it was. I knew it was. It had to be, because it wasn’t me. And that meant he’d not only done something that would drop us both in the shit, he was trying to pin it on me. I couldn’t believe it. And they believed him, they took his side, and I was so fucking furious, and he was acting furious too, like I’d really done something, and I couldn’t believe his fucking nerve so I—I hit him. I hit my brother.” He ran a hand over his face as he breathed through the memory. That was the part he still couldn’t get over, the part that brought bile to his throat no matter how many years passed—the feel of his brother’s nose breaking beneath his fist, bone and cartilage crunching, blood spilling out.

  He’d thrown up right after. And when it was all over, his dad had made him clean up the vomit.

  Samir cleared his throat, pushing past the regret that clogged it. “Well, the second I did it, it was like a spell broke or something. I realised straight away—of course it wasn’t Hassan. Of course he wouldn’t lie. He wouldn’t fuck me over just to protect himself. It couldn’t be him. That’s when I realised it was my mother.” He laughed, but the sound was forced. “You know how she was. My parents liked to fuck with each other’s heads. Ma liked to fuck with ours. To try and turn us against each other. One minute you’re looking for someone’s lost keys, the next she’s convinced you that you ate the fucking keys and now you’re losing your mind. I don’t know why I fell for it, even for a second. Usually when she pulled stuff like that I just kept my mouth shut and took the punishment but…”