No one stole anything.
No one was hurt.
The world didn’t tilt on its axis because we didn’t believe in locked doors.
It was a little slice of peace, of magic, this loft. People came and went, they gave what they could, took what was offered and it worked.
Not something the outside world would understand because we were conditioned to think it didn’t work that way. That money and greed drove everyone. You could never get something for nothing, and people always had an ulterior motive.
Not here.
So the knocking thing was weird.
But weird was a construct. Just like normal. There was nothing constructed or constant about the lifestyle here, and that was the beauty of it. So I didn’t think much about the knock. It was outside the norm, but that was all the better.
Plus, I was focused on the pasta I was making. It wasn’t exactly working with coconut flour. Bringing white flour into this kitchen was pretty much taken as an act of war. Mainly because of the fact that modified grains were now used to produce said flour, and we did not support that.
“We could turn it into a savory cake,” Rain offered, swinging her legs from where she sat on the counter. She was sucking a lollipop, watching me and reading A Communist Manifesto at the same time.
We’d moved in within days of each other.
Became fast friends.
Even though she wasn’t exactly friendly looking on the outside with jet black hair, wore clothes to match the shade, her eyes always heavily made up with smudged eyeliner, she had piercings on her eyebrow and nose, tattoos crawling up her neck.
She exuded the mood of someone who was perpetually sad. Because people that wore black all the time and dressed like goths were all about violent music and misery, in society’s eyes at least.
But that was the opposite of the truth. She was perpetually happy. Never in a bad mood. Always smiling. Always positive. Despite the crappy hand life had dealt her.
I frowned at the mush in front of me. “Do you think it would bake without setting the oven on fire? I don’t want to do that twice in one week.”
That time I had been trying to make pizza with cauliflower. We ended up ordering in. The firefighters even stayed for a slice.
Rain shrugged. “Let’s find out. And if you do, then I’ll be able to get the phone number of that firefighter that was totally flirting with me. Plus, I’ve got a friend who works at a restaurant and can likely get us an oven real cheap, read, free.” She waggled her brows at me meaningfully. She wasn’t exactly averse to breaking the law. I knew she was some kind of hacker and I didn’t think anything she did on her computer was anywhere near legal.
I was reasonably sure she was high up in the ranks of the notorious group ‘Anonymous’ even though their ethos was built around the idea that there were no ranks, which was how they survived despite the FBI imprisoning various members.
I didn’t have strict ideas about following rules or the law and I knew Rain well enough to know that whatever she was doing was for the greater good. Or at least her version of the greater good, and it certainly wasn’t hurting anyone.
But virtually stealing something from someone with too much money and not enough morals was not the same as stealing an oven from a restaurant. Especially if I was the reason for it.
I was about to lecture her about how we couldn’t steal ovens, but Lionel’s voice floated through the loft. He’d been the one to open the door, it had taken him a couple of long moments to even get to the door, likely because of the bong on the table but also because of the fact he wasn’t used to the knocking either.
“You know, you have to tell me if you’re a cop, it’s the law,” he drawled, sounding a lot more alert than he was before. But alert in a way of a high person trying their hardest to sound sober. Which of course wasn’t alert. Like at all.
There was a pause.
“Dude! You can’t just waltz right in here! You don’t have a warrant. Anything you find is inadmissible in court. We have rights!” Lionel yelled, his voice still slow but trying to catch up with him nonetheless.
I would’ve been laughing at this had I not had my eyes on the man storming across the room. The man who only had eyes for me.
Rain popped her lollipop from her mouth. “Wow,” she breathed. “I’d steal a thousand ovens if he could arrest me. But if he’s a cop, then I’m a Real Housewife.”
I froze with Heath’s presence usually. Especially with everything that was going on. Because I hadn’t seen him in a handful of weeks. Not since our meeting in the hallway. And I hadn’t stopped thinking about him.
I had tried to convince myself in these weeks that Heath had a part of me that didn’t exist anymore, the part that was eighteen and nurtured fantasies and had the naivety of youth to rely on.
But seeing him told me I’d been lying.
Heath had everything.
And he took it strolling across the room.
I wiped my hands just in time for him to round the counter.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, my voice shaking slightly.
Not because of his mere presence, but because of something behind his eyes. Something that was more than us.
And it was bad. It had to be bad if it was more than us.
He was on me in two seconds, his hands framing either side of my face. And I knew it was bad. Because he was touching me tenderly, without the anger that had been present in our last discussion. In our last argument.
Heath wasn’t a man to forgive such things easily. To forget. So the tenderness was a cushion for something. Something bad.
“Sunshine, before I say what I’m gonna say, I need you to breathe. Need you to promise you’re gonna breathe,” he said, his voice a rasp that was cut with something.
Something that terrified me.
Pain.
I couldn’t speak so instead I responded with a strangled inhale.
He stroked my cheek with his thumb, tenderly, gently.
And then he fucking destroyed my world.
I paced.
Because I couldn’t sit still at the best of times.
This was not the best of times.
My sister, my savior, my best friend had been stabbed on the street and was now in critical condition.
“What does critical condition even mean?” I asked the room. The room being Heath. There were a lot of people waiting to hear news. Keltan included. But he wasn’t waiting.
No, he was yelling at doctors, fighting with security when they stopped him from pushing through the double doors that led to the place where people were saved, or they weren’t.
And my sister was behind those doors.
My sister who had been stabbed.
On the street.
Keltan was covered in blood.
Her blood.
That had given me pause when I’d walked in. When we’d walked in.
Heath hadn’t let go of my hand the entire time since he gave me the news. He’d held it silently on the ride, let it go only to round the truck and open the door for me and help me out, as if he knew that I couldn’t handle such basic things when my sister was in the hospital.
Stabbed.
And that’s all I knew.
That’s all Heath knew because as soon as he heard, he came looking for me.
It should’ve been sweet.
It should’ve filled me with warmth, his dedication to me when I’d done nothing but push him away when I saw him that day at the party.