Page 4 of Salvaged Heart

4

BECKHAM

N ot long after Laurel and Margery returned, the familiar sound of a motorcycle’s engine revving, followed by gravel crunching, indicated Anders’ departure from Arbor Ct. It wasn’t the first time he had left since we’d all arrived. He had every night around the same time, heading who knew where and not coming home until long after the rest of us were tucked into bed.

“Does Anders have friends in the area?” I asked Laurel.

She scoffed and said, “I doubt it. Anders doesn’t do friends.” Then added, “Why do you care?”

I didn’t, but I wanted to get to know the guy for some strange reason. If we would be spending all summer together, it would be nice not to do it in awkward, strained silence. But I knew that hope was best not shared with her, and the conversation moved instead to floor stains, wallpaper, and whether or not I liked the idea of black trim. I nodded and hummed along with Laurel and Margery’s conversation as if I had an opinion. In reality, all I needed to know was what color to paint where and which tile was for which bathroom.

We ate a pathetic spread of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner. When the plan was made to tear the kitchen out today, little thought was given to how we would feed ourselves until the new kitchen was fitted, which could take weeks. Tomorrow, after Margery left for the airport, we’d have to venture into town and get a hot plate so we could at least manage the basics.

The girls were impressed with the progress Anders and I had made in the kitchen. It would only take another half day to gut what remained and the rest of the day to get it scrubbed top to bottom, ready for a fresh coat of paint and a brand-new floor. Laurel had selected a rustic pine plank, leaning heavily into the southern farmhouse vibe of the home’s exterior. The cabinets would be a soft blue, with marble countertops, stainless steel hardware, and appliances, topped off with a geometric backsplash and shiplap accenting the large window that overlooked the front lawn. There was a passionate debate ongoing regarding the merit of floating shelves. One I was clearly expected to cast the deciding vote in but had avoided by declaring I would sleep on it, a.k.a ask Anders his opinion in the morning, before getting back to them.

By the time we stumbled into bed shortly after midnight, my brain was a jumbled mess. My muscles were exhausted from a long day of hard labor, and my shoulder ached fiercely. Since my injury, I’d done my best to follow the recovery plan the doctors had laid out for me, and for the most part, it had been getting better. However, lugging heavy wood around and the constant vibrating of the electric drill all day had probably pushed it a little too far. I needed to ice it, but to my disappointment earlier, I’d found the ice maker in the freezer broken. The best I could do for it now was rest.

“Oh, I almost forgot.”

I pulled Anders’ rendering out of the pocket of my jeans and passed it over to Laurel, who stood brushing her long hair in the bathroom doorway. It had taken some persuading him to part with it, especially after I had mentioned showing it to his sister. In the end, he conceded with a huff. “I doubt she will be as interested as you are,” he grumbled, tearing the page out and thrusting it in my direction before vanishing upstairs.

“Look at this, Anders drew it.”

She gazed down at the image with the same level of wonder I had the first time I had seen it. “You can’t be serious? He drew this?” She turned the image over in her hand as if looking for the signature of the true artist.

“Who would have known he had an eye for these things? He told me he used to draw as a child but only recently picked it back up.”

“Not me, that’s for certain.” Her eyes raked over every inch of the drawing, the corners of her lips turning down in a slight frown. “I don’t have a single memory of seeing him draw.”

She wouldn’t have. Anders said he had given it up long before they became members of each other’s families.

“I thought he could do more. We could frame them somewhere in the house.”

“I wouldn’t hold your breath, Beck.” She handed it back to me and turned off the light.

A few moments later, the air mattress dipped as she joined me in bed, curling into the space against my side where she slept every night. Her cold toes rubbed against my warm calves, and her lips skated over the pulse point in my neck. “Anything else to report from today?”

I rolled over to face her, running my fingers through the smooth waves of her hair, combing out the ends. “Not really. Today went surprisingly smooth. As expected, Anders jumped at the opportunity to smash up the kitchen. Honestly, he’s the only reason we got it taken down so fast. I think he found it therapeutic.”

She hummed dismissively. “I am sure he had a lot to say about me.”

I shook my head despite it being too dark in the room for her to see. “I get the feeling Anders wants nothing more than to repair you guys’ relationship.”

“I’m sure he said as much.” She scoffed.

“He didn’t say much at all. I think he is going through something he doesn’t want any of us to know about.”

“It’s an act.” She snapped.

I was so taken aback by her sudden sharp tone, so out of character I barely recognized her voice, that I found myself pulling away from her touch. “I don’t think that’s true.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” A long sigh left her lips, the sound of it almost mocking. “I swear, Beck, you can be so naive sometimes. One afternoon with the guy, and now you’re what? Best friends?”

I bristled. “That’s unfair.”

Back in Tennessee, Laurel was one of the sweetest people I knew. She had never met a stranger she didn’t instantly like and rarely had a bad word to say about anyone. Yet, when it came to Anders, it was like she morphed into a completely different person. An awkward silence spread between us. Was this what the entire summer would be like? Laurel, stewing over some mysterious incident that happened years ago, Anders, remaining surly and aloof while I got caught in the middle, walking a tightrope between them.

“I’m sorry, I’m just tired. I don’t know why I reacted so harshly.” She finally whispered. “Can we stop talking about this and get some sleep?” She reeled me back in, pressing a soft kiss to my lips.

I didn’t have it in me to lie to her and pretend her behavior was okay, so I settled for, “It’s been a long day,” and flipped onto my back again to look up at a ceiling I couldn’t see.

It didn’t take long for Laurel’s breathing to become slow and even. Meanwhile, I continued to stare blankly into the darkness for hours, picturing the way Anders’ face had looked when he told me all the vile things his sister said about him were true. I didn’t understand where this desperate need to know Anders had come from, but it made me antsy for the next time we would be alone.

Sleep was finally starting to pull me under when the noise of Anders’ bike pulling up outside the house startled me awake. There was a sound eerily like the motorcycle falling over before the front door opened, and heavy, uneven footsteps began to make their way up the stairs. Feeling the overwhelming sense that something was wrong, I rolled slowly off the air mattress we had been sleeping on and crept to the bedroom door as quietly as possible to avoid waking Laurel. The hinges creaked as they swung open, and my eyes squinted down the stairs into the dark hallway below, catching on the shadow of a person slumped over at the bottom.

“Anders?”

He groaned, “I’m fine,” which sounded anything but.

I made my way toward him slowly, the waft of alcohol hitting me as soon as I was within a few feet of him. “Are you drunk?”

“Tipsy at best.” He shooed me away, pulling himself back up to his feet, where he wobbled slightly before finding his footing.

I grabbed his arm to help steady him. He was one misstep from tumbling down the stairs he had just come up. “I’d say you’re a little more than tipsy.” Fuck, had he driven home like this? It was a miracle he wasn’t splattered on the pavement. “Let me help you to bed.”

“Don’t need your help.” He spat, but there was no venom in it.

“Well, you’re getting it anyway.”

I managed to wrestle him into his room. Anders fought me with every step until he flopped down on his bed, fully clothed in his leather jacket and boots, his backpack still hanging from both shoulders. Something in it clinked as his weight landed on it. I went to tug one of his boots off, but he kicked me away, leaning down to undo the laces himself, so I moved instead to pull the bag from his back.

“Don’t touch that.” He hissed. “I told you, I’m fine. You can crawl back to Laurel and rat on me now.”

This guy was beginning to piss me off.

“I thought I made it clear earlier that I have no intention of spying on you for her.”

“You say that now.” The words were so slurred they were hardly recognizable, but at least he had managed to work out of his boots and jacket, both of which had been discarded in a heap on the floor.

Picking them up, I set the boots by the door and folded the jacket neatly on the bench seat in front of the bay window. By the time I turned back around, Anders was stripping, so I took that as my cue to leave. I headed back out into the hallway, trying my hardest to keep my eyes averted from the body that was slowly being revealed layer by layer.

I paused at the threshold, glancing back at him one last time. “Is there anything I can get you?”

He rolled over so his back was facing me. “Just fuck off.”

The sun rose in what felt like mere minutes after I finally drifted off to sleep, light pouring in through the window, casting a warm glow over the entire space. We were bunked up in one of the bedrooms in better condition on the third floor. The room was furnished with little more than an air mattress and an upside-down milk crate I had found in the small shed next to the boat dock the day we arrived. While the smaller bedrooms like this one were not our goal to restore, Laurel and I had given it a thorough scrub down the following morning while waiting on Margery’s flight to arrive from Denver. Now it was free of dust and cobwebs, there wasn’t much wrong with the room other than the decade’s out-of-date wallpaper and a semi-questionable stain on the hardwood.

Laurel, who had rolled away from me in the night, was snoring softly, overhanging the edge of the air mattress. Unlike me, she could sleep in most conditions. I usually tossed and turned all night, awoken by the smallest noise and the slightest bit of light creeping through the curtains. I made a mental note to prioritize installing blinds and hanging blackout shades. The sun rose so early over the summer, and I did not want to spend my first weeks off from school and a strict baseball schedule waking up at the crack of dawn.

Moving as quietly as a six-foot-three, two-hundred-and-ten-pound athlete could, I stood from the mattress low on the floor and moved to the window. The room must be almost directly above the one Anders was occupying, as the view over the lake was virtually identical. The lawn spread from the back porch in a gentle decline to the boat dock below, scattered with haphazard stepping stones so unevenly placed that someone with normal-length legs would need to jump from one to another to stick to the path. The water glistened invitingly, but I knew better than to swim in the polluted lake.

Completed in 1963, Lake Norman was a man-made lake primarily used to power the Cowens Ford Dam hydroelectric station and cool the nuclear reactors at McGuire powerplant. While the authorities and travel blogs insisted the water in Lake Norman was well filtered and perfectly safe, the many signs scattered around it stating not to drink the water or eat fish pulled from the lake begged to differ. In my opinion, no relaxing morning swim was worth risking cancer or turning a radioactive shade of green.

The sound of the back door opening and closing, followed by movement below, snagged my attention. A figure, a moment later confirmed as Anders, skipped down the porch steps with more energy and grace than should have been possible, considering the inebriated mess he had been only a few hours before. He strolled out onto the damp lawn below, something rolled up beneath his right arm. I watched him curiously make his way across the stones, his long legs able to bridge the gap between each one, before he made it to the boat dock and unrolled the item he’d been holding under his arm across the uneven boards.

Was that a yoga mat?

Stripping his shirt off, he dropped it to the side of the mat, stretching his entire body in a point towards the sky. He was too far away to see his muscles rippling and flexing with each new pose, but I found myself mesmerized by his movements and the way the sun reflected off his honey-brown skin. With each bend down, his ringlets flopped over his eyes, and he pointed his toes toward the sky with surprising nimbleness.

“What’s caught your attention?” Laurel’s voice broke me from my trance with the startled jump of a kid being caught with their hand in a cookie jar. It was admittedly a strange way to react, considering Anders had wandered into my line of sight in a public space and was simply working out. But there was a weird sense of intimacy about me watching what he was doing.

“Just mentally preparing myself for the day ahead.” I turned to her and gave a wary smile. “How’d you sleep?”

“Good.” She reached for her phone, noting the time. “Jesus, Beck, it’s only seven am. Come back to bed.” She gave me eyes that suggested she had no intention of us falling back asleep. The sort of sultry bedroom look that would have most men sprinting across the room to dive between those gorgeous thighs. But my cock was notably uninterested.

I assured myself I was just tired and physically exhausted, but the truth was, our sex life had cobwebs that rivaled those in this house these days. All normal for being six years into a relationship, I presumed. Add in the stress from the last few months wrapping up the semester, dealing with the crushing blow of my shoulder injury and the resulting end of the only dream I’d ever had, it was natural I’d lost some of that fire. But we would find our way back to it this summer.

Ignoring her wandering gaze, I rolled my shoulder in emphasis and pulled a shirt over my head. “I couldn’t sleep. I’m not exactly built for the air mattress life.” She nodded in understanding and turned back onto her side, away from the light. I glanced back out the window, noting Anders’ presence now missing from the end of the dock, and headed downstairs, hoping to bump into him before he disappeared back into his room.