This One Moment (6 page)

For a moment Nolan looked dazed. Before I could ask him if he was okay, he shook his head, as if trying to clear his thoughts, and stared at my best friend. It was clear that she looked familiar to him but he just couldn't figure out why.

Nothing about this should have made me feel jealous, but I would be lying if I said it didn't affect me. Sure, Kayla was the kind of girl guys normally drooled over. And, sure, her curvy body and long blond hair were guy magnets. But she had a boyfriend whom she loved. And even if she was interested in Nolan, he wasn't mine, and never had been. He was free to stare at any girl he wanted to.

“Well, this explains the excitement at the nurses' station,” Kayla said. “The prodigal rock star has returned.” She hugged me hard, squeezing the air from my lungs. And I silently thanked the pain-med gods for my happy state of oblivion when it came to the pain I'd otherwise be feeling.

Kayla pulled away and whacked my arm. “Don't ever do that again. Promise me.”

“Er, what exactly am I promising you?” For all I knew, she was referring to something that had happened during those five days missing from my memory.

She gestured at the hospital bed. “This. You being attacked. Getting yourself almost killed. It's the unspoken deal we made when we agreed to be best friends. Remember?”

I chuckled. “I do vaguely remember something about that.” I looked at my other best friend, who was still watching Kayla, frowning. “Nolan, you remember Kayla, right?”

Kayla gasped in her fake melodramatic way, hand on her chest. “How could he not remember me? He and I were almost inseparable.” She winked at him.

Inseparable
was the last word I would've used to describe them.

Nolan's puzzled expression transformed into one of surprise, his eyebrows raised. “You look…different.”

“You mean I don't look fat anymore.”

Nolan glanced at me for confirmation that he was standing in front of a live grenade. “Didn't say that.”

“You're saying I still look fat?”

Some things never changed. Like when Nolan had put worms in Kayla's lunch in elementary school after she poured glue on his artwork project. She claimed she'd been helping him get an A. He thought different.

“No, you look great. You always did. What happened? You took Hailey up on her offer to run with you?”

Kayla ran her finger along the IV machine. “No, my mother died of a heart attack. I didn't want that to be me.”

Silence weighed down the room at how much in common they shared.

“Sorry about your mom,” Nolan said, voice strained. I longed to hug him and give him some sort of comfort. It couldn't have been easy for him to return to Northbridge with all the memories waiting to drown him.

“I know,” she said. “And I'm sorry about what happened to your mom and sister. You left before I could tell you.”

Nolan didn't respond. He walked stiffly to the windowsill, picked up the bouquet of pink roses, and read the card.

Kayla's expression was a mix of regret and sadness. Not because she was still thinking about her mom. She had long since moved past it, except for at certain times of the year. She realized, like I did, that Nolan hadn't pushed past his sister's and mother's deaths. He still hurt and would probably continue to feel that way for a long time. Murder wasn't something you could easily walk away from, especially given that he was there the night it happened. He might've even witnessed it. The last I'd heard from Brandon, Nolan had blocked out the memories of that night. He simply could not remember at all what had happened. Was that still the case?

Kayla's face brightened. That combined with the impish grin was the only warning I got before she blurted out, “So how long are you staying in town?”

“I'm not sure yet,” he said. “I'm worried about what happened to Hailey. I want to make sure no one tries to hurt her again.”

If I thought Kayla's face was bright before, that was nothing compared to now. Even the sun couldn't compare with it.

Which made me all the more nervous.

“If you're worried about her,” she continued, avoiding eye contact with me, “you should stay at her place. I happen to know that her roommate is moving out, and Hailey hasn't replaced me yet.”

While Nolan looked like he could kiss her, I was ready to hit her with a…with my pillow. That would be justified assault, right?

The stupid sexy smile that always did me in returned to Nolan's face. The equally stupid heart rate monitor failed to keep the always-did-me-in part a secret. I wasn't a hundred percent sure, though, if the rapid beeping was because of his smile or because, unless I talked him out of it, Nolan might be sleeping with me. Correction—he'd be sleeping under the same roof as me. But try telling that to my body and heart when they didn't give a damn about semantics.

“You think her boyfriend will be okay with me staying with her?” he asked, the smirk in his voice directed at me.

I attempted to send Kayla a silent message to go along with my original lie. But since she hadn't been around for it, that was hopeless.

“You don't have to worry about that,” she said. “Hailey is as single as you can get.”

Thanks, traitor.

I glared at her, but that was as useful as my mental message. “I don't need a babysitter,” I grumbled. “And maybe I don't want a roommate. Maybe I'm happy to live on my own.”

“Well,
I'd
feel happier if you didn't live on your own,” Kayla said. “At least for now.”

Nolan crossed his arms and waited for my next volley.

I bit back the urge to tell him that if he was so desperate to stay in Northbridge, he could stay at his parents' place. I might not be happy with the direction of the conversation, but I would never say anything so callous to Nolan. “He can stay with Brandon.”

Nolan shifted, and the sexy smirk was back. “Can't do that.”

“Why not?”

“His roommate won't allow it. Has something against rock stars.”

I snorted. Nolan was never the type of person to refer to himself as a rock star, no matter how famous he became. A musician, yes. A singer, yes. A songwriter, absolutely. But never anything as ostentatious as a rock star. His down-to-earth attitude was another reason I loved him. That had never changed, even while he pretended to be someone he wasn't.

“Then it's settled,” Kayla said, making herself at home on the only seat in the room. “You can crash in my old room while you're in town.”

Northbridge had been my home from the day I was born until the day I turned my back on it. Over the years, I'd let my memories of the college town, with its beaches, the lake, and the surrounding deciduous forest, fade away.

The only memories that hadn't faded with time were of Hailey. And yes, she was just as beautiful and just as goddamn stubborn as I remembered.

The apartment door opened and Kayla gestured for me to enter. I still hadn't convinced Hailey to let me stay, but I had talked Kayla into letting me help move her stuff to her boyfriend's apartment. We hadn't been close before, but right now I needed her to be my ally when it came to Hailey.

“So what's the deal about Hailey's ex-boyfriend?” I hoped I sounded like an interested friend, instead of a jealous guy who still had a thing for his best friend.

I walked into the living room and stopped short. The place resembled any other apartment for someone who'd graduated from college two years ago. The forest-green couch had once belonged to Hailey's parents. The TV hadn't been theirs; neither had the dark wood coffee table and the matching entertainment center. And the small dinner table, with only two chairs, hadn't belonged to her parents either. They all looked new. Not expensive, like her parents would've bought, but new.

But that wasn't why I'd stopped short. That came from seeing the old foosball table in a prime location behind the couch. Her parents' old foosball table.

It was as if I'd never left.

My fingers and muscles twitched at the memory of playing against Hailey. My skin itched at the recollection of sharing about our day, our dreams, our fears while we played the game. Foosball had been our version of therapy.

“I can't believe she still plays it.” I twisted the white knob. The blue players kicked the air, searching for the ball.

“Technically, she doesn't.” Kayla walked to the other side of the game, as if getting ready to play against me. That'd be a first. The Kayla I remembered hated the game.

“What do you mean?”

“Once you left, she didn't have anyone to play against anymore.”

“So why is it here?”

Kayla's eyebrows raised in her familiar you've-gotta-be-kidding-me expression. It had been directed at me more times than I cared to remember. “Why do you think it's here?”

I shrugged. Hell if I knew.

“Because it reminds Hailey of you.” She ran her fingertip along the side wall of the game, along the smooth dark wood. “You guys were best friends for like forever. She was hurting when you left and never spoke to her again.”

“I had my reasons, but I never meant to hurt her.”

“I know, but you did.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Just don't do it again, okay?”

As much as I didn't want to hurt Hailey again, it wasn't something I could easily avoid. I could only reduce the risk of it happening. “You never answered my question about her ex-boyfriend. What was the deal between them?” That didn't make me sound like a jealous ass, right?

Kayla cocked her head to the side. “What's it to you?”

I sighed. She wasn't making this easy for me. But then, what was new? “Hailey's still my friend and I still care about her. I get the idea the asshole hurt her.” I had no idea if it was true or not, but figured Kayla would be more likely to answer my question if I turned
him
into the evil one.

She studied me for a moment before releasing a heavy breath. “She dated the jerk for two years and he ended up cheating on her. With several girls, apparently. Needless to say, they weren't too impressed he was jerking them around.” She chuckled. “Rumor has it one keyed his car.”

“Did she love him?”

“Well, she wasn't picking out their china pattern yet, but she did care about him.” Kayla pressed her teeth into her lower lip, once again studying me like I was a piece of artwork to be analyzed. “Hailey's not the same girl you left behind. Between you leaving and what he did, she's changed.”

“Changed how?”

“Hailey used to be the kind of girl who believed in long-term relationships. She's not that girl anymore. She won't let guys get close to her. I mean, she'll let them get close, if you know what I mean. But all they are to her is mindless sex with no commitment.”

So, pretty much how things were with me.

“How often was she…?” The words clung at the back of my throat. I didn't want to know the truth but asked anyway. “How often does she have one-night stands?”

“At least once a week…when we go dancing.”

“And they're all strangers?”

Kayla nodded, as thrilled with this as I was. This didn't sound like the Hailey I remembered. But the Hailey I remembered was the one from five years ago. We'd both changed since then. Though, from the sound of it, we'd both changed in the same way.

“Does she go out with any of them after?”

“You mean date them? No. She's not interested in them after that. Or as she puts it, ‘Once I've screwed them, what's the point of going out with them? I already know they're only interested in sex. I can get that from someone else without the drama.' ” She nailed Hailey's voice.

The twinge of jealousy that had appeared at the thought of her ex kneed me in the nuts. Hard. In all the years I'd been living in Northbridge and had been in love with Hailey, I had fantasized about being her first—and about being the only guy she ever slept with. I'd woken up many a morning sporting a hard-on to rival all others because I'd been dreaming about making love to her. Even after I moved away and had been screwing a shitload of other women, some delusional, caveman part of me wanted to believe that Hailey would always remain a virgin. For me.

An alarming thought formed. “Were there any guys who wanted more from her after they fucked her? Maybe someone who tried to press his luck again?”

Deep creases formed between Kayla's eyebrows. “You think one of those guys hurt her?”

“It's possible.” A possibility I wanted to slam my fist into the wall over. If I had stayed in Northbridge, none of this would've happened. Hailey would've been safe.

In my case, the one-night stands made sense. It was impossible to have a girlfriend when you were on the road all the time. But I wasn't a monk. I was a full-blooded male who happened to love sex.

Except in the beginning, I had used sex to chase away the loneliness. I pretended I was fucking Hailey…until I could no longer pretend. Those girls never felt like Hailey. Those girls never smelled like Hailey. Those girls never sounded like Hailey. Eventually I stopped pretending, and the loneliness continued to grow, never fully chased away whenever I fucked some random girl.

But it was different with Hailey. She wasn't on the road. She didn't need to fill the loneliness.

“Did anyone make her feel uncomfortable?” I asked. “Maybe he tried to have sex with her again? Or maybe he kept trying to talk to her and she brushed him off?”

The creases in Kayla's forehead deepened. “There was one guy. She told him a few times to leave her alone. He finally did when Dylan, my boyfriend, showed up and told him to take a hike.”

“Did he ever bother her again?”

“No, but he watched her a lot whenever we were at the same club as him. We eventually went elsewhere because he was getting beyond creepy.”

“Did you see him again after that?”

She shook her head.

“When was this?” Hailey hadn't mentioned this to me, but what did I expect? She had just woken from a coma. She was confused at what had happened to her and at a loss about why I was back in town.

“About two months ago,” Kayla said.

“Did you tell the cops?”

“Yes, but since I couldn't really describe him and I didn't know his name, they couldn't do much about it.”

“Would you recognize him if you saw him?”

“Maybe. I'm not sure. He wasn't the kind of guy who stood out in a crowd. And he definitely wasn't Hailey's usual type.”

“What's her usual type?”

Kayla cringed, but instead of answering me, she picked up a brown moving box.

I put my hand on the box, halting her progress to the door. “What's her usual type?”

The air in her lungs came out as a huff, and she placed the box on the floor. “It's more like two types. She tends to go for either the jock or the moody musician. Even better if the moody musician is tattooed.”

Her gaze dropped to the tribal tiger tattoo on my arm, partly obscured by my T-shirt sleeve. My heart stilled momentarily, reading too much into her words. It didn't mean those guys had been a replacement for me. It just meant she had a thing for musicians. The jock type made more sense, though, since she was an athlete herself.

Kayla and I spent the next two hours moving her stuff into her boyfriend's apartment. We didn't mention Hailey for the rest of the time. But that didn't stop my thoughts from dwelling on her and on the possibility the guy from the nightclub was the attacker.