Doll Face (Baby Doll #3) Read online

  Smiling, I nod my head okay. “Maybe I can call her, but chances are she will be too busy.”

  “Then it’s all settled. Adam will take you to see your mom.”

  My mother’s ice clinks against the thick glass when she swirls the liquid in the cup. Her eyes narrow as she takes in Adam. I can see what she is seeing—the shaved head, the eyebrow piercing, and the tattoos. A baseball cap sits on his knee that bounces up and down nervously. He could be in a damn suit and tie and it wouldn’t matter to her—she judged him the moment she laid eyes on him. My mother has away about her; she can look right through you and only see what she wants to. She doesn’t see what I see in Adam, the good, the boy who has showed me endless love despite me not deserving it.

  “What did you do to your hair?” My mother turns her gaze on me and I release a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. This I can take, this doesn’t hurt as bad as it does when she is judging Adam … because I know no matter what I do I will never be good enough for her.

  “Nothing.” I smooth my hair back, making sure there are no loose pieces; my mother hates that. Not a hair out of place.

  She raises one copper eyebrow at me and sets her drink down. The amber liquid is a shade darker than she usually drinks. Forcefully swallowing past the lump in my throat, I try to push the thought away.

  “Your aunt has a girl that can fix it for you before you leave.” Our salads are brought to the table. “I asked for the dressing on the side,” my mother chastises the waitress.

  “How is Aunt June?” I inquire, trying to get her attention back to me. What does Adam think of her, of me? I’m just like my mother—I have been as cold and judgmental as she has been toward him … as she is being. I reach under the table for his hand, for reassurance that he is not going to run as far away from me as possible, but it’s not there for me to take. My stomach sways with the thought of losing him. “The same,” she replies. The same as in still drinking too much, on her fifth husband, spending away every penny?

  The waitress returns with a new salad for my mother. She lifts the tomatoes, examining the food in front of her, and gives a sigh that says ‘it will have to do since you obviously can’t do any better.' The waitress practically runs off in tears, and I want to tell her that she is lucky because the ice storm she is brewing is for me.

  “You think it would kill them to get good help.”

  “Mom.”

  Suddenly, Adam finds his voice. “My mother used to be a waitress.”

  Sucking in a sharp breath, I grip the edges of my chair.

  “Who was your mother?” My mother’s gaze has gone icy, and even though it’s ninety degrees outside, it’s frigid in here.

  “Sherry Nash.”

  “Can’t say I know her.” My mother flicks her wrist at Adam as if she could dismiss him completely. “Well, I hope for her sake she was better at her job than this girl. Katie, did you catch her name? Because I will let the manager know about her incompetent service.” She’s speaking to me, but staring right at Adam, daring him. Please stop. I feel like I’m going to be sick.

  “That’s enough,” I snap, pushing up off the table. My mother pulls her glass to her lips not drinking but waiting. “You’re not any better than any of them, so stop acting like you are. You are not better than Adam, or our waitress, whose name, by the way, is Alana and is doing a fantastic job dealing with you. In fact, you are no different than anyone here or anywhere.” My voice becomes shrill and higher with each spoken word. “Don’t you get it?” I scream, hot tears streaming down my face.

  “Katie, you are being hysterical. You always have been so over dramatic, entirely your father’s fault.”

  “Enough!” When I slam my fist down on the table, the full glasses of water slosh over the sides and soak into the mint green tablecloths. “Don’t you see, it wasn’t only dad’s fault? It was all of our faults, me, you, and Rylee, and yes dad’s, too. Dad for not saying no. For us not seeing the struggle he was going through or just choosing to ignore it. We haven’t been the perfect family, we are not the Blooms, who everyone looks up to. That was all in our head.” I slip back into my chair; my legs feel too weak to hold me anymore. Adam’s hand finds mine. His hands are warm and solid, offering me the strength not to collapse into myself and become lost in the dark. Adam is the light at the end of the tunnel.

  “Sure, Katie, wouldn’t you just love me to be the big bad bitch of this story? That’s how you and your sister see me. You always have.” I start to shake my head no. I want to apologize, to go to her, to hug her, but that is not what we Blooms do, and no matter how much I want to let go of the past, it’s still a part of who I am.

  “It wasn’t always like this between me and your father. I did love him, I was actually crazy about him. You might not want to hear this, but I was a lot like you are now, so in love. But your father was not good enough. He didn’t come from the same type of family I came from. Do you understand how difficult it is to be with someone that comes from the opposite background? If you don’t, you will.” She lets out a laugh that is cold and sharp; it cuts through me until I feel like my veins are open and spilling onto the table. “Your father is so damn stubborn. He wanted to prove to my parents that he was the same as us, and it became his only goal in life. The closer he came to my father’s standard, the further he went from me. When we got married, it was like I married a stranger, he was someone I no longer knew. So judge me all you would like, Katie, but you are no different than me.” She stands up, dropping a hundred dollar bill on the table, before snatching her white leather bag and storming out. I watch her go, shocked; her perfect hair that matches mine, the click of her heels against the tile floor. I don’t even realize Adam is trying to talk to me. I blink at him, as he and the world snap back into focus.

  “Go after her,” he says.

  “Adam … I-I—”

  “Go.”

  I race out the restaurant to find my mother climbing into the back of a black sedan. Only she would have a driver when her family is in financial distress, it must belong to my Aunt June’s new husband.

  “Mom,” I call out to her. She stops, spinning on her heels, her icy stare cutting through me. “Mom, please. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said in there.” I wave frantically back at the restaurant. I wait for her tell me it’s okay, that it will all be okay, but that is not how we do things in this family.

  “What are you really doing with that boy?”

  “Mom, he is really good to me, if you just—”

  She holds her hand up, cutting off my plea. “Katie, you are a Bloom. We might be in a transitional phase in our family, but you are and always will be better than that boy, and you know it. You had your fun, now let him go before he gets hurt.” She climbs into the back of the car, and just like before I’m stuck standing there watching her taillights disappear, desperately wanting her to come back and tell me that everything will be okay. But I know deep in my heart with every world shattering beat that nothing is okay, nor will it ever be.

  This was not how I wanted things to go. Damn it, I should have kept my mouth shut with her mom, but I couldn’t stand the way she was judging me, and Katie. And when she began to belittle the waitress who was only trying to do her job I snapped.

  “I’m sorry,” the waitress pipes, as she lays the check down.

  “Thanks, you did a great job.” She blushes before rushing off. I curse under my breath when I see the bill, but I pay it with my own money. Grabbing the hundred dollar bill that Katie’s mom threw down, I put that with the check. Let the waitress have it, she deserves it after the way Mrs. Bloom treated her. My family might not be perfect—hell, my mom skipped town when I was younger—but my parents love and support me. Never once did I feel I was not good enough for them. I can’t even imagine what it was like growing up for Katie, to have everything, but to have nothing at the same time.

  Katie walks back into the restaurant. “Are you ready?” She doesn’t make eye contact with me,
but I can see the dullness in her eyes. She has changed.

  “Katie, it’s going to be okay.” I stand up and pull her to me, but she goes rigid. Maybe she needs some time to process what just happened with her mom.

  On the ride back to my mom’s the silence between us grows until I feel like it’s pushing her away from me. Fuck, I just got her and I’m not about to lose her over some messed up dinner with her mom. We’ll have another one, a better one. I will impress her mother the next time. Fuck, how do I think I can impress her mother? James was right, Katie and her family are better than me. I will always be a guy working for his dad. I’m not going to college; no goals for a better future. I feel like a caged animal. No matter which way I turn I’m trapped, I will disappoint someone.

  I could go to college, take a couple of night classes next semester … and then what? Bust my ass to still work at the yard? What good is a college degree at the yard? Just proof that I’m as smart as Katie? I could leave the yard, but what would that do to Dad? He needs me, he created the business for his son. I mean damn, it’s named Nash and Son’s Tow Yard. What about Katie in all this, will she feel trapped and want to run like my mother did?

  “Katie?” I park the truck and search for her in the dark, feeling she is lost to me already.

  “It’s okay, Adam.” She reaches across the dark and squeezes my hand.

  I let out a sharp breath and I swear to God it hurts … loving her hurts. Reaching across the truck, I unsnap her buckle and pull her gently to me. She comes into my lap, her back pressed against the steering wheel. My hands rest on her thighs, I can only make out her green eyes, which shine with tears.

  “Tell me what to do to fix this. I’ll do anything you want me to. I can’t lose you.”

  Her hands cup my face, and her mouth finds mine, trying to soothe me, but I all can taste are her tears on her tongue and I’m afraid that I’m too late, that her mind is already made up. She kisses me gently and I kiss her desperately. This is the girl who crashed into me and changed my life, which made me realize that I didn’t know what love was until I meet her.

  I slide my hand under her shirt, feeling my way up the smooth skin. When she lifts her hands up, I help her out of her shirt. With my hand on her back, I press her to me, holding her there. Laying my head on her chest, I listen to the sound of her heart beating and squeeze my eyes shut, saying a silent prayer to let me keep this girl. She runs her fingers over my head and I feel a tear fall from the corner of my eye.

  His tears burn my skin where they fall. Each one is a knife cutting me open. I try not to think about what I have to do. I only want to show Adam that I love him and always will. My mother’s words cut me deep, and even though I want to deny them, they are true. Is it fair to lead Adam along, to pretend that his life he leads is the one I want to live? I’m not going to make him choose between his father and a career, I’m not going to be the one that traps him into a life he didn’t want only to have it crumble apart. I will not wake up to find out that the man I love I lost while he tried to live up to an unrealistic standard that my family set for him.

  I could leave with him. I almost lose my willpower and beg Adam to leave with me, to leave everyone behind and go start our own life faraway from everyone and everything. And even though I know Adam would follow me to the end of the earth, I realize that is not reality. I can’t ask him to leave the ones he loves, just like I can’t leave my family no matter how messed up they are. There is only one way that this can go, and when I got involved with Adam I knew this could only end in heartbreak. So I let him have me there in the car. Let him bury his fears and find comfort in me—each touch killing me, each kiss a stab to the heart until we are both bruised from the love that we can’t have.

  Afterwards, when we went inside, I sent the text. Now I lay curled up on my side with Adam wrapped around me. I listen to his shallow breathing tickling the back of my neck, his hand pressed between my breasts as if the feel of my heartbeat is a reassurance to him.

  It’s either now, or never, and the never is what I can’t handle. When I slip out from under him, he sighs and rolls on his back. I watch him for a moment, each breath he takes hurts, and the tears I thought I didn’t have any more fall once again. I wipe at them angrily.

  Damn, damn. Turning away from him, I find my jeans and tug them on, and quietly grab my things.

  I leave, shutting the bedroom door behind me. There is no other way, I remind myself. I pause by the kitchen, wondering if I should leave a note, but what good will that do? He will know why I left.

  “Leaving so soon?”

  I spin around, my heart dropping. Adam’s mother stands directly behind me. She has a red silk slip on, with a black robe that hangs open. Her hands are stained with paint, and in one hand she holds a paintbrush. “I like to paint late at night. There is something about the night, the quiet, all alone, and the heartbreak in the silence.”

  I begin to tell her no, that’s not what is happening, but I stop clamp my mouth shut because that is exactly what’s happening—I’m breaking her son’s heart in the middle of the night. I don’t know what to say to her, so I just hang my head in shame.

  “You don’t have to explain yourself, Katie,” she says. “I knew you would break his heart. Better it happen now before he really falls in love with you. Because once a Nash loves someone they never stop.” She moves to the sink and drops the brush in.

  “I don’t judge or blame you. Funny, since I should hate you for hurting my boy, but I hurt him once upon a time, too.”

  Releasing the breath I was holding, I whisper, “I’m sorry.”

  “Katie, I must ask something of you.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “No matter what, don’t go back to him. He deserves more.”

  I swallow hard and nod my head.

  Suddenly, Adam’s gravelly voice cuts through the air and my heart shatters a thousand times over. “Katie? What’s going on?” Leaving in the middle of the night was hard enough, but looking into his eyes and telling him I have to go is going to kill me.

  “I’ll let you two talk,” Adam’s mother murmurs and flitters away. It’s not until the sound of her bedroom door shuts do either of us speak. I keep my eyes on the floor, on the open slots of the floor that I wish I could shrink and fall through, be like the sand that blows through them and disappear.

  “Katie, don’t do this.” His voice is strained and I can hear the hurt behind it.

  I look up into his steel-colored eyes. He has on a pair of black sweats and nothing on top. I have to fight the desire to go to him and feel his strong arms around me.

  “Adam, you and I both knew that this wouldn’t work out. We are just too different.”

  “Katie, please, I’ll do anything you want. I will go to college, I will tell my dad I quit and go get a different job. What do you want? Name it and I will do it. “

  “Adam, I don’t want you to change.”

  “Then what do you want me to do? I can’t lose you, Katie. You are everything to me. You are all I never knew I wanted.”

  I reach deep inside of me—freezing every part, becoming cold, becoming numb.

  “I can’t do this.” I turn away from him so I can’t see the hurt on his face.

  “What do you mean?” His voice sounds hoarse.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, refusing to turn around because I will break and I need to stay strong. I knew from the beginning that this would never work. “Adam, come on … this has been fun, but you didn’t actually think that this would work out, right?” My words sound cold and clipped, just like my mother.

  His hand grips my shoulder. “Katie, don’t do this.” His words are soft, hurt laces each syllable, hurt that I’m causing him. I’m the one that didn’t deserve him.

  “Look,” I spin around, knocking his hand off me. I take a step back so he cannot touch me anymore, stopping the electricity that runs between us. “Adam, look at us.” My voice raises. “We were never meant to be together,
we are just too different. We want different things from life, you are satisfied with how you are.”

  When he grabs my arm, I almost collapse and beg him to forgive me. “Katie, maybe everything is not figured out for me yet, I don’t know what my future is going to be, but I know that I want you in it. With you everything makes sense, the unknown is not so scary when you are around. You make me want to be a better person.” He grabs me, pulling me to him, and I feel the shattering of our hearts together as he holds me. He has changed me in so many ways.

  Tears burn as they drip down my face. “Adam, it’s over.” I push away from him and run out the door to the car that is waiting for me. Adam follows, calling to me, stopping me before I can open the car door.

  “Katie, please,” he begs. I hate seeing him like this, desperate and hurting.

  I slam my hands into him as hard as I can. I want to see him fall to move to waver, but he doesn’t; he is a rock, soiled and firm. I slam into him again, this time with all my force and he breaks me. Like glass slamming against a rock, I shatter on the inside. He falls to the ground, wrapping his arms around my waist.

  “Please don’t leave me.”

  “I can’t do this anymore,” I sob.

  “You don’t have to.” I can feel the roughness of his stubble from his chin through the fabric and the wetness of his tears.

  “Stay with me. Stay with me even if just for tonight.” His hands find the only bare skin on my back. Something sparks inside of me and I’m overcome with emotion. I can’t answer him because I don’t know how to. I want more than anything for him to be telling me the truth—that he will be my savior, that he will not hurt me and leave me more broken then he found me.

  “Adam, this is ridiculous, what did you think would happen, that this thing would turn into something more?” I wrap my arms around myself as if I can pull into myself and disappear. Go someplace, any place but here, not watching his heart break and know I’m the one that is shattering it.