Redeemed (Dirty Air Series Book 4)

I swipe my towel across the foggy bathroom mirror. My ragged face stares back at me, with my beard growing out and my hair looking rough around the edges. I’ve never had it this long before. I run a hand through the locks, my fingers catching on a few knots from my shower.

Is this who I want to show the world this weekend? The guy who let his circumstances break him to a point where he barely recognizes himself? And more importantly, is this the guy I want to be in front of Chloe? I want to impress her, not make her want to run in the opposite direction.

One look at myself has me wondering why she didn’t run the first chance she had. I look like someone who has seen way better days. Hell, someone who has seen a way better life.

I tug open one of the vanity drawers and pull out my supplies to trim my beard. It might only be a cosmetic change, but it’s a change nonetheless.

It takes me what feels like forever to remove all the excess facial hair. I run a hand over the stubble and smile. “Now, what the fuck am I going to do about my hair?”

“Honey, I’m home!” Chloe calls out from the front door.

I walk into the entryway, eyeing her suitcases which look one trip away from falling apart. How those ragged bags lasted all the way here from America blows my mind.

“Holy shit!” she gasps. “Who are you and what have you done with Santiago?”

Based on Chloe’s reaction, the major haircut was worth it. My head feels a hundred times lighter, with the strands styled how I used to like it.

“Hey.” I rub the back of my neck.

Her eyes move from my face to my hair to my face again. “Wow. That’s what you were hiding under that beard and hair? It’s like The Devil Wears Prada, but manlier. And definitely hotter by like a thousand degrees.”

I laugh under my breath and tilt my head toward her bags. “You’re bringing all that for a weekend trip?”

“No. I was planning on moving in here afterward. What do you think?” She speaks in a singsong voice as she bats her lashes in a way that screams everything but innocence.

“Cute,” I offer in a dry voice.

“I checked out of the bed-and-breakfast for the weekend because money doesn’t grow on trees around here. Do you mind if I store some of my bags here?” Her eyes drop to her ratty sneakers.

I hate how the topic of money seems to embarrass her. Obviously I can’t hide the fact that I have plenty of it, and her struggles add a gap between us that I hate. I want to tell her how, at the end of the day, a bank account can only make someone so happy. After a certain threshold, dollar signs become meaningless, like the people who flock to me because of it.

I choose against it, not wanting to embarrass her more. “You can keep them here. For a second I thought you were way more high maintenance than I pegged you for,” I tease, wanting to rid her of her nervousness.

“God no. I’m about as high maintenance as a pet goldfish.” She pushes her luggage toward me.

“The one I had growing up died, so I don’t have a good baseline to compare it to.” I grab it from her and roll it into the closet underneath the stairs.

“Seeing as I never had a pet to begin with, it’s not like I can either.”

I laugh again, and she grins. It’s a beautiful look on her, with her eyes shining under the bright light of the chandelier. I’m tempted to kiss her. Right here, right now.

Her lips part as her eyes analyze my face. I inch closer, moving to wrap my hand around her neck.

My mom’s custom ringtone interrupts us. I groan, rubbing a hand down my face. “I better go answer that. Make yourself at home while I grab my bags.”

Her shoulders drop a centimeter. It’s subtle, but the move has my pulse quickening. I like making her want me. It brings a hopeful part of me back I stored away long ago. One I’m afraid of letting loose in the first place, not because I don’t want to, but because there’s no stopping it once it starts. And that’s a dangerous game with someone who only plans on being here temporarily.

I make my way into my bedroom and grab my phone off the nightstand. A voicemail from my mom pops up on the screen. She rambles about packing extra clothes just in case we end up attending multiple activities in one day. Even after moving out at eighteen, she still babies me.

I move toward my luggage on the bed, shuffling my clothes around until it all fits. As I drag my luggage off the bed, it slips from my hands and slams on the ground. A shot of straight agony shoots to my right leg. My lungs burn from the sudden inhale of breath I take.

Phantom pains. I thought I had beaten this part of my healing, but another throb tells me how wrong I was. They’re one of the worst parts of losing my leg. Messages fire off from my brain, only to be met with a missing limb. It’s like a panic attack inside of my body, with my nerves freaking the hell out.

Fuck my right leg to hell and back. Fuck it all.

This pain isn’t real. Your leg is long gone. I chant my old mantra, praying the pain away.

Another wave of turmoil has me hunching. I bite back a curse, grinding my teeth to combat the ache. A cold sweat breaks out across my skin as I release a moan.

“Oh my God, are you okay? I heard something fall and was worried.” Chloe’s voice breaks through the sounds of my heavy breathing.

I hate how concerned she sounds as much as I hate her finding me like this. Weak. Desperate. In unbelievable pain. It’s like my demon couldn’t let me find happiness even for a couple of days with someone else.

No. My leg needs to be the star of the show, time and time again.

“I’ll be out in a few minutes once this passes.” My voice cracks.

I fumble with my leg, scratching at my jeans as I lift the hem. Another shudder runs through me as my body interprets an injury where there is no fucking appendage. I can’t withhold my groan in front of Chloe.

“You’re freaking me out and I don’t know how to help you!”

“Go outside. It’ll pass in a few minutes.” I somehow muster enough energy to reply. Every word takes effort, between my panting and the pain.

“Yeah no. You’re crazier than I thought if you think I’m going to leave you here like this.” Chloe drags a massive wingback chair from the corner of my room toward me. The scraping noise against the wood has the goosebumps on my arms rising.

The last thing I want is her help, but I can’t find it in me to snap something miserable. To push her away before she sees the mess I really am. Everything about us has been this grand fairy tale, with us avoiding the truth and pretending in front of everyone. But it’s not real. If she’s the princess who picks wildflowers and radiates sunshine, then I’m the beast—scarred with a personality to match. And like the beast, I’m better off left alone. Newsflash to the romantics out there: Belle suffered from Stockholm syndrome. No woman would’ve wanted that bastard if she wasn’t a prisoner.

“Please go away,” I rasp.

“No. I’d translate it into Spanish, but it’s the same shit, different language. So no and no.” She lulls the last word in a fake accent.

I want to smile, but I settle on a scowl.

She pushes my shoulders, forcing me to take a seat. “How can I help?”

The deep breaths I take do nothing to ease the ache. “Fuck. Give me a second,” I manage to say through my grinding teeth.

“Is it your leg? Do I need to call for an ambulance?” Chloe clutches onto my trembling hand and helps lift the hem of my jeans higher up my leg.

There’s my prosthetic in all its glory.

Chloe looks me straight in the eyes and doesn’t bother blinking. “Tell me what to do and stop acting like a princess about it.”

“Can you help me walk to the mirror over there?” I point to the massive full-length mirror next to my dresser. I kept it after all this time for occasions like this, but the damn thing is too far away.

Her brows draw together, but she doesn’t ask questions. She helps support my body as I limp toward the mirror. I try to keep most of my weight on my good leg, but I stumble. Chloe grunts at the sudden shift in weight.

My confidence shrivels up as we stop at the rug. I hang my head low against my chest. “Do you mind helping me to the floor?” I whisper the simple request, disgust settling deep within my gut.

This is the absolute worst thing that could’ve happened to me with Chloe. I feel humiliated as she helps me get situated up on the fluffy rug in front of the mirror. I tuck my prosthetic behind the mirror, hiding the appendage as I avoid Chloe’s gaze. I’m afraid of what I might find lingering behind those blue eyes.

She said over and over how she doesn’t care about my leg, but how can she not? I can barely look at it without being disgusted. And in this moment? I absolutely despise myself.

“Can I help you with anything else? Do you need an Advil or something?” Her sweet request has me releasing a cynical laugh up to the ceiling.

“No. What I need is to wipe your memory of the last ten minutes.”

“Well, it seems like you’re stuck with me now since the Men in Black are busy.”

I sigh, hating what comes next. “You can go now.”

“Do you want me to?”

“Don’t you want to go?” I peek up at her.

Her eyes reflect the same warmth she always has toward me. In fact, there’s a sheen to her eyes that wasn’t there earlier.

Great, now I made her want to cry. I shake my head and return my focus back on my leg.

“There’s nowhere I’d rather be than here with you.” She drops onto the rug across from me and crosses her legs.

Another sharp throb echoes through my body, stealing away my attention. I don’t have time to concentrate on Chloe’s presence. I expel all my energy on the exercises I learned during my time in rehab. Mirror therapy is the cruelest of all the exercises, with me manipulating my brain into believing I have two whole legs.

The pain in my body lessens as I pretend my leg in the mirror is not my prosthetic. I go through the motions, flexing my foot and curling my toes before moving onto more complex movements. It takes thirty minutes to eradicate the pain. By the end of it, I lay down against the rug, sweaty and spent. Shadows play across the ceiling as the fan above me rotates.

Chloe lays down next to me, the heat of her body warming my side. “Do you believe in wishes?”

The ridiculousness of her question catches me by surprise. “What?”

“Do you believe in wishes? Yes or no?” She turns her head toward me.

Our breaths mingle together from the proximity.

My eyes drop to her lips. “Uhm…No?”

She palms her face. “Figures.”

“Why?”

“Because I believe in wishes.”

I can’t help it. Her response makes me laugh, releasing the tension from my body.

“Hey, it’s not nice to laugh at someone sharing a story. I’ve only told this to one other person in the entire world, and your reaction makes me not want to share it anymore.” She pinches my side, knowing the exact spot to make my body jolt.

“You’re right. Please forgive me?”

Her smile doesn’t match her faux offense. “Yeah. So, I have this thing called a wish journal. And I get it’s ridiculous, but I’ve made wishes ever since I watched Pinocchio as a kid.”

“But you wish in a journal instead of on a star? How does that work?”

“In New York, the only star you’ll find is on Broadway since there are too many lights to see the sky clearly. I was practical and found a journal instead. Plus, it’s easier to keep track of all my wishes that way. And boy do I keep track.”

“I don’t know what’s more shocking about this story. The fact that you write wishes in a journal or how you call yourself practical.”

Chloe lets out a melodic laugh up to the ceiling. “Okay wise guy, what if I told you some of my wishes came true?”

“Then I’d tell you that you have a flawless case of confirmation bias.”

Chloe goes wild from my comment. God. I love the way she laughs—like she might die from oxygen deprivation. I’m tempted to make her laugh again and again. Isolation has made me a sad sap of a man, begging for attention from someone who seems equally lonely.

She rolls her eyes. “Okay, please quit the comedy act while you’re ahead. There’s only room for one of us in this sham of a relationship, and it isn’t you, buddy.”

I chuckle. “Fine.”

“Anyway, it might seem stupid to some”—her eyes narrow at me as she turns her head in my direction—“but my wish journal is really important to me. It was the one thing that was exclusively mine, especially after I was forced to move out of my mom’s place and into a foster home.”

Her voice lacks the sorrowful note I’d expect from a depressing story like this. I imagine a young Chloe, clinging to a journal, wishing for better circumstances only to be disappointed time and time again. The notion sits heavy in my chest. How does she stay so damn positive after growing up like that? Who would?

She continues, “You can laugh all you want, but one of my wishes landed me here, so I’d say there’s a bit of magic in my journal. Don’t you think?”

I’m hooked on the story, craving more from her. “What did you wish for?”

“Two things actually.”

“Oh, really?”

“The first wish was for me to find my dad and reunite with him.”

“And obviously that happened.”

She smiles “Yeah.”

“And what was your second wish?”

“I don’t know if I should share it. I might be suffering from a wicked sense of confirmation bias.” She sticks out her tongue at me.

My eyes focus on how her tongue drags across her bottom lip. I’m tempted to roll on top of her and kiss her.

She shakes her head. “Nope. Not going there right now with you.”

“Buzzkill.” I sigh. “Then tell me what else you wished for.”

“I wanted someone to appreciate my presence rather than destroy it.”

I frown, hating how she needs to wish for something like that in the first place. “Why did you wish for that?”

“That’s a story for another day.”

Fuck another day. I want the story now. “Come on.”

“Nope.”

“Fine for now. But how do you know the wish came true?”

“Because I met you.”

Shit. How does her simple statement make my heart pound harder against my chest?

Damn, I like this girl. I expect fear to infect my common sense, but nothing happens. Not a glimmer of anything other than happiness echoes through my body.

“Why are you sharing this with me?” That’s the best you can come up with? The girl is basically telling you she likes you, and you’re fucking it up. I’m an idiot. That’s the damn truth.

She laughs again, her smile banishing my thoughts. “I wanted to share the one thing that makes me vulnerable.”

“Why?”

“Because we all have weaknesses, Santiago. You believe yours is how you’re missing a leg, and I think mine is my crippling loneliness and preference for wishing instead of doing. I make wishes to combat the emptiness I feel from all the disappointments in my life. Wishes are the closest thing I have to magic.”

I want to tell her that the magic is within her, not some wishes scribbled in a journal. And I crave screwing over every person who has disappointed her and has threatened to destroy her happiness.

I say nothing, choosing to soak in her words. The hum of Chloe’s restorative energy fills me to the brim with something I can’t ignore anymore.

I want the real deal with her. The dates, the laughs, and the feeling she brings out of me time and time again.

She describes her loneliness as a weakness, but I only see it as a strength. While people like me shrivel away in the shadows, people like her create their own light. She’s like the moon who shines bright despite the never-ending darkness.

And she makes me want to wish that daylight never comes again.