Your Fault (Culpable Book 2)

I was sitting in the vestibule of the hotel. The signal was bad in my room, so I’d had to come down to reception, where a bunch of strangers were hanging out. It was late, and I took my phone out for the fourth time to see if Noah had sent me a good night message. I didn’t like how the previous day’s conversation had ended, and even if she had a day left until classes started, I’d wanted to wish her good luck. I knew she was probably trying to sleep—she might even be in the middle of one of her nightmares. I was happy to be the one person who could make them go away, but that also made me hate knowing she was sleeping alone.

I was relieved she’d agreed to go to a psychologist and had been reading about childhood trauma and how to overcome it on the Internet. She had a list of the best psychologists in the city and had already set up consultations with five of them. I wanted Noah to go back to being herself, without fear restraining her, able to be happy. And if I had to pay a fortune to make that happen, then so be it.

I thought about what she’d suffered at the hands of her father, and a chill ran up my spine while my hand closed into a fist. I had to take several breaths to calm down. Just then, Sophia appeared with her Mac, wearing a pair of plastic black-framed glasses that cracked me up. They looked horrible on her.

“What’s up, Leister?”

“Aiken,” I said, looking back at my screen.

She sat down next to me on the big white sofa. After two days, I had to admit she wasn’t the person I’d assumed at first. She might look superficial and stiff, but she wasn’t in the least. She was even funny when she tried to be. Since she was surrounded by men—she was the only woman in a team of five working the case—she did everything she could to fade into the background. She didn’t want to be treated any differently.

“You’re not in the mood to go out for some fast food, are you?” she asked after typing a few things on her laptop and shutting it suddenly.

With a raised eyebrow, I asked, “Fast food? You?” I tucked away my phone. Still no news from Noah. “I assumed you didn’t know what that was.”

With a frown, she stuffed her Mac into her bag and got up. In place of her usual heels, she was wearing a simple pair of white sandals.

“I could kill for a Big Mac, with or without you. I just brought it up because I can’t stand hotel food, but it’s your call. You coming or no?”

I hesitated for a moment, but she was right: the food sucked.

“Okay, but FYI, I’m not great company today,” I said, getting up and walking toward the door. With Sophia next to me, I could see how short she actually was without her heels.

She laughed. “Today or any day, Leister. I don’t think I’ve seen you relax once since I met you. Maybe you should get checked out.”

I ignored the comment as we walked out into the lot.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked as she took her keys from her pocket.

“I’m the one who rented the car, Nicholas,” she said.

“Sorry, babe, I drive,” I said, snatching them before she could react.

I was surprised she didn’t argue, instead shrugging and going around to the passenger side.

I let her choose the music, which meant we were listening to trash from the eighties the whole way from the hotel. The weather was nice, even if it was cooler in San Fran than what we were used to in LA. Lots of people hated the steep streets there, but I thought they made the city special, the hills and the colorful houses, so varied and pleasant to look at.

I wanted to bring Noah there. I wanted her to see so many places… Since we’d been going out, I’d only been able to take her to the Bahamas, and that was a vacation to forget.

I put that out of my mind, parking the car at a restaurant I’d found before, when I’d had to spend a week there.

“This isn’t McDonald’s,” Sophia said, unbuckling her seat belt.

“I don’t eat at McDonald’s,” I said, turning off the car and laughing when I saw her scowl. “Come on, Soph, these are the best burgers in the city. If not, I wouldn’t have brought you here.”

She frowned in disbelief and slapped me on the arm. “I told you before, don’t call me Soph.” She got out. I did, too.

“Sorry, Soph.”

I cracked up when I saw her face after that, but then I decided to drop it. A waiter greeted us and sat us on the other end of the restaurant. I didn’t like that; I thought he thought we were a couple and wanted our privacy, but since I couldn’t actually read minds, I decided not to argue.

She made another comment about her beloved Big Mac, but she ended up having to swallow her words because, as I’d told her, the burgers there were to die for.

“So you guys are going to move in together,” she asked after a few minutes of chitchat and shoptalk. This was the first time Noah had come up. “To spite her parents?”

“Her mother, you mean,” I said. “It seems everyone’s forgotten that she’s an adult and can make her own decisions.”

Sophia nodded, but she didn’t seem convinced. “She’s a little girl, Nick,” she said, taking a sip of her drink.

“Maturity isn’t some fucking number. It’s all about your experiences and what you’ve learned from them.”

“No one’s saying otherwise, but you can’t forget, she’s about to start school. She’s going to want to do things, like any girl her age, and unless I’m mistaken, you’re a typical controlling boyfriend.”

I rested my elbows on the table and my chin in my hands. “I take care of what’s mine, that’s all.”

She didn’t seem to like those words. “That’s a pretty chauvinistic way of looking at things. You don’t own her, Nick.”

“Is it time for Feminism 101, Soph?”

“As a woman trying to make my way in a company whose leadership is a hundred percent male, I could teach you a few things about that, but that’s not what I’m saying. Your problem is trust: if you were really sure she was in love with you, you wouldn’t be trying everything in your power to get her to move in with you despite your family’s wishes. I just think it’s a dumb move on your part.”

“She needs me and I need her. There’s not some secret justification there. You just don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Sophia shook her head and stared at me. “I know one thing. There’s no way in hell I’d want to be your girlfriend.”

“Every girl wants to be my girlfriend,” I said. She started laughing, and I grinned. It was obvious I wasn’t close to the ideal boyfriend, but hey, I tried.

That gave me an idea.

“So you’ll see just what a good boyfriend I am,” I said, taking my phone out and going onto the net. “What do you think about blue roses? Pretty, right?”

Sophia rolled her eyes as I scrolled through floral arrangements.

“Precious,” she said, taking a sip of her drink.

I hit buy, entered the address, and typed out a little note for the card, grinning as I put away my phone.

“A dozen blue roses?” she asked.

“Two dozen. The same message twice, so it sinks in.”

“What’s the message, that you’re a smug asshole?”

I ignored her. “That I love her more than anyone else.”

After dinner, we went back to the hotel. Despite my misgivings, despite the fact she’d never let me live it down if I ever told her so aloud, Sophia wasn’t bad company. Lion had his shit, and Jenna was Noah’s best friend, and that meant I had no one on the outside I could talk freely with. Not that I was a big talker in general, but I liked chatting with Sophia and knowing people with normal lives existed. From what I heard, her parents were still together, her older brother was a successful architect, and her father was a respected politician in the Democratic Party, a guy who might wind up on the presidential ballot. Who knew where things would go?

It was nice avoiding all the drama from my regular life, and I could relax in her company, look at things from another perspective. Things weren’t so bad, really… With Noah living with me, everything would be easier. She would sleep better, and if she did what I asked, one of those psychologists she’d contacted would help her deal with her problems with her dead dad. Things would get better. I couldn’t wait to get home and show her all we could achieve, convince her we were a perfect team, capable of surviving anything.