Wanderlust (The South Beach Connection Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  Wanderlust

  THE SOUTH BEACH CONNECTION BOOK TWO

  A. R. Hadley

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prelude to Belonging

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Prelude to Charge

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Prelude to The Bridge and the Bleeding

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Prelude to The Push

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Prelude to Distance

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Prelude to Procrastination

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Ready for Continuum!

  Playlist

  Also by A.R. Hadley

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2017 by A.R. Hadley

  Published by Chameleon Productions

  All rights reserved.

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission from the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Definitions cited are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to definitions found in dictionaries or online is purely coincidental.

  IBSN: 978-0-9996527-2-5

  Cover Design: Najla Qamber Designs

  Cover Image: Pexels, Deposit Photos. Used with permission.

  Editors: Monica Black at Word Nerd Editing.

  Jenny Andreasson Babcock

  Proofreading: Devon Burke at Joy Editing

  Formatting: Erica Alexander at Serendipity Formatting

  For those who suffer in silence or shame — you are loved.

  For those who need to stretch their legs and roam — may you find yourself.

  I visited you

  in my waking sleep

  nightmares

  dreams

  agitation

  I gave birth to fears

  sucked doubt’s dick

  fancied nothing

  sat up

  played dumb

  discovered denial

  not far from truth

  discovered you

  at the bottom of my rock bottom

  where were you

  when I slipped

  my fix

  my hero

  A group of people scared me off

  noises laid claim to me

  but

  you

  you rescued me

  saved me

  you

  called me home

  and

  missed me

  Belonging

  the safest place in the whole wide world

  "Miss?"

  Annie became agitated in the narrow seat, her neck cramped. Reality seemed to be attempting to mix with her peaceful slumber. A birthday cake and a wish. The voice of—

  "Miss." A hand touched her shoulder, breaking the notion she had believed in for a moment. "Miss, wake up. You need to put your seatbelt on. We're preparing to land."

  Annie blinked, opened her eyes, and squinted while clicking the belt into the tiny slot. Could she fit her grief into that meaningless little two-inch slit, the seam where the seatbelt connected, its job to keep her safe from a fall?

  Rubbing her eyes — how long had she been asleep? — she sat forward and blew out the candles on the cake from the dream.

  This dream was real. Realer than real. If she could’ve bottled this hope, harnessed this break from anxiety, she could have carried Peter with her for the remainder of the trip — for the day, for life.

  Why was her brother so vivid in her dreams? Creeping into small places, out of corners, into corners. The alleyways and tunnels. And he was always alive in the fucking dream. Someone, whomever — it didn’t matter — would explain his presence, saying the accident had been a mistake. Sometimes there was no explanation in the dream, but even without one, the mistake of his death was an unspoken acknowledgement.

  Of course his death was a mistake. Nothing like his accident happened in real life. A motorcycle crash in the dead of night. It had to be someone else's reality. Annie was a dreamer. An optimist. But the last year had caused her to stop believing in things like fate or forever.

  No one knew what death could do until it happened to them.

  New York City, with its spiky, cerebral building tops, was a mirage outside the rectangular window. Annie decided she would stare through the shape until her heart reaccepted truth or lies. Or until she would escape. She’d jump through the window and fly. She could invent a story. Make something up through the lens of the camera.

  Head beginning to prickle with heat, she fidgeted in her seat. She would create an alternate reality. Or something. Or nothing.

  By the time Annie exited the plane and arrived on the city’s pavement, it was almost noon. She’d just hailed a cab. The temperature didn’t feel much different from Miami’s. Humidity you could slice and spread with a butter knife. Warm, sticky, yuck. And to top it off, it was raining — a wonderful complement to her now throbbing head.

  Fuck dreams.

  Fuck the city and its strange stink. It wasn't the oasis she’d hoped for when she’d bought her ticket, she thought as she slunk down into the backseat of the taxi.

  Temperature the same, but the temperament was quite different.

  It had only been … what? Several weeks since she’d graduated? She’d been in South Florida for about a month. How had she forgotten what the city felt like, looked like, smelled like? The interior of the cab smelled — dirty carpet advertising old drink stains, sun-heated vinyl, and pine tree air freshener. Yum. The invisible vibe of the city — the chi — had a smell too. It had a taste. And it wasn’t always putrid — sometimes, the stench was sweet.

  On the ride to Tabitha’s, Annie recalled some of her favorite things…

  Warm bagels in the morning from her favorite delicatessen — the dough, the rich cream cheese. Freshly pressed coffee. Walking the Brooklyn Bridge on a cool fall evening. Designer handbags and briefcases. Walking sneakers mingling with five-hundred-dollar high heels. Window shopping. Street shopping. Authentic Chinese food. Fresh rain on the grass in Central Park.

  She hadn't forgotten New York's Feng Shui — the sweet and the stink — she’d forgotten to remember. She’d forgotten to think.

  That would’ve been a novel idea.

  If only I could forget how to think.

  Sitting in the taxi, Annie pressed her throbbing head against the speckled glass, watched the steady rain, and sighed. Drizzling, damp rain with no sign of let up. Each time the cab stopped, hit a pothole, or switched lanes, her head shook like the tail of a snake, and the pain increased.

  The dream she’d had died a thousand t
imes while she relived a million memories in the backseat of the cab. Memories of the day Maggie had insisted on telling Cal about only last night. Memories of the incessant rain. It had rained all day long on the day. Raining in the city when she’d received the dreadful call from her father. Raining in Seattle, day after day, the week of the funeral.

  She peered through the glass, past the translucent cheetah-skin drops cascading down the window, past her manic headache, and stared at the sidewalks and droves of pedestrians. Despite the weather, the corners, shops, and concrete were filled with people on a mission. Most of them held umbrellas, some colorful, many black, the ends all touching. A sea of vinyl swooshing across the intersections. Ants marching with leaves over their heads.

  Where were they going in such a rush? Time waited for no New Yorker. But that wasn’t Annie. Not even in the four years she’d lived there had she acclimated to the fast-paced city.

  Annie was and always would be a Pacific Northwester. Was there such a thing?

  Right now, though, Annie was home.

  The cab stopped in front of a two-story brick building in the West Village. Tabitha's apartment.

  After paying the driver, Annie stepped out, tossed her backpack over her shoulder, and collected her suitcase. The exhaust fumes in the air played backgammon with the exhaust in her soul.

  Why was she so drained, so tired? Hours and hours of sleep never seemed to cure it.

  Without any cover or rain jacket, she got wet as she jogged toward the entryway. Grateful the awning over the stoop finally provided a dry spot — a relief — she pushed the call button and waited for the sound of the buzzer. After ascending a single flight of stairs, she came upon the cracked front door of apartment 2F.

  Mr. and Mrs. Thomas McAlester’s home.

  Oh, and their dog’s too.

  Marlon's nose was the first thing she saw through the opening. And she laughed at the keen, sniffing black thing, and before she knew it, the door swung wide.

  "Marlon," Tom said with strain, his knuckles white from holding the dog's collar. "Stop, boy."

  As he gently dragged Marlon back into the apartment, Tom’s wavy brown hair fell across his forehead. It appeared slept on, mussed, and not combed — typical … and basically adorable.

  "I woke you," Annie said while stepping over the threshold.

  "Quick, shut the door.”

  She arched an eyebrow. "A little grumpy this morning, aren't we, T?"

  He let go of the sandy-brown golden retriever, stood straight, and looked at her. The coal of his eyes had a thick sheen of sleep residing in them.

  "You're soaked.”

  Dropping her chin to her chest, she reached up and pinched the damp cotton away from her skin. "It's not ‘wet T-shirt’ soaked."

  "Yeah." He snapped a towel off the kitchen counter. "What would you know about that?" He tossed the dry cloth to Annie.

  She caught it and smirked, then blotted her face with it.

  "It's been raining here for like forty days and nights." He jammed a set of keys in his pocket.

  "Maybe I brought it with me from Miami." After dropping the towel on the counter, she knelt in front of Marlon. "Hi, big boy." Annie ruffled his coat. "Did you miss me? Yeah."

  "Where's my greeting?" Tom asked.

  Annie rolled her eyes, stood, and embraced the grumpy, adorable man. He did need his sleep, though. He worked as a nurse during the graveyard shift at Mount Sinai.

  "He’s the one who woke me," Tom said with a grumble. "I've got to walk him."

  Annie eyed the spot Tab must’ve already made up on the sofa, probably before she’d left for the matinee. A sheet was tucked into the cushions with a pillow and blanket on top. Old times, Annie thought as she rolled her suitcase into the living room and found a nook for her things near the coffee table. She gazed out one of the two windows as the dream replayed in her mind…

  "Annie," called the familiar voice in her sleep. "Come on, Annie, it's time."

  The room seemed hollow. It felt hollow like the inside of a tree trunk. An underground concrete tunnel.

  The voice echoed in the cylinder, becoming louder and clearer with each call. "Annie. Annie. Annie..."

  But there was no figure … or she couldn't reach it. The voice with no face. Not even a hazy outline. Still, she knew who the melodious sound belonged to, just not where it came from.

  A door appeared.

  She opened it and stepped into a sterile, plain room. A white box. A dark, wood table stood in the center, juxtaposed to all the alabaster.

  Beverly stood behind the furniture next to Annie’s father, Albert. Her parents looked dark against the snowy walls, their faces glowing from the light the sixteen candles on the cake in front of them provided.

  "Help me blow them out, Peter," Annie said to her brother.

  He had been the voice who had called after her in the tunnel, appearing instantly as if he’d never been gone.

  He wasn't gone. Couldn’t be. Peter was always there. He was here. Right now.

  Death had made a mistake. His death had been a mistake. Everyone knew it. Annie knew it was true.

  "Help me blow out my candles."

  Her mother and father smiled at Annie, then at each other, showing perfect teeth, each gesture happening in slow motion.

  And then the stewardess had spoken and touched Annie’s shoulder, interrupting the immaculate moment of dreamlike security where everything wrong had been made right.

  The space between sleep and awake.

  The minutes where Superman circled the globe, took back time and made it his, resurrecting Lois Lane.

  For a few endless seconds, Peter had been alive.

  Things were just as they should’ve been.

  The tightness in Annie’s belly had recoiled. The cloud hanging over her mind had departed.

  Nothing could contaminate this dream.

  Except life.

  Now she had to force herself to leave behind childhood notions. She had to let them go. Watch them disappear out the window. Let summer run away with the idea that the world continued to spin on its axis without Peter’s presence.

  She had to acclimate to reality.

  And the reality was she felt odd standing in her best friend’s apartment. How could it feel both intimate and fresh … and different? Like a place she’d been before but couldn’t quite fully remember.

  Something had changed since the dream … since the conversation she’d overheard on the staircase last night.

  Annie shook off the peculiar feelings, insisting she felt safe in this home away from home. The brownstone off the beaten path on a tucked away, one-way, L-shaped street — an alley filled with trees. Still looking out the window, she framed — in her mind’s eye — the branches hovering over it like a canopy.

  Like Cal's street.

  Except there were fewer trees here. Still, they were striking, with their summer leaves providing a little shade from the heat … and maybe a bit of respite from the storm. Staring out the window, Annie recalled the way they looked in the winter when they didn't have any leaves — only branches, sticks … snowman parts.

  Tom attached the leash to Marlon's collar, and the noise it made as he clicked the lock into place startled Annie, causing her to snap out of the nonsense which fueled her forward movement. She turned her focus to the infamous wall collage Tabitha had created.

  Because pictures…

  It didn't matter how many times she’d seen it — thousands probably — she studied it, lost herself in it. Snapshots of family, friends, vacations, and events covered the entire wall next to the bedroom.

  The Wall of Life.

  "You have a headache?" Tom interjected his concern into Annie’s thoughts.

  "How’d you know?" Annie grimaced and touched her temple.

  "Nurse.” He wielded his infamous smile.

  Those white teeth against olive skin, deep dimples any girl would’ve swooned over... Gosh, adorable. Tabitha had found a good one, a
nd it wasn't just his looks. Tom was genuine, sweet, and kind. They’d married young, sure, but no one doubted their puppy love. Speaking of puppies, Marlon began to bark.

  “Do you need anything while I’m out?” He grabbed a large Casablanca-themed umbrella. Annie had bought it for them. Humphrey Bogart gazed upon Ingrid Bergman like she was the only star in the sky and he might die without her light.

  “You have to go? Out in the rain and everything?"

  “My master beckons." He opened the door. "We have Advil or some shit in the cabinet. Did you eat? Do you want me to pick up a sandwich or something? You like steak and cheese, right?"

  Massaging her throat, her eyes climbed photo after photo, inching up the wall like the Itsy-Bitsy Spider. She heard him but couldn’t formulate an answer.

  “Are you sure you're okay, Ann?"

  The word okay grabbed her attention, undoing the mute button. The nurse would know her okay would be bullshit. Nurse, best friend’s confidant, purveyor of all things anxiety attacks, depression, and addiction.

  Annie tried to send a message to him with her eyes as she made her way to the door.

  Was he buying it?

  Marlon already stood in the hallway, his tongue out and tail wagging. The leash was stretched, fully open, as was Tom's arm.

  “Yes, Thomas, I’m fine," she replied in a dramatic baritone to the flustered expression she read on T’s face. But he didn’t seem to be buying her okay. Or maybe it was just the impatient dog mixing her signals. “I’m fine. Go."