Audrey And The Hero Upstairs Read online

  Audrey

  and the

  Hero Upstairs

  Novel #5

  R. Linda

  Audrey and the Hero Upstairs

  Copyright © 2018 by R. Linda.

  All rights reserved.

  First Print Edition: July 2018

  Limitless Publishing, LLC

  Kailua, HI 96734

  www.limitlesspublishing.com

  Formatting: Limitless Publishing

  ISBN-13: 978-1-64034-402-0

  ISBN-10: 1-64034-402-0

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To my aunties

  Thank you for your support and encouragement.

  I love you both x

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Audrey

  The laughter echoed through the house, and all I wanted to do was sleep. I buried my head under my pillow and squeezed my eyes shut. There were too many people out there, and even though Leanne meant well, I didn’t want to socialise. I felt like a freak. Like everyone was staring at me and feeling sorry for me.

  The poor orphan girl.

  I could see their eyes studying me, taking in every scar, every imperfection. I could hear the pity in their voices when they spoke to me. Careful, light, trying to keep things friendly, but it was too friendly. And they were uncomfortable. I could see it in their forced smiles and hear it in the pitch of their voices.

  No one knew how to act around me. No one except Brody. He was my knight in shining leather. Literally. He saved my life. More than once, if I was honest, and he was the only one who didn’t walk on eggshells around me. The only one who didn’t stare too long at my skin or at my short hair. He was the only one who didn’t speak to me as if I were a child who didn’t understand how to lift a spoon to their lips. I wasn’t an idiot.

  A knock on my door had me groaning and burying my head further under my pillow. If I didn’t respond, maybe they’d leave me alone. Highly unlikely, but a girl could hope. They knocked again. If it was Leanne, she’d have opened the door and called out, “Audrey, dear,” or something like that. So, I figured it must have been Indie or Nate. Leanne’s children.

  The Kellermans, Steve and Leanne, were lovely people, and their kids were great, as far as I could tell. Not only did I owe my life to Brody, but also to Nate. Yet I still didn’t feel like I belonged. Everything felt like an effort, and most of the time, I just wanted to be left alone to wallow in my misery.

  The door opened. “Audrey,” Indie called softly. I ignored her. The last thing I wanted to do was sit through another goddamn family dinner when I didn’t have a family anymore. No matter how hard the Kellermans tried, I would never be their family. My family were dead, and there was no replacing them.

  The door closed again, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I dodged a bullet…again. Every damn Sunday, they had a “family” dinner, but it wasn’t just Nate and Indie and their parents.

  No, Indie brought her fiancé Linc along, and then Nate brought his girlfriend Harper as well. Not to mention Ryder and Bailey, Indie’s best friends from high school, and Kenzie, her son Cole, and boyfriend Jeremy. It was crazy. They weren’t family, but they all came over every freaking week.

  And sometimes their parents came too.

  I didn’t know why Leanne organised it. Weekly dinners, in my opinion, kind of lost their appeal if they were exhausted that much.

  Then there was Brody. He didn’t often go to these dinners. He told me once that he used to look forward to them, but ever since his cousin Nate had hooked up with his ex-girlfriend Harper, he’d been trying to avoid them as much as possible. So, it probably wasn’t the smartest idea to move into Nate’s parents’ house, but it was either that or leave town. I, for one, was incredibly grateful he chose to stay in town and not flee like I probably would have in his situation.

  There was another knock on the door. I held my breath.

  “Don’t think you can hide under the covers. Get up. I’m starving.” Brody’s voice made me smile.

  I pulled the cover down slightly and peered at him leaning in my doorway. “I’m not hiding. And if you’re so hungry, you know where the dining room is. I’m sure there is plenty of food for you to eat.”

  He screwed his face up. “Pass. Come on, get your lazy butt up, and let’s go get burgers.”

  My stomach rumbled, and my eyes widened. “The best burgers in the state?”

  “Of course.”

  On Sunday nights when everyone was here eating dinner, and Brody and I didn’t want to socialise with the group—which was most Sunday nights—we used that as an excuse to get out of the house and go to the roadhouse for dinner. It was the only time we knew it would be a safe bet to not run into anyone we knew. No lying ex-girlfriends, no lying cousins. No one except Johnny and Julie, Brody’s ex-girlfriend’s uncle and aunt. Apparently, it was the only day of the week they worked anymore. Semi-retired, I thought Brody called it.

  “I’m not hungry,” I lied. And he knew it too, judging by the arched eyebrow and sceptical look he gave me.

  “You’re always hungry. Get up.” He stepped into the girly grey, white, and pink room—which was so not what I’d have chosen for myself, but that was what you got when you were thrown into the foster system at seventeen—and added in a whisper, “We’ll sneak out.” I giggled into my pillow. Brody always knew how to make me smile. It was easy to forget he wasn’t my age sometimes. I threw off my covers and gave him a shy smile. Even though he didn’t look at me with pity in his eyes, I still felt self-conscious around him.

  He nodded in approval as I stood, fully dressed, including a pair of boots I’d kept hidden under the covers of my bed. “I see you’re prepared. Like a Girl Scout.”

  I nodded and picked up my jacket. This time of year wasn’t particularly cold, but it was starting to cool down of a night. Plus, it had a hood, which could keep me well covered and hidden from prying eyes.

  “Ready?” Brody asked, and I shook my head. It was the same every week. The thought of going out in public made me nauseated. My stomach rolled, and a heavy weight settled on my chest as we snuck down the hall to the front door. Three more steps, and we’d be out of there.

  But then Nate walked down the stairs and came to a stop in front of us.

  “Where are you going?” he asked neither of us in particular.

  “Out.” Brody stepped around him and opened the front door.

  “Mum cooked dinner.” Nate gave Brody a pointed look. I didn’t know either of them all that well, but I did know they w
ere as close as cousins could be until Nate started dating Harper. So close they were more like best friends or brothers, and even though I didn’t see as much of Nate as I did Brody, I felt bad for him. You could see he was trying to fix things between them, but Brody kept pushing him aside.

  Ignoring him, Brody looked back at me. “Audrey?”

  I nodded once and gave Nate a small smile, keeping my eyes averted as I followed Brody outside and to his car.

  We drove to the roadhouse and pulled into the parking lot. I twisted my hands together and wiped them on my jeans. It never got any easier. My heart stuttered in my chest, and my legs shook.

  “You ready?”

  I shook my head.

  “Come on. It won’t be bad,” Brody tried to reassure me.

  “It will. It’ll be awful and humiliating,” I said, looking down at my feet.

  “We do this every week, Audrey. You can do it. I’ll be right there with you.”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  “Just walk in the door a few steps, and if you don’t feel comfortable, we’ll leave.”

  We came to the roadhouse often, but I’d never actually stepped foot inside the doors. I’d always backed out because the fear of people’s reactions to me was crippling.

  “Brody.” I sucked in a deep breath. My chest felt heavier. “Please don’t make me.”

  Brody sighed and reached across the center console and picked my hand up in his, gently stroking his thumb across my raised skin. “I won’t make you do anything you’re not ready for.”

  That was what I liked about Brody. He was patient and understanding, and he didn’t push me. He let me recover at my own pace and didn’t get upset when he made an effort, and I wasn’t grateful or appreciative.

  “I’ll go in and grab our food.” He climbed out and walked across the parking lot.

  I closed my eyes and tilted my head back, concentrating on getting my breathing under control and my limbs to stop shaking.

  I’d love nothing more than to be able to walk into a room with all the confidence I had six months ago, but that was never going to happen. I was doomed to be a recluse and live a lonely life of solitude.

  Chapter Two

  Brody

  She could have come inside. The diner was completely empty except for Johnny. Half the place was sectioned off with large plastic sheets taped to the ceiling and floor, and the smell of grease mixed with dust permeated the air, so thick I almost choked on it. Johnny’s nephew Jeremy had taken over the management of the roadhouse about three months ago with the help of Ryder and everyone else. He was currently renovating half the diner and turning it into a retro bar.

  “Still skipping out on dinner, I see,” Johnny said, sticking his head through the small window behind the counter that looked into the kitchen.

  “Makes Audrey uncomfortable.” I cracked my knuckles.

  It wasn’t a lie. Audrey Davide hated sitting around the table on Sunday nights, forced to interact with a bunch of people who meant well, but who she didn’t really know, for a dinner she didn’t care about. I got it. I understood. I didn’t want to hang around the house either, so I used her and her anxiety as an excuse to escape the house.

  I couldn’t sit at the same table and watch my cousin all loved up with my ex-girlfriend. It hurt to witness. I thought…I had thought at one point there might have been a chance for Harper and me to pick up where our relationship had left off a couple of years ago. But I was wrong. While I was busy keeping Audrey company in the hospital and being there for her, my cousin stormed in and swept Harper off her feet. Became her friend, the person she trusted most in the world—trusted more than she’d trusted me when we were together—discovered her secrets, the past she’d been hiding. The entire reason we’d broken up, to begin with. She couldn’t or wouldn’t trust me enough to let me in, but Nate was a different story.

  I should be happy for them. It wasn’t like Harper, and I had recently broken up. I’d moved on over the years, dated occasionally, but running into Harper again last year at my aunt and uncle’s second wedding in Fiji was a shock to the system. It brought back all the feelings from the past, so it stung to see her with him.

  Johnny grunted. “More like it makes you uncomfortable, you little jerk.” He pushed away from the window and moved back over to the grill.

  I thought about saying something, but I didn’t want to argue with him. I liked Johnny a lot. Everyone did. He was Harper’s uncle, and he thought that gave him the right to stick his nose in where it didn’t belong. Like our relationship, or rather our non-existent relationship. He took every opportunity that presented itself to tell me I was being a jerk, or childish, and that I needed to forgive my cousin, forgive Harper, and…

  “Just get the hell over it, already,” Johnny shouted from the kitchen then cursed as he dropped something, whatever it was clattering to the floor. “She misses your scrawny little ass. God knows why,” he said, sticking his head back through the window and waving his spatula at me.

  And I missed her. And Nate too. Their friendship. But the sting was still there, and the sympathetic looks I got from everyone else when I was in the same room as Harper and Nate were enough to drive me crazy. If everyone else acted like it was nothing and didn’t make a big deal out of being overly nice and coddling me, I could probably get over it faster. But they just reminded me how I was always the second choice. I was never anyone’s first choice. Not Harper’s. Not Nate’s. Not even my own parents’.

  “How’s she doing, anyway?” Johnny asked, coming to stand in front of me and placing our bag of food on the counter.

  My eyebrows pinched together, and I swallowed. He knew Harper better than I did. He must know how she was doing. Even the damn postman would know how well she was before I did these days.

  “Audrey, you twit.” Johnny shook his head and looked over my shoulder, out the window to where my car was parked.

  “She’s okay. Still doesn’t want to be seen in public, but she returns to school in a week.” I glanced over at the car with a frown.

  I was concerned for her. I didn’t think she was ready to return to school, but her therapist thought otherwise. Apparently, it would do her the world of good to get back into society. That was easy for her to say, but I knew Audrey. She didn’t trust or feel comfortable around anyone. Even though most of her injuries had healed, and she’d completed her rehabilitation program without an issue, she was still self-conscious. It was her scars. The ones that were, in my opinion, hardly noticeable. But to a seventeen-year-old girl, they were the most hideous sight imaginable. They covered the entire right side of her body, from her toes to her temple. She was lucky she’d hadn’t lost her right eye with the damage she’d suffered. She hid herself away. Hated to be seen in public. Wouldn’t talk to anyone and tried to avoid all social situations like Sunday night dinners because she was convinced everyone was looking at her, her scars, her short hair.

  No one was.

  As much as I tried to avoid Nate and Harper, I couldn’t deny my friends were great people. They went out of their way to talk to Audrey and include her in conversations, even inviting her out when they all got together at someone’s house, knowing she wouldn’t step out in public. They never stared, never batted an eye at her scars. They treated her as one of their own, yet she just didn’t see it. She thought it was pity. And maybe it was, a little bit. I knew everyone felt bad for her because she had no family, no friends. She was orphaned. But I also knew they cared and wanted the best for her.

  “Gotta be tough.” Johnny pushed the bag over to me and nodded. “Threw in a couple of those rainbow cupcakes she likes so much.”

  “Thanks, man.” I rapped my fist on the counter twice, picked up the bag, and left Johnny to it.

  Audrey was fiddling with the stereo when I got back in the car. “Hey, hands off.” I pushed her hand away. “My car. My tunes.”

  “Your tunes suck.” She smiled. Tucking a lock of dark hair behind her ear, the
small freckle on the side of her face visible, she reached for the bag and peeked inside. “Yes. Tell Johnny I love him.” She pulled a rainbow coloured cupcake with silver sprinkles from the bag and took a bite.

  “You could go in there and tell him yourself, you know.”

  She stopped chewing, the cupcake hanging precariously in her grasp, and sighed. “You know I can’t do that.”

  “I know—”

  “Good, then please stop pestering me about it. I’m not ready.”

  “But,” I held up my hand to silence her, ignoring the way her brown eyes narrowed on me and her lips pulled into a frown as she clenched her jaw, “there is no one inside. At all. Place is empty except for Johnny. Don—”

  “Don’t care,” she ground out, dropping her cupcake back into the bag.

  “Audrey.”

  “Do you know the last time I ate out anywhere?”

  Of course, I didn’t. She hadn’t left the Kellermans’ house in months, unless it was for an appointment. I shook my head.

  “Two days before the fire. My dad took me out for pizza because we hadn’t spent a lot of time together. And you know what I did?” she screeched, her chest heaving as she gasped. She was losing control.

  “No.”

  “I ignored him. I was more interested in texting the cute boy from my math class than I was in spending time with my dad. I can’t take that back. And I want to, so bad. I want to have a million more dinners with him, listen to his terrible jokes, take his advice, and…” She rocked back and forth in the seat. “I just want to hug him and tell him I love him one more time. But I can’t.”

  The tears were streaming down her face. She was in so much pain. I didn’t see how her therapist could possibly think she was ready to return to school. I felt helpless, so I did the only thing I could. I reached for her and pulled her into my arms, cradling her head against my chest and letting her cry. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose your entire family like that.