Black Flies

VERONICA

~“No man is an island, this I know,”~

~But can’t you see?~

~Maybe you were the ocean,~

~When I was just a stone…”~

~– Ben Howard~

***

“Ease up, your shoulders are too tight. You need to let go a little,” Frey instructed, his warm hands pressing gently on my shoulders.

“I’m trying,” I muttered, my teeth clenched.

Frey sighed, letting his hands fall from my shoulders.

“What’s going on? You’re more tense than usual today,” he questioned, shifting to crouch in front of me.

Today was the first of December. Nearly three weeks had passed since the wrist-slitting incident.

This was my fourth session with Frey, the last one being on Monday, when I had my first yoga lesson.

Today was supposed to be another yoga lesson, but I just couldn’t do it. I was too wound up.

“I go back to work tomorrow,” I confessed to Frey, my eyes pleading. “I don’t feel ready.”

“We discussed this last time,” he reminded me, taking my hands and giving them a comforting squeeze. “You can’t avoid work—or Jax—forever.”

“I know,” I admitted, dropping my gaze. “But I’m afraid I’ll revert back to how I was before you started mentoring me.”

Which was a complete mess.

“You won’t,” Frey declared with conviction, “you underestimate yourself. You’re strong, you just need to believe it.”

Me, strong? I laughed bitterly.

“I think you’ve got the wrong idea about me, Frey. I’m not strong at all.”

Frey studied my face for a moment before standing up.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing his coat. “We’re going out.”

Confused, I stood and grabbed my own jacket. Frey led me out of the dojo and towards the Hill.

My heart pounded in my chest as I followed him to a familiar cross embedded in the ground. He settled next to the cross, patting the spot next to him, inviting me to sit.

Confused and a little scared, I sat next to him. As I did, I glanced at my father’s grave and said nothing.

“There’s a book I like,” Frey suddenly said, and I turned to look at him.

He looked good, lounging on the grass. His hair was tousled by the wind, and his face held a nostalgic expression.

His eyes were focused on the horizon, seeing everything and nothing.

For a few long moments, I simply stared at his profile. His jaw was sharp, his muscles seemed sculpted just for him, and I realized just how attractive he really was.

His light, easygoing personality often overshadowed his looks, but he could easily compete with Jax in the looks department, maybe even surpass him.

For some reason, this realization made my brain short-circuit so much that Frey glanced at me and asked, “Are you listening to me?”

Blushing slightly at being caught staring, I nodded. He smiled briefly and returned his gaze to the horizon, where the sun was beginning to set. “This book I like, it’s called Slater’s Bridge.”

I froze, forcing my eyes away from Frey and towards the sunset.

“Really,” I said, my lips dry and my insides turning cold.

“Really,” he confirmed. “Many people see it as a simple romance story, but it’s more than that.”

I pretended I didn’t know what he was talking about. “What’s it about then?”

Frey’s lips curled into a smile. “It’s about Slater, who builds a slate bridge for his wife, Eliana, and ends up cheating on her with the beautiful seductress, Cassiopeia.”

I stayed silent, waiting for him to continue.

“The plot is more complex than that. Eliana has a rare type of cancer on her tongue, which prevents her from speaking.”

“Cassiopeia is a lonely actress whose career was ruined by the media after one mistake, and now she feels like she doesn’t belong anywhere.”

“The story follows Slater, a successful roofer, as he gets entangled with the once-famous actress, due to their undeniable attraction, while Eliana watches her husband grow more distant each day.”

“It’s heartbreaking to read, really. I, a man, found myself crying more than once.”

Frey smiled grimly, “Eventually, Slater builds Eliana a bridge made of slates to show his remorse, but it’s too late.”

“Eliana discovers his affair, and a day after she files for divorce, she’s hospitalized in a critical condition and dies by evening.”

“Slater never forgives himself, and Cassiopeia becomes a reminder of his loss and stupidity, so he can’t stay with her. He leaves her, walks to the bridge he built, and jumps to his death.”

Frey’s eyes suddenly turned cold.

“It’s a story about loss and madness caused by that loss. It’s not romantic. It’s not fluffy and cute. It’s sad, angsty, and tragic. Cassiopeia is a major bitch, in my opinion, sinking her claws into a married man.”

“And Slater, the poor guy, gets hooked because a beautiful, seductive woman wants him, and while his wife can’t satisfy him sexually, he chooses to cheat to scratch that itch. Disgusting.”

Frey’s voice was bitter now, and his face darkened. “Men and women like these two disgust me. Cheating is the worst thing one could possibly do.”

“Frey?” I asked, concerned. He looked like he was lost in his own painful memories.

Frey blinked, his gaze shifting to me as he offered an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, it’s just that when I think about my time reading that book, it brings up some unpleasant memories.”

“Why don’t you share them with me?” I suggested.

He raised an eyebrow. “Veronica, I’m the one mentoring you, not the other way around.”

“True, but right now, we’re not in the dojo. We’re just a man and a woman talking about a book. Plus, as you always say, it can be good to let out some demons.”

I smiled, intrigued to learn more about the enigmatic Frey.

Frey sighed.

“That’s not how mentorship works. I can’t dump my problems on you when you have your own,” he said, a playful smile tugging at his lips, “and besides, setting aside my mentor role wouldn’t be very manly of me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Sounds like an excuse to me. It might be nice to listen to someone else’s problems for a change.”

He looked doubtful. “I don’t think so, Veronica.”

Suspicion gnawed at me, and I studied his face closely.

Usually, his face was open and kind, and while it looked like that now, his eyes were a hard, cold gray.

He was definitely hiding something, and for some reason, I was dying to know what it was.

“I can keep a secret, I won’t tell anyone. It’s not like I have anyone to tell anyway. No one in my life knows you, so they wouldn’t care.”

Something flickered in his eyes at my words, but it was gone before I could identify it.

“The answer remains the same,” he said, his voice gentle despite the icy look in his eyes. “I didn’t share the story of Slater’s Bridge to open up about my past. There was a purpose to it.”

“I know what your point was,” I said dismissively, and saw his eyes widen slightly.

I chuckled. “What, you didn’t think I would get it?”

“No,” he replied, his usual blunt honesty shining through.

I gave him a small smile and decided to back off from prying into his past. Instead, I shared another piece of my own story.

“I read Slater’s Bridge before it was even published,” I confessed, looking down at my hands, “because it was written by Dimitri Tanner, my father.”

Frey’s body stiffened, a clear sign that I’d caught him off guard.

He recovered quickly, though, and said in a neutral voice, “That’s…an unexpected twist.”

I chuckled softly, hugging my knees to my chest.

“My father wrote it just after he and my mother divorced. He was heartbroken, and he poured all his pain into his book. He was essentially Eliana, while Slater was my mother, and Cassiopeia was my current stepfather, Stephen.”

“The plot was different from reality, but it was based on real events. My father felt like my mother had abandoned him for a new, more successful man.”

Frey didn’t say a word, and when I glanced at him, I saw him staring at the sky, a sad look on his face.

I smiled sadly myself, and turned to look at the dojo at the bottom of the hill. “My father is buried here, right under us.”

“He didn’t want to be buried in a regular cemetery. He wanted to be here, on this hill, because he loved coming here with his telescope to watch the stars. I do that sometimes too.”

A familiar wave of sadness washed over me.

“It makes me feel closer to him.”

Frey finally spoke after I’d been talking for a while. “You loved him.”

“He was the only person I truly loved in this world. My high school crush on Parker was nothing compared to my love for my father. My…attraction to Jax doesn’t even come close to how I feel about my father.”

“My father was everything to me; my best friend, my hero, my protector. And when he was taken from me, I was never the same again.”

He was silent for a few moments. Then, he asked, “Are you afraid of loving Jax because you might lose him like you lost your father?”

His question was logical, but there was more to it.

“It’s not just that,” I admitted, my hands curling into fists. “I don’t think Jax is good for me.”

“You’ve said that before,” Frey noted, “and your reasoning was understandable, but my question is, do you think you could ever love Jax the way one is supposed to love another?”

That was a good question.

“I can’t really know that, because I never gave him the chance to open up to me and vice versa, but part of me knows that despite my intense attraction to him, any real love I might feel for him would end in disaster.”

“And why is that?” my mentor asked.

The answer was so simple, it overwhelmed me when I said it out loud. “Because any love I could feel for him would never make me feel safe.”

And that was the truth.

Jax had always made me feel like I was losing everything and nothing, especially when we had sex.

That sense of loss made me vulnerable and left me feeling scarred for life.

I was a woman who needed safety, which didn’t mean a safe love couldn’t be a passionate one. But passion and danger didn’t mix well for me. And Jax was both.

Frey was quiet for a while, probably processing what I’d just shared, as he always did.

When I glanced at him, he had a distant look on his face, as if my words had stirred up his own memories.

It made me want to ask him about his past, about the shadows lurking behind his eyes.

“Do you get what I’m saying?”

A gentle breeze played with my mentor’s hair.

“Here’s the kicker,” he said, his smile devoid of any real humor, “I do understand, because I’ve been on the receiving end of that kind of feeling.”

Which meant he also had his own Veronica, someone he wanted but who found him too dangerously alluring.

“What happened?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

It seemed like now, after I’d shared about my dad and my true feelings for Jax, he felt he could share with me too.

“I joined the army after dropping out of high school,” he said, his voice low.

“I was just sixteen, and my parents, who were still together then, wouldn’t stop fighting. I wanted to escape, so I enlisted and got shipped off to Iraq.”

I could sense a painful story coming, and I knew I was right when he continued.

“When I came back home at twenty-one, my parents were in the middle of a divorce. I found out my mom had been cheating on my dad for a long, long time.”

“So long, in fact, that she started cheating on him with the same guy when I was just three, but that’s not the main point.”

“The main point is, my mom managed to hide a pregnancy from my dad, because she was carrying the other man’s child.”

“I have no clue how she pulled that off, because I was too young to remember it happening, but somehow she did.”

“Why didn’t she just leave your dad?” I asked, shocked by his revelation.

“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” he said, his smile bitter. “I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, but my dad is Donovan Holmes.”

That was so unexpected, I was speechless for a few seconds.

“Donovan Holmes?” I asked, incredulous. “You mean, the Donovan Holmes? The guy who’s rumored to be the richest man in the world? The Shark of Las Vegas?”

“So, you’ve heard of my dad,” Frey said, his tone flat.

Holy fucking shit, who hadn’t? No wonder his mom didn’t want to leave his dad, she’d hit the jackpot, at least financially. But…

“He passed away a few years ago.”

Frey nodded stiffly and then looked at me. “But that’s not the main point.”

I listened carefully as he continued.

“Just like in Slater’s Bridge, my dad died before he could finalize his divorce from that witch,” Frey said, his face darkening again.

“After he died, his will revealed that he wanted everything to go to me, and not a single thing to my mom.”

“It turned out he knew about the cheating all along, but let it happen anyway.”

I didn’t comment on the fact that it would make Frey insanely rich but let him continue. God knew how long he’d kept all this bottled up, because from the bitter look on his face, it seemed like it’d been a while.

He seemed like he’d forgotten I was even there.

“So, my mom finally married that jerk she was sleeping with behind my dad’s back. She now had another family with two kids, one her own, and the other from another woman that man was sleeping with.”

“So, it turned out I had a half-brother and a stepsister.” The look on Frey’s face was pure desolation. He’d never seemed unreachable before, but now he did.

He seemed like he was a million miles away, and that stirred an odd feeling in my stomach.

It made me feel almost scared that he would never be the Frey I knew and relied on. Because I needed that Frey in my life. I needed him, and he seemed untouchable.

“I fell for my stepsister,” he said suddenly, his voice quiet and low.

“She was beautiful and kind, and I fell for her hard. I knew she was the one for me, but she didn’t feel the same way.”

“She was scared of falling for me too, because we were practically siblings, even if not by blood, and so eventually she distanced herself from me and I had to move on.”

He looked at me now, a strange look in his eyes. “She did what you did to Jax. But unlike you, she didn’t explain it. I had to figure everything out on my own.”

I couldn’t bear to see that look on Frey’s face, and I reached out to gently cup his face.

My mentor’s eyes widened, and I gave him a small, kind smile. “I understand now why you love Slater’s Bridge so much, how it saved you, and how you really feel.”

My touch seemed to snap him out of the trance he’d been in. He shook his head and covered my hand with his.

“I didn’t mean to unload all that on you, Veronica,” he said, chuckling as if he couldn’t believe it. “You always say you can tell me anything because I’m such an open book. Well, it seems you have your moments too.”

I grinned a little. “So, you’re saying I’m an open book?”

“Let’s not get carried away,” he said, his playful smile returning, and something inside me breathed a sigh of relief.

I hadn’t realized until now how much I needed to see him smile like that again, how much it hurt me to see him looking so hurt and sad.

As I looked into Frey Holmes’s eyes, I realized a few things that made me freeze in my tracks.

One, the man sitting in front of me was Donovan “The Shark” Holmes’s son, which meant he was as much of a multi-billionaire as his dad was because he’d inherited all his dad’s property and money.

Two, it hurt me to see him so distant and bitter and sad.

Like, it physically hurt me.

And three, his eyes, these purplish-gray eyes, were the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen.