Every Glance (Every Life #3) (20 page)

“I don’t know,” she says with a quick jerk of her shoulders, toeing at the corner of my fraying welcome mat. “I guess I freaked when I saw you kissing her. When I told her all of that, I was in full-scale panic mode. I didn’t want to lose you, especially to her, and I also wanted her to feel sting that I’d just felt when I saw you two together. I know it was wrong, and I know it painted you in a bad light, but I didn’t know what else to do. And I had to tell her that I got Simon down that night to redeem myself for forgetting his inhaler. I didn’t think you’d care. I mean, I was going to climb up there had you not shown up.”

Got her. Yes.

“Kyler, I appreciate you coming by and explaining everything, but the person you really need to talk to is your sister. She needs to know what you’ve been up to.”

Her top lip curls in disgust. “Tell Devyn? That’s never going to happen. I realize you probably never want to see me again, and I fully understand why. But right now, she’d rather cut her own eyes out than to have to see
you
again. That ship has sailed. And now that she doesn’t trust you, she’ll never believe anything you say. That’s how it has to be. If she finds out what I’ve done, she’ll be beyond pissed at me, and I’ll never get to keep Simon again. Carter pays me a lot of money to keep an eye on them.”

I stand and approach the door again. She’s leaning into the outside of the frame with the beginning of a smile forming on her lips. I know what she thinks is going to happen, but I’m more than happy to burst that bubble. Stopping right in front of her, I grin and slip the key into the lock again.

“Let me get this straight. Your sister’s ex-husband is paying you to feed information to him about her personal life?”

She throws both hands in the air. “What was I supposed to do? He wants to work things out with her, but she won’t even talk to him. He wants to be sure she’s okay. At first, I refused, but when he said he’d pay me…well, my stupid job doesn’t pay all that much, and my parents won’t give me any more money. So I finally agreed. He’s her husband, Dalton. He’s worried about her, and he has a right to know everything she’s doing.”

“He’s a controlling asshole who won’t let her breathe without his permission. And,
no
, he doesn’t have any rights to her anymore. He divorced her months ago and is getting remarried soon. She was supposed to tell you the night you caught her here.”

Her mouth slowly drops open. “I can’t believe she lied to me all this time!”

I nearly choke on my own saliva. “You can’t believe
she
lied to
you
? Are you serious? You’re a real piece of work. You know that? I wish I could be there to see her reaction when she finds all of this out.”

“She won’t.” A proud smile curls the corners of her mouth. “Like I said, she’d never believe you.”

“Well, your time is up. But I have to tell you that you’re wrong. She doesn’t have to believe what I say because she’s going to hear it from your mouth.”

She laughs, an almost joker-esque cackle. “Sorry, handsome, but she’s not. You have to know that I can’t do that.”

I shove the door open with one hand while I slide my phone out of my pocket with the other, holding it up so she can see the seconds ticking away on the screen. “I do know. That’s why I hit the record button for this little conversation as soon as I saw you in my driveway.”

My finger hovers over the “stop” button, but before I press it, I have one last thing to say. “I’m sorry, Devyn.”

Kyler grabs for my phone, but her short stature is no match for me. I hold my phone over my head, bring up a new message, and hit send, hoping the file isn’t too big to go through. Maybe I’m being immature, too, but I think I deserve to clear my name, regardless of who it pisses off. Devyn deserves to know, whether she ever speaks to me again or not.

She crosses her arms over her chest and narrows her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. She’s at Aiden’s, and there’s not much reception out there. And when she gets back home, she’ll see a message from you and won’t ever open it. I told you, Dalton. She’s done with you.”

“Well, then,” I begin, leaning in closer, “I guess it’s a good thing she told me she deleted my contact information from her phone. She won’t know it’s from me until she opens it.”

“Shit.” Kyler takes off for her car, peppering the yard with gravel as she flies out of the drive.

How in the hell did I end up in the middle of all this high school drama? High school is one place I don’t want to revisit, for sure. But I am. With Devyn Rion, of all people. She brought me misery then, and unfortunately, nothing has changed.

And it’s all of this nonsense that I have on my mind after I shower and fall into bed. I’m done with it, though. Yeah, I know I’ve already said that, but I’m for real. I’ve spent more than enough of my life in the clutches of that woman, and most of that time, she had no idea I was even
in
her clutches. I haven’t pined for a woman since high school, and here I am pining for the same damn one, ten years later. She shows up and my nuts are right back in that vice. It’s ridiculous.

As ridiculous as the banging on my door that wakes me up at two in the morning.

“Okay, okay, okay,” I yell over the incessant booming, after stubbing my toe on a table leg and swearing the rest of the way to the door and flipping on the porch light. “What the hell do—oh. What are you doing here?”

Devyn pushes through the door, hitting the same throbbing toe. “Was it really necessary to completely ruin my life?” She not quite screaming, but let’s just say that I can hear her perfectly fine. And so could the neighbors—if I had any very close. “Everything was great before you sent that message tonight. I would’ve never spoken to you again. Kyler would still be someone I could trust. And I wouldn’t feel like I’m about to lose my mind.
Why
did you have to do that?”

“I thought you would want to know.” I’m trying my best to maintain a calm, cool tone, but it’s awfully hard with her banging her fists on my chest. “And I wanted you to know that I didn’t do what you thought I had done.”

She shoves me, but I barely move. “Why the hell do you even care what I think? Huh? Why didn’t you just let it go? You should’ve just stayed with Kyler and left me the hell alone. Why didn’t you? Why?”

Devyn’s fists are alternating between grabbing at my shirt and punching my chest at the beginning of each sentence, and even though I’ve never done well with this type of physical confrontation, I want nothing more than to wrap my arms around her and hold her close. She’s beyond upset, and I didn’t really take into consideration exactly what all of this would do to her. Tears are falling in rivulets, leaving behind trails of mascara around her red, puffy eyes. Her face is drawn and her jaw tense. She’s barely keeping it together. Something tells me that this isn’t just about me sending her that recording tonight. There’s years of frustration and tears pouring out of her.

“Because I care about
you
, Devyn. And maybe it’s because I’m a little bit selfish and wanted to make sure you knew I wasn’t lying to you. But most of all, like I’ve said before, you deserve better in your life. Carter, your sister…they’re playing you. It’s time for that to stop.”

She launches clenched fists toward my chest again, but I catch both of her wrists in my hands and pull her against me. “Dalton, you can’t—”

I cut her off by covering her mouth with my own. Now is probably not the best time to kiss her, but generally, two o’clock in the morning isn’t good for much else. I expect it to only last seconds before she pushes me away, but she immediately melts into me, so I let go of her arms and wrap one arm around her waist. The other hand gently cups her damp cheek.

Her lips taste like salt, but her tongue tastes like a cherry Lifesaver, something I noticed her eating when she brought Simon to the clinic to play around in the lab. I know I may not have the opportunity to do this again, so I’m relishing every second. I’ve probably only caught her in a moment of weakness, and she’ll probably regret falling into me so easily, but right now, I don’t give a shit. If I only have a few minutes before she regains her bearings, I’ll gladly take what little time she’s giving me. Even if it means this will be the last time.

The only light in the living room comes from the lamp in my bedroom and the porch light shining through the front windows, so as I shuffle backward toward the couch I have to be careful not to run into the coffee table. She sinks into the couch with me without any hesitation, and her lips never leave mine. Not for several minutes.

“I’m so sorry,” she finally whispers between kisses.

I take her face in my hands and look into the soft glow in her eyes. “Don’t apologize to me. I’m the one who’s sorry, Devyn. Maybe if I hadn’t been so selfish, you wouldn’t have to go through this. If I had just butted out, your life would be much simpler. You were just fine with how things were, and I took it upon myself to fix what wasn’t really broken.”

She leans away from me and straightens. “Are you kidding? I wasn’t fine with anything in my life, except for Simon. He’s the only thing that’s right, and my choice to turn a blind eye to everything has been hurting him a hell of a lot more than it has hurt me. How could I be so stupid? How could I not see what all of this has done to him? The kind of person that I’ve become?”

“Simon knows that you’ve done everything you could to protect him from the reality of life. You kept things civil with Carter to protect Simon from the fights as much as you could. You gave in to his ploys to control you to protect Simon from the fallout of fighting him. I can see that in everything you do, and I’m just an outsider. I know Simon sees it, too. He may only be a kid, but he’s smart and perceptive.”

“He
is
smart.” She slumps back into the couch pillows and sighs deeply. “I’m not surprised by anything that Carter has done, but Kyler…I had no idea. It really hurts, you know? I’d like to think that she just fell under Carter’s spell and was only acting under his influence, but so much of that—with you especially—had to be all on her own. I don’t know how I could ever forgive her.”

I grab her elbow and drag her over to me, wrapping both arms around her shoulders. “You will. I think she’s dealing with her own insecurities, and Carter probably fed them. He’s always known how to play people.” I’m relieved when she doesn’t really catch what I just said. I have to be more careful. The last thing I need to do right now is to make her realize who I am. That’s a conversation for a day when she’s not already at her breaking point.

“He has,” she sighs, resting her head against my shoulder. “I’ve let him play me for way too long. But I don’t know how to stop it. It’s going to mean finding a new place to live. A new job. Starting completely over.”

I tilt her chin up, so I can look at her, letting her see my sincerity. “You won’t be starting
over
, Devyn. You never got the chance to start. You lived the life
he
wanted, so it’s time to live yours. Whatever you want…no matter what it is…it’s yours for the taking.”

I almost want to kick myself for saying that. There’s something about her that makes me speak as if I’ve traded in my man card for a freaking inspirational greeting card. But the look of sheer determination that sweeps over her face tells me that my words have a lot more worth than I think they do. It’s that look that tells me she finally has hope that everything will be just fine.

And I actually think it will be.

“ANYONE EVER TELL you that you look like shit when you don’t get enough sleep?” Sawyer asks with a half-eaten slice of jalapeno cornbread pinched between his fingers.

“All the time,” I mumble through a yawn.

And I’m sure I do look like shit today. We drove down here to Orange Beach yesterday after I had been awake since Devyn came pounding on my door at two in the morning. We talked for a few hours before she narrowly escaped Sawyer’s arrival. I didn’t want to just tell her to leave—or why—but I was starting to sweat it. If he’d caught her there, I know I’d be in for another lecture from him.

We packed my car, picked Wes up, and drove up to see William for a while. The drive down here was less than an hour, but we hit the ground running, hitting up my favorite restaurant and a few bars and staying out way too late. The whole time we were out, Devyn and I were texting like a couple of teenagers, and I can’t really say that I didn’t like it. It was damn hard to hide it from the guys, too, but I’d never hear the end of it if I got caught. To be fair, though, both Sawyer
and
Wes answered calls from Makenna and Callie. They broke the “no women” rule first, so I didn’t feel too bad about it.

But when we got back to the beach house I rented, Devyn asked if she could call me. It’s not like I was about to turn that down, so I offered to take the bedroom downstairs and let the other two guys take the rooms upstairs. I tried to come across as if I was really making some huge sacrifice, but I really wanted to have the downstairs to myself so I couldn’t be heard on the phone.

So much for that idea.

Apparently, Sawyer came back downstairs after I thought they would’ve had plenty of time to be asleep. Of course, I didn’t know this until I was listening to Devyn talking about how jealous she was about my little weekend trip and I had just blurted out that she should just pack a bag and come on down here. That’s when I noticed my bedroom door was open, and Sawyer was standing in it, looking a little perplexed. He asked if I had any ibuprofen and left after I tossed the bottle to him. I’ve been waiting all day for him to ask who I was talking to, but he still hasn’t. Maybe he had more to drink than I realized and doesn’t even remember.