Live for Me (10 page)

So it was Kadence, his ex-wife, on the phone.

“It has nothing to do with her. I didn’t get involved with her until after we split, you know that. I was never unfaithful to you.”

Though anyone could say that, I believed him. It just seemed that while Devin was many things, cheater wasn’t one of them, despite what those pictures said. It made sense to me that they were sent by his ex. Who else would have?

There was silence while he listened to her response, then I heard Devin give a sigh. “No. You’re not throwing that in my face again. I don’t believe you.”

His voice was cold. Remote. “Prove it.”

Trying to school my features so he’d think I had just gotten there, I put myself in the doorway, mouthing “sorry” that I was interrupting and backed up again to leave. He held up a finger to indicate I should wait.

“Of course I’ll answer your call. I’ll always answer your calls. But I’m not going to be manipulated.” He was sitting at his desk and he had headphones around his neck. Yanking them off, he tossed them down. “I have to go. I’m not in New York and an issue has popped up.”

Apparently I was his issue.

He said goodbye and hung up the phone. “Can I help you?”

Well, that was friendly. Not. “I just wanted to know if you wanted dinner soon.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said.

“Like what?” I tried to neutralize my features, not really sure what my face was expressing. I considered myself pretty good at not showing my hand to anyone, yet Devin always seemed to read me really well. He knew when I was upset or nervous, or ticked off.

“Like I’m disappointing you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I didn’t. I wasn’t surprised his conversation with his ex was contentious. How many people had awesome relationships with someone they had divorced? But he had seemed kinder to her on the video I’d seen, though I hadn’t been able to hear what he was saying.

“I’m not a great guy, so don’t give me credit for being one.”

I just stood there for a second then I sat down on a love seat that had a zebra-striped fabric. Definitely not Devin’s style. “What have you done that is so awful? You tell me I can’t feel sorry for myself, well, guess what? Neither can you.”

He gave a snort. “The minute I laid eyes on you I knew you were going to be a challenge.”

It felt like a compliment, despite the words themselves. I pressed. “So what went wrong in your marriage? Besides the cheating, was it something else? You must have been in love at some point.”

He fiddled with the keyboard in front of him, hitting a random key. “You want to hear about my marriage? Okay. Fine. When I met Kadence I was twenty-three and still totally naïve. I met her out one night in the Village and I thought she was so mature, so sexy. She knew everyone in the club and she spent money like a hundred bucks was a penny. People followed her around, including me. When she showed interest in me, I was triumphant. I won, right? At first I thought she was crazy fun, and crazy in bed. Then I realized she was just crazy. She’d lied to me about her age, telling me she was twenty six when she was really thirty two. I didn’t care about the age difference, but it pissed me off that she’d lied. I found out by accident and I felt like an idiot. I broke up with her. But by then she was pregnant.”

That wasn’t what I was expecting. I cleared my throat. “Oh. Wow.”

“So I married her. I married her even knowing I wasn’t in love with her. Knowing that part of her made my skin crawl. How’s that for romantic?”

It wasn’t romantic, but it was admirable. “I think that actually disproves your theory that you’re not nice. You married her because of your child and I admire that.”

He made a face. “Don’t. Don’t ascribe admiration to me. I did it because I knew she was fucking crazy and I didn’t want to condemn a child to living with her solo. I married her to be a shield. I didn’t want her and I didn’t really want a kid.”

“Again, more reason to admire you for doing the right thing.” I firmly believed that. “You could have walked away. Most men would have. My father did.” It said a lot to me about his character that he’d done what he hadn’t wanted to solely because he’d wanted to protect his child. “What happened to the pregnancy?” I didn’t think he had a four year old. I’d seen no evidence of that online and he’d never once mentioned a child.

“She miscarried.”

“I’m sorry.”

But Devin shook his head slowly, leaning back in his chair. “I wasn’t. Now tell me I’m a nice guy. Tell me you still admire me. I’m a fucking selfish bastard.”

“A selfish bastard would have dumped her immediately upon losing the baby. Or had a string of affairs while tolerating his marriage.” I leaned forward, wanting closer to him. “You’re right, you know. Your bark is worse than your bite.”

He gave me a small smile. “You’re very good at throwing my own words back at me. I need to be more careful with what I say.”

“I’m not meaning to throw anything at you.” Myself included. The more time I spent with him, the more I wanted to though. My attraction was growing beyond just the physical. I felt drawn to Devin. I liked him. He reached inside me without even trying.

“I know.” He studied me. “When I look at you, I don’t see eighteen. I know that you’re young, but you don’t look young.”

“That’s the opposite of what everyone has ever told me. I think I look like a twelve-year-old boy.” It was true. No ass, no boobs, short. I knew my expression must be incredulous because his words were ridiculous.

But he was insistent. “That’s insane. Nothing about you is masculine. And you don’t look young because you don’t move like a kid, all random action and spastic energy.”

The studio was windowless, with padded walls for soundproofing, and it felt cozy, intimate. It was dark, the only light the one from his computer monitor. “Well, that’s true. No more has ever called me spastic.”

“Kids have this innocence about them, a sense of wonder and pure silliness, and for most teens that extends right through the first year or two of college. You don’t have any of that.”

I swallowed hard. “Life hasn’t really been silly for me.”

“No, I suppose not. You stare at the world like you’ve figured it out and found it all very lacking.”

Maybe there was truth to that. I didn’t really know. I did know that I wasn’t angry. I also knew that I might display a tough outer shell, but inside I was soft and tender. “I’m not totally cynical.”

“No, I didn’t mean that. Just… wise. You’re like my little owl.”

I wasn’t sure that was flattering or not. But I focused on his use of the word “my.”

“Who?” I said, completely deadpan.

For a split second he didn’t get it. Then he burst out laughing. “Good one.”

I smiled back at him.

But then he got serious again, so quickly I wondered what thought had popped into his head. “What?”

“Part of me wishes you were immature, annoying.”

“Why?”

“You know why. Don’t pretend not to understand.”

I knew what I wanted it to be. I said nothing.

“But you’re not.”

“I hope I’m not annoying.”

His knee nudged mine. “Nope. Not even close. Are we friends, Tiffany?”

Trick question or not, I wanted to answer honestly. “I hope so. I want to be friends.”

He rubbed his jaw. “I want a lot of things. But sometimes we can’t have them.”

“So we can’t be friends?” It was like he enjoyed tormenting me. Dangling closeness in front of me, then taking it away.

“I think that it’s impossible for us not to be.” He looked away from me and at his computer screen. “Yes, I would like dinner.”

It must be nice to be able to conveniently dismiss people. To be in control of jumping that fence from employer to friend and back again.

“I’m off duty for the day. You can come and help me though if you’d like.”

He turned slowly back to me, clearly caught off guard. “You have balls bigger than some forty-year-old men, I’ll give you that.”

I pretended to glance between my thighs. “And yet I can still wear skinny jeans.”

Devin gave a snort. “You’re a stand-up comedienne tonight.”

“I have my moments.” I stood up to leave.

But Devin reached out and touched my arm. “I’ll be down to help in five minutes.”

I smiled warmly, glad he was conceding the point to me. “Good. I made cookies already.”

He made a sound in the back of his throat. “God, you’re killing me. For real.”

The feeling was mutual.

“So where did you learn to shoot?” Devin asked me a few days later.

“Cat’s dad, one of my foster fathers.” I hefted the rifle on my shoulder as we walked out to his range. It was behind the garage and had the proper safety targets so no bullets would ricochet. “I was thirteen when I went there to live and I was four inches shorter than I am now, and about sixty pounds, I think. He figured I might need to protect myself some day.” My boots crunched on the frozen ground. “He was a good man.”

“Do you ever get to see him?”

“He’s dead,” I said shortly.

Devin put his hand on the small of my back as we walked. “I’m sorry,” he said simply and I knew he meant it.

“Yeah. It sucks. Cat took it really hard.”

“I don’t know how you survived all those foster homes, honestly.”

“I did, because I had to.” I shrugged. “And I was one of the lucky ones. No one molested me or truly physically abused me.”

“Don’t downplay it.”

“I’m not.” We got to the target area. “I’m serious. I was lucky. It could have been a lot worse.”

“That’s how you learned to be so observant, isn’t it?”

“Probably. Where did you learn to shoot?” I set down the spare bullets.

“It wasn’t anything sexy, trust me. I did ROTC in college.”

“How is that not sexy?” I gave him a dirty look. “I swear you do that on purpose.”

“What?” Devin put headphones on me, clapping them in place over my ears.

I lifted one side so I could hear. “You pretend like you’re not one of the cool kids. But you really are.”

He tweaked my nose. “Don’t talk back to your elders.”

“I’m holding a loaded gun, Devin. Don’t pull that age rank on me.” It was what he always did when he got uncomfortable with our conversation. Our relationship. He pulled back and shielded himself behind my being eighteen.

I could appreciate that he needed a wall in front of him. I had one too. Mine was poured concrete. But it wasn’t in place at his expense.

“You can be pretty bad ass when you want to.” But he didn’t back away. His gaze dropped to my mouth. “But you’d never shoot me. You like me too much.”

He had me there. My breath created puffs of steam in front of my mouth as I watched him, wanting him to kiss me. Wondering if I had the nerve to kiss him.

Here alone, with no access or interference from other human beings, it seemed possible. But I had to remind myself that it wasn’t reality. It was him and me hiding from the world, even though it hadn’t been intentional. Here there was no G Daddy, and even though the signs of his wealth were all around us, it was easy to ignore the disparity in our lives.

We were friends. I wanted more.

“And you’re avoiding the issue,” I said.

“What issue is that?”

“My age.”

“I’m not avoiding it. It’s damn near all I think about.” He took my hand and for a second I thought he was going to actually kiss me but he just briefly brushed his lips across my forehead. “Your hands are cold. Where are your gloves?”

“I only have mittens. Kind of hard to shoot with mittens.” My voice sounded breathless.

He massaged my hand, and then together with his, slipped it into the pocket of his coat. It forced me closer to him, embrace open, my waist brushing against his. I wanted him so badly I didn’t feel the cold. I felt hot everywhere, a burning intense desire that radiated from the inside out. In my right hand, I clutched the rifle, glad it wasn’t loaded yet.

“What does it take to impress you?” he asked. “Just out of curiosity.”

“Impress me?” It was a distracting question and I needed a second to drag my thoughts off what it would feel like to have his mouth on mine, his hands exploring the caverns of my body, stroking me to satisfaction. “What do you mean?”

“Who will be the man who earns your respect? Who earns
you
?”

Him. That’s who. But I watched him watching me, his expression earnest. “A man who is loyal. Honest. Affectionate. I want to look at him and know instantly that he loves me. No walking on eggshells. I walked on those my entire life. I need to know where I stand.”

I didn’t really know where I stood with Devin. That was part of the problem. So whatever he was asking me, I was asking him in return.

“Anything else?” he asked. “Jewelry? Trips to Europe?”

I shook my head, my heart starting to race. Please let him be doing what I thought he was doing. “No,” I whispered. “I don’t care about any of that. I just want to be loved by a good man.”

But something about what I said had him pulling back. He took my hand out of his pocket and gave it a final massage. The gravel beneath his feet crunched as he took a step back. Disappointment rushed through me.

“You’re right, you’re not cynical,” he said. “You’re actually quite the secret romantic.”

I supposed I was. It didn’t seem like a lot to ask. I had never really felt unconditional love. Not in the way of a parent or a boyfriend. I had the love of a few friends, the affection of some classmates and teachers. Social workers who had expressed a great deal of concern for me. So if I was going to be involved with a guy, why should I settle? I wanted love.

Which was why I was suddenly grateful that Devin wasn’t kissing me. I wasn’t sure I could resist going there with him and yet, how would I feel afterward? I didn’t want just sex. “Is that being romantic? Or just… aware of my own worth?” I asked him.

Something about my answer seemed to stump him. He opened his mouth, then shut it again. But finally he reached out, his thumb running over my lip. “And that is how you survived foster care,” he said hoarsely. “Just so you know, I think your worth is priceless.”

I reached for him, instinctively, watching to touch him, my hand rising to capture his. My heart was full and I saw admiration there, a genuine, deep affection for me.