Picture Perfect (20 page)

I downed the rest of my beer, feeling myself tense despite the kick of the alcohol. “It doesn’t matter if she likes me or I like her or whatever. We have a perfectly good thing going right now, so why risk it?”

“Are you afraid she’ll find out about what happened and not see you in the same light?”

“Hell, I don’t know how she sees me now.” I wasn’t sure I wanted to. “Believe me, she’s better off finding some professor or something to marry when she becomes a teacher. She’ll be safer with him.”

Erik sighed. “Dev, you can’t spend the rest of your life alone. You’ll make yourself miserable. You need people.” He paused. “Ever since the accident, you haven’t been the same. I’ve watched you
struggle through it day by day and watched as your spirit died a little each time. I know opening up isn’t your thing, man. But don’t you think you should let someone in before this eats you alive?”

My eyes narrowed. “I let Darcy in and looked what happened.”

“But Angel isn’t Darcy. You lost control of your temper one time, but so what? You haven’t since. You haven’t had to see a therapist in three months. You’ve owned it.”

It felt like a storm cloud descended upon the room. Biting my lip, I quickly hashed out what happened earlier, how I’d fought my way to the stage.

Erik whistled, looking impressed. “Wow. Way to go, badass. Did she swoon in your arms and do you in the alley?” he added with a grin.

“You don’t understand,” I gr
owled, getting up and pacing. “It’s not a fucking joke. I
liked
the feeling of pummeling people’s faces in. It felt good, like a release from all the pent-up shit that’s been building up since Delia died.”

He shrugge
d. “You weren’t exactly a softy before all that. We got into plenty of brawls on the ice, and you didn’t think twice of it then. Besides, it’s not like you went around starting fights.”

I shook my head. “What I did to Darcy… I can’t risk losing control like that again. I’d never forgive myself if I hurt
Angel.” From the looks of it, she’d already been hurt enough.

Erik stood, putting his empty bottle on the countertop. “You can’t keep punishing yourself forever, Devin. It’s going to hurt, but you have to let yourself heal. You have to forgive yourself and move on.”

I didn’t say anything as he walked past and paused at the door. “I’ll try to do better at keeping in touch. Just because Tam’s entered my life doesn’t mean I should shove you out of it.”

I gave him a small smile and nodded once. “Sounds good.”

With a nod, Erik opened the door and left. I stood there, listening to the sound of his retreating footsteps, mentally reviewing what he’d just said. I didn’t deserve to move on, to forget about my faults and live a blessed life like everybody else who hadn’t ruined people’s lives.

Shaking my head, I grabbed our bottles and chucked them into the garbage bin. I was heading toward the shower when the doorbell rang. Frowning, I thought maybe Erik had forgotten something, though it was weird he’d ring the doorbell instead of knocking or coming right in. I looked through the peephole but didn’t see anyone there. Opening the door, I peered out into the hall, my heart dropping into my stomach when I saw her.

“Darcy.”

She didn’t even flinch. Her whole face lit up with that gorgeous smile of hers, like sunshine on a spring day. “Hi, Devin.”

It took my brain a moment to figure out how to work again. “What are you doing here?”

Her smile faltered and she looked unsure. “I’m, er, I just brought some things of yours over that I thought you’d want back.”

Since you ripped my heart out?

Running with my “not being a dick theme,” I kept my snark in check and opened the door wider. “Sure. Come in.”

She slipped past me. A sense of déjà vu ripped through me at seeing her in my living room again. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. The sharp pain that had been there the first time I saw her and Brayden together had quieted to a dull ache. It was still there, but I hadn’t noticed it until seeing her. Which astounded the shit out of me. I’d been so wrapped up in my Angel drama, I hadn’t had time to pine over Darcy.

“I’m sorry I dropped by unannounced,” she said, setting the little brown box she carried in on my coffee table.

I started to automatically say the polite thing - “It’s okay” - but stopped myself. Was it okay? She was officially my ex-girlfriend. Did I even want to be in the same room as her? Shouldn’t I spit on the ground she walks on and all that shit?

Seeing her again, trying to do a nice thing, I couldn’t bring myself to hate her. She could have burned all my shit. Instead, she’d packed it up and brought it here, and to me, that took guts.

“Thanks,” I said gruffly, going over to the box and opening it. There was the Sanhope Hawks hoodie I thought I’d never see again, my class ring, and some other things that in hindsight didn’t hold much value to me anymore.

“Oh.” Darcy reached into her purse. “I didn’t pack this in there because I was afraid it’d get broken or lost. Here.”

The whole fucking world stopped when she held up the rosary, the petite crystal cross dangling from a string of rose-colored glass beads. Darcy didn’t say anything as I stared at it, unable to stop my hands from shaking as I took it. Damn, my eyes were watering. I cupped it in my hands; it looked so small and breakable.

“Since it belonged to Delia, I knew you’d definitely want it back,” Darcy said softly.

I swiped at my eyes, clearing them, and smiled at her. “Thank you.”

She smiled back, nodding. “Well, I’d better get going. Here’s your apartment key, too.” She gently placed it in my palm, her fingers brushing against my skin.

I stared at the spot where her fingers lingered, marveling at how I felt nothing when she touched me. No thrills, no heartache, nothing.

Without saying goodbye, she turned and quietly let herself out, closing the door behind her.

In the ensuing silence, I stood there staring at the rosary, and wondered how I could have let something so precious slip away.

CHAPTER 22

Angel

A FULL-BLOWN FIGHT
had broken out inside the club by the time I got back. Most of the patrons seemed amused by this, cheering and yelling as security broke up the fights and escorted people out. Tammara grabbed hold of me soon as I appeared in the hallway. She tugged me into one of the curtained off private rooms. “Holy shit, Angel. I saw what happened on stage. Are you okay?”

I nodded, cringing at the memory of all of those men running their hands over me. “Yeah, I’m fine now.”

“Was that Devin Thompson who carried you off stage?”

My face heated. “Yeah, it was him.”

“Wow.” She pressed a hand to her chest, as if she was breathless. “What a guy.”

“Yeah, what a guy,” I murmured. The smell of his cologne, like mint and pine, clung to my nostrils, refusing to let me forget about him. Oddly enough, he hadn’t smelled like cigarettes. Or maybe my nose was desensitized to the smell from being in the club that I could no longer pick it up. The feel of his arms around me, carrying me away from all this, was still fresh on my mind. With him, I felt safe, like nothing in the world could hurt me.

“Uh oh.”

My eyes snapped up. I’d been daydreaming. “What?”

Tammara’s face held a knowing smile. “You’re falling for him, aren’t you?”

My heart sped up. “I… I don’t know. Maybe.” Was this what it felt like to fall in love? It was so different from my other experiences. The last guy I’d fallen head over heels for, Alex, had swept me off my feet just as quickly as he’d left me, but it hadn’t felt like this. I didn’t have many experiences to compare it to. I’d dated a handful of boys, sure, but Alex had been the only one who’d stuck around long enough for me to get to know and love him. That too ended abruptly, like every other good thing in my life.

“What’s wrong?” Tam asked. “You should be on cloud nine or breaking out into song. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you this smitten with a guy.”

“Who says I’m
smitten with him?”

“Well, the fact you get all jittery whenever he’s near, or how you mumble his name in your sleep. And don’t deny it,” she said when I opened my mouth to protest. “I’ve heard you. Not to mention the pages and pages of notebook paper I’ve found in the garbage can
with his name scribbled all over them. You’re hot for him.”

I hugged myself. “He’s handsome, sure.”

“He’s a little more than handsome,” Tammara murmured.

“But…”

“But what?”

I shrugged then shook my head. “I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it, but being around him makes me uneasy.”

Tam frowned. “How so?”

“I don’t know. It just does.”

Tam pursed her lips, like she usually did when thinking something through. “You know what I think? I think you’re uncomfortable being around him because it reminds you of how you first felt with Alex, and your brain’s trying to protect you from getting hurt by making you feel edgy around him. It’s a defense mechanism.”

My brows rose. “Wow, Tam. You sure you don’t want to be a shrink?”

The corner of her mouth twisted up in a grin. “Think about it, though. You’ve never really dated anybody seriously since Alex, and that was freshman year. I mean, look at you. You’re gorgeous, driven, and smart. You could get any guy you want. But you hold yourself back because you’re scared of getting hurt.”

A hot retort nearly flew off my tongue, but I stopped it. Tammara was right. Every word resonated deep within me, shaking me at my core. I hadn’t let myself live or become too emotionally attached to anyone for fear of them leaving or disappointing me. Tam was my only friend, and what little time I didn’t spend with her, I used burying myself in my job and my schoolwork in an attempt to distract myself from how lonely I was.

“Look, doll.” Tam rested a hand on my arm. “Alex might have dumped you because of your scar, but he was an asshole. Not all guys are like that. I think you should give Devin a chance.”

Brayden’s warning crossed my mind. “Maybe it’s a good thing I’m hesitant.” I told her all about my encounter with Devin’s brother, including Devin’s reluctance to talk about it in the alley when I cornered him.

“All right, to be fair, you cornered him,” Tammara said.

“But he cornered me first!”

She shook her head. “Probably because he genuinely wanted to know what happened. And sure, it’s none of his business now, but it will be if you two get involved. You’ll have to let him in on it, hard as it is for you to talk about it.”

My palms slicked with icy sweat at just mentioning that horrible night. It had taken two years and a lot of tequila to open up like that to Tammara, the only person I’d ever told the truth to. How in the world could I ever tell Devin what happened? How could he begin to understand the hell I went through? His family life wasn’t perfect, judging from the tension between him and his brother, but it was
semi-normal and not the fucked-up mess mine was.

“Hey, you don’t have to phone him up and tell him right this second,” she said, squeezing my arm. “But I do think you should give him a chance to explain. We don’t know his side of the story, and from what I’ve seen of his brother, I don’t trust him. And who knows, maybe you two will have more in common than you think. Maybe you can help each other.”

Help each other.
How could we when we couldn’t even help ourselves?

Behind the curtain, Curtis’s voice screamed instructions to the staff. From the sound of it, the place was wrecked from the fights, which we’d never had before. Being a more sophisticated atmosphere, things were usually pretty tame.

Tammara rolled her eyes. “Guess that means we’re being summoned. I can’t wait to get out of this place. Four more weeks, baby.”

I locked up at hearing that. If there were four more weeks to graduation, then that meant another two with Devin. And suddenly, that scared me more than facing Curtis’s wrath, which I would surely do once we left our hiding spot.

“Just think about what I said, okay?” Tammara asked, lifting the curtain. “Erik can’t say enough good things about Devin, and he knows him better than anyone.”

I gave her a small smile. “Okay.”

She smiled back and disappeared. I watched as the silk waterfall cascaded back across the exit, and I could hear our coworkers’ voices as tables were moved and brooms scraped the floor, but I didn’t budge. Tammara mentioning graduation had brought up a troubling realization - I didn’t know when my next photo session was. Devin hadn’t said, and I’d forgotten to ask him about it in the alley, and at the aquarium. I always seemed to be running away from him, in too big a hurry to escape. And yet he kept chasing anyway.

And part of me - a very large part - wanted to quit running and let him catch me.

Chewing my lip, I brushed by the curtain and headed toward my locker to text Devin, completely ignoring the mess on the floor around me. Broken glasses and a trashed club didn’t matter as much as finding out when I could see my guardian angel again.

“Angel.”