Paper Fools (Hearts and Arrows Book 1)

by Staci Hart

  “Do you think you can pull that off?”

  “Hell yes, I can.” Dita dance-paced for a minute, and the two goddesses giggled.

  “You must do the sexiest robot in the history of the world.”

  Dita paused to pop and lock, and Perry laughed from the couch as Dita moonwalked over. She flopped down next to Perry, giddy as she looked down into the city.

  “Watch this,” she said with a grin.

  Dita found the bus stop at the subway entrance by Travis’s apartment with an ad of a magnificent life-size model on one wall. And when Dita closed her eyes, the wind began to blow past the glass walls as rose petals spun in the air.

  A newspaper flew into the face of a bum asleep on the bus stop bench. He sat up, his eyes bugging when the supermodel in the ad blinked. She pulled away from the flat surface, taking shape as she stepped out, and her stilettos hit the sidewalk with a click. She stood motionless and looked down at her arms in wonderment before running her hands down her tight black dress to shimmy it down her thighs. Her chin lifted as she strutted with purpose toward the subway entrance with her short dark hair bouncing in time to the clip of her high, high heels.

  Travis walked out of the subway entrance by his apartment and plowed into a terminally beautiful woman in a tiny black dress. She grabbed his chest as she fell into him, and he leaned back from the force, grabbing her waist to hang on to her.

  “Oh Gods,” she said, “I’m so sorry! These shoes are killing me.”

  “Are you okay?”

  He looked down at the top of her head. The big curls of her short hair shielded her face from him as she bent down, still hanging on to his shoulder with one hand while she popped her heels off.

  She wiggled her toes on the sidewalk and tilted her face up to the sky, eyes closed. “Ah, that feels amazing. I’ve had those shoes on forever.”

  When she opened her eyes, he was unwilling and unable to stop himself — he was intoxicated, drunk off her eyes, her lips, the scent of her, like roses.

  And without a thought, he dropped his lips to hers.

  The moment they touched was the moment when he forgot everything, his mind slipping into a fog as he lost himself in her.

  Day Seventeen

  The phone blared in Lex’s ear, snapping her from sleep. She rolled over in Kara’s bed and narrowed her eyes against the morning sun as she picked up her phone. Travis’s picture smiled at her from the screen, and her stomach flipped when she hit the Accept button.

  “Hey, Travis,” she said, her voice rough from disuse.

  “Sorry, did I wake you?”

  “It’s okay. Everything all right?”

  He took a breath and let it out. “No. Lex, I need you to come home. We need to talk.”

  Something in his voice sent a shock through her, and she pushed herself up onto an elbow, suddenly very much awake. “All right, yeah. Yeah. I’ll be home in a few hours.” He agreed, and Lex hung up, lying back down with her eyes on the ceiling.

  Kara yawned. “What’s going on?”

  “Travis wants to talk. Do you think … do you think he knows about Dean?”

  Kara rolled over to face Lex, her eyes clear and blue in the morning light. “I don’t know. Are you going to tell him if he doesn’t know?”

  “If I’m not going to be with Dean, does it matter?” she asked, not knowing if there was an answer. “Would I be hurting him to clear my own conscience?”

  “I don’t know, Lexie. I just don’t know.”

  “Me neither. I just have to see how it goes. If it feels right, I’ll tell him. Either way, this is it.”

  Kara watched her for a moment. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” Lex answered, knowing it was true. “It’s time.”

  A few hours later, Lex opened the door to find Travis sitting on the couch with his hands clasped in front of him, his expression unreadable. She dropped her keys in the bowl and quietly closed the door as she set her bag down before moving to sit next to him, twisting her fingers together in her lap as they sat in silence.

  She had to start it. She had to face him.

  “Travis I —”

  “Hang on, me first.” His eyes were on his hands, and he paused to take a deep breath before he began. “I don’t even know how to tell you this, Lex. I’ve loved being with you, and you’ve become my best friend. I love what we have, and I love sharing my life with you. But I’m not in love with you, and I think you feel the same way about me. Am I right?”

  Her heart ached, and she nodded, opening her mouth to speak, but there were no words.

  “It’s okay, Lex.”

  “Where did this come from?” she finally asked, dreading his response.

  “I …” He turned to face her. “I met someone last night.”

  Her face fell, though she was only slightly hurt. After what she’d done with Dean, she didn’t have any room to judge or to be upset. At least he cared enough to be honest with her. Guilt welled up inside her.

  “Things have been crazy around here. You’re not talking to me. You’ve been going through something and keeping it from me. And last night … I don’t know how it happened, but I couldn’t help myself. I brought her back here. I’m just … I’m so sorry.” Travis shook his head, his eyes sad and sorrowful and full of regret. “It’s time to call this, Lex. It’s time to end it.”

  Her mind raced with the knowledge that he’d cheated on her, plagued by the guilt that she’d done the same. Now, she thought. Tell him now. But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

  How hurt and angry would Travis be that she’d lied to him about her date with Dean? If he knew what she’d done?

  She wasn’t sure anymore, not after his confession — not that she was sure before.

  What had happened between her and Dean was so much worse than Travis’s cheating. Dean was a part of Travis’s life, of his success. Travis might not go on a rampage if he found out, but could he go through every day at practice knowing she had been with Dean? Because it was cheating on her end too, even though she and Dean hadn’t gone all the way. In fact, she felt like out of the two of them, she was the criminal because she hadn’t planned on it being a fling. She’d planned on it being much, much more.

  But she wasn’t going to be with Dean, not anymore. Was it worth hurting Travis and potentially damaging his career for nothing? Because exactly nothing had come out of her and Dean but pain.

  There was enough hurt going around without putting any more on Travis. If she and Dean had ended up together, well … that would have been different.

  It was in that moment that she wondered if the tarot reading had been about Travis after all. Infidelity, the breakup, the deception, The Sun, The Fool … they all made sense. But it was all realized distantly — the truth was, Dean wasn’t someone she could put her faith in or give her heart to. She had already ripped off the Band-Aid, and there was no point in putting it back on, not for someone she was convinced would hurt her.

  “Travis, it’s okay. I’m not angry. I care about you, too … so much, but it’s never been love for me either.” She paused as she took in the guilt on his face, feeling it mirrored on her own. “I’ll get my stuff together and go to Kara’s.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to put you out with nowhere to go. Stay until you figure things out. I’ll crash on the couch. All your stuff is here, and it would be a huge pain in the ass to drag it all to Kara’s and then to another apartment. Just stay … unless you don’t want to. But don’t leave because you think that’s what I want. You’re my best friend, Lexie. I want to keep that.”

  She looked at Travis for a long moment before looking away. “Me too,” she said as she leaned over to lay her head on his shoulder.

  He moved his arm around her as they sat in the silent room, together and apart.

  “I fucking did it.” Dita’s cheeks burned from smiling so wide, and Perry grinned at her.

  “Brilliant. I can’t believe you turned the prophec
y around. I mean, I can believe it because you’re smart as fuck, but that really was genius. What are you going to do now?”

  Dita’s smile fell a smidge, and her eyes dropped. “I don’t know exactly. She’s not going to run straight to Dean, not as sure as she is that he’s wrong for her. And now … now there’s no reason for her to be in Dean’s space.”

  “Well, you have eleven days to figure it out. I have faith in you.”

  “I just want them to be happy,” Dita said quietly. “There’s so much hate and hurt in the world and so much unnecessary pain for Lex and Dean right now. They need each other. She can heal him, and he deserves something real and true and good in his life. He deserves to find home.”

  Perry’s eyes glistened. “Stop it, you big softy. You’re gonna make me cry.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m going to do whatever I have to do to make it happen for them. I just hope I can pull it off.”

  “Well, if anyone can, it’s you.”

  Day Eighteen

  Lex poured a cup of tea with her phone in the crook of her shoulder. “It’s not that weird, Kara.”

  “It’s kind of weird. You’re living with your ex-boyfriend. Who cheated on you. Just come stay with me.”

  “All my stuff is here, and I’m staying until I can get out on my own. Travis and I are friends. We don’t have to be sleeping together to share space.”

  “If you say so. You guys are bizarro.” Kara chuckled.

  Lex giggled back.

  Relieved didn’t even begin to cover how she felt about Travis. She hadn’t had to hurt him with the truth, and they were okay. Better than okay — they’d still be friends. Win-win.

  And then there was the loss.

  She hadn’t been able to shake Dean, though with her relationship with Travis resolved, she was a functioning member of society again. She’d poured her pain into her art, and she had to admit that it was some of her best work. At least it’d made her feel a little better to focus her hurt into something constructive.

  Tortured artist wasn’t a cliché. That shit was a real thing.

  Kara put on her whiny hat and begged. “So, can we please go out tomorrow night? You need an excuse to take a shower, and I need an excuse to dance.”

  “God, that’s like the fourth time you’ve asked today. Okay, fine. I give. Uncle. You’re relentless, you know that?”

  “Peer pressure works. I need a T-shirt that says that. I’ll pick you up at nine. Maybe I’ll even bring you flowers.”

  “Overachiever,” she said on a laugh, and as they said their goodbyes, she found herself comforted, thankful to have a friend as true as Kara.

  “She’s in.” Kara set her phone down and twiddled a pen in the air, gnawing on her lip as she peered at Travis and Roe, who sat at her kitchen table.

  “Good,” Travis said, looking pleased.

  “Are you sure about this?” Kara asked, not at all convinced. “Because if it doesn’t work, she’s going to kill me.” She raised an eyebrow as she looked at the two of them. “She’ll probably kill both of you too, so don’t look so satisfied with yourselves. I’m talking full-on crime scene. Chalk outline. Redrum.”

  Travis leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table. “It’s going to work. It has to. I honestly don’t know how I didn’t see what was going on between them. She was avoiding me, staying with you, and wouldn’t go to practice when she’d been every day before. Dean’s been drunk and unwashed with all these new moody songs, looking like someone ran over his dog. Yesterday after … well, after we broke up, I was at practice, and while we were playing one of the new songs, I heard it, really heard it for the first time. I’m just glad you guys told me the truth when I asked.” He shook his head. “Whatever she did to Dean, I don’t envy him. But I wish you guys would stop feeling guilty for filling in the details. I’m a Grade A dumbshit for not figuring it out on my own.”

  “Trav, it’s good you came to us,” she soothed. “You’re right — we’ll make tomorrow night work. I can at least get her to the club. Hopefully, when she sees Dean, the rest will take care of itself. I told you, she can’t deny me.”

  Travis chuckled. “This, I know.”

  Roe shredded off another strip of paper napkin in his hands and dropped it onto the pile in front of him. “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you, man. None of us knew for sure how you would react. I mean, you seemed cool about it, but no one believed you actually meant it. And so far whatever’s happened between them has been pretty harmless, aside from all the lost-love drama.”

  “It’s all right. You couldn’t have known,” he said with a shake of his head. “Lex and I should have been honest about our relationship as soon as we knew it was over. I won’t say it didn’t hurt to find out that she had a thing for Dean and had gone out with him behind my back, but we both knew our relationship wasn’t going anywhere. On the other hand, I can’t say I blame her for not telling me. If I were in her place and I thought that telling her something could hurt her chance at happiness, there’s no way I would have dropped it on her.”

  Kara put her hand on his arm. “We should have trusted that you could handle it.” She shook her head and smiled when her voice cracked. “Now, stop being such a puss, and let’s get ready for tomorrow night. It’s game time.”

  “Popcorn, please,” Dita said as she reached into Perry’s giant bucket, her legs tucked into the oversize recliner in the theater room.

  “Hey.” Perry frowned with a mouthful of popcorn.

  “Oh, don’t be greedy.” Dita picked up the remote and powered the massive television on.

  Kara was on the screen, flipping her hair, and Kevin’s mouth was doing something weird.

  “So, what am I looking at here?”

  Dita smirked. “My secret weapons. You didn’t get to watch the night that Kara and Roe got together.”

  “Ooh.” Perry’s face lit up. “I was super bummed to miss that.”

  “Well, now you don’t have to be.” Dita hit play, and Kara’s hair swung into motion.

  “—and that is why you never, ever taunt a koala,” Kevin said.

  Kara laughed, her eyes sparkling as she took a sip of her drink. Lex walked up with her bag on her shoulder.

  Kara pouted. “You’re not leaving already, are you?”

  “I have to work in the morning,” Lex said lamely.

  Kara looked over at Dean, who watched them from the table, before looking back at Lex, taking another sip of her drink. “Mmhmm.”

  Lex jumped when Travis walked up behind her and asked, “You ready?”

  “Yep.” She flushed and hugged Kara, pressing their cheeks together. “Much love.”

  “Bye, guys.” Kara watched the two walk out.

  Dean’s eyes followed Lex as they walked by.

  “Did you see that?” Dita whispered to Perry.

  “Uh-huh. Puppy-dog eyes. Big time.” Perry stuffed another handful of popcorn into her mouth.

  Kara sighed and turned back to Kevin. “You up for another game, Kev-O? You’re getting better. At this rate, you’ll be a world-class dart champion in no time.”

  “It’s all in the wrist. I’m gonna go check up on Dean. Look how lonely he looks.”

  They both looked over at Dean and laughed.

  “Good luck with that,” she said as he walked away.

  Kara looked down at her mostly full drink, considering following Kevin until she caught sight of Roe chalking a cue, watching her. He raised an eyebrow and motioned to the table. She took another pull of her drink and sauntered her way over to him.

  Dita grabbed the remote and hit fast-forward. “Blah, blah, blah. They flirt. They play pool. This part’s boring.” She hit play, and Kara’s laughter filled the room.

  “Oh my God. He didn’t!” Kara said.

  “He totally did.” Roe laughed and took a swig of his beer while Kara laughed some more.

  Kara’s brows quirked as she glanced around. “Where did Dean go anyway?”

  Roe
looked over to their table. “And where’s Kevin?”

  “I think we’ve been ditched.”

  Dita whispered to Perry, “Actually, that was me.”

  “Duh.” Perry took a long sip of her gigantic soda.

  Roe shuffled. “Well … another game then?”

  Kara set her cue down and moved to him. “Sure, we could do that.” She slid her hands up his chest and around his neck. “Or I can think of a few other things we could do.” She stretched up on her tiptoes, and he leaned down to brush his lips to hers. They wound together, kissing for a long moment before she broke away and grabbed his hand. “Come on, I live close.”

  Perry grabbed the remote from Dita and fast-forwarded again. “Man, this is getting good.”

  When she hit play, Kara was sitting on Roe’s lap as they made out on her couch. She slipped her hands under his jacket and peeled it off. He tossed it, and his hand moved to cup her cheek as he kissed her for a long moment.

  Kara broke away, grabbed him by the T-shirt, and pulled him up with her when she stood, giggling. She trotted off to her bedroom, leaving a trail of clothes behind her, and he laughed and did the same.

  She lay stretched out on the bed on her back with her dark hair like satin fanned out around her, and when he climbed onto the bed, she smiled invitingly as she looked over him, laughing when she reached his feet.

  “Oh my God, Roe. Take off your socks.”

  Roe blushed, smiling as he sat and pulled his socks off and threw them at her.

  She squealed. “Gross! That has to be the least sexy thing ever. Mood killer.”

  Perry threw popcorn at the screen. “Boooooooo.”

  Roe lay next to her and kissed her laughing mouth, and their teeth bumped together. They laughed even harder, their bodies shaking until skin against skin couldn’t be ignored, their lips moving closer, with intentions far past smiling. He kissed her hard, and she wrapped herself around him, winding her fingers through his golden hair as he ran his hands ran down her waist and cupped her backside.