Downtown Devil: Book 2 in series (Sins in the City)

by Cara McKenna

  She would, and she knew he’d reply. She couldn’t presume that much about some men.

  “I’ve always thought you were cool, from the first night I met you,” he added. “And frankly, I could use a friend I can talk about this stuff with.”

  “I can be that.”

  He slapped his thighs, stood. “Well, I better get going.”

  “I’ll walk you out,” she said, getting to her feet. “Actually I’ll walk you the first few blocks—I need to go to CVS. Just let me find some shoes.” She was still in her nice work clothes, and slipped into a pair of booties by the door, feeling ridiculously overdressed when her mood was thoroughly clad in chocolate-stained sweats. “Ready.”

  Once they were outside she told him, “Thanks again for coming. It would’ve stunk to go to bed in the mood I was stuck in when you called. At least now I’ll have cold pizza to bother getting up for.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “You heading right home?”

  “I’ve been telling myself I’m going to the gym since I got off work, so I should probably at least do a quick circuit before I call it a day.”

  The night was misty, clammy. Atmospheric. It left Clare feeling dangerously sentimental and blue, like the cold had crept in to remind her she might never feel the heat of Mica’s body again. “Do me a favor, Vaughn.”

  “Sure.”

  “Tell me a dating war story. As embarrassing as possible.”

  He laughed. “And it’s got to be my own, huh?”

  “Yeah. Embellish as needed to make me feel better.”

  “Well . . . Shit, I don’t have any funny ones, I don’t think. Just one kinda sad one.”

  “Oh. Well, never mind, if it’s only going to leave us both depressed. God, what a day . . .”

  “Guarantee you I see way worse messes than the one you’re in, five times a day at work.”

  She laughed, nodding. “Yeah, okay. That’s puts my woes in perspective. I may be unemployed and uninsured, but at least I don’t need stitches, right?”

  “As for the war story, I don’t mind. It’s been ages.”

  She met his stare in the dimness between streetlights. “Okay, then.”

  He fixed his eyes on the sidewalk before them and tucked his hands in his pockets. “This must have been four years ago now. I’d been dating a woman for about eighteen months, I think. My longest relationship, whatever that says about me.”

  “For our generation? That’s practically a marriage. Tell me about her. Unless it’s painful.”

  “It’s not. Not anymore. Well, I loved her. A lot. I was ready to move in with her, given my landlord notice and everything. We met at a party some friends of mine threw—nothing like that housewarming Mica brought you along to. Way less classy.”

  She laughed. “Weren’t we all, in our early twenties? Less classy, that is.”

  “Her name was Monica. It was one of those fast-and-hard sort of romances to start, a nice old sweaty summer fling, I’d thought. But we mellowed once fall came around, in a nice way. I’m a mellow sort of guy, deep down.”

  “Not so deep,” Clare said, swinging her bag in the cool night air, feeling close to this man, and philosophical. “Anyone can tell you’re a stand-up guy pretty much the second they shake your hand.”

  “I’m one of the boring old predictable types, like your ex.”

  She snorted. “You’re nothing like my ex, trust me.”

  He shot her a curious look. “No?”

  “No way. You’re not boring, for one. You’re steady, maybe. Reliable. But come on, just look at your job. There’s nothing boring about saving people’s lives. Or bombing through the streets with a siren wailing, blowing red lights—”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “My ex was a workaholic control freak with no sense of humor,” she said. “You’re just a good guy. There’s a massive difference.”

  “Okay, fine. At any rate, this girl, she brought out a more reckless side of me, then. It was nice, maybe a little scary.”

  “Oh, now you’re preaching to the choir. How so?”

  “She was a little wild, I guess you could say. The kind of girl who’ll lean out the car window and yell outrageous shit at people on the sidewalk, just for a laugh. Not toxic or crazy, I didn’t think at the time. Just intense. And other stuff between us was intense, if you know what I mean.”

  “Sex.”

  “Yeah. And this was the fall after me and Mica . . . crossed our first line, let’s say. I was carrying around a load of weird tension on that front, and maybe I had some manhood to prove to myself. She made me feel like a different sort of man. And dating her meant that when I met up with Mica for our trip the next summer, I had an excuse all ready for not letting him take things too far again. Shit, you know what? I didn’t even know that was true until I said it just now. That part of why I let myself get serious with her was for the excuse.”

  “Huh.”

  “Yeah, fucking huh,” he said, and laughed softly. “Damn, you know . . . I was never compatible with that girl, for real . . . Shit.”

  “Funny how much more sense our actions make with a little hindsight, huh? So how did it end with her?”

  “Not unlike how things are ending with you and Mica, actually. I mean, not that they have to end. If you gave it some time, decided you’re up for keeping it all casual . . . ?”

  She shrugged. “Again, hindsight. All I know for sure is, I don’t like how this feels. I don’t like that he had the power to cut me up like this, and to not even have really realized it, you know?”

  “Sure.”

  “What happened with the girl? Who hurt who?”

  “She hurt me. Bad.”

  “Another-guy bad?”

  “Yeah. Like, I-walked-in-on-her-with-another-dude bad.”

  “Fuck. I didn’t know that stuff even really happened outside of TV and movies.”

  “It does if you date a psycho who wants you to catch her,” Vaughn said.

  “Oh my God, for real?”

  “I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I think so. She knew I was coming over to her place that night. And unlike Mica, she could keep her dates straight.”

  “Did you totally freak?”

  “No, not really. I mean, on the inside, it decimated me. But I just stood there—I had a copy of her key, so I came right in—and I stood there at the door to her bedroom staring at them, like one of those old Magic Eye puzzle things, like I had it just about in focus, could just about make out the real picture, but not totally. Like my eyes saw what they saw but my brain wouldn’t let me register it.”

  “And?”

  “And I said something, like, I dunno, What the fuck? or whatever. And I left. I’d brought dinner, takeout from a Thai place, and I tossed it on her counter and let myself out. I know she was yelling my name from back in her room, but I didn’t care. I just wanted out.”

  “Sure.”

  “The most fucked-up part about it, though, is that she had the gall to get mad at me, for not being mad enough. Like we talked the next day when I stopped ignoring her calls, and I was real level about it. I’d decided afterward that it was for the best. We weren’t compatible, long-term, and I’d been lying to myself about that. Don’t get me wrong, that shit still stung, but I’d also realized that a part of me was relieved, too. So I told her she’d hurt me, that we were over, but I was pretty calm. And the girl blows up at me like I wasn’t upset enough. Fucking crazy, right?”

  “Quite.”

  “Looking back, I’m thankful for it. It did a number on me, definitely had me avoiding the whole dating scene for a couple years, and I was slow to trust women for a while after that.”

  “Sure.”

  “I was also dealing with a lot of confusing shit around my situation with Mica. But anyway, eventually I was grateful
for it all. She must’ve wanted out, too, and she’d slammed her hand down on the self-destruct button as hard as she needed to, to scare me off. Anything less and I’d have been all, Hey, let’s work on this. Let’s not give up. But giving up was exactly what needed to happen. I think she knew that. So I have to thank the psycho in the end for saving us both a lot of time.” He paused, and Clare looked over to find him smiling by the neon light of a check-cashing store. “Plus, my landlord had already found a new renter for the fall and I wound up finding a way better place for cheaper.”

  She laughed. “You’re the king of silver linings, my friend. I ought to take lessons.”

  “Only way to get through this life,” Vaughn said. “If you’re not born lucky, that is.”

  “I really don’t know much about you, when I think about it. Your job, and all that stuff with Mica, sure . . . I mean, we’ve slept together, but usually by the time I get to that place with a guy I’ve at least had two or three dates with him. Clocked some hours of grilling the dude about his childhood and his plans and everything, you know?”

  “Sure. And ditto.” He paused, and she could sense he was thinking, and waited for him to continue.

  “You and me,” he finally said, “we’re weird, you’re right. And I think maybe we’re kind of the same—I’m not really into one-night stands or impulsive hookups or whatever, and you don’t seem like you are, either, aside from the Mica situation.”

  “He’s kind of an exception,” she agreed. And he was the ultimate exception for Vaughn, amending the man’s entire definition of his sexuality. “He showed up right when I was needing some adventure, too. Right as I was hitting thirty, and my last relationship was nearly three years. I was feeling restless, and a little insecure, and a little desperate for some attention and excitement.”

  “Well, you got that, I guess.”

  She laughed. “There’s an understatement. Yeah, never in my wildest dreams did I think the adventure I was after would turn into a three-way, that’s for sure.”

  “No regrets, I hope?”

  “No, probably not. I feel like a bit of an idiot now, but I know that if I looked back at all this in a couple of years and I’d let the opportunity pass . . . I’d feel way more lame for that than I do now, for falling a little harder than I should have.”

  “Falling for someone you’re sleeping with doesn’t make you an idiot,” Vaughn said. “It makes you human. In my opinion, anyway—I don’t see much point in sleeping with people you don’t think you might fall for. Or I don’t anymore. My seventeen-year-old self wasn’t quite so discerning.”

  She laughed again. Vaughn made her do that so easily, she thought. Mica made her pulse race, made her blush, made her nervous in a pleasurable way, but she couldn’t recall him ever having made her laugh. It was attractive in a way she’d overlooked for too long.

  They reached the corner of Liberty and Wood, downtown’s sidewalks bustling with Friday-night socializers instead of businesspeople, cars’ head- and taillights streaking the damp pavement. And across the street was CVS, where Clare would presumably say good-bye to Vaughn, run her errand, then head back toward home, toward her couch or bed, a glass of white wine or peppermint tea and a movie or book—and maybe those final two slices of pizza—and end the night dressed in self-pity and loose pants. Too bad. The distraction had been pleasant while it lasted.

  “Guess this is where we part,” she said, turning to him as she punched the button for the walk signal.

  “I’ll follow you in—I could use a drink for the gym.”

  And so they wound up wandering the aisles together, Clare with her bottle of contact lens solution in hand, Vaughn with his bottle of yellow Gatorade. They stalled in the supplements section, pretending to debate the merits of the various muscle powders and male virility pills, then a display of novelty nail polishes, and finally the checkout line. But even once they’d both pocketed their change and it was time to say good-bye, they ended up loitering by the magazines.

  Clare took a chance. “You could come back to my place, you know. Neither of us seems like we’re all that eager to be alone. Unless you’re just being nice, of course.”

  He shook his head. “I was thinking the same thing. I don’t really feel like going to the gym. Plus, why the fuck not, right? I’m not working until late tomorrow.”

  “And I’m not working at all,” she joked, more self-effacing than glib.

  “That sucks. I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged. “Don’t be. I have enough money saved to get by for a couple months. I’m even thinking of letting myself spend the next four weeks working only on my show. Like pretend I’m a professional photographer for a month.”

  “You should. If you can swing it, you totally should.”

  “It’s the plan. Sounds like heaven, actually, provided I don’t get hit by a bus and lament my lack of health insurance before I find a new job.”

  “If you do get hit by a bus, call me. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Oh, of course. What a handy friend to have. So, you down? Readjourn to my little two-bedroom palace?”

  He nodded. “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  Hopefully far better than okay, in fact, though in exactly what way she meant that, Clare couldn’t truly say.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “Oh shit.” It had been drizzling when they’d entered the drugstore; now it was straight-up pouring. “I’ll get us a cab,” Vaughn said, pulling out his phone, but Clare surprised him, pressing his hand down. He met her eyes. They were bright in the streetlight, bright with mischief and maybe residual wine.

  “It’s only four blocks,” she said.

  “It’s pouring.”

  “We can run. May as well, if you’re skipping your workout.”

  And what exactly was waiting for them, at her place? His blood pumped quicker at the question, no doubt about it, but he wasn’t a fool. He liked her. A lot. Probably more than he’d liked a girl in five years or more, and in all honesty he didn’t want to find himself in Clare’s shoes if anything happened, feeling like a lovesick chump. So he asked her, point-blank, “What’s at your place, anyhow?”

  “Netflix. Board games.”

  He smirked. “Which board games?”

  “Clue, Scrabble. Plus, we’ve got Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity, and maybe an Uno deck.”

  “Most of those are pretty lame with just two.”

  “We’ll make them fun. You don’t need three people to have a good time, you know,” she said, and elbowed him conspiringly.

  “Yeah, yeah. And fine. We’ll figure something out.”

  “Ready to make a run for it?”

  “Let’s do it.”

  “You sure? Because I ran track in high school. I’d hate to lose you, leave you to drown out here.”

  His turn to look at her shoes—not high heels, but her short little boots were wedges, he thought that style was called. “And I’d hate for you to break an ankle. I’m off-duty tonight, so how about we make this a jog, and not require any first aid?”

  She smirked. “Fine.”

  With a pair of deep breaths, they went for it. He let Clare set the pace, impressed by how agile the girl was on a two-inch platform. Every block left them a little closer to soaked, but the jog was brisk and Clare slowed to a trot as they reached her front steps and fished her keys from her purse.

  “We made it,” she announced, leading him into the front landing.

  Vaughn looked down, finding his sweats drenched from the knee to the thigh, a little less so in the back and up his shins. His hair and shoulders were dripping, the rest of him merely wet. Clare looked about the same.

  “Provided neither of us wrecked our phones,” he said, following her up to the second floor, “I’d say we made a successful escape.” He’d be stuck sitting in wet pants all night,
but his mood was bright and it felt more like a lark than an inconvenience.

  “Wait till you see my hair about an hour from now.” She unlocked the door to her apartment. “It’s curly enough when I make an effort. After this I’ll be able to stand a beach umbrella up in it.”

  He laughed and tailed her inside, and admired her place anew as she flipped on the light. The door opened into a small kitchen adjoining a living area. The walls were painted a deep reddish pink, and you could tell an artist lived here. A plain black IKEA couch was fancied up with colorful printed pillows and a funky knitted blanket, and the old coffee table looked magazine-worthy, dressed up by a vintage-looking lamp and a vase of willow branches. Lots of simple, neutral things set off by bright, artsy accents.

  “I didn’t say before, but great place.”

  “Nothing fancy, but thanks. You want a hair dryer, for your clothes?” she asked, drying her glasses with a paper towel.

  He shed his dripping jacket and found his shirt just a bit damp. “I think I’ll live.”

  “Change your mind about the wine?”

  “Nah, Gatorade’s fine. You go ahead, though.”

  She smiled, drawing a bottle from a cupboard. “After the day I’ve had, believe me, I will.”

  Vaughn strolled around the living room. “I mean it, though—you’ve made this place look really nice. Inviting, or whatever. I think it’s the colors.”

  “I can’t take all the credit—my roommate’s got good taste.”

  He approached a photo on the wall—an eight-by-ten black-and-white portrait of a pretty, middle-aged black woman in a striped blouse, smiling, sitting by an open window—framed by a generous mat. “Did you take this?”

  Clare looked over her shoulder as she uncorked the wine. “I did, yeah. Ages ago, when I was still at the Dietrich. My art school days. That’s my mom.”

  He looked back to the photo, scrutinizing. “Okay, yeah, I see it.” She had her mom’s jawline and nose and brows. He wanted to see a picture of her dad now, to figure out where he factored, apart from her complexion. He wanted to see all sorts of photos—of Clare as a kid, her senior portrait, candids from college. He wanted to know her better, he realized, to get her. All the things he wanted when he was first falling for a woman. No surprise, but also pretty hopeless. As hopeless as her feelings for Mica were, really.