Since that night, I’ve been plagued with thoughts like: if I’d never called, if he’d never picked up, if he hadn’t offered to drive me home at that exact moment in time…If I hadn’t been yelling and distracting him from the passenger seat—
Someone knocked into me, and I shot a nasty look over my shoulder, then I realized it was Tasha.
“Oh, hey!” My eyes traveled down her arm to Tony’s hand linked with hers. They were both turned toward the staircase—leading to what I suspected were bedrooms.
“Rena. Hi.” Her eyes were wide, her voice tight, like she feared I might bend her over my knee and spank her for misbehaving. It was no secret how I felt about her beau. He gave me the stink eye. The feeling was mutual. “We were just”—she pointed weakly—“heading upstairs to talk. Um, privately.”
Tony’s hand slipped around her waist and he tugged her against him with propriety. Tasha blushed and a sweet smile crossed her face. And for whatever reason—be it the melancholy over thinking of what could have been if Joshua never died or the sheer happiness in my friend’s eyes—I couldn’t fault her. I’d been without someone to touch, to hug, to kiss for four long years. Being alone was…well, lonely. If I’d had the opportunity to make out with my questionably moral boss in the refrigerator, I would have totally done it. Just grasped the moment—and his ass—in both hands and gone with it. Because being alone sucked. And being good all the time sucked more.
“I can wait around for you if you want me to,” I offered, meaning it.
“No, you don’t have to do that.” She palmed my arm. “Tony and I are going to be a while.”
He smirked. I narrowed my eyes. I could still fault him. The bastard.
“He’ll drive me home,” Tash said, then to me, “Are you sober?”
Ridiculously so. I nodded to confirm.
“Great.” She tugged Tony to the stairs, calling over her shoulder, “Text me when you get home, okay?”
Right. Like she’d be in the position to read that correspondence.
Chapter 3
Rena
Home from the party, I changed out of my tight clothes and into a pair of black yoga pants and a long-sleeved gray hooded shirt. I’d spent a lot of Friday nights home alone. The girl whose boyfriend just died was a downer at any party, so it wasn’t like I’d gotten a lot of invites. With the exception of Tasha dragging me out to be social. Kind of like she’d done tonight.
I wasn’t mad at her for ditching me, but I didn’t look forward to the phone conversation we’d have in the near future about how I’d “never believe what Tony did!” or her declaring she was going to become a lesbian because all men were jerks.
My reason for swearing off men was more organic. The love of my life had died and left me here with enough guilt and remorse to last two lifetimes. I hadn’t so much as been on a real date in four years, despite the fact that I’d been asked out and Tash had attempted to set me up. I tried to hang out in a sort of group date, but the setup had felt unnatural. Wrong. Which made me consider Tasha’s pretend-lesbian option more than once.
It’d sure as hell be easier.
Sketchbook and graphite pencil in hand, I settled on my couch and drew exactly two lines when there was a knock at my front door. I looked to the window. It was sleeting outside, just enough to spit on the windows and smudge my glasses, which I was now wearing, since I’d peeled the contacts off my eyeballs when I got home.
Warnings ricocheted in my head about not opening the door to strangers. About being careful. All in my mother’s overprotective voice. A young girl living on your own needs to be careful. You could be raped or robbed or—
I peeked through the Venetian blinds since the peephole was too dirty to see through. A figure hunkered on my porch wearing a black T-shirt and jeans. No coat. I hesitated at the doorknob even though I knew curiosity would win out.
Armed with my drawing pencil and a bullshit-o-meter in prime working condition, I pulled open the door and faced the man on my stoop. I cocked an eyebrow at the stranger whose head was angled downward as if he was studying his shoes. No, not shoes. Boots. The lace-up kind, not the cowboy kind.
When he didn’t look up for several long seconds, I said, “Yeah?” because I was oh-so refined. Then he lifted his head and I nearly swallowed my tongue.
Blood. Blood everywhere. Oozing out the side of his mouth, from the corner of his eye, slashed across his knuckles like a Jackson Pollock painting.
He swallowed thickly before speaking. “Can I use your phone?” His words were garbled, coming from between the split edge of his lip and a swelling jaw. His hand rested on the doorjamb while he waited for my answer, leaning toward me but not in an intimidating fashion. More like he’d fall over if he didn’t hold himself there.
“I’ll stay outside,” he vowed. Long ink-black hair covered the other half of his face, but all I could look at was the mess on the bloodied side. Then he ran a hand through his hair, pushing it away from his face and I gasped.
“Devlin?” His hair wasn’t slicked back like at work. My eyes traveled to where blood and weather had darkened his black T-shirt. He wasn’t in a suit and tie, but it was him all right.
Those long black lashes closed slowly over his eyes and he tipped. Before he succeeded in falling into my house, I did the first thing I thought of: rushed to his side and clasped his body with one arm. He was freezing. And solid, so solid. If he collapsed, I’d have no prayer of lifting his muscular body over my threshold.
“Go inside,” I grunted when he leaned into me. I shoved the pencil into my hair and wrapped both arms around his waist. This wasn’t the way I’d envisioned holding him for the first time.
Against me, he smelled of cold and snow as he stepped into my house. He wasn’t quite dead weight, but almost, his steps heavy as I guided him past the coffee table. He racked his knee and mumbled a curse, wobbling the candle sitting on the table. I held my breath and briefly envisioned a raging apartment fire, but thankfully, the jar settled.
I plunked my boss down on the couch inelegantly, lifting his arm off my neck. He collapsed into the back of it, his chest heaving from the exertion. His arms shook and he shivered.
I turned to close my front door, came to stand in front of him again and stared in disbelief. Why was Devlin Calvary bleeding and outside without a coat? What was he doing at my doorstep?
Especially that last part.
“Phone,” he demanded, holding out a shaky hand.
“I can dial for you,” I told him. I was shivering, too, but my jitters were more from nerves than the cold. I palmed my cell. “The hospital or—”
He snatched the phone out of my hand.
“Hey!”
He held up a hand to quiet me, punched in some numbers, then lifted the phone to his ear. I stood over him, mute, no idea how I felt about him being here. Especially in the condition he was in…did he even know who I was?
But what was he doing here? That was most perplexing of all. Had it been chance that he’d stumbled to my apartment? I really didn’t think so.
I slid my gaze down his long frame resting on my couch, across broad shoulders, and back down to the chain wallet hooked to his jeans. Biceps bunched as he wiped his lip with the back of one hand and I saw part of a tattoo peeking out from the underside of his T-shirt sleeve.
He looked so…different from the way he normally looked. Yet no less attractive. Gone was the slick, suited man who barely acknowledged me at work. For a second I wondered if Devlin had a scrappier younger brother—or a twin. Someone with the same thick, dark tumble of hair my fingers ached to touch. I studied the half of his face not oozing. The carved cheekbone beneath one of his electric-blue eyes. Again, I thought of summer. But it wasn’t summer. It was freezing. As evidenced when he shook again.
After several silent seconds, he ended the call and returned my phone. He licked the blood from the corner of his mouth, a slight wince crinkling his face. “Thanks.”
I accepted my only means of communicati
on with the outside world wondering what to do next. He startled me by attempting to stand and before I thought of what I was doing, I put my palm on his shoulder and pushed him back down. He glared up at me. Like a cat at the zoo who’d been caged too long…like if let out of the enclosure he’d maul someone just for fun.
My heart kicked extra hard at the thought of Devlin mauling me. It was a far more attractive prospect than it should have been.
Don’t interfere, Rena. That wasn’t my mom’s voice but my own this time. The smart voice. The voice that warned me not to leave the club alone, not to accept the possibly laced drink from the too-good-looking bartender. The voice of survival and reason that Joshua hadn’t possessed. If only he’d delayed coming to get me by five minutes…one minute. Hell, thirty seconds.
The voice in my head had protected me from dangers real and imagined since Joshua died.
This time I ignored it.
Leaning over Devlin, I tried to look as intimidating as I could, which wasn’t easy considering I had a pencil poking out of my hair and weighed all of 130 pounds. He could squash me like a bug on his best day. But today wasn’t his best day. Clearly.
“You need medical attention.”
He lifted his chin to take me in, the eye not swollen shut widening with surprise. Then the corner of his mouth tipped into a half-grin, and a dry chuckle stuttered past his chattering teeth. “You offering to be my nurse, Rena?”
I hoped he didn’t see the expression that flitted across my face when I heard him say my name. Not only was I surprised, but flattered. And a little swoony. He knew my name. I had no idea he knew who I was other than the dim waitress who couldn’t work the touch screens or find the butter. But he totally knew. He said my name.
I liked the way it sounded coming from him: all raspy and breathy. Then I mentally slapped myself. There was no reason to be swooning when he was such a mess. Shaking my head to clear it further, I snatched up his wrist and turned his palm over. Gravel-torn and red, his knuckles beat to hell—his face beat to hell.
“I can take care of myself, Rena.” It wasn’t quite a growl, but he hadn’t spoken gently.
“Yeah, well, apparently you can’t or you wouldn’t have come here,” I snapped back at him. My eyebrows lowered as I studied his face. “Why are you here?”
He licked his lip and sniffed. When he looked up at me, my heart raced. Just pounded there as hard and as fast as it ever had. Faster even than when I’d first seen my high school sweetheart in Advanced Math, faster than when I kissed him for the first time, faster than when I spun into my first anxiety attack when I laid a rose on the casket that became his final resting place.
Devlin pushed his palm onto my country-blue floral sofa and stood. I backed up to give him room, and to position my body in the path of the front door. I wouldn’t let him leave without a coat, bleeding and freezing. I couldn’t.
“Bathroom?” he asked, holding his body at an awkward angle.
Evidently he wasn’t going to speak to me any more on my home turf than he did at work. The blood was beginning to dry on his face, but I could see he was trying not to drip on my carpet.
I pointed down the hallway to the tiny bathroom with its matching slate gray toilet, tub, and sink. “Are you—do you need first-aid stuff? Or did you just have to”—I gestured weirdly. I could feel it, how uncomfortable I was around him—“to go…to the bathroom?”
Smooth, Rena.
He shuffled past me, then turned. Faced with the non-beat-up side, my thoughts ceased. My head went as blank as the sketchpad I’d pulled out before his knock came. In the soft lighting of my living room, I caught a glimpse of the Devlin I saw at work. Godlike and beautiful, his back straight and strong, his expression sharp.
“I’ll need couple of towels you don’t mind me ruining.” Just hearing his voice in the intimate quiet of my apartment made me wish he’d say more. I could listen to his raw, low timbre forever. A drove of chills raced up my forearms.
Since Joshua died, no man had caused my arms to chill, or my neck to prickle, or had tied my tongue. But now Devlin had. I was intrigued by what this meant.
I (apparently) couldn’t speak, so I pointed down the narrow hall to the tiny linen closet and then followed my finger. Rows of mismatched towels and a few sets of sheets sat neatly folded on the shelves.
“These,” I managed as I handed over two towels: one dark green and one navy blue.
His fingers brushed mine as he took them, causing gooseflesh to light on my arms.
“Bandages over the sink, and I think there’s some Neosporin or something. Whatever you find is fine. Use whatever you need.” Oh, there was my voice. The dam had apparently broken.
He nodded once, keeping his not-swollen eye on me while he shut the door.
Devlin
I tested the inside of my mouth with my tongue as I shut the door. I thought I knew what to expect in the mirror…until I faced my reflection.
Fucking hell.
Much worse than I’d imagined. One eye was swollen almost shut, bright red and turning purple with a few impressive broken capillaries. Dried blood coated the side of my face, and I’d lost skin on my palms from falling onto Paul’s driveway. And that was just the way I looked. Forget that my head pounded like I’d rammed a wall skull-first, or that every time I swallowed, my stomach lurched when a bit of blood trickled down my throat, or that the exposure to the cold only made my skin hurt as I began warming up. I flexed one fist, shutting my eyes at the burning from my abraded knuckles. I didn’t remember getting a hit in, but I must have. At least some of the blood on my hands appeared not to be mine. Must have landed a punch or two on Paul’s goons before they took me out.
I shook my head at my reflection. Given how I looked, I was floored Rena Lewis let me in at all. I wouldn’t have let me in. I wouldn’t have opened the door.
The water barely came out of the spigot, the pipes rattling something awful. I’d been in worse apartment complexes, but not by much. God only knew what issues the rest of the place had.
I cleaned myself up as best I could, washing with hand soap and tenderly mopping at the cut by my eye. I had butterfly bandages at home, but since the jerk-offs who beat me up tore off my coat and my house keys were in the pocket, I would have to call a locksmith when I got there.
If I got there. The call I’d made to my ride had gone to voicemail and I hadn’t bothered with a message.
A thought about getting anywhere made me wonder for a fleeting second how I got here. Not here as in Rena’s too-small bathroom, but here as in at this juncture in my fucked-up life. Bloodied, freezing, after my friend turned on me for his own gain. I found myself leaning, hands braced on the porcelain sink, eyes focused on my busted knuckles, considering. It wasn’t like I chose this life. Choice never factored in.
I snapped out of my moment of contemplation and bandaged the cut, mainly so my hostess wouldn’t faint from seeing the size of the gash across my eyebrow, but there wasn’t much I could do about my eye other than ice it and pray for the best.
I pictured myself at work, suited up while appearing beat down. There was no way I could work the front of house of Oak & Sage until I healed. Sonny wouldn’t appreciate his bettors seeing me look like I got my ass handed to me. A certain amount of respect was lost when the guy who was there to take your money looked like he could be knocked over by a brisk wind.
Shit. What a mess.
What was I going to do about Paul? Seriously. I couldn’t believe he jumped me. The brief thought that I could have his kneecaps bronzed and dangling from my SUV crossed my mind, but the revenge fantasy faded fast. My job was to get his payment, not his kneecaps. Moreover, I wasn’t sure what I’d tell Sonny. And, yeah, I was conflicted. Despite what happened tonight, Paul had been the one who’d taken me in all those years ago. I owed him.
Who said there was no honor among thieves?
Maybe the kneecap thing was an optimistic thought on my part. Sonny might have Nat do far wor
se if he found out. Sonny didn’t take kindly to his employees getting beat up, and for whatever reason, and even though I didn’t need it, he was protective when it came to me. Up until tonight, Sonny and Paul were the only two people in my life who hadn’t died or bailed.
Now that Paul had officially bailed, Sonny was all I had.
I decided, despite what Paul had done to me, to keep this incident to myself. I needed to find out what he was up to. Now that I was prepared to see the lengths he’d go to, I could handle him myself. He’d had the element of surprise tonight. It wouldn’t happen again.
I cleaned myself up, wiped off the sink, and dropped the soiled towels in the tub, thinking through what happened. Who were those huge guys with him? Why would Paul clock me, then have me dumped on the side of the road over five hundred bucks? Unless I was right about the drug thing and those giants were his dealers.
Possible, but it didn’t feel right. I leaned against the sink again, frowning to myself. None of this felt right.
I heard a light tap on the bathroom door and watched as a small smile lifted the busted corner of my reflection’s lips. My eyebrows dipped in confusion and I turned away from the mirror. Why this girl intrigued me so much was a mystery. Why she’d let me in a bigger one. Sure, she knew me from work, but she didn’t really know me. I wasn’t exactly the charitable type, but maybe she thought so since I’d shadowed her into the fridge and offered to give her a hand.
Why had I done that? A rare moment of benevolence on my part?
Tonight, when I’d rolled to my hands and knees on the shoulder of a road a mile west of here, I hadn’t set out for Rena’s apartment. I’d intended to walk to the restaurant and let myself in to use the phone. I knew plenty of people in this neck of the woods, but all of them were bettors. I couldn’t risk being seen in this state. How much confidence would they lose once they saw proof that I couldn’t protect myself, or their money for that matter? Part of me argued that I had protected my money. My wallet hadn’t been stolen, and was sitting safely in my front pocket. But if a picture was worth a thousand words, the busted side of my face was worth a set or two of confidences lost.
Fighting for Devlin (Lost Boys #1) Page 3
