“I told you that nothing happened with Jess.”
“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” I reiterated, turning the radio up to drown out our words.
I needed some time to analyze the situation. I needed to be able to think about it without him sitting next to me. I could never think things through when he was near.
We rode the rest of the way home with the radio blaring. He didn’t try to speak to me again, and I was more than happy with that arrangement.
I pulled into the driveway and turned the radio down as he opened the door to get out. He stepped onto the driveway.
“Stone?”
He leaned down and looked in the car, his eyes resting on my face, but he didn’t speak.
He handed me a business card. I looked at him expectantly, wondering what he wanted me to do with it.
“I’m giving that to you,” he said. “Tiffany handed it to me before I told her that I had a girlfriend. I have no need for her number.”
A lump lodged in my throat. Too bad he didn’t tell her he had a girlfriend before he kissed her. His clear blue eyes watched me intently, patiently, as he waited for me to speak. His jaw clenched.
“I think it would be better if we didn’t see each other anymore,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t sound as defeated as I felt.
“You’re breaking up with me?”
I didn’t say anything, merely nodded.
“Damn it!” he shouted as he stood upright and slapped his palms on the roof of my car. He slammed the car door shut, and I immediately pulled the car forward to drive in a small circle in front of his garage and continue back down his driveway.
I didn’t look at him directly, but he stood still, his thumbs tucked in the front pockets of his jeans, and watched me as I drove away.
It wasn’t until I was sure that he couldn’t see me that I let the tears slide down my cheeks and the sobs that had been trapped inside of me escape. Right or wrong, I was in love with Stone Hamilton.
Stone
Well, hell, I’d done it again. Just when I finally thought I might not actually be a total screw up…. Shit! How the hell was I going to get out of this one?
I needed to hit something. Or better yet, I needed to be on my bike. I went in the house, grabbed my keys and my helmet, and hit the asphalt. I knew from personal experience that the only way to escape the hell that I created for myself was to navigate the Black Snake, a challenging strip of road for motorcycle enthusiasts. That was the one place where my full attention had to be on my bike, the one place where there was no room in my brain for thoughts of my inadequacies.
***
Dara spent the last two days avoiding me completely. I tried calling, texting, and leaving notes in her locker. Nothing.
I’d set my alarm to go off a half hour early this morning, so that I could catch her at home before she left for school. I had no idea if she’d talk to me or if Granny would break out her shotgun and run my ass off, but I was willing to give it a try if it meant I might get the chance to talk to her.
When I pulled into her driveway, I was relieved to see her car was still there. Granny’s ugly ass tank was parked right beside it, so being met by the barrel of a shotgun drifted through my mind as a real possibility. Granny was one of the coolest old ladies I’d ever met, but if Dara had told her that I’d been kissing Tiffany, well, Granny might not be inclined to be hospitable.
I knocked on the front door.
Granny opened it and peered out at me.
“Good morning, Granny. I was wondering if I could speak to Dara.”
“Come on in, Stone. She’s ready. She’s just in her room waiting for time to leave.” Granny ushered me in the living room and pointed towards her room. “Knock on her door, honey.”
Granny went into the kitchen while I went in the opposite direction toward Dara’s room. I tapped lightly on her door.
“Come in,” she called.
When I opened the door, she was lying across her bed reading a text book, her face hidden by a golden veil of silky hair. “Granny, I think I’m ready for my English exam,” she said. When she turned towards the door, her eyes widened and she scrambled into a sitting position in the center of her already-made-up bed. “What’re you doing here?”
I closed the door softly behind me. “Dara, I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want to talk to you, Stone.” She crossed her arms over her chest.
I raked my fingers through my hair and exhaled. “I know, but if you’ll just give me the chance to explain….”
“Do I have a choice?” she asked, her voice reflecting her anger.
“Yeah. You have a choice. I’ll leave if that’s what you really want, but Dara, I’m asking you to please hear me out.”
She remained silent, so I took that as my cue to start explaining before she changed her mind.
“I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
“But it did.” She pursed her shimmering lips together and swallowed hard, a pained expression crossing her features.
“I know, and I’d be pissed if I were you, too. But I was just talking to her, and the next thing I knew, she kissed me.”
“From my point of view, it looked like you were doing a pretty good job of kissing her back.” Dara lowered her lashes and traced a pattern on her comforter with her fingertip.
“Shit, Dara. Do you think if I really meant to kiss her, I’d do it where you’d walk out and see me?”
She looked up at me, her eyes glazed with tears. “I don’t know, would you? It seems to me that that’s exactly what you did.”
I sat on the bed, close enough that I could touch her. “It all happened really fast. One minute she was telling me that she had liked me all along, that she had thought of Luke as a friend. The next minute, she was kissing me, and I was the sixteen-year-old who had wanted her to do it.
“But then my brain finally caught up with the moment, and all I could think of was you.”
“A little late, don’t ya think?” she asked, glaring at me.
I reached out and touched her hand, and she jerked away from my touch.
The pain on her face was like a knife in my gut. I did this to her. I loved her, and I’d been a total ass.
“I screwed up,” I said forcefully. “I know I did, but I love you, Dara. Hell, I screw up everything. I’m damn good at it. Just ask Luke. If I’d known that Tiffany liked me, I wouldn’t have dared Luke…I wouldn’t have sent him…he’d still be here. And now I’ve screwed up the best thing that’s happened to me in a very long time.
“I’m sorry, Dara. Baby, please forgive me. I just want things to go back like they were.” I caressed the back of her hand with my fingertips, and this time, she didn’t pull away.
“I trusted you, Stone, and you let me down. Just like virtually everyone else in my life, except for Granny.”
Damn it. I’d been so wrapped up in my own thoughts, I hadn’t even considered that my little stunt was the double whammy right behind her mother not showing up for her party and disappearing off the freaking radar.
“I know. I’m a piece of shit, but let me prove to you that I’m the piece of shit who’s madly in love with you.”
She looked at me, her eyes filled with melancholy. “I don’t think you can.”
I could feel the panic spread in my chest. Had I screwed up our relationship to the point where she’d have nothing to do with me? I swallowed a string of curses. I didn’t know how, but I was going to prove to her that I loved her, that she was the one I wanted.
“There’s gotta be something I can do.”
“You can leave.”
I made no moves to get up. I couldn’t let it end like this. I couldn’t let her slip away like the early morning mist in the mountains.
“The prom is tomorrow,” I said, watching her.
She looked at me with vibrant green eyes. “I’m not going,” she replied with conviction.
“It’s senior prom. You’ll never have anothe
r one. Won’t you at least let me take you to the prom?” I watched her, feeling a strange sense of relief that she hadn’t shot the idea down immediately. That was enough for me to know that I could convince her to go. “Please?”
“We’re not together, Stone.”
“Come on, Dara. You’ve already got your dress. Mike and Crimson are planning on eating with us.” She remained silent, so I thought of every angle that I could to entice her to go. “It’s our senior year. This will be your last chance to go to the prom.” When she didn’t respond, I added, “We can go as friends.”
“All right. But we’re only going as friends. That’s it.”
Relief washed through me. I knew she was pissed at me, but I also knew she loved me. Now I had to find a way to redeem myself. I sure as hell wasn’t going to let her go without a fight.
Chapter 7
Dara
“So why’d y’all break up?” Scarlet asked as she pumped up the barber chair and began braiding Crimson’s hair.
Waiting for my turn, I swiveled around in the chair next to them. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“He did something really bad, didn’t he?” Scarlet asked. With her fingers working deftly as they crisscrossed strands of hair into an intricate pattern, she nodded toward me. “I told you to stay away from him, didn’t I?”
“Good gravy, Scarface, give it a rest,” Crimson ordered. “All couples have problems.”
“Yeah, but Stone just reeks of trouble,” Scarlet said.
“Ouch!” Crimson shouted. “Be careful with my hair.”
“Stop being a baby,” Scarlet muttered. She looked back at me. “You’re not going to get back together with him, are you? You should totally go back out with Chance.”
I groaned. “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t want Chance?”
“Stone’s way sexier,” Crimson added.
“It’s not about who’s sexier,” Scarlet advised. “Chance is a much nicer guy than Stone.”
“So if you had the choice, you’d pick Chance over Stone?” Crimson asked, widening her eyes as she watched her sister in the mirror.
“Like I even need to answer that?”
“Well, I hope you and Stone work things out,” Crimson said to me. “I think y’all are a cute couple.”
I gave her a half-hearted grin. “Thanks.”
“And I’m glad y’all are still going to the prom together. It’s going to be so much fun.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said dryly, thinking awkward might be a better way to describe it.
When Scarlet finished with Crimson’s hair, I shifted from my seat to the one that Crimson had been sitting in. Scarlet worked her magic, twisting my hair up onto my head and curling it into spirals. She added sparkling hair pieces, and when she was finished, it looked like she had sprinkled me with diamonds.
“What do you think?” she asked, twirling the chair until I could see my reflection in the mirror.
I tilted my head from side to side. “It looks beautiful. Thank you!” I tried to sound excited, but my heart just wasn’t in it. I wished that I had refused to go, but Crimson was excited. And as mad as I was at Stone, he was right about one thing. This was my last chance to go to the prom.
“Now, come over here and let’s do your makeup,” Scarlet said, moving to another chair beside Crimson. Crimson had a vast array of makeup spread out on the vanity top.
“Hop up,” Scarlet instructed me, patting the back of the barber chair.
I switched chairs, and she twirled me around, holding up bottles of foundation next to my skin. When she selected the perfect shade, she dabbed some on a makeup sponge and began applying it to my skin.
“When Stone lays eyes on you, he’s gonna so wish that he hadn’t screwed things up,” Scarlet said as she applied concealer under my eyes.
Thirty minutes later after Scarlet had brushed, blended, and powdered, she moved out of my line of vision, so that I could study my reflection.
Scarlet was quite talented when it came to hair and makeup. My green eyes appeared to glow with the smoky tones she used to play them up. Glittery silver eyeliner sparkled in the bright lights, and my skin literally shimmered. My lips glistened a darker pink than normal, and it was difficult to squelch the tiny jolt of excitement that grew in my chest.
“You’re amazing,” I whispered to Scarlet, unable to take my eyes from my reflection.
“I know.”
“Almost as amazing as me,” Crimson piped in. “I hate to break up the little party, but we’d better get going if we’re gonna get dressed before the guys come to get us.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. I hopped up from the barber chair and gave Scarlet a hug. “Thank you so much. I love it!”
“You’re welcome. I hope you have fun tonight, even if you are going with Stone,” she said as she scooped the miscellaneous containers of makeup into a rectangular case.
I pointed at Crimson. “I’ll see you later at the restaurant.”
“Yep. It can’t get here soon enough!” She held her fists in front of her, shaking them with excitement.
I smiled, wishing I was as happy as she was.
Since I was in no hurry to start the evening, I drove home slowly. I replayed Stone and Tiffany’s kiss over and over in my head, cursing myself for not staying away from him to begin with. I knew things could never work between us. We were too different. Stone would never be happy with one girl for long. And judging by his make-out session with Tiffany, my time was just about up.
Why did my head tell me it was for the best while my heart refused to believe it?
I had suffered so much hurt from being unwanted by my parents, I had protected myself by encasing my heart in a protective shell. I don’t think I even realized it until after Stone had shattered it by cracking tiny fissures, one at a time. A smile here. A touch there.
Chance and I had been nothing more than great friends really. Our relationship had lacked the intensity that Stone and I shared.
With the kiss flitting through my mind yet again, I had to wonder whether the intensity was one-sided? No. Stone felt it, too. I knew he did. At least he had at some point.
It was kind of scary to acknowledge just how much of my life had become entwined with Stone’s. He was the first person I thought of when my eyes opened in the morning and the last person I thought of before they fluttered closed at night. Could I live without him? Of course I could. Did I want to?
That was the huge essay question at the end of my heartrending exam. But what made it so difficult was the fact that I couldn’t use a search engine to pop up the answer, couldn’t find it in a book, couldn’t ask someone whose opinion I valued to make the right choice for me. This was one of those things that I had to decide for myself. Either way I went, poor choice or perfect choice, it would affect the path of my life.
When I thought of Stone, I could feel him gently caress my cheek, whisper his cocky comebacks in my ear, see the way his wintry eyes watched me fondly. The varied facets of his personality ensured that life would never be dull, that he was capable of playfully teasing, intensely caring, and sometimes fiercely protecting.
But if all that was true, how could he kiss someone else? A sliver of pain knifed its way into my heart. I gripped the steering wheel and gritted my teeth. I had experienced a lot of hurt in my life, but this was a whole new kind of pain.
I had shared details about my life with him that I hadn’t shared with anyone. He had become my best friend, surpassing even Crimson and Scarlet. And now I felt betrayed.
I took a deep breath and exhaled, forcing the negativity to be expelled from my body. There was no point in dwelling on it right now.
An hour later, I was completely ready and waiting on Stone. Granny and Mr. Milton had already taken a boatload of photos, and I imagined it would only get worse once he arrived. When I heard him pull his dad’s car into the driveway, my heart sank. I refused to look out the window and made him ring the
doorbell before I opened the door.
I should’ve made Granny answer the door. My breath hitched in my chest at the very first glance. He was dangerously handsome in the black tux, which contrasted drastically against his crisp, white shirt. He seemed even more imposing in all black with his height and his lean, muscular frame. His dark hair was neatly styled, and his eyes seemed to glow deep blue amid all the black. He held a dainty wrist corsage of white sweetheart roses trimmed in bits of ribbon and sparkles.
He leaned close to me and cast me a lopsided grin. “This is usually the part where you invite me in.” He smelled so sexy I thought I might melt in a pool of goo right here on Mr. Milton’s shiny hardwood floor.
“Uh.”
“Your name is Dara,” he whispered in my ear.
Hating that he knew he had put me in a stupor with his good looks, I snapped, “I know what my name is.” I swung the door open wide, so that he could come in, and motioned with my hand.
Granny and Mr. Milton came in from the kitchen.
“Stone, it’s nice to see you again.” Mr. Milton offered his hand in greeting.
Granny approached him and patted him on the arms. “Look at you, handsome. If I didn’t already have me a keeper, I’d go after you myself.”
“Granny!” I warned through clenched teeth, knowing full well that there was never any telling what would come out of that woman’s mouth.
“Well, you gotta admit he’s a hottie,” she defended herself.
I closed my eyes in aggravation, knowing my mood was soured by the fact that Stone had wrecked my world, and the fresh wounds still stung.
“Thank you, Granny,” he said easily. “You look lovely as always.”
Stone grasped my wrist and placed the corsage on it. The heat of his palm sent a jolt of excitement through my traitorous body. I was relieved when he turned my wrist loose.
“Why don’t the two of you stand in front of the mantel and let me take your photo?” Granny asked, motioning us toward the fireplace.
After a fifteen-minute photo session, we were finally able to escape.
Devious Page 7
