One corner of his mouth tipped up in a crooked smirk as we came to a stop outside our classroom door. “Don’t let Bryan hear you say that.”
I looked up at him and replied with complete honesty. “I don’t care if he hears. It’s the truth. I’m obligated to go with him because we’re dating, but you’re the only one I care about hanging out with. We’ve been together for every major milestone in our lives so far. There’s no way I’m doing this without you.”
Releasing my shoulders, he turned and faced me full on. His expression softened in that way I’d grown to love over the years as he reached up and twisted a lock of my hair around his finger. “Fine. I’ll ask Marcy Danowitz. But I don’t want to hear shit from you about being a crappy date when I ignore her and monopolize all your time.”
“Deal,” I squeaked excitedly. Prom was going to be epic—just as long as I had my best friend to enjoy it with.
The final bell had rung no more than ten minutes before. I’d floated happily through the rest of the day after my conversation with Deacon, so running into Bryan in the student parking lot and having him break up with me in front of half the student body put a serious damper on my mood.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I seethed, blinking back the tears that were burning the backs of my eyes as I glared up at Bryan. I couldn’t think of another time in my life when I’d been this pissed off. No way in hell was I going to give that jerk the satisfaction of seeing me cry.
“Chase Wilcox saw you with Deacon Lockhart before Bio this morning,” Bryan stated. His tone would’ve sounded almost bored had it not been for the thread of jealousy tangled around his words. “Said he was all over you, again. I’m sick of having everyone ask if my girlfriend’s got the hots for another guy. You’re supposed to be dating me, but you’re always with that loser.”
“He’s not a loser!” I shouted, not giving a single shit that kids were starting to stop and stare. “He’s my best friend. You knew that when we started dating, so what’s the deal?”
“The deal is you pick him over me every time! I’m sick of it. I’m not going to waste the rest of my senior year on a chick who fawns over some asshole. Especially if she’s not putting out.”
My arm moved before I even realized what I was doing, and my palm cracked across Bryan’s face. I’d never hit anyone in my life, but that jerk deserved it. And I had to admit, despite the vicious sting in my palm, it felt pretty damn good.
“You’re an asshole,” I hissed before turning for my car. Bryan spewed more hateful words in my direction, but I couldn’t find it in me to care as I unlocked my door, climbed in, and took off. He didn’t deserve another minute of my attention. If he wanted to dump me because he was threatened by my relationship with Deacon, that was his problem.
I was better off without him.
A week had passed since the Smack Heard Around the Parking Lot, and despite my efforts to pretend everything was hunky-dory every day, word of my breakup with Bryan, and the nasty comments he’d been making behind my back, were spreading around the school like wildfire. I did my best to keep my head down and ignore the gossip, but that was damn near impossible when my ex-boyfriend—who just so happened to be the king of assholes—started flaunting the fact that he already had a new date to prom. Apparently, if the grapevine was correct, he’d started banging Zoe Sinclair before we’d even broken up.
Whatever. Better her than me. Or at least that’s what I was telling myself.
It wasn’t the breakup that upset me. The truth was I didn’t really care that Bryan and I weren’t a couple anymore. It was actually kind of a relief. But the humiliation that came with his spreading rumors and calling me a cock-tease while subsequently rubbing his cheating in my face was what hurt the most.
Deacon had been pissed, and was determined to do something about it. Luckily I’d managed to talk him down, or so I thought.
I closed my locker just as the bell for the next class rang. I’d been studiously ignoring the whispers as I turned and caught sight of Deacon coming down the senior hallway, that ever-prominent I don’t give a shit about anything or anyone swagger that was all him drawing everyone’s attention.
But it wasn’t the vibe he was giving off that caught my attention. “Please tell me you didn’t,” I demanded on a furious whisper when he got close enough to hear. I lifted his right hand and began inspecting. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why the skin of his knuckles was split and bruised.
He’d gotten his hands on Bryan.
“Fucker deserved it,” he grumbled.
Damn it. Deacon had a nasty habit of getting into fights that led to one or both of his parents being pulled in. The last thing he needed was to get in trouble so close to graduation. “Deacon,” I started on a warning, but stopped when the air all around us went electric. It took me a second to figure out why, but then the crowd parted and I got my first glimpse of exactly what Deac had done to my piece-of-shit ex.
Bryan looked like he’d gone eight full rounds with a professional boxer, but instead of putting up a fight, had spent the entire time as the guy’s own personal punching bag.
I spun around and glared daggers at Deacon. “Have you lost your mind? You’re going to get expelled!”
For reason’s unknown to me, that made him smile. “Trust me, that fuck-stick isn’t talking about what happened to anyone. And it didn’t happen on school property, so you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“How can you say that? I just saw Bryan’s face! Of course I’m going to worry.”
He lowered his voice, his expression going soft. “Babe, like I said, he’s not gonna say a word. Did you really think I was going to just stand there and let him talk shit about you? You? Come on, Fee. You knew I couldn’t let that happen. You’re my girl.”
I glared again, holding it for several silent beats before I threw my hands in the air. “Gah! You’re such a jerk. You make it impossible to stay mad at you when you say stuff like that!”
His smile turned cocky as he slung an arm around my shoulders, pulled me into his side, as per usual, and started walking us to class, acting like half the kids weren’t staring at us with open curiosity and the other half weren’t glaring because they’d bought into Bryan’s lies.
“Of course you can’t stay mad at me. You love me, remember?”
Grinning up at him, I replied, “I do. I love you around the world and back again.”
With a wink, he responded, “And I love you to Jupiter and back again.”
“Fee, honey! You’ve got company!”
At my mom’s call, I stuffed the spoon laden with ice cream into my mouth, snagged the pint container, and started out of the kitchen. It was prom night, and I was going to eat as much ice cream as possible to help soothe the pain that came with knowing I’d be missing it. I could’ve gone by myself, but with what had happened with Bryan, I was too much of a coward to show alone.
“Who is it?” I yelled back, my words muffled by the combination of vanilla and fudgy chocolate packed into my mouth.
“Just get your behind out here.”
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling and muttered, “Jeez, I’m coming.” I’d just rounded the corner into the entry when I rocked to a stop at the sight of Deacon. Not regular Deacon, either. No, this was tricked-out-in-a-tux, looking-hotter-than-anything-I’d-ever-seen Deacon.
“Wha-what are you doing here?” I garbled through my ice cream.
Instead of answering, he smirked and asked, “You gonna get dressed or what? We don’t have all night.”
Mom beamed as she looked between the two of us, clearly in on whatever was happening. “Uh… Deac, I’m not going. I told you that.”
He stepped through the door, shutting it behind him. Man, he looked cute. “You said you weren’t going because you didn’t want to go alone. Well”—he held his arms out at his sides—“now you’re not going alone, so get a move on.”
My nose stung and the backs of my eyes began to burn. Crap, I w
as going to cry, all because I had the sweetest, most thoughtful best friend on the planet. “But… what about Marcy?”
Deacon gave me a don’t ask stupid questions look. “Let’s just say I’m not her favorite person.”
Omigod! Deacon had bailed on Marcy to take me! I couldn’t believe it. “You didn’t have to do that!” I cried.
“Yes I did,” he answered simply. “Every milestone it’s you and me, remember?”
God, I was lucky. With a squeal, I launched myself at him and wrapped him in a bone-crushing hug. “You’re the best,” I whispered in his ear.
“To Jupiter and back again, babe,” he said softly.
“Around the world and back again,” I replied.
I ran up the stairs the minute we pulled apart and got dressed in record time. When I was back downstairs, Deac and I did the obligatory picture thing for my parents, and I nearly burst into tears again when he pulled out a wrist corsage that matched my dress perfectly.
That night was one of the best nights of my life. And I knew down to my bones that as long as I had Deacon, there’d be a million more just like them.
Chapter Eleven
Fiona
Figuring that Deacon would come looking for me after I’d blown out of The Black Sheep like a puff of smoke, I decided the best course of action was to avoid my house at all costs.
My parents’ place was out, since all it would take was one look at my face and they’d know something was up. And my folks could be relentless in a loving, totally overbearing kind of way. I’d eventually cave to their nagging and tell them what happened, only to have to live through their crushing disappointment in me.
I couldn’t run to any of my girls, seeing as they were all blissfully shacked up with their own guys. No doubt they’d see the sex hair and rumpled clothes and dig in like a dog with a bone. I loved those girls more than anything, but they had a knack for getting into business that wasn’t theirs to get into. Hell, they’d proved that by making up the surgeon on Thanksgiving.
So a hotel was my only real option. I called into work sick the next day, then spent the rest of my weekend holed up in a cushy hotel room, trying to combat my muscle-straining guilt with spa treatments. It didn’t work. After an hour-long massage, a detoxifying mud bath, and multiple trips to the steam room, I still felt like the shittiest human being on the planet, only with smooth, soft skin and looser limbs. No amount of scrubbing, buffing, or polishing was going to wash away my shame.
I was a terrible person.
Monday finally rolled around and, sick of my own company, I sucked it up and went home to get ready for work. My staff seemed oblivious to the turmoil swirling around inside of me, and I did my best to shove my discomfort to the back of my mind and buried myself in my job. Thankfully, taking the previous Friday off to lick my wounds meant there was a shit-ton of work piled on my desk, just waiting for me.
I worked until I lost track of everything happening around me. I was so consumed that I nearly jumped out of my seat when my cell phone rang, scaring the ever-loving hell out of me.
“Shit,” I breathed, placing my hand on my chest to steady my rapidly beating heart. When I reached for my phone resting on my desk, I noticed that the sky outside my office window was completely dark. Spinning in my chair, I saw that the office had already been shut down for the night. Most of the lights were off, only a few lamps illuminating the cubicles and other offices outside my door. The clock in the corner of my laptop screen showed it was after nine. I’d worked over thirteen hours straight without much more than a bathroom break.
Snatching the phone up, I engaged the call and put it to my ear. “Hello?”
“Hey!” Daphne chirped through the line. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you all weekend.”
Resting my elbow on the desk, I dropped my forehead into my hand and began rubbing at my dry, scratchy eyes. “Hey, sorry. I was… busy all weekend. Working.”
“You okay?” she asked after a few seconds of silence.
I could’ve continued lying, but the weight of this… thing on my conscience was just too much to bear. “No. I’m not okay. I’m a terrible person. A terrible, awful person. I’m the scum of the earth.”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” she said, breaking through my self-flagellation. “What are you talking about? What’s going on?”
“I slept with Deacon,” I whispered, even going so far as to cover my mouth with my hand like there were people around who could hear me.
“You what?” she screeched, nearly bursting my eardrum. “Oh my God! Oh my God! This is so great! I knew you two were still circling each other. I knew it! I can’t wait to tell the girls—”
“No!” I snapped. “No, you can’t tell anyone. And it’s not great, Daph. Have you forgotten about his girlfriend?”
More silence, then “Oh shit.”
“Yeah. Oh shit’s right,” I grumbled. “It just… happened. We were hanging out, talking, and things just escalated. Leah totally slipped my mind. I wasn’t thinking. Then she walked in—”
“No!” she gasped.
“Yes,” I hissed. “Caught us with our pants down. Literally.” I dropped my head into my hand again as my nose and eyes started to burn. “I’m the worst kind of person, Daphne. I helped Deacon cheat on his girlfriend.”
“Wait. Hold on, this isn’t all on you. I mean, Deacon was just as much a participant as you were. What did he have to say about it?”
Collapsing back in my chair, I stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t know. I kind of ran out of there like my ass was on fire. Then I shut off my phone, avoided my house, and stayed in a hotel all weekend.”
She was quiet for so long I thought the call might have dropped. “Daph? You there?”
“I’m here.”
“Well?” I snapped when she didn’t give me more than that. “I just confessed to being a cheating hussy. Don’t you have anything to say about that?”
“Sure I do. Firstly, you’re not a hussy. And I don’t think people even use the word hussy anymore.”
I was going to lose my mind. “Can you be serious for one second?”
“I’m being dead serious. No one says that. Slut and skank, sure, but definitely not hussy.”
Groaning into the phone, I said, “I’m hanging up now.”
“Hold on! There’s just one thing I need to know. It’s super important.”
Hesitantly, I asked, “What is it?”
“How was the sex? I always imagined Deacon was a take-charge kind of guy in the bedroom. Please tell me he lives up to my imagination.”
“Ohmigod! Why are we even friends!” The faint ding of the elevators sounded after my shout, alerting me to someone else on the floor. I tuned out Daphne’s rambling as a shadowy figure appeared through the wall of glass at the front of my office. A moment later his face came into view.
My lungs froze at the sight of Deacon coming my way. After all these years, he still had that relaxed swagger that drew everyone’s attention, even in spite of the thunderous expression on his face.
“Oh shit,” I whispered. I’d forgotten all about the phone at my ear until Daphne asked, “What’s going on?”
“He’s here,” I continued in a hushed voice as a very pissed-off Deacon got closer.
“Who’s there? Deacon?”
“Yes. Gotta go.” I ended the call in the middle of Daphne’s objection, placing the phone down just as my office door crashed open.
Oh shit.
His jaw might as well have been carved out of granite with how hard it was. “Hi.”
“Hi?” he asked, the menacing growl of that one word sending a shiver down my spine. “You ran out on me four days ago, disappeared into thin fucking air, and all you have to say is hi?”
“Uh….” A trickle of fear shimmered through me, but even with Deacon practically breathing fire, I still couldn’t help but notice how insanely hot he was.
He stalked to my desk, slamming his hands onto the gla
ss surface. “You’ve got some serious fucking explaining to do,” he barked. “What the fuck, Fiona?”
“What the fuck?” I was so taken aback at his sudden appearance that I couldn’t get my brain to function.
“Yeah. What the fuck!” he repeated on a loud boom. “You bolted so goddamn fast that my cum was still dripping out of you. So what… the… fuck!”
I wasn’t sure why that set me off, but the vulgarity and anger in his words made me snap. “Don’t be crude!”
Deacon’s chin jerked back in shock, his voice dropping ominously as he asked, “Are you kidding me?”
I stood up, mirroring his stance by putting my hands on the desk and leaning in closer. “No, I’m not kidding you. You want to be pissed at me, go for it. You want to tear into me, have at it—”
“Oh, I intend to!” he bellowed, cutting into my tirade. “Four days. Four goddamn days without a word from you. I’ve been by your house. I’ve talked to your folks. Where the hell have you been?”
Standing tall, I raked my hands through my hair in agitation. “I needed to think.”
“You needed to think?”
“Gah! Will you stop repeating everything I say? Yes, I needed to think!”
One corner of his mouth tipped in a vicious smirk as he straightened and crossed his arms over his chest. “Hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but the minute I sank my cock inside you, everything about our relationship changed. You no longer have the luxury of running away scared with your tail tucked between your legs.”
I rocked back on one foot, the waves of anger rolling off Deacon and crashing right into me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re mine,” he growled. “After thirty fucking years, you’re finally mine. You need to think, or breathe, or take the time to twist what happened between us in that head of yours and turn it into something fucked up, fine, but you do it with me. No more running away.”
Good Lord, Daphne wasn’t wrong about Deacon being a take-charge type of guy. And apparently it wasn’t only in the bedroom. I’d never seen this domineering, alpha side to him before.
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