by Noah Steele
I shrugged it off and held it out in front of me, making it clear she could check it if she had to. She waved it away and I slung it back on, moving to walk beside her as we made our way back to the main hall.
“I appreciate it,” I said, offering a smile.
“Who are you here for?” she asked, pushing a loose strand of straight black hair behind her ear before pulling a hair-band off and re-tying a tight ponytail. She was much shorter than me, but I could tell from the way she carried herself down the corridor that she’d mean business in a fight. I was immediately glad that she’d laughed at my joke about uppity patrons.
The noise level rose as we turned the last corner toward the main hall, but the frown on the security guard’s face seemed to indicate it wasn’t the same hum of activity as when I’d walked in earlier. Her shoulders tensed, and though I couldn’t make out any words, I could hear shouting that cut whatever quiet chattering remained among people passing through—and I recognized both voices.
I stopped with the security guard as we entered the main hall to see nearly everyone frozen where they stood, a small ring of people forming around Derrek and Diana in front of the information desk.
The same dark-haired girl who had greeted me on my first visit shrank back from both of them, inching her way toward the two security guards just beyond the desk, two towering men with sandy hair and tense muscles, ready to act. I thanked the guard who’d woken me up and cautiously made my way closer to the desk to join the ring of onlookers, many of whom were starting to raise their phones.
Derrek’s eyes could burn holes through steel with the way he glared at Diana, whose arms were crossed over her chest, the shoulders of her pitch black blazer pulling as she tried to maintain her stance. Derrek’s arms were balled into tight fists at his sides, the sleeves of his black leather jacket ready to tear themselves into shreds.
His entire body shook where he stood, clothes pulling tight against flexed muscles. His chest heaved with heavy breaths. It would have been incredibly hot if I didn’t think it had something to do with his shirking practice to spend time with me.
Diana uncrossed her arms and tugged at the ends of her blazer, her bright red lips stretched into an impossibly thin line. I moved around the circle to get a better look at them and caught Diana’s roving eyes as they scanned the crowd, undoubtedly calculating her next move. I sneered as I pushed my way up through the ring of people, pushing down arms with phones raised and ready as I twisted my way toward Derrek’s side.
“Send him away,” Diana spat, flicking a ruby-nailed finger toward me as I made my approach. “You have too much to make up for, no more distractions.”
She clacked a sharp heel, as if to threaten Derrek by splitting the ground in front of him just to keep him trapped. He softened beside me, the angles of his face like diamonds again instantly as he took a small step toward Diana, who was already waving her own security over from his perch along the wall.
“We’re not fucking dogs, Diana. He’s not going anywhere and you’re not about to walk away like I’ll just follow wherever you go!” Derrek thundered, his voice a harsh growl that rumbled through the room. A few of the onlookers close to him shrank back, some even starting to scatter.
“But you will,” she spat back, her teeth practically dripping venom. “You will because it’s what you agreed to, Mr. Luna, when I approached you all those years ago. Or do you think this little show will make your current sponsors happy? Any one of these videos hits the internet, you’re in trouble,” she hissed, getting close to Derrek as she pushed herself toward us.
I wasn’t sure if the threat was aimed at Derrek or the crowd. I put myself between them, letting my gym bag hit the ground as I braced myself when her security, the same man who’d witnessed my panic attack, began to move faster toward us.
“Oh, fuck you,” Derrek huffed.
I reached a hand behind my back and he gripped it with a fierce squeeze.
“I’ll see you on the track, Diana. I’ll put in whatever time needed for this next race, and then I’m finished. I’m finished with you and this whole thing,” he said, gesturing widely with his other arm. “It was supposed to make me happy, and all it ever did was get me rich and keep me away from the rest of my life. I’m done.”
“The rest of your life?” she echoed, and then loosed a cold laugh. “You didn’t have one when I plucked you out of obscurity. I gave you your life, your money, your purpose. You’ll have nothing if you walk.”
Her security—Brent, I remembered—barreled between us, scooping an arm around Diana’s waist as he ushered her away from the desk and toward the same stairwell doors I’d gone through.
“He—he’ll have me!” I shouted at her back.
She stopped for a moment, and I could almost feel the air in front of me ripple as she bristled on the spot, shaking off the sound of my voice. They continued on their way, Brent nodding at something Diana must have said under her breath before they disappeared behind the double doors of the stairwell. I could feel Derrek break his aggressive stance beside me, his grip on my hand less vise-like.
I turned to face him, his steely eyes trained on the doors beyond the desk.
“You’ll have me,” I repeated, cupping his prickly cheeks in my hands as I pulled his focus toward me.
The security guard who had walked with me was now busy dispersing the crowd, a few others entering the hall from different corridors to assist. I pulled Derrek off to one side, where we found a vacant bench and sat down. He rested the back of his head against the wall behind us, arcing his back as he took a deep breath in and stretched his legs out, digging his heels into the floor. I slid my arm around his and slumped to lean my head against his shoulder.
“I told you she fucking sucked,” I said.
“You were fucking right,” he said, his face softening until he was the Derrek I was used to seeing.
He untangled himself from my arm and hugged me over the shoulders, pulling me into him.
“What are you even doing here?” he asked. “Not that it isn’t a nice surprise.”
My lips pulled themselves into an involuntary smile and I shuffled on the spot, my legs taking turns jackhammering the ground again.
“Olly and I were talking before you got up this morning and there’s something I wanted to tell you,” I said, my chest growing tight as it became a little harder to breathe.
I rose to sit at my full height, turning to cross one of my legs on the bench so I could face him. Derrek cocked an expectant eyebrow, silent as I squirmed in front of him.
“He mentioned this look,” I said, trying to find the right words.
“A look,” he said.
“Yeah, a look. Like, this way that we look at each other,” I continued, clearing my throat.
Derrek leaned even closer to me, our noses a breath apart, and whatever air remained in my lungs vanished. He tilted my chin up with his thumb and forefinger, his brown eyes soft and hypnotic.
“This kind of look?” he whispered.
“Y—yes,” I said, my voice breaking. “And it made me, um, it made me realize that we’ve never…you know,” I rambled.
I opened my mouth to finish, but before I could speak, Derrek closed the distance between us and kissed me. He pulled my face closer, nibbling on my lower lip as he pulled away, and I lifted my arms to pull him back again.
There was a hunger in him fueled by the rage that simmered just beneath his skin, and I could feel it in his lips. They burned, and I leaned into him, wanting that fire to fill my lungs and sear the words I wanted to hear into my skin.
He pulled back and a low groan escaped me, my cheeks burning and my jeans tighter than when we’d sat down. Derrek’s eyes darted off to the side, where a small group of three or four women had stopped near us, but for a very different reason. He stood up and pulled me by the hand through a set of doors into yet another stairwell.
“You were saying?” he goaded.
“Right, yeah,” I sta
mmered.
I looked around at the concrete steps and panels of glass that looked out into the city. No grand gestures. No romance. Just the two of us face to face in a cold stairwell as Derrek quietly bristled and failed to hide it. Impulsive decisions still weren’t me, and it showed. Surprising Derrek was a bad idea, even if I couldn’t have known that he and Diana would have a blowout in the middle of the welcome center.
If Olly was right—if Derrek and I were way past falling for each other—then saying the words out loud could wait until he was in a better head space. I’d tell him at his apartment.
“I need the keys to your place,” I blurted hastily. “For a surprise.”
“Oh. Oh?” he intoned, his eyes searching me from top to bottom, burning through the layers of my coat and sweater and jeans, and I met his quiet grin with one of my own. I wasn’t a great liar, either, but he’d given me something to work with, and I wasn’t about to admit defeat and tell him I loved him after a fight with the devil. I knew it shouldn’t matter, but it was important to me.
“Monster,” I scoffed, holding my palm open as he fished through a pocket and unhooked the key to his condo from a small key ring, resting it softly in my hand. Derrek’s fingers tickled my palm, and before I could stop him, I was pulled forward into another heavy kiss.
He planted his hands firmly on my waist, slipping one under the back of my coat to search my back, scar and all, his hand hot and strong as it pressed me even closer toward him. Our tongues were practically wrestling in each other’s mouths, slick and wet and passionate, and my hands made their way slowly forward and down as I slid my fingers from his chest to the zipper of his too-tight jeans.
I worked my palm against his swelling bulge, massaging it gently as he nibbled on my lip. My knees felt like they might collapse under me and I loosed a long, low groan.
He knew what I was going to say.
He had to know.
He jumped and grunted when his pocket began vibrating again. I sighed as our kiss was cut short, the small of my back suddenly freezing without his hand there to share heat. My hand stopped cold mid-massage and I pulled it back into my pocket, the stairwell suddenly gray and drab around us again.
Derrek yanked the phone from his pocket and sneered.
“I’m being summoned,” he spat, turning the phone for me to read a very curt text from Diana demanding he stop wasting her time.
“I’m sorry,” I sputtered.
“What the fuck for?” he shot back. “I told you she was out of line.”
“Yeah, but she wouldn’t be if I—”
“If you what?” Derrek interrupted, and I froze, my mouth flapping open and shut as I tried and failed to finish the thought. “If we weren’t together? If you’d never met me? Don’t find a way to blame yourself, Aiden. This is all her.”
He punched at his phone with sharp thuds before stuffing it back in a pocket, his eyes hungry to continue our kiss, but his heavy exhale as his eyes rested on mine told me it wasn’t going to happen.
“Tonight,” I said, moving to hug him as tight as I could before nodding toward the stairs behind him. “Don’t do anything dumb, Derrek. One more race, and then we can figure it out.”
He smiled, his pearly teeth bright and neat, and I raised an eyebrow.
“You said ‘we’,” he said, and I could feel my cheeks grow hot.
“Sure did,” I said. “Go deal with Beelzebub so you can come home and deal with me,” I said with a wink. Derrek sucked in a breath and caught the corner of his bottom lip between his teeth, shifting backwards toward the stairs, until he let it go and turned to leave.
“Tease,” he rumbled quietly. “See you later!”
I watched him skip steps to reach the top faster and didn’t move until I heard a door open and click shut again. Grinning dumbly to myself, I pulled open the doors to the welcome center and meandered my way through toward the street.
When I finally walked into Bay Window Books for the day, the key to Derrek’s place had become so hot in my hand I thought it might burn a scar into my palm.
I was closing for the night again before I knew it. I’d let everyone else off an hour earlier, not sure if I was letting nerves stall me from going to Derrek’s or if excitement had put me in a working mood.
A huge part of me wanted Derrek to show up at the store while it was empty, just the two of us, and I let that daydream carry me through the last hour of my night. With a satisfying click, I flipped the sign on the front door and turned out the lights, making my way to the back.
I rattled a few keys, and as I entered the storage room from the storefront, locking the door behind me, I felt the familiar sting of cold wind through the thin denim of my jeans.
“Seriously?” I muttered, passing shelves and cleaning supplies to find the back door wide open and rattling softly in the wind.
Someone had left it unlocked again, and nobody had mentioned it before leaving for the night. I was glad the back door opened into a quiet alley of loading zones for all the shops on some of the block. Nobody was out there in cold weather, and nobody would have heard the door rattling from the street.
I’d make sure nothing was stolen in the morning—I wanted to see Derrek, who would definitely be back at his place by the time I got there. Diana couldn’t keep him driving for six solid hours—I hoped. I shrugged on my jacket and made sure the door clicked shut with a few tugs before turning to face the cold, but the weather had other ideas.
The wind fought back as I wrestled the door into submission, but it clicked shut, and after a few extra pushes and pulls on the handle, I was sure it wouldn’t open until I unlocked it in the morning. Leaves crunched underfoot as I stepped carefully toward the street, but I didn’t take more than a few steps before I felt a heavy thud against the back of my head.
A large pair of boots swam into view as I hit the ground and did my best to look back before everything went dark.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I was having a dream I hadn’t had in a long time.
I blinked the sleep from my eyes; the book I’d been reading—a bright and colorful illustrated story about a loyal knight on a quest to save the kingdom’s prince from a powerful evil queen—was splayed open at my tiny feet. I laughed as my mother drove slowly over a small speed bump, the subtle rocking of the car making my head buzz.
I leaned forward to pick up the book and rest it on the back seat beside me, folding it shut before clasping my hands in my tiny lap. The houses slowly crawling past us were almost a storybook all on their own, and I brushed short waves of blond hair from my eyes to see them better.
My small hand pressed against the window and I smiled at the personality of it all, from hanging wind chimes to little armies of garden gnomes to the vast park that sat on a quiet side street, everything vibrant in the growing orange glow of a soft July sunset.
Mom was humming in the driver’s seat, her eyes darting back as often as they could to watch me. Dreaming was the only time I could really remember all of her features—and she was stunning. The soft sun cascading into her windows made her hair shimmer like white gold, the blue of her eyes particularly blue in the rear-view mirror.
I couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t just part of the dream, though.
“We’re almost there!” she said brightly, and I smiled back at her.
We had the same quirk to our lips, and I’d always thought I’d learned to smile from her.
“Sweetie, tell me again what this pizza is called?” she asked, soft and encouraging. It was my birthday, and we were on our way to a family favorite pizzeria Mom had loved as a kid.
“Mega Mushroom Madness!” I screamed, and my mother screamed the name with me before we both erupted into laughter that bounced through the car in waves. She always managed to make me laugh, and I loved her all the more for it.
It wasn’t that my father couldn’t make me laugh like that, but he was working late that night. My mom said he felt terrible about it.
&n
bsp; “Can we get an extra big one so Dad can have some later, too?” I said, leaning as far as I could to see around the back of the driver’s seat.
“An extra big one, honey? How much are you planning to eat?”
“A lot, Mom. It’s my favorite,” I whined. “Dad should have some too, though.”
“You’re a funny kid, sweetie,” she said through quiet giggles as we turned a corner and my body rocked back toward the window. I picked up my book again and lost myself in it as we came to a red light and lurched to a slow stop.
“How much longer?” I asked, my eyes still glued to the book.
“Five more minutes! What kind of cake do you want this year?” she asked as the car hiccupped forward when the light changed to green. I looked up to see her eyes darting back and forth from the rearview mirror.
I opened my mouth to reply when her eyes darted back up one last time before she turned her head violently to the left, her normally serene features twisted into a tense, shocked grimace.
Then we were in the air.
My eyes clamped shut as another car slammed into my mother’s door.
I screamed, my mother screamed, and I clamped my eyes shut as little shards of glass and metal erupted into the air around us. My seatbelt pulled tight against my chest, and my body shook with cold waves as the car turned and turned again.
My ears rang as we slammed against the ground, skidding down the block upside down as I clutched the book to my chest with one arm, the other numb at my side, my arms and legs flecked with pinpricks of red where the glass had cut me.
I screamed and cried from where I hung in the wreckage, sirens flaring up in the distance, until I finally opened my eyes as much as I could. My mother’s arm, bloodied and bent at a terrible angle, poked around the seat in front of me, her head slumped onto her shoulder in a tangle of dark wet hair and bits of glass that glittered with a sick shine in the orange light.
“M-Mom?” I wailed, straining against the tight confines of my seatbelt.
