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28

Fane

After

The moment I walked into the bar, Ashton waved at me like we were on opposite sides of a fun park, yelling something I couldn’t hear over the music that was playing.

I was thankful that the corner he’d taken up residence in with a couple other guys from work seemed to be protected from the way the speakers were destroying people’s eardrums.

“If I knew the way to get you to a bar was to tell you that the love of your life was guzzling down drinks like it was her divine given path in life, I would have saved myself a whole lot of trouble.”

“And you’re out, why?” I slid into the booth next to him, already wishing I could leave. After leaving my job at Heavenly Horns, the appeal of frequenting a bar just vanished from my mind. When Ash begged, I indulged him from time to time, but I was more than happy to down a few drinks at home.

“There’s a bachelorette party going on.” He gestured to the group of women standing by the bar, the one in white giving him particularly gooey eyes. When I looked back at him, he was giving her a little finger wave.

“Tell me you didn’t seduce the bride-to-be.”

“What? No! ’Course not. I went for the one in white.” He was still waving at her when I punched him in the arm, and like it was an automated reply, his fist came flying back at me, which I dodged before flicking his ear.

“That’s the fucking bride, you jackass.”

“Hey! That fucking hurt.” He started poking at my side, which eventually morphed into this slapping fight until I had him in a headlock, and he was trying to slide under the table to evade it.

“I tap out!” he choked out after the two other guys from work had gotten up and left in a hurry.

“You let me have that one,” I grumbled. As much as I could hold my own, I’d never been able to hold anything where Ash was concerned. The man was a different breed.

“Yeah, well, it seemed like bad karma to kick a man already down.” Ashton sat back in the booth, sliding over so that our arms were no longer touching, and took a big gulp of his beer before passing it over to me with a firm clap on my back.

“She’s—”

“I know.” I’d known exactly where Cali was the second I walked in. She was pretty much directly diagonal to where we were sitting, with a girl with hair almost as black as hers, but the ends were a bright royal blue.

“I got here about an hour ago. They seemed to have been settled for a while.”

I stared at her, watching the way she talked so animatedly with the woman across from her. Their hands were entangled in the middle of the table. Heads bowed together one moment and tipped back in big, face-splitting laughter the next.

“There’s also that guy.” Ashton pointed to the door I walked in and the guy sitting in a chair right beside it. He could’ve looked like someone who was part of the contractor team that had come to town with us, with his black jeans, cargo boots, and black hoodie, but I would’ve known if he was.

“Is he—”

“Sleeping? No. I thought that too, but if Blue over there so much as breathes in a way that doesn’t seem remotely normal, dark and handsome over there gets this look in his eyes that I’m pretty sure translates directly into, I’ll rip your dick off .”

“You need help.”

“He’s my eye twin.” Ash gave this little one-shoulder shrug that made it seem like this should be a huge deal, and he was downplaying it.

“Am I supposed to be impressed?”

The punch he gave my arm hurt it so bad I felt it in my balls. “God, you’re the fucking worst. ”

“ Is it a big deal ?” He repeated the words with a look of utter betrayal on his face while he mimicked stabbing a knife into his heart and twisting it. “Is the Pope Catholic? Fucking yes , it’s a big deal, you wiener. He’s got icies too.” He gestured to his icy-blue eyes. “Makes us look like yin and yang. Me with the blond hair. Him with the black hair.” Ashton was staring at him with his chin propped in his hand and fucking hearts in his eyes. An exaggerated sigh deflated his body, and he slumped back in the booth, his head rolling to face me.

“So.” He reached out to poke my cheek, and I slapped his hand. “Want to talk about it?”

I leaned back, slumping next to him and taking the beer glass he offered me for another drink. “She hates me.”

“No, she doesn’t.” The thing about Ash was he could go from being all eye twin to the most dependable, unswayable guy.

“You didn’t hear what she said. The look on her face.” Everything I was telling him was broad, I knew that. But he knew I wasn’t going to give him details, not where Cali was concerned. He knew us both well enough to not need more.

“She doesn’t hate you, Fane. She probably wants to. What she likely hates more is that she doesn’t hate you at all.”

“You’re so wise for someone who refers to his own eyes as ‘icies.’”

“I appreciate that.” He took back his beer glass. “How’s your plan going?”

“You know, it was coming along.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep.” I held my hand out for his beer.

“And then you fucked it?”

“Big time.”

Ash reached over to clap me on the shoulder again in what I was sure was his way of softening his impending I told you so when the girls stood up and our backs snapped to attention, eyes on them. With their hands clasped and faces completely determined, they made their way toward the dance floor.

“This is going to be amazing.” Ash grinned, watching Cali wobble toward the group of writhing bodies.

“Is this…are they playing Bad Omens ?”

“Mmm,” Ash hummed around his mouth full of beer. “Mags said it was ‘Youths’ Music Night’. I told her she needed a new name, and she looked at me like I had a set of balls resting on my forehead.”

The beer that had been in my mouth pretty much sprayed out my nose, and I started coughing. Ash just kept talking while simultaneously patting me on the back, which turned out to be not helpful at all.

“I also told her she needed a new DJ. Whoever it is played that new single from Lady Luck , which I approved of, but followed it up with some song about hills sung by what I’m pretty sure was a quartet.”

I was still coughing, and Ash just shoved his mostly empty beer back at me to help, and that was when she saw me. I half expected a bloodcurdling scream to rip out of her. Instead, her head tipped to the side a little, and slowly she lifted her middle finger up at me.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I settled back into the booth and tilted my head back, lifting my middle finger to her in return.

“Is this some weird foreplay thing you guys have started doing?” Ashton’s warm breath was right at my ear, and I felt no remorse when my palm made firm, if not unintentional, contact to his face.

“Fucking ow !”

“Your moist breath in my ear is so fucking unwelcome, I can’t even tell you.” I flipped him off too before I looked back to Cali. Ashton was busy mumbling about how I should be so lucky when I noticed the guy he’d pointed out before.

I hadn’t even seen him move, but he had. He was standing further along the wall with his eyes laser-focused on the girl Cali was with.

It was almost painful having to sit here. To watch Cali without any inhibitions, walls completely down, even if it was because of way too much liquor in her system, judging by the amount of shot glasses on the table they’d been sitting at.

I hated that she was right there, just within my reach, and yet I had no right to touch her.

“You’re doing your whole sad boy smolder thing.”

“My what?” I snapped.

“Your sad boy smolder.” Ash leaned around so that he was putting his face in my line of sight. I pushed it away, covering said face with my entire hand.

“I don’t smolder.”

He barked a laugh. “Yes, you do. In a very sad boy way.”

“Shut up.” I tried to put my hand back on his face, which he evaded with the sort of skill that definitely reinforced that getting him in a headlock had been because he’d let me.

“Just go up there.”

“No. She needs this. A night off with a friend.”

I couldn’t stop seeing the way she’d looked before she left. I knew that she was making a point. Making me regret my words when I told her in no uncertain terms that I didn’t want any of these fucking walls between us.

I had dreamed, every damn day, about what it would be like to finally be close enough to her where I could count the freckles on her cheeks. See the way her pulse flickered in her throat, hear the way she breathed. Calm and steady while she lay with her head on my chest.

I savored every second that my eyes traced over her, watching the way she tipped her head back and threw her hands up above her head. Still in her sundress from earlier, she looked fucking beautiful.

“Is she flossing?” Ashton sounded like he was about to wet himself, and I delivered a solid punch to his shoulder. Cali had never been able to dance, but it didn’t make me want to look away from her any less, even as she transitioned to that move where she was cleaning each ear with an imaginary Q-tip before throwing it away.

I turned to Ash then. “I’m going to get her back.”

“I know,” he said, eyes meeting mine. He’d always been so sure of me, even when I hadn’t been sure of myself.

Ash rolled his head back toward the dance floor, mouth opening like he was about to ask me to move so he could go grab another beer when I felt his body still, and he breathed a curse. By the time I looked back to the dance floor, it was too late.

I’d had my eyes off her for one fucking second. That was all. Just one.

Dark and Handsome, as Ash dubbed him, had already made his way onto the dance floor. An arm wrapped around the waist of Cali’s friend, mouth at her ear, while her eyes struggled to focus on literally anything.

My eyes snapped back to Cali, who’d turned away from us, away from her friend. She was still swaying among the packed dance floor, oblivious to everything but the music and the alcohol coursing through her. I saw the moment Declan’s hands found her waist, fingers curling possessively as if claiming her, and slid down to her hips.

I watched as her head lolled back against his shoulder, tilting slightly as though to see who it was. There was a hint of a smile on her lips. My stomach dropped, a cold rush of dread sweeping through me.

It was like every fucked-up nightmare I’d ever had was unfolding in real-time.The kind where you know the ending is going to destroy you but you can’t wake up. I was out of the booth in a heartbeat, Ash close on my heels. My blood boiled hotter with every step, my vision narrowing in on them until nothing else existed but her and the bastard touching her.

And then she saw him.

Her eyes widened, and the sound that tore out of her throat was something primal, raw, filled with pure terror. It froze the entire fucking dance floor.

Cali’s elbow swung in a wide arc, catching Declan across the face just as her scream tore through the air. The sound echoed in my head, branding me with the realization that this wasn’t fear of a stranger or some drunken overreaction. This was her body reacting on instinct, fighting for fucking survival.

I’d heard her scream like that once before.

“No!” Her voice cracked on the word as she stumbled back, crashing into me. Her back connected with my chest, but the impact didn’t stop her from spinning around, swaying as her hands came up in front of her like she was prepared to strike me too.

Then, like a switch flipped, her body sagged. Recognition dawned in her hazy eyes, and relief washed over her features, slowly chipping away at the terror that had frozen her. She stumbled forward, her forehead coming to rest against my chest, her hands clutching at my shirt in tight, trembling fists.

“Do you see him too?” Her voice was barely a whisper, slurred and fragile as it filtered through the pounding music.

The question cut me deeper than anything she could’ve screamed. Her grip on me tightened, her fingers curling into the fabric like it was the only thing tethering her to the ground.

“I see him, baby,” I murmured into the top of her head. I lifted my hand up, letting it sit on the back of her neck, but I didn’t take my eyes off Declan.

He’d staggered back a few steps, one hand brushing his jaw where she’d hit him. The crowd around us had gone eerily still, people watching as his eyes slowly moved over them, meeting one pair after another. His face darkened with each connection, the flush of anger creeping up his neck until it was like his skin was about to burst. Then his gaze landed on her, and I wanted to pull the eyes from his head.

It was the flicker in his eyes that set my teeth on edge, a brief moment where they softened—possessive and twisted—like he thought she belonged to him. Then they found mine.

Everything about him changed. There was no hiding the hate that burned there, the sick delight curling his lips into a sneer that dared me to do something about it. He wanted me to snap, to lose control right here in front of everyone.

But my control was something I’d honed since I was a child and I had much more appealing ideas of how exactly he’d lose his life than the sort of violence his mind was no doubt conjuring up about how he might prefer I lost mine.

He’d looked at me like that before when I caught him drowning that bird. This time, he didn’t bother hiding it. Not the smugness. Not the challenge. Not the promise.

Declan took a step back, the sneer still plastered on his face. My body felt calm though, with my hand resting on the back of Cali’s neck. Her breath warming my chest. I didn’t need to follow him to the dark alley beside the bar like a ravenous, vengeful child to let him know that his days were limited. He could see it clear enough for himself.

I had nothing to prove to him, but he’d die all the same.

That thought settled in me, like a balm on a burn.

Declan slowly backed out of the bar, his eyes never leaving Cali. They trailed over her like he was memorizing her, like this was only the first act in whatever fucked up play he’d written in his head.

The longer he was gone, the more the tension in the room eased. I could feel it in the way Cali’s body relaxed against mine, the trembling subsiding little by little. It wasn’t until her head tipped to the side, her glassy eyes blinking up at me, that I let myself take a breath.

“I’m still very sad at you.” She frowned and held up a finger in thought, like nothing had happened. “Mad. I am mad at you, but please take me home.”

“What about your friend?” I looked around but noticed she was gone and so was Dark and Handsome. Cali just waved. “Dylan was here with the eyes of a flock on her.”

“Eyes of a flock?” I quirked an eyebrow.

“Yep. The whole flock.” She lifted her hand in a halfhearted circle motion. “All the birds.” Cali crooked her finger in my direction, and I leaned down. She didn’t whisper though. In fact, I was sure a great number of people heard what came out of her mouth. “I told her about the whole hair pervert thing!”

“ Hair pervert? ” Ashton mouthed the words at me over Cali’s head, and he looked like, for all the world, this might’ve been the best fucking day of his life.

“Hey, Cathy?” Ashton snapped his fingers in front of Cali’s face, and she swatted him away before giving him the finger. It felt like all was right in the world, just for a moment, to see him on the other end of that gesture. “Between one and ten?”

Ash asked Cali a question I’d heard a thousand times. It was like an encrypted shorthand they used to get to the point quickly on important things. How drunk they were, how hungry, how likely they thought it would be for either of them to shave off just one eyebrow. That last one had been a ten and left both of them looking ridiculous for a month and a half.

He was still laughing when Cali said, “Thirteen.”

“I’m never going to let you forget this.”

“Go and hug a bunny, you big flapjack.”

“This is awesome. ” Ashton looked way too happy when he pulled out his phone and took a photo of Cali now inspecting her middle finger so close to her own face she was going cross-eyed.

“Okay, that’s more than enough. Delete that.” I pointed at his phone before I scooped her up into my arms. She let out a little yelp but quickly let her head fall to my shoulder.

“No chance, pookie bear.”

“Don’t go after him, Ashton.” I looked him straight in the eyes, letting him know if anyone was going to keep Cali safe, it would be me.

“It’s here if you need it.” Ashton tapped the middle of his forehead, his signature gesture, a wordless promise that he was ready to step in if I asked.

I walked out of the bar with Cali in my arms, ignoring all the eyes that were on us, and got her situated in the front of my truck.

The drive home was quiet. The only sound was the tires on the road and Cali’s mumbles about hair and birds. Every so often, she shifted, her hand reaching out like she was searching for something—maybe for someone. Each time, my knuckles whitened against the steering wheel.

Jerry met us at the front door with quiet whimpers, his wet nose touched all over Cali’s legs. When she’d left, he’d been beside himself. Sat right at the front door and watched it. Ears pricked and on guard for her to come back.

I settled her into bed, leaving only to let Jerry out one last time and check the locks on the doors and windows.

It felt weird getting into bed with her now. It’s not like we were on good terms before, but we’d moved past whatever had been going on before, when it was just verbal sparring matches and getting under each other’s skin. When it was vacuuming her landlord’s driveway just to get a rise out of her.

I should give her the space she needed and sleep on the couch with the dog, and I swear to God I was going to, but then her hand reached out across the mattress like she was looking for me, seeking me out and my heart fucking stuttered. When she didn’t find me and managed to peel her head off the pillow and look around, she found me standing like an idiot at the end of the bed, staring at her.

“Well, that’s not weird at all,” she grumbled before flopping her head back down to the pillow. Even drunk and sad-mad at me, she still made me laugh.

“What are you doing? You’re like a big, tattooed Edward Cullen. Come on,” she grumbled again, voice muffled by the pillow, before patting the empty side of the bed.

I could have tried to fight her on it. I should have. We’d already established that I wasn’t a good man, though.

I walked around and pulled the covers back, sliding in between the cool sheets, rolling on my side and staring right at her. Her hand flung right out, narrowly missing my face before she settled it on the top of my head, fingers entwined with my hair like she’d done a hundred times before.

“All right, who’s first?” Her words were definitely less slurred than they’d been at the bar, but they had a sleepy edge to them now.

“First for what?” I murmured.

“Three for three.”

I snorted. “I’m not drunk, Cali, it wouldn’t be fair.”

She snorted. “Things not being fair is my life memo.”

“Your…you mean motto?”

“Sure.” She shrugged and nuzzled into her pillow. “Three for three.”

“Cali—” I started to fight her on it again. Three for Three was a game we’d made up when we were drunk. When we were both without inhibitions.

“Well, do you promise to just answer like you have none?”

“I mean—”

“Then it’s subtle.”

“ Settled.” I laughed, grabbing a free pillow and throwing it at her face. When she pulled it away, she gave me this goofy smile that settled something in me. “Okay, fine,” I murmured, “You go first.”

“All right,” she hummed, closing her eyes for a second before she opened them.

“What do your new tattoos mean?” She wasn’t looking at me when she spoke, instead I could feel her focus on my neck.

“You won’t believe anything I say.”

“I will.” Her hazel eyes snapped to mine. “I promise.”

I waited a second, weighing her words, and in the end it didn’t matter. “They’re all about you,” I whispered, but I think she knew that already.

Her fingers moved across the sheets, gently tracing over the timepiece that you couldn’t really see on the left side of my neck.

“This one?” she breathed.

“A pocket watch.” I swallowed, knowing there was no turning back once she heard it all. “That was the time I woke up and realized you were gone.”

Her fingers froze, but she didn’t look at me. I saw the way her lashes fluttered, a quiet shudder rolling through her as her hand moved to the rose inked on the opposite side of my neck.

Cali didn’t look at me, but I saw her eyes, the way they got imperceptibly glassier.

“This one?” she rasped, hands dancing over to the other side of my neck, to the rose.

“I think you know that one.”

She nodded, and one tear spilled over the edge of those wide, trusting eyes of hers. “Cali Rose,” she said. “For me.”

“For you.” I reached out to swipe the tear she let run free, and her hand reached out for mine. Dainty fingers wrapped around mine, holding it to her chest like an anchor.

“This one.” She asked about the design that climbed up the center of my throat.

“I thought it looked really cool,” I admitted, a grin tugging at the corner of my mouth. She hiccupped a laugh, rolling her eyes.

She reached for the hand she wasn’t holding. Fingers gliding over ink on my skin before locking her gaze with mine.

“Ursa Major. Your constellation.”

She stared at it for so long I didn’t dare interrupt, afraid to disrupt whatever was running through her mind. When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet. “And this one?” Her hand hovered over the compass inked on my other hand, forever pointing north.

“So I’d find my way back to you,” I rasped, and the air between us grew impossibly still.

Cali closed her eyes, and I watched as she tried to hold it together. I knew that none of this made sense to her, that she still didn’t want to hear what I had to say. I was half torn wanting to even tell her. It had been my cross to bear for so long that it would be easier to just not. I knew she wouldn’t believe me, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell her why when I knew she wouldn’t listen.

But she heard everything I said just then, and when the silent tears started to rack her frame, I pulled her into me, humming into the hair on the top of her head. Breathing in her cherry blossom and milk-and-honey smell that soothed all my jagged edges. I held her long after she’d fallen asleep, like if I gripped her tight enough, long enough, I could fix everything I’d broken.

It didn’t matter that we hadn’t finished our game. That she’d only asked one of her three questions. That I hadn’t asked any of mine.

I fell asleep wrapped around her, her legs intertwined with mine, feeling at peace despite it all for the first time in years. Like this was right where I was supposed to be.

When I woke up, I was still wrapped around Cali, and I opened my eyes to find hers already bright and clear. Looking at the tattoos on my neck, the tattoos on my hands, and then finally, to me.

“Was it true?” she whispered.

“Every word.”

I saw how she was battling herself on it. Wanting to both believe me and not trusting herself to all at once. Her eyes drifted over me once more before she took a deep breath, and her body practically sagged into the bed. I saw the tension and apprehension and uncertainty ebb away.

The little smile that appeared on her face might have been the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“Okay.”

“I have one more thing to say,” I murmured.

“You’re going to ruin this moment, aren’t you?” Her smile turned wry, but there was no malice in it.

“Yesterday—”

“Fane, no. It’s—”

“Please, Cali. This is important.”

If she said she didn’t want to talk about it again, I’d respect it. Sometimes it felt like I was walking on eggshells around her. Terrified that I’d make the wrong move, and I’d lose her again. Sometimes it felt like the ground beneath my feet was steady enough for me to push a little harder.

When she didn’t say anything, I kept going.

“I have thought about you every single day from the moment you left.” Her eyes snapped to the clock on my neck. “I’ve thought of everything. Every single piece of you.” I swallowed hard. “It probably won’t help my cause to tell you I’m pissed at you too, but no matter the answers you have to my questions, I’m going to want you anyway. No matter what your ‘why’ is, it doesn’t matter to me. It’s never mattered.”

“My ‘why’?”

“Why you left.” My chest was fucking aching.

Her brow furrowed deeper. “What’s your ‘why’?”

“Why I let you.” I reached up and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “That’s why I said no. Because you might hear my answer and hate it, and if I let you…if you touched me and you still left? I wouldn’t survive that. Not twice.”

It was the most honest I’d been with myself since I could remember, the most open I think I’d ever been.

Her fingers stilled, gripping the hem of my shirt. She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “So, we need to talk.”

“We do.”

She peeked up at me, a ghost of her smile returning. “Can you make me breakfast first?”

“Yes, ma’am.”