Page 38 of Never Dance with the Devils (Never Say Never #6)
RIGGS
“ D o you wish we were going to her family’s place?”
Maddox glances my way for one second before returning his attention to the road in front of us. “Considering she makes her family’s home sound like a hellscape, I think this option will be infinitely better. You’ll see.”
Kayla left shortly after Kyle did on Wednesday, promising that she was fine but that she needed some time to address her ‘family issues’.
I didn’t believe her but did my best to respect her decision.
We didn’t hear from her at all on Thursday, which worried me.
And when we didn’t hear from her on Friday by lunch, to my fatalistic mind, it was a clear signal that she was ghosting us.
Maddox tried to keep hope alive, reminding me that it’d only been a few days of silence and that, for Kayla, shit had blown up in a pretty significant way, so getting all up in my feelings about it wasn’t doing us any good.
His suggestion was to simply take a breath and let her settle after her brother’s shenanigans.
Ironically, he was right, but even so, I saw the light come back to his eyes when Kayla called this afternoon, asking if we wanted to come to her place for dinner tonight.
He tried to play it off, making it seem like he never had a doubt, but I know he’s been secretly worried too, hiding it beneath smiles and jokes and an aw-shucks easygoing attitude.
“It’s still a big step. For her. For us.” Under my breath, I mutter, “For me.”
This up and down, back and forth is feeling uncomfortably familiar, like sticking your hand to a fire you know is going to burn you because it always has before. It can’t help it, that’s fire’s nature, and I’m the idiot who keeps going back for more.
Maybe we should let sleeping dogs lie? Go home, let Kayla settle things with her family, and just… I don’t know… go back to casual fucks on the rare occasion Maddox and I agree on a woman? The mere idea of that turns my stomach. I don’t want that. I want Kayla.
Fuck.
“You freaking out on me?” Maddox is always a bit too astute with his assessments, like he can sense the thunderstorms in my mind when it gets too twisted and dark. When I don’t answer, he glances my way once more. “Get it together, man. This is a good thing. We’re gonna be okay.”
I haven’t been okay in a long time.
Actually, though that’s the fault-finding self-critique my internal narrator immediately offers, I’m able to second-guess it now. Therapy can do that, help you figure out if it’s your voice or someone else’s in your head. And I know who just told me I’m not okay—Eliza.
But is that voice right?
I don’t think it is. I was content before meeting Kayla, satisfied with my team and my play in games, comfortable with my friendships and family, and felt settled and grounded.
And now, I’ve had some moments of actual, true happiness with her.
Bright spots of laughter, playfulness, and connection, and yes, some amazing sex.
I am okay. Maybe I’m even better than okay, and that old voice needs to shut the fuck up and leave me alone as I take another scary step toward healing. Progress is scary enough without an obnoxious naysayer in my own head.
Kayla’s invitation is a big deal. It means she’s decided that I’m worth the risk, and though the weight of that rests heavily on my chest, feeling dangerously like hope, I want to earn the trust she’s placing in me.
“I’m good.” I’m using one of Maddox’s tricks, speaking it into existence. “I’m ready.”
And I am. Ready for more, for deeper, for realer.
“Do they still think we’re coming to dinner? Or you’re coming?” Maddox asks as Kayla shows us to a dining table set with three fancy-looking silver plates, a disturbing number of forks, and softly flickering candlelight.
Her condo is a study of the woman who lives here. Everything is precisely placed, from the pillows on the couches to the sculpture on a pedestal with an overhead spotlight.
The colors are cool and icy, primarily in tones of white, beige, and a pale blue that reminds me of the dress she wore over the lingerie we sent her.
To the untrained eye, it probably seems anonymous and designer-curated, but there are touches of Kayla, like the stack of books on the coffee table that might be décor, but the bookmarks peeking out tell me that Kayla actually reads them.
She excuses herself to the kitchen, instructing us to sit while insisting that she can manage, which she does, making two quick trips for cloche-covered plates and a bottle of wine.
I pull out the chair at the head of the table for her before sitting back down, me to her left with Maddox on her right.
“I told Mom I wouldn’t make it, fulfilling my headcount promise, but the rest of them?
As far as they know, they’re expecting a melodramatic dinner-and-show situation, where I’m going to get the disappointed parent lecture I have coming to me.
” Her lips press into a flat line, making me wonder how many of those lectures she’s already received.
“But they should really know better by now. Trying to strongarm me into doing something? Never going to work, and there are consequences for that. Dire consequences.” Her face is expressionless, the blankness intended to read as a cold-blooded threat, and if I were her family, I’d be scared as fuck about whatever she has up her sleeve.
But though she’s good at throwing up a frosty facade, her eyes betray her, shimmering with something raw as though she’s reliving the betrayal of her brother’s underhanded maneuvering.
“Won’t Kyle tell your parents what he saw?” I only met the guy for a few minutes, but he seems the type to throw an absentee Kayla to ‘the wolves’, as she called them, and happily eat popcorn while the carnage plays out.
She shakes her head, saying, “He’s smarter than that.”
“The guy we met? Smart?” Maddox teases, not really insulting Kyle’s intelligence, but his choices for sure.
“If he tells Mom and Dad, they’ll be horrified?—”
“That’s where you’re supposed to say ‘no offense’,” Maddox interjects with a grin, showing he’s not offended in the slightest at her parents’ supposed horror over our semi-throuple situation.
Kayla gives him a small laugh before continuing, “They’d be horrified and call me, demanding to know what’s going on and what the hell I’m thinking…
yada, yada, yada.” She rolls her eyes like she can hear them now.
“But my absence sets the tone that Kyle fucked up. That they all fucked up by coming over here last night and trying to put some sort of cage around me when it’s way too late for that.
Mom and Dad will be upset about that too, so ratting me out also rats them out.
Instead, I expect they’re having an awkwardly quiet dinner without me while Mom tries to contain her excitement because she will absolutely think an urgently called dinner must be for an announcement of some sort. ” A tiny but evil grin lifts her lips.
Damn. Her mind is a terrifyingly beautiful place. She’s not a two-steps-ahead type of person. She’s not even a chess vs checkers sort. No, she’s plotting war while others plan clown-themed birthday parties.
But there was something unexpected in what she said and I look over at Maddox for a split second, a habit from on the ice where a glance says volumes.
This time, I’m confirming he heard her little slip too.
“Your brothers came to see you? What’d they say?
” I try to take a note from Maddox and make the questions sound casual, but I’m already in defensive mode, ready to fight her family for her if necessary, so it comes out harsh and snappy.
“They all came and said exactly what I thought they’d say,” she answers easily, but then her eyes cloud for a moment before she adds, “And some things I didn’t expect. Chance seems to think I’m having some sort of quarter-life crisis and rebelling against all respectability.”
“Sounds like a fun guy,” I say through gritted teeth, already hating the motherfucker.
“Sounds like someone who values appearances over the authenticity of actually being respectable,” Maddox says wisely, letting the gravity of that hit solidly before grinning and adding, “Or someone who wishes he’d done some fun, and possibly stupid, things in his youth.”
“He’s only thirty-two,” Kayla says.
“But a life-well-lived or a life-wasted thirty-two?” The twist of his lips says Maddox clearly knows the answer already.
Kayla smiles, matching Maddox’s light-hearted energy. “Depends on who you ask. He’d say he’s lived the best life.”
“And you?” I ask.
“I’d say he’s done a lot of good for a lot of people, and that makes him happy.”
“I don’t give a shit about him,” I reply gruffly. “I’m asking how you feel about your life.”
Her eyes narrow as she thinks. “I have the life I always dreamed of—success at work, my family thriving, traveling when I want to, and helping businesses I believe in.”
Everything she says checks a box on a list, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about Kayla, it’s that she likes a list. She even asked us for our favorite foods and possible allergies when inviting us to dinner.
But none of what she just said actually translates to ‘I’m happy’, so I keep digging. “But?”
“Do you know why I talked to you at the bar that night?” she asks carefully.
The question feels like it’s out of nowhere, but her mind doesn’t work in tangents and side quests.
She thinks linearly, so this must be related to how she feels about her life.
And honestly, I am curious as hell about what made a woman like her—intelligent, beautiful, a dozen levels out of my league—not only give me a second glance, but actively seek me out in that busy club.