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Mabel Darling

Three Years Ago

I wish I hadn’t told Duke to leave. Once he’s gone, there’s nothing to distract me from thoughts of his brother. And when eight rolls around, there’s nothing to distract me from the fear that he’s not coming. I didn’t think I cared until it’s true. I didn’t think I wanted to go. I thought I’d just tell him that I can’t date, and he’d leave, and I’d be disappointed that he didn’t talk to me at school anymore, and things would go back to the way they were. I can’t bring myself to call them normal.

But when he’s not there fifteen minutes later, I realize I cared a lot more than I knew. Or maybe I just don’t want to be discarded as if it all meant nothing. Did I spend all this time getting ready, getting to know his brother, and he didn’t even remember we had a date?

That’s impossible, since Duke would have reminded him when he got home. He told him everything that happened, and Baron decided it wasn’t worth pursuing. I have my answer.

I didn’t pass.

I sink into my chair and try to talk myself out of the despair threatening to shrivel me into a brittle husk. My stepmother texts me that dinner is on, but I tell her I don’t feel well. I curl up on my bed, put on my headphones to block out the world, and pull up Criminal Minds on my laptop.

A few minutes later my door cracks open, and my stepmom’s face appears, a tentative smile on her lips. My heart flips, and I lift the headphones from one ear, the last valiant hope that he’ll be here leaping up inside me.

“You don’t feel well?” she asks, gripping the edge of my door, the usual blend of guilt and eagerness prominent on her face.

“Is someone here?” I ask.

Her brow furrows in confusion. “Who would be here?”

“Never mind,” I say, replacing my headphone and turning back to the screen.

A minute later, the edge of the bed sinks as she sits.

I sigh and move my headphone aside again. “What?”

She presses the back of her fingers to my forehead, like she’s checking for a fever. “Your brother said you had a boy over earlier.”

“Yeah, so?” I say, turning my head away from her hand.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I never want to talk about it, Aurora.”

“Do you want some company?”

“Does it look like I want company?”

She gives me a wounded look, and I try to remember what I’m supposed to say to her, but I can’t, so I just replace my headphones. She rises like it’s painful, then pauses. I look up in time to see her eyes widen and her mouth moving. Again, I uncover my ear.

“Did you hear that?” she asks.

Whatever she heard, my cat definitely heard it too. His ears are pricked up straight, his eyes round, his posture alert.

“No, what?” I say.

My stepmother stands there, waiting, the tense set of her shoulders giving me pause. “That noise.”

Together, we listen. After a few seconds, a shout sounds from downstairs, followed by a thud.

“Stay here,” she says, hurrying for the door. “I’ll get the gun from the safe.”

“Wait,” I say, tossing aside my laptop.

She turns back, frowning. “What?”

My pulse is pounding erratically, but I know I have to say something. Suddenly I’m sure it’s Baron.

He came.

My heart tumbles with some emotion that shouldn’t be possible considering what we just heard. But it is. It’s possible because he didn’t forget me. He didn’t stand me up.

He came.

I passed.

A moment later, we hear them—heavy footsteps in the hall. They’re not hurried, not sneaky. And then he’s there, all six-feet-something of him, muscles hinted at through his black button-up shirt and dark jeans, jawline like a razor blade, dark eyes alert behind wire-rimmed glasses.

Seeley Boots lets out a sound I’ve never heard him make before, a wildcat snarl, and puffs up to twice his normal size.

“Oh—sorry about him,” I say quickly, a little embarrassed that he’s acting so uncivilized.

Unbothered, Baron tips his chin at my stepmother. “Hey, Mrs. Darling.”

“What was—did you—” She stammers.

“It’s so nice to meet you,” he says, taking her hand from where it hangs limply at her side. He shakes it, but she jerks it away and narrows her eyes at him.

“Where’s Jacob?” she demands, finding her voice at last. “And Colt…”

Baron shrugs one shoulder. “Downstairs. But you should probably go check on them. You know. Just in case.”

He shoots me a wink over her head as she hurries past him. I climb off the bed, biting back a smile. I can’t look at Baron Dolce. He’s too beautiful. Instead, I look at the floor so I won’t smile bigger and look like a mad woman. No one likes a mad woman.

“I’m ready.”

“You got your phone?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“Leave it.” He points to my side table, and when I don’t move, he cocks a brow. “You want to go or not?”

“Yeah, but… What if there’s an emergency?”

“Phones are a distraction from real life,” he says. “If you’re with me, I want you with me. In the moment completely. Not thinking about who might have commented on your last post.”

“I will be,” I promise, though I’m still reluctant to leave the house without a phone. I don’t even use it much, since I don’t have friends, but I’m used to having it if I need it. I feel naked walking out of my room without a phone or any way to contact people.

“Trust me,” Baron says with a haughty smirk. “I’m worth it.”

“I know,” I say quickly. “I wasn’t planning to be on my phone.”

“Good,” he says. “I’m greedy. I want you all to myself.”

I wonder, not for the first time, why. Why does he want all of me? Why does he want me at all?

“We might want to go now,” he says, glancing down the hall. “Otherwise, your mom might find out what happened, and then she won’t want me to take you out, and I’ll have to get rid of her.”

He looks comically serious, and I stifle a giggle and hurry past him, leaving Boots hissing and spitting in our wake. I can’t feel my feet as I float down the hall in front of him. I’ve never felt this way before, not for anyone. It’s as if I’m no longer human, no longer animal. Instead of a solid, I’ve become something ethereal, vapors swirling, shimmering sparkles swimming in a body-shaped energy field.

When we reach the bottom of the stairs, I hear Aurora’s yell of fury and indignation. I whip my head around, my eyes widening at Baron.

“Run,” he mouths, grabbing my hand.

We race out the front door, but when I pause at the steps leading down from the big wooden front deck, Baron doesn’t. Without breaking his stride, he bends and scoops me up, tossing me over his shoulder before charging down the steps and across the gravel lot where we park under the shade of the sprawling summer oaks, still barren from winter. A shriek of surprise and something else, something foreign to me, escapes my mouth as I cling to him, too surprised to even notice he’s touching a very lot of me. Yanking open the door of his Audi, he dumps me in the passenger seat and then sprints around the back. I close my door just as he jabs the button to turn on the car, and the next second, we’re jetting backwards, then peeling forward in a spray of gravel.

“Wow,” I breathe, grabbing for my seatbelt. “I didn’t know electric vehicles had so much pickup. My hybrid would still be accelerating.”

Baron chuckles, glancing at me from the driver’s seat, his eyes alight with excitement behind his glasses. “You kidding? This thing can smoke anything in your garage.”

“We don’t have a garage,” I point out.

Baron just shakes his head and slows as we skid along the dirt road. “So, you’ve never been on a date, huh?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Duke told me,” he says, giving me a funny look. “How did you think?”

I shrug, tugging at the hem of my skirt. The thing is, I didn’t tell Duke that. So if he told Baron, it’s because he guessed. That’s not good. I’ll have to give him more credit next time, judge him more generously, closer to an intellectual equal.

“Maybe I acted like it,” I mutter.

Baron chuckles, and when I dart a glance at him, his eyes are warm and amused. “Not sure you can be so much of a virgin that someone can tell you’ve never been on a date.”

I shift uncomfortably, my face warming. “What else did he tell you?”

“That you don’t like to be touched,” Baron says, casual, like it’s commonplace.

“And you still showed up,” I muse. “I thought you’d stood me up when you found out.”

“We all have our hang-ups.”

I sit with that for a minute. I can’t imagine a guy like him has hang-ups, and from all the accounts I’ve overheard at school, he doesn’t.

But I’m not bothered by his lie. It’s kind of sweet, that he’d lie to me to make me feel at ease.

“So that’s what his ‘pre-date’ visit really was?” I ask. “You sent him to find out about me?”

“And miss all the fun?” Baron asks. “No way. Getting to know someone is the best part.”

“Then what was it about?”

Baron shrugs the slightest bit, almost imperceptibly, but I’m watching. I think he won’t answer, that he doesn’t want to. I’ve made him uncomfortable.

“What did he say?” he asks.

“He said he had to make sure I wasn’t going to break your heart.”

“Are you?” Baron asks, turning onto the main road.

I scoff under my breath. “You don’t strike me as the type.”

“What type is that?”

“The type to get your heart broken,” I say. “You’re more of the heartbreaker, if the rumors are true.”

“And what about you, Mabel Darling,” he says, laying a hand on my knee, over my skirt. “Do you break hearts?”

I stare at his hand, willing myself not to move, to let it rest there.

“Never.”

He gives the slightest squeeze, so gentle I barely feel his fingers twitch. “Good.”

I can’t tell if he’s praising me for not breaking hearts or for enduring his touch. Possibly both. I decide I’ll make it a game, to see how long I can last. My skin is crawling already, but I breathe deep and try to distract myself. I wonder what else Duke told him, if he recounted our conversation in the closet, if he mentioned my scars. At least he only saw a few of them. Maybe he didn’t notice at all.

“What did you do to them?” I ask after contemplating for a minute.

“Your family?”

“Did you hurt them?”

“Would you care if I had?” he asks, cocking his head and studying me instead of the road.

I open my mouth to answer, but I can’t think with his hand on me, can’t even tell what the answer is. All the bones in the leg he’s touching have turned to sticks of chalk being dragged down chalkboards. I can’t take it another moment, and I draw my knee away, nearly gagging with relief.

Baron’s watching me, his eyes intense, his mouth shut, not pressing me for answers or overwhelming me with words. I like that about him. He’s patient, like a spider.

I replay his question, watching him back. And suddenly I know from the weight of expectation in his gaze that he’s not just curious. There’s a right answer to this question.

My life is a study in telling people what they like to hear, and I wasn’t handed that gift. I worked at it, honed my skills, scrutinized not just their words but their tones, their pauses; not just their expressions but every cast of a gaze, tick of a muscle, twitch of the lips. I’m patient too.

Over the years I learned that when people say they want the truth, what they really want is to have their own beliefs confirmed. When they say you can tell them anything, they really mean you can tell them anything neat, anything that won’t complicate their lives, tear apart families, involve the authorities. They want reassurance that they’re doing a good job and can go on with their lives as they have been.

And Baron Dolce is just a person. He might be perfect on the outside, but he’s still a man. Suddenly it feels as if my whole life has been practice for this moment, all my work leading me here, to the realization that I know what he wants to hear, and if I tell him, he’ll like it, and he won’t be able to help but liking me more for it. If I want him, I can give him what he wants, so he wants me too. I don’t have to feel stupid and na?ve, even though I haven’t been on dates. I’m not some clueless, helpless damsel.

I know how to drop breadcrumbs like the wicked witch, leading him to my candy house in the dark depths of my haunted woods. I can weave a web that he climbs into willingly because he thinks I’m everything he wants, something I’ve never dared to do. The thought of something so novel, so new I’ve never considered it before, intrigues me.

Maybe I could even break his heart.

Not that I want to, but the knowledge that if he’s breakable, I could be the one to do it, has my pulse racing with a thrill I haven’t felt before. This isn’t just new territory. It’s a new boy, a boy I already know is special. It’s not just the way he looks. It’s his mind, so different from the other boys at our school who only think about football and parties and girls. I’ve never been interested in a boy before, but maybe that’s because I’ve never met one worth my interest. Baron is the first who makes me want to rise to the challenge, whose heart seems worth stealing.

So I shake my head after a minute, and Baron rewards me with a slight shake of his own head, his eyes admiring but intrigued. He can’t quite figure me out, but he wants to.

My chest expands, swelling with something disconcerting and electrifying. For the first time in my life, I’m not just watching and collecting secrets. I’m using what I’ve learned.

“You don’t like your family at all, do you?” Baron asks.

“I already admitted I was a monster.”

“I like it,” he says. “Tell me more.”

“I don’t know if I miss Devlin,” I confess.

“Really?” he asks, looking delighted by my answer.

“Do you miss your sister?”

“Of course,” he says. “Who wouldn’t miss their sister if she drowned?”

“Now you’re making me feel bad,” I scold, but I’m smiling.

“Hey, I wouldn’t miss Devlin either,” Baron says. “No offense, but your family sucks. I wouldn’t miss any of them if they were washed away in the river.”

“It’s not that I wanted him dead,” I explain. “It just doesn’t affect my life much. He lived with my mom; I live with my dad. We didn’t hang out at school. I have like a million cousins. I’m sad he’s gone, but it hasn’t changed my life in any significant way.”

“Damn, Mabel,” he says, pulling onto the highway going north of town. “And people say I’m cold.”

“See?” I say, pointing to my chest. “Monster.”

Despite his words, I can tell he’s impressed. And despite my scheming, I’m flattered—more than flattered. I don’t just want him to fall for me because I think I can make it happen. I don’t want to break his heart. I want to weave it into my web, wrap it in a thousand threads of silk, and keep it forever.

I’m not doing this to win because that means he loses. I don’t want him to lose. I don’t want him to hurt. I want him to love me.

“So, where are we going on this date?” I ask.

He glances at me, and I can tell he’s weighing whether to tell me. But we pull off on an exit, and my heart lurches in my chest. “The quarry,” he says, before I can guess.

“Isn’t—isn’t it a little early to swim?” I croak out.

“We’re not going to swim,” he says, giving me a knowing smile. “And don’t look so freaked out, I know you don’t like to be touched. We’ll work on that. Tonight we can just sit on the edge and talk.”

I open my mouth to tell him I can’t do that either. I’m deathly afraid of heights, and I might faint and pitch headfirst down the bluff they’ve blasted and dug out to get rocks, leaving a pit that might as well be hell. But I slam my jaw shut before I can scare him off.

I don’t want to give him another reason to turn around and say forget it. If he didn’t want to come here, he would have chosen somewhere else. And if I want him to like me, to fall for me the way I’m falling for him, I can’t ruin our first date. I’ve already spilled the more insurmountable obstacle, the one that would send most guys running. I’m lucky he’s still here. If I had thought about it sooner, realized that maybe I had a chance, that I could make it work, I’d never have shared that with Duke.

Baron would have found out on his own soon enough, but he doesn’t have to find out about this. He’s giving me a chance despite my hang-ups, as he called them. I can do this for him.

He pulls up at the quarry, a place I’ve overheard girls talking about for years. The Darling boys and everyone else comes here to party during football season. There are two huge fire rings set up on either end of the lookout, the remnants of bonfires past. In the summer, families go to the swimming hole down a path off to the right, which is what I came for the only time I’ve been up here.

Baron hops out, grabs a few things from the backseat, and comes around just as I’m climbing out of the car. He hands me a bottle of water, then starts for the pit. I drag my feet, trying to work up the nerve to go close to the edge. Baron strides over with all the confidence in the world, like it’s impossible to fall. I edge my way after him, then peek down in. The world swims sickeningly before me, and I sway on my feet.

“Whoa, steady there,” he says with a chuckle, taking my hand.

My first impulse is to jerk away, but he tightens his grip, and my fingers clench around his instinctively. He holds on while I lower myself to the ground on unsteady legs. Then he drops down next to me, letting his feet hang over the edge. I close my eyes and take a breath through frozen lips, trying to calm my whirling thoughts.

“You come up here to swim?” Baron asks, and I hear the sound of the seal being broken on his bottle as he unscrews the cap.

I slowly open my eyes, focusing on the gravel in front of my knees so I won’t see the pit and feel my stomach drop out again. “No,” I admit. “I have before, but there’s a lot of little kids, and they stir up all this silt in the swimming hole.”

“You don’t like to get dirty?” he asks, cocking his head.

“It’s not that,” I say. “I’d just rather see the bottom.”

“You think a lake monster is going to snatch you?” he teases. He makes a playful grab for me, and I startle backwards.

“No,” I say with a shaky little laugh. I don’t want him to think I’m high maintenance. And it’s not exactly true. I know rationally that there’s probably nothing going to get me if I wanted to swim in deep water or the milky swimming hole. I just don’t want to. I don’t like the thought of not being able to see what’s down there. It’s too much like lying in the dark, waiting.

“Half my cousins have swimming pools,” I explain. “They’re closer and more convenient, I can see through the water, and there’s not a bunch of feral children urinating in them.”

“Fair enough,” Baron says.

“Now you,” I say. “Tell me why you don’t like phones.”

“They have their place,” he says. “But this is not it.”

“You don’t want to take a picture of the view?” I ask. “Or remember this date later?”

“People take pictures to post on social media for validation,” he says. “Neither of us need that, do we?”

“No,” I admit, pleased that he thinks we’re alike, that he thinks I’m above such things.

“No one needs to know what we’re doing, anyway,” he says, giving me a secret little smile, like we’re up to no good. “People are always so busy documenting their lives that they forget to live them.”

“I don’t even use social media,” I assure him.

“I like that about you,” he says. “You’re different from most girls. You don’t care about status. You don’t need everyone to know you’re out with a Dolce.”

“Of course not,” I say, affronted by the suggestion.

“Good,” he says. “I’m very selective about who I share myself with, online and in real life. No one deserves access to me, least of all strangers on the internet. It’s a privilege that very few enjoy.”

“Wow,” I say. “How did I get lucky enough to catch your eye?”

“By not trying to,” Baron says with a shrug. “But that doesn’t mean you can share me with the world. We both have enough money to know it’s not what matters. The truly valuable things are intangible. I protect what’s important—my company, my time, my image, my name… I don’t even let people take pictures of me, if I can help it.”

“I think you’re the one who’s different,” I say. “Everyone I know posts everything they do online.”

“If you share every part of your life with the entire world, it’s not special to anyone, especially the people in it.”

I can see his point, but I also see why everyone shares their pictures, not just for validation but to show that they were there, they belong, they are an accepted part of the group. But now that he mentions it, I’ve never seen a picture accompanying any of the rumors about his dates and conquests, the parties he attends, or anything else. It’s as if he’s afraid of incriminating evidence, confirmation of his whereabouts. Either that, or he’s a vampire who doesn’t show up on camera.

Baron leans back to pull out one of the lumps in his pockets. “Orange?” He holds out his hand, palm flat, with the fruit waiting on his palm.

I shake my head.

He digs in his other pocket and pulls out a red apple. He holds it on his other palm, offering me the choice.

I take the apple and take a small bite, feeling self-conscious as he watches me.

“You don’t like oranges?” he asks, starting to peel it.

“I like them.”

“But?”

“I just like apples better.”

He watches me, waiting.

“I don’t like the stuff they get on my hands when I peel them,” I admit after a minute.

“You don’t like to be touched, you don’t like swimming outside of pools, and you don’t like peeling oranges. Any other hang-ups I should know about?”

“You make me sound crazy.”

“No, it’s good,” he insists. “Then I’ll have a better idea of where to take you next time.”

My heart skips, and I sneak another glance while I nibble on my apple. “There’s a next time?”

“Why wouldn’t there be?”

“Because I’m mad as a hatter?”

He grins. “You’re not crazy. Just quirky. It’s cute.”

“Stop it,” I protest, confused by how I feel two things that are opposite each other and therefore should be impossible to feel at the same time. “You’re making fun of me.”

“I’m not,” he insists. “You’re cute as hell, and there’s definitely a next time if I have any say in the matter.”

“Okay,” I say, nodding and taking another nibble. “I’m scared of heights.”

“Damn,” he says, shaking his head. “I totally failed this date. Maybe I should be making you promise me a next time.”

“There’s a next time for me,” I say. “I promise.”

Our eyes meet, and there’s a beat of silence, weighted and hot, between us. Then he slowly works both his thumbs into the center of the orange before pulling it apart, spreading it open. There’s something erotic about it, and a pulse happens that makes me jump in my seat. Baron slowly peels off a section and raises it to my mouth. “So you don’t get your hands dirty,” he murmurs, touching it to my lips.

I slowly open, and he slides it between. He’s not even touching me, but still, I can’t breathe. His dark gaze smolders into mine, and he leans in, so close I can see the finest striations of gold and amber in his deep brown irises.

“One day, I’m going to kiss you and ruin your life.”

He pushes the section of orange all the way in, then releases it before slowly brushing his thumb over my lower lip in the lightest touch, too quick to send my pulse skyrocketing. It’s already hammering hard and heavy in chest, making my head spin like I’m hanging over the edge. I don’t know what to do, how to respond to my body’s reaction. I can’t turn away from this precipice, can’t step back from the deadly drop. I can only cling on and pray frantically, wordlessly, with nothing but terror on my tongue.

Baron gives a little smirk and sits back, teasing off another section and slipping it into his mouth like he’s not dangling my heart over a cliffside. He just sits there eating his orange, pretending he’s not dragging me down into dark waters so deep light can’t penetrate, where I can’t tell up from down, so I could just as easily swim downwards toward my death as upwards to the sun.

“So,” he says, handing me a section of orange this time. “What would you do if I touched you?”

“Freak out,” I say, giving a breathless little laugh. I’m too shaken for artifice. How am I supposed to make him fall for me when I’m too busy trying to survive my own fall?

“Well, we can’t have that,” he says, flashing me a small smile as he hands me another section of orange.

“This doesn’t seem fair,” I say, squirming with the discomfort of having been so vulnerable. “I’ve told you all my stuff, and now I sound crazy. Tell me something you’re afraid of.”

“I’m a Dolce,” he says simply. “I’m not scared of anything.”

I let out a little laugh, but he doesn’t even smile, and I think he’s serious.

“If you’re not scared of anything, then tell me your hang-ups,” I say. “You said in the car that everyone has them.”

He stares out over the abyss, watching the gathering darkness while he chews thoughtfully. After a minute, he brushes his hands off on his jeans and tosses the orange peels over the edge.

“I don’t like to be wanted.”

“Wanted?” I swallow hard, my heart skipping when our eyes meet. “What does that mean?”

He shrugs. “Just what it sounds like.”

“But… You have a reputation. You’ve only been here six months, and I’ve heard at least three different girls crying that you slept with them and blew them off.”

He smirks. “I didn’t say I couldn’t get it up.”

“Then what does that mean?”

“I don’t like seeing them like that,” he says, his voice harder, less playful. “It makes me not like them, and then yeah, I blow them off.”

“Because they like you.”

“Not because they like me,” he says. “Because they want me. Sexually.”

“Oh,” I say faintly.

“Now who sounds crazy?” he asks, the corner of his mouth tugging up in a rueful smile.

“I’m sorry,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t get it.”

“When girls want me, they try too hard. It’s pathetic and desperate. And more than that, they’ll do anything to get fucked. They get blinded by lust, and it’s…” He shakes his head and gives a little shudder of revulsion. “I’ve seen people literally get on their knees and beg for dick. It disgusts me, seeing someone debase themselves like that. There’s something so… Subhuman about it.”

“What about you?” I ask. “Don’t you want them too?”

“No,” he says, scowling. “Not like that. Sure, sex feels good. I like to cum as much as the next guy. But I would never crawl in the dirt. Not for anyone.”

“Maybe that’s because girls throw themselves at you, and you think they have no self-respect. If someone made you work for it, maybe you’d want to.”

He lets out a snort of breath. “I’d die before I’d beg for pussy. Being reduced by lust like that is repulsive, lower than the lowest form of animal. You’re no more than a mindless, slathering beast at that point.”

“I don’t think any description could sound less like you,” I say, pulling my knees up and wrapping my arms around them.

He sits in silence for a minute, then picks up my nibbled apple. “Aren’t we a pair?” he asks, biting into it.

“Yeah,” I say quietly, staring into the dark pit in front of us. “I think we’re a perfect pair.”