His eyebrows crunched in confusion, causing me to laugh. “I want to see what music you have on your phone! If we’re going for a drive, I need to set the mood.”
“Then play music from your phone, why do you need mine?” He turned the car on, shaking his head. I held back a giddy laugh as the car roared to life. Holy shit. The car was fucking mean.
“Because I’m assuming my phone is somewhere in your room right now, since I haven’t seen it anywhere,” I replied, my hand still out, palm up.
“Fine, here.” He reached in his pocket and handed me his iPhone. “The PIN is 1234.”
I laughed. “Really? 1234?”
“Who am I hiding from? My brothers don’t give a shit what’s on my phone, and I don’t have a nosey girlfriend reading my texts while I sleep, so I went with something easy to remember.” He shrugged, and I tried to ignore the way my stomach flipped at the mention of a girlfriend. I hadn’t even thought about any of them being in relationships. Damn, what was wrong with me?
I unlocked his phone and searched for his Apple Music app. When I found it, I went to his library and almost hit shuffle before I remembered I had no idea where we were going. “How long is the drive?”
“Long, but we should be there in about two hours since traffic won’t be as bad right now.”
“Where are we going?” I asked, knowing he wouldn’t tell me.
“You’ll see.”
Yeah, I figured.
I shifted in my seat, putting my seatbelt on as he revved the engine and pulled out toward the gated exit. He reached up and hit a button that was attached to his visor. The gate opened, and we pulled out into the nearly empty streets of NYC.
I hit shuffle on the playlist and leaned back in my seat, curiously waiting to hear what type of music he listened to. “Somebody” by The Chainsmokers with Drew Love pulsed through the stereo system, and I smiled. It fit his personality almost too well.
As I absorbed the lyrics, my smile began to fade. The music was loud, Lanier was silent. I had no reason not to let go now.
So I did.
I turned my head to look out the window and watched as the city sights flew by. I couldn’t get too lost in my head, because I would inevitably bring on another panic attack, but I had to consider my options.
The guys just told me that I was an Angel. An otherworldly being that existed within the realm of religion. A religion that held no meaning to me, that served a God who never paid me any attention. If I was supposedly one of his Angels, then who the fuck was “The Maker?” Why had He allowed one of his Angels to be beaten and brutalized? Why did my parents abandon me?
I never let myself think about them, ever. They didn’t deserve my thoughts. They didn’t care about me enough to keep me, so why would I bother harboring feelings toward them, good or bad? They were just two people who put in the work to make me but gave up after the fun part was over.
The most literal version of “fuck and dump”—just with nine extra months attached.
“Days Like This” interrupted my dark thoughts as Khalid’s voice came through the speaker, making me smile. I peeked at Lanier in the driver seat, only then realizing why he was so attractive to me.
He had swag—an edgy sort of swag. It wasn’t obvious when you first looked at him, but goddamn, I saw it now. He drove with his left hand on the steering wheel and his right elbow propped on the center console while his hand scratched the five o’clock shadow that peppered along his jaw.
I wanted to commit his face to memory, fearing that I’d lose him any moment. I could feel his warring feelings toward me, but I didn’t know why.
I wanted to know…badly.
Now wasn’t the time to ask though. We had a long car ride ahead of us, and he seemed content for once. He was clearly thinking too hard, but so was I, and we both needed the quiet.
“WHY” by NF began playing. I tilted my head as I studied him. This specific song said a lot about a man. Maybe even the man in front of me. Did he relate to this song? Was he just as lost as me?
I understood it better the more I thought about it—his flames, his soul, his very being called to me. It wouldn’t shock me to find that we were both in the same place. Lost, confused, in complete limbo.
He seemed to hate me, constantly annoyed by my questions, yet jealous when one of his friends looked too hard or touched me for too long.
Maybe we were both caged animals, maybe we were the only ones who could find the key to release one another. As much as I hated to admit it, the dark part of me didn’t want to be released—I wanted to be chained to him, locked in a cage with his feral beast.
But then at least I’d feel something. Something stronger than the doubt and confusion that swirled relentlessly in my brain every day.
I had no purpose, no direction. I fought for money, I ate what I could afford, I drank myself to sleep when it didn’t come naturally. I had nothing and no one. I was lost.
Maybe that was why I held on so tightly to three guys I met in a fucking alley. They could have been dangerous criminals, but I was starving for something new. Something exciting and maybe even dangerous. The fact that they could turn on me at any moment added a new element to my life.
Risk.
Fighting wasn’t a risk for me, it was a guaranteed win. I won every time—no questions asked. Because fighting was all I had, there was nothing else to put at risk. I was left with just my life, which was never in danger before now. My foster father could be considered a significant risk, but he never intended to kill me. If he did, he would have lost his only punching bag.
I regretted allowing her to pick the music. R.LUM.R was too right, too on point, when he put out “Frustrated.” The song was intense and turned all the way up as I drove us toward the destination I had in mind. The lyrics were hitting way too close to home.
I was frustrated. Just as he sang it. The song was thick and full of twisted bass, but the lyrics were wistful, angry, and confused. Where the lyrics weren’t entirely positive, I still felt the sting of potential hope in the artist’s voice. He was frustrated, but he sort of liked the burn. I understood that too well.
Annalise was quiet next to me for the entire hour we’d been driving. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I found myself alone with her, but I definitely didn’t think she was the quiet type. Now, as I looked at her, she was subdued and in her head. She was thinking so hard I swore I could actually see her thoughts bouncing off the walls of the car.
I wanted to know what she was thinking. Her brain fascinated me. Anyone else in this world would have run kicking and screaming from our house if we’d told them they were a heavenly being that shouldn’t exist in real life.
But not her.
She just listened and then paced the floor of the penthouse. I bitched at her about it, but I was trying not to take her in my arms and kiss all the confusion away. The hard-ass girl we had come to know was cracking under the pressure of the truth. She wanted to get out of the penthouse because she clearly wanted to think. She could have run, asked to go home, but instead, she sat in my passenger seat, switching between staring at me and looking out the window.
It didn’t make me comfortable to know that she wanted to be around me, even if she would never admit it. The bond I was desperately trying to ignore was clearly steering this ship. There was no way that she’d still be here if it weren’t for that connection…the bond that shouldn’t be there.