A rusting, bumper-less Lincoln pulls up outside. Guessing they need an estimate. I head to the desk to grab a pen and clipboard. Pandora wears a mischievous grin when I stride her way.
“No,” I say.
“What, are you a homo now?” She says it loud enough that her dad could hear if he wasn’t so busy humming along to Sweet Home Alabama. Her hand hooks the curve above her left hip. “Stop pretending you don’t want this anymore.”
We had this talk weeks ago. Why she’s all over me now is beyond me.
“You trying to get me in trouble?” My tone is low yet sharp. I shake my head. Don’t have time for this shit. “Don’t, Pandora.”
I really need a new fucking job.
Ten
Royal
* * *
It’s a thirty-minute drive from Patterson Auto Body to my apartment in Glidden, and it just so happens that Rixton Falls is the halfway point.
I take a detour toward Demi’s neighborhood and rest at a stop sign a minute too long. It’s just past dusk. She could still be at the hospital for all I know, but she knows my car now. No more drive-bys. No more watching like some fucking loser creep.
It’s probably all for the best anyway.
I need to move on. Clearly she did.
The honk of a horn behind me prompts my foot to gun the gas, and I charge straight ahead, down Demi’s Better Homes and Gardens street.
Her porch lights shine, and her car is parked in the driveway, taillights glowing red then fading to dark.
Fuck.
I stop down the street and wait as she exits her Subaru and heads inside. Forecast is calling for more snow tonight. It’s a shame she can’t park in the garage. Last I knew, it was full of all Brooks’s “toys.”
Part of me wants to leave and come back another time. Give her more space. I shouldn’t have shown up last night out of the blue, but I couldn’t stand back and watch her suffer.
Not again.
Things were tolerable when I thought she was happy. She smiled a lot, at least from what I could tell. I’d check her social media sites from time to time. She seemed to love him enough. I stayed away, figuring she’d moved on long ago.
And then I learned what kind of fucking asshole Brooks Abbott truly is.
Demi deserves better.
I had to intervene.
I just didn’t know Brooks would be paying for his mistakes with his life.
I punch the steering wheel, drag my hands through my hair, and pull up to her house. By the time I’m knocking on her door, everything’s a blur and I can’t breathe.
“I figured you’d stop by again,” she says when she answers the door. I catch my breath when I see her face and those calming blue eyes of hers. “Didn’t know it’d be so soon.”
I stand at her front door in gray work pants, greasy boots, and a plain white t-shirt. I smell like oil and paint thinner. I look like shit.
“Can I come in?” I ask.
Demi’s cheek presses against the door, and her shoulders rise and fall.
“Yeah.” She swings the door wide. “But only because I want some answers.”
“Expectations can be dangerous.”
“Not as dangerous as letting you back into my life, Royal.”
I smirk. I deserved that.
Removing my shoes, I glance into her pristine living room. No way in hell I’m stepping foot in there in my work clothes.
“You bring Brooks’s pants back?” She lifts a brow.
“Nope. Threw ‘em away.”
Her jaw falls. “W-why would you do that?”
“Have my reasons.”
Demi’s arms fold, her hips angled as we stand across from one another in her foyer.
“We can go to the kitchen, I guess.” She shuffles toward the table in the breakfast nook, the one piece of furniture in that entire room not covered in white. “I don’t know if it’s a territorial thing or what, but you can’t just throw people’s things away.”
“Territorial? What am I, a junkyard dog?”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
We sit across from each other, separated by some frilly little centerpiece filled with fresh flowers in bright shades that contrast everything around us. I move them aside so I can see her face unobstructed.
“Okay.” Demi sighs. “You have my attention. Now tell me, Royal. Why the hell did you walk out seven years ago and never come back?”
I’ve replayed the events of that weekend a thousand times, each time asking myself how I’d do it differently.
I thought I was doing the right thing at the time.
I thought I was helping someone who desperately needed my help.
I never expected it all to blow up in my face, to create some kind of butterfly effect, to completely change the trajectory of our futures.
“We would’ve been married by now,” I muse, raking my nails across the wood tabletop.
“Excuse me?”
“I bet we would’ve been married by now,” I say.
Demi rolls her eyes. “Yeah, well. You left. You decided not to be with me, so—”
I shake my head.
“Not at all, Demi. I always wanted to be with you.”
Still do.
Her eyes glass over. She looks over my shoulder, refusing to give me eye contact.
“Yeah, well, that’s not going to work on me,” she says. “Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Your word is shit.”
“I don’t expect you to forgive me.”
“Then why are you here?”
“It’s not that simple.”
Demi’s fist pounds the table. “Yes, it is. It is that simple. God damn it, Royal.”
“You sure don’t talk like a kindergarten teacher.”
Her gaze narrows. “I never told you what I did for a living.”
“Not hard to find out around here.”
“What else do you know about me, huh?”
I could tell her I know how she goes to the Overlook sometimes, stargazing by herself, like we used to do. I could tell her I see her pull through the drive-up of the Highland coffee shop and order a caramel macchiato with extra whipped cream every Saturday morning. I could tell her I’ve seen her drive aimlessly around Rixton Falls, down the very same streets that remind me of us. And I could name them in order: Freeman Avenue, Ellery Drive, Hayes Boulevard, First Street, Violet Road . . .
“Not much,” I say.
“How long have you been watching me?”
“Not long,” I lie.
Demi rises.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“I’m done here,” she says. “If you’re not going to be honest, I’m not going to let you waste my time.”
She walks away.
Just like that.
I follow, reaching for her hand and taking her by the wrist. She gulps a lungful of air when I take her by surprise and pull her toward me.
“I want to tell you, Demi. I want to tell you so fucking bad. I want to tell you everything.” I stare into her crystal baby blues, missing the way she used to look at me back when we were happy. Before everything turned to shit. When we were just a couple of kids with our whole lives ahead of us.
“Then tell me.” Her chest rises and falls. She smells like a hospital room, a sobering reminder that she spent her day by his side.