5. Dean
Five
Dean
A nnie is chalk white when we spill back out onto the street, fleeing down the creaky metal stairs like that doll thing is chasing after her. She spins around when she hits the sidewalk and watches me follow, shaking out her hands.
“I’m so sorry.” A full body shudder rolls through Annie’s frame, and she looks queasy. “I didn’t think I’d be such a weenie in there. This is supposed to be your big bachelor night, and then I go and freak out in the escape room.”
“Forget about it.” My boots hit the pavement, and I reach her in two easy strides. “Tonight is still perfect.”
Annie’s chin wobbles. She gazes up at me with those big leaf-green eyes, so innocent and open. They’re the same eyes that used to slide over to me as a teenager, stealing little glances. At the time, I thought Annie Lowell was scared of me, keeping track like a bird watching a house cat, but now I’m not so sure. What if she was staring at me for other reasons?
“Where next?” I ask, before I can torture myself with that particular train of thought. Doesn’t matter if Annie had a thing for me years ago; by now I’m a distant memory to her. Nothing more.
“Food trucks,” she says, still sounding dazed. She’s staring up at me, and she hasn’t blinked.
Goddamn clown doll. Should’ve stomped on the stupid thing when I had the chance. Maybe that would’ve helped her feel better.
All these muscles and weapons, all these scars on my hands, and what good are they if they can’t protect Annie Lowell?
It’s a ten minute walk to the food trucks, and I recognize the address. Annie lets me lead her there through the starry streets, taking her hand once more as she trips along beside me, still visibly shaken.
Imagine how scared she’d be if she realized who I really am.
Imagine how badly she’d freak out if she learned I’m a hit man. That I kill bad people for money.
I squeeze her fingers gently, my gut twisting in a knot. For the first time in years, it punches me square in the chest: the thought that maybe I walked down the wrong path. That I could’ve chosen a different life.
There are rules in my work. Rules I established. For starters, I won’t kill anyone who’s not evil in their own right, and somehow beyond the reach of the law. In this fucked up world, that still leaves plenty of work to keep me busy.
Rule number two: I don’t take pleasure in it. I don’t drag it out or try to get creative, making my kills into some weird craft project like some guys do. I get in, snuff ‘em out, get gone.
“You warm enough?” I ask. Annie’s still trembling, clinging to my hand like a lifeline. We stroll down the neon-lit streets, past shut up coffee shops and late night laundromats. There’s a breeze, but the night air has no real bite.
“Yeah. Yes.” Annie lets go of my hand, but only long enough to wrap around my arm instead. My heart thuds in response, knocking against my rib cage as her heat washes against my side. Did she feel the old scars on my fingers? Would she ever guess how I got them?
There may be blood on my hands, but I do not want to scare this girl. She never needs to fear me, never needs to wonder if I’d harm a single hair on her head—I would rather die.
“Do you remember that summer when Dean came home on that motorbike?” she says. “He bought it without telling anyone. Your parents were so mad.”
Ha. As if I could forget. There may have been more arguments in my teenage years than I could count, but I remember every single one in fine detail.
“Vividly.”
Annie squeezes my arm so close, her chest brushes against my tricep. For a moment, my brain fritzes out again, going pure white static. I barely hear Annie’s next words, like they’re coming from far, far away.
“He looked good on it, though. Don’t you think?”
My shrug is jerky. Her silk camisole tickles my bare skin. “Sure. If you say so.”
Annie lets out a dreamy sigh. “I had such a crush on him back then.”
My boot scuffs against the sidewalk and I nearly trip. Yeah, I can scale walls and squeeze through windows and move through strange buildings like a ghost, but apparently I’m about to trip over my own damn feet.
“You did?” I manage, voice strained.
“Yeah, of course. Come on, Wyatt.” Annie squeezes me again. “You knew that. You made fun of me for it all the time.”
“Right. Right.”
It’s much harder to navigate our path to the food trucks when my whole fucking world has just turned upside down. I blink around at the trees dotted along the sidewalk; the cocktail bars with their mood lighting and relaxed music; the bus stops and all-night grocery stores. At all the other people out tonight, smoking outside bars or laughing in small groups or kissing in doorways.
When I finally sneak a glance down at Annie, she’s not pale and scared anymore. She’s blushing and bright-eyed, staring right at me like she’s trying to solve a puzzle. The breeze toys with the ends of her blonde hair and presses her silk camisole against her body.
“I always wondered why Dean left.” Her eyes flit between mine. “Why he lost touch with everyone—even his own family. Even his twin.”
Because they were happier with me gone. They could be the picture-perfect family with the son who wasn’t a fuck up. With the son who didn’t go down the wrong path.
“Maybe he didn’t feel like he fit.” My mouth is so dry, and I’m walking forward on full autopilot. Hope my legs know where we’re going, because my brain is locked on to the woman beside me and this baffling conversation. “In that suburb. With our family.”
Annie nods thoughtfully, then pats my arm. “Well, he could have fit with me.”
Jesus Christ. I turn back to the bustling street, too overwhelmed to look at her anymore. Does Annie know I’m not Wyatt? Is she messing with me right now, saying what I’ve always longed to hear? Trying to provoke a reaction? Or does she really think she’s confessing these things to my brother?
The city park saves me from getting lost in my own muddled thoughts, its black wrought iron gate propped open to make the entrance. Streetlamps follow the path inside, lighting a winding trail through the sudden greenery. We turn and follow it, the air here scented with soil and fresh leaves.
The trees are bigger inside the park, looming high above the streetlamps and blocking the stars. There are plenty of people here too, lazing on picnic blankets on the shadowy grass or dancing around portable speakers in the distance.
We keep to the trail. The food trucks aren’t too far inside the park, all clustered in a copse of silver birch trees. There’s a taco truck, a pizza guy sliding disks of dough in and out of his oven at lightning speed, a noodle stand, curries and burgers and falafel. The mingling scents make my mouth water, and my gut growls loud enough to shake the earth.
Annie laughs, delighted, and bops my shoulder with her chin. “You should have said you were starving.”
“Oh, I’m always hungry.”
It’s true. Hungry for food, for good coffee, for a bike rumbling beneath me and the wind in my face. Hungry for her. I’m a man of appetites.
Annie, though, is in no rush. She insists on reading every single menu, leading us around the trucks one by one. At every damn truck, the food smells so good I practically drool down my shirt. At every truck, she hums and pulls me on to the next.
“You don’t like any of them?” I say at last, my whole stomach tensed from trying to keep the growls at bay. If we need to go somewhere else… sure, we can do that. But let’s get moving before I gnaw off my own arm.
Haven’t felt all that hungry until just now—just my constant, low-level background snackiness. But the scents from these food trucks has woken the beast, and I’m ready to demolish a burger or three.
Maybe it’s Annie’s presence. Definitely feels like my body is more awake around her, all my nerve endings sparking beneath my clothes. Colors are more vivid tonight, and the air tastes extra fresh as I drag it into my lungs.
“Sorry.” Annie grins at me, mischief sparkling in her eyes. “I’m ready to choose now. What are you getting?”
Anything. Everything! Fuck.
“I’m going for noodles,” Annie says. “Should we divide and conquer?”
“Yeah, okay.”
I’ve never moved so fast to a burger truck in my life. Honestly, I mostly pick the burgers ‘cause the line is short and moving fast. I have time to wait impatiently in line, then order a giant burger and fries combo, collect it, then get to Annie’s truck in time to pay for her meal.
“Hey!” She tries to swat me away, but the deal is already done. The guy at the cash register hands me my change and nods politely, not bothered at all by who pays. “I’m supposed to be treating you tonight, remember?”
Yeah, no. That’s not gonna happen. I’m not gonna steal a whole night with the girl of my dreams, have the closest thing I’ll ever have to date with her, and let Annie pay for dinner. Not in a million years.
“What did you order?” I peer over the top of her head, watching veggies and noodles hiss and sizzle in the wok. The steam smells like garlic and black pepper, and I sniff greedily.
“Black bean tofu with noodles and broccoli.”
I nod once, stomach growling. “Good shit.”
Annie snorts and elbows my noisy gut. “Wow, you’re such a foodie. I never knew.”
We eat over by an oak tree, both sitting and leaning against its gnarled trunk. There’s a root digging into my left ass cheek, but honestly, as we dig into our food in the moonlight, I’ve never been more comfortable.
Until Annie glances at my burger and says casually, “So you’re eating meat again?”
My stomach drops. Wyatt is veggie these days? I pause with a handful of hot, salty fries halfway to my mouth, and when I finally speak, all I can think to say is, “Guess so.”
Annie looks me dead in the eye. Her gaze is calm and steady and so fucking knowing. “Interesting.”
“…Uh-huh.”
I stuff those fries into my mouth, wishing I could gag myself forever. Why didn’t I think about what Wyatt would order? Why’d I just beeline to the scent of beef like a Neanderthal? I may be a hit man, but I’d be a godawful spy—forgetting my cover at the first whiff of dinner.
Annie scoops up a mouthful of noodles, so deft with her chopsticks. She’s still watching me, and she raises an eyebrow as she chews. Daring me to admit that I’m not Wyatt Kinnear, not her best friend at all, and not on the verge of marrying some guy named Brent. I’m Dean, the fuck-up twin, and I stole a whole night with her out of sheer greediness. I’m a deadly hit man, and I let her put a bag over my head and abduct me.
I swallow, forcing the food down my dry throat. Suddenly, I’m not starving anymore. Everything tastes like cardboard, and the burger’s not sitting right.
“I thought we could go dancing after this,” Annie says suddenly, scooping up a chunk of broccoli with her chopsticks. “That’s a classic bachelor party activity, right? Hitting the clubs?”
The back of my neck flashes hot. Annie’s not done for the night? Even though she’s figured out I’m not Wyatt, she wants to go dancing together? She wants to keep up this ruse?
“Yeah,” I agree quickly, dunking a fry in my little pot of ketchup. “Yeah, it is. That sounds good.”
Hell, this woman could ask me to tap dance on broken glass and I’d do it. She could plan an hour of watching paint dry, and I’d cheerfully go along with it if it meant spending more time with her. There will never be enough time with Annie—not for me.
And if Annie knows I’m not Wyatt… this time isn’t stolen. Not anymore. It’s a gift.
You’d better believe I’m going to make the most of it.