Chapter 20
ANGEL
This was wrong. So, so wrong.
That was the only thing going through my mind as I stood in front of the mirror in Eli’s bedroom. I was hiding out. The wedding was in three days, and I was nowhere near feeling prepared. I tugged on the lapels of my jacket, then my sleeves. There was nothing inherently wrong with the tux itself. In fact, it fit me like a glove. If only the man waiting for me at the altar fit so well.
The wedding was Friday, and we were leaving for Seattle the next morning. Eli said he’d found a place and already put down a deposit, though I hadn’t seen it. When he’d asked for my input, I’d dodged the subject.
Maybe once I was out of Vegas and in another town, I could figure out who I was without Raleigh. The idea of starting something new without him brought tears to my eyes, but I fought them away.
This was the right thing to do.
Raleigh had healed from his fall, and he’d taken my existence in stride. I thought he’d be angry at me for keeping the secret from him for so long, and it only infuriated me more that he’d been so okay with it. I raised my head and looked in the mirror again. I looked the same after the accident, except for the faint outlines of the marks that appeared on my body. Over time, as I learned some control over my powers, they darkened. I was able to dodge any questions until I was old enough to justify them as tattoos. Yes, I looked the same, but I wish I could say that I felt the same. Raleigh still saw the same old Angel that I’d always been, but I don’t think either of us could grasp how different I truly was. I’d been secretly watching over him for years, and he had no idea.
Frustrated, I unbuttoned my jacket and shrugged it off—carefully. I had to be careful not to damage the expensive rental in my temper. The sky-blue waistcoat went next. “The color of your eyes,” Eli had said when he picked it out. He also said it complimented the table linens perfectly. Whoever Lauren was, she deserved some credit.
I undid my belt, pushing the trousers down my legs and banishing the memory of Eli’s eyes on my ass when I’d first tried them on. They went on the hanger first, then I unbuttoned the crisp white shirt and reassembled the suit on the hanger.
As I tucked away the bow tie that matched the waistcoat, there was a knock at the bedroom door. Eli stepped into the room, eyeing the suit bags that draped from his closet door. I’d just zipped mine up, concealing the contents inside.
He gave a chagrined smile. “I was hoping to catch you before you took it off.”
“Isn’t that bad luck?” I signed, moving to sit cross-legged on the bed. I was wearing nothing but my underwear, and Eli’s eyes traveled over my body.
“I’m pretty sure the person who invented that superstition didn’t have two men in mind.” Eli’s smile faded, and he went to the third suit bag on the bed—the one with Raleigh’s name etched into the fabric.
Raleigh was doing the right thing, being the supportive best friend, but I could tell that there was something under the surface. Every time I allowed myself to think about it, a spark of hope ignited in my belly—but I extinguished it every time. I was getting married. If Raleigh was in love with me, he would’ve acted on it by now. Especially after the night we shared.
That didn’t stop my traitorous heart from hoping for my own Jackson Avery moment.
“I was hoping we could talk.”
My heart stuttered, and I grasped my chest before collecting myself. “Talk about what?”
Eli collapsed onto the bed, putting his head in his hands. When I heard sniffling, I reached for him, but he shrugged my hand away the moment it landed on his shoulder.
With a deep breath, he lifted his head to look at me, eyes wet. “You don’t want this wedding, do you?” I hesitated, and it must’ve been a moment too long because Eli squared his shoulders and met my gaze with a determined, if red-rimmed, stare. “You’ve been letting me take over from the moment you said yes. At first, I thought it was because you were nervous. I know I sprung the fellowship on you, and that’s my own fault. I was more than happy to pick up the slack, but the closer we got, the more I felt like your heart’s not in this.”
“A lot of people get cold feet before their wedding,” I signed, though not with much fight.
Eli laughed, a broken sound that punched me in the heart. “Can’t we be honest with each other for once? This is more than cold feet, isn’t it, Angel?”
With nothing to say, I sat back and placed my hands in my lap.
Eli nervously tugged at his fingers. “I thought we could get past whatever this was, but I can feel you pulling away from me more and more. Especially after Raleigh’s incident last week. You’ve spent more time with him in the week leading to our wedding than you have with me. I started to put the pieces together, everything that’s been right in front of me for the last decade that I was too naive to see. You love him, don’t you?”
Feeling sick, I nodded.
“I should have seen it sooner. Looking back on it, maybe I did.” Eli shrugged. “But I thought since you chose me, it didn’t matter. But Angel, I can’t bring you into a marriage you don’t want.”
I was quick to respond to that. “I do love you.”
He took my hands, clasping them between his. It shut me up, but for once, I didn’t mind. He was letting me go.
“I don’t doubt that,” he said, “but settling for me isn’t going to make your feelings for Raleigh go away. You’ve been running from them for over fifteen years. How well has that worked for you?”
Since he’d trapped my only form of communication, I could only manage a weak smile. But he knew me, so he knew what I was trying to say.
It hadn’t worked at all. If anything, my feelings for Raleigh had only grown.
Eli took another deep breath and scrubbed the back of his neck. “I know that something happened between the two of you.” Before I could say anything, he continued, “It wasn’t hard to figure it out. You may be covered in ink, but don’t think I haven’t learned to tell when there’s something new on your body. The day you came to see me at the hospital, there was a mark on your neck. Knowing where you went after we parted ways that night, I figured it out. But you said yes to me, so I didn’t think it mattered.”
I tugged my hands free. “So, what now? What’s next for… us?”
“ I’m going to Seattle,” Eli said with conviction. “That’s not changing.”
I waited, then signed, “But…”
His shining eyes welled with tears again, and when he spoke, his voice trembled. “I’m going alone.”
Despite the tightness in my chest, I finally felt… relief. I was sad that such a long relationship was ending in such a way, but I should have known that it would never last. Eli was right. I couldn’t just shove my feelings for Raleigh away. They hadn’t faded since the day we met, and I was foolish to think they ever would.
“What about the wedding?” I asked. “All those people? All the money we’ve put into it.”
With a sniffle of his own, Eli brushed away a stray tear that escaped and slid down my cheek. “Luckily for you, I kept the guest list small. I’ll handle it. As for the money?” Another shrug. “We’ll figure it out.”
The hand in my hair curled around my cheek. I leaned into his touch. “The day Raleigh wakes his ass up is the day you’ll make him the happiest man alive.”
“You’re going to make an amazing husband someday—the kind of husband I don’t deserve,” I told him.
He smiled. “Damn straight I will.” I made a move to get off the bed, but Eli rose to his feet first. “Why don’t you stay here for a while? I have an errand to run. It’ll buy you some time alone before you head home.”
I let out a breath, relieved. Even now, Eli knew me better than most. Some people might think I spent enough time alone with my thoughts, but sometimes it was what I needed. Right now, I needed to corral my emotions, which were running around like headless chickens.
When I told Raleigh I was hopelessly in love with him, I didn’t need to be all over the place.
“Angel?” I glanced up. Eli stood in the doorway, one hand on the knob and the other picking at a spot of chipped paint on the wall. “Raleigh. Is he, uh… like you?” He gestured to my crotch, and it took me a moment to realize he was referring to my piercing.
I snickered, remembering my “stairway to heaven” joke. “More,” I signed. “Jacob’s Ladder.”
Eli squirmed and shuddered, cupping his dick protectively like I’d lunge across the room and pierce him myself. “I’ll never understand the obsession you two have with mutilating your bodies.”
“Hey, I never heard any complaints.”
With that, Eli shut the door and left me alone in his bedroom. I looked back at the suit bags hanging on the door, then at Raleigh’s hanging on the bed. Instead of the overwhelming sense of dread I’d had when they’d been delivered, I felt lighter. A weight had been lifted from my shoulders, one I hadn’t realized I was carrying.
I still had a challenge ahead of me, but I was no longer stringing anyone along with me. That hadn’t been my intention with Eli, but I had to face the facts as they were: I’d made bad decisions, and people were hurt in the process. I was lucky Eli was as forgiving as he was.
As I pulled myself from the bed and dressed, I made a mental list of everything I needed to do. It wasn’t fair to make Eli tear the whole wedding apart when he’d spent so much time putting it together. No, I had to be the one to do it. It might mean sending a million emails back and forth and arguing with people I really didn’t want to argue with, but Eli had enough on his plate. He had to plan a move all on his own—ah Hell, he’d already been doing that, hadn’t he?
To say I’d been useless lately would be an understatement.
Step one: contact our guests and the officiant. Then the florists, caterers, the church…
That was one aspect I hadn’t expected. Eli was adamant on getting married in a church, and now? It was all I could do not to laugh about it. When you put the three of us together, including Raleigh, the amount of sin in that building was liable to send the place up in flames.
Shit. Sin .
I’d nearly forgotten all about it. Raleigh’s virtue had been tested recently, and it was all because of me . He was being put to the test, and though I’d realized it, I hadn’t known what it meant. What it was leading to.
Raleigh had always been… carefree, but lately it seemed everything was sex and drinking—but that made sense. Even Billie started to make sense. Each sin, resolving itself. The seventh and final nail in the coffin was sloth, and in throwing himself into work, Raleigh had overcome the trial.
Seven deadly sins. A tale as old as time, one that had been debated for centuries. Some said that to combat them, you had to follow the seven virtues, but like angels, that was far from the truth.
The only thing that broke through the seven deadly sins was the gift of a new heart. One who acted in accordance with a love as pure as God’s. In other words: an angel.
To earn that, Raleigh needed to prove himself. He’d been challenged time and time again, and now he was ready.
As it turned out, we both needed to wait until we were spiritually ready for each other. Once we were, my powers forced Raleigh to prove himself.
I grabbed one of the empty boxes in the corner of Eli’s room, speed-throwing all of my things into it. At the last second, I gathered the suit bags and threw them in too. Something could probably be said about all my stuff fitting into a single box after spending a decade with someone, but I wasn’t going to dwell on it.
Things were falling into place now, and I needed to see them through.