Chapter 14 #2
Royce’s gaze lingered. “That’s… very tempting. But I think what you need right now is some food, hm? What do you want?”
That tongue burrito didn’t sound so appealing with his stomach twisted in a knot. Everything felt too monumental right now, too overwhelming. “I want a drink.”
“Ah.” Royce’s eyes crinkled in a smile, creating waterfalls of crow’s feet. “Finally going to let me buy you that drink I’ve been offering for years?”
Cosmo let out a humorless chuckle. “Seems like something always came up, or I wasn’t in the mood. But I’m absolutely in the mood now, and I would love it if you joined me.”
“Well, there happens to be a bar across the street. But you shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach. Want my last taco?”
Cosmo forced down a few bites. They crossed the street and headed into a pub he didn’t catch the name of.
The scent of beer-soaked wood enveloped him, and the clack of billiard balls came from the other end of the room.
He sat on a vinyl seat with a split down the middle and pushed away a sticky napkin.
Royce ordered two mind erasers. What Cosmo needed was a heart eraser. Just scrub away all the feelings inside him until they turned to gummy pink eraser dust and blew away.
The bartender set a fizzy coffee cocktail in a rocks glass before him, and he pounded it back. A rush went to his head, and he blinked at the neon signs behind the bar.
Royce snorted. “I don’t think you’re supposed to hammer it down like that.”
Fire ran into Cosmo’s stomach, and he raised his finger to the bartender to request another. “I’m going to do what I like. Are you going to stop me?”
“Not at all. I’ll take care of you.”
After several more mind erasers, they started to do their job, though he couldn’t quite rub out all thoughts of Micah.
Cosmo shuddered to think he’d been so close to throwing himself into his arms. He’d thought Micah was different, and it hurt to be this wrong.
Using the threat of danger just to get them back together! That was cruel.
Royce gripped Cosmo’s elbow. “Are you okay?”
“No. I’m not.” Cosmo pushed past empty glasses for a napkin. He pressed it to his eyes. “I’m so sick of the jealousy and possessiveness. I just wanted love.”
Royce’s coffee liqueur breath tickled his ear. “A gorgeous thing like you should have all the love he wants.”
Cosmo pounded the bar. “Damn right.”
“Someone needs to give it to you.”
“Zedd scares all the good ones away.”
Royce’s arm slid around Cosmo’s back, the overpowering scent of his aftershave lingering. “He doesn’t scare me.” Lips pressed against Cosmo’s neck, and he pulled in a sharp breath. They slid across his throat, sucking at his skin.
Cosmo pulled away and gripped the bar. “Royce, what are you doing?”
“Giving you what you want.”
“No. I’m not into it.”
“I think you are. Otherwise you wouldn’t be getting drunk with me and moaning when I kiss you.” He nibbled Cosmo’s jaw and squeezed his upper thigh, dangerously close to his groin.
Micah was right.
He pushed at Royce, but couldn’t extract himself. “Stop! This is a misunderstanding.” And he needed to leave, but he wasn’t sure he could stand up on his own. He waved his hand, trying to flag down the bartender, but the man ignored him.
Micah was right.
“What’s to misunderstand? You want love,” Royce purred. “You want someone who isn’t afraid of Zedd. I’m right here, beautiful. I’ve been here for years. Seeing your heartbreak and pain over people who use you and throw you away. I won’t. You know me better than that.”
Micah was right. Cosmo was in danger, and he should have listened. Should have left with sweet, kind Micah to go eat ice cream. “No, Royce. You need to stop!”
He gripped Cosmo’s jaw hard and kissed the side of his mouth.
“What the fuck is this!” A familiar voice cut between them. “You get your filthy, gnarled meathooks off of him, you petrified piece of shit.”
Cosmo turned to look his savior in the face, but his stool wobbled and he flailed for purchase. Acrylic nails dug into his arm, and he was pulled to his feet. Royce growled something indecipherable.
Light florals floated around the woman clutching him, and her hair tickled his cheek. But it couldn’t be Déjà; she’d picked up the pieces of Cosmo too many times already. That’s why they weren’t friends anymore.
She unslung a backpack and rooted inside. “You take one step toward him and I will unload an entire can of mace on you.”
Someone else shouted – maybe the bartender – then Cosmo was hauled out the entrance. He staggered onto the sidewalk and rubbed his eyes. Neon light striped Déjà’s oversized sunglasses, and her hair was pinned back with sparkly clips shaped like jack-o’-lanterns.
A noise escaped his throat. It really was her. He’d meant to talk to her at that party in August, but she left before he’d had the chance. How did she know he needed her now more than ever?
“Thank you.” He threw his arms around her. “Thank you.”
“We need to go somewhere else. Do you still live in Climbing Ivy?”
“Yes.” Cosmo kept hold of her, his best friend, his anchor. Always his anchor, but he’d drifted away and crashed against the rocks a long time ago. “How did you know I was here?”
“Micah called me.” Her heels clacked against the sidewalk. “He was completely distraught.”
Cosmo stumbled, the sidewalk a wobbly blur. Oh, Micah. “I – I didn’t want Royce to do that.”
“I know. And that bartender didn’t care at all.” She slowed and looked over her shoulder, then urged him on. “It wasn’t your fault.”
It was his fault. And even if Micah had called and begged, why would Déjà want to be involved in this mess?
God, how he missed her. Every thought for her, every ache, was held back by the thinnest of dams, but he didn’t know what to say.
What could he say? Too much time had passed.
Their wounds had festered and necrotized, and Cosmo didn’t know how to heal that.
They reached his door. He pulled out the contents of his pockets until he heard keys clink together, but then they weren’t in his hands. Where did they go?
Déjà grumbled beside him, and he steadied himself against the doorframe. He pressed his brow against the wood and shut his eyes, but that was a mistake because it made the feeling of helium in his head more acute.
Keys jingled and the door swung open. Hands pushed him inside. He flopped onto the bed and felt Déjà tug off his shoes.
This night was such a mistake, and now he’d never get to snuggle up to Micah while the man wore that soft, paint-stained sweatshirt.
He made do with squeezing a pillow instead, and he must have fallen asleep because when he opened his eyes, sweat plastered his hair to his forehead.
His breath was so foul he could smell it with his mouth closed.
One of his earrings was jabbing him in the neck, and his head throbbed.
Paper rustled, and he rolled over. Déjà sat on the floor with one of his coffee table books, pursing her lips at the glossy spreads of conceptual art.
The evening came rushing back to him, and shame entered his body like a demon hungry for a host. “Why are you here?”
“Micah called me.” She glanced up. “I told you that. You don’t remember.”
He remembered enough. Too much. After pushing out of bed, he staggered into the bathroom. He took a much-needed shower, letting the hot water beat down on his neck. When he was finished, he pulled on pajamas and sat next to Déjà with a strong cup of coffee.
The highlights on her cheekbones glittered, and a tattoo of quartz crystals graced the side of her neck. She glanced at him. “Feeling better?”
“You’re so pretty. I’ve missed you.”
“You told me.”
“Sorry. I don’t remember that either.”
“‘Déjà, you’re so pretty and I love you and don’t deserve you.
’ Which is true.” She flipped a page in the book.
“‘Déjà, I’m completely taken with Micah. We went to a cemetery and we didn’t kiss, but then we had phone sex, sort of, and he wears the cutest, frumpiest sweatshirts.
I want him to give me hickies until I look like a peach someone repeatedly dropped on the floor. ’”
Cosmo snorted. “I’m sorry, darling. I’m an absolute mess.”
“So nothing has changed in the last three years.”
“Truly, it has not.” His ache for her had faded, but it had a funny way of appearing suddenly and stabbing him in the heart when he least expected it. The chorus of a song, the sequins on a dress, a painting on the gallery wall… “Maraschino cherries.”
“What?”
“Maraschino cherries remind me of you. Because you always ask for three.”
“I haven’t been to that place forever. Have you?”
He shook his head. He craved their outrageous milkshakes, but it hadn’t seemed right to go there without Déjà. “Have you missed me at all?”
She closed the art book and pushed it away, but she didn’t stop staring at the space it had occupied. She’d never saved his feelings when it was something he needed to hear, but she was going to tell him no, and he shouldn’t have asked the question if he couldn’t handle the answer.
Sliding over, she pulled him into a hard hug. “So much.”
He pressed his forehead to her shoulder and held her tight. There were so many things he wanted to say and ask, and he couldn’t remember any of the conversation from before he fell asleep.
She pulled back. “What happened with Royce wasn’t your fault, okay?”
The scent of coffee liqueur on Royce’s breath, his rough and wrinkled hands all over Cosmo’s body – the memory made his stomach churn, and he fought back the urge to vomit. “I led him on.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“With all due respect, you can’t know that because you weren’t there. I invited him to drink with me. It was my idea. He tried to get me to eat something instead. I pounded back my cocktails and told him I needed love. It was one hundred percent my fault.”
“I heard you say ‘No! Stop!’ And he didn’t. Whatever led up to that point doesn’t matter. If someone says ‘stop,’ then you stop. That’s it, end of story.”