Chapter 8 Wren #2
Defrosting with excitement, I bring it closer to the candlelight and start scanning the names.
There’s Rico, the quiet guy whose family owns the local butchers, and Elliot, the idiot cab driver who looks at me like I’ve hung the moon every time I fold a passenger into the back of his car.
Tom—he’s sweet, though I’m sure he moonlights as a small-time drug dealer.
Each name injects a shot of disappointment into my heart until it finally pops under the pressure.
None of these guys are The One.
Folding the napkin into my clutch, I flop back in the chair and find Tayce through the crowd, deflated. Despite the blistering cold, she’s somehow managed to get Beefcake to take his jacket and shirt off, and now she’s inspecting a tattoo on his abs with the flashlight on her phone.
We have polar opposite views on love. Tayce is a pessimist, always telling me that meet-cutes, the moment in the movies where two people destined to fall in love meet for the first time, are reserved for rom-coms starring Mandy Moore or Julia Roberts.
And that in real life, people meet through mutual friends or on dating apps.
She’s a bitter believer that the head-spinning, heart-exploding love I’m holding out for doesn’t exist. She says that, at best, love is a padded lining that softens the blow of your partner’s annoying habits.
She’s wrong—Rory’s proved it. They have the type of love I need, and I need it in its most violent form.
It’s the only option for me. Not just the earth-shattering meet-cute, but all the clichés that follow.
Pebbles hitting my bedroom window at midnight, the yawn-and-reach at the back of a movie theater.
Rose petals and candlelight and stolen kisses in doorways while walking home in the rain.
I’ve saved everything for it. Every first, from my first date to my first kiss, and beyond, for it. I can’t simply date—there’s no maybe-so’s, no settling, and definitely no friends with benefits.
It’s not in my DNA.
As the band slows the tempo with a Luther Vandross song, couples slip into each other’s arms, and a lethargy sweeps over the forest. Everyone’s drugged on love’s tranquilizing abilities, but now I’m stone-cold sober, sitting forever in its waiting room. Next to Matt and all his empty shot glasses.
He groans and slumps his head on the table when the plucky intro to “You’re the One That I Want” from my fourth favorite musical, Grease, starts to play.
Benny is still pelvic thrusting, looking for his next victim, and as I point the camera in Rory’s direction again, the flash catches Benny’s eye, and he beckons me with the curl of his finger.
I laugh and don’t resist when he pulls me up from my seat with a smooth twirl. As he spins me away from him and back again, I catch the scent of cologne and whiskey, and can’t help but wonder how many women on the coast have woken up to that smell lingering on their pillow.
He pushes me away with the jab of his finger and swaggers toward me in time with the music.
I push back and chase his retreat. When the chorus hits, he drops to the floor and slides on his knees.
Before his hands can start roaming up the sides of my thighs, a tight grip on my arm yanks me out of his reach.
“Oh my God,” Tayce yells in my ear, spinning me around and folding me into a protective hug. “What’s the golden rule?”
“But he knows the whole dance—”
“What’s the golden rule, Wren?”
I sink back into my chair and let out a dramatic sigh. “I know, I know. We don’t dance with Benny.”
“We never dance with Benny.”
“Cockblock!” Benny yells.
Tayce flips him off over her shoulder, then looms over me with folded arms.
“Anyway, back to me. On a scale of one to ten, how hot is the guy I’m talking to?”
“Um.” He’s looking around like a lost puppy. I’m not sure if it’s a trick question, so I opt for a pragmatic response. “A solid ten, if he makes you happy.”
“Mmm.” Her eyes find him, and she blows him a sloppy kiss.
“He has just enough brain cells that I don’t feel like I’m taking advantage of him, but on the other hand, his tattoos look like graffiti on a school desk.
” She shrugs. “Meh. I’ll fuck him with the lights off.
Come on.” She offers me her hand. “You’re dancing with Gabe. ”
I stare at her ring-clad fingers. “What?”
“The bridesmaids and groomsmen dance is about to start.”
My eyes snap up to meet hers. My mouth grows dry, and a dull ache forms at the base of my skull. “That’s not a thing.”
“It is in Italy, apparently.” She wiggles her fingers impatiently. “Come on.”
But I don’t move. Can’t. “Why can’t I dance with Rafe?”
“Because I’m dancing with Rafe.”
“No,” I whisper. “My feet hurt.”
“You were dancing with Benny just fine.”
“Yes, but now I’m tired.”
“That’s what espressos are for, sweetie.”
“But …” I look around, panic scrambling my brain. My gaze drops to Matt snoozing on the table, then I fish out the next excuse to rise to the surface. “Matt needs me.”
She glances down at him, amused. “By the looks of it, he’ll still be here when you get back.”
“But—”
“Wren!”
“Tayce!”
I meet her irritated stare and return it with one of desperation.
Hot tears swell behind my eyes. I can’t dance with Gabriel.
I can’t. He’s a psychopath, the Boogeyman, the dark shadow who broke into my house just because he could.
But I can’t tell her that, not right now.
Neither subtlety nor self-restraint are Tayce’s fortés; if I told her what he did, she’d pop a stiletto off her foot and drive the tip into his skull or something, and ruin what’s left of Rory’s day.
“Please.” My plea is as thin as water, and my face is about to be just as wet.
Her expression changes, flickering with confusion, then softens. “He’s not as scary as he looks, I promise.”
He’s not as scary as he looks. That’s what Rafe said. Castiel said it to me earlier too when he caught me staring. It’s as though all the Viscontis are reading from the same script and feeding the lie out to the rest of the coast like some sort of propaganda machine.
Out of the corner of my eye, Gabriel steps into the light of the dance floor. He’s a storm cloud, black and turbulent. A face like thunder. When Rafe mutters something in his ear, his lightning-bolt glare finds me and strikes.
My muscles seize up. He is as scary as he looks—he’s proved it. And judging by his expression, he wants to dance with me as much as I want to dance with him.
Tayce takes advantage of the distraction and hauls me to my feet with a sharp tug on my hand.
No.
The ground is moving underneath me. Dresses and suits pass in a blur, then fade into the corners. My heels scrape across the floor, Tayce’s hair swishes with determination, and now he’s in front of me.
“Dance,” Tayce commands.
She pats me on the shoulder.
Then she leaves me alone with the Boogeyman.
Though you could park a car in the gap between us, his presence scorches me like a black flame.
Every cell in my body is hyperaware of him, of what he might do and what he’s already done.
Cave-dwelling monster or not, men don’t find themselves bleeding out at midnight on a lonely road by being nice.
Seeking relief, I stare at my shoes, wondering if I click my heels three times, maybe I’ll suddenly teleport back home. I swear I’ll lock the door this time. Wedge every bit of furniture against it too.
The band descends into song. It’s “I’m in the Mood for Dancing,” and the lively beat warps into something sinister in the space between my ears. The heat in front of me grows hotter. A cold sweat pools at the back of my collar, and I smooth my bangs with a trembling hand.
With a strangled breath, I drag my gaze upward.
It trails up the sharp crease of his pants, then the buttons of his shirt.
The irony twists my gut; he doesn’t fool me.
A well-cut suit could never make this man a gentleman.
It’s as though he’s wearing another man’s skin, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d ripped it from his bones with his bare hands.
A shiver ghosts through me, and I can’t bring myself to look any higher.
I seek relief by scouting for Rory and Angelo instead, but they’re nowhere to be seen.
So I look to Tayce and Rafe across the dance floor.
They’re both dancing for someone else: Tayce is eye-fucking her mark on the sidelines, and Rafe, well, I don’t know who he’s looking for.
His face is sullen and taut, and he’s scanning the treeline obsessively.
Tayce catches my eye over his shoulder and mouths, Dance.
Ugh. I’m going to hold this over her head for at least a week.
Gritting my teeth, I turn back around to Gabriel and meet his glare. Cold, expressionless. How can someone look so bored and so terrifying at the same time?
He’s not dancing, of course. He’s not even moving. He just shifts his gaze to a space above my head, and with a clenched jaw, scans the space between the trees.
Okay. Deep breath. The average song is only a couple of minutes long.
Around the same time it takes to brush my teeth or fill in my eyebrows.
I can do that. Resting my gaze on his thick neck and the loose bowtie around it, I force my feet into a tight two-step and pray the band isn’t playing some extended-cut version.
One step, two. One, two.
By the first chorus, my mind drifts from the count, and irritation nibbles the edges of my fear. Why is he just standing there looking at everything but me? Sure, it’s not the rudest thing he’s done, but with me being so nice, I’m not used to rude, and my brain can’t figure out how to process it.
Maybe he’s one of those sadists who gets off on making girls uncomfortable. Like the trench coat flasher who hangs around in the alleyways of Main Street. He wouldn’t do this to a man his own size—if those men even exist.
My steps become stomps, and my fist tightens around the strap of my clutch. That irritation burns into anger and bubbles up the trunk of my throat.
My eyes snap upward. “You know, I try to see the best in people, but with you, I really have to squint.”
“Don’t squint too hard. I’ll take your eyeballs too.”
His reply is a reflex; it’s easy and even and doesn’t miss a beat or interrupt his scanning of our surroundings.
My jaw drops open, and I stop the two-stepping. How can I dance at a time like this, with a man like this? He’s unrecognizable. He’s not the man I comforted as his blood ruined my dress. Not the man who used one of his last breaths to laugh, or to call me beautiful.
Suddenly, the missing puzzle piece slots into place. There’s only one explanation for his rudeness: he’s forgotten.
“Remember the time I saved your life?”
The air around him shifts. Lines tighten, muscles clench. It’s so subtle, I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t staring at him so intently.
Slowly, his eyes sink south and latch onto mine. There’s boredom, terror, and now there’s something else. Something flickering behind the green, inflamed and unreadable. My brain can’t decipher it, but my body recognizes danger, so I take a shaky step back.
It happens so fast.
A blinding light washes out his features. The sky flashes from black to orange and back again.
And the sound. It’s pressure-fueled, loud, and nasty.
The world goes boom.
Like it does in the movies.