Chapter 2
TWO
Blakely
You can do it. You can do it. You have to do it , I chanted to myself over and over again as I stared up at the house.
Never had a house felt so intimidating.
“Blakely.” The voice behind me startled me so bad I nearly dropped the pie and the glass dish it was in onto the concrete walkway.
Josh appeared beside me and helped me catch the pie before the worst could happen. He took it from me and appraised me with raised brows.
“It’s not nice to sneak up on people,” I said, smacking him in the arm.
He chuckled and shrugged like he didn’t almost wreck my dessert. “I’m not sure how you didn’t hear my car pull up, or me close the car door, or say your name three times. I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you.”
“Oh,” I said and took a breath. My eyes traveled back to the front of the house, but Josh didn’t let my attention linger too long .
“You okay, Blake? You’re kind of starting to worry me—actually, all of us. You’ve seemed a little…off lately.”
No one had said anything to me, but I would have been surprised if my friends hadn’t noticed. Josh and I worked together at Murphy’s Law, our favorite bar, and I spent enough time with the rest of them that they would have to be the least perceptive people in the world not to know.
I mustered the best smile I could and waved him off. “Yeah, I’m okay. I just have a lot on my mind right now.”
Rather than keeping my gaze averted or just walking into the damn house, I looked at Josh because that’s what a person in a normal state of mind and without something to hide would have done. It was impossible to miss the concern and questions in his blue eyes. And it was equally impossible to ignore them.
It was evident he wanted to say something else, but his attention darted over my shoulder, and he shook his head. “Let’s go inside. You look like a weirdo standing outside the house like this.”
He didn’t give me an option. He reached back and grabbed my hand as he all but hauled me up the stairs and through the front door.
“Blakely’s being weird,” Josh hollered through the house. I glared at him, but his happy, carefree charm easily dismissed it.
“When is she not?” Amanda said, skipping down the hallway from the kitchen and giving me a hug I so desperately needed. Although it didn’t do much, it was enough to not make me feel like my world wasn’t ending. At least for the time being.
Amanda was quite a bit shorter than my five-foot-ten, so I stooped to wrap my arms around her. She looked cute, with her blond hair in a bun on top of her head and her black-framed glasses propped on her nose. We were best friends, but we were also the opposite of one another.
She was Barbie, and I was Barbie’s black cat stepsister.
We walked farther into the house while Amanda took the pie from Josh and veered right into the kitchen. I continued into the living room, dropping my purse and coat on a bench, while Amanda yelled that she was going to bring me a drink.
Through the windows at the back of the house, I could see James, Reed, and Luke sitting outside on the patio around a firepit. Josh quickly joined them, but I wasn’t going back out in the cold if I could help it.
And the person I most wanted to see was standing in front of the TV with a beer in one hand and his eyes glued to a football game that I regrettably knew nothing about.
“Hey,” I said quietly, coming to a stop right next to him.
Half a second later, Devon’s arm slid around my back, and he tugged me into his side. I wrapped one arm around his middle, then the other, as I leaned into the hug and the calmness he brought with it.
I tucked my head against his shoulder, and he leaned down, kissing the top of my head and breathing a quiet, “Hey, B.”
It wasn’t often I met someone who made me feel small, but Devon, at six-foot-five, definitely did. He took a sip of his beer and settled his jaw on top of my head. We stood like that for a while until Amanda brought me a hot toddy, and we both sat down on the couch.
“My mom won’t stop talking about you,” he said, and I smiled. It wasn’t one I had to force either.
“She was freaking hilarious the other day, gossiping about her nurses and her new friends,” I laughed.
Devon and his sister, Sydney, had gone down to Houston to settle his mom into her new, one-bedroom apartment in the city and get her set up at MD Anderson where she would receive treatment for her cancer through a trial program. She’d be spending most of her time at the hospital, but Devon wanted her to have a space to herself as well. We didn’t think it was likely she’d use the apartment much, but it was important to him.
I’d met up with them the day before to help with whatever I could .
“She loves you,” he said, and then quickly added, “She might love you more than she loves me.”
“That’s not true,” I argued. I knew he didn’t believe she actually loved me more, Devon and Sydney were her entire world, but the sentiment was sweet.
“You doing okay, though?” he asked somewhat hesitantly, and I sighed.
“What? Do I really look that bad? Because you’re the second person in so many minutes to ask me that.”
“You don’t look bad,” he clarified, laying a large hand on my thigh and squeezing once. “You could never look bad, B. But you do look a little rundown.”
I pursed my lips and sipped my drink. It warmed my insides, but nerves were clawing their way back with each second that passed. My eyes darted to the front door as Luke stepped out.
“Where’s he going?” I asked Josh, who closed the door behind his brother.
“To get his girlfriend.”
Fear made my muscles go rigid, and Devon felt my thigh tense under his palm.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, but I was already standing before he finished his question.
“Bathroom. I’ll be right back,” I said quickly. With all the grace of a newborn giraffe, I stumbled into the guest bathroom and locked the door behind me.
I wouldn’t put it past my nosy friends to come after me.
I took a deep breath through my nose and blew out my mouth. I did that a couple times, trying to stave off the panic that I knew would overwhelm me quicker than I could realize it was happening.
But instead of the deep breaths working some kind of magic, I was suddenly hyperventilating. My lungs were burning, and the room felt like it had twisted sideways.
My back hit the wall, and I slid down until my head could fall between my knees. I wrapped my arms around my legs and hugged them to my chest.
I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to ruin the good thing Luke and Hazel had. But I also couldn’t not do it. The repercussions if I didn’t, or if I failed, were too severe.
Fuck. I wanted to scream and yell and fight. I wanted a way out.
I rocked back and forth on the tile floor unable to form a cohesive thought that wasn’t manic screaming. I don’t know how long I was in that position, but when there was a knock on the door and I jumped, my arms and legs ached with the movement.
“B?” came from the other side, and I could cry at hearing Devon’s voice.
I cleared my throat and squeezed my eyes shut. “Be out in a minute.” My voice only wavered a little, and I didn’t move until I heard his steps recede.
Somehow, I stood up and looked in the mirror. In my panicked state, I hadn’t managed to shed a single tear. I was beyond crying. I’d already cried so much my body was rejecting the possibility of ever doing it again.
My cheeks were flushed, but my thicker makeup hid most of the blotchiness.
Voices carried through the door, one of which I didn’t recognize. My heart was hammering as I listened the best I could. She sounded sweet, and her laughter trickled in behind Luke’s deep chuckle.
And that sound snapped me into motion. As did the idea that if I didn’t do something, I’d never hear those sounds again.
Like I was on autopilot, I stepped out of the bathroom and approached the couple. Hazel looked exactly as I expected her to. She was several inches shorter than me, with long brown hair and a heart-shaped face. Her hazel eyes were wide with surprise. She looked like she was plucked straight from a Disney princess movie .
“I was wondering where you were,” Luke said. “Hazel, this is Blakely.”
“Hi,” she said, offering me her hand which I shook quickly. Her smile was bright yet nervous, and I did everything I could to muster my own, but it was useless.
Pressure built inside of me, and I had to get it over with. I turned to Luke. “Could I talk to you?”
Beside me, Amanda said something, but I didn’t hear her. It was like everything else around me was happening in another dimension. Like they were all background noise, and I couldn’t quite understand them through the thick fog that had surrounded my brain.
“What’s up?” Luke asked, and that urge to scream came back.
“I want to talk in private,” I said.
He huffed and hung his head. I was sure he had an idea of what I wanted to discuss. I’d already told him in so many words that Valerie was dangerous, but he didn’t know the full extent.
“You have five minutes.”