Chapter 6 #4
Dylan leaned closer. “So here’s what happens.
You walk away. You don’t call her. You don’t follow her.
You don’t whisper her mother’s name like you earned the right to speak about dead women.
You don’t let your sister, your cousins, your friends, or whatever drunk little revenge club you people are running come near her again. ”
Nate lifted a phone. “Also, just for fun, we’ve got this whole thing on video. Audio too. Modern technology. Big fan. So is our guy Hacker who gets into publish security feeds for funsies.”
One of the girls turned pale.
Brett’s friend cursed.
Dylan smiled again. “And if I hear you put your hands on her one more time, I won’t be the one you see next.”
Brett’s eyes flicked to me.
Then away.
“Who?” he asked, voice cracking despite his effort to stop it.
Dylan’s smile vanished.
“Her father.”
That did it.
Brett’s face drained.
Dylan let him go.
Brett stumbled, straightened his shirt like dignity could be ironed back into place, and glared at me with one last flash of hate that didn’t land the way he wanted it to.
Then he left.
His friends followed.
The girls too.
People around us slowly remembered how to breathe. Conversations restarted in pieces. Someone laughed too loudly. A server peeked out from the taco place and then immediately went back inside.
Lily turned to Nate.
“You have recordings?”
Nate held up a blank screen.
“No,” he said. “But villains never check.”
Lily stared at him for one second.
Then she smiled.
“Oh, I like you.”
Nate bowed slightly. “That’s the usual reaction.”
“It is not,” Dylan and I said at the same time.
Then we looked at each other.
Big mistake.
The whole sidewalk seemed to shrink.
His eyes moved over me again, slower now that the immediate threat had passed. The black dress. The denim jacket. The diamonds in my ears. The turquoise ring on my hand. His gaze caught, just for a second, on the hint of silver and mother-of-pearl beneath my sleeve.
He noticed.
Of course he noticed.
Dylan always noticed.
“You okay?” he asked.
I hated that question.
I hated wanting to answer honestly.
“I had it handled.”
His expression didn’t change.
Nate made a sound like he had swallowed a laugh and valued his life too much to release it.
Lily turned toward me. “You did not have it handled. I had it handled. With my tote bag.”
“You hit him with pharmacology notes.”
“And I’d do it again.”
Dylan’s mouth almost twitched.
Almost.
I folded my arms, hiding the cuff fully under my sleeve. “I said I didn’t want Dylan.”
Nate shrugged, “We were the closest on our way back from a run up north. Pretty boy here wanted to stop in Santa Monica to get his favorite Thai. Or maybe that was his excuse just to be in your zip code..”
Dylan rolled his eyes, “Coastal Thai is next level. I’d marry Grandma Basil if she’d have me.”
“Hmmm.” Lily took it all in, looking between us. I’d told her everything about me except Dylan. Dylan was a secret in my heart that I kept close and cherished.
Dylan looked at Lily. “You’re her roommate?”
“Best friend,” Lily corrected.
His gaze softened slightly. “Good.”
“Don’t sound so relieved. I’m judging all of you.”
“Fair.”
Lily adjusted her glasses and looked him up and down. “You must be the reason.”
“What?”
“The reason Destiny here has a problem committing to Daniel Dugatti. He’s hot. ripped. Pre-med and nuts about her.”
Dylan smirked.
“And she’s definitely the reason he won’t commit to Georgia.”Nate chuckled.
“Who’s Georgia?” I snapped. Hurt, anger and jealousy rising in me lie a twister of bad feelings getting ready to rage.
Dylan’s eyes swept over me as a hint of crimson crept up his neck. Hi s beard had grown back and he’s shoulders were more muscular. New ink winded around his thick biceps and then continued up one side of his neck. I didn’t know these. I wanted to trace them with my index finger.
He’s mine.
My soul cried while my heart demanded we don’t lose him.
His eyes were the problem.
They held too much. Heat. Regret. Relief. The kind of ache that made me want to step closer just to see if he would still step back.
He would.
That was the worst part.
I knew he would.
“You should get back to campus,” he said.
There it was.
The wall.
One sentence, and he was already leaving.
I laughed once, short and sharp. “Seriously?”
His jaw tightened. “Destiny.”
“No, don’t Destiny me.”
Lily looked between us and whispered to Nate, “Should we…?”
Nate whispered back, “Absolutely not. This is better than cable.”
I ignored them.
“You show up after a year,” I said, keeping my voice low because I would not make this a sidewalk scene for strangers. “You call me Beautiful like no time has passed. You scare off one idiot in loafers. And now you’re leaving?”
“I came because you needed help.”
“I called the charter.”
“And I came.”
“I asked for anyone but you.”
“I know.”
That hurt too.
Because he had come anyway.
Because he had left anyway.
“Why?” I asked.
His eyes held mine.
For a second, I thought he might tell me the truth.
Whatever truth men like Dylan buried under ink, loyalty, and silence.
Instead, he said, “Because I was closest.”
Liar.
My throat burned.
“Right.”
His face flickered.
There was a crack in him. I saw it. I had always seen the cracks. That was the problem. Dylan thought his damage made him hard to read, but to me, it made him familiar.
He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “You need to be careful.”
“I am careful.”
“Not enough.”
“I built a life here.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know you made Dean’s List.”
My breath caught.
He looked away like he regretted saying it.
Too late.
“I know you feed a stray cat named Cupcake,” he continued, voice rough now, like the words had torn loose from somewhere he had tried to lock.
“I know you drink matcha even though you used to say green drinks tasted like lawn clippings. I know you went home for Christmas and Cal pretended not to care that you liked the room with the blue quilt best. I know Sienna said hello, which according to Regan was a damn miracle.”
I stared at him.
The sidewalk disappeared again.
But this time, it wasn’t fear.
It was him.
“You knew all that?”
His mouth pressed into a line.
“Security updates,” he said.
“Bullshit.”
Nate suddenly found the sky fascinating.
Lily’s eyes had gone enormous. “Hot biker guy has been stalking you?”
“Dylan,” I whispered.
He dragged a hand through his hair. “You were starting over. I wasn’t going to interfere with that.”
“But you watched.”
“From a distance.”
“That’s not nothing.”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
“What’s up with the girl then? Georgia?”
“She isn’t you.”
There it was.
A year.
A whole year of me telling myself I had made up the way he looked at me. That I was pathetic for remembering. That the bracelet meant more to me than it ever had to him.
And he had known about Cupcake.
My stupid feral alley cat.
My matcha.
My Dean’s List.
My Christmas room.
I stepped closer.
This time, Dylan didn’t move.
“You left,” I said.
“I did.”
“You stayed gone. Never contacted me.”
“It was for the best.”
“Why?”
His eyes darkened.
Behind him, the bikes gleamed under streetlights. The ocean air moved between us. My pulse beat beneath the cuff hidden under my sleeve.
“Because Regan was right,” he said.
I swallowed.
“About what?”
“You needed a life that wasn’t built around fire.”
My voice shook. “And you decided you were fire?”
“I know what I am.”
“Do you?”
His gaze dropped to my mouth.
Only for one second.
But I saw it.
Felt it.
Remembered Cabo so hard my knees nearly forgot the sidewalk.
Then he looked away.
“Get her back safe,” he told Nate.
My chest went cold. “You’re not serious.”
Nate’s grin vanished. “Dyl?—”
“I’ve got something to check.”
“No, you don’t,” I snapped.
Dylan looked at me again.
There was so much restraint in his face I wanted to claw it off him.
“Happy to see you’re okay, Beautiful. Go for Daniel. He makes more sense.”
My eyes stung.
“Don’t call me that if you’re just going to walk away.”
He flinched.
Good.
I wanted him to.
Then I hated myself for wanting it.
Lily stepped closer to me, her shoulder brushing mine.
Dylan saw that too.
He nodded once to her. “Take care of her.”
Lily lifted her chin. “She takes care of herself.”
A flicker of respect crossed his face.
“Good,” he said.
“I hate you Dylan. I’m over you. Over the ‘what if of us’… tis is your last chance!”
He turned.
Just like that.
Walked away from me a second time.
One year of ghosts, one sidewalk rescue, one almost-conversation, and Dylan walked back to his bike like he hadn’t just cracked open every door I had spent months nailing shut.
I stood there while he swung onto the motorcycle.
He put on his helmet.
The engine roared to life.
I hated that sound.
I loved it.
He pulled away from the curb without looking back.
Nate stayed.
Because apparently Dylan had enough honor to send someone else home with me and leave before I could make him feel something he didn’t want to feel.
For a few seconds, no one spoke.
Then Lily turned slowly to Nate.
“So,” she said. “That’s the guy she doesn’t talk about?”
Nate looked at me.
Then at the street where Dylan had disappeared.
Then back at Lily.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s the guy.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, fingers pressing against the hidden cuff beneath my sleeve.
My wrist still ached where Brett had grabbed me.
My heart ached worse.
Nate’s voice softened. “Come on, Destiny. I’ll get you and your friend back.”
I nodded, because if I opened my mouth, I might cry.
Or scream.
Or call Dylan and tell him I was done letting him decide what my life was supposed to be without asking me.
Lily slipped her hand into mine.
Her palm was warm.
Steady.
For once, she didn’t make a joke.
That was how I knew she understood.
We walked toward Nate’s bike and the black SUV that had pulled up behind it, one I hadn’t noticed before. More club men inside. More protection. More reminders that no matter how far I moved, the past still knew my address.
But this time, something had changed.
Only now I wasn’t seventeen at a grave. I wasn’t eighteen under a palm tree. I wasn’t drugged, cornered, or waiting for someone else to decide what happened next.
I was nineteen.
I was in nursing school.
I had a best friend from Idaho with a weaponized tote bag.
I had my mother’s diamonds in my ears, her turquoise on my hand, and Dylan’s cuff around my wrist.
I had built a life.
And if Dylan thought he could keep walking in and out of it like a man with no place in my story, he was wrong.
Because the thing about blank pages was this:
Eventually, I got to pick up the pen.