15. Chapter 15
Chapter fifteen
S hane and I are celebrating one month of seeing each other today. I didn’t expect him to know the date, to be privy to the anniversary at all. But when he picked me up from Belinda’s to bring me to the carnival, he had flowers and chocolate waiting.
“What’s all this?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“It has been one month since I used a horrible pick up line on you at a coffee shop!” he exclaimed. “Worth celebrating, I think.”
My first thought was that Cade would never.
Now, as we sit on a bench and eat the last of our ice cream, I consider that maybe I don’t care what Cade would do in this situation after all.
“Paris,” Shane says.
“London,” I decide.
“Middle ground,” he tells me. “We stay domestic to start.”
“How,” I start, pointing my spoon at him, “is domestic middle ground?”
“I’m being realistic.”
I guffaw. “There’s nothing wrong with not being realistic sometimes. That’s why there’s abstract art.”
Shane laughs. “Oh, now you’re going to tell me about abstract art?”
“No. I’m going to give you a speech about how no dream is too big.”
“Even better,” he says. “I love a girl who is encouraging.”
“I’m the best at it, truly,” I tell him. “If you keep me around, I’ll have you so inspired you might end up in the Louvre.”
I like Shane. A lot. Talking to him is easy and gives me butterflies and doesn’t make me feel like I’m catching on fire, burning my heart from the inside out.
But I’ve developed a pyromania fixation since meeting Cade Deans.
An addiction, really.
And I haven’t stoked a fire in a long time. I don’t think visions of Cade while I’m with Shane counts. Shane’s the guy you plan a fictitious life in Europe with, where he practices art and you attempt to keep a garden alive and read fancy books. The kind of guy you dream about finding if you want stability, peace, happiness.
But I am a stretch of spilled gasoline leading up to everything I’ve ever desired in this life. Shane is the perfect man, the doting husband waving at his wife from the porch of the perfect home, through the picket fence. And Cade Deans is a match, determined to destroy it all.
“What about that?” Shane asks, pulling me from my thoughts.
“What?” I twist to look at him.
“I asked if you’d want to travel so I could try landscape painting. Maybe out west.”
“That sounds great,” I say. Still itching from thinking of Cade, I run soft fingers on Shane’s pant leg.
He smirks at me. “Ready to leave already? I wanted to win you something from one of the carnival games.”
I think it over. I can’t believe I have to. “Why not? No one has before.”
“Allow me to be the first,” he says as he stands up. He discards his empty Styrofoam cup that once held ice cream, reaching a hand out to take mine. As I stand up from the bench we were occupying, a familiar voice calls my name.
“Gigiiii! I have something to tell you!”
It’s Cade, walking toward me with determination. My heart squeezes. What is he doing here? What does he have to tell me that is so important that—
“I got my shop!” he screeches, so loud that people walking on the boardwalk turn to look at him.
“Cade,” I say. “What are you doing here?”
“I-I wanted to tell you in person,” he says, chuckling.
“Are you drunk?” I ask. I turn to Shane. “I have no idea what’s going on. I’m so sorry.”
He smiles, warm. “No problem. Do you want me to give you a minute?”
I say, “No.”
Cade, absolutely elated, says, “Yeah, buddy, that’d be awesome.”
I glare at him. He’s definitely intoxicated; hair disheveled, eyes tired. I’ve never seen Cade like this. “Why are you here?”
“I told you,” Cade says, his face plastered with a big grin. “I wanted to tell you about the shop in person.”
“You told me,” I say, stern. “I’m happy for you.”
“We should celebrate,” Cade says.
“How about,” I offer gently, “we celebrate some other time.”
Cade frowns, his body slumped. “Gigi.”
He’s so drunk. “Cade. Now’s not a good time. I’m on a date.” I motion to Shane, the heat of embarrassment creeping up my neck. It spills across my face, white hot. “I’m so sorry,” I tell Shane again.
Like sunshine, he smiles.
“Well, sorry for interrupting,” Cade says, still frowning. “I wanted to tell you, and I knew you’d be here.”
I’m appalled to see Cade completely drunk, but even more appalled to see Cade in a mood that isn’t turned on or utterly aloof. I didn’t think he was capable of any emotion but those. “Can I ask why you look so sad?”
“Why do you care?” Cade spits.
Even under the influence, he won’t answer an uncomfortable question. I can’t wait to make him feel like an ass about this later.
“You seem bummed,” I say. He huffs, crossing his arms over his chest. He reminds me of a toddler who didn’t get his way. Like I’m telling him they actually sold out of the action figure he wanted for weeks. “Shouldn’t you be happy? You got your shop.”
“I wanted to celebrate with you,” he says quietly, slurred. “Just you and me, princess.”
God. My heart squeezes at his words. I turn to Shane, wishing for the first time that he wasn’t here. And that makes me feel horrible.
“Do you… Do you want to call it a night?” Shane asks.
“No.” I sigh, my gaze flipping to Cade as he stands there with his arms crossed defiantly. “But I think I have to. He’s drunk, and I don’t know where he came from. I need to get him home.”
Shane nods, understanding. “I’ll drive,” he says, “if you want.”
He’s simply too good for words.
Knowing Cade thought of me when he got his news and wanted to share it with me gives my hopeless romantic heart hope. False hope that I need to shove down and bury.
My heart is an idiot.
Shane helps me get Cade in the apartment, and once he’s gone, I sit against the wall in Cade’s room, my knees curled up to my chest. I wanted to stay a bit, either to make sure someone else would be home with him or to ensure as best I could that he wouldn’t asphyxiate.
It’s getting late, and I know EJ is home—I heard him and Rory in the other room. But I can’t bring myself to leave.
“Princess?” Cade mumbles.
“Don’t call me that, Cade.” I put my head in my hands, taking a breath. “It makes me confused.”
“I don’t call anybody else any nicknames,” he says. “I do it to you because it’s cute when you’re pissed off at me.”
I don’t reply.
“Princess?”
“I heard you,” I say. “Stop calling me that.”
“Sometimes you let me,” he sing-songs to the tune of the Almond Joy/Mounds theme, “sometimes you don’t.”
I fight laughter. He’s such an ass. “You are drunk, and you need to go to sleep.”
“I need a lot of things. To have sex. With you.”
“You’re drunk, and you’ll regret that tomorrow,” I tell him. “You’ll regret all this.”
“That’s where you’re wrong!” Cade says. “You think you know me. You don’t.”
“You’re right,” I reply. “I don’t know much of anything about you, aside from your desire for meaningless relationships. And the tattoos.” I pause, debating. “Can you tell me about them?” I might as well take a vulnerable, willing Cade while I have him.
“I’ve broken every girl’s heart I’ve been with,” he says. “That’s why I try to avoid that kind of thing.”
“You have the option not to break hearts,” I point out. I was asking about the tattoos, but if he’s willing to give me more, I’ll take it with open arms.
“I don’t.” Cade sits up in the bed, huffing. “Come sit with me. You shouldn’t be on the floor.”
“I’m fine,” I say. “Besides, I’m afraid you’ll puke on me.”
“I won’t!” Cade whines. When I don’t move, he throws his body back onto the mattress. “It’s bad enough,” he says, eyes focused on the ceiling, “when you end a friends-with-benefits thing. She’s all teary, wants to know why she wasn’t enough. It wasn’t you—it’s never the girl. I’m a fucking heartless asshole who cares more about my career than a chick, and that’s the whole problem.”
“Do you tell them that?” I ask. “The girls you hurt. Do you tell them you’re running away from the love they want to give you because you’re scared?”
“I’m not scared,” Cade says.
“Then what’s your issue? You’re someone’s type, successful. Girls want you.”
“See, the problem is I destroy everything I touch,” he says. “And I don’t want to destroy you, Gigi.”
And just like that, Cade drops his match and my whole world is engulfed in flames.