Oscar gives Spider a serious look. “No problem. Just don’t be hurting my girl again . . . or I will kill you.” Before either of us can reply, he’s darting to his bedroom and shutting the door.
I inhale, mortified as Spider looks at me, his eyes dark with an emotion I can’t read. Maybe I don’t want to read it.
He wipes his mouth, his gaze intently studying me. “Do you want me to leave? I’m assuming you only asked me in because of Oscar.”
I swallow, my chest hurting as I take in his chiseled face, the way his perfectly sculpted cheekbones accentuate his jawline. My fingers ache to brush his hair off his face. Fuck. He’s ripping my heart open all over again . . . just by sitting in front of me. “Yes.”
He nods, a look of understanding on his face as he stands.
I stand with him, my hand clenching as I speak the words my brain couldn’t form last night. “The truth is, I don’t want to see you again. What you did to me . . . how you hurt me . . . it can never be undone. I just want to forget it ever happened, but I can’t do that when I see you.”
He nods. “Before I do, there’s something I want you to know.”
“What?”
He sighs and opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He bites his lip and rakes a hand through his hair then rubs at the scruff on his jaw. He’s fumbling, trying to find the words, but he can’t.
My eyes go to the rose tattoo I saw last night, on the top of the hand with LOST on the knuckles. “Is that about me?”
He looks down at it. “Yeah. I get one”—he takes a deep breath—“every year we’re apart.”
I don’t believe him. My face feels hot.
He exhales. “The first year, I got a rose on my back. The hand was next.” He pushes up the sleeve on his navy sweater and shows me the inside of his arm, where my name is written in tiny script along his bicep. “I got this on year three.”
I take deep breaths, processing his words.
He stands there, fidgeting.
“And this year? What did you get?”
“Nothing. I’m waiting . . .”
“For what?” I say, my voice shaky, and I want to yank it back. I don’t want him to see how his words are affecting me, how his vulnerability is tugging at me.
He bites his lip and looks at me long and hard. “For you. This is the year I get you back.”
I gasp and take a step back. “You have no right to assume that—no right.”
“I know.”
“I have a life without you—a perfect one.”
“I know.” He sticks his hands in his skinny jeans.
“I’m with Trenton—”
“Trust me, I know.”
“And you can’t expect to just waltz in here and pick back up—
“I don’t.”
“You hurt me!” I yell at him, tired of his calm. I need him to be just as angry as I am. “You slept with someone else immediately after almost sleeping with me! You left me in Dallas after you promised you’d take me to LA. You’re a liar, a horrible, horrible liar, and I hate you for it.” My words are bitter and harsh, and it feels good to get them out, to say all the things that have built up inside me since he left.
He swallows, his face working with emotion, looking conflicted. “It’s just . . . I knew what kind of girl you were, tough and strong. I knew if you really wanted me, you’d find a way, and I couldn’t let that happen. That’s why I hurt you, Rose.” His voice sounds as if it’s been dragged over gravel. “I . . . I promised Father I’d leave you alone.”
“But why?”
He faces me head on, his face like stone. “He gave me a half a million dollars to leave Dallas and start my career. The condition was I had to leave you behind.”
I close my eyes. “And look at you now . . . you’re famous.”
He shakes his head. “No, Rose, look at you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You graduated NYU summa cum laude. You’re in graduate school. You’re living the life you wanted.”
Tears prick my eyes at the idea that he knows things about me that I’ve never told him, as if he’s kept up with me . . . but I hurriedly blink them away. I can’t be soft around him. It hurts too much. “You have no right to assume I wouldn’t have had those things with you in LA. You made the decision to take that money for you because you realized I wasn’t worth the trouble. I would have just gotten in the way of the things you really wanted to do—fucking anything that moved, coke up your nose, whatever.”
His face pales. “I deserve that. I left you with no explanation, and that wasn’t right. I’m sorry for Dallas. I wasn’t the man you needed.”
“You think you are now?” Disbelief is evident in my tone as I glare at him.
Who does he think he is?
Does he think he can just stroll right back into my life as if the past four years didn’t even happen?
He studies me carefully, his gaze brushing over my face and lingering on my lips. “You’re mine, Rose, always will be.”
And then he’s gone before I can even form a response.
Rose
IT’S WEDNESDAY NIGHT WHEN I snap awake at the sound of thunder rolling across the tall buildings in Manhattan.
Perfect, just what I need—and on a night when Oscar is staying over with Axe.
I check my phone and see that it’s one in the morning and actually Thursday. Ugh. I clamber out of bed in the darkness and make my way to the bathroom. It’s been a weird week and has everything to do with Spider and his you’re mine, Rose comment on Sunday.
I stare at myself in the mirror, seeing the dark circles from the lack of sleep this week.
Just then a bolt of lightning flashes across the sky and the strike reverberates through the concrete walls in my apartment. A scream escapes me as the power goes out, plunging me into total darkness. I hate storms since the night Mama was killed.
Stumbling around in the dark, I make my way back to my bedroom, where I promptly stub my toe and yelp. Dammit! Hopping on one foot and cursing, I manage to find the nightstand drawer where I keep my little flashlight in case of the zombie apocalypse . . . or a blackout.
But, it’s not there. Oscar. He went on a camping trip last month with Axe and asked to borrow it. I yell at him in my head.
Fumbling around on my pillows, I find my phone and use the flashlight on it, but I know it won’t last long since my battery is low. Walking to the balcony door, I gather the nerve to peek out, trying to ignore the harsh boom from another strike of lightning. Blackness for a city block meets my gaze. No red lights, no storefront lights, no streetlights, nothing. The lightning must have hit a transformer somewhere.
It’s eerie in the city, and I shiver again.
Candles. I need candles.
I’m in the kitchen, rummaging through drawers in search of Oscar’s supply of scented candles from Bath & Body Works and matches. I’m not having any luck and when I bump my head on an open cabinet door, I curse a blue streak.
To make matters worse, all I find are candles and no matches. Aggravated and fighting a freak-out, I decide to just forget it and go huddle under the blankets on my bed while praying for the storm to pass soon.
A knock sounds at the door, and I yelp.
“Rose? Are you okay?”