Tripping on a Halo

by Alessandra Torre

  I choked back a laugh, thinking through the many ways to die. A public bar, stocked with bouncers and witnesses, was one of the safest places a person could be. Assuming you didn’t get trampled in a panicked crowd, captured in a freak fire that sealed the doors shut, or involved in a bar brawl, the chances of death were similar to that of a local library. My biggest danger would come when I left the place, which would sure as heck not be with him. “Nah, I’m good.”

  He leaned forward, going in as if for a kiss, and I jerked away when the bristle of his beard brushed against my cheek. “Excuse me!” I shoved my hand against his sternum and raised my voice loud enough to be heard by every bar-hopper in a ten-foot radius. “Go away!”

  His face darkened, a scowl forming, and just like that, my over-friendly ex-con turned into a pissed-off drunk.

  16

  “Okay, where is she?” Nate raised his voice as they entered the sports bar, the noise from the crowd a sharp contrast from the quiet street.

  Declan looked over the crowd, trying to see Nicola’s platinum-blonde hair. He glanced down at his phone. She had started texting him fifteen minutes ago, when they were over at the Ale House, enjoying a bucket of beer and wings. Unlike her normal texts, which were a wide range of begging him for sex, or bitching at him for breaking up with her, this string had been different.

  Are you busy?

  I’m at Bullwinkle’s, and there’s a guy here that won’t leave me alone.

  I lost my purse at Poor Paul’s and don’t have money for cab fare.

  He’d responded, and let her know they were on their way. Paying their tab, they’d headed straight over, battling the downtown crowd to rescue her, a plight that Nate had bitched about the entire time. Declan sent her a text.

  We’re here. Where are you?

  “I swear, it’s like you don’t want to get laid. Those girls at Ale House were ripe for the picking.”

  “They were idiots.” Declan squeezed past a group of coeds, and scanned the high tops by the window. No Nicola.

  “They were drunk college girls. Do you know the next time we’ll have a shot at eighteen-year-old pussy?” Nate dropped his voice on the last word and flashed a smile at the closest woman in apology.

  “Umm… now?” Declan nodded to a group of girls at a six-top. “Go for it.”

  Nate gripped his shoulder, pulling him closer as they moved toward the bar. “All I’m asking is for you to act interested. Smile. You’re like going out with that guy from the Addams Family… the creepy quiet one.”

  “They’re all creepy and quiet.”

  “And… none of them are getting laid. Point made.”

  His phone buzzed and Declan glanced back down, a text from Nicola popping up.

  I found a ride. Sowry.

  She had attached four emojis of varying emotions, from teary to laughing out loud. Wow. He held out the phone and let Nate read it. His gaze bounced from the phone’s screen to Declan. “Seriously?” They rounded the corner, moving past a spirited argument on the Jaguars defense strategy and Declan’s arm shot out, stopping Nate. “Wait.”

  His eyes settled on the tiny girl and the big man. That familiar blonde hair. Her finger was jabbing up into his chest. His stance was intimidating and advancing forward. The bartender shouted at them. A crowd was forming. Uneasy looks were darting between the onlookers.

  Nate cursed. “Holy shit. Is that—”

  Declan ignored the question and stepped forward, shouldering past a drunk jersey.

  “You think you can just—” The blonde’s words cut off when the tatted-up asshole reached forward and grabbed her hair. Declan’s hand shot out, wrapping around the man’s wrist and he squeezed, catching the guy’s attention. Nate’s fist connected with the man’s nose, the crack audible, the grip on Autumn’s hair released. She turned her head, saw Declan, and froze.

  Her Facebook photo didn’t do her justice, and there was nothing like a damsel in distress to light every masculine bone in his body on fire. Maybe it was the three beers that he’d just had, the adrenaline rush from the confrontation, or the frustration over Nicola’s flakiness. Whatever the reason, in this moment, they didn’t feel like enemies. She looked beautiful, he felt protective, and the urge to yank her away from this guy and carry her out of this bar was overwhelming.

  The stunned look dropped from her face, and with her next words, the crazy came back out to play. “Do you know how many people die in bar fights every year!” It wasn’t a question, it was a scream of accusation, the sort his mother would level at him when she found his football uniform on the floor of the bathroom, or her embroidered hand towels covered in grease.

  Something plowed into the back of his leg and he fell into her, their bodies colliding with the edge of the bar. He held her up and looked over his shoulder, watching as the guy ducked a punch from Nate, then staggered upright, blood dripping from his nose.

  “We have to get you out of here!” She held her head as if she was in pain, yelling the words in his ear and he fought to remind himself that she was the enemy. It was a struggle when the heat of her body was flush against him, her soft curves taking his mind in a hundred directions. Her hair tickled against his neck and when she leaned in to yell at him, he wanted to tighten his hand on the small of her back and pull her closer—

  He dragged his mind back, and attempted to respond to her words, which were ludicrous in themselves. They had to get him out of here? She was the one in danger. There was a loud crash as Nate took the man back to the ground. He followed the action, jerking his foot back when the guy’s tattooed hand clenched around his ankle, his face twisted in anger.

  “The slut’s not worth it,” he spat out.

  “Let’s GO!” Autumn screamed in Declan’s ear, twisting away from him and stepping over the biker. Lifting one impossibly high-heeled shoe, she stomped on the man’s thigh, causing him to wheeze in pain, and the surrounding crowd to cheer in approval. She held out her hand for Declan’s, her face pinched and worried. “HURRY!”

  It was as if she thought the place was going to explode, a time bomb winding down, each second precious. She frantically waved her hand at him and he took it, letting her pull him through the crowd, out the revolving door and finally, into the quiet night.

  “I had it under control.” Autumn Jones knotted her arms across her chest and glared at him. “You shouldn’t have come over. It was too dangerous.” She turned, rubbing at her forehead with a wince, and he took a moment to get a better look at her. Shapely legs. A killer ass. She was wearing a potato sack of a top that completely hid her upper body, but he remembered the curves she’d pressed against him.

  He looked away.

  “Aren’t you worried about your friend?”

  He chuckled. “Nah. Nate can take care of himself. He grew up in a boxing gym. This is his opportunity to show off to all of the ladies.” He glanced back at the bar, the foggy windows hiding whatever was happening inside.

  She stepped forward with a purpose and came to a stop just in front of him. He watched with interest as she peered up at him critically. She reached for his face and he held his breath, surprised when her fingers gently gripped his jaw, moving his head to the left, and then the right, examining every inch of his face. When she finally looked at him, her eye contact direct and unemotional, he felt something in his chest flip.

  “How are you feeling?”

  Confused. Conflicted. Like I should be dragging you down to the police station, but I’d rather take you to my bed. He wet his lips. “Fine.”

  “You didn’t hit your head? He didn’t inject you with anything? You feel normal?” Her hands moved to his ears, pinching across the edges of them as if testing for lumps, then patted down his neck, her thumbs brushing over his lymph nodes. It shouldn’t have been erotic, but his dick was confused. “Huh?” She looked at him pointedly, and he struggled to follow her questions.

  “Inject me with anything? No. Why would he inject me with anything?”

>   She removed her hands and he resisted the urge to step closer to her. Fuck, Nate was right. It had been too long since he’d been with a woman. That was the only explanation for why he wasn’t running in the other direction from this girl. What had Nate compared him to? A creepy, quiet ghoul. He delivered his best charming smile to combat the image.

  She glared at him. “You have to be more careful.”

  She was weird. Adorably so. And gorgeous. Nate had been right. How had Declan never noticed that? Then again, he’d never been so close to her before, had never interacted with her, or seen the cute little way her face scrunched up when she was perturbed.

  A car drove by, rap music thumping, and she glanced at the street, then pushed him farther from the curb, shoving him back until his shoulders hit the brick building. The aggression was hot and he let her maneuver him, his hands gently settling on her hips. It was the perfect blend of ingredients for a kiss, and he dropped his head, seeking out her lips.

  “What are you doing?” She swatted away his hands. “Oh my God, is it this dress? First that guy, and now you?” She leaned forward, sniffing the air. “Are you drunk?”

  “A little?” The comparison to that tattooed asshole was alarming, and he leaned against the wall, critically re-examining his actions. “I’m sorry. I read you wrong. I thought—” I thought that since you’ve stalked me for the last six months, that you had some sort of a crush on me. Apparently, you’re just fucking crazy. He swallowed the intended words and let the sentence hang.

  She didn’t let it go. “You thought… What?”

  Fuck it. “You’ve been stalking me. I assumed you had a romantic fixation on me. So, I thought you’d like it if I kissed you.” It had sounded much better in his head. Less cocky and more debonair.

  “Oh my God…” She flexed her hands, like little T-Rex claws, her eyes pinched shut, and he had a pretty good idea that she was envisioning his balls in those hands, a visualization that made him shift uncomfortably. “You...” Her eyes opened. “You’re…” She looked away, visibly stumped.

  “I’m… right?” He guessed.

  “No.” She shook her head violently, her blonde hair swinging. “But I do understand how you might have been confused over the occasional times you may have seen me before.”

  “The occasional times I may have seen you before…” He shook his head. “Wow. That’s an interesting way to put it.”

  She fell silent, and he waited for her to offer an explanation, something other than her romantic obsession with him, which, apparently, didn’t exist.

  “Okay,” she countered. “I admit, I follow you around.”

  “Uh, yeah. I know. Everyone within five blocks of my office knows. There are photos of you at the security desk of our building.”

  She blew out an irritated breath. “I just… worry about you.”

  Worry about him? This was interesting. He readjusted his stance against the building. “In what way?”

  She looked away, and it was the first glimpse of her vulnerability. A vulnerability that made him even more interested in whatever it was she was about to say. She sighed. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but that boat sailed a long time ago.” He smiled to soften the blow and she caught the gesture, her own lips turning ruefully up at the corners.

  She laughed and clamped her hand over her mouth to stop the sound. “Oh my God,” she moaned. “You do. You think I’m crazy.” She pivoted, coming to stand beside him, and leaned back against the brick, mirroring his position. “It’s okay. My sister thinks I’m crazy too.”

  “Because…?”

  She groaned, dropping her head in her hands. “Do you remember—” she stopped. “Of course you remember.” She turned to meet his eyes, and she really was beautiful. Someone like Nate would have found her too small. He liked curvy women as tall as he was. But for Declan, she was perfect. Soft and beautiful. Delicate yet strong. Feminine. Irresistible.

  And … crazy, he reminded himself. Batshit crazy.

  “You know the night of the crash? The plane crash?”

  He nodded, unsurprised that she was aware of it. It had been all over the news, their neighborhood swarmed by national news vans, crime scene tape and gawkers. It’d been weeks before you could even drive down Lake Drive without going through a three-ring circus of coverage.

  “I was there that day. My sister lives in your neighborhood, and we were holding a Celebration of Life for my mom.” She tilted her head back, her gaze on the night sky, and he could sense the pain radiating off her, still raw and unhealed. “I had a headache and went for a walk, just to get away from everyone. And then I saw you.” She turned her head to meet his gaze. “And I felt something. Not like hearts and romance,” she hurried to finish as if my confusion needed instant remedying. “It was more like this alarm inside my head. It was so intense that I thought I was having a panic attack. With the grief and the stress over my mom…” The door to the bar opened, a group spilling out, and Declan stiffened, praying Nate wasn’t among them. They turned left, stumbling away, and she watched them go, then returned her attention to him. “But the feeling, the alarm, it seemed tied to you somehow.”

  He turned to face her, readjusting his position against the brick, and tucked his hands in the pockets of his jeans to keep himself from reaching for her. He tried to follow her disjointed explanation of events. “I don’t get it. What does this internal alarm have to do with anything? You think you knew the plane was going to crash?”

  “Sort of.” She frowned. “I… it was more that something was going to happen to you. The plane crash just happened to be what was going to happen to you.”

  “But I was fine.”

  “You were fine because that dog attacked you.” She clearly enunciated the words as if they meant something. “The dog that I let out.”

  She looked at him expectantly, as if she’d just revealed something big and he should be easily connecting these dots.

  He stayed silent, working through them, and then sort of figured out what she was saying. “So, you let out the dog. Because you thought something was going to happen to me. And you’re saying that, if you hadn’t let out the dog, that the plane would have hit me?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what does that have to do with you stalking me?”

  She sighed, and he felt a combination of stupidity and arousal, which made a lethal combination.

  17

  He didn’t get it. Go figure that I was tasked with protecting some eye candy who turned out to be dumb as a bag of rocks. I cleared my throat, frustrated by his blank stare. “LOOK.” I clapped my hands in the air between us, a trick I’d seen Ansley use to get Paige and Caleb’s attention. He blinked, which I took as a good sign. “I’m your guardian angel, okay? I let out the dog, he stopped you from moving forward and into the plane’s trajectory.” I moved two fingers along an imaginary path and used my other hand as the plane, letting it swoop down and … I made the explosion sound with my mouth and did a complicated sparkly hand motion that Caleb would have understood perfectly. Declan squinted at me.

  “Got it?” I raised my eyebrows.

  “You think you’re my guardian angel?” he asked slowly.

  “Yep.” I nodded, irritated that it was such a ridiculous title. I swear, if it had a title like “Protector of Life”, it’d be taken seriously. It was around this point in the story where I lost Ansley. Granted, her response was a little different. She had started shaking with laughter before making a fake call to a mental institution, but I preferred that to this, his silent appraisal, which gave me absolutely no clue of what he was thinking.

  “Huh.” He pushed off the wall and stood, and I had the distinct impression that he was about to turn and madly sprint away, his hands jack-knifing, slick sole shoes peppering along the asphalt. “So… you’ve been following me around to let out more dogs?”

  “In a hypothetical sense. I don’t expect any more pla
nes to crash down on you, but I do think you are coming in contact with danger, and I think I can anticipate and hopefully stop something bad from occurring to you.” Maybe he wasn’t about to run. Maybe he understood what I was saying and wouldn’t think I was crazy. Maybe this would be a successful interchange between two adults without words like ‘psychopath’ or ‘crazy lady’ being thrown into the mix.

  “And how’s protecting me been working out for you?” The corner of his mouth twitched and he definitely wasn’t running. He seemed amused by the idea, which I could work with. Amused people didn’t call the police. Amused people could be protected. He raised one brow as if it had been a serious question, and I considered the inquiry.

  “Not great,” I admitted. “I—”

  “Shit, there you are.” His friend approached from the left, his hand rubbing over the back of his head.

  Declan watched him approach. “Where’d you come from?”

  Nate gestured behind him. “They made me leave out the back. I walked around the block and back up front.” He looked over at me. “Ahhh. Autumn Jones. We finally meet. I’m Nate.”

  So, the Facebook invite hypothesis was true. Declan had known my name. And so, apparently, did his inner circle. Great.

  Nate extended a hand with a grin. “You know, you’re quite the local celebrity. I’ve got a sister who’s dying to meet you.”

  “Nate,” Declan warned.

  Nate’s smile widened. “What? She does.” His hair was mussed, the top button of his shirt undone, but I couldn’t see any damage, though there was a smear of blood across the front of his blue shirt. He followed my gaze and shrugged. “All his, none of mine.”

  “Awesome,” Declan drawled. “We were so worried.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Nate stepped back, his head ricocheting from Declan to me. “Did I… interrupt something? Were you two having a moment?”