Toxic

by Rachel Van Dyken

  “Thanks for trusting me with her.”

  I couldn’t look at him.

  So I looked at the floor. “Just, don’t freak her out. She likes to play board games, but you have to move the pieces for her. And the only reason I trust you with her is because…well, you’re you. Besides, she has a thing for guys with light hair and dimples.”

  Wes threw his head back and laughed. “She has good taste, that’s what you mean.”

  I joined in. “Yeah man, the best.”

  “So I’ll see you later at the home then?”

  “Yeah.” I scratched the back of my head. Why the hell was I so nervous? I felt like a parent leaving my child for the first time. Is that what Princess had become to me? Wes was the first person other than Saylor who was going to meet her and I wasn’t even going to be there to see it happen. But, the only way I could actually go out tonight and be with Saylor — be the man she needed me to be — was if I had someone I trusted keeping their eye on Princess.

  And Wes did kind of come along with two of his best security.

  Add them to the security we already had at the Home, and we had six guys who wouldn’t let a soul through the doors if they as much as sneezed in the wrong direction.

  “Go.” Wes pointed to the door. “Just make sure your pants are still on by the end of the night.”

  “As opposed to what? Down by my ankles?”

  “As opposed to what, he asks.” Wes rolled his eyes. “Need I remind you how many compromising positions I’ve walked in on in this room?”

  “Oh that.” I waved my hand into the air. “Water under the bridge. I buried that mask.”

  “Huh?”

  “You said to fuse them together.” I flashed him a triumphant grin and waved goodbye. “So I only put together the good parts. Princess’s favorites, Saylor’s favorites, yours, Lisa’s… the rest of that shit? It was better left behind. Baggage, you would say.”

  “Well, well, well.” Wes clapped. “The student becomes the teacher.”

  “Bye, Sensei.” The door clicked behind me to Wes’s laughter. I had trouble fighting my own smile as I put on my baseball hat and walked down the hall.

  So far, nobody had said much to me. Besides, who actually suspects that they’ve been living next door to a long lost celebrity for four years?

  As unbelievable as it sounds, when you live in the real world, outside of Cali or New York, people don’t give a shit. In LA people are constantly looking for famous people, hoping to catch one as if we’re animals you have to trap or something.

  But put me in Boise, Idaho? Seattle, Washington? They don’t expect it, so they just see a guy tatted up.

  That being said, though, it had only been four years, so I kept the hat low, I didn’t want anything ruining this night with Saylor.

  I’d never pursued a girl before.

  With Princess it had just happened.

  And as for the rest of the girls I slept with — it was the only way to promise myself that Ashton Hyde was gone. He would have never done that. After all, Princess was the second girl I’d ever slept with, and I’d believed I was going to marry her. I’d thought she was it.

  Recreating yourself via turning into a monster? Not the smartest idea I’d ever had — especially considering putting my whole body at risk.

  Shit. I’d even messed up my own suicide.

  I was too naïve to even know what the hell I was doing.

  I‘d cut my wrists the wrong way and hadn’t bled out.

  My first tattoos covered my scars — as best they could.

  Self-consciously I rubbed the scar on my right wrist as the elevator doors closed in front of me.

  Five minutes.

  Around seventy-two steps later… I was in front of Saylor’s door.

  It was just a door.

  But beyond that door?

  Was not just a girl.

  Inhaling, so I didn’t forget to breathe and pass out, I knocked twice and waited.

  The door swung open.

  Saylor was wearing a short black dress with gold high heels. Her hair was pulled back in a low messy bun and her lipstick was red.

  Red.

  Red.

  Red.

  For some reason, repeating it in my head just made me all the more aroused over the fact that those perfect lips, her perfect mouth, was red, and it was going to be pressed right against mine.

  That is if she didn’t impale me with something first — we did have a tendency to fight a bit.

  “You look…” I licked my lips and let my eyes roam over her body for a second time. “Stunning.”

  Her mouth widened into a smile.

  Holy shit.

  I coughed and looked away. Freaking gorgeous was more like it.

  “Thank you.” She stepped toward me, making me naturally step backward and nearly collide with someone else walking down the hall.

  The girl almost face-planted on the wall then flipped me off.

  “Sorry,” I croaked.

  Saylor smirked and locked the door to her room. “So, where are we going?”

  “Ah.” I grabbed her hand. “So the lady’s curious.”

  “The lady’s intrigued.”

  “Intrigued?” I stopped walking. “Not excited?”

  Her poker face told me nothing.

  I traced my finger along her smooth jaw line and then reached for the back of her head, pulling her into my space as I blew a kiss across her lips. “And now? Now are you excited?”

  “You’re getting warmer,” she whispered.

  I sucked on her bottom lip then let my mouth hover over hers as I answered, “I want you to be on fire. Not just warm, but blazing. Not intrigued, but impressed. Not just excited. I want you enthralled. And at the end of the night, what I really want…” I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t kiss her again. “…is for those tears to be washed away from your memory for good.”

  “Why’s that?” Her body arched toward me.

  “I want old memories gone… bad ones. So I can create new ones. Ones so powerful that the old ones don’t even stand a chance.”

  “So what are we waiting for?”

  Smiling, I stepped back and reached for her hand. “Good point.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  He seemed normal but I had so many open-ended questions with absolutely no clue how to get the answers. I was torn between wanting to just have a normal date — and a desire to shake him until all the answers fell from his lips. Even if it hurt to hear, I had to know. —Saylor

  Saylor

  I let him kiss me.

  Oh, who was I kidding? Not kissing him would have been a crime against my own body. I liked him. I more than liked him, and not kissing him just because I was still a bit hurt, upset? That was a total girl move. And I hated girls like that. The whiny types that withheld all things physical until they got their way. Yeah, it also meant that at the end of the day I might need a pint of chocolate ice cream from all the emotional damage done to me, but hey, at least I had one kiss.

  I wasn’t sure when I’d started looking at it like that.

  Maybe it was when he sang his song yesterday afternoon.

  Or maybe it was when my mom started talking about endings and beginnings.

  I was in charge of mine — my end or my beginning. I could end things with him now and hate myself for the rest of my life. Or I could choose to do the scary thing and jump off that cliff right along with him.

  I chose the cliff.

  And the minute I leapt — I knew it was right.

  That’s how risk works. You don’t know it’s the right choice until you’re freefalling, and even then you still have butterflies — but at least you were the one to take that step over the ledge.

  I wasn’t pushed. I was proud of myself, for being able to come to that conclusion — pretty sure I had my mom to thank for that.

  That was me. Going on a date with him.

  In my head, I was sitting at the piano, authoring my own story
, the story Gabe encouraged me to play. And the music — damn, but it was good.

  “You seem deep in thought,” Gabe said once we were a few minutes into our drive. I tried desperately not to look at him. I knew he was still the same guy, but he made me nervous. This guy was different than before, there was a sense of raw vulnerability about him. No layers remained. They’d been peeled back and destroyed.

  “Dangerous. I know.”

  “I’m glad you said yes.” Gabe cleared his throat, steering the car onto the freeway. “And I’m going to start right now.”

  “Start? What do you mean start?”

  “When I was five, I had a pet rat. His name was Thomas. I wanted a train set. My parents got me a rat, go figure. Since the train set I wanted was Thomas, I just decided to name the rat that.” He shrugged, “He got a tumor when I was six. We took him to the vet. He died in my arms.”

  “Gabe, I’m—”

  “Thomas number two was a Chihuahua, who I can only imagine was actually birthed in the pits of hell and then sent to earth to set about destroying every single piece of furniture and every shoe in my bedroom.”

  I covered my face with my hands to keep from laughing. “Did he die?”

  “Of course not.” Gabe’s voice was irritated. “He’s like a cat, has nine lives, maybe more. He’s broken almost every bone in his tiny possessed little body, and is totally blind in one eye. He walks with a limp and sleeps in my old bedroom. Refuses to go anywhere else.”

  Why did I suddenly feel like buying him a nice big dog like a golden retriever or a collie?

  “I got my start doing hair product commercials. My dad always wanted to be an actor but could never make it, so he pushed me into it at an early age. When I was thirteen and doing my first movie, he locked me in my trailer after one of the older actresses approached me and offered her services for oral sex.”

  “Uhhh.”

  “I was twelve freaking years old,” he ground out. “And she was twice my age — literally. I hated my dad a bit after that. He said in the entertainment business I’d never survive if I was innocent.”

  “Gabe—”

  “He introduced me to drugs. At sixteen I’d already done seven movies. I was on my way to burnout when I met Princess. I was dropping my second album and seriously starting to hate my life. It helped that I had Mel — Lisa. She’d had a crush on me when we were little. We were neighbors and all that, but I never even kissed her. I knew who I wanted. And she wanted me too.”

  He cleared his throat.

  Rain pelted against the window.

  “I believed in true love — I still do. Sunsets still take my breath away, pizza makes me a bit sick, but I’ll eat it. I love dancing almost as much as I love playing instruments. I can play almost all instruments just in case you were wondering. It was how I passed my time when my dad would lock me in the room for going against his wishes.”

  “And your mom?” I asked, looking out the window. Where the heck was he taking me? We were officially outside of Seattle.

  “She loves green.” He shrugged. “Anything green. So she let him do what he wanted because she got a happy husband and lots of houses out of the deal.”

  He drove over the floating bridge into Bellevue.

  “I had a twin sister,” he whispered. “She died from SIDS. My mom says I was in the crib with her when it happened. Apparently she’d been dead for about three hours before my mom came in to check on us.”

  My breath hitched.

  “She’d been drinking.” Gabe swore and hit the steering wheel. “I hate the Oregon Ducks.”

  “Okay…”

  “No. Seriously. Hate. Them.” His muscle clenched. “It’s the only damn sweatshirt Princess will wear.”

  I reached across the consul and grabbed Gabe’s free hand, clenching it within my own. “Why is it the only sweatshirt she’ll wear?

  “Because…” His eyes were like glass, he blinked a few times. “It used to be mine. I was wearing it the night she hit the tree.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s the same way with her pink scarf. For some reason the only thing she remembers is that she forgot her pink scarf — not her helmet. I don’t know why she fixates on certain things. But she has to have her pink scarf tied to her wheelchair at all times or she has a meltdown.”

  “And the singing?” I cleared my throat. “Is it the same with the singing?”

  Gabe took the second Bellevue exit that led to the west side. Curious, I looked out the window and tried to keep my heart in check. He was cutting himself open, bleeding himself dry, and waiting for me to either accept or reject him.

  He was brave.

  Braver than me.

  “The minute she hears my voice, she’s taken to someplace safe, different. Stupid, right?”

  I turned and looked at him, focused on his full lips, gorgeous mouth, strong jaw.

  “No.” I squeezed his hand. “Not stupid. If positions were switched, I can imagine, hearing your voice would be the most soothing thing in the world. Like the quiet after a storm, the peace you crave in a lifetime full of noise. You’re her peace.”

  Gabe nodded. “I guess that’s something, right? I both destroy and bring peace?”

  “You didn’t cause the destruction, Gabe. You were just an unfortunate victim — and sometimes that’s worse than being the cause.”

  He nodded, but didn’t say anything as he drove the car around a curvy road and then pulled up to an immaculate house.

  “Where are we?”

  Gabe turned off the car and stared straight ahead. “Seattle was far enough away that it made sense to disappear here, but…” His nostrils flared. “She’d seen this thing on HGTV about homes in Bellevue and fell in love.”

  I looked back at the house. My heart pounded. “Gabe…”

  “I bought it.” He clenched the keys in his hand. “For her. I bought it for her.”

  I didn’t want to know, yet I had to. “Was she able to see it, before?”

  “No.” Gabe’s voice was filled with pain. “She never saw it. I was going to fly her up here as a surprise.”

  We sat in silence. He stared at the house. I stared at him.

  “So.” Gabe nodded. “This is it. You know how people always come with baggage? I don’t have baggage. I have a freaking house. I don’t have a closet full of skeletons. I have seven bedrooms full of them. And I can literally walk up those stairs and open the door and let you see all of them, but I’ll have nothing left. This is the last possible thing I have protecting myself. I have no more masks, no more façades, no jokes, no personalities, nothing. Absolutely nothing. This house? This is it.”

  I released his hand and reached for the door. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

  His head snapped to the side, his eyes narrowing in disbelief. “Pardon?”

  “We didn’t drive all the way out here to stare at a house.” I stepped out onto the gravel. “We’re going in.”

  “Are you sure you want to do that?” Gabe asked, doubt lacing his every word. “This is heavy stuff, Saylor. I wouldn’t blame you for running, for getting back into that car and deciding it wasn’t worth it.”

  “I’m falling.” I shrugged. “Not fallen, as in I’ve already landed, but falling, in the process. I’m falling with you, not jumping after you. Don’t you think it’s about time you let someone share the load?” I offered a small smile. “Besides, who actually likes jumping out of a plane by themselves? Tandem, all the way.”

  “One day…” Gabe whispered. “When my heart is mine again. When I’m not sharing it with a dying girl… I’ll give you everything.”

  “Gabe,” I said, sighing. “Right now? I’m perfectly happy with the pieces. No matter how broken they may be.”

  “Damn, you really mean that, don’t you?”

  “Yeah. I do.” I reached for him.

  He took my hand without hesitation. We walked up the stairs together, slowly approaching a house that was getting bigger and bigger b
y the second.

  From the outside, it was a two story masterpiece. He put the key in the lock and the door creaked open.

  He turned the lights on.

  And I gasped.

  It wasn’t just beautiful, it was out of this world. Like something I’d only ever seen on TV or in the movies.

  Exposed wood beams lined the ceiling, creating a trail from the living room into an open floor plan kitchen. The colors were a combination of white and wood. A stone and copper fireplace dominated the center of the room with a plush white couch wrapped halfway around the front. Splashes of red — throw pillows and blankets — decorated the living room area. I stepped further into the hall and saw another open room, this one with vaulted ceilings.

  And a baby grand piano waited in the middle.

  “Afraid?” Gabe’s voice whispered in my ear as he wrapped his arms around me from behind.

  “Ha.” I exhaled and stared, a bit jealous that he had his own practice room — a happy room I could imagine myself sitting in for hours on end while the roaring fireplace crackled in the background.

  It wasn’t until I took my eyes off the piano that I noticed what was on the walls. It was like watching a movie without sound. Black and white pictures went from left to right, all the way across the room.

  Slowly, I walked up to the first one. Gabe and Kimmy were wrapped around each other kissing.

  I touched her face — the same face he wiped the drool from every single day — and completely lost it.

  The tears wouldn’t stop coming. I cried, and I cried, and then I cried some more. I cried until my body shook. I cried until I had nothing left.

  And Gabe held me.

  The thing about people revealing their pain to you?

  More often than not. It becomes your own.

  And I was wrecked.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Music without passion is merely noise. A life without passion? You may as well be dead. —Gabe H.

  Gabe

  “Shh.” I pulled her into my arms and dragged her to the couch, then I turned on the fireplace in front of us. I was thanking my lucky stars that I’d had a cleaning crew go through the house and air everything out so we weren’t sitting on dust. “You know, you’re going to give me a complex. I’m supposed to be making it so you don’t cry.”