Devious Wingman: A Cocky Hero Club Novel

by Hagen, Casey

  26

  I gave myself ten minutes to lose it.

  Ten.

  Five wasn’t long enough.

  Anything over ten and tears would ravage my face beyond repair, and I wouldn’t wear this sorrow.

  Not yet.

  I just needed enough time to release the pressure building inside so it didn’t choke me entirely. Humiliation burned over my skin. Heartbreak filled the empty places I hadn’t even noticed I had.

  Dragging air past my dry throat, my heartbeat in my ears, but not enough to drown out my soul’s cry of frustration.

  I slumped, gripping the dresser edge for support as I let it move through me. The tender throb of having something I wanted for so long in my hands for the briefest of time before having it snatched away.

  Home.

  When I got home, I could let them endlessly fall.

  I packed up my things, my little cabin I barely got to know, reduced to a blur before my burning eyes.

  Grief so consuming it wrapped around me, relentlessly pulled at my resolve, doing everything it could to drag me to an endless pit of misery. It tried to steal my threads of control, but no—no, I wouldn’t lose one more piece of me to circumstances set in stone.

  The past stole so much already. And what it didn’t, I stupidly gave.

  Reaching into the bottom of the drawer, one last item stared back at me, mocking me. My fingers froze right before grasping the familiar fabric.

  Maybe Falcon and I weren’t so different after all.

  Lifting the worn, achingly familiar fabric to my face, I breathed it in. Falcon’s shirt no longer smelled like him, but had its own scent, one I associated with holding on to memories of him, how he made me feel and hope.

  So much hope.

  I accused him of holding on to ghosts, and here I was clinging to a dream.

  One I wasn’t meant to have.

  Growing up hurt.

  Accepting defeat shredded me, endangering everything I believed and held close to my heart about myself, the world, and love. Loss swelled, a looming dark presence threatening to change me into something unfamiliar.

  Maybe even someone who couldn’t give lovers happily ever afters.

  Doubts crept in, shaking my delicate confidence.

  By keeping his shirt, was I keeping the memory of him, the dream of us alive even as those uncertainties crushed my chest until I suffocated with it?

  No.

  I knew who I was without him.

  It’s not what I wanted, but I knew her. She’d be okay.

  But without weddings and all they stood for—hope, dreams, and love—all that remained was a girl with a few quick jokes, a forced smile, and a barren soul.

  My heart near bursting, struggling for every single breath, I dropped the shirt into the drawer. Even as I stood, I had to fight not to reach for it. Panic bubbled, leaving me grabbing ahold of the bed to keep from stumbling to the floor.

  Let it come, then let it go.

  Out of the corner of my eye I spotted my sketches. With everything else packed, I reached for my lifeline, my sketchbook, and turned my back on the past one last time, letting it go the way I told him I would.

  Focusing on the feel of the hot sun as it washed over me on its climb higher into the sky and the warm breeze dancing over my skin and fluttering my hair over my bare shoulders, I soaked up the last pieces of Arizona while I drove to Dustin and Sierra’s office, hoping I’d find them there.

  Eyes straight ahead, I deliberately ignored the other cabins, the fork in the cart path where it broke away in the direction of the cave, the Mexican sunflower field, and the field next to it with the remnants of our last night at The Hideaway on Sunflower Hill.

  I left a part of me in that field. A piece I could only find here. I couldn’t bring myself to regret it, even if this was the consequence.

  Arriving at the main building, I ducked inside, the door snapping shut behind me, and the echo announcing my arrival.

  Sierra glanced up with a smile, until she saw my face.

  Don’t lose it.

  “Hey, everything okay?” she asked, rounding her desk to meet me.

  “It will be. Something came up so I’m heading out early. I wanted to make sure to give this to you and Dustin before I go,” I said, handing her the sketchbook.

  “What is it?” she asked as she flipped it open.

  “Oh, just a few tools for your arsenal.”

  She flipped through page after page, her eyes growing round with surprise, her lips curving with delight. I watched ideas spark to life and play over her face as she studied each sketch and knew I did the right thing.

  If I never saw these people again, I’d remember this.

  Just this.

  Today I made someone smile.

  Today, I made someone see the possibilities.

  Tomorrow, she’d make someone’s dream moment so much better with the knowledge.

  Someday, when some young bride or groom stumbled across this place in their search, they wouldn’t have to dismiss it as too big, too fancy, too extravagant for the intimate event they secretly dreamed of. They’d know there was a place for their dream here too…even for as little as two people who wanted to promise forever to each other.

  “These are incredible. My God, the things you found here.”

  “You have so much potential to make dreams come true. I hope I can be part of it, but if not, there’s no reason for these to go to waste. Use them with my blessing.”

  “I have a feeling I can’t do them the justice you can. This isn’t just the vision of a wedding planner. This is someone in love.”

  I swallowed hard, a broken laugh slipping from my lips. “If only love was enough.”

  She winced. “Aww, honey, you want to talk about it?”

  I couldn’t speak so I shook my head.

  Sierra’s eyes turned soft and a bit sad. She reached for me, but when her eyes met mine, she let her hand fall. “Fair enough. What can I do to help?”

  “I need to get to Phoenix to catch a plane,” I said on a wave of relief. If she touched me right now, I don’t know what I’d do. A hug would absolutely obliterate me.

  She reached for her cell and hit a button. “Consider it done.”

  Inside of twenty minutes, Bryce had arrived, loaded my things, and we headed along State Route 87 toward Phoenix.

  I chickened out and sent a text to Graham and Soraya telling them I’d see them back in New York. Okay, so maybe not so much chickening out…maybe I just recognized my limit.

  Soraya had been blowing up my phone for the past ten minutes despite telling her I was fine, but I was not ready to be trapped on a small plane with Falcon for endless hours.

  She wanted more details, but I couldn’t memorialize our fall in a trite text.

  My phone buzzed one more time against my thigh so I powered it off and dropped it in my purse.

  “So what happened? Was it that guy, Falcon?” Bryce asked as he hit the gas to pass a tractor riding the edge of the road.

  “I waited him out. Eventually, he finally opened up. So I let him say stuff.”

  “And this is the result?” Bryce said with a grimace. “Did you forget the part where you’re supposed to kiss him silly?”

  I started to laugh, but the sound died on a painful sob. Every mile under the tires racked up the distance between us, and this time, I had nothing left.

  Not even his shirt.

  “Yeah,” I whispered. “Something like that.”

  A kiss was no match for the hell Falcon had built a home in.

  With a simple nod, his face transformed, his eyes full of understanding. Reaching out he took my hand and held it there on the console between us all the way to the airport while silent tears blazed hot trails over my cheeks.

  * * *

  I didn’t have to see them to know they’d arrived. Scathing resentment rolled off them as soon as they stepped into sight. I stood at my full height the way I’d been trained, the hab
it second nature despite the sense of humiliation and shame making surviving from heartbeat to heartbeat sheer agony.

  When they crossed the tarmac and stopped at the bottom of the steps to the plane, I had to bite my tongue, the metallic taste of blood flooding my mouth as I fought the urge to ask if Emory was okay.

  Like I hadn’t listened to her heart breaking through the sound of her tortured voice as she held on to me and said goodbye.

  Better now than later.

  I kept telling myself we would recover from one night.

  But ten, twenty…with every one we’d get in deeper and deeper. Eventually, I’d find a way to hurt her. It’s what I did. It’s what I’d always done.

  After all, I’d broken her entire family.

  Graham’s hard glare promised retribution, but it was Soraya’s look making me wonder if it were wise to sit with my back to her on the plane. Her look all but guaranteed if I was left alone with her for any length of time, she was going to set my balls on fire and roast fucking marshmallows while I writhed and burned.

  Hawk glanced behind them, up at me, and back at Graham and Soraya. “Where’s Emory?”

  “On a plane out of Phoenix thanks to your boy here,” Soraya said, hitching a thumb at me and pursing her lips before stomping up the steps.

  Graham slid his sunglasses off and hooked them on his pocket. Head tilted, he squinted at me. “You remember what I said.”

  I nodded.

  I might have blown this whole deal for Hawk. They’d signed a contract with Morgan Industries, but a man like Graham, with immense power, money, and influence, he had lawyers who had lawyers who had lawyers of their own and with one call, he’d turn the whole army of them on Hawk Air if he had to in order to get out of it.

  But if I left, which was all but a foregone conclusion, maybe Hawk and Penn could salvage this. They could hire new pilots while they kept tapping into part time help.

  “Listen, Hawk—”

  “Not now. We have a flight.”

  I’d earned his curt words. To the point, impersonal, and hard, they served as the death blow to our friendship—I added it to the many deaths on my conscience.

  It had been all of five hours since I woke up with Emory curled up next to me, with her fingers dancing over my stomach, her thigh tossed over my outstretched legs, and the smile in her voice when she mumbled “good morning.”

  Five hours.

  One mistake obliterated how many lives? Strained or broke how many relationships?

  We silently went through preflight checks, the very picture of professionalism. I got lost in the task, grabbing the welcome distraction from the mountain of betrayal I’d hauled onto the plane.

  In minutes, we sat ready for takeoff. All we needed was the clearance over the radio before taxiing to the end of the runway.

  Rigid and closed off, Hawk sat next to me, no eye contact, no idle chitchat while we waited, no jovial preflight captain’s greeting. Instead he gave the standard forgettable greeting and announcements to the two livid passengers.

  I kept my focus on the plane, on a machine I could predict and control. I clung to the familiar and did everything I could to shove the memories made here in some compartment in the back of my mind.

  I could torture myself with them later.

  And I would.

  Cleared for takeoff, we powered down the runway, the plane vibrating with energy under us, the engines whirring as we increased the throttle and lifted off the asphalt, leaving Payson behind.

  But not my mistakes. Those wrapped around me wherever I went. They stood between me and anyone I dared get close to.

  This right here was proof why the fuck I shouldn’t get near anyone. I didn’t need to pick up the bottle the way my father had every single day. I never once had to throw a punch or swing a belt.

  Nah, as the next generation Malone, I raised the bar. I broke truth into thousand-piece puzzles and bet on the people around me being too stupid to solve them.

  I relied on the puzzle’s complexity for my obscurity.

  I played it one step forward, two steps back. Taking what I wanted before stepping out again, retreating to safety, while I left everyone I cared about spinning in the storm I left behind, taking hit after hit, leaving them more vulnerable even as I selfishly shored up my defenses.

  I made them doubt themselves and their intuition, leaving them to eventually find out after they moved on that what I’d done to them had a ripple effect and permeated all other relationships coming after.

  When I saw Emory again, I chose to operate on the fringes of fair play. Watching and waiting, I struck when it was easiest and would cost me the least. I swooped in and took what I wanted with no real respect for Hawk or Emory and what they stood to lose when I did.

  My first taste of family had been inside the walls of Ethan and Emory’s house and I destroyed it. Then when I was lucky enough to find a family again, the same, yet a bit different with Hawk and Penn, I destroyed it just the same.

  The least I could do was save them the trouble of forcing me out. I knew where the door was, and the minute we hit the ground, I’d make use of it.

  27

  Flights had all been covered for the following week according to the schedule in my email the morning after we arrived home.

  By Sunday night, another email hit, this time, a warning the office would be closed through Wednesday for construction.

  Yeah, eradicating my existence from the company.

  And I got it. I did. I had no one to blame but myself.

  I fully expected the next email to be some sort of paperwork ousting me from the company, demanding my resignation, an offer to buy me out, whatever.

  I didn’t care anymore. If I didn’t care, it couldn’t hurt.

  I’d found my utopia in oblivion.

  For the first time since enlisting with Ethan, I didn’t want to fly.

  Fuck if I knew what to do about it.

  So used to breaking everyone else, I never once considered what the hell I’d do if I finally broke myself.

  Anger fueled by self-loathing kept me in a constant state of motion. Pacing, running, boxing, swimming…anything to plunge my body into exhaustion so maybe I’d sleep for more than thirty minutes here and there.

  Five days into my self-imposed prison, I drove to her house.

  Yeah, first rate asshole I am, I went over there only to find her place completely dark.

  No subdued light from a lamp, the place completely devoid of energy, her picture window through the tree branches lay desolate.

  A tremor moved through me, wiping away the defiant shield I used to avoid the pain. Struggling to breathe, my hands gripped the wheel like a lifeline.

  An uneasy silence slithered in and surrounded me. Eerily still, a dark, unfeeling void loomed.

  There’d never been a day since I met her when I didn’t feel her. Even with how many years we spent apart, I swear I felt her.

  Until this moment.

  Ethan’s annoying little sister with the freckles who twirled endlessly to Taylor Swift songs pouring through her earbuds, the girl who’d become the center of my universe from her very first smile, she was gone.

  Like Ethan.

  Adrenaline spiked through my veins. Not the kind I’d grown used to when flying. No, instead, this energy snapped and fractured in a hundred different directions, leaving me almost manic with the force of it.

  Gray and cold, the world blurred before me. The skies opened up and cold, pelting rain pounded the earth, and still the stains of my past held fast and true, offering no mercy.

  I skidded to a stop in my driveway. In the half hour ride, mania became jagged hysteria with a boulder of cold dread sitting in the pit of my stomach, crowding my lungs, making it impossible to take a deep breath.

  Light-headed from the short gasps racking my body, I dragged myself up the flight of stairs to my door.

  My keys clattered to the floor. My hands shook and cold sweat coated my rain-soaked
skin. Gripping the doorknob, I grabbed the keys and tried again, my muttered oaths echoing in the hallway.

  Confession hadn’t broken the chains. If anything, they held me tighter to every nightmare I carried.

  My confession stole the light.

  Any whisper of a chance I’d held in my steely grip all these years snatched away with it.

  Pushing through the door, I collapsed against the table, gripping the edge as I struggled against the looming horizon of a life without her.

  Without even a shred of hope for one more look, touch, word, or smile.

  She’s here. She’s not gone, she’s here.

  We laid Ethan to rest a decade ago. But I never let go. I held on so fucking tight to him I let it destroy every good thing to come after.

  I did this. All of it. Me. Just me.

  The knock on my door broke through my panic attack, and I whipped around, a prayer whispered on my lips for the impossible when I didn’t even realize I knew how to pray anymore.

  I caught the edge of something black a fraction of a second before pain exploded in my jaw, knocking me off my feet and onto the edge of the table before I hit the floor, taking a chair with me on the way down.

  “Son of a bitch.” I gasped and grabbed my jaw and shifted it back and forth.

  “Now we’re even. Get up, fucker. We’ve got some drinking to do,” Hawk said, looming over me with a hand out.

  I sucked in a huge gulp of air, the band squeezing my chest loosening a notch, his punch solving everything…and nothing.

  He hauled me off the floor and looked me up and down. “Jesus. You look—damn. You deserved to pay, but if I realized you’d done this to yourself, I might’ve thought twice about taking a swing.”

  “Like what?” I said, my voice sounding as though it crawled over broken glass through broken glass on its way out of me.

  “Like you were gang-banged by Beetlejuice and all his fucking dead friends,” he said as he studied me. “Shit.”

  “I fucked this up in every way possible.”

  “Yeah, you did. Because of you, I took Cory’s bony knee in the fucking junk too so you know what? My regret about the punch? Gone. Turns out women don’t like to find out you had intentions of diddling one chick on a trip, but settled for another,” he said, handing me a beer.