Color Me Pretty

by Celeste, B.

  Dallas was a lot of things, and truthful was always one. It was why I kept him on my payroll, always offering him bonuses for doing things beyond what he signed up for. Digging. Investigative work. When he signed the contract, it was to look after Adele. Drive her. Keep an eye out to ensure she was safe. Despite her not using the car much, they did form somewhat of a friendship. Normally that would have pissed me off, especially because Dallas is younger than me. Hell, he has a lot more going for him than I do married or not. But I knew better than to think Della would do anything with him because of the ring on his finger. I knew she wouldn’t do anything because of me. And maybe that was the problem. I was forty. Angry. Divorced. Bitter at the world. What the fuck could I offer her other than misery and sage advice when the moment called for it? I gave her one moment to make her choice, a spontaneous decision that led to more. And I wanted even more than that.

  I needed that night and all the fucking moments that came after.

  Her scent.

  Her pleas.

  Her body.

  Her heart.

  But part of me didn’t want her to know that because I was going to drag Della down with me, drowning her in the blanket of misery my mind led to even when I was happiest with her. It was inevitable. But us? Fuck. Weren’t we inevitable too? Wasn’t that what was building?

  “Do me a favor,” I told him. “Get me a meeting with McAllister. One on one. Somewhere private. He and I have a lot to discuss.”

  “Are you sure that’s wise?” he doubted.

  I stared at the list of names in front of me again before pulling out a carton of cigarettes from my desk and lighting one up between my lips. “Not at all. But I have nothing to lose.”

  We both knew that was a lie though.

  He watched me for a moment longer before turning to the door, one hand on the knob as he hesitantly said, “I’ll do it, but consider what it could mean for everyone else.”

  Della came to mind as I absorbed the nicotine my lungs demanded. I’d told her countless times I’d quit—that I’d try. But I also told her I’d be there for her whenever she needed me.

  I was a fucking liar.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Della

  One, two, three, four, five, si—

  “Crap,” I hissed, stumbling on my feet on the second turn. Sweat dripped down my forehead as I waited for the right note to drop before starting again. Without Tiffany, the stress wasn’t nearly as bad, but suddenly the determination to get it right was tenfold.

  My mother always used to tell me I was too strong headed for my own good. “It’s your strongest trait and your biggest downfall, sweet Della.”

  How many times did she tell me it was okay not to be perfect? I knew I wasn’t better than everyone, even if there were people in my life who thought I was. Lips twitching, I swiped at my skin and rested my hands on my hips while trying to catch my breath. For a microsecond, I’d been glad she wasn’t here to witness what I was putting myself through, but that feeling quickly diminished and was replaced with guilt, shame, and mourning.

  What the hell was wrong with me?

  Bending to grab my water, I startled when I saw a tall, broad figure at the doorway watching me. Theo.

  “That was…” He leaned against the doorjamb with his hands in his pockets. “I haven’t seen you move like that before. I like it.”

  It was hard to swallow knowing he saw me screw up. “I messed up.”

  I was hyperaware of my bare stomach showcasing my hideous scar. The workout pants I wore were low on my hips, which meant it was out there for anybody to see if they barged in. I’d shed my shirt an hour ago and was left in a red sports bra and black leggings. I’d noticed muscles coming back into my legs that had disappeared after I called it quits, muscles that Judith called dancers legs. They were toned but petite until I’d filled out after my stress eating, turning into my own personal nightmare.

  I’d been practicing at Tiffany’s when she was at Judith’s at least three times a week. More if I really needed to escape, whether that was at my apartment, here, or the warehouse, succumbing to the burn of my muscles and lungs as I pushed harder and harder. Today was the first time I’d watched myself in the mirror to study my footwork, and it was hard to see the hollow of my cheeks and the bags under my eyes, but they’d been expected with how many hours I’d put into getting the routine down while sleeping no more than three hours on my best nights. I knew I was going too far but I couldn’t stop because the fire building in my chest had spread everywhere and it took over all the other unwanted feelings of hatred and sadness long enough for me to feel like I was halfway normal.

  “How did you find me?” I reached for the towel I’d draped on the barre in front of the mirrors and wiped off my face before squatting to pick up my shirt to slide on. He’d seen me in far less, but that didn’t mean I wanted him seeing me now. Not when I was vulnerable.

  He pushed off the door. “Dallas.”

  I frowned. Dallas had offered to drive me because it was raining today. Normally, I caught a ride with Tiffany or got an Uber that way I didn’t bother him. With his newborn, which he’d showed me countless photos of over the past few weeks, I wanted to make sure he had as much family time as possible. “Why are you here?” I hadn’t meant to say it so rudely, but I wanted to be alone. All week, I’d wanted to stay to myself. Dance. Practice. Repeat. Get the routine down without one mistake.

  He didn’t step into the studio, just looked at me with watchful, curious eyes. “Want to go to Denny’s and get breakfast?”

  He wanted to get breakfast? My stomach rumbled to life, but I told myself to give an excuse to get out of it.

  “I need to shower…” I glanced down at the way my clothes clung to my overheated, sweaty body. I’d driven myself farther than I had since Tiffany and I started, but I almost had the entire dance down because of it. If I could get out of my head, I’d stop mis-stepping, but there was always something lurking in the back of my mind that weakened my walls.

  Theo didn’t relent though. “Breakfast at my house then. Ramsay misses you.”

  I blew out a breath. “Does he?”

  There was a pause. “I miss you too, Della.” His words went straight to my heart causing it to beat a little faster, a little harder, drumming to a tune that beckoned him forward.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I admitted quietly, turning off the music and gripping my water bottle.

  “Since when has anything we’ve done been a good idea lately?” The lighthearted smirk on his lips told me he was teasing. It was a conversation we’d had before but beat around. When we’d meet up, we’d kiss, we’d touch, we’d do a lot of things, but I hadn’t had sex with him since he cooked us dinner. My mind racing with thoughts of my imperfections had me lying to Theo and telling him I was on my period. He’d bought me chocolate and gave me a shoulder massage, never once pushing. I knew I needed to tell him that I couldn’t find the energy even though sleeping with Theo brought my body to life in ways that had been dormant before.

  I didn’t want that feeling though. I wanted to be numb. My mind begged me to stay away from anything that made me feel like there was hope or else I’d be too far gone when I realized there was none.

  My tongue swiped across my bottom lip in hesitation. We both knew he spoke the truth, but the allure to his words still didn’t make me want to jump on the opportunity. Not like it normally would. That was when I knew…

  Maybe I already was too far gone.

  He finally took a large step into the space I occupied, one hand out of his pocket and scrubbing his jawline. “There’s something I’d like to talk with you about. About your father.”

  Lips parting, I inhaled shakily. “What?”

  Head dipping once, he said, “Come on. Pancakes, eggs, you name it. Come home with me.”

  Home. My stomach dropped. “So, we can talk about…my dad?” I shook my head. “I’m okay with not doing that over eggs.”

 
; “Pancakes then?”

  Gnawing on the inside of my cheek, I let my shoulders ease enough for him to see me relenting. “Chocolate chip. And bacon.” I walked past him into the light rain, my stomach screaming over the idea of food even though my brain yelled, NO! “None of that fake syrup crap, Theo. I mean it.”

  I heard his chuckle and promptly ignored it as Dallas’s black car came into view.

  When I climbed in, Dallas gave me an apologetic look from the rearview. “Sorry, Della. He insisted.”

  Theo climbed in beside me, not looking sorry at all. In fact, there was anything but apology on his face. Awe, amusement, care. He looked at me like he always had, but it was more intense. Stronger. Different.

  And today, I surprised him.

  I danced.

  It made me smile despite that haunting feeling in the back of my mind as I stared out the backseat window. I ignored the other two people in the vehicle who made small talk while I thought about what this meant, because I danced and I loved it, but I also danced because I hated myself.

  I wanted that pain. The feel of my legs giving out and my lungs on their last breath. I wanted to escape into a world where I could hurt myself rather than letting everybody else do it for me.

  I saw Dallas glance at me again from the rearview mirror and realized…

  He saw too much.

  The food was left untouched in front of me with two sets of eyes on me for very different reasons. One of them was more intense than the other. I broke apart a piece of bacon and fed it to Ramsay while Theo watched silently across the table. He didn’t like it when the dog was close by while we ate. It’d been a little while since I’d seen Ramsay, so I wanted to spoil him like I knew Theo did when I wasn’t here.

  “You haven’t eaten,” he noted.

  I glanced at his plate. “Neither have you.”

  “It’s the real maple syrup.”

  My lips twitched. Moving my eyes from Ramsay to Theo, I rested back in my chair and picked up my fork. Wet pieces of my hair fell against my cheek that I refused to move because they shielded part of my vision. I’d taken a much longer shower in his master bathroom than I’d intended, but the scalding water felt so good against my sore muscles. I stood under the too-hot water until my skin was red and prayed that every bad feeling I had about myself would wash away. But when I stepped out, I looked at myself in the mirror before I could grab a towel and frowned.

  Frowned at my body.

  Frowned at my thoughts.

  I’d wanted to put my fist through the reflection that taunted me, but I didn’t. I didn’t want Theo to think I was losing it. That my anxiety had peeked, that the medication I was on wasn’t working, and that I’d have to admit to Ripley I probably needed something different. Something stronger. Stronger medication meant the problem had peeked like the hill and valley my disorder was.

  Shifting in my seat, I poked at the section of pancake that had the most chocolate chips. “I take it work has been busy?” He hadn’t reached out in a few days, which was fine by me. It was easier to avoid him when he was avoiding me first. The guilt didn’t eat at me that way.

  “Della—”

  “I get it.” I smiled. “You wanted space. But you invited me here, which means you didn’t want space right now. So…how’s work?”

  He leaned back with his hand around his coffee cup, pulling it along the table with the black liquid threatening to slosh out the sides. “It’s been busy, but it wasn’t busy enough that I couldn’t check up on you more often.”

  “I don’t need you to check up on me.” My voice was suddenly defensive, irritable. Why did he always make it sound like I was a child who needed to be monitored? “But I wouldn’t have minded getting more than a text saying you hope I’m well. I mean honestly, Theo.” My appetite was there, taunting me, especially after the session I had at Tiffany’s. I’d burned a lot of calories and needed to eat. To refuel. In hindsight, I should have asked for eggs, or just gone to Denny’s where I could have walked out easier if I decided I’d had enough. Dallas left after Theo dismissed him, which meant I’d have to wait for a lift if I walked out now before the conversation could go somewhere I didn’t want it to.

  There was no reason to snap at Theo when I’d been pulling away from everybody too. The texts he sent me were fine. The pictures of Ramsay he sent me were fine. Everything was fine. Great, even. How I wanted it to be.

  “You’re right.” It was a smooth, quiet voice that greeted me, causing me to look up at him in surprise. What did I expect? Him to argue? To ignore me? Maybe lecture me? He’d done all those things in the past. “I’m sorry, Della. But what I wanted to talk to you about is part of the reason why I felt it was a good idea to let you live your life without me complicating it for a couple days while I figured out how to tell you.”

  “Who said you were complicating it?”

  “You’re dancing again.”

  I blinked. “Not much.” Lie. “Plus, Tiffany has been making me.” Lie. “She said it’d be good for me.” That wasn’t so much a lie. If it weren’t for her, I would have been holed up in my apartment painting. She gave that to me like an unwrapped gift. Painting and dancing. Two forms of expression. If anything, Theo should be happy for me, not sad like he’d taken something away by always being near.

  His head cocked, eyes wandering over my face for a moment too long. “Was she wrong? I saw you in there. You were lost in the music like you used to be. It was refreshing to see.”

  I blushed. “I was lost in my head counting the steps. Which, like I told you before, I messed up. I’m not that great at contemporary yet.”

  “Nobody would have noticed.”

  My nostrils flared as I stabbed my food and lifted it. “Everybody would have.”

  He let me chew and swallow before saying anything else. I didn’t like his eyes on me right now. Not when my stomach was twisted with an explanation that I couldn’t grasp myself. Why did I dance when Tiffany wasn’t around? It seemed simple enough. To prove I could. But deep down it was more. When I looked in the mirror as I moved my feet, my hips, my arms, it was like I was watching the old version of me. The one I didn’t hate so much because she still had her mom cheering her on and her family together. She was happy. Lost in a world of music because there was nothing else she had to worry about.

  Then there was the other old version of me that did it because I couldn’t stop myself. She won the battles more than I liked admitting, succumbing to hunger cramps that doubled her over in pain while her reflection smiled manically.

  “If you’d let me, I’d like to explain,” he said after silence engulfed us in an uncomfortable blanket. “It isn’t going to be easy to hear, but you need to hear it from me before someone else leaks the information.”

  The frown was instant, but the concern weighed in my chest like an anvil was dropped dead center on my ribcage. Wasn’t that what I was waiting for? Why I’d needed to escape into a world of overworked muscle and choppy breath? I thought it’d been because of the reporter who’d harassed Lydia, even though she never reached out saying he had brought it up again. It was like the story vanished into thin air, which I knew wasn’t the case. It was just easier to pretend it was for a while.

  “The list of names that was given to The Times is tied to a very powerful man, Della. He’s looking to tarnish any reputation the Saint James family has left so people won’t consider the possibility that there’s truth in what could be spoken.”

  All I could do was stare at him. I’d figured Lydia had told him about the list since she was keen on getting him to talk to me, but I’d never let him in until today.

  “This man…” His sigh was burdened. “I know you understand the world we live in is a shitty, dark place. But what I’m about to tell you goes beyond that.”

  “Theo.” My heart pounded so hard it hurt.

  “I told you not too long ago that I’d tell you what’s been going on when the time came. I was just hoping I wouldn’t have to. I�
��ve had people investigate it, and it looks like your father might have had information that could have gotten his sentence reduced. Maybe even lowered to parole. He could have gotten out.”

  A piece of me splintered off. “He…what? They said—”

  “The system was set against him, Della. It was from the beginning because there were people who chose to save themselves before him. They made him take the fall for it all. There were phone records that indicated he’d been talking with his attorney about the case, giving names of the other people involved. With that kind of information, it would have changed things for him. For all of you. Anthony…he always wanted what was best for his family. He and Elizabeth had strong values when it came to that. If he was making a deal, it was for you.”

  My throat tightened. Swallowing was impossible, the food in front of me no longer looked appetizing at all. Everything was crashing around me as I stared at Theo with unblinking eyes. “It doesn’t matter now though. So why are you telling me this? It only hurts more.” The crack in my tone had him closing his eyes for a split second and that’s when I knew.

  I knew what he was going to say would change everything.

  And it did.

  “Your father was killed to make sure the people involved wouldn’t be dragged down with him. And at least one of the people is trying to hurt you and your family by ensuring that information doesn’t see the light of day. If I didn’t think there was a strong case against him or the others, I wouldn’t have brought it up. But the chance of the case being reopened—”

  I needed to get out of here. That was all I could think when I stood and moved so quickly that dizziness hit me. Stumbling, I caught myself on the chair before Theo was by my side, holding my arm to steady me.

  But I didn’t want him to.

  “Don’t,” I pleaded, moving away.

  “Della, I know this is hard—”

  The cold, confused laugh couldn’t be stopped. “Hard? You think hearing that my father was murdered because he was trying to get out of prison to be with me was hard? That word doesn’t come close to what this situation is. It’s fucked up, Theo. And what’s worse is you thinking I needed to hear it over goddamn pancakes like it should make it all better!”