Declaration (Preservation, # 3)

by Rachael Wade

  “You say this like it’s news.”

  “Well, I just wish for once they’d get shit right, you know? They’re lost without one another. You’ve seen the evidence yourself.”

  “Yeah, I can vouch for that.”

  Whitney finished her text with a sigh of exasperation. I grinned at her knowingly as she dropped her cell back into her purse. But as her eyes rose her expression went cold, her face suddenly pale and blank. I straightened up in concern, following her gaze over my shoulder.

  “Well looky here, how romantic. The two lovebirds out on a date.” Ruben breezed up to us, wearing a smug grin.

  “Ruben,” Whitney warned, moving forward to push at his shoulders, “not now. Don’t do this.”

  “Yeah, Ruben,” I put out my smoke, my hackles raising. “Damn, don’t you have anything better to do than crash someone else’s night? Give it a rest, dude. This whole act is getting old.”

  “Who said it was an act?” he sneered, brushing Whitney’s hands away. “You two are on a date, it’s ridiculous, and I just happen to be in the area, so I’m here to point out the obvious.”

  “Ruben!” Whitney snapped, her eyes daggers. “What in the hell is wrong with you? Carter, come on, let’s go. We don’t need to put up with his shit tonight.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, baby,” he laughed, walking backwards to follow her movement, “why so jumpy, huh?”

  I reached for Whitney’s arm, growing more agitated by the second. This douche really had no sense. “Whit, don’t run off. Come on, we’re not going anywhere. Take a fucking hike, Ruben.”

  “Hey, I’m just tryin’ to understand something, here.” He raised his hands, enjoying every second of Whitney’s discomfort.

  “Oh, yeah? What’s that? Why you’re such an asshole? Because I have a theory. You wanna hear it?”

  He crossed his arms in his usual lazy display of dominance. “Nah, I’m not interested in your dumbass theories, man. I just wanna know why you’re out playing boyfriend to a girl who took off on you two nights ago and ran straight to my place. To my bed. Why is that, bro? Whit? Care to share?”

  My head jerked in Whitney’s direction. Her cheekbones were even paler, her eyes misty with looming tears. “What is he talking about?”

  “Carter, that thing I wanted to talk to you about earlier—”

  “Oh, snap!” Ruben started laughing—a full-on belly laugh that made my insides cringe. “You haven’t told him yet?” He threw his head back and his hands over his face. “Of course you haven’t.”

  “Whitney?” I pressed, urging her to continue.

  “I was so upset, so embarrassed. I didn’t know where to turn. Emma’s been so preoccupied with Jack and her sister and school, and I didn’t want to lay all my shit on her. I went to Ruben’s and I—”

  “Stop,” I pushed back on my heels, not wanting to hear the end of that sentence. “Just…don’t say it.” A hot rush of bile burned the back of my throat, the high of the night crashing down on my shoulders. The laughter, the kissing, the dancing, all of it made my stomach roll. The night’s events sank to the pit of my stomach, anchoring in its depths. It was like someone had just played one huge joke on me, watching me sing and dance and confess my love to a woman, waiting for the perfect moment to pull the rug from underneath me and shatter my happiness.

  Ruben was probably that jokester.

  “I tried to tell you, man,” Ruben chided, “don’t tell me I didn’t try to tell you.”

  “Ruben, just shut up!” Whitney shrieked, batting him away. “Carter, I went to his place, but nothing happened. Please, Carter, listen to me.”

  My chin dropped. I couldn’t look at her. But I did catch the slight tremble of her hands at her waist. For the first time ever, I actually wanted to confront something.

  With my fist.

  “Ruben,” I said, my voice rigid and low, “I’m giving you two seconds to walk away before I break your face.” The tone of my own voice alarmed me. I don’t think I’d ever heard myself that angry. Ever.

  My words only amused him more, sending him strutting up to me with his wide-set shoulders and hard-as-steel chest. “You sure you wanna go there, bro?”

  I wasn’t just sure. I was absolutely positive.

  “One,” I counted, breathing hard through my nose.

  “Carter!” Whitney wedged herself in between us, imploring me to look her in the eyes.

  “Two.” I’d never been on this side of the fence. Not once. All throughout my school days, I was the one to be beaten up. I was easy pickings for people like Ruben. But in that moment, watching those pompous eyes and that arrogant stance of his, everything snapped.

  My fist shot forward with a loud crack. I think it was cartilage. Maybe bone. I had no freaking clue, but whatever it was, it felt good. There was no way this jackass was going to piss all over something I’d just tried to mend.

  “Carter, don’t!” Whitney screamed, pulling desperately at Ruben’s shoulder to keep him away from me.

  It was no use.

  Ruben’s nose was bleeding and rage had bloomed inside of him, so deep the ire was palpable, mixed in right there, with the Gulf air. Ruben lunged at me and I caught a group of onlookers forming along the entrance to the hotel bar. We kicked up sand as we tackled each other to the ground. Whitney screamed ceaselessly. Ruben delivered a powerful punch to my torso and the wind was knocked from my lungs.

  “Yo, that’s enough!” A voice permeated my tunnel vision. Another pair of hands was suddenly wrapping around my chest, prying me out from underneath Ruben’s heavy weight. “Not on my property!”

  Through the fuzzy haze of the scuffle, I could make out the voice—the owner of the bar. The one I’d made arrangements with to hold our little party. One glance at him and it was clear he wasn’t happy about what was going down. It was a safe bet that I’d worn out my welcome.

  “Whitney, when you’re ready to be with a real man, you know where to find me,” Ruben hissed through his teeth, breaking away from the scene. He shrugged his shoulders, angrily dusting off the sand from his t-shirt. “I’m done.”

  I apologized to the bar owner and stood, not bothering to wipe the sand from me as I straightened myself out. He ushered everyone away from the spectacle and disappeared back inside the restaurant, leaving me and Whitney alone.

  “Your lip!” Whitney rushed forward, reaching for my face.

  I bumped her away. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine. Your lip is bleeding. I think you split your piercing open.”

  “I need to get home,” I said, walking around her.

  “Carter, listen to me. I swear nothing happened. You have to believe me, please.”

  “Yeah,” I scoffed, keeping up my stride, “nothing happened, yet you were that afraid to tell me you went to him after you left my place that night?”

  She followed me, her breathing frantic. “I didn’t even tell Emma. I tell Emma everything! That’s how ashamed I was. I wanted to tell you. I was going to tell you tonight, but it didn’t seem like there was a good time. And then you surprised me with all of this…please, I felt terrible for turning to him, of all people. I felt weak, and I knew it would hurt you, knowing you knew about my feelings for him. I was wrong. It was a mistake. But we talked, that was it! He’s just trying to rile you up! I’d never let him touch me. Not after you. Never, Carter.”

  I stilled, my shoes sliding and planting me in the sand. A strange wave of calm washed over me. “Okay,” I said quietly, still unable to look at her.

  A beat passed. “Okay…okay?”

  “Yeah.” I licked my lip, tasting blood. “I get it.”

  “You do?”

  “The second your feelings are hurt, you run right back to the last guy you had feelings for. Makes perfect sense.”

  “Carter.”

  “Just let me go home, Whitney,” I begged, resigned. “Please.”

  “Fine.” I could feel her stare still fastened to my face, despite the fact th
at I hadn’t made eye contact with her. I felt it drop as she moved to turn away.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  With a hesitant step, she began to walk away, leaving me standing there in the stand. I’d lost my top hat in the scuffle. My shirt was torn at the sleeve, and I think Whitney was right. I think I busted up my piercing. It hurt like a son of a bitch. I wondered how our night had crashed and burned in a matter of seconds. I wondered if I’d wake in the morning with a clear head, a different perspective, after I slept the whole thing off.

  As angry as I was, I believed her. She didn’t touch Ruben. But she still went to him, willingly. She still sought him out for comfort. They had chemistry. Before me, before us.

  And that’s what stung the most.

  For once, I’d thought I was no longer second best. Whitney made me feel like Number One. But maybe I’d always been the backup, Number Two, and she just went back to Number One when her backup let her down. Maybe my effort backfired. I couldn’t show her she wasn’t just a rebound for me, and I’d been too naïve to see that I’d been the rebound all along.

  Chapter 13

  Mirrors

  Something tickled my arm. I groaned, wanting the itch to go away so I could stay asleep.

  All I wanted was to sleep.

  The tickle persisted, and somewhere in the back of my groggy mind, I knew I had to move. My foot jerked, then the other, and finally, my arm rustled…away from the damn tickle. The warmth that coated me was a heavy quilt, weighing me down to the bed. My eyes cracked open, a tomb seal breaking, finding the source of the warmth. A comforter—not mine.

  Stretching my arms up, I grasped the top of the comforter and slowly peeled it back, finding white light and a spinning ceiling fan—again, not mine. I lifted my head with another groan, but let it fall back against the pillow when I registered the intense throbbing pain radiating from my neck. “Damn,” I mumbled, shifting under the sheets. Everything felt dry. Sand grated between my fingers. I could feel it all over my body. I was fully clothed, and by one whiff of myself, the clothes were obviously the same ones I’d worn the night before.

  Rolling my head to the left, I was greeted with a wild mane of dark black hair. I looked back to the fan, trying to make sense of my location, when it hit me.

  I turned to the dark black hair again, and that’s when the room began to spin.

  That hair wasn’t Whitney’s. This wasn’t her place, and it sure as hell wasn’t mine. I bolted upright in the bed, a sharp, stabbing pain zipping from my neck down to my back. The night’s events spilled on top of me like paint pouring from a tumbling paint can.

  Me and Whitney.

  Ruben, me, and Whitney.

  Me hitting Ruben, Ruben hitting me.

  Me leaving the beach to go home, only to wind up at Pete’s instead.

  Me seeing no signs of Jack or Emma or anyone else I knew, but noticing a girl who looked eerily like to Whitney. Said girl offering to buy me a drink. Said drink turning into way too many drinks.

  Leading to this.

  My mind pushed my body through the aches and pains and into action. I slid out from underneath the covers and stood, the carpet shaggy beneath my feet. “Shit.” I spun in search of my glasses, locating them just a few feet away on the floor. I hurried over to them, tripping on the edge of the shaggy rug. I stumbled to the left and lost my balance, falling to the floor in a thump. I lifted my hands in a double “okay” symbol, shaking them toward the sky.

  Bloody hell.

  I lifted myself off the floor, wincing as I steadied my limbs, and froze when I spotted the warm body I’d been in bed with now sitting up, giving me a confused look, as if unsure whether to laugh or be concerned. She was topless, her red lipstick smeared across her cheek. I flinched and shielded my eyes with my hands, turning in a circle to look away, only to trip again. This time I stubbed my toe on a table of some sort, collapsing again with a pile of curses.

  “Um…are you okay over there?” the girl asked. I could hear her move, the mattress squeak beneath her.

  “Yeah, yeah. Uh…I’m fine. Please just…do you mind putting on a shirt?”

  She snorted as she padded across the floor toward me. “You want me to get dressed?”

  I still hadn’t moved from the floor. I sat there, hunched over, back to this girl, with a stubbed toe, covering my face like a kid thrown into a time-out corner. “Yeah, could you?”

  “Damn it,” she huffed beneath her breath, “I knew it. Of course, all the good ones gotta be gay.”

  A flurry of movement stirred behind me and I removed my hands from my face. Glancing over my shoulder, I caught a blur of the girl pulling on some clothing. “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”

  “I should’ve known,” she sighed. The quick slip of a zipper sounded and then she was buttoning her shirt. “You can turn around now. Do you need ice?”

  Flustered, I rose to my feet, turning to face her. “Nah, thanks.” I glanced down at my foot. “Just stubbed it on that table. I’ll be fine.”

  “I mean for your face.” Her brows rose, as if I were slow to catch on.

  I was slow to catch on. All the damn time.

  Patting my pockets for my smokes, I surveyed the room, looking for a mirror. I hurried over to the vanity table, leaning down to get a look. “Holy shit.” As soon as I saw my lip, the pain sliced through me, sharp and merciless. It made me feel the pain in my back and neck even more, suddenly alerting my whole body to a plethora of injuries.

  “It looked pretty rough last night. Figured you’d be hurting in the morning.”

  “Sorry, what’s your name?” I asked, running my thumb over my bottom lip. The piercing wasn’t completely busted, not like I’d thought, but there was a definite slice along the side, crusted over with blood. A part of me didn’t want to know this girl’s name. I wanted to pretend this—whatever this was—never even happened. But here I was, rolling out of her bed, and asking her name seemed like the polite thing to do.

  “Eva. And you’re Carter,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Last name Montgomery, musician from Seattle, horribly nerdy obsession with all-things British, hot tattoos, sexy voice, adorably shy…and so, so gay.” She said the last part with a groan, and I caught her image in the mirror, her head falling into her hands.

  I quit examining my lip and swiveled to face her. “Definitely not gay, for the record.”

  She peeked at me through her fingers and her hands came down, mouth agape. “You’re not?”

  “Why would you think that? You took me home last night.”

  “Well, yeah, you were plastered. So was I. I thought you were out for a good time. We walked here from Pete’s. I’m two blocks away.”

  “You thought I was out for a good time. How does that make me gay?”

  “Doesn’t the fact that you’re fully clothed ring a bell?” Her head cocked to the side, her eyes narrowing. This girl was annoyed with me. I didn’t blame her.

  “Uh…no, not exactly.”

  She sighed with frustration and rolled her eyes to the ceiling, moving her hands to her hips. “We came home, I got naked, and you didn’t want this. Not one bit.”

  I blinked. “Seriously?”

  “That’s what I’m saying! You wouldn’t even kiss me.”

  A bubble of laughter slithered up my throat and burst from my lips. I tried to control it, but it broke out and owned me. “This, this would so happen to me.”

  “I’m glad you find this situation so amusing.” She crossed her arms, her entire body bristling with defensiveness.

  “Oh, God, what was it…Eva? Eva, I’m so sorry. Whatever I did—or didn’t—do last night, please don’t take it personally. I was a wreck over this girl and I wandered to Pete’s and drank way, way too much. I haven’t had that much to drink in…I can’t remember when. Whoever you met last night, that was not me, I assure you. Please forgive me.”

  Everything after the scene at Pete’s was still blurry, coming back to me in chunk
y fragments, but that little detail—turning this hot chick down—was certainly one I had no recollection of. Looks like I was becoming an expert at crushing girls’ egos.

  “Yeah, well.” She pouted, loosening up a little. “So you were dumped, huh? Is the girl why you have a busted lip? I take it she’s the reason you wouldn’t sleep with me.”

  “Yes…to all that.” I stirred my fingers in the air. “Sort of. I wasn’t really dumped. Things just got messy last night.”

  “Sorry to hear. Can I give you a lift home?”

  “You’d do that?”

  She shrugged petulantly. “Why not? Things can’t get much more awkward than this.” Wasn’t that the God-honest truth. I accepted the offer and gave her directions as she grabbed her car keys. The ride was silent right up until the moment I stepped out of the car.

  “Thanks, Eva,” I said, remembering her name this time.

  ***

  The day dragged on, long and merciless. I was so happy I didn’t have to work that day, I could have cried. A hot shower and some aspirin did wonders for my cuts and bruises, but nothing for my head or heart.

  What the hell had I done last night?

  It was a relief to know Whitney hadn’t actually done anything with Ruben, but apparently, I almost did, with some random girl from Pete’s. I’d felt awful for hurting Eva’s feelings like that, but I would have felt a hell of a lot worse if I had actually taken her up on her offer.

  As I stared back at myself in the bathroom mirror, I could see the true reflection of myself. Not just the guy I was back in Seattle, but the guy I’d been last night, singing to Whitney on that stage. The guy I’d been afterward, wandering to Pete’s and to some stranger’s home. I saw all facets of myself—the good, the bad, the ugly.

  I studied the curve of my jaw. My swollen lip and damp hair. The tiredness lurking beneath my eyes. I took a towel to the mirror, wiping away the steam. When I set the towel down, I caught a glimpse of Ryan’s face instead of my own. Those boyish good looks, that suave smile, intense eyes, and easy charm. I blinked, picturing the way he’d looked when I’d first walked in on him and Kate, pictured the genuine smile he’d given me after that whole mess, when I’d first started getting to know him, agreed to give him a chance.