Abby really wasn’t, but she dismissed him anyway, showing him out of the apartment and leaving the three of them alone.
“I can’t believe there’s nothing I can do,” she lamented, her voice shaky. “Oh my God, he is such a psycho. How? He’s going to hurt me. He’s going to kill me. I watch those crime shows; I know how this ends!”
Devon rested a hand on her shoulder to stop her racing thoughts and looked her in the eyes firmly.
“Chandra and I aren’t going to let that happen, right Chandra?” She nodded furiously.
“Of course not,” she agreed. “Nothing is going to happen to you while we’re around. You’re not going to be left alone for even a minute.”
“How are you going to make that happen?” Abby asked. “It’s not like you can come over and be with me every time I have to leave the house. You’ve got a job. And a life.”
“Well, I mean—and I’m just throwing out ideas here—what if I stayed with you?” Devon offered. “It’s not like I care whose couch I’m sleeping on, and it might make you feel a little safer to know that someone’s here with you.”
Abby flushed pink and shook her head. “I couldn’t ask you to do that; I don’t even know you,” she said, but he shrugged.
“If you’re not comfortable with it, that’s okay. But it’s no trouble. You will need to get an actual couch though.” Abby smirked, and the tension lifted a bit.
Abby looked to Chandra for backup, but she didn’t get it, because Chandra was already pulling that unhappy face she made whenever she didn’t want to admit that her brother was right.
“It’s not a bad idea,” she admitted. “Devon could pose as your new boyfriend. I mean, he’s twice the size of Trevor. Maybe he’ll be intimidated and back off.”
“Or he’ll be jealous that I’ve moved on and kill us both,” she countered.
“A distinct possibility,” Chandra acknowledged, “but there aren’t a whole lot of options here, Abby, and the few choices we do have suck. If all you’re allowed to do is wait until Trevor tries to hurt you, then you should at least have someone here who can protect you. Plus, you deserve to feel safe in your home.”
Abby’s eyes darted to Devon, unsure and fearful. He felt bad for her. She’d only just gotten away from that situation and now was being thrust back into it, and she didn’t appear to have anyone except for his little sister to help her through it. Without someone’s intervention, she’d continue to live in fear here or be forced to move again, for him to what? Follow her again? Either way, her only hope of getting her life back on track to halfway normal was for him to step up and volunteer for this, even if it felt a little intrusive and awkward.
“I think it’s the only way that you’ll be safe,” he encouraged. Swallowing her pride, Abby took a deep breath and then nodded.
“Okay,” she agreed finally. “Just for a little while, until I can get the move-out restraining order. And obviously, you can leave before then. Do you want to be paid? As, like, a bodyguard? I don’t have much money, but—”
“Abby,” Devon cut her off, a hint of amusement in his tone as he interrupted her rambling thoughts. “You’re putting me up in your home indefinitely. I’ll consider that payment enough.”
Chandra stretched and yawned, trying to hurry things along. “Alright, since you don’t have a couch for Devon to sleep on yet, we’re taking you home with us for the night,” she commanded, “so go pack whatever you need for the night. Tomorrow, since it’s your day off, you and Devon can get some furniture so you can start staying here again by the time you’ve got to go back to work. Everyone okay with that?”
Devon and Abby both muttered in agreement, then she shuffled off into the bedroom to pack a quick bag of pajamas and her toothbrush before putting on her coat and following them out the door and back to Chandra’s apartment, where Devon took the couch and Abby and Chandra slept in the bed together. As he laid awake, unable to fall asleep after being woken up to so much excitement, he couldn’t help but wonder what it was going to be like to live with Abby. He’d never had a roommate before so that in itself was going to be a new experience, not to mention the makeshift bodyguard role he was adopting. He tried not to allow himself to think about the pressure of what might happen if he didn’t do everything just right, nor the amount of danger that both of them were potentially going to be in as he stared at the ceiling for an hour before he finally drifted off. What had he gotten himself into?
Chapter Three: Abby
The next morning came too quickly, Abby thought, when Chandra’s alarm went off at seven-thirty and woke both of them. Both girls groaned with the discomfort of not enough sleep, and Abby sat up and watched Chandra roll out of bed to get ready for work.
“I haven’t stayed up that late since I was in college,” Chandra complained. “How old are we that we can’t even handle one late night anymore?”
Abby laughed. “I mean, we weren’t exactly partying,” she reminded, reaching to the nightstand for her phone to check it: no new messages. She’d blocked Trevor’s number and deleted him on all social media, but that wasn’t enough to keep away the sinking feeling that he was going to find a way to contact her.
“That’s true,” Chandra accepted. “How’d you sleep?”
“Like a rock,” Abby lied. It wasn’t Chandra’s fault that she’d tossed and turned all night and telling her that would only make her worry. However, she’d never been good at lying, and Chandra had always been able to see right through her.
“You should get a few more hours after I leave,” she suggested from behind the closed bathroom door. “Devon isn’t going to want to move until after lunch, anyway, so you could sleep in.”
Abby shrugged, unwilling to admit that she probably wasn’t going to be able to fall asleep again without knowing that someone was next to her, even if Devon was in the next room over.
“Maybe,” she half-agreed. “What time do you think you’ll be off work?”
Chandra came out of the bathroom in her work uniform, minus the apron, running a wet hand through her short hair to style it up. Sometimes, Abby was jealous of just how little effort that Chandra had to put into getting ready and it made her want to chop it all off, but she knew that she could never part with her long brown locks.
“I’m scheduled to get off at four-thirty,” she said, “and I’ve already worked overtime three times in the past two weeks, so I’m not doing it again.” The bakery she worked at was only a few minutes down the road, close enough that in nicer weather, she often rode her bike there, but today, she was definitely driving.
“Remember, Devon’s got his truck, so you two can go shopping for furniture today.”
Abby frowned. “Does he not have to work?”
“Oh, he’s a transcriptionist,” she said, “he works from home. He’s got a lot of free time on his hands, so don’t let him guilt you about it.” Before she closed the door behind her, she blew a kiss, which Abby pretended to snatch from the air and put in her pocket. “I’ll connect with you both when I get off work,” she announced on her way out.
She didn’t mean to fall asleep again, but the next time Abby opened her eyes, it was almost eleven. Judging by the sounds she could hear from the kitchen, she could deduce that Devon was also awake and probably eating breakfast. She didn’t bother to change out of her pajamas before shuffling out of Chandra’s room and into the kitchen.
“Good morning,” Devon greeted. Abby felt a little better about her own laziness seeing that he was still wearing boxers and a t-shirt but couldn’t help but let her gaze linger over his muscular torso and calves for a few seconds too long. He really did look like someone who would intimidate Trevor, who was a much smaller guy. He had been needy and clingy; all her exes had been. They were always drawn to her kindness, and sometimes, the needier a person was, the stronger Abby felt about sticking by their side to care for them. It had never lead to anything good, but it was a habit, comfortable, and it made her feel needed and important
. Devon didn’t seem to need any of that mothering, because whatever he was cooking on the stove smelled delicious.
“I thought you might be hungry,” he began, “I made some pancakes and bacon for two. If you don’t want them, though, you’re not going to hurt my feelings. I’m not the best chef.”
Abby shook her head. “Are you kidding? I haven’t had someone cook for me…probably since I moved out of my mom’s house. This is amazing.” He flipped the pancake in the air just to show off before sliding it onto a plate where several others were waiting, then began to fry up the bacon.
“I’ll make some coffee,” Abby offered. It was the only thing in Chandra’s kitchen, aside from the wine, that she knew the location of, so she scooped the freshly ground beans into the filter and filled the chamber with water, making enough for each of them to have a cup.
“You can have a seat on the couch, if you want,” he said, gesturing to the living room. Chandra didn’t have a dining room, since it was a pretty small apartment, so the only real table was a large coffee table in front of the couches.
“Let me know if I can help with anything,” she offered, and he shook his head.
“It should be ready soon,” he said, “and after we eat, I’ll take you to the store and you can pick out some furniture. My truck bed is pretty big, so unless you’re getting anything crazy, we should be able to carry it all in one trip.”
“I really don’t know how to thank you for all this,” she said, trying for heartfelt but falling firmly in ‘awkward’ territory. “I know it’s a lot to ask of someone, especially someone I just met, but I’m so grateful. I was starting to get desperate last night when I had no idea what to do.”
“Hey, it’s no big deal,” he dismissed. “It’s as much a favor for me as it is for you, honestly. It’s probably going to get pretty annoying to have me on your couch.” Abby made a dismissive gesture with her hands, then stood to pour two cups of coffee as the coffee pot hissed to a halt.
Furniture shopping didn’t take very long. Abby was, if nothing else, a decisive person, and a decisive person on a strict budget wasn’t someone who browsed. She purchased a kitchen table, some chairs, and a coffee table, then a futon for Devon to sleep on, all of which would require some assembly. She didn’t want to waste her paycheck on things like bedside tables and television stands since the moving truck and temporary storage locker had drained her account and she was trying to pinch every penny she could. It was all matte black and simple, but the thought of having furniture in the house at all excited her quite a bit. She really wanted things to get back to normal, of course, and it was amazing just how instrumental having a place to sit and eat dinner and a place to set her tea when she watched television on the couch at night were to that normalcy. All the boxes fit into the bed of Devon’s truck easily, and so as soon as they loaded up the vehicle in the store parking lot, they headed straight to Abby’s apartment to move them in and begin, hopefully, to put them together.
“Alright, this is going to take a few trips,” Devon warned, parking the truck as close as he could to the door of the building. “Do you have an elevator? Chandra and I took the stairs yesterday, and I was too asleep to even notice.”
Abby nodded. “It’s in the hallway behind the staircase,” she replied. She followed him around the back of the truck and watched him open the hatch and climb up easily.
“I’m going to push the coffee table to the edge of the bed to you, okay? Then I’ll hop down and help get it out, and we can take it upstairs.” She braced the box against her body when he pushed it to her so that it was supported in her hands and propped against the truck, and once he climbed down from the truck, he hoisted his side up easily. His brown leather jacket was gathering the light snow, but the cold didn’t seem to bother him even though it already had her shivering. Since the week before had been somewhat warm, the ground wasn’t cold enough for the snow to stick, meaning that it fell from the sky in pretty little puffs and then hit the ground to make dirty, icy puddles that threatened to trip both of them and track mud all through her new apartment. Bad timing for moving crap in.
As they started their haul, a familiar voice called her name, snapping her out of her thoughts and creating a nauseating pit of anxiety in her stomach.
“Hey, neighbor,” Trevor Frater greeted, jogging up to meet her. She froze, nearly dropping her half of the box as fear forced a tremor into her hands.
“Trevor,” she said breathlessly, emotionlessly. One part of her desperately didn’t want to show him her fear, but at the same time, she didn’t want to act happy to see him. “What are you doing here?”
He shrugged casually. Disturbingly enough, he didn’t look angry, didn’t even look like he registered just how creepy what he was doing was. All at once, she was glad that she had asked for the no-contact order, because he was definitely unstable.
“Are you going to introduce me to your friend?” he asked. “Or is this your brother?” Wishful thinking, she realized, because she and Devon didn’t look anything alike, and he knew that she didn’t have siblings.
“Boyfriend, actually,” Devon corrected. Hearing it out loud filled her with fear for how Trevor would react, but surprisingly, he looked only mildly ruffled.
“Oh, are you?” he asked. He sounded surprised, and one hand formed into a fist at his side, but he didn’t go ballistic like she’d expected him to. “That seems a little soon, doesn’t it, Abby?”
Her lips felt rubbery, sluggish to speak, and she knew she looked like a deer caught in headlights. “I don’t think so,” she managed shakily.
“Well, I do,” he snapped. That was the cadence she’d been expecting: volatile, hostile, angry. She cringed away and felt the box shift in her hands as Devon stepped closer to Trevor, which pushed her further away.
“I may have put a little pressure on her to let me move in so fast,” he lied like an admission, remarkably cool under pressure, “but I didn’t want to miss my window of opportunity on someone like her. You know, gotta avoid that ‘friendzone.’” Trevor gave a poorly forced smile that came out more like a snarl.
“I’m not buying it,” he said, and Abby’s face paled.
“What do you mean?”
Trevor shook his head, gesturing between the two of them incredulously. “This whole thing you’re trying to pull,” he said. “I know everyone Abby knows, and your name never came up.”
Devon smiled confidently. “You don’t even know my name. It’s Devon, by the way,” he extended his hand to shake, holding the box up with only one, and Trevor didn’t move to accept the gesture.
“Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on here,” he threatened, not breaking eye contact with Abby, a stare that sent shivers down her spine, and not in a good way. “You’re trying to make me jealous.” Her eyes widened.
“You’re delusional,” she bit. Anger was apparently enough to snap her from her catatonic state of fear, and she felt herself gain a little more control over her knocking knees and racing pulse. “I didn’t even know you were here until now. Why would I get a fake boyfriend to make you jealous?”
“You want me back, baby, just say the word; I’m yours.” He began to saunter toward her, but Devon stepped in front of him, cutting off his contact from her completely.
“Listen, buddy, we’re going to call the cops on you if you don’t leave her alone.”
Trevor, of course, didn’t look concerned. He never was when he didn’t believe he was in the wrong, even when he was. However, people were beginning to stare at the scene that was arising in the parking lot, and if he had one Achilles heel, it was public attention.
“Whenever you decide to stop being a bitch and come back to me,” he threatened Abby over Devon’s shoulder, “I’ll be in unit one-fourteen. And I’m not leaving until you do.” He reached into his pocket, and Abby felt adrenaline prickle her skin until he pulled out his keys and headed for his unit, just one building away from her own. She didn’t take her eyes off him
until the door closed and presumably locked behind him, and even then, it took Devon calling her name to bring her back to reality.
Accidental Forever Page 29