Darkly Divine: A Paranormal Enemies to Lovers Romance

by C L Walker

  “You did.”

  I twisted my head to look madness in the face. “Willingly. They have to come to you willingly.”

  He turned towards me as well. “They all do eventually. Even the ones who hate me.”

  His smirk was both annoying and enticing, and it put me in an awkward position. Did I want to jump his bones or beat him? Perhaps both, what a mental image.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean? I certainly won’t ever come to you willingly!”

  He laughed again despite the look of disgust I gave him because I didn’t faze him one bit. Every time I fired back at him; I never did any damage because he tanked all my insults like a champ.

  “Good. Because you aren’t my type,” he said, before he pulled out his phone and started typing out a message.

  It was a wonder how he had anyone that even wanted to text him. Was it possible that there were people out there who loved him besides his family who were clearly obligated to?

  “Good. Because you aren’t my type either.”

  Except that he was, in looks anyway, personality… definitely not.

  He looked over at me thoughtfully. “Is that so?”

  I nodded my head quickly.

  He smiled but thankfully he didn’t argue. “I did hear that you like them over cooked and bleach blond.”

  “What?” I asked because that was news to me. “No, I don’t.”

  “What about that potato looking surfer guy… what’s his name?” He waved his hand in the air once before he continued, “Whatever, his name is irrelevant. That dude… you know… the ken to your wannabe emo Barbie.”

  He knew damn well what his name was and wearing band T-shirts hardly made me qualified to be emo, not that I had anything against them, but I didn’t fit the bill.

  “Anyway, he told me you guys used to date last year,” he said before I could respond.

  He looked back down at his phone until I smacked my hand down on my desk to get his attention. “His name is Christian. I am not emo. And why were you talking about me?”

  “I see you’ve found your backbone today, how exciting.” He put his phone in the pocket of his dark gray hoodie and directed his full attention to me.

  “Micah…” I warned because his excitement meant there was more frustration in store for me.

  “He saw us talking after you scouted my car for goods.” For. Shits. Sake. “He brought you up in class and told me about you guys as a warning maybe... I’m not exactly sure but it was a pointless thing to say to me either way.” He muttered something else under his breath that I couldn’t make out.

  I sat up straight and gathered myself because I was struggling not to freak out on him.

  “First of all, I wasn’t scouting your car.” I stopped when the weight of his eyes on me began to make me nervous.

  “And the second?” He folded his hands together and gave me a patronizing look as he waited for me to continue. “Or was that it?”

  “He does not look over cooked! He’s naturally tan!” I shouted, and almost the entire class save for a few looked back at me.

  I sank back down in my seat again with a sigh and whispered to him, “I actually hate you.”

  He gave everyone an intimidating look and their attention quickly averted. “I’m so sorry. I won’t insult your man again.”

  The way he said ‘your man’ left me with the image of him making air quotes around it.

  “He’s not my man,” I hissed. “We only dated for a few weeks!”

  “Oh, my bad. It’s Devin, isn’t it?”

  “No. I don’t like Devin and he doesn’t like me despite what you think!”

  Surprise shown on his face. “You may not like him, but he definitely likes you.”

  “And how would you know? Just because of one note you saw that was not yours to read?”

  He averted his gaze as he thought my question over, and I thought he wouldn’t answer but then his eyes met mine again. “He watches you.”

  Something about the way he said it made my heart race as there was something in his tone that suggested that he didn’t like it.

  No, he doesn’t care…

  “Well, at any rate he’s not my man, and neither is Sai for that matter. I have zero men.”

  “Hmm I wonder why that is,” he said sarcastically.

  Because that one time I tried to date Christian I quickly realized having a boyfriend wasn’t possible until I didn’t live with my mother. I hadn’t thought it through, and I quickly ran out of excuses as to why I couldn’t have him over and it wasn’t worth the stress to me. And while he was a nice boy, I quickly learned that he wasn’t the one for me anyway.

  “Because I don’t want one,” I said, as the truth was too much to reveal.

  “You sure do lie to me a lot.”

  I felt like I got slapped across the face by his words and the confidence in which he spoke them. He spoke as if he knew for a fact that I lied to him.

  “I’m not lying. I broke up with him I’ll have you know!”

  “You said you didn’t want one, not that you didn’t want him,” he said. “I know you don’t want him, but you lied when you said that you don’t want a boyfriend at all. But maybe that’s the wrong way of putting it, you don’t necessarily want a boyfriend, you just want someone to love you.”

  Another slap!

  But doesn’t everyone want to be loved?

  I considered what he said and how he could possibly know what I wanted. There was no reason for it, he shouldn’t have known anything about me. But whenever I looked in his eyes, I got the feeling that he did, and that he knew more than any stranger had a right to.

  “I do scare you,” he whispered with a sort of wonderment in his tone. “Good.”

  Nothing felt good about it, it felt like he had pushed me off a cliff the day he had arrived, and I had been falling ever since with no end in sight.

  His accusation was true, and in that moment, I couldn’t bring myself to tell another lie, so I didn’t deny it. Instead, I said nothing, and something passed between us that I couldn’t identify that he seemed to recognize all too well. He was always one step ahead of me.

  He broke eye contact suddenly as if bothered by what had occurred to him.

  I continued to watch him silently as he grabbed the assignment sheet off his desk and said in a gruff voice, “Back to the project.” He picked up his pen and twirled it around his fingers quickly. “At least Mr. Burks is giving us library time every week, so we don’t have to work together outside of school if we use that time wisely.”

  I was in a daze, so I didn’t even think to reply.

  He poked my arm to get my attention. “Put your claws away and let’s do this.”

  He was trying so hard to steer us away from what had just happened, and I let him because I thought it was best to bury it.

  “They don’t go away when you’re around, it’s a survival instinct.” I grabbed my own sheet. “And I refuse to work with you outside of school, so you better not mess around. I’m not going to your creepy cabin in the middle of the woods.”

  He eyed me suspiciously. “How do you know where I live? Did you scout my house out already? I don’t have any valuables so it would be a waste of time to try and steal more from me.”

  “Really with the stealing bit again?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Look I just don’t know if I would feel safe having you over, you might eat all my food too seeing as how you are a little piggy.”

  “I’m going to freaking eat you if you don’t quit accusing me of being a thief and a pig. And as for knowing about where you live, I happened to hear information about you just like you have about me. It’s a small town after all.”

  He nodded his head. “Fair enough.” But he was still peering at me suspiciously. “I forgot I told your other boyfriend I moved into my Gramp’s place.”

  “I said he’s not my boyfriend either!” I seriously wanted to smack him; he was the most childish boy
I had ever met.

  “Whatever, I don’t care,” he insisted as he pulled out his phone. “Give me your number so we can at least discuss ideas for the project via text. It’ll be easier if we do some research at home and go to the library prepared.”

  He waited for me to speak but I stared at him because I was confused about how he had showed up after eight years and in less than a week, he had managed to make me angrier than anyone had in my whole life aside from my mother.

  He was invading every corner of my life, when I wasn’t around him, I was thinking about him, and when I was sleeping, I dreamt of him.

  He was everywhere and I hated it.

  When he grew tired of waiting, he said, “For fucks sake, woman, don’t clam up on me again. What is your number?”

  I finally spit it out and stood up as soon as the bell rang, stomped away and not two minutes later, I got a text.

  Unknown: Quit pouting. I think you will survive doing one project with me. And the way I see it I stand to lose a lot more than you.

  Me: Such as?

  Micah: Everything.

  Me: OMG dude, I’m not going to steal anything from you.

  Micah: Promise? Not even a single thing…

  Me: Yes! I swear I have never hated anyone so fast in my entire life.

  Micah: Awe, thanks babe.

  Babe?

  I stopped outside of my next class as my heart skipped a beat even though I knew he was trying to get a rise out of me. But I couldn’t help it because it certainly worked better than ‘little piggy’ or ‘princess.’

  My hand was on the doorknob as I looked away from my phone and glanced down the hallway.

  He was stuffing a book in his locker, but he looked at me almost immediately as if he knew I was looking at him and he winked before he closed it and walked away.

  What the hell?

  An hour later when school ended, I couldn’t be out of there fast enough.

  “Woah, why are you in such a rush?”

  I stopped for Sai so he could get a better hold on his books that he had almost dropped while he tried to keep up with me. Once he had them, I started to speed walk again.

  “Would you believe me if I said I really want to get to work early?” I asked.

  “Eh. Negative.”

  “Okay, so the truth it is. Micah has successfully become the bane of my existence. He’s under my skin in the worst sort of way and invading my bloody dreams! I mean the nerve of this guy. He has no reason to be such a pain in my ass! And now I have to do a project with him! Of all the people in the class why him?”

  “Woah, slow down.”

  “My words or walking speed?” I asked.

  “Both.”

  “I can’t, I’m upset.”

  He laughed. “Then why bother asking which one if you are unwilling to do either?”

  I laughed when I realized I didn’t make any sense. “Sorry, I’m distracted.”

  We got to his car and I climbed inside and put my seat belt on, and I sat there and stewed for a minute before I noticed that we weren’t moving yet.

  I turned to look at him as he sat there like a lump of flesh and stared at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I’ve never seen you so… so… what’s the word I’m looking for?” He smacked my arm repeatedly while he stared out the window and looked for the answer. “Impassioned!”

  I snorted at his choice of word. “Hardly.”

  “He he, well I suppose unhinged is more like it. So, about those dreams… are they kinky?” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and I instinctively scrunched up my face.

  “Ew. No.” They were only erotic if you were into murdery kink stuff.

  He finally put the car in drive, and he drove the quarter mile back to the heart of town where the coffee shop I worked at was. It was called The Coffee Barn and was the only coffee stand in town.

  “I think he’s a cool dude so I’m not sure why you guys are rubbing each other the wrong way,” he said pointedly.

  I glanced at him with squinted eyes, and just as I had expected he was holding back a smile because he said, ‘rubbing each other.’ I shouldn’t have told him I had been dreaming about Micah, he thought I wanted Micah’s body because of it, and he was going to tease me about it relentlessly.

  “Don’t even go there, I don’t want to do any rubbing with Micah.”

  He nodded his head, but his facial expression told me that he didn’t believe me.

  “He picks on me and calls me childish names,” I explained. “The first… and I mean literally the first thing he said to me was an order for me to pick up his pen that fell under my desk and he called me a little piggy!”

  He looked confused about the name because I provided no context, so I filled in some of the blanks about the burrito incident and afterwards he laughed for a good minute until he realized I wasn’t amused.

  “Maybe he’s flirting with you,” he suggested, but it sounded like a question because even he wasn’t so sure.

  I shook my head immediately.

  “And if you hate him so much, why are you dreaming about him?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t even want to worry about it. I’m over it.” We arrived at the shop and I gathered my things and opened the door to get out.

  Before I stepped out, I asked, “Can I come over tomorrow?”

  “Of course. It’s my turn to pick a movie though.” He did his best villainous laugh, and I knew I was in trouble.

  “Ah. Great. That means I have to watch Star Trek again.”

  “Which is amazing,” he said.

  I got out and shut the door before I leaned my head in through the window and gave him a big smile to let him know I didn’t mind watching it with him. “Sounds like a plan. See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya.”

  “You either.”

  Four hours into my shift I finally let go of my anger and I replaced it with mild irritation that I had even let Micah’s childish antics get to me in the first place. Counterproductive, but at least I was moving through the motions. I also admitted to my own immaturity in the situation, because I let even the small things work me up.

  “Hey darlin’ give me somethin’ hot.” I cringed when I heard Jack call from where he stood outside the window.

  He stopped by my work constantly and without fear of what his actions implied because my mother blamed me for his attentions anyway. She gave him courage to continue and so did my silence.

  “What do you want?”

  “I told you, somethin’ hot.” He glanced down the length of my body to show me what he meant.

  I Ignored his comment and did my best to stay out of his reach, as he was leaning in through the window and I worried that he would make a grab for me.

  “Do you have money?”

  He nodded his head and his graying; red shoulder length hair fell in his face and he pushed it back with calloused hands that used to do honest work in construction.

  His hands were strong, weathered and tan even though his body had become slender and strung out from drugs. He was missing a tooth in the front bottom row and he always made a whistling noise through it that gave me goosebumps.

  He had a story too, everyone did but I had never been told when his turned sour, and the way he treated me made it impossible for me to care.

  I made him a vanilla mocha, it was what he always ordered, and I set it down near the window.

  “Five dollars.” I put my hand out and waited.

  He laid his palm over mine with a five-dollar bill between us, squeezed my hand and used it to pull me to the window so our faces were almost touching as I struggled against him.

  “Hey. I got an idea. Why don’t you show me your titties and I’ll give you a tip?”

  I tried to pull back, but he wouldn’t give. “Hell no. Let go of me!” I looked around to see if anyone was near, or at the gas station next to the stand because if he realized there was an audience, I knew he’d let go.

  He l
icked his lips and stared down at my breasts that were thankfully fully covered. “I bet you got the purdiest–” He didn’t finish his sentence because he was interrupted by the sound of a roaring engine as it came down the road.

  That’s when I saw Micah’s Chevelle pull into the gas station and as soon as Jack saw him get out of the car and look in our direction he let go of my hand.

  I couldn’t even be mad that Micah was everywhere in that moment because that time he had unknowingly saved me.

  I pulled back quickly and put Jack’s coffee on the shelf outside of the window and shut it.

  He laughed at me so hard he had tears in his eyes before he left.

  He was an evil man.

  I put the money in the safe since it was all counted aside from Jack’s five, cleaned my last few dishes and walked out the door to lock up.

  Micah had walked around the shop without my noticing, so I jumped when I turned around to find that he was standing so close to me.

  After realizing it was him, I felt relieved, but I also prepared for a fight.

  He stood there with his hands in his pockets as he surveyed my person and I wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he seemed to be satisfied with what he saw or didn’t see.

  “Who was that?” he asked, obviously referring to Jack who was almost out of sight as he was about to turn down the street that led to the trailer park.

  I glanced up at the trees swaying all around the gas station parking lot as the wind picked up and brought angry gray clouds with it. It looked like it was finally going to rain.

  I considered how lovely it would be to say who Jack really was and tell someone of his advances, but I couldn’t and there was no point because Micah couldn’t do anything about it anyway.

  “No one important. Just a troublesome customer, he’s fine he just doesn’t quite grasp boundaries,” I said nonchalantly.

  Despite my efforts to sound casual, and to appear unaffected by Jack’s actions I could tell by Micah’s expression that he wasn’t buying my explanation.

  “Did you want something; we’re closed now but I could make you an Italian soda or something else without coffee?” I tried to change the subject because I could tell he had so much to say about it and I didn’t want to hear it, not from him.