“Put this on.”
Her hungry eyes ate up my scars. One of her fingers reached out and traced one. “I liked you today.” She slipped the Henley over her head and dipped her nose down to inhale it. “You are phosphenes, Nash. You are the stars and colors I see when I rub my eyes. You feel real in the moment, but you fade away. Don't fade away this time.”
What does that even mean?
“And you speak like you’re a walking, talking dictionary twenty-four seven, and especially when you're drunk.”
“I’m not drunk.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled over when I realized I’d missed an exit with a motel. Emery unbuckled her seatbelt.
“Put on your seatbelt. We’re not stopping. I’m making sure there are no cars here before I drive the opposite direction on a one-way road.”
She ignored me, wearing a content smile on her face. I considered that maybe I hadn’t been watching her break tonight. I’d been watching her heal herself.
“I know your secret,” she whispered, climbing onto my lap. “You’re my Ben.”
And then she kissed me. Hard. On the mouth. And I realized I wanted to own all her kisses. But she’d been drinking, and I was reeling. Spiraling into disbelief.
Ben.
As in, Benkinersophobia.
As in, Emery Winthrop was my Durga.
What were the odds?
Fucking tell me Fate didn’t exist.
A battering ram hit my head.
Either I had the worst hangover or I'd gotten a cold. It felt like both.
I watched Chantilly snatch all the yogurt from the fridge. Hannah staked her claim on the sodas. Cayden scarfed down the cold cuts. Ida Marie ate string cheese without peeling it like a psychopath.
I’d grown past refusing Nash’s food, but part of me wondered if he'd stop making me lunches if I caved and grabbed snacks with witnesses in the room.
I hid a sniffle in my tissue, tempted to curl into my bed in the penthouse’s spare room. An actual mattress and silky sheets with a thread count higher than my bank balance.
This morning, I'd walked into my closet and found it cleared. The panic came first. Fury came second. The return of my vision came last.
A note on the floor read:
I’d give you a key, but we both know you already have one.
Nash
It wasn’t Nash’s handwriting, which made sense since he'd been with me the entire time. It looked like Delilah’s.
I was still staring at the fridge when Nash entered.
“I thought we were over this. Take what you want.” He reached into the fridge, somehow grabbed me exactly what I would have chosen, and tossed it on the empty couch cushion. “I'll still make the damn lunches, Tiger. Eat. Whatever. You. Want. Fuck.”
I reached for the juice pouch and pepperoni pizza Lunchables. My hip bumped the Jana Sport. A cascade of tissues fell to the floor
Nash spotted them, taking in the sheer quantity. “Are you sick?” A litany of curses sailed out of him. “I told you you’d get sick in the rain.”
“I told you so? Really?” I tore open the Lunchables and ate a pepperoni, smiling at him despite the congestion. “Are we five? You can do better than that.”
Nash collected my Jana Sport. “Come on.”
I tore into another pepperoni slice. “I already opened this.” The tray rattled in my frozen palms. “Can’t waste food.”
He nicked the meal and slammed it beside Chantilly’s yogurt. “Eat this.”
She jolted from the desk. “But—”
“Eat it.” His back ended her response. A thick brow arched at me. “Problem solved. We’re going.”
“I’m hungry,” I protested, but I followed him into the elevator.
He pressed the G button for the garage. “I’ll pick up McDonald’s on the way.”
I exited the elevator first. “I hate McDonald’s.”
“Virginia hates McDonald’s. You love it.” Nash unlocked his car, swung the door open for me, and waited for me to settle into the seat’s leather. “You’re obsessed with peeling the breading off their McNuggets and shoving them into a McDouble with fries, which by the way is fucking disgusting.”
“My McMasterpiece. Yum.” A sneeze swallowed my moan. The tissue filled my palm. Being sick sucked. “Don’t knock it ‘till you try it.”
I ate my McMasterpiece on the way to the doctor’s office. The final bite spoke of regret. I considered vomiting, but Nash’s car still smelled of petrichor and mud. Plus, he no longer had a roof. Maybe I'd done enough damage to the car.
“This is pointless. It's just a cold. It’ll go away on its own. One week max, but probably less.” Without a heater in my Alabama studio, I’d gotten so many colds, I was a pro at this point.
“We’re still going to the hospital.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
I hid my smile, because I read between the Nash-colored lines. He cared. It was cute. Warm, even. Like watching Ben and Nash merge into one being. The affection of Ben, mixed with the brash exterior of Nash.
“Can you finish this?” I held out a little cardboard box. The naked McNuggets filled it, white without the breading.
He wore a scowl, but he ate them all, since neither of us believed in wasting food. A question filled my mouth the entire drive.
Do you think it’s lust?
He’d told me to ask when I was sober, but every time it crawled toward my lips, I dug my nails into the leather.
This poor car. So abused by me.
At the hospital, Nash parked in a slot reserved for staff and guided me to a private entrance. We weaved through plain halls, stained by the stale scent of chemicals and death.
The intake room buzzed. Two teens clutched onto burned arms from a Fourth of July pyrotechnic display. An elderly woman rocked in her seat, rubbing at her arms. Patients filled every chair in the waiting room, and more stood to the side in various states of disheveled and broken.
“We’ll be here all day.” I groaned, brows dipping together when I noticed Nash walking to a door.
He arched a brow as if to say, Well? You coming or what?
A nurse approached him. “Sir, you can’t go in there.”
“My last name is on this building.” He flashed her a wolf’s smile. “I’ll go where I want.”
“Oh, Mr. Prescott.” The heels of her sensible sneakers squeaked with her retreat. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t catch your face. I’ll page a G.P.” She fled, not once turning back.
I groaned and followed Nash through a hallway he seemed to know well. “Don’t tell me you’ve turned into that douche.”
“That douche?”
“The one who pulls the money card every chance he gets.”
“Not usually.”
I stumbled after a sneeze and allowed Nash to steady me. “You donated this building and named it after yourself?”
“I named it after Dad.” He held a door open for me. “It’s the Hank Prescott Medical Center.”
“Oh.” I racked my brain for a polite way to say, horrible idea, but came up short. “He would have liked that.”
Nash snorted. “No, he wouldn’t have.”
“Yeah, he would have hated it.” I hopped onto the exam table. “He would have called it useless fanfare. Why'd you do it?”
“For starters, I wanted him immortalized by someone who isn’t you, me, Ma, or Reed.”
“If someone else remembers him, it makes his existence real.”
“Yeah.”
No wonder Nash’s chest was so broad. It housed such a big heart.
I wanted to apologize again for his loss, but it seemed inadequate. I wanted to ask him if he was okay, but that seemed inadequate, too. I settled for studying him.
Nash tugged at the otoscope covers. Three coasted to the floor. He kicked them near the door. “The doctor that forced Dad off the trial is on the board of this hospital. It’s why I chose to rename it. I want that motherfucker to see it every time he at
tends a meeting.”
More words fringed his mouth. They laid dormant there, unspoken. I would have pressed, but an older doctor stepped into the room.
“Nash.”
“Dax.”
Dax adjusted the stethoscope around his neck. “Heard you caused a scene out there.” He crushed the otoscope covers beneath his sneakers and cursed.
A smile ghosted Nash’s lips. “Driving my car through the building until I reached this exam room would be a scene. Civilized conversation, however, is not.”
“When have you ever been civilized?” Dax tossed the plastic and exchanged his Paw Patrol gloves for blue latex ones. “Who’s this?”
I waved. “Emery, and considering I’m in the room, too, you can ask me your questions directly.”
“Right. Sorry.” He snapped the gloves and approached. “I’m a pediatrician. I’m used to asking the parents, but it’s a full house today.”
The lack of a clipboard had me on edge. Didn’t all professionals use clipboards?
Nash toyed with the I.U.D. pamphlets, selecting one for the brand I’d gotten from my campus’ medical center.
Dax’s eyes followed mine to Nash. “Would you like Mr. Prescott to leave? Your confidentiality is a right.”
“I’m fine. Let’s get this over with.”
Doctors creeped me out, mostly because Virginia had raised me on concierge doctors and in-house medical care.
“Not a fan of doctors?”
“Sorry, I'll tone down the bite.”
Nash’s lips pressed together as if he didn’t believe me and found it amusing.
Dax pulled out a thermometer. “I take it you’re sick? What are your symptoms?”
“It’s just a cold.”
When I didn’t elaborate, Nash took over, listing the runny nose, coughing, sneezing, and bajillion other things he'd noticed in a single car ride. An otoscope examined my ears and nose. A thermometer determined my temperature. The metal of the stethoscope chilled my back.
And at the end of it all, Dax told me what I already knew. “The cold should go away in three to ten days without medication.”
“That’s it?” Nash leaned against the wall, face resembling a concerned coach’s. “No pills? Remember, it’s your head that I’ll be after if something happens.”
“It’s a cold, Nash. It’ll go away on its own.” Dax handed me a lollipop from his Paw Patrol fanny pack. It earned him a smile. “If you have a headache, take an over-the-counter NSAID like Advil or Tylenol.”
I unwrapped the lollipop. “Got it, Doc. Thanks.”
Dax left me alone with Nash. His bespoke suit paired poorly with my skinny jeans and tee, but I liked the dynamic. It was us.
I sucked on the candy, waiting for him to speak.
He toyed with one of the tongue depressors in a jar. “Why are you smiling?”
“I love Ben. You are Ben.”
The stick stalled in his fingers. “You remember last night?”
“All of it…” I shifted. The paper beneath my thighs crunched. “I might have been drunk, but I remember it all.”
Ask the question, Em.
Nash snapped a depressor in half and toyed with the fringe, probably collecting splinters. “Why Durga?”
“Her sacred animal is the tiger. She’s known as the Inaccessible.”
“Your Insta handle.”
The full-blown smile probably looked goofy and obnoxious, but I refused to tamp it. “You stalked me on Insta?”
“Of course not.”
My lips remained tipped up. I’d let this lie slide.
“Last night, I asked you a question. You told me to ask again when I’m sober.” My free hand toyed with the exam table’s paper. “Do you think this is just lust?”
“Ask me again later.”
“But—”
“If I say yes, you’ll feel like shit on top of being sick. If I say no, you’ll want me on you, all over you, in you. Do you really want to be sick when that happens?”
When.
Not if.
“I’m a master at healing,” I warned him, ruining it with a sneeze.
If he were the eye-rolling type, he would have. I think I’d seen him do it once in my fifteen—almost sixteen—years of knowing him.
“I don’t doubt it.”
I considered my next words. Ben was obsessed with penance. So was Nash… and he wanted my dad’s address.
“What will you do to my dad?”
The question sucked the energy out of the room and replaced it with uncertainty. I knew Nash needed closure, but it hurt that it had to come from my dad.
Nash tossed the sticks into the trash and tilted my chin up with a single fingertip. “I just need to talk to him.”
“You promise?”
“Yes.”
I shuttered my eyes, rested my forehead on Nash’s chest, and whispered, “He’s in Blithe Beach.”
Turns out, betrayal doesn’t sting as much when you do it for someone you love.
I bit into the turkey and Ruffles sandwich, tossing a chunk of the bread onto Dad’s grave. A bird waddled over and pecked at it.
Finally, life in this miserable place.
Blithe Beach, North Carolina.
A small town of humble, hardworking people. The town I’d grown up in before moving to Eastridge. Shitty houses. Shitty streets. Shitty beach, that’s more waste run-off than beach.
But the people didn’t suck.
They worked hard, raised good families, and did nice things for each other. Gideon could do worse.
Footsteps approached from behind. The shadow loomed over me, but I faced the tombstone. He sat beside me and leaned against some stranger’s grave marker. When he caught me staring, he shrugged.
“You think the dead care about sharing? If anything, they like the company.” He combed his fingers through his hair. “I take it Emery didn’t send me that email, asking me to meet her here?”
Nope. All me.
“Gideon.”
“Hey, kid.”
Kid. Wonder if you'd still call me that if you found out what I’ve done with your daughter.
He picked at his Timberlands, a far cry from the billionaire who never left the house in anything that cost less than a house mortgage. “I take it you’re talking to Emery if she gave you access to her email?”
“I’m more than talking to Emery.”
My Durga.
I never really gave much thought to Fate, but every time I considered how hard the world must have worked to get our paths to intersect so many different ways, I became a believer.
A war brewed within Gideon’s eyes as if he’d considered punching me before the yearning won. He missed his daughter. So obvious, a glass window would be less transparent.
“How is she?”
I rested a forearm on my bent knee. “She’s trouble.”
“Always was. When she was eight… and you were an adult,” he slid in, “I used to think she’d burn the world down with a smile on her face and good intentions.”
“Still could.” I tossed the sandwich to the crow.
Another landed.
You eavesdropping, Dad?
I wiped my palms on my sweats. Dad would give me shit if he caught me here in any of the overpriced suits that filled my closet, so I'd stopped by Nike for a pair of joggers. He’d still kill me for these. They cost more than he used to make in a day.
Gideon toyed with a beer can I’d placed in front of Dad’s tombstone. “Has she seen Virginia?”
“I’m not here for idle chitchat.” I swiped the Budweiser from his palm and chugged it.
He yanked another can from the 6-pack and cracked it open. “Tell me about my daughter, and I’ll talk to you.”
“Talk to me, or I’ll tell the world where you’re at.”
“You’ve changed.”
“You changed me.”
“I did nothing, and I suspect you know that, or I’d be cradling a black eye right now.”
&
nbsp; True. True as fuck. I’d spent the past four years searching for Gideon, and now that I’d found him, I skirted around the damn questions.
Maybe I didn't want to know the answer, because everything about this felt off. Blithe Beach? The population couldn't fill Eastridge Prep’s football stands. Most maps left the place out, and despite the beach, it hardly constituted as a beach town.
Tourists didn’t go to places like this.
Billionaires didn't hide out in places like this either.
They flew to non-extradition countries and lived the rest of their lives in luxury. At the very least, anywhere but Blithe fucking Beach.
I emptied the can and crushed it. “Why Blithe Beach?”
“Hank mentioned Blithe a few times.” Gideon drank small sips of his beer. “He told me to escape here when the company collapsed. I figured it’d be a good place to settle down.”
“Dad told you to come here?” I frowned at the ‘loving friend’ engraved on the marble.
Always took you as a bleeding heart, Dad.
“Yeah.”
“You talked to him?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you possess a vocabulary beyond ‘yeah,’ or have the polluted waters here induced developmental regression in your brain?”
“Fuck, kid.” Gideon shook his head. “You're too young to be this jaded.”
“I was less jaded when I had a dad.”
He ignored my jab. “I heard the trial’s board booted Hank. I talked to someone on the research team and found out why they nixed him.”
“Because Doctor Douche lost his money with Winthrop Textiles and took it out on Dad,” I finished for him.
“No.” Gideon exhaled. “That’s what I thought, too, but no.”
I could punch him. Rewriting history to make himself feel better sat on some low-as-shit rung of hell.
“I’m done with this bullshit.” I moved to leave, but he stopped me.
“Hank lied.”
“Watch your mouth.” I fixated on Dad’s marker, wishing ghosts existed so he could haunt the fuck out of Gideon.
“He told you and Betty the lie because it was better than the truth.”
“Which was?”
“That he’d die any day. The trial hadn't helped.” Gideon finished off the beer and replaced it with another. “It was all a placebo effect.”
Devious Lies: A Standalone Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Cruel Crown Book 1) Page 39