by Emery Rose
Would it be better if I walked away? Hell yes. But was I going to? I should.
As it turned out, the universe had a sick sense of humor.
“Why do you want to talk to him?” Cruz asked, his eyes narrowing with suspicion, his phone pressed to his ear as we headed to our cars in the parking deck. He shook his head and huffed out a laugh. “They don’t need you playing fairy godmother, babe.”
Babe?
Cruz held out his phone to me. I raised my brows. “It’s Nicola. Said she needs a favor.”
I took the phone from him, wondering what the hell Nicola could want from me. “Yeah?”
“Hey Dylan. Listen, Scarlett’s sick. She has a bad cold. I’m at work but I’ve made her some beef marrow broth.”
“Beef marrow broth. The fuck is that?”
“It’s really good for you. I’ve made enough for you too. Can you just pick it up from Cinque Terre and take it to her? Please. I would but I can’t leave work. You’re the only one I could call. She can’t get Remy sick and if Shane gets sick—”
I cut off her long-winded explanation before she named every Tom, Dick, and Ollie in Scarlett’s life and gave a reason why they couldn’t help. “Yeah, I got it. See you in ten.”
I ended the call even though she might have still been talking, and handed the phone back to Cruz.
Cruz scowled. “You were supposed to pass the phone back to me, dickwad.”
“Call her back.” I climbed into my car and slammed the door shut on his next words.
Armed with enough beef marrow broth to feed a small country, I rapped my knuckles against Scarlett’s front door and waited. Nothing. I knocked again. Still no answer so I tried the door, never expecting it to open.
Fucking hell.
This might not be LA or New York City, but I didn’t know of a single place safe enough to leave your door unlocked. Anyone could have walked in and robbed her blind. Or worse.
I flicked the switch on the wall, shedding some light on the living room and locked the door behind me.
“Scarlett?” I called as I crossed the small living area to the kitchen separated by a half-wall.
I’d only been to her apartment once, the night of her birthday. It looked like her. Vintage with a dash of modern. A midnight blue sofa, 1950s style wood coffee table, and two mismatched chairs. One was green, the other mustard yellow. A few pieces of framed artwork decorated the white walls and I knew they were her designs.
I set the containers of soup on the kitchen counter and called her name again as I strode down the hallway, poking my head into the rooms until I got to hers and stopped in the doorway. Fairy lights draped over her headboard lit up the darkness and her small form was huddled under a Hawaiian flower-print duvet. Hundreds of Polaroids hung from fishing wire on the wall above her bed.
Dragging my eyes away from smiling photos of her with Shaggy Doo and her friends—snapshots of happy memories from the past decade of her life—I crouched in front of her, so we were eye level. “Hey,” I said quietly. “How are you feeling?”
Her eyelids fluttered open and she winced like the light hurt her eyes. They were glazed over, her cheeks rosy, and her lips chapped. Her wavy blonde hair was matted to the side of her head. She looked so young, like a child with a fever, but even sick, she was still so fucking pretty. The kind of pretty that was dangerous.
She made me hard, but she also made me weak. For her.
“What are you doing—” She started coughing and couldn’t finish the sentence. Her eyes closed again like they were too heavy to hold open.
I laid my hand on her forehead. She flinched at my touch, a groan escaping her lips.
“You’re burning up.”
“Your hands are so cold,” she said, her voice hoarse. My hands were warm, just like they always were. She was shivering so hard I could hear her teeth chattering. “So cold. Can’t warm up.”
I debated for a minute before I kicked off my high tops and rounded the bed to the other side, pulling down the covers. A quick glimpse revealed that she was wearing my old hoodie with flannel pajama bottoms. I climbed into bed behind her in my T-shirt and sweats and pulled up the covers to trap the heat from our bodies. It was like a fucking oven under here, but she was still shivering so I pulled her close and tried to warm her up with my body heat.
Scarlett brought out all my protective instincts, always had. When she was in her teens, the thought of anyone messing with her used to make me feel nauseous. She was tough and strong in her own way, but she had this innocence about her, like the world was still a thing of joy and wonder. I loved that about her. I loved a lot of things about her.
I remember the night she turned up at my underground fight. Not the kind of place she should have ever ventured to. Especially not alone, at night, on a bus and on foot.
To make matters worse, she’d attracted attention. A tiny blonde bombshell with wide baby blues and those goddamn lips that just beckon you to sink your teeth into them. Or kiss them raw. Or have them wrapped around your… fuck, I couldn’t think about that now. She was sick. Burning up with fever while I was sweating my balls off from the heat radiating off her body. But I stayed right where I was, her own personal space heater, trying to keep her warm.
“Better?” I asked a little while later when her teeth had stopped chattering.
“Mmm hmm.”
So, it was the first time I slept with Scarlett Woods, we did not have sex or do anything even remotely sexual.
During the night, she drifted in and out of a semi-lucid state and confided things that I was sure she wouldn’t have if she hadn’t been out of her mind with a fever of 102. I knew it was 102 because I used the digital thermometer I found in the bathroom cabinet to check. Every hour. On the hour. Like a mother hen.
I plied her with water and some of that beef broth which tasted better than it sounded, and I listened to her ramblings. She was cute and funny and honest, and she made me wish for something I’d never wanted before. To be the hero in someone’s fairy tale instead of the villain.
Because Scarlett Woods confessed that she’d been in love with me ever since she was eleven years old and I climbed into her bedroom window.
17
Scarlett
There was a soft knock on my bedroom door and then it opened, light spilling into my dark room from the hallway. Nic gave me a big smile and flicked on my table lamp. I blinked a few times, trying to accustom my eyes to the light as she set a steaming mug of something on my bedside table.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, sitting on the edge of my bed. She smelled like grapefruit shower gel, her wet hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail, in terrycloth shorts and an oversized Lakers sweatshirt that used to be Aaron’s.
I propped up the pillows against my headboard and sat up. Just that simple act made me dizzy and gave me a coughing fit.
Stupid cold. It had started with a sore throat and a cough on Sunday. When I woke up Monday morning, I was achy all over and even my eyeballs had hurt. “Like a limp noodle.”
“I’m not surprised. Drink your broth.”
“Broth?” I reached for the mug and wrapped my hands around it, bringing it up to my nose for a sniff. “What is this?” I asked, pulling a face.
“Just drink it. It’s good for you. Trust me.”
“Says the girl who loves anchovies.” I took a sip. It wasn’t too terrible, but I wouldn’t exactly be clamoring for more.
“Well?” she asked, gesturing to my mug.
“Not bad.” I took another sip to placate her. “Mmm. Yum.”
She laughed, and crawled up the bed, sitting next to me with her back against the headboard, her enviably long legs crossed at the ankles.
“How long have I been asleep?” I glanced out the window. It was dark. Like middle-of-the-night dark.
“About twenty-four hours, give or take.”
My eyes widened. “What?!” I scrunched my nose. “No wonder I smell like I just rolled out of a dumpster.”
“Yeah.” She pinched the end of her nose. “You smell, babe.”
Couldn’t be insulted when she was just speaking the truth. “What about work?”
“I called in sick for you. Shane said to take as long as you need. Remy called to make sure you were okay.”
Knowing that Shane and Remy had been informed, I relaxed a little and drank my broth. We were quiet, but she had a big smile on her face. After eight years of friendship, I knew how to read her. She was bursting to tell me something big. I smacked her arm. “Oh my God. Did you and Cruz elope?”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s only been one day, not ten years, Rip Van Winkle. But guess who nursed you back to health?” She looked smug. Therefore, untrustworthy.
“You?” I asked hopefully. Please let it be Nic.
Nic shook her head, her smile wide. Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it. “Dylan.”
She said it. With a groan, I sagged back against my pillows. I vaguely remembered him being here, but I thought it had been a dream. Last night I’d had a lot of freaky weird dreams and at one point, a giant hot dog was chasing me down the street. I didn’t even want to analyze that one. “Really? Dylan saw me like this?” I asked with dismay.
I lifted the covers to remind myself what I was wearing. Black and green plaid pajama bottoms and fuzzy Halloween socks with his hoodie. Ugh. Someone just shoot me. I looked like a bag lady.
Nic nodded, looking all proud of herself. “Yep. I called him yesterday and he rose to the challenge.”
“Why would you call him?” Because, really, he was the very last person she should have considered calling. Nothing says romance like a cough and a fever. Ugh, we weren’t romantically involved. Yes, were. No, we weren’t. My internal debate sapped what little strength I had left in my body.
I was exhausted. Wrung out like a used dishrag.
“I had to work, and I didn’t want you to be alone. If you had a different mother, I would have called her, but your mother would have been useless.”
Sadly, it was true. When I was a kid, I was prone to fevers, and my mother had always let the nanny deal with my childhood illnesses. But still. Dylan?
“He stayed the night and left this morning.”
I set the mug on my bedside table, buying time before I asked the question, dreading to hear the answer. “Um, where did he sleep?”
“In your bed.”
“Oh my God. That’s just…” I didn’t know what it was. Mortifying? Crazy?
“He was really great,” Nic said. “I thought he’d just drop off the soup or maybe, at a stretch, stay until I got home from work, but he went the extra mile.”
“I don’t think he does anything halfway.” Which made me think of his words: Not until you’re ready to fuck me or wrap your lips around my cock. Should I be thinking of that now? No, absolutely not. “But Nic, that whole thing at Mavericks…” It felt like a lifetime ago, but it still hurt like a fresh wound. “I lost Ollie.”
“I know. That sucks.”
I’d told her the whole story the following day, so she did know but I still felt the need to hash it out. “If Dylan hadn’t been there, none of that would have happened.”
“I’ve been thinking about this. If what Ollie said is true, that you broke his heart, he would have had the same problem seeing you with any guy. It just happened to be Dylan.”
Someone was Team Dylan. She’d never once defended Ollie like she did Dylan. “Why are you trying to push us together?”
Before she could answer, her phone pinged, and she checked it, hiding the screen before I could read the text. It was probably from Cruz. They’d been texting non-stop since the night they met. Their relationship was so easy. Boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, girl wants to jump his bones. And it was perfectly acceptable for them to do that. There were no obstacles in their way. No sister. No Ollie. No conniving father.
“If you hurry up and finish that broth, you might have time for a shower.”
No sooner were the words out of her mouth when someone pounded on the front door. It sounded aggressive. My mind immediately went to the most likely candidate. “Oh no. Tell me it’s not—”
“What did I tell you about locking the front door?” Dylan growled.
My eyes widened when I heard the door close which meant that Dylan was inside our apartment. On the prowl.
“Nic,” I hissed. “Tell him I’m not here.”
“Hey Dylan. We’re in Scarlett’s bedroom,” she yelled.
Traitor. I pulled the covers over my head.
Chase proposed to Sienna on Valentine’s Day. He’d taken her to a trendy restaurant in West Hollywood and when the molten chocolate lava cake arrived, he’d gotten down on one knee in front of everyone and their mother and asked Sienna to marry him. There had been tears and champagne and she’d said yes.
I found this out from my mother who left it on a voicemail this morning while I was in the shower. There was another voicemail from Sienna telling me a similar story.
On my fifteen-minute walk to work, I called her back because it would be rude not to. Normally, I didn’t mind the walk, but dark storm clouds had gathered, and I didn’t have an umbrella. I was finally feeling human again and had kicked that cold to the curb so the last thing I needed was to get caught in a downpour.
“Congratulations,” I told Sienna, forcing enthusiasm into my voice, and hoping it would override the guilt I was feeling. “I’m really happy for you.”
“Thanks. Mom’s already planning the wedding.” I could practically hear the eye-roll on her end. It matched mine.
“Well, at least it will give her something new to obsess about.”
I should tell her. Now was my chance. I kissed your ex-boyfriend. He gave me two orgasms. Okay, three. He nursed me back to health. He brought me spicy Pho and ice cream last night and we binge-watched Stranger Things.
How could I tell her any of this? What words could convey how deeply sorry I was that I’d fallen in love with the very last guy I should have? I was a skank. A ho. Candidate for worst sister ever.
“Um, so… you and Chase are happy, right? You really love him, don’t you?”
Coward.
She hesitated a moment before answering, or I could have imagined that. “I wouldn’t have said yes if I didn’t love him. We’re really good together. We’re good for each other.”
“In what way?” I darted over to Corbin who was huddled inside a sleeping bag in his usual spot behind the dry cleaners. He was a war vet, one of the forgotten, and had lost his mind somewhere in a desert half a world away.
I set the plastic carrier bag next to his army green duffel bag and slipped away before he woke up. Sometimes he got angry. Sometimes he cried.
One of the cooks from the taco joint next door winked at me as I hurried past him in the alley, like we were conspirators.
“We come from similar backgrounds and you might not think that’s important, but it is,” Sienna said. “And we have the same core values.”
Not exactly the answer you’d expect from someone who was madly in love. It sounded more like something a shrink would say. What were core values?
“Oh. Okay. That’s good. Core values are good. I’m just glad you’re happy and that you moved on and found someone… who’s right for you,” I finished lamely.
“It makes life a lot easier. I mean, with Dylan, everything was just so exhausting. He was hard work whereas Chase actually talks and acts like an adult.”
Relief flooded my body. Dylan had been exhausting. She didn’t want to go back for more of that. She was over him. “Well, I guess that’s how it is when you find the right person. It’s not supposed to be so hard, right?”
“I guess not.” She was silent a beat. “Have you met anyone special?”
Yes, and sometimes he even talks to me. “Nope.”
God was going to strike me down. I looked up at the sky. The clouds were getting darker.
“Maybe you’ll meet a ho
t surfer dude at work. Hey, I have to run. I need to get to a meeting. Talk soon, brat,” she said, using her old nickname for me but her tone was affectionate.
After we ended the call, I picked up my pace, trying to beat the rain. Seconds before I reached the front door, the skies opened up and the first lashings of rain hit my face.
Was this my punishment for lusting after Dylan St. Clair? How biblical.
Or it could be my punishment for justifying my behavior. Sienna had sounded happy. She was getting married to a man she loved. She had moved on. Why shouldn’t Dylan be able to do the same? There was absolutely nothing wrong with what we were doing.
Keep telling yourself that. One of these days you’ll actually start believing your own lies.
18
Scarlett
This wasn’t a date. It was just two friends eating a casual dinner together. At a little sushi place in Santa Ana. Thirty miles from Costa del Rey, where it was unlikely we’d run into anyone we knew.
Dylan had picked me up right after he finished work and was dressed in black jeans and a steel gray button-down shirt that brought out the gray in his eyes. They looked like summer lightning. Smolderingly hot. Like him.
When I’d climbed into the passenger seat, my fingers had itched to run through his thick, dark hair and make it messy and disheveled. But I’d refrained. Just barely.
On the drive to the restaurant, I told Dylan about Sienna’s engagement and had watched his face closely to gauge his reaction. But as far as I could tell, he hadn’t been distressed or surprised by the news. All he’d said was, “Sounds like she found the kind of guy she should have been with all along.” Then he’d cranked up the music, and that had been the end of that conversation.
Now, I watched Dylan across the blond wood table as he slathered a piece of salmon sashimi with enough wasabi to clear his nasal passages for an entire decade. He guided the quivering raw fish to his mouth and I laughed when his eyes widened and started to water. “Whoa,” he said, with a shake of his head that made me laugh harder.