He attacked everything that I was—my sexuality, my work, my relationship with my mother and my sister, Shannon—and told me I was a mistake. That I was too fucked-up to be alive. That I shouldn’t have been born.
That was Angus’s gift. He could hear every dark, twisted thought I had, and he knew how to sharpen them into daggers. Ten months later, I couldn’t stop hearing those words.
I walked through the unit one last time, photographing what was left of the original design elements and noting restoration ideas. In the hallway joining the twin penthouse units, I texted Shannon to reiterate my annoyance. Then I hit up the manager at the new whiskey bar in the South End to reserve my preferred booth.
Tapping the corner of my phone to the elevator call button, I watched a woman emerge from the other unit. I stared at her, all summery and happy in her long yellow skirt and sleeveless magenta top, with a face like sunshine and a jingling ankle bracelet announcing her approach.
No one was allowed to look that pleased with life when it was too hot to exist.
“Hi,” she said with a smile, her thumb beating a rhythm against the call button. Dark, shoulder-length hair fell across her face as she leaned forward. “This thing being slow again? It was slow last week, too. I guess that’s part of the deal with old buildings, right?”
She was too much and too loud, and I dug in my pocket for some hand sanitizer. I’d come in contact with enough germs for one afternoon. I glanced up from her ankle and stopped attempting to extrapolate a good reason why any civilized person would wear a noisemaker, and shrugged.
She laughed, and said, “Okay then.”
She started humming, and then shaking her ankle with the tune, and I looked for the stairwell. I couldn’t stand in this hall with a chattering music box much longer, and sharing an elevator with her would require a sedative.
Despite my penchant for the high-end bar scene, I preferred quiet. Growing up with five siblings who made Attila the Hun’s crew look like a chill group of guys who enjoyed churning their own butter meant I had to find that quiet for myself. Noise-canceling headphones, soundproofed insulation in my office, and enough space so that Riley and I could go weeks without seeing each other in the firehouse we shared.
Noticing a doorway at the far end of the hall, I gestured for her to step aside. A humid stairwell was a reasonable price to pay for serenity.
“Hey,” she said, her hand grabbing my elbow. “It’s here.”
I met her eyes for the first time since she jangled into my personal space, and as much as I wanted to scowl at her invasion, her smile was too warm, her hazel eyes too bright. She was pretty in a way I couldn’t comprehend—maybe it was her shortage of rail-thin, blue eyed blondeness, or the fact she wasn’t made up, blown out, or put together, or that she wasn’t simply looking at me but she wasseeingme—and her smile transformed her whole face. Soon, I was smiling too.
Like a fucking lunatic.
Then I felt the first spasms of panic stirring my stomach, squeezing my lungs, making my skin too tight.
My instincts told me to walk away from Miss Music Box, pop some pills to cage the ugly green anxiety monster, and hike down eleven flights of stairs.
I always listened to my instincts. Beyond my siblings, they were the only things I could trust in this world.
But I stepped into that elevator anyway, gazing at her light eyes, and within ten seconds of the door closing, I was hurtling to my death.
“WHAT THE FUCK was that?”
I was hitting an octave above shrill, well inside screechy territory, but free falling in a blacked-out elevator didn’t require perfect pitch.
“Hey. Are you okay?” I asked.
No response.
I wasn’t on this roller coaster alone, right? That sweet, beautiful boy who gave me all kinds of lost puppy dog eyes couldn’t have been a heat-wave-induced mirage.
The fall had tossed me against the side wall, and I was on my hands and knees, my shoulder throbbing. I knew I was going to feel that every time I lifted my bow or picked up my guitar for a week or two. Reaching out, I blindly patted the ground around me until my hand connected with a leg.
“All right, you better be alive,” I said, my hand anchored on his thigh as I crawled closer. As far as thighs went, it was nice. Solid and strong, yet lean. “The only way this could get worse is if I’m trapped in here with a dead guy.”
Dim lights flickered on overhead, and that had to be a good sign. We weren’t slamming into the ground floor if there were emergency lights, and I was sticking with that logic.
“Oh, you areadorable.I should be concerned about whether you’re seriously injured, but you are too freaking adorable for that right now.” I laid my hand on his cheek. His eyelashes were long, longer than should be allowable for men, and thick and dark. His hair was the same way, but shot through with a touch of auburn, and it wasn’t even close to fair.
Hell, this boy wasn’t beautiful. He was gorgeous. The kind of gorgeous that modeled underwear in Times Square ads.
And he probably knew it, too.
They always did.
