I stared blindly at the beat-up Volkswagen that had shuddered to a stop next to my truck, then frowned as my gaze sharpened. The thing wasn’t just a wreck, it looked completely used up.
I mentally catalogued all the visible ways it probably should have been put out to pasture before now, then tilted my head to see if the driver was still inside. I hadn’t been paying attention, and with my truck being so high off the ground and the Volkswagen so low, I couldn’t tell from this angle. Someone should really let them know that the vehicle didn’t look safe, though.
“Greg,” I said, distracted now. “I really need to go.”
“Youcan’tstay at The Plazerra right now, Edward,” Greg said again. “The event they’ve got scheduled, it’s… private. Even if they were able to find a room for you—”
“Oh, they’ll have a room for me,” I interrupted, suddenly impatient. Besides, after the stink I’d made to secure myself a bed for the night? The little hotel hadbetterdamn well have one waiting for me.
Honestly, though, that wasn’t what was making me want to end the call. The driver of the Volkswagen had finally gotten out—stretching a little as if he’d had a long drive, too—and a rushing sound filled my ears as I watched him.
I missed Greg’s response, because for the first time in five years, my attention was completely captured by another man. One who was achingly beautiful, looked like he’d jump at his own shadow, and seemed utterly lost.
He reminded me of Blair.
Guilt shot through me so hard and fast that it physically hurt, and I ripped my eyes away as the man pulled a backpack out of his trunk and then scurried up the path to the hotel’s entrance.
“Fuck,” I bit out, interrupting whatever it was Greg had been going on about.
I scrubbed a hand over my eyes in the vain hope that I could erase what I’d just seen.
No, what I’d justfelt.
“Edward?” Greg asked, sounding concerned. “Are you—”
“Fine,” I snapped, anything but.
I rubbed at my chest, a new ache blooming there as I silently berated myself for my moment of disloyalty.
No, for my moment ofinsanity. Because seriously, what the fuck was wrong with me? The boy—and yes, I was going to stick with “boy” in my head, not “man,” since even the brief glimpse in the dying light had shown me that his sorry excuse for a car was probably older than he was—but theboyhad been nothing like my Blair. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure what it was about him that had given me that impression for a moment.
Tall and dark and svelte was the opposite of bouncy and blond and soft.
Sad, anxious eyes and the nervous air he’d had about him could never be mistaken for the beaming smiles and boundless energy I still missed so damn much.
And yes, anyone that runway-model gorgeous was always going to be eye catching, but it wasn’t whatIwanted. Definitely not. What I wanted, what I wasattractedto, was the wholesome, boy-next-door good looks that Blair had retained right up until he’d—
I swallowed hard, the unrelenting ache of missing him present and accounted for as always… right there under the equally unrelenting weight of the guilt that was both my well-deserved penance and my last remaining connection to the only man I’d ever loved.
“I’m fine,” I croaked into the disbelieving silence that had followed my first answer, then cleared my throat and tried again to try and make it sound like I meant it. “Totally fine, Greg, but I really… I just need to go.”
He protested again, but whatever else he had to say would just have to wait because, guilty-feeling or not, I could no more stop myself from following the boy I’d just seen into the hotel than I could have stopped the sun from setting.
Not that I’d ever bother him.
Not that I even planned ontalkingto him.
But driving the wreck he’d shown up in and looking like he did? Not his beauty, but… the rest. Clearly, someone needed to look out for him, and even though Blair’s death proved I was incapable of doing that well, until I knew the boy had someone else who would—and for reasons I couldn’t have explained if I’d tried—that “someone” was going to be me.
3
Rene
No one wasbehind the huge, polished wood counter when I walked in, but the minute I tapped the little bell sitting on top of it, a short, freckle-faced guy with ginger hair who looked like he was about my age tumbled out from a doorway markedStaff Only, his eyes lighting up the minute he saw me.
He was grinning so hard that I had to look over my shoulder to double-check that someone else hadn’t walked in behind me. But no, it was just the two of us.
“Welcome to the Purple Plum,” he said as he rushed up to the counter. He leaned on it with both elbows and rested his chin in his hands, like he was about to settle in for a gossip session instead of check me in. “Little? Middle? Here for the whole weekend? You missed the mixer earlier tonight, but there’stonsof other fun stuff happening through the weekend. Are you meeting your Daddy, or checking in on your own? What’s your name?”
