“Dee, what can I do? I’d be more than happy to go back inside and beat the shit out of him.”
Mason tries to reach for me but I back away. I don’t want anyone to touch me right now. Not when I can still feel Jordan inside me and on me. Smell his cologne on my clothes and skin. Feel the whisker burns of his stubble on my cheeks and neck.
My stomach lurches. We just had sex. He fucked me bare in the car. I let him have my body and my heart.
It wouldn’t hurt so much if he hadn’t said the words. But he did. He said them.I love you.They meant everything to me and nothing to him. Just meaningless shit said during the height of sex.
I want to leave. I don’t want to be here when Jordan and Daniella come back out. However, I refuse to drive Jordan’s Tesla for many reasons.
“Can you take me to Natalie’s?”
Mason tips my chin up, his fingers warm on my cold skin. His denim eyes tell me to be strong.
“We can take Bennett’s bike. I have a spare set of keys he gave me. Come on, babe. I’ve got you.”
Everything blurs together as Mason walks me around the outside perimeter of the house along the crushed slate pathway that leads to the front drive. A helmet gets slipped over my head and the next thing I know, I’m seated behind Mason, gripping his chest tightly as he maneuvers the bike with skill as we drive.
The tepid evening air whips my hair and stings my face, reminding me that even with a shattered heart, I’m still alive. I’m still here, and I will get through this. As soon as I get back to Natalie’s, I’m going to take a very long, scorching shower and fill the pages of my journal. I need to get the toxic out, so I can wake up tomorrow morning and start over. Blank slate. I’ve done it before.
I know I’m not thinking rationally right now. I need time to sort through everything. But it’s difficult to do with Daniella’s cries and Jordan’s silence slithering through my mind like pervasive, thorny weeds.
When we turn onto Natalie’s street, Mason slows the bike down and reaches behind himself to grab my thigh with urgency. He’s saying something over the helmet’s built-in microphone, but I don’t hear him because all I see are hellish orange flames and thick black smoke.
I shake my head and blink my eyes a few times because this can’t be happening.
But it is. I can feel the radiant heat and smell the acrid sulfur of burning wood.
Natalie’s house is on fire.
Chapter 49
“Hey, why won’t you come over and sit with us?”
Daniella crosses and uncrosses her legs. “I’m fine, Jordan.”
There’s a speaker a foot to the right that’s blaring out the car chase happening on the screen, so I have to lean in to hear her.
“Clearly, you’re not.”
Her crossed leg starts bouncing, causing the pointed heel of her stiletto to clang against the leg of the metal chair.
Danni looks right at me, her anger physically manifesting in the bitter thinning of her lips.
“How could you have sex with her?”
“Who?” slips out before I can stop it. I regret it instantly.
“It was obvious as soon as you both came back after being gone for over a half hour. And you have a hickey.” She points to my neck.
Well, shit. But I have nothing to hide. I’ll wear any hickey or bite mark Douglass gives me with fucking pride.
“How can you stand to screw that?”
Surely, I misheard her. “What did you just say?”
Danni’s face turns a guilty shade of tomato.
Okay. Now I’m mad. Not only on Douglass’s behalf but on mine as well. I won’t stand by and let anyone, not even Danni, bad-mouth the woman I love.
