He paused for a minute. “Do you know who you’re asking?”
“I’m asking you, Hell. I’m asking if you want another new experience with me.” I smiled, and my eyes squinted, hiding the hope of him saying yes.
He blinked twice, and I took that as his answer.
We adjusted ourselves and gathered up our stuff, and I led him into the house, straight into the living room.
My freshly-painted nails hovered over the button on a white and pink Echo Dot, and I asked it to play my playlist.
I hadn’t set one, but I figured Hell had with Woodrow’s help. . . because that was how it happened in my eBook.
A song started—a long one—a ballad from the nineties. I feared for a moment how I’d reactto this style of music—something I once loved so much, only for it to be snatched away and tainted by Woodrow’s parents.
But I was willing to brave it. Willing to face bad memories to replace them with better ones. Willing to make this my new favorite song of all time, because it hadn’t been ruined by Wynter’s awful singing.
All that said, I was glad this ballad didn’t belong to Barbra Streisand, because so many of her songs, had been ruined by Wynter’s singing.
I stretched out my hand to Hell, who waited in the doorway for my next move. “Dance with me?” I asked, coyly biting along my bottom lip.
The room was a perfect, spacious square. The giant rectangular rug acted as a dance floor. Hell’s much bigger hand closed around mine, and I pulled him into the center of the room.
His hands found my hips, his eyes on my feet as he watched them move, following his lead.
He spoke the sweetest words. . . “Your father would be proud.”
I smiled, knowing he would be. And then I laughed, unintentionally as I said, “Yours wouldn’t.”
Hell laughed, too. A real laugh, not the cruel villainous cackle I’d grown so used to. “I would hope not. It’s my dying wish that he’s burning in hell.”
I didn’t approve of his words.
“It’s better to laugh about it, Jolie,” he told me. And while I still didn’t find it funny, I was glad he wasn’t as painfully depressed as he had been not so long ago.
He lifted the mood by tugging me close to his body. He was still free of his t-shirt, which had been tossed into the kitchen upon our entrance. He was still cold, but he was warming under my touch.
I tucked myself in close, appreciating the long song more than ever as I wrapped my arms around his back. And without even realizing it, I started singing along to the love song about nights of pleasure.
And, almost silently, he joined in.
Chapter 28
Woodrow—aged seventeen
My head pounded, my cupped hands covered my face, trying to block out the rising sun as it tried to blind me through the kitchen window. My finger shield wasn't strong enough to keep it out, and it did nothing for my migraine.
I had no idea how I got down here. No idea, at all. No idea why Nessie was tugging at my sweats, calling me fucking Suzie.
But I could imagine.
A new alter was on the rise, and judging by all the requests flying out of Nessie’s mouth, she was a parental figure. A better one than our actual parents.
“Go away, Ness,” I practically begged, my hand leaving my face to shoo her from me.
I lay draped across the table, hiding away from the checkered sheet and its permanent stains of food and blood.
Nessie kicked at the leg of my chair, huffing that I was no fun.
“It's nice to know you missed me,” I quirked.
