“No.” And he wasn’t going to because it might’ve never even happened. I could be one of those people that gets unexplainable bruises on their body. Anything was possible… right?
The bell on the diner’s door chimed, and Kasey gazed behind me. “Is your boyfriend a bit muscular, dark eyes, has a blue baseball cap?”
Oh, God. He was here, wasn’t he? He would see my neck. He would ask about last night. He would find out—everything.
My heart thumped against my chest, but I took a deep breath. Damn it, Dani, you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about.
Kasey leaned across the table and pulled my hair in front of my neck. “Don’t move and you should be fine,” she said.
“Dani!” Trevon called from across the diner.
I gripped the edge of the table harder. I could just imagine him walking down the aisle toward us, arms swaying front to back, with a huge grin on his face. After moments of waiting in pure agony, he finally approached the table. “Where have you been?” He placed his baseball cap on the table between us. “I’ve been looking for you all morning.” He turned to Kasey. “And who is…”
Kasey wrinkled her nose and pulled her hands away from my hair. “I’m Kasey.”
“You haven’t told me about her, Babe.” He sat next to me.
Of course, I hadn’t. He hadn’t given me much of a chance to tell him anything since Sunday.
Grabbing my hand above the table, he interlocked our fingers. “I wanted to ask what time you’ll be at the Halloween party on Friday.”
“Halloween Party?” Kasey asked.
“My bar holds a Halloween Party every year,” Trevon said. “It’s the biggest one in the city.”
I tensed and pulled my hand away from his. “Don’t you remember what happened last time?” I asked. “I can’t do that aga—”
He pushed some stray strands of my hair behind my ear. “You promi—”
“We’ll both be there,” Kasey said, grabbing my hand from his. “But we’re having a girls’ day right now, so you have to leave.”
Trevon placed a kiss on my cheek. “I have to work tonight, so I’ll see you tomorrow.”
When he left the diner, I gave him a half-smile through the window.
Kasey glared at him. “What an asshole.” She gripped her smoothie in her hand tightly, bringing the straw between her red-painted lips.
“Why is he an asshole?”
“I don’t like him.”
“Any particular reason?”
She shook her head, jaw clenched. “No.”
A few moments later, Mycah appeared with a plate of eggs and bacon in one hand and Kasey’s strudel which was oozing cream in the other. I grabbed my fork. “Well, I’m not going to the Halloween Party.”
“If I’m going, so are you.” She smiled, eyes lighting up. “And I know the perfect costume for you.”
CHAPTER 8
Dani
“Dani!” Maria yelled from the living room. I groaned and rolled onto my side, gazing at the city lights glowing in the darkness. It was Thursday night, and all I wanted to do was figure out an excuse for missing Trevon’s Halloween party tomorrow night. There was no way that I was going. There was also no way that Kasey would let me stay at home. So, my excuse needed to be believable.
So far, I had come up with running late with Dr. U’s clients, catching the measles, and getting possessed by a demon.
“What?” I shouted back. When she didn’t answer, I got up and stuck my head out the door. The bathroom light was on. “What, Maria?”
“Do you wanna get dinner with the guys next door?” she asked.
“No.”
“Awh, come on, Eros will be there!”
“Maria, I have a boyfriend.” For the fiftieth time. What didn’t she get about that? It’s not like I had ever been single for the past three years we’ve lived together.
She walked out of the bathroom, blue mascara stick in her hand. “There’s no harm in some innocent flirting, is there?”
None of the flirting that we’ve done was innocent. It was sinful.
“I’m not going.” I shut my door.
“Your loss! I guess I will get to toy with him for the night.”
I pressed my lips together, peeled off my striped blouse, and hurled it into the hamper. She got to flirt with him? Is that what she did when I wasn’t around? I inhaled the scent of my candle and rubbed Mom’s necklace. It didn’t matter what they did. I didn’t care.
A few moments later, the front door closed, and I dug my fingernails into my palms.
Damn her.
An hour later—after I had calmly paced around the house just thinking about what Maria had said—I was lying in bed, about to fall into a peaceful sleep without worrying about Eros for once.
Someone knocked on my bedroom door, and my eyes snapped open. I gripped the white sheets in my hand, pulling them over my bare legs. If this was another one of Eros’s little games, I swear to God I would—
The door opened, and Trevon walked in juggling a pizza from Giorgino’s in one hand and a bottle of white wine with two glasses in the other. “Delivery for a sexy, little lady.” He planted a kiss on my lips and dropped the pizza on my bed.
A smile crept onto my face, and I sat up. “What are you doing here? I thought you had to work tonight,” I said, grabbing the bottle of wine.
He took off his baseball cap and tossed it onto the dresser. “I took the night off, wanted to see you.” He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me tight into his chest, fingers lightly scratching the top of my head just where I liked. “I miss you. I feel like we haven’t spent any real time together in a while.”
His arms relaxed, and he sat back against the headboard. I poured two glasses of wine for us and snuggled up against him. We stared at the city lights through my window, watching the lights turned off in the buildings downtown every few minutes.
At 8 o’clock sharp, I watched Dr. U’s office go dark and silently thanked her for that little talk she had with me.
Eros was nothing compared to Trevon. I knew that. And I was so glad that I hadn’t gone out with them. I would’ve had a bad time, sitting next to Eros at dinner, having him flirt endlessly with me, gazing at that stupid damn smirk. So confusing, overwhelming, unnerving.
Trevon gripped my waist, pulling me closer, and tugged on one strap of my tank top. “What’re you dressing as for tomorrow?” He brushed his nose up the side of my neck. “Something sexy?”
“I’m not going.”
“Oh, come on, Babe. What happened last year is over. Nobody remembers anything.”
“I do.” I couldn’t go through that kind of embarrassment again.
He grabbed my glass of wine and placed it on my dresser, then crawled on top of me, pressing his lips against mine. “What do I have to do to get you to go?” He dipped his fingers into my underwear and pressed them against me. “This?”
“Trevon,” I said, smiling. I grabbed his hand. “No.”
“No?” He placed kisses down the middle of my chest to my navel and smirked up at me. “What about this?” He kissed me through my underwear, hooked his fingers under the string, and pulled them down.
I giggled softly at him and shook my head, pulling him back up to me. “I just want to spend time with you.” I brushed my fingers across the side of his head, where the kinky texture of his hair faded out. “I don’t want to go out.”