Strangers who once loved each other more than two people probably should.
When she’s tucked in and covered up, I peel my vomit-covered jeans and socks off and toss them in the trash in her bathroom. A quick check in a top dresser drawer, and I find Brooks’s stash of pajamas.
They’re folded nice and neat. Coordinating tops and bottoms. Red. Black. Baby blue. All satin with white piping. Monogrammed. Pretentious as fuck. I opt for a pair of black pants and head downstairs. I’ll take the couch, though it’s not like I’ll be sleeping tonight.
Insomnia’s a bitch, and I need to be able to hear in case Demi wakes up tonight and decides to do something moronic. After seven years, it seems like her stubborn streak is still alive and well.
I settle in downstairs, ears tuned in in case she gets up in the middle of the night and needs rescuing once again.
And that’s kind of why I’m here.
To rescue her.
Chapter Five
Royal
Creaking wooden steps at seven the next morning tell me she’s up. Demi tiptoes to the doorway of the living room, and I sit up, resting my elbows on my knees.
“Morning,” I break the silence after a thirty-second staring contest.
She massages her temples. “You stayed.”
“Yeah. You were in bad shape last night.”
Her eyes linger on mine from across the room until she clears her throat and glances out the window. She squints at the sunrise.
“You should eat something.” I rise and make my way toward the kitchen.
“Are those Brooks’s pants?” She follows, keeping a careful distance.
“Yeah. You kind of ruined mine.” I pull the door of her refrigerator open, like I own the damn thing, and retrieve a half-empty carton of orange juice. I step on the pedal of a nearby stainless steel trashcan. The mechanized lid lifts automatically, and I drop it in. “Guessing you’re not going to want OJ for a while.”
She sinks onto a fabric-covered bar stool. White linen to match her white counters and white cabinets. I’m not entirely convinced that anyone even cooks in here. It looks like one of those show kitchens in some designer showroom.
I spent the bulk of last night studying her immaculate living room and stared a bit too long at all the photographs in coordinating, polished silver frames. Most portrayed a picture-perfect smiling couple. A few portraits of the Rosewoods over the years were intermixed. Those brought back memories of better days. I even got choked up when I saw how different they all looked now. Bliss has gray hair. Robert’s hair has thinned a bit. The twins are grown women. Derek looks . . . like an attorney.
I was supposed to go to law school with him. We were going to practice at Robert’s firm together. A family of prosecuting attorneys.
What a fucking joke of a plan that turned out to be.
There’s a painting above the fireplace mantle, which I’m assuming was done by Daphne. She always did have a knack for seeing the world through an artistic lens. It looks like an impressionistic landscape portrait of the centuries-old Carver lighthouse on Miller’s Island at sunset, where I used to take Demi to fish. Or rather, I’d fish and she’d read a book on a blanket beside me.
I grab a carton of eggs from Demi’s Viking refrigerator, check the date, and search for a pan beneath the oven.
“You sure know your way around my kitchen.” She watches my every move.
“Oh, yeah? Do other people keep their eggs in the pantry? Their frying pans in the freezer?” I click a gas burner to medium and pull a spatula from a ceramic canister next to the stove.
“I don’t like eggs.” Her nose wrinkles. She’s so fucking cute, despite the fact that she’s not trying to be. She doesn’t like me making myself at home. I see it written all over her face. But she’s too polite to stop me. Can’t take the well-bred Rosewood out of the girl, no matter how pissed she is at me. “Remember?”
I grip the edges of the white marble counter and hunch my shoulders. “Right. That’s right. You don’t like the smell.”
“The texture.”
“Yeah,” I say, clicking the burner off. “You eat toast still?”
She nods.
“Peanut butter and brown sugar?”
She nods again. “Haven’t had that in forever. You remembered.”
“You’re going to have to tell me where you keep your bread.”
Demi slides off the stool and wanders to the pantry, emerging with a loaf of nine-grain artisan bread and a futuristic toaster that would make a Jetson green with envy. She places them on the center of the island and exhales.
“This is weird. You in my kitchen. Making me breakfast.” Demi’s voice fades into nothing. She bites her lip and stares out the picture window above the breakfast nook.
“What’s weird is that you’re actually being nice to me. Last night you were looking like you wanted to bite my head off.”
Her gaze snaps back to mine. “I still want to bite your head off.”
“Can we do it after we eat? Kinda hungry.”
Demi studies me, returning to her seat. I think she might smile for a second, but that smile never comes. But within minutes, we’re casually eating toast like all of last night never happened.
The scent of brewing coffee fills the frost-colored kitchen after a while. A percolating puff-puff, drip-drip sound comes from a wall by the sink.
“It’s on a timer,” she says.
I glance at the built-in coffeemaker and its fifty thousand knobs.