Devlin stared at her from behind Gabe and he . . . he looked at her, looked right through her, his strikingly handsome face devoid of emotion and even a flicker of recognition. He had to remember her, though. They’d just met yesterday , for crying out loud, less than twenty-four hours ago, and she thought they had shared a moment.
“Figured you’d find your way here,” she said to Gabe, and then looked at Devlin again, waiting for him to say something. Nothing. He looked at her impassively. “Surprised to see that one here.”
Devlin stepped out to the side. “Excuse me?”
It struck her then, really hit her that he didn’t recognize her. Wow. That was a pretty brutal wake-up call that she’d left absolutely no impression on the man.
Stung more than she should be, she focused on Gabe. “You here for Nikki?”
“Yes,” he answered. “You going to let me in?”
She blocked the door. Part of her wanted to let him in, but the other knew that him and Nikki had a rough go of it recently. Almost everyone in her book deserved second chances, but she was pretty sure Gabe was on his third.
“Depends,” she finally said. “Are you finally going to do right by my friend?”
“Who is this woman?” Devlin demanded.
Rosie sucked in a sharp breath as her gaze shot to him. He honest to God did not remember her! Maybe it was because she hadn’t gotten much sleep. Maybe it was because her best friend had almost died and had been beaten within an inch of her life. Maybe all of that mixed with the fact that a man who’d seen her less than twenty-four hours ago didn’t recognize anything about her. Rosie wasn’t a mean person. Most of the time, she liked to consider herself pretty chill. Granted, she could turn into a possessed bitch-tigress when it came to protecting those she cared about, but she knew life was way too short to be an asshole and to take things too seriously.
But the bitch-tigress came out in full force right then. “First name Nonya, last name Your Business,” she snapped, her gaze not leaving Gabe’s face.
Gabe’s lips twitched as if he were fighting a smile. “I’m going to try to.”
“Trying isn’t good enough, bud. Not anymore,” Rosie shot back and she saw the surprise fill eyes identical to Devlin’s. “You trying is pretty much like me trying not to eat the last cupcake in the fridge. It’s not real successful.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m going to do right by her. That’s why I’m here. You going to let me in?”
Hoping she wasn’t making a mistake, she stepped back and opened the door. “She’s in the bedroom.”
Gabe walked in then, nodding in her direction. “Thank you.”
“Don’t make me regret this,” she said, keeping her voice low. “Because you will not like it if I regret this.”
Gabe smiled, and Rosie had to admit, it was a nice smile. “I won’t.”
“Good.”
He slid past her just as Devlin entered her apartment. She bet he had a nice smile, too. The man who’d spoken to her for a good ten minutes the day before didn’t even look at her.
He was staring straight ahead, past his brother. “Is that really a beaded curtain?”
His tone knitted her brows. He sounded like . . . like he just spied a naked old man shaking his junk. Devlin hadn’t spoken like that the day before. Sure, they hadn’t had an epic-long conversation, but that . . . that cold revulsion hadn’t been there.
Thrown off by his tone and irritated by her apparent utter forgetability, she fired back, “You got a problem with that? Are they not up to your taste or class?”
“I’m pretty sure that most people who are over the age of twelve find them to be tasteless.”
“Behave,” Gabe said to Devlin as he parted the beads, disappearing into the bedroom.
Swallowing hard, she turned to Devlin. If he thought beaded curtains were childish, good thing he’d never see the glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling. She opened her mouth but was at a complete loss as to what to say.
He stood not even a foot inside her apartment, stiff as iron bars. Standing like he couldn’t bring himself to step any farther as he still stared at the beaded curtain.
For a moment, Rosie allowed herself to be dickmatized—you know, when you were either hypnotized by how attractive someone was or you were hypnotized by their dick, which therefore allowed you to look past unsavory traits about the person. That was what she was doing right then. She was allowing herself to ignore, just for a few seconds, the fact that man had absolutely forgotten her and was currently staring at her beaded curtains like they were a crime against man, and was just going to bask in his unequivocal attractiveness.
Devlin was dressed like he had been the day before, white button-down dress shirt neatly tucked into a pair of heather-gray trousers. His shoes were so polished Rosie could probably see her reflection in them. The de Vincents had good DNA, and it really showed when it came to Devlin. From the height of his cheekbones to the strong curve of his jaw, he had the kind of face she wished she had the talent to sketch, just to capture the angles and planes.
His hair was perfectly coiffed and Rosie had this wild urge to shove her fingers in his hair and mess it up. Unfortunately, even with all the attractiveness and even with what was an apparent one-sided connection, Devlin was turning out to be a douchebag of the highest order—the order reserved for rich, privileged pricks who treated the world like it was their oyster.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “You really have a problem with beaded curtains, don’t you?”
He didn’t look at her as he replied, “Who wouldn’t? They’re beaded curtains.”
Never in Rosie’s thirty-three years of life on this planet had she ever met someone who was so offended by beaded curtains. And she had seen a lot of bizarre things in her life. Once, she’d seen a book fly off a shelf by itself. She’d seen a dead person lift their arm—a postmortem spasm, but still, that had been freaky as hell, and a bit traumatizing. Twice she’d seen a full-bodied apparition, which to this very day was in the top five most amazing things she’d ever witnessed. Just last night, a complete stranger came through her psychic reading—a stranger who just might be this man’s father. And she’d seen a lot of bizarre stuff on the crowded, narrow streets of the French Quarter on a daily, often hourly, basis.
But someone offended by beaded curtains?
That was a first.
Goodness, this morning—the last twenty-four hours—had not been normal at all.
“Are they even made out of real wood?” he asked.
Sighing, she arched a brow. “Yes. They’re made of particleboard and yes, I bought them down at the local Walmart.”
Devlin didn’t turn his head toward her, but his gaze did slide in her direction. “Particleboard is not real wood.”
“Isn’t it made with wood chips, and the last time I checked, wood chips are wood.”
“It’s also made with sawdust and synthetic resin,” he replied.
“So?”
“It’s not real wood.”
“Whatever.”
“Whatever?”
“Yeah, whatever ,” she repeated.
Now he turned toward where she stood beside her coffee table. “You cannot ‘whatever’ away the fact that particleboard isn’t real wood.”
Rosie let out a soft laugh. “I cannot believe you’re still talking about particleboard.”
A look of surprise flickered across his face. “And I cannot believe you think particleboard is real wood.”
Another giggle squeaked out of her as she spun around and walked over to her couch. “You’re still talking about particleboard.”
“I am not.”
“Yeah, you are.” She plopped down on her comfy couch, probably the only thing in her apartment that cost any real money. She picked up her mug, hoping the coffee hadn’t cooled. “And those beaded curtains are freaking ah-mazing, particleboard or not. So, don’t talk smack about my super-cool beaded curtains.”
“They’re beaded curtains,” he said, sounding like he was pointing out a massive cockroach on her wall.