“Why are you such a gentleman?”
“You wouldn’t say that if you had met me a year ago.” And just like that, the mention of what he used to be like shut all the good feelings down. What was I doing? I pushed myself away from him.
“I’m going to call Mase.” I got up and climbed over him, getting my phone from Hannah’s desk. Dusty followed me, moving my shirt aside so he could kiss my neck. I tried to ignore it as I realized I had about a million missed calls from both him and Renee.
“Hey, what’s up?” I said, knowing very well that Renee was going to lay into me.
“Where the hell have you been? I’ve called and called you. The snow is getting pretty bad, so I think you should come home. If you didn’t contact me in another ten minutes, I was going to send Mase to get you anyway.”
“I’m sorry. My battery died, and I couldn’t find my charger so I had to use Hannah’s.”
She sighed and Dusty kept kissing me. Damn, that was distracting. I reached my hand back and smacked him a little, hitting his nose and also poking him in the eye.
“Ow,” he said, moving away from me.
“Sorry,” I mouthed.
“What was that?” Renee was instantly on alert.
“Nothing, just dropped something.” I hoped she bought it.
“Okay, well, Mase is leaving now.”
“Okay, ’bye.” I hung up and spun around.
“Not nice. Renee definitely heard you.” He looked up from my neck.
“So? I’ll just say that I came here to say hello. Taking my guarding duties seriously.” He was smiling, but I didn’t think it was very funny.
“Not the best thing to bring up right now, Dusty.” I moved away from him and got the rest of my stuff together.
“Buffy!” I yelled and Hannah came rushing in.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I was just wondering if it would work for me, too. Mase is coming to get me with the truck. Will you please convince Dusty to let Mase give him a ride?”
She went to the window and looked out. The wind whipped the frothy white snow around, and the usually bustling walkway was bare of people.
“Damn. It’s looking pretty gnarly out there. I wouldn’t want to drive anywhere.”
“I live in Old Town. I could practically walk if I had to,” he said.
“You can give in now, or we can fight about it and then you can give in,” I said, throwing his words back at him. Take that.
He threw his hands up. “Fine, fine. I really suck at saying no to you, Red.”
“That’s as it should be,” Hannah said, nodding and patting Dusty on the shoulder. “Your woman is always right. Even if she isn’t.”
Mase texted me when he was in front of the building. Hannah had volunteered to keep my candy bucket safe for me, because there was no way I could explain that and not have everyone get suspicious.
“I swear, I won’t touch it. Those Skittles are tainted.” She made a face and pushed it to the back of her closet.
“Good, because I would find a really creative and painful way to murder you if anything happened to them.”
“Point taken.”
The storm was in full rage mode when we got downstairs. I pulled my hood tight around my face and Dusty did the same.
“Don’t you own a winter coat?”
“I kind of rushed out of the house in a hurry, Red. Didn’t have time to consider the proper attire.”
Oh. Right.
We both ran for the truck, and Dusty boosted me in so I rode bitch in the middle.
“Hey, man, what are you doing here?”
Dusty grinned in a casual way. “Just came to check on Jos and got stranded by this crazy storm. You mind giving me a ride back to my place?”
“No problem.” Mase was giving me a look, and I wondered if maybe my face was still red from crying. Hannah and Dusty had both assured me it wasn’t, but you never knew.
Mase drove confidently through the snow-covered streets, and before I knew it, we were at Dusty’s.
“See you, man,” Mase said, turning his head as if he was watching something fascinating in the opposite direction. Smooth.
“Yeah, thanks for the ride.”
Dusty looked at me, and I saw in his eyes that he wanted to kiss me goodbye, but that wasn’t possible in our current situation.
“’Bye, Red. See you later.”
“See you,” I said. Once again, lame goodbye. I almost told him to say hello to Napoleon for me, but that would have been like admitting I’d been to his place and then there would be a lot of questions that I couldn’t answer.
Just before he slid down off the seat, he grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard, once. I squeezed back and he let go and I let out a breath as he shut the door and a little bit of snow swirled into the car. I watched him walk to the back of the building and go up the steps and the automatic light flash on when he got near the top. He waved once and then closed the door.
Mase coughed and turned the radio volume up louder.
“Be careful,” he said.
“Careful of what?” I was still watching Dusty’s apartment as we pulled away.
“I think you know,” Mase said, and I met his eyes in the dark cab of the truck.
“Please don’t say anything.” I didn’t need Renee finding out and flying off the handle like I knew she would. Besides, I was going to end things with Dusty before they even began, so there would be nothing to freak about anyway. We were done. Finished. Sure, I’d still hang out with him when he was at the house. That was pretty much unavoidable, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to be alone with him, and if he tried anything, I’d just keep telling him it couldn’t be. Eventually, he would find someone else. Someone that was not emotionally damaged.
Someone who wasn’t responsible for his brother being dead.
Chapter 20
I thought Renee was going to tackle me when I walked in the house.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” she said, nearly squeezing the life out of me. Christ, it was like I’d gone off to war or something. I’d done way more dangerous things than this, things she knew about, but that didn’t stop her from giving me a nice and thorough tongue-lashing about keeping my phone charged and not doing things in snowstorms. We did live in Maine, so that pretty much meant I wasn’t allowed to do anything for at least half the year. I just listened and hoped she didn’t pop a blood vessel and waited for it to be over.