Deer in Headlights (Hearts and Arrows 1) (Good god series) (20 page)

He laughed so loud that a passerby gave him a dirty look. “I still maintain that the most impressive thing Stevie Wonder ever did was learn to play the drums.”

Dean pulled open the door, and she paused. “Wait, are you saying you don’t love Stevie Wonder?”

He smiled crooked. “I actually do love him. Who doesn’t love Stevie Wonder? He’s a goddamned national treasure.”

“Well, that’s a relief. That would have been a dealbreaker,” she said absently as she walked past him.

“Not your boyfriend?”

She froze, and her mouth hung open in an ‘o.’ She blushed again and snapped it shut. “No, I didn’t mean—“

“It’s fine, Lex,” he said with a smile, and she died a thousand deaths of shame and torture at the counter of the Shanghai Palace.

They carried the bags of takeout back to the warehouse, chatting easily, and Lex was relieved that it was all out in the open and that they’d come to some sort of arrangement, no matter how fragile it seemed.

DITA PACED IN ELYSIUM, too wired to sit as she waited for Adonis. It had been days since she had been back to see him, still annoyed that he had used sex to shut her up. She’d needed a few days to calm down and collect herself so she could force some sort of resolution.

He pushed through the underbrush smiling, though when he saw her wound up, his expression dissolved into placidity. He approached slowly, as if she were a wild thing, smiling in jest, and she rolled her eyes, annoyed that she was amused.

“Oh, do come here,” she said, and he wrapped his arms around her.

“I am sorry, are you very angry with me?” he asked with his chin on her head.

“I am, yet here I stand.” She sighed, sated for the moment, her head against his chest. “Could we please speak? No diversions.”

“Yes, I promise.” He sat down, knowing she would need to talk at him until she’d said what she needed to say.

She paced less vigorously and began her argument.

“I know that you cannot fathom forgiveness. I do understand this, as one who has troubles of my own with such matters, but I beg you to consider his perspective.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but she held up her hand. His mouth closed, and he slouched, sullen.

“Just consider it. It has been thousands of years that he has been alone, Adonis. So alone. I feel for him, because when I am not with you, when I am not here, I live the long hours of life without you. If there was anything that could be done, Adonis … anything … I would do it for you. Apollo’s sacrifice has been long and lonely. Should it stretch on for eternity, all because you cannot be compassionate?”

His jaw set. “He
murdered
me. Can you not consider my perspective? He stole my life, ripped it from my hands, and I have been banished to this world of dreams. My dreams are happy ones, but I still mourn the life that I lost. How can I forgive him after so much has been taken from me?”

“Yes, but you are not the only one who has lost.”

“Of course you do not understand. How could you comprehend the loss of your life? You are immortal.”

Her temper flared. “You had every chance to be immortal, yet you believed yourself to be above us. Have you ever realized what your choice meant for you? For me?”

Adonis took a breath, relaxing as he calmed and stood to walk to her. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed his forehead to hers. “I love you more than the moon loves the stars. I never wish to quarrel, and never wish to hurt you. You play a game with Apollo, and should he win, the decision would be made for us. Let us wait and see what comes to pass.”

She sighed, the pressure in her chest lessened, her anger dissipated by his touch, his words. “All right. We shall see.”

He cupped her cheek and kissed her lovingly, and she was reassured, though she wondered whether or not they would ever find a middle ground.

Lex pulled open the heavy warehouse door and stepped in just as it swung closed behind her. Practice hadn’t started yet, and it dawned on her as she looked around her bangles at her big gold watch that Travis wasn’t there yet.
 

Crap.
 

The hour before her shift ended at the bookstore had ticked by, but her replacement had come in early. Lex was so psyched to get out of there that she didn’t even think she’d get to the warehouse before Travis, or that as her footfalls echoed in the open space, she would spot Dean bent over his notebook on the couch.
 

They were alone.
 

She paused. He hadn’t moved, and she considered trying to back out and wait outside for Travis. She shook her head, knowing it would be more awkward if she were standing outside in the cold. She tugged the hem of her leather jacket down and twisted the end of her high ponytail as she steeled herself, preparing to resist him, but secretly hoping he would persist.

Lex rounded the couch, and he jumped, eyes bugging. He popped his earbuds out with a harried smile. “Jesus Christ. You scared the shit out of me.”
 

“Sorry,” she smiled back. She wasn’t sorry.
 

Lex took off her bag and sat down next to him. “What are you working on?” She peeked over into his book. “Lyrics? May I?” Her stomach flipped. She couldn’t believe she asked him for something so personal. She prepared herself for a big, fat
No
.

“Yeah, sure.” He placed the notebook in her open palm. His hands went numb as he realized that he hadn’t even hesitated.

Of course girls had asked to see Dean’s work before, and he’d never shared, but he handed his book over to Lex without a thought.

She flipped through the pages, pausing on one as she ran her index finger down the seam, and he marveled that she could make something so mundane look so sexy.

“Dean, this is extraordinary.” She looked up at him earnestly, her eyes big and bright, and he felt her pull again as their faces came together like magnets.

Dean stopped, shaking himself, breaking the connection. He looked down as he took his book from her hands. “I, uh, I think we have the same notebook.” He held it up.

“I noticed that, too.” Lex’s hands shook as she turned to rummage in her bag for her notebook.
Oh, shit.
She’d almost kissed him again. Alarms rang in her ears with her heartbeat, telling her to run. The problem was, she wanted to run toward them instead of away like she was supposed to.
 

She held her notebook up, which was exactly the same as his, and they smiled at each other.
 

“I showed you mine, so technically it’s your turn,” he said.

She extended her notebook, and he took it, setting his down between them in the same motion. Lex watched as he opened it, her eyes trailing from his brow, down the ridge of his nose, across his lips. Her heart fluttered as her gaze moved to his bicep that rippled under the tight sleeve of his t-shirt. She noticed his tattoo, not for the first time, a half sleeve that extended to his elbow. She’d never seen it up close, and leaned forward to get a good look.

A pinup mermaid floated in the moving ocean, the sea and fish wrapped around her as she sang, and her red hair swirled in a current around her. Lex almost reached out to push his shirt sleeve up so that she could see the rest, but remembered herself and clasped her hands in her lap.
 

Dean leaned back into the couch, lingering over one of her poems written around a sketch of a girl lying on a chaise in a profile. Her arm and hair hung down, and a tear spilled down her cheek. The poem looked like her breath leaving her body.
 

Up and down

Heaving breast

Emotion pulls

Like lily white thighs

Lying still sometimes

Motionless, beautiful.

Running hard sometimes

Tired, burning.

Dancing sometimes

Release of joy.

Always there

Like the beating of my heart

Strong, rhythmic

Pushes me onward

Her words written on the page were alive in his heart, and he knew them. Somehow, he knew.

The metal warehouse door clanged shut, and Dean jumped, dropping her book onto the couch as Roe and Travis walked in. Lex noticed his cheeks were flushed as he headed to where his guitar waited. He slung it on and turned his focus to his tuning gears. Lex couldn’t take her eyes off of him, not paying attention as she picked up her notebook and stuffed it back in her bag. She leaned back into the couch and shuffled a little to get comfortable, settling in to get her fix.

Hours later, after practice was over, Lex stepped into the darkness of her apartment, clicked on the light, and dropped her keys into the bowl by the door with a jangle. Travis followed her into the living room and stretched, leaning back as he yawned.

“I’m beat. You staying up?”

Lex was already on the couch, digging around in her bag for her notebook. “For a bit.”

He scooped up her keys and rolled her tiny Magic 8 Ball keychain between his palms as he closed his eyes and asked, “Am I getting laid tonight?” He opened his hands. “
My sources say, No.
Well, shit.”

“Sounds like fate’s just not on your side,” she said, amused. “Sleep tight.”

“All right. Night.” Travis kissed her forehead before he turned for the bedroom.
 

Her fingers closed around her notebook, and she pulled it out of her bag. Her brow gathered in confusion as she flipped it over. It looked wrong, though she couldn’t put her finger on exactly why. She opened it.
 

Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit.

She had Dean’s notebook. Which meant …

Lex grabbed her bag and felt around frantically before dumping the contents on the couch. She stared at the pile with her mouth open and her face blank.
 

He had hers.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and squinched her eyes closed.
Okay, pull yourself together. Maybe he won’t read it. But what if he does?
 

Dean was smart enough to figure out which poems in her notebook were about him, she was certain. Not to mention that she’d sketched him. Like, a lot.

Fuck.
She touched her lips.

She looked back at Dean’s notebook as it lay on the couch. She picked it up like it was made of glass and turned it over in her hands. He had invited her to read it, but that was with him sitting there watching. Could she justify reading without his permission? Was he reading hers?

Lex chewed her lip as she flipped through the pages mindlessly, pausing one in particular that was crammed with lyrics. Once she started reading, she couldn’t tear herself away, and she sat back into the couch with wide eyes where she stayed until the small hours of the morning.

Apollo sat on the couch, stunned, though he was sure he looked relaxed, like he didn’t care, his face an apathetic mask. Inside, he was dumbfounded as he watched Dita fist pump and jump out of her chair. She trotted over to him and bent into his face with pink cheeks and twinkling eyes.
 

“YES! Yes! BOOM, muthafucka.” Dita bounced around the room crowing with her blond hair swaying behind her. She stopped only to do the cabbage patch around the living room, likely the only being in the universe who looked sexy doing it. “That’s right, I did it, I did it.”