Devil's Despair Box Set: Books 1-3 (95 page)

It isn’t until then that I realize I haven’t stopped smiling since we got here.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Sarah

THE EVENING SUN
blinds me, causing me to blink. Lifting my head from the pillow, I use my hand to shield against the evening rays.

It’s seven o’clock in the evening. I must have dozed off after my shower. My skin is tight from the early afternoon sun and my body is spent from Travis’s attention.

Looking over to where he was lying before I fell asleep, I find he’s gone. The music from the other room is soft, and I can’t place what it is. It’s not anything I’ve ever heard.

We’re going home tomorrow and as much as I hate leaving, I’m looking forward to coming clean and telling our friends what’s happening between us. Even if Ace loses his mind, and we face unfair judgment, it’ll be better as we move forward with whatever this is.

Pulling Trav’s shirt over my head, I walk to the living room of the house. The music gets louder the closer I come to Hayden’s father’s den.

In the fading sunlight coming through the window, I find Travis sitting on a piano bench. He’s without a shirt and his eyes are closed. His blond hair is completely out of place, even as short as it is. His green eyes are concentrating in a stare, but he’s not looking at a sheet of music.

He’s playing another song from memory. He looks as though he’s at peace with the universe, but I know him better.

Like me, Trav has internal struggles he’s dealt with, but for far longer than I have.

His admission of not finding peace with his father’s death struck me hard. Before all this started I’d asked Hayden to fill me in on the details I had missed, since I was a teenager when it happened. I cried inside for the loss Travis suffered.

Travis and his dad were tight. They were close like brothers, shared their lives like friends, but it’s been the missing paternal influence that’s left Travis feeling the most alone.

Now that Bean’s gone, I understand exactly what he’s going through.

Hayden told me the house Trav and his dad lived in before he died is still sitting vacant and un-kept. It’s about thirty minutes from here. I googled the address on the ride up to map it in case Trav, by chance, was willing to drive by and share whatever childhood story he wanted with me.

“Why are you not over here already?” Trav asks with hooded eyes as he takes in my appearance. It causes me to shiver, even from where I’m standing.

“You got out of bed and didn’t tell me,” I explain. “Are you okay?”

“I still like my time alone, Sarah. It won’t change and it’s nothing to do with you.”

Walking to him, my hands at my sides, Travis scoots over slightly on the bench for me to sit. We’re both looking at the beautiful black grand piano Hayden’s dad bought, but I doubt he’s ever played. The walls in his den are lined with what look to be old hardcover books. I’ve never noticed this room until Trav’s presence filled it.

“What was that song?”

His smirk in place, he raises his eyebrow and mocks me. “Spying on me again?”

“Any chance I get. You should know this now by.”

“Nothing you’d know,” he answers, looking in my eyes then removing a piece of hair from my face and placing it behind my ear.

“I don’t recognize it.”

“‘Gravity,’” he states.

“As in the female version?”

His eyebrows furrow, not getting that I’m making fun of him.

“As in Sara Bareilles,” he affirms.

“The female version, then.”

“I didn’t fuckin’ sing the damn thing, did I?”

I try to ignore how badly I want to make fun of him. I’m careful and don’t want to piss him off. Instead, I change the subject. “What do you want to do tonight?”

“I’m hanging here with you.”

I lean my head on his shoulder and he wraps his arm around my waist. He uses his free hand to play small, quiet notes on the piano.

“I don’t want to go back,” I admit.

“Neither do I,” he replies, kissing my temple.

I close my eyes to savor the moment. “We have to tell Ace.”

“
I’m
telling him tomorrow,
you’re
not.”

I sit up. My pulse quickens and I feel fear racing through my veins. “He’ll take the news better if it’s coming from me,” I argue.

“The fuck he will.”

“He will!”

Travis sighs, pulling me up then over his lap so my bent knees rest on either side of him. My hands rest on his shoulders and his are on my thighs. “I’ll tell him.”

“What about the others?”

“They don’t matter.”

He’s so certain.

“Can we go somewhere tonight?” I ask carefully, trying to gain a sense of his mood. Trav’s been alone a long time, rarely taking others into consideration for plans.

“Go somewhere as in . . . back to the bedroom?” he asks, smiling. I fucking love that smile.

“Do you
always
have to have sex in a bed?”

His eyes, just jovial and fun, are now blazing. I’ve struck a nerve.

“Want me to bend you over the piano?”

Fucking hell, he didn’t say that.

“Umm. . . .”

“Want me to go at you in the kitchen while you’re making me dinner?”

The visual killed me—in a good way. I swallow hard and he watches my throat carefully.

“Want me to fuck you in my Jeep, with the seat folded down in the back?”

If he doesn’t stop, I’ll lose focus!

“Another time?” I utter ridiculously, trying to remain seated.

His eyes, still blazing, have started to narrow. “Another time, she says.”

“Later,” I answer again, digging my nails into his wrists, which are now holding me in place. “I want to go somewhere out of the house tonight. And I want to drive.”

His eyebrows rise in surprise and his eyes start to calm. “You want to drive my fuckin’ Jeep?”

“I’ll be careful!” I exclaim loudly.

“No fuckin’ way. I’ve seen how you drive,” he whispers, drawing his face closer to mine and kisses my nose.

“I’ll be good!”

“I like my Jeep, Sarah.”

“I’ll do you a big,
Travis
kind of favor later if you let me,” I promise, unsure I could go through with something I’ve never done to a man.

His smile widens as he thinks it over. “I like that.”

“Good!” I pat his shoulder and start to stand. I don’t get far before he grabs my waist and pulls me back down, then stands with me in his arms.

“Bed first. If I die in my Jeep tonight, I want to fuck you one more time,
in bed,
before my funeral.”

“That’s sick,” I return.

“Maybe, but it’s me.”

Clinging to his body as he stands with me cradled in his arms, I reply, “It’s definitely you.”

* * *

Travis

Sarah is up to something. She’s nervous and quiet. It’s not because she’s driving my Jeep like a grandma headed to church, either. It’s something else. Something big.

I’ve stayed quiet and focused on the road, resisting the idea of where I think we’re headed.

“Do you know where you’re going?” I ask, watching her body tense. She’s gripping the steering wheel forcefully.

“Yes,” she whispers, without looking at me.

The sun is gone and it’s dark, but the roads are still so familiar. I let Sarah continue down the narrow street that my dad and I used to live on before he died. I haven’t been back since the day we buried him and even then it was only to get my stuff and get out. I was too emotionally broken to risk feeling his presence there. I’ve kept him with me all these years, but it’s been at a careful distance.

“Sarah,” I say out loud, still unsure how I feel about this.

She slows the Jeep and turns to me. I feel her eyes assessing my mood so I don’t look at her.

“I just want to see where you grew up. Hayden told me the house is still vacant.”

“Hayden tells you too fucking much.”

“It wasn’t like that, Trav.”

“Oh yeah?” I hear the accusation in my question before the brown and white house comes into full view and my heart beats hard against my chest.

My heart feels heavier than I remember it feeling the day he died. Although so much time has passed, I can’t look at this place without remembering him. There was a period in my life when I truly thought I had everything.

Fuck, I miss him so much.

My hands start to shake as we pull into the driveway. The neighborhood hasn’t changed at all. The house hasn’t either. The trash cans set against the garage are old and discolored but still in place. The trees are still bare from winter and the windows and doors look tainted and pale with time.

Snapping out of the trance of the past, I turn to Sarah, now almost annoyed. She’s biting her bottom lip with worry.

“This was your brilliant idea for spending our last night together? You’re taking me to an old house?” I ask with limited patience. “I could think of a few better ways.”

She sees through my feigned indifference. “You know where we are, Travis.”

“Why here?”

Why are you doing this?

“’Cause I wanted to see it.” She puts the Jeep in park and doesn’t make a move to get out.

We’re both staring at what was once my happy life before the happiness in my life became a nightmare. A reality I’m
still
struggling through.

“What happened to your mom?” Sarah asks quietly, breaking me from the darkness of my memory.

“Another time I’ll tell you.”

“I want to know.”

“It’s nothing you want to hear.”

“Maybe not, but I want to know anyway.”

She’s so fucking insistent.

“It’s not something I want to share, how’s that?” My patience is wavering; my mood is turning dark. “Are we done here? I’ll drive back.”

She slaps my hand as it reaches for the keys. Removing them from the ignition, she opens her door and gets out. She stands at the front of the Jeep, arms crossed over her chest, waiting for me to follow.

“We’re looking inside,” she states, loudly enough I hear through the window.

Releasing a heavy sigh, I open my door and step out. The night is cold, my skin is chilled, and Sarah, as always, has no fucking coat. As I walk to the front of the Jeep, she smirks under the streetlights, which silhouette her small face. “See, not so hard.”

“I don’t know why you want to do this,” I tell her, walking past her and making my way up the driveway.

She doesn’t let me get far before coming after me and grabbing my hand. She doesn’t say anything as we make our way to the dark porch. Sarah moves from my side and bends down in the brush next to the basement window. She starts pushing on the glass in all corners before shoving her shoulder into the pane.

I let a small laugh escape as I take in the sight of Sarah’s cheap version of breaking and entering. “Are you really going to commit a crime before we’ve told Ace anything about us?”

She stops what she’s doing, stands, dusts herself off, and walks behind me to the side door of the garage. She tests the handle, finds it’s locked, and then goes at the window like she just had, pushing and shoving.

“We’ll go around back. I’m sure there’s a door or window I can get open.”

“Breaking and entering,” I say again. “I’ll press charges, Sarah.”

Her face goes blank and she looks up at me, forgetting about the door. “What?”

“This is still my house.”

“
What?
” she shrieks. I hear a dog bark from across the street.

“If you’d like to go in I can just unlock this door,” I say, pointing to the lock.

“You have keys?”

“My house,” I answer again.

She pulls out my keychain from her back pocket and looks down, figuring which one she’s not familiar with.

“You could’ve told me that before I embarrassed myself. What if I had broken something?”

“I would’ve laughed.”

“That’s rude.”

“Maybe. It was funny as fuck, though.”

I unlock the door and open it, waiting for her to go in first. I haven’t been here in so long, I’m nervous of my own reaction and also about her seeing it.

It’s everything I remember, but have tried so fucking hard to forget.

“It smells bad,” she comments, walking up the stairs to the main room.

“I’ll phone the cleaning lady with your feedback.”

“Ass.”

* * *

Sarah

I’m sensing this trip was a mistake.

Travis is walking through the house, room by room, stopping at every entry, but never stepping in. I brought him here to learn more about him. He was older by the time I really knew him, and even then Trav’s always kept himself guarded. When he talks about his dad, which is rare, he still looks haunted by his memory. Travis is the one responsible for helping me through the loss of Bean. I only want to help him deal with the death of his dad. It’s not the same, I know. Bean lived a lifetime, his dad didn’t.

The house smells of old linens and the walls look worn with water or weather. The furniture was never covered with sheets. I had no idea Travis still owned this place. I had assumed no one wanted it.

Hayden knew more than he had told me. He’s Trav’s friend first, so I’m not angry he didn’t give me further details. I’m happy enough he gave me this.

“Trav?” I call from the hallway.

Walking farther down the hall, I notice Trav’s large body is stopped in front of a big bedroom. The bed linens are still in place, unmade on the large mattress. Next to it sits a dresser with matching mirror; its top is lined with pictures. The dust is too thick and I can’t make out the faces in them.

“This was Dad’s room,” he says softly, leaning on the doorjamb. “I don’t feel him here anymore.”

“I’m sorry.”

“He used to feel so big here, ya know?” he states, looking around the small space. “Even as I grew up he still seemed so big,” he whispers.

Before I can make any physical contact, Trav steps inside the room and turns a quick circle, taking in all the pictures left on the walls. His stance becomes rigid and his posture straight. I’ll admit I’m a little nervous being in the closed room alone with his possible anger.

“Travis?” I call through the distance that separates us.

“He fuckin’ left me here with all our things,” he tells me. “A lifetime of shit that means nothing to anyone anymore.”