Record, Rewind (5 page)

“High school was a long time ago, Cassie,” he said.

I blushed. “Yeah, well.” I shrugged. “I just can’t picture you as a bad boy.”

He snorted. “Oh? Only my entire image is based on me being a bad boy extraordinaire.” He looked ironically amused, then reached over and popped open one of the buttons on his coat and slipped his hand inside. When it reemerged, it was holding a silver flask. He shook it at my widened eyes. “Want some?”

I hesitated.

He shook it again and I heard it sloshing over the sound of the wind.

“Come on,” he said. “It’s just some rum. Good for what ails you. Like hypothermia.”

“Alcohol doesn’t actually keep you warm,” I couldn’t help saying, my egghead, pedantic nature turning up like a bad penny. “It only gives you the illusion of warmth. Really you’re more likely to die if you’ve been drinking because you can’t judge your own body temperature.”

His mouth quirked. “Thanks for the lesson, Betty Biology,” he said. “You want some or not?”

Oh
fine
. “Give it here,” I said.

He presented the mouth of the flask to me, his other arm staying firmly around my waist. I reached out and unscrewed the cap. The sharp, heady smell of rum hit me full in the face and I stuck my tongue out while he watched in amusement. “A lightweight?” he asked me.

He didn’t wait for me to answer. I watched in fascination as he put the flask to his lips, and, in a move so smooth it had to be well-practiced, tossed it back. “I’m not a lightweight,” I said absently. “I’ll have you know I can drink a whole bottle of wine or two before getting sick...”

He pressed the flask into my hand. “Good luck with rum,” he said.

I scowled at him. I would show him. I took a swig.

Oh.

Oh,
god
.

I gagged and sputtered, the alcohol burning down my throat and up my nose at the same time, but miraculously I failed to puke it all back up. It settled into my stomach like a nuclear bomb. I held the heaving down, closed my eyes, and counted to twenty.

When I opened my eyes again the flask had disappeared and Damien was looking at me with deep concern. “Shit,” he said. “Sorry. I thought... I thought you were sort of joking. Like... sorry. Thought you could handle it.”

“I handled it,” I said, feeling defensive. The hot flames of alcohol were already making their way into my bloodstream. “I didn’t vomit all over your jacket, did I?”

“No, but you sure as hell didn’t look like you enjoyed it.”

I pressed my lips together, embarrassed. “Yeah, well.”

“It’s okay. I’m just used to seeing girls who can toss that sort of thing back without any problems. I forgot that not everyone is as hellbent on having a liver transplant as I am.” He leaned back against the wall, brought one leg up, and propped his elbow on it. Putting his hand on his face, he covered his eyes and grew quiet.

My brow knitted together. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Not really. Are you?”

I was about to tell him that I was fine, but I realized that I wasn’t. At all. “Not really,” I echoed.

“Well then,” he said. “Let’s just be not-okay together.”

I nodded. “All right.”

The arm around my waist tightened, and slowly, gently, he pulled me toward him. “Come here,” he said, and I did.

We sat there like that for a long time, the cold of the night nipping at our little alcove. Despite the heat from the vent and our bodies, my toes got cold, then my feet, then my legs. My torso was perfectly warm snuggled up next to Damien, but there was going to be a problem if we stayed out here much longer.

“We should probably try to get back inside again,” I said eventually. “It might be a while before Dwayne decides that I’m a missing person and starts looking for me.”

Damien shrugged. “We’ll be fine,” he said. “Just have to keep each other warm.”

I couldn’t help but suppress a shiver of delight at those words, and his hand on my waist clenched.

“We could die instead, if that’s more appealing than being next to me,” he said.

I drew back and gave him a sharp look. The rum had worked its magic and I was feeling a bit tipsy now, but I was still sober enough to give him a glare. “What are you talking about?” I said.

He lifted his fingers from his eyes for a moment and peeked out at me. “Don’t you hate me?”

He asked it as though it were a perfectly innocent question.

My mouth dropped open. “No!”

He frowned. “Then why are you trying so hard to get away from me?”

I couldn’t help but pull away further. “What are you talking about?” I said.

He cocked an ironic eyebrow. “Let’s see. You avoid my eyes in the elevator, you pretend you don’t know me, and then when it turns out you do remember me you act like I’m a huge imposition and get snippy at me over cigarettes. Then when we get trapped on the rooftop together you’d rather beat your body black and blue than figure out how to stay warm until morning with me. Does that sound accurate?”

...Well, when you put it like
that
, yeah, it sounded like I hated him.

“I don’t hate you,” I said. “I just hate myself.”

He stared at me for a minute, then covered his eyes again. “Thanks for saying that. It makes my awkward confession that I’ve had a crush on you since high school much less awkward by comparison.”

All the blood drained from my face and I swayed. The wind shifted and whipped through our little hiding place, taking the warmth with it, and I squeaked and scooted closer to him. But not too close. Close enough to see him in profile, to study his beautiful face. Close enough to touch, even though I never would...

Or would I?

Could
I?

He stayed right where he was, up against the wall, his wool-clad shoulders dark against the brick. I could see a day’s worth of stubble on his cheeks, his chin, his throat, and there, under a king’s ransom of silver studded into his ear, was his pulse, hammering rapidly.

He was nervous.

Oh my god.

He’d really, actually said it.

“I...” I trailed off. Should I be honest?

...Well, why not? Might die of exposure up here anyway. Get it all out. “Honestly,” I said, “I thought I’d hallucinated that part.”

Now
he took his hand away from his face, revealing eyebrows raised up to his hairline.

“Excuse me?” he said, and his voice almost cracked. Almost.

I hunched my shoulders and pulled my hood back up so I could cover my embarrassment. “I
said
, I thought I’d hallucinated that part.”

“No,” he said slowly. “No, I heard you. I was just wondering why you jumped to assuming it was a hallucination instead of, you know, an actual thing that happened.”

I blinked at him, not understanding, and he quirked his little half-grin at me. “What I mean,” he said, “is that most people would assume, if they’d heard something someone else had said, that the other person had actually
said
that thing, not that they were tripping balls.”

I swallowed hard. “It’s just, you know, I’ve been kind of...” Oh god, here it was. The big one. The confession. Why couldn’t I get it out? He had. He’d done it quite well and quite easily, without any prompting at all. Why was this so hard?

Probably because, in my heart of hearts, I didn’t believe that anything wonderful like this could happen to me. Nothing like it ever had before. And it didn’t seem real. It really, really didn’t seem real. Any second now and I really would wake up.

I couldn’t stand the weight of his eyes on me, so I clenched my hands in my lap and leaned forward until my brow rested on his shoulder. “I mean...”

“Yes...?”

Spit it out, you coward!

“I mean, I’ve been in love with you since freshman year!”

I’d never been good at being cute or pretty or attractive, and my declaration of school-girl infatuation was no different. The words rolled out of my mouth in a messy jumble, which was a pretty accurate representation of my feelings, so it didn’t seem to matter. They were inelegant, and sounded stupid and childish, but they were
my
feelings, and I definitely had them, so why not let them go? Get it out. Get over it. Move on.

Beneath my forehead, his body went still. Then it started to shake. For a second I thought he was having a seizure, but then a wheeze escaped from his throat and I realized what was actually happening.

He was laughing.

I jerked back, ready to be angry, but then the sound of his laughter escaped him and it was exactly as I had remembered it.

There it is
, I thought. There’s
that laugh that I loved to hear.

The sight of his smile, of his hand over his mouth trying to stifle his mirth, was too much, and I realized that I also hadn’t actually seen him smile—
really
smile, like the way he did back then—since he’d walked into my elevator.

On a cold rooftop in Manhattan, Damien Colton finally laughed out loud for me.

This
was the real Damien. The real Dalton. The real
him.

I clapped my own hand over my mouth and started to giggle right along with him.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said, still laughing. “I’m...I didn’t expect that.”

I reached out and smacked him on the shoulder, lightly. “Oh come on, like every girl in school didn’t want to get with
this
.” I made a circle with my hand, trying to encompass everything about him that had been the magnetic personage of Dalton Rooker, that was now Damien Colton.

“Well, it seemed like every girl
did
want to get with that, except you.” His eyes were closed and he was still shaking his head. “Shit. Lauren. Cassie. Whatever. Do you realize how many girls I turned down, hoping you’d show some interest in me?”

“No,” I answered truthfully.

He opened his eyes and pinned me with his magnificent green gaze. “For someone so smart,” he said, “you sure are dumb.”

“Tell me about it,” I said, and then he reached out and pulled me back against him, holding me close.

The warmth of his body wrapped around mine, and I buried my face in his shoulder, not wanting to think about the seismic shifts that had just happened in my world view. Meticulously I went back through my mind, combing through every interaction I’d ever had with Dalton, remembering the way his eyes twinkled and his laugh bounced from person to person, remembering how his talent overshadowed everyone else. Knowing that I could never touch that, that my only recourse was to work hard and try hard, and maybe hope that someday he’d notice me and maybe make a move...

Wow, I had been stupid in high school. I mean, everyone is stupid in high school, but now I felt really dumb.

“You really thought I wasn’t interested in you?” I said at last.

I felt him nod. “I mean, why would I think that?” he asked. “You never looked me in the eye, and you never talked to me. You didn’t join in when there was a conversation happening when I was there...” He trailed off, and I could
feel
the lightbulbs coming on in his brain.

“Okay,” he conceded after a moment, “now that I’m older and supposedly wiser, I’m kind of wondering
why
I thought that.”

“I had no idea you even knew my name,” I said. “When you called me Lauren tonight, it was kind of shocking.”

“I knew your name,” he said. “You were the smartest girl in the class. Who
didn’t
know your name?”

“Most people?” I hazarded.

He shook his head. “You have no idea how intimidating it was, knowing you were so much smarter than me. I didn’t want to look stupid in front of you so I never really talked to you, I suppose.”

“You watched me, though,” I said.

“Yes,” he replied. “I watched you.”

“And now we’re here,” I said.

“Yes,” he replied.

I drew back and looked at him, and for a long moment we watched each other. In the open this time. Not in secret.

“You’ve changed,” he said at last.

“So have you,” I said. “But not too much.”

A tired smile crossed across his lips. “Really? Not too much?”

I shook my head. “I recognize you. I mean, you know... the guy I knew. Sort of.”

His smile deepened.

I threw my hands up. “Fine!” I said. “I recognize the guy I used to crush on from across a crowded classroom!”

“And I recognize the beautiful girl who always kept her head down and never looked at me or gave me the time of day.”

I blushed. “Sorry.”

“No need. I seriously doubt we would have made a good couple back then. I would have been too worried about trying to impress you.”

“You impressed me all the time,” I said without thinking, and his face softened.

“Really?”

How could a person so talented and amazing and handsome think anyone wouldn’t be impressed by him? “Yes, really,” I said. “Don’t go fishing for compliments. It’s gauche.”

“I’m not,” he said. “It just sounds like you mean it when you say it.”

“I’m certain everyone says it, and I assure you that when they do, everyone
means
it.”

“Not everyone.” A shadow passed across his eyes and I remembered that he’d come up here to get away from drama.

“Well, I
do
mean it,” I told him. “Even if no one else does. If I hadn’t been impressed I could have talked to you.”

“Back at you,” he said. “It’s nice to hear that from you. Really. You have no idea.”

I laughed. “Even if I didn’t find you impressive, you still have your millions of fans and millions of dollars to comfort you.”

“I suppose,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced, and I sobered. Reaching out, I tentatively put my hand on his chest.

“Dalton,” I said.

He blinked. “Only my parents call me that, now.”

“And me.”

“Yes. And you.”

I had never exchanged more than ten words with Dalton before tonight, but it suddenly felt as though a wall had fallen, some barrier that I didn’t see before. Not just the idea that Dalton might have been attracted to me, but that he might have been interested in me.