Page 19 of Deceit

Blonde hair illuminates off the full moon, her petite frame that I’ve touched so many times and got lost in.

My peace within the strife of this place.

She takes a hesitant step in my direction, and I match it, gaping at her like a ghost that vividly comes to me.

“Kace,” she whispers as she has so many years before. My heart accelerates double-time. It’s been forever since I’ve laid eyes on her.

It has been forever. Ever since she broke your heart.

“Cam.”

Three Weeks Later…

“Everything’s a fucking mess,” I profess, dipping a hot McDonald chicken nugget into my tangy BBQ sauce. “But it always is when he’s involved.”

Taking another bite, I watch the trees around me gracefully dance along with the wind, a few leaves blowing off their branches.

I shouldn’t be here.

I definitely shouldn’t be found here.

Kace Bishop will have my fucking head if he finds me looming around his rented condo like a type-A stalker with a severe problem of following directions.

Our plan is simple, has been for years—stay the hell out of each other’s way.

His route has been easy. He evades me like a foreseen disaster that’s about to make a collision course to his untimely fate.

And I…I try my best to detach my previous and obnoxious feelings towards him so that I don’t waste my time carving into a man who’s already hollow inside.

Well Enough Aloneby Chevelle starts on my Jeep radio, and I exaggeratedly sigh, immersing another nugget in my sauce.

Now, if I could take the name of the song literally, maybe I wouldn’t find the urge to be sitting out in a condo parking lot like a damn psychopath.

“This is crazy.“ I shake my head. “Why am I even doing this? I mean, if he wants to ghost everyone on the squad, why am I wasting a perfect Saturday making sure he’s okay? Do you think he’d do that for me?”

Silence answers me as I snatch a french fry out of my brown bag, peering to my left then right down the quiet street for cars.

No one.

Like it has been for over two hours.

“Then again…he made things perfectly clear, several times. When I believe he’s going to do one thing, he sikes me out and does something else. He just likes to fuck with me.”

The twinge of anger that I’ve been attempting to hanker down begins to smolder in my chest.

This is a waste of time.

And it’s not just now that I’m doing it, but for the past six to seven years, I’ve misused perfectly blaze days to spend on him.

It’s pathetic.

He’s manipulated me into believing that—I stop myself right there.

This is madness. Utter and pure stupidity.

I stuff more fries in my mouth, shoving back the truth with salty food to keep the bile from rising. “But I’m doing it for you, right? He’s your dad…who won’t answer his damn phone.”

I steal a glimpse to my passenger seat at Bishop’s giant German Shepherd staring at me. His pink tongue hanging from his mouth with only one thought—he wants one of my chicken nuggets.

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