Page 16 of Bedding Rose
After a frantic moment of blinking, my sight flickers back, silver flecks speckling the edges of my vision for a moment before they clear away.
Shock dulls my pain as I lay there for a second, unmoving, just taking in my surroundings
I’m on my back in the empty field where hot-air balloons take off, staring up at the construction worker who yelled at me. Who tackled me across a collapsing trench. Who leans over me on muscled, tanned arms. He doesn’t look that much older than me, to be honest. Maybe just out of high school? Mid-college?
His deep brown eyes blaze with fury, black hair plastered to his forehead as he scans my body up and down, jaw twitching. “What were you thinking?”
I don’t have enough air to answer. I wheeze as he climbs off of me to kneel at my side. Painful breaths finally start to circulate through my lungs. Once my oxygen levels improve enough for thoughts to re-emerge, I realize dazedly that this guy is the most handsome guy I’ve ever seen in my life.
Wavy black hair, deep brown eyes glinting in harsh beams of afternoon sun, the hint of a dimple in his cheek even though he’s unsmilingly serious right now—he’s got the trifecta of all the best male facial features. And he’s also got the sort of thick, luscious lips that have always drawn my attention. I don’t know what it is about a guy with big lips … maybe it’s because I’m a smile girl or because their pouts are so much more adorable and pronounced.
This guy has the best pouty lips on the planet. And right now, he’s giving me one hell of a delicious frown.
Shit. I’m a little loopy.
“Did anything break?” The question comes out tight, each syllable fighting to get out from between his clenched teeth as his eyes scan my body. “Dirt weighs over a hundred pounds a cubic foot …” he trails off.
I shake my head, struck dumb—unable to speak as I feel my brain metaphorically leak out my ears. I’m not sure why—if I’m in shock or there’s something else—until he touches me. Then the why becomes alarmingly clear.
It’s an innocent touch. He simply cups my shoulder and drags his hand along my arm to search for any pain points.
But my stomach tumbles like I just fell into that trench all over again. Sensation swoops through me, dazzling and flickering like glitter, coalescing into the world’s most potent, most naive crush.
The memory fades as I stomp up the sidewalk, rubbing my hands up and down my frozen arms to try to chafe some warmth into them and shaking my head at how utterly idiotic I’ve been.
Just like Daisy sees Gunnar as some shining testament to what a man should be, I’ve always viewed Angelo through rose-colored glasses because of that moment—there in the dirt, with aching ribs and a broken ankle, I developed a schoolgirl infatuation, not just a crush, but a low-key obsession that made my eyes trail after him every time he visited my brother. It was a painful, pathetic, one-sided exercise in futility. And not because I was too young for him to ever look at me the same way. Because apparently, at their core, all men are corrupt.
Daisy’s a fool.
But no more than I’ve been.
Fucking Angelo Walker.
Already friends with my brother, Angelo’s big heroic moment secured his place in the family. Mom invited him over weekly for dinner and I’d sat through countless family gatherings with him seated right beside me, his perfection making the very air vibrate so that I couldn’t breathe properly.
I put him on a pedestal. Thought of him as a god. Wrote down all his favorite things in my diary, from hot Cheetos to The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
When he’d left Albuquerque two years ago for some job, it had nearly crushed me as badly as falling into that trench would have. I spent months digging myself out of that fixation.
But when Angelo returned, about a month ago, I’d been shocked to find his effect on me hadn’t dimmed in the slightest. I’d fallen right back into hero worship and secret, silent longing.
But he’s changed. He’s not the same guy I knew. Now, at twenty-five, his arms are thicker, muscles massive, and skin sleeved in tattoos that weren’t there before. His black hair is cropped short, and he has an earring these days. There’s a dull scar on his tanned chin, the jagged little streak a slightly lighter shade than the rest of him. His straight lashes bracket eyes that no longer look like sparkling umber stones. Now, there’s something darker in his gaze. He’s harder than he was before he left. More somber. I haven’t seen his dimple emerge once. Those lips though? They’re the one thing about him that hasn’t changed. His lips are still as magnetic as I remember.
Of course, devils are meant to tempt aren’t they? A beautiful face can hide ugly truths. And Angelo’s hiding the ugliest of them all—the fact that he’s a controlling, blackmailing fuck.
I reach the swing set at the park. It’s right next to the parking lot and so I turn, tapping my boot impatiently on the concrete and staring at a pair of approaching headlights.
Lily finally catches up to me, winded. Her gray eyes latch on and tug at my heart. “Hey! You can’t just drop a bomb that big and then jet off. You are talking about something really frickin’ serious, Rose,” she scolds me breathlessly.
I press my lips together but don’t answer, because the headlights turn into the parking lot and I recognize the shape of Quique's Jeep gliding to stop in front of us.
“Look, I’ll tell you more later,” I lie to her as I dart through the shadows toward the warmth and silence of my brother’s car.
“Rose!” she screeches.
But I just want to get away. I need to get away from all of this. I need to relieve the pressure steaming inside my chest and building up until my head feels like it might explode.
I’m yanking open the door even as I look at her and mouth, “Sorry.”
