Page 35 of Devoted

A wave of homesickness hits me hard. I have to squeeze my eyes shut for a second. “I can’t wait for the time Holland and I can go to your house and we can sit by your firepit and have hot dogs and drink beer.” Jacobi grilled the hot dogs just for us. He didn’t eat them. To some people they’re junk food, but for me they’re like a delicacy. I rarely drink, so the beer is as good as top-shelf champagne.

“How are you handling everything?”

“It’s surreal. I won’t lie, it feels like it’s happening to someone else. I wake up and have no job, yet I have a roof over my head and a guy taking care of me. It’s like a vacation, when in reality, my husband’s a murdering smuggler and the biggest sex offender on the planet.”

“It’s awful. This will be over soon enough. These guys can move mountains when they work together. They did it for me.”

I lean against the railing. “I know, it’s just that—I don’t want to minimize what you went through, but this is bad. Roman is like a supervillain.”

“I think that’s the most accurate way I’ve ever heard him described.” She sighs. “So, is everything okay with Cannon?”

I keep my voice neutral. “Yeah, why?”

“It’s just… You two seemed to have this weird vibe, and now you’re stuck together all alone.”

There is no good way to answer her question without telling the truth or lying. I could pretend everything is hunky-dory, that our mutual competitive nature won’t rest until we perfect the almighty omelet, but this is one of my two best friends in the world.

“Okay, so, the thing is, there is serious chemistry between us. But he has all this baggage, and maybe the fact that I’m still technically married should be more of an obstacle, but it’s not. But there’s so much more to him than you’ll ever know, London. I’ve fallen for him. And he keeps pulling away because I think he’s afraid to care again. He’s been a lone wolf for so long he doesn’t realize that isn’t how life is supposed to work.”

We sit in easy silence as London digests my word dump. I wait for her to ask what I am thinking. To tell me it’s too soon to even think about starting something new with someone else.

“I guess the old advice of ‘talk to him’ doesn’t apply here,” she finally says. “You’ve already talked.”

“It’s backward, but I know him better than I ever thought I knew Roman.”

“I don’t know what to tell you other than you’re one of the purest souls I’ve ever met. You deserve someone who will treat you like the precious treasure you are. I hope that I do that as your friend, and you can kick me if I ever don’t. But when it comes to opening yourself up again, after what you’ve been through, you can’t settle for less than complete devotion. After what Roman did—is doing—you take care of yourself and don’t let a guy near you unless they do the same for you.”

But what if I can’t—and don’t want to—get away from that guy?

Cannon

She’s outside talkingto her friend. I have no business sitting in my office, obsessing about her. I’ve set boundaries, and for the most part she’s respected them. I’m the one who keeps scrubbing my toe over the line to blur it. Running into her wearing nothing but a towel obliterated that line entirely. It’s crumbled the foundation of my walls.

I want her. Protecting her might’ve started from a misguided sense of obligation that I could make the past right by doing something in the now. I was delusional enough to think she could be anything like my mother. But then her innocence burrowed into my psyche, and that’s almost worse.

But she’s not Dasha Petrov, and she’s not Karina. Penelope is her own woman. She’s in her midtwenties. When I met her, she seemed like she was struggling with her identity. But she was struggling with getting the people around her to understand. She’s settled into her own, and it’s beautiful.

The front door opens and shuts. The sound of the dead bolt lands in place. I have simple security cameras outside the house and in the doorbell, but I like the normalcy of being in the mountain cabin with her. This was something I never got as a kid, and she didn’t either. I like that she appreciates it as much as me.

Light footsteps tread down the hallway. I’m up and out of my chair and blocking her path before I know it.

“What’s going on?” She folds her arms but it’s not the unsure way she would stand when she talked to either of her parents. She’s curious; she reads me. Something always told her there was more underneath my deliberately loud and wrinkled clothes. She might not have known what it was, but she took the time to see.

Is that what I’m drawn to? I’ve always been something to someone. The virtuoso prodigy to my mother, and the kid who could make her a lot of money. A fellow dancer—and sometimes a partner—to the other students in ballet school. A battle buddy in the military, and then the guy who’s got your six. A protector and a bodyguard. Then a shitty private investigator.

Was the bodyguard a persona for me more than anyone else? Did I feel comfortable shedding parts of my present and accepting certain pieces of my past because of her?

She tilts her head, concern filtering into her eyes. “Are you okay, Cannon?”

The word no rips out of me. I anchor my hands on her arms and smash my mouth onto hers. She tenses briefly before her body is pliant in my arms.

I slide my tongue inside her mouth, ready to devour her, when she puts her hand on my chest. Not an easy thing to do when I’ve crushed her against me.

“What’s this about?” she asks as she steps back until I’m forced to release her. “You gave me a big talk about how we can’t do this. You’ve managed to avoid me as much as possible when we’re staying in the same house, a house that—I hope this doesn’t make me obnoxious—is so much smaller than the others I’ve lived in. My point is, it’s not an easy feat. You’re hot and cold, Cannon. I understand why, I really do. But I can’t accept that kind of treatment anymore. Especially not the cold. Not ever again.”

I’ve erected walls and let them crumble, only to build them up again—at the expense of her feelings. Guilt eats away at my resistance. She’s lived with parents who’ve underestimated her and at times didn’t respect her. She married a man whose only interest is in using her. I could let my pride get in the way and be upset that she’s willing to put me in my place, but I’m so damn proud of her.

“You’re right. I’ve wavered, and I haven’t been consistent, and it’s been unfair to you. The truth is I’m scared. I lived a life where everything came so easy to me, or it was given to me. I could seek out new challenges at my leisure. And then reality gut punched me. And I hid from it. I went overseas so I wouldn’t have to face people who recognized me. My name hurt others. I changed who I am and thought that was enough. Then you came along, and you saw me. That’s fucking terrifying, swan.”

---