Page 30 of Samhain
I took a deep breath and set my focus on Carter. This would hurt almost as bad as it had when I’d had to say goodbye to our other two halves. I grabbed Carter’s shoulder, interrupting a story that must have been hilarious considering how hard everyone was guffawing.
“Excuse me, Carter,” I said. “Can I steal a dance?”
“Of course. I’ll see you guys.”
I led him out onto the floor, and Carter grabbed one hand, putting the other around my waist to pull me in. We left room between us for Jesus and Gran’s rules, but the live band played a version of “I’ll Be Seeing You” by Billie Holiday that forced us to get close anyway. We swayed back and forth to the slow, sultry rhythm, and I tried not to let the weight of what I had to tell him pull me under.
I wished we’d met at a different time, a different place, when it could just be the two of us. Not that I would forgo what I had with Lex and Ivy, but Carter and I could have made sense in another life.
“You look so beautiful tonight,” he said. “You look beautiful all the time, but especially tonight.”
I smiled, relishing the warmth that oozed from my heart into my legs and up my spine. “Such a charmer, Romeo. Are you trying to get into my pants?”
He leaned and pressed his lips to my ear. “Is it working?”
I chuckled, committing everything about this moment to memory. I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want the song to finish and force me to leave this night or the beautiful thing the two of us had found in our grief.
“I need to tell you something,” I said, the words tasting like garbage as I uttered them. “It’s not a good something.”
His expression softened as he met my gaze, but he must have seen it there because he nodded and frowned like understanding had finally hit him.
“It’s time, isn’t it?” he said. “The clock’s struck twelve, and you’re about to turn into a pumpkin?”
I nodded, blinking back tears. “My cousin’s here to collect me.”
He pulled his lips into a thin line and looked down to the ground between us, holding me tighter, squeezing my hand harder.
“Listen to me,” I said, tilting his chin up. “You can stay at the house in Malibu as long as you need. No one will bother you. You have my word. I love you.” I nodded toward the rest of the room. “They love you. The whole world’s going to love you, Romeo.”
I wanted to kiss him and hold him and tell him Ivy and Lex would always have each other, but all we had was us—Malibu and the Aston and the stage. I wished I could abscond with him. I wished I was like my cousin, able to sneak off into a private coatroom to do what I pleased.
But if he and I disappeared together? It would be all over The Puck by morning.
“I love you,” I told him again. “I love you.”
“I love you,” he repeated back, his voice cracking as he blinked back tears.
“Until the end,” I said.
He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly in a desperate attempt to keep his composure. “Until the end.”
I enjoyed the rest of the song, forcing myself to stay in the present with him. Eventually, my cousin found me, and I let him take me back to our ivory tower. That was when I knew the dream was finally…truly…completely and totally…over.
8
Carter
When Miri left the party in Vegas, she took with her the last piece of my heart capable of loving someone else. Not the superficial beam of sunshine that I forced on strangers. Not the facade of the professional I gave to my agent and the other models. No, Miri knew the real me. We had years and years of history.
Alone in the city of sin and broken dreams, I wandered the Boulevard for hours. Thinking. Reminiscing. Trying to decide what to do next. I was melancholic enough to pack up my shit and go home. Maybe a few months in Chicago would do me some good. I could be with family again, maybe find that thing inside me that used to want this career.
Eventually, I sat at a roulette table, drinking whiskey and putting random chips on random numbers. I’d never been a betting man. I made money to save or buy necessities. But when in Rome.
Besides, I was depressed and feeling sorry for myself, and what better way to make that worse than to get shit-faced and blow a bunch of money I didn’t have?
“Hey there, cutie,” a drunk blonde said from the seat next to me. “Put a bet down for me.”
“Sure thing, sugar.” Why not? It wasn’t my money. I grabbed some of her chips and put them on twenty-three red. I, likewise, did the same to mine.
