Rachel Dyken - Toxic

“Thanks for trusting me with her.”

I couldn’t look at him.

So I looked at the floor. “Just, don’t freak her out. She likes to play board games, but you have to move the pieces for her. And the only reason I trust you with her is because…well, you’re you. Besides, she has a thing for guys with light hair and dimples.”

Wes threw his head back and laughed. “She has good taste, that’s what you mean.”

I joined in. “Yeah man, the best.”

“So I’ll see you later at the home then?”

“Yeah.” I scratched the back of my head. Why the hell was I so nervous? I felt like a parent leaving my child for the first time. Is that what Princess had become to me? Wes was the first person other than Saylor who was going to meet her and I wasn’t even going to be there to see it happen. But, the only way I could actually go out tonight and be with Saylor — be the man she needed me to be — was if I had someone I trusted keeping their eye on Princess.

And Wes did kind of come along with two of his best security.

Add them to the security we already had at the Home, and we had six guys who wouldn’t let a soul through the doors if they as much as sneezed in the wrong direction.

“Go.” Wes pointed to the door. “Just make sure your pants are still on by the end of the night.”

“As opposed to what? Down by my ankles?”

“As opposed to what, he asks.” Wes rolled his eyes. “Need I remind you how many compromising positions I’ve walked in on in this room?”

“Oh that.” I waved my hand into the air. “Water under the bridge. I buried that mask.”

“Huh?”

“You said to fuse them together.” I flashed him a triumphant grin and waved goodbye. “So I only put together the good parts. Princess’s favorites, Saylor’s favorites, yours, Lisa’s… the rest of that shit? It was better left behind. Baggage, you would say.”

“Well, well, well.” Wes clapped. “The student becomes the teacher.”

“Bye, Sensei.” The door clicked behind me to Wes’s laughter. I had trouble fighting my own smile as I put on my baseball hat and walked down the hall.

So far, nobody had said much to me. Besides, who actually suspects that they’ve been living next door to a long lost celebrity for four years?

As unbelievable as it sounds, when you live in the real world, outside of Cali or New York, people don’t give a shit. In LA people are constantly looking for famous people, hoping to catch one as if we’re animals you have to trap or something.

But put me in Boise, Idaho? Seattle, Washington? They don’t expect it, so they just see a guy tatted up.

That being said, though, it had only been four years, so I kept the hat low, I didn’t want anything ruining this night with Saylor.

I’d never pursued a girl before.

With Princess it had just happened.

And as for the rest of the girls I slept with — it was the only way to promise myself that Ashton Hyde was gone. He would have never done that. After all, Princess was the second girl I’d ever slept with, and I’d believed I was going to marry her. I’d thought she was it.

Recreating yourself via turning into a monster? Not the smartest idea I’d ever had — especially considering putting my whole body at risk.

Shit. I’d even messed up my own suicide.

I was too naïve to even know what the hell I was doing.

I‘d cut my wrists the wrong way and hadn’t bled out.

My first tattoos covered my scars — as best they could.

Self-consciously I rubbed the scar on my right wrist as the elevator doors closed in front of me.

Five minutes.

Around seventy-two steps later… I was in front of Saylor’s door.

It was just a door.

But beyond that door?

Was not just a girl.

Inhaling, so I didn’t forget to breathe and pass out, I knocked twice and waited.

The door swung open.

Saylor was wearing a short black dress with gold high heels. Her hair was pulled back in a low messy bun and her lipstick was red.

Red.

Red.

Red.

For some reason, repeating it in my head just made me all the more aroused over the fact that those perfect lips, her perfect mouth, was red, and it was going to be pressed right against mine.

That is if she didn’t impale me with something first — we did have a tendency to fight a bit.

“You look…” I licked my lips and let my eyes roam over her body for a second time. “Stunning.”

Her mouth widened into a smile.

Holy shit.

I coughed and looked away. Freaking gorgeous was more like it.

“Thank you.” She stepped toward me, making me naturally step backward and nearly collide with someone else walking down the hall.

The girl almost face-planted on the wall then flipped me off.

“Sorry,” I croaked.

Saylor smirked and locked the door to her room. “So, where are we going?”

“Ah.” I grabbed her hand. “So the lady’s curious.”

“The lady’s intrigued.”

“Intrigued?” I stopped walking. “Not excited?”

Her poker face told me nothing.

I traced my finger along her smooth jaw line and then reached for the back of her head, pulling her into my space as I blew a kiss across her lips. “And now? Now are you excited?”

“You’re getting warmer,” she whispered.

I sucked on her bottom lip then let my mouth hover over hers as I answered, “I want you to be on fire. Not just warm, but blazing. Not intrigued, but impressed. Not just excited. I want you enthralled. And at the end of the night, what I really want…” I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t kiss her again. “…is for those tears to be washed away from your memory for good.”

“Why’s that?” Her body arched toward me.

“I want old memories gone… bad ones. So I can create new ones. Ones so powerful that the old ones don’t even stand a chance.”

“So what are we waiting for?”

Smiling, I stepped back and reached for her hand. “Good point.”

He seemed normal but I had so many open-ended questions with absolutely no clue how to get the answers. I was torn between wanting to just have a normal date — and a desire to shake him until all the answers fell from his lips. Even if it hurt to hear, I had to know. —Saylor

Saylor

I let him kiss me.

Oh, who was I kidding? Not kissing him would have been a crime against my own body. I liked him. I more than liked him, and not kissing him just because I was still a bit hurt, upset? That was a total girl move. And I hated girls like that. The whiny types that withheld all things physical until they got their way. Yeah, it also meant that at the end of the day I might need a pint of chocolate ice cream from all the emotional damage done to me, but hey, at least I had one kiss.

I wasn’t sure when I’d started looking at it like that.

Maybe it was when he sang his song yesterday afternoon.

Or maybe it was when my mom started talking about endings and beginnings.

I was in charge of mine — my end or my beginning. I could end things with him now and hate myself for the rest of my life. Or I could choose to do the scary thing and jump off that cliff right along with him.

I chose the cliff.

And the minute I leapt — I knew it was right.

That’s how risk works. You don’t know it’s the right choice until you’re freefalling, and even then you still have butterflies — but at least you were the one to take that step over the ledge.

I wasn’t pushed. I was proud of myself, for being able to come to that conclusion — pretty sure I had my mom to thank for that.

That was me. Going on a date with him.

In my head, I was sitting at the piano, authoring my own story, the story Gabe encouraged me to play. And the music — damn, but it was good.

“You seem deep in thought,” Gabe said once we were a few minutes into our drive. I tried desperately not to look at him. I knew he was still the same guy, but he made me nervous. This guy was different than before, there was a sense of raw vulnerability about him. No layers remained. They’d been peeled back and destroyed.

“Dangerous. I know.”

“I’m glad you said yes.” Gabe cleared his throat, steering the car onto the freeway. “And I’m going to start right now.”

“Start? What do you mean start?”

“When I was five, I had a pet rat. His name was Thomas. I wanted a train set. My parents got me a rat, go figure. Since the train set I wanted was Thomas, I just decided to name the rat that.” He shrugged, “He got a tumor when I was six. We took him to the vet. He died in my arms.”

“Gabe, I’m—”

“Thomas number two was a Chihuahua, who I can only imagine was actually birthed in the pits of hell and then sent to earth to set about destroying every single piece of furniture and every shoe in my bedroom.”

I covered my face with my hands to keep from laughing. “Did he die?”

“Of course not.” Gabe’s voice was irritated. “He’s like a cat, has nine lives, maybe more. He’s broken almost every bone in his tiny possessed little body, and is totally blind in one eye. He walks with a limp and sleeps in my old bedroom. Refuses to go anywhere else.”

Why did I suddenly feel like buying him a nice big dog like a golden retriever or a collie?

“I got my start doing hair product commercials. My dad always wanted to be an actor but could never make it, so he pushed me into it at an early age. When I was thirteen and doing my first movie, he locked me in my trailer after one of the older actresses approached me and offered her services for oral sex.”

“Uhhh.”

“I was twelve freaking years old,” he ground out. “And she was twice my age — literally. I hated my dad a bit after that. He said in the entertainment business I’d never survive if I was innocent.”

“Gabe—”

“He introduced me to drugs. At sixteen I’d already done seven movies. I was on my way to burnout when I met Princess. I was dropping my second album and seriously starting to hate my life. It helped that I had Mel — Lisa. She’d had a crush on me when we were little. We were neighbors and all that, but I never even kissed her. I knew who I wanted. And she wanted me too.”

He cleared his throat.

Rain pelted against the window.

“I believed in true love — I still do. Sunsets still take my breath away, pizza makes me a bit sick, but I’ll eat it. I love dancing almost as much as I love playing instruments. I can play almost all instruments just in case you were wondering. It was how I passed my time when my dad would lock me in the room for going against his wishes.”

“And your mom?” I asked, looking out the window. Where the heck was he taking me? We were officially outside of Seattle.

“She loves green.” He shrugged. “Anything green. So she let him do what he wanted because she got a happy husband and lots of houses out of the deal.”

He drove over the floating bridge into Bellevue.

“I had a twin sister,” he whispered. “She died from SIDS. My mom says I was in the crib with her when it happened. Apparently she’d been dead for about three hours before my mom came in to check on us.”

My breath hitched.

“She’d been drinking.” Gabe swore and hit the steering wheel. “I hate the Oregon Ducks.”

“Okay…”

“No. Seriously. Hate. Them.” His muscle clenched. “It’s the only damn sweatshirt Princess will wear.”

I reached across the consul and grabbed Gabe’s free hand, clenching it within my own. “Why is it the only sweatshirt she’ll wear?

“Because…” His eyes were like glass, he blinked a few times. “It used to be mine. I was wearing it the night she hit the tree.”

“Oh.”

“It’s the same way with her pink scarf. For some reason the only thing she remembers is that she forgot her pink scarf — not her helmet. I don’t know why she fixates on certain things. But she has to have her pink scarf tied to her wheelchair at all times or she has a meltdown.”

“And the singing?” I cleared my throat. “Is it the same with the singing?”

Gabe took the second Bellevue exit that led to the west side. Curious, I looked out the window and tried to keep my heart in check. He was cutting himself open, bleeding himself dry, and waiting for me to either accept or reject him.

He was brave.

Braver than me.

“The minute she hears my voice, she’s taken to someplace safe, different. Stupid, right?”