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When really, he’d been ordered to kill me.
“So he’s single?”
“You’re married,” Abby reminds her, fighting to get Penny into the highchair.The kid has gone rigid all of the sudden.
I take the diaper bag off my shoulder and drop it to the ground next to me and sit, leaning back in hopes of not waking Juliet.
“He is single, but he’s…he’s trouble,” I tell her.“Good guy, just, uh, basically is a walking red flag.”I almost feel bad, though it’s true.Even if Easton hasn’t fake-dated me to confirm I was a witch so he could then get close enough to murder me, the man should not touch a serious relationship with a ten foot pole.
“What did he mean you blew up a house?”
“I just, uh, got really pissed when I found out he cheated,” I say, unable to help my mind going back to the day Easton broke down and confessed everything.My feelings for him had been real from the start.I loved him so much at that time.I gave him my mind and my body, and he took it like the entitled asshole he was.“I might have thrown a few things.”
The rage boiled inside of me, manifesting as raw energy like it always does.The thrilling of magic in the air caused the lights to grow brighter and brighter as I cried, until the glass got so hot it exploded.It fell like rain around us, and I threw out my hands, creating a telekinetic shield to cover Easton at the last minute.The force blew out the window behind him, but he didn’t get hurt.
Even in all my rage with the pain of a broken heart, I didn’t want to hurt him.It took a while to accept what had happened, and if it wasn’t for my friends, I would have gone back to him, wanting so desperately to believe that he wouldn’t really hurt me like that.The Easton I knew, the man I fell in love with, would never do something to purposely hurt me.
But he did.
He looked me in the eye and told me he loved me and then betrayed me.He carried on day after day, telling me he loved me while he kept that secret, knowing that it would come out one way or another.And when it did—it would kill me.Literally.Only someone seriously deranged could do something so heinous while being able to sayI love you.
Though in the end…was it love?Lucas has been certain since the moment he met Easton that the guy was still in love with me.I didn’t want to see it then, but there’s no denying it now.
“Maybe you should go talk to him,” Ricci says, looking out the window.
“Nah, I don’t—” I start but cut off when I see Easton arguing with the two hunters.Juliet starts to squirm like she does when she’s too hot in the sling.
“I can take her,” Abby offers.She gave up and let Penny have her phone, which will buy at least ten minutes of the kid being entertained.“Go talk to him.”
“Thanks,” I tell my sister.She knows the cliff notes version of what happened with Easton, though I don’t think she knows the full details of what we’d just gone through together with the djinn.Starting a text thread to fill everyone in is sounding like a better and better idea every day.
Abby takes Penny and I hurry out of the restaurant, finding Easton heading in the opposite direction of the hunters.They’re mad he stood up for me—again.Why he keeps running with assholes like that, I’ll never know.Though the life of a hunter can be very isolating.
“Easton!”I shout and he stops, turning and looking a little confused.
“What are you doing?”he asks when we’re only a few feet apart.
“That was weird.Things are…weird.”
His brows go up and he bobs his head up and down.“You can say that again.”
I laugh.“I haven’t thought about that day in a while.The day I…uh…found out your intentions.”
Easton looks out at the busy street next to us.“I think about it from time to time.You know I regret, it, right?”
“Which part?”I ask slowly.“Meeting me, or pretending to love me?”
“It wasn’t,” he starts but isn’t able to finish.“It wasn’t all…pretend.I…wasn’t lying the whole time.”
“I loved you,” I tell him, slowly shaking my head as the emotions come flooding back.We never talked about what happened between us, and working it out probably would have saved me a couple dozen sessions with the Academy social worker.“Wholeheartedly with everything inside of me.”
He cast his gaze down.“I know.”
“I would have done anything to be with you,” I continue and bite the inside of my cheek, watching emotion play across Easton’s face.“Gone anywhere and followed you because I thought if we were together, it would be home.”
“I thought the same thing,” he confesses.“And I meant it when I told you I loved you.”
“But you hurt me.You did what you did knowing it would break my heart.Yet you looked me in the eyes and lied.Again and again and again.”
