Page 82 of Pick Me This Time

38

DAPHNE

Back at my house, I was reeling. Rattled.

No matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to get warm. I was so cold, my teeth were clenched but I’d already lit a fire in my fireplace and I was sitting in front of it, drinking a cup of hot tea under a pile of soft blankets.

Still, I knew why I couldn’t warm up. This cold was coming from inside me. It wouldn’t go away until I managed to get a hold of my feelings, but nothing I did was working for that either.

I’d been to a few therapy sessions after I’d ended things with Peter. In them, I’d learned some coping mechanisms but no amount of breathing, visualizing, or anything else could ease the shock of seeing him so unexpectedly.

I’d been so caught up in my Sterling-haze that I hadn’t spared a thought for the possibility of Peter coming back to town for the reunion in weeks. Before Sterling had shown up, I’d been sufficiently nervous.

I’d been mentally preparing myself for Peter’s appearance for months, trying to brace for impact. I hadn’t known if he would come back for the reunion, but I’d figured it was better to be prepared than to be caught off guard.

Then Sterling had shown up and reminded me of a time before Peter. A time when my young heart had longed for Sterling North and only Sterling North. All that nastiness that had happened after he’d left had kind of disappeared.

My focus had shifted to that rosy, innocent time before. I’d gotten caught up in those memories instead, even allowing myself to believe that maybe I could have something with The One Who Had Never Been An Option.

In the midst of all that, I’d shoved Peter all the way to the back of my mind and I’d hoped he would stay there, but nope. That guy had always had a way of disappointing me.

Two loud bangs suddenly came from my door and I jumped, biting back a scream as all the blood left my head in a rush and my heart started fluttering nervously, my stomach heavy with dread. I swallowed hard, reminding myself that Peter couldn’t get back here.

He and I had lived together for the last year or so we’d dated, and once I’d left him, I’d fled home. I’d been too scared to get a place of my own and my parents had been so understanding even though they hadn’t even had the whole story.

Eventually, my mother had offered me the guest house. Not only did Peter not know about any of that, but he couldn’t get into the property. I’d locked the garden gate just to be sure. The only way in now was through my parents’ house, or if you knew where the spare key for the gate was hidden.

My parents would never let Peter back here and he certainly didn’t know where that spare key was, so I let out a long, deep exhale and got up, cautiously making my way to the door. With the immediate shock and fear of those bangs now subsiding, I had a pretty good feeling I knew who was waiting on the other side of that door.

Eric.

He’d probably found out about Sterling and me somehow and had come to kill me. Resigning myself to my fate, I gripped the cool metal handle of my front door and called through it. “Who is it?”

“It’s me,” Sterling’s voice rang out and I frowned, surprised, but pleasantly so.

Once again, he’d come after me, and once again, I hadn’t encouraged him to do so. Maybe there’s hope for us after all.

I opened the door, and all that naive hope crashed and burned. Sterling’s knuckles were bloody, his clothes disheveled and murder shone from his eyes. “Oh, my god. What happened?”

Stepping aside, I waved him in, locking the door behind us before I raced to the kitchen to grab a cloth to clean him up. He stalked inside but didn’t say anything. There was a kind of a dazed look in his eyes and his teeth were grinding, his muscles practically vibrating with tension.

“Did you kill him?” I asked, only half-teasing as I wet the cloth and squeezed out the excess water. The only thing I could think of that might have happened was that he and Eric had gotten into a fight after my brother had found out the truth about us.

I wasn’t seriously worried that Sterling had killed him, though. He loved him way too much, but it sure looked like it’d gotten a little out of hand.

“I want to know the truth about you and Peter,” Sterling said, striding with purpose toward the kitchen and his eyes burning into mine as he came to stand in front of me. “Did he hurt you?”

My stomach rolled, the color that had returned to my cheeks draining all over again. My eyelids broke, blinking much too fast and much too often as my jaw went slack. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me, Daph,” he said dully, his tone too blunt and too haunted. “Did he hurt you?”

“Physically or emotionally?” I asked, wondering where the hell this was coming from. “It was a long time ag⁠—”

“Did he hit you?” I saw the column of Sterling’s throat move up and down, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed hard.

The only light in his eyes seemed to be powered by righteous fury, and in that moment, I knew that he knew. My heart sank to my feet, but I nodded. “It only happened once, and I got out of the relationship immediately after that.”

A soft, pained groan escaped him and his eyes slammed shut, his features contorting as if he was in absolute agony. I didn’t know what the heck was going on or how he’d found out, but I definitely didn’t know why he was reacting this way.