Page 182 of Devoured

He smiles. “You did it, Hart.”

I duck my head, blushing furiously. “Only took five years to figure it out.”

He tips my chin back, forcing my gaze to meet his, and runs his thumb along the curve of my throat. “Your father would be proud of you. You should be proud of yourself.”

I don’t know whether to sob or wrap my arms around him. “Your father would be proud too.”

Lightning cracks through the sky then. Thunder rumbles less than a second later. But Calix doesn’t move. He stands as still as a statue, as if he might never move again. Even when the sky opens. Even when rain begins to drench us.

I don’t move either.

“You’re happy?” he asks, rain dripping from his hair into his eyes. Dampening his white shirt and beading over his lips.

“I’m happy,” I tell him honestly. “Are you?”

“I’m happy,” he says, and I sense his truth in the warm comfort of his words. “I think Sin knew that. He knew we’d both be okay in the end.”

“Insufferably arrogant,” I say.

Calix grins. “Always the worst.”

And I imagine Sin here too. I imagine him smiling wider than ever. “My two favorite people under the same roof. How lucky am I?”

The rain continues to drench us, and Calix takes my hand. With his other, he smooths away the hair that sticks to my forehead. The water from my cheeks. “Here. Let’s get you out of the rain.” He leads us toward the dry safety of his bungalow. Under the awning, I can think again. Amidst the loud splatter of rain and the rustling of wind, a million and one thoughts pop into my head and onto my tongue.

But the one I say, the one I ask, is, “Why’d you disappear, Calix? No one could find you. I looked… Portia looked… and you were nowhere to be found.”

He leans against the wall behind him, releasing my hand to cross his arms again. “I had to figure out how to be on my own too. Sin was my entire world for almost two decades. Running wasn’t the solution; I should have stayed in contact. But, in that first year, I don’t think I could have. I had to find my own way. Find my own pack. Make my own friends. I had to learn how to have a life.”

I’m proud of him. So, so proud. But what I think, rather ruefully, is Girlfriend.

I must have said it aloud, however, or perhaps it’s written on my face because he smirks, and that dimple in his cheek mocks me. “Yes. I had a girlfriend. Her name was Gemma, and she was a Weaver.”

I grind my teeth. I try not to crack them. Gemma the Weaver. I bet she’s gorgeous. I bet she has the whitest teeth and the tiniest feet. I bet she doesn’t ramble, and she makes him laugh, and—“Had?” I blurt.

Calix watches me with a narrowed gaze. “Had. We broke up a year ago.”

“Oh.” Oh. My throat bobs as I swallow. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Are you, Hart?” He steps away from the wall, closing in on me. Backing me into a post. I stumble into the wood, but I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything beyond the fizzing in my stomach.

This is Calix Severi.

This is the boy I could never have.

This is—a man now. He’s matured. I’ve matured. We are not the same versions of ourselves anymore. And that’s somehow the most terrifying thought of all.

“Yes,” I manage to say. “No one on this Earth has ever felt more pity for you than I do now.”

He braces a hand directly above my head and looms over me. He smells like the surf, like bright citrus and summer rain. He smells familiar, and all that time between us feels like sand now. Meaningless, pointless sand, lost to the wind and rain.

“Your shoulders are sunburned,” he says, his gaze dropping to my chest. “You should’ve put on sunscreen.”

“I work in the sun almost every single day—”

He crooks his head. “And you forgot sunscreen?”

I roll my eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that you’re so perfect you’ve never forgotten anything in your life. Not all of us have pretty bungalows directly on the sand.”