Leaning against the bars, I lift my brows. “Can I get my phone call?”
The officer chews for a long minute, eyeing me up and down. “That’s only in the movies. I don’t have to let you use the phone.”
My jaw drops in surprise. “Uh…please?”
The urge to cover myself is strong, my lace bra snagging this guy’s attention. I straighten my spine instead, willing him to do me a solid.
“Yeah, okay. Come on.” Jangling the keys, he unlocks the cell with a metallic clang that sounds like freedom.
Somehow, when I step over the threshold to the other side of the bars, I feel lighter.
The officer on duty leads me down the hall with a greasy grasp on my elbow. “Do you have the number memorized?”
My heart stutters, but then it’s okay. By some miracle, I do have Devlin’s number memorized from the early days of our deal, before I programmed him into my phone.
“Yep.”
The maze from the row of holding cells filters into a bullpen of desks in the center of a big room with two offices at the back.
“Okay, kid. Here you go.” He waves a desk phone at me and props it on a filing cabinet. “Call your Mom.”
“Thanks.” A tremor of anxious anticipation travels through my fingers as I dial. Each ring has me sinking my teeth deeper into my lip. “Pick up…pick up…”
“Who is this?”
I nearly cry out in relief at his deep, curt voice. “Devlin.”
The line is quiet for a beat. “Blair?”
“Yeah.” My clammy palms slip on the phone, pulse fluttering. I crush the receiver to my ear. “Um, hi.”
“Are you okay? Where are you? Tell me now, I’m coming to get you. Christ, I’ve been trying to find you.”
Emotion clogs my throat. “You have?”
Was it his Porsche I heard earlier in the night after all? We’re like magnets, at odds with each other when we’re flipped the wrong way, then undeniably drawn together when we’re righted.
“Yes. Tell me where you are.”
“I’m downtown. At, uh, the police station. Can you bail me out?”
Devlin curses. “I’m coming for you, little thief.”
Air rushes from my lungs at his words. My world realigns, snapping everything into its rightful place. “Thank you.”
Forty-Three
Devlin
The stars aren’t helping tonight. They haven’t in days. I’m beginning to think the one ritual I have finally lost the spark keeping me going. I sit on the roof to escape the empty, cavernous house, but it’s not stopping the slow bleed out of my heart. The damn thing hasn’t stopped oozing life since Blair walked out.
At first I was angry, because she left, and because I didn’t stop her.
Despair crept in like shadows as soon as she packed up her books and walked out with that shitty duffel bag weighing her down. The rest of her stuff is here, stopping me like tiny grenades whenever I find something of hers.
The first few days, all I could think was how Blair was just like the others, ready to run away once she got to know the real me because I’m too hard to love underneath my mask.
A plume of smoke rushes past my lips on my exhale. I flick the end of the cigarette with my thumb, not in the mood to smoke it. The nicotine isn’t numbing the constant dull thrum of pain.