He decides to charm me.
And what a great job of it he did…
I wonder how many other girls he’s done it to before. I wonder if he’s got some kind of arrangement with Delilah too – whether she knows about his extra-curricular exploits, or whether he just cheats on her without her knowing about it.
Either way, I don’t really care right now. I just feel like an idiot who fell for an emotionally manipulative man who got me to open up to him and give myself to him for the first time. And that’s something I’ll never be able to get back.
I should have been able to recognize his bullshit. After living with my dad for so long, I can usually tell when a man isn’t being real with me, and everything about Lyle pointed to him being truthful. I even felt like he was open to me about his life too. I guess he’s just a really good conman.
“Yara!” I hear him calling after me and quickly duck off the road and into some bushes. I can’t face him right now – not after what I’ve just seen. All I can think about are Delilah’s lips pressed up against his, right where mine were this morning…
I peer out through the leaves as he passes. Part of me wants to leap out and give him a piece of my mind. I want to shout at him and ask him how in the world he could do something like that to me and whether he even has a heart under that incredibly muscular chest of his, but I stay hidden and watch as he goes by.
A few seconds later, Delilah’s car goes by in the same direction, and it’s only then that I come out of my hiding place and race back to the apartment to get my things.
Lyle was right about one thing this morning: It is time to leave Tangerine Forks, but I won’t be going to San Diego. I won’t be going anywhere with him.
I takethe back roads into town to the bus station and buy a one-way ticket to Portsmouth leaving in a half hour, but when I go to take a seat to wait, I see a guy with red hair eyeing me from the door. He’s not just looking at me like he thinks I’m cute or something either. There’s more to it, and it’s giving me the creeps. I look around to see if there’s a security guard at the station or something, but it’s too late; he’s already coming over to me.
“Yara, right?” His question sends a shiver down my spine. Nobody in this town should know my name other than Lyle and the staff at the diner. He’s not one of my regulars; in fact I’ve never seen him come in at work before, so I know we haven’t met.
Do I have a stalker? Could it somehow be one of Clint’s men?
“Who are you?” I ask, backing away.
“Don’t worry,” he replies, putting his hands up. “My name’s Jim. I’m Lyle’s friend. He’s out looking for you but thought you might be here, so he sent me.”
My heart rate increases. I guess it’s not too crazy to think that in a town as small as Tangerine Forks, I’d be found out.
“Well, I’ve already got my ticket, Jim. One-way to Portsmouth, so…”
Jim approaches me like a hunter afraid to spook its prey. “Listen, Yara. I know what you think you saw—”
“Oh, please!” I laugh. “He sent his bro here to make excuses for him?”
“That’s not what’s happening, Yara.” Jim quickly takes the seat beside me, a very earnest look on his face. Either he’s a really good actor, or he truly believes what he’s about to say next. “Delilah was coming on to him, Yara.”
“Oh, come on!”
I’d say I’m about sixty-forty on believing him, with the sixty not believing him. But I want to believe him, because that would mean the man that I have let myself fall for actually didn’t con me.
“It’s true!” Jim’s eyes are lit up like he’s about to tell me he won the lottery. “He never wanted to go out with that succubus in the first place.”
“Succubus!?” I almost laugh.
Jim nods. “You know why they were together, right?”
“I mean…I know what he told me…”
“Her father,” Jim says. “That wasn’t a lie. He showed up at his work today too after he heard about the breakup, trying to force him to take her back.”
“Seriously?”
I’m sixty-forty now on believing him. This is starting to make more sense, either that or it’s the most elaborate con ever.
Jim nods. “Clint’s gunning for him now, Yara. He’s in real danger if he doesn’t get back with Delilah.”
“Which he’s not going to do, right?”