Page 129 of Heart Over Heels

THIRTY-SEVEN

Mercer

I couldn’t sleep. The club would still be open for a few more hours, which meant Ishouldbe awake. Keeping an eye on things. Keeping everyone safe.

Instead, I sat. On my couch. In the dim glow of a lamp that didn’t used to exist in this house, surrounded by furniture and blankets and pieces of a life I’d barely envisioned. I stared at it all and thought about doors that had opened and then slammed shut. About kind people who’d stepped into my world only to be replaced by cruel strangers.

Luxe, for example.

Luxe wasn’t a person at all, but a persona. A hard, glittering mask that hid my pretty girl’s real face. And it punched straight through me to realize I would’ve taken the façade over what I’d gotten instead. Because at least the mask had looked at me. Spoken to me. Let me close.

Then he’d rejected me. I’d been turned away. Refused. Replaced.

Darby was his own guard now, same as he’d been his whole life before he met me. He hid his tender heart behind the stone wall of Luxe, and I was now on the wrong side of it.

The dismissal reminded me too much of my exit from the service. One minute I had purpose, direction, and a role that made sense. The next minute, I was dismissed, and the world moved on without me.

Just like Darby had tonight.

The television had been on, then off, then on again. Now it was dark. The blur of my reflection stared back from the black screen: a lonely man on his sofa, wearing a tank top and gym shorts, rubbing the stump of his leg and wondering when his life was going to start. Or worrying it had ended in the desert, that I’d left my future there along with my other missing piece.

My phone hummed in my pocket, startling me. I fished it out.

I didn’t hope for Darby this time, but the name on the notification was still a surprise.

It was a text from Rachel.

I can bring Molly by your house next week. Are you available?

For a second, I locked up, doing nothing but blinking and breathing as I stared at the screen. When the shock wore off, I huffed out something like a laugh.

Available?

I was painfully, devastatingly available. I had nothing but availability these days.

But for the moment, I was grateful for that.

My hands shook as I typed back.

Yes. Any day. I’ll be here.

I supplied my address then set the phone on the coffee table. As I leaned back, nerves crackled through me like static.

Maybe I should check her room again.

Make sure it was clean.

Make sure the nightlight worked.

Make sure…

I pushed up from the couch, already halfway down the hall in my mind, when a knock at the front door stopped me cold.

Not a polite tap either.

A resounding, deliberate knock.

The kind that meant whoever was on the other side didn’t just hope I was home—theyknewI was.