Live For Me (Blurred Lines #2)(28)
Author: Erin McCarthy

She hadn’t been there with us for the last few weeks. She hadn’t heard the things he’d said to me.

Angry with her for throwing that out in a text, regardless of how worried about me she was, I didn’t answer.

“Is everything okay?” Devin asked, pulling into the driveway at Richfield.

It was snowing and he took the turn too fast so that we fishtailed a bit. It was ridiculous to drive a sports car in Maine in December and he knew it. He’d been talking about buying an SUV in town and putting the Lamborghini in the garage for the rest of the winter. Almost like he intended to stay.

For some reason he refused to drive the truck that already sat in his garage. I wondered if it had something to do with Kadence.

I nodded in response to his question. “Just got a reminder that I’m on my own. That I’m alone.” I didn’t usually give in to feeling sorry for myself, but Cat’s texts felt like a betrayal.

His hand stroked over my knee. “You’re not alone. You have me.”

Chapter Nine

Devin’s words made me angry. He didn’t understand what it did to me. To him, it was a casual platitude. He meant it, I knew he did. In a way that someone did who has a ton of friends, family, wealth, privilege. He never had to be alone. Not truly and earnestly.

For me, it was a harsh reality. I was well and truly alone.

If I died tomorrow, maybe five people would show up at my funeral.

That wasn’t self-pity, that was reality. I had been quiet in school, and unable to participate in extracurricular activities. My hope was that I could go to nursing school as planned, reach out and help people the way isolated foster parents had for me over the years. To be kind in a world where there was so little kindness. I had no lofty goals or expectations of wealth, travel, even love. Maybe someday I would find a guy who would get me and could tolerate that I had the Great Wall of China in front of my emotions.

That guy wasn’t Devin, no matter how much I wanted it to be. Whatever love I felt for him, whatever feelings he might have for me, they were transient, temporary.

Ultimately, I was alone.

“Don’t patronize me,” I said, jerking my leg so his hand fell off my knee.

His jaw dropped. “I’m not. I’m telling you that I’m your friend.” He parked the car in the garage and turned to me. “What, you don’t believe me? After everything?”

“I believe that I am, for now.” Not wanting to look at him, I stared out the window at his immaculate three-car garage. Everything was orderly, with a built-in storage system for the tools and equipment no one used. Sometimes it seemed to me like Richfield was a movie set, not a real house. Like at any minute cast and crew would stream in, pull off the sheets, pretend like there was life and vitality happening there, then retreat, leaving it silent and empty again.

“What is going on?” Devin asked, sounding frustrated. “Who texted you?”

But I didn’t bother to answer because sitting on the work bench was that freaky Kadence doll. “Why is that doll in the garage?” I asked, curious and a little unnerved. I hated that doll. It was so… plastic. Sort of like its inspiration. But more to the point, I didn’t understand why Devin would want that thing around.

“What? What are you talking about?”

I pointed. “That doll that was on your bed.”

When I looked over at him, Devin was peering around me into the depths of the garage. “I don’t see anything,” he said flatly. “And I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have a doll on my bed.”

“You don’t?” That was weird.

“No. Why would I have a doll? That is not something I would choose to collect and it’s a little bizarre that you think I would.” With that, he opened his car door and got out.

I did the same. “That doll,” I said, pointing to it. “It was on your bed.”

Devin came around the car and frowned. “Oh, shit, that thing? I thought my ex-wife took that with her. It was designed to look like her.” He picked it up and turned it over so that the blond hair flopped over her face. “I think it’s hideous and weird, personally.”

“It was on your bed,” I insisted.

“When were you in my room?” he asked.

That wasn’t the relevant part of my statement. “When you weren’t here. Why does that matter?”

But he was smiling, that smug male smile that says he knows you were checking him out. He tossed the doll back down.

“Hey, come here, Tiff.” He held his hand out for me.

I ignored it. “I think you should check the surveillance footage. Someone was in the house.” I shivered at the thought that I hadn’t been alone when Devin was back in New York. That someone had come in to the house without me knowing.

“Okay.” He took my hand and pulled me up against him. “Don’t worry about it. It’s just an ugly doll.”

“There was potentially an intruder.”

“I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. I don’t want you to ever worry. You’re not alone. I mean that.”

I wasn’t in the mood to listen to reassurances he thought I’d want to hear. So I just moved around him toward the house. “It’s cold out here.”

Going in through the back door, I bent down to greet Amelia. “If you want cookies for Christmas, I’m going to need to go to the store.”

“Are you talking to the dog or to me?” Devin asked.

Smart ass. He sounded as annoyed as I felt.

“Unless the dog can drive I’m talking to you.”

Devin moved past me into the kitchen. “By the way, I have something for you.” He reached into the desk drawer and pulled out an envelope, which had already been opened. “Since you were never going to do it, I ordered your birth certificate for you. Now you can go and legally get your temps.”

“You did?” I admit, I was surprised. I had been ignoring the issue because I still didn’t really see the point in getting my driver’s license. I didn’t even have a car to take the test unless I used Devin’s, which seemed ludicrous.

“Yes. And I thought you said you’re eighteen.”

“I am.”

“According to your birth certificate, you’re actually nineteen.”

Um, that was not what I was expecting him to say. “What? That’s not possible. Someone would have told me at some point. I was in foster care. Those things pop up.”