A Safe Space (Someone Else's Fairytale Book 4) (32 page)

“Do you remember her?” Cleo asks.

I blink. “Maree?” She’s a far cry from the emaciated little girl fighting off liver cancer, but the light in her eyes is the same.

“Oh, you have to be kidding,” says Cleo. “You have the most freakish memory
ever.
”

She turns to Maree and says, “Stand up, stand up.”

Maree does, slowly. I watch her struggle and then slide out from behind the table to reveal a very full, pregnant belly.

“Oh,
seriously?
”
I say.

“First pregnancy she messaged us about didn’t take in the end,” said Cleo, “but they were gonna try again so I just hoped, you know? And totally stalled and looked like the worst personal assistant ever.”

“My sister donated eggs,” Maree says with her slight Australian twang. That was something else we had in common, a parent from Down Under. She moved back and forth several times in her childhood. “And my husband donated the rest.” She holds up her left hand to reveal a wedding ring.

It’s more than I can handle. I lose it completely. Cleo stuffs a napkin into my hand and I wipe my eyes.

“Sorry,” I whisper. “I’m just…wow.”

“I can’t believe you remember me,” Maree says.

“Yeah, believe it,” says Cleo. “Lizzie’s the real deal. You gonna be able to eat or you just gonna cry?” she asks me.

“Yeah, probably a little of both.” I take a deep breath, manage to compose myself, and give Maree a hug.

She leans her head on my shoulder, and I revel in how solid and real she is. None of her doctors thought she’d live to this age, let alone have a child of her own.

I let her go, and Maree wedges herself back into her seat across from me.

“So where are you these days?” I ask.

“We live in Covina,” she says. “And I’ve got a Veronica Pryce nursery. Everything pink.”

“I hope it’s a girl.”

“Yeah, it is.” She beams at me, and I can see that she just doesn’t get it at all.

She thinks that this impromptu get-together is for her, a chance to see the famous Lizzie Warner and gush about her life. She has no idea how badly I need this, how badly I need to know that the little girl on her deathbed fought on and won. That not every dire case is a lost cause, and that someone who’s had one of the roughest lives I’ve ever seen still finds this world worth living in, no matter the cost. She doesn’t know how alone I am or how many little pieces of my heart have been ripped away with every young child who didn’t make it.

If I hadn’t ventured into her hospital room and countless others, I wouldn’t have met her, and my life would definitely have been poorer. She’s not just alive. She’s so alive and so happy that she’s going to bring a new little life to this world to join the party. I look her over and force myself to understand that despite all the ups and downs she’s seen, she believes it’ll be all right in the end. I need to believe that too.

We eat and we talk and we laugh until her energy gives out and Cleo helps her to her feet.

“I’m driving her home,” she tells me. “And we’re throwing her a baby shower.”

“Yes, we are.” I nod.

“No, wait,” Maree protests.

“No arguing,” I say. “Or I’ll go all diva on you.” I give her another hug and let Cleo lead her out.

Then I head home with a grin on my face. I feel a lightness in my chest as I ride the elevator up to my apartment. Once there, I let myself in, and as I’m closing the door, our intercom buzzes.

“Hello?” I answer it.

“Hey…Lizzie?”

“Uh-huh?”

“It’s Devon.”

My hand on the receiver falters, and when I open my mouth, no sound comes out.

“I know it’s been…you know…months. Can I come up?”

I
OPEN THE
door to his knock and find him standing defensively with his hands behind his back, his gaze on the floor. He’s as gorgeous as ever, if not more so. His hair’s a little longer and his skin a shade darker. The sight of him is like salt rubbed on a wound. My heart was not ready for this.

“Hi,” I say.

“Am I too late?”

“For?”

He produces a single red rose from behind his back and holds it out, but he still doesn’t look at me.

I freeze. No, I think. I was just getting over you. I was
happy
ten seconds ago.

“Am I?” he repeats.

“You moved to Billings. You’re with—”

“No. I’m not. I want to be with you. I want to make this work. It’s fine if you don’t want to get together right this second, but can we go on a date at least?”

“What happened?”

He lets his hand, the one with the rose, fall to his side, and he lifts his gaze to meet mine. “I thought moving back and trying to make it work with an old friend was the mature decision, but I was wrong. I was just running away from you because I’m a big old coward. But I want to make this right.”

I’m too thrown by all this to answer. “Give me a minute?”

He nods.

I pivot and go into Kyra’s room without knocking, which I know is rude, but I don’t really want to explain my situation through the door with Devon right there. Her room is dim, but it’s lit enough for me to see her curled up under her covers, taking a nap.

She sucks in a deep breath and wakes immediately.

“Help,” I say.

“What happened?” Her voice is scratchy.

“Devon’s here. Wants me to give him another chance.”

“Are you serious?” she sits up.

“Yeah, and—”

Before I can finish that sentence, she’s out of bed, across the room, and out the door.

“Back off,” she tells Devon, jabbing her finger right under his nose.

He frowns and doesn’t move.

“No, I’m serious,” she says. “Listen, maybe you think you like her, but you sure you don’t just miss having her like you? Knowing she’d always be there no matter what?”

“Mind your own business,” he says.

“This is my business. She’s my best friend and I’m the reason she even knows you. I’m the one who hired you and gave you all those opportunities to hurt her. We know your track record with women, so back off. Now.”

He looks at me, then at her, and shakes his head. “I can’t.”

“Devon—”

“Kyra, please. I know this looks bad, but I can’t just turn around and walk away.”

She looks him up and down. “Nothing is going to happen today, you got that?”

He just stares at her.

“If you want to make this work, you have to be patient, and patience is so not your thing.”

His gaze shifts to me. “I can do patient.”

“So go away right now. We’ll see you later. Maybe.”

“Lizzie,” he says, “Do I have a chance? Any at all? Or are you dating someone else?”

I look from him to Kyra and back again, unsure if I should say anything. “I’m not,” I confess.

His chest heaves with a sigh of relief, and he nods. “Okay.” He holds up the rose to Kyra.

She regards it evenly then snatches it out of his hand. “You have the same phone number?”

He nods.

“Okay.” She shuts the door in his face, turns, and holds out the rose to me. “You want this?”

All I can do is stare at it.

“Do you still have feelings for him? I mean, it seems like you do.”

Do I ever.
I bite my lip as I take the rose. Already I feel the sting of another heartbreak on the way.

The look she gives me is pure pity. “Ditch him now or make him take it slow. Talk to him, but don’t kiss him. Spend time with him, but no dates. Like you did the first time you tried to make this work.”

“Play games,” I say.

“No. It’s not a game if you really aren’t sure where you stand. If this is right, Lizard, he’ll stick around. He’ll still be interested a week from now and a month from now.”

I nod. The thought of Devon still acting this way a week from now makes my head spin. It goes against everything I know about the guy.

“This is the reality of taming a bad boy,” says Kyra.

“This what Zach did with you?” I wince as soon as I hear the words.
Nice one
, I think.

“Zach didn’t know about my past, but yeah, he started slow, and it did help.” There’s no hint of offense in her voice. She holds up her phone. “I’m calling him. You can listen in if you want.”

It feels strange to me to see her dial his number. “Yeah, hi,” she says. “Okay, first thing you gotta do? You gotta tell her everything, from when you broke her heart on. Everything.”

She nods at whatever his reply is.

“All right. Fine. Okay. Yeah. Yep. Talk to you later.” She hangs up and taps away at her keys. “He deleted your phone number. I’m texting it to him.”

My phone rings.

“You ready?” she says. “If not, he can leave a message.”

I stare at my phone and Devon’s name on the display. The memory of our last kiss surfaces up in my mind, along with all the pain I felt as a result. I’m not sure I want to go through that again, but this is still Devon. Mackenzie’s brother and, for a brief time, my best friend.

I answer the phone. “Lizzie?” he says.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, what do you want to know?”

I look at Kyra. “Everything, I guess.”

“Fine. Um…well. Where to start? I’ve been an idiot, okay?”

Kyra waves to get my attention. “No matter what he says, he’s not allowed over tonight.”

I nod.

She opens the door, “Go. You can’t be here for twenty-four hours, minimum.”

“Fine.” I hear him say this both on the phone and out in the hallway. “You still there?”

“Yeah,” I say.

Kyra shuts the door.

“Okay,” he says. “So…I made a mistake. I moved back to Billings and every moment that I’ve been gone, I’ve missed you.”

I absorb that.

“You still there?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m here.”

“Things never happened with Rachel. I wasn’t interested and everything I did to try to get interested failed. I spent time at her house and babysat her kids and cooked her meals, and when she tried to kiss me, I ran. I knew I had no control over my feelings when I ended up watching
Veronica
episodes on iTunes for three days straight after that.”

So you like Veronica,
I think.
That’s not me.

“Not that I think of you as Veronica Pryce,” he says, as if readng my thoughts. “I watched them because she looks like you. Because it reminded me of all the jokes we’d tell each other. And because they don’t involve you making out with other men.”

I go back into my room, shut the door, and lie down on my bed.

“You still there?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“Okay. So even after I gave up on the nonexistent thing with Rachel and told her I just wasn’t feeling it, no matter how hard I tried to just let time pass, I couldn’t forget about you.”

I look over at the picture of me, Mackenzie, and him, which I never did remove from my nightstand. Clearly I don’t have the best control of the situation either.

“I spent a lot of time at Mackenzie’s grave, you know, after work. I’d just go out there and sit and think and try to work through it all. I’d talk to her. I never admitted who this girl was I was talking about. I think, if Mackenzie knew I’d put the moves on Lizzie Warner, she’d freak.”

I can’t help it. I chuckle.

He laughs too. “So I just talked about you as ‘this girl,’ and I couldn’t stop. I talked to her about you day after day after day. I told her how I first kissed you and how I haven’t kissed anyone else since.”

“Since you left here?” I ask.

“No, since that time in the closet. Anyway. I saw you perform on
Good Morning America
, and I…” He takes a deep breath. “I kept watching it over and over on YouTube. Every morning when I woke up and every night before I went to sleep. Finally, I decided, it doesn’t matter who you are. If I miss you this much, I need to come back and figure the rest of it out. I mean, even if we didn’t work out, at least I’d know. I wouldn’t be lying awake at night wondering, What if… So I packed up everything I own and I drove back down here and I came straight to your place. If you want me to keep driving and leave you alone forever, I can try to do that. I’m still all packed. You want me to do that?” It’s clear from his tone what answer he wants.

I shut my eyes. “No.” If I reject him now, I’ll be the one wondering, What if…