Perfect Love (A Celestra Novella) (3 page)

The sound of footsteps making their way over eats up the silence, and I turn to find Dudley’s ugly mug headed in this direction.

“Go away.” I pull out the cleanser and start disinfecting the shit out of the shoes lined up on the counter. I usually hold my breath to avoid the vapors, but I don’t bother. Instead, I inhale vats full of the toxic crap because there just isn’t enough time for me to incubate some good, old-fashioned lung cancer.

“Senior rally is in just a few hours.” He spits it out as if he were my keeper.

“Have fun. I hear if you sit near the front, you can get a nice glimpse up the cheerleaders’ skirts. Rumor has it, Chloe has been known to forget her kick-pants. I bet she’ll have on a thong just for you.”

His cheek slides up one side. His chest thumps with the idea of a laugh. “You, of all people, know that’s not the cheerleader I’m interested in.”

I stop short of assaulting him and stare at him up and down. Dudley is tall as a door, eerily resembles myself, and I’d have a jealous streak a mile wide if I thought for one minute Skyla would actually leave me for this clown. Then again, he gets to hang out on the planet, just like Gage, long after I’m gone. Looks like the clown gets the last laugh after all.

“Why do you look so much like me?” I pull up a rag and begin wiping down the counter as if it were the most important task in the world.

“I believe the more accurate question is why do
you
look so much like
me
?” His brows peak, and, for a moment, I want to shake the answer out of him, but it’s useless, he won’t give it, and I’m tired of throwing punches.

“You’re lucky because if I were in a better mood, I’d kick your Sector ass.” I buff the granite counter until I can make out my reflection. I had the old chipped stuff replaced back when I had that kitchen fire. It was when the Counts were still trying to burn Skyla alive, and now that very thought sends chills up my spine because I won’t be around anymore to protect her.

“Why so morose?” He leans in, landing his elbows on the granite. “Having a bad hair day?”

I glance up at him, perturbed. Dudley has a way of getting under my skin like nobody’s business.

“Death makes me moody,” I grunt. There are no truer words.

“Get over yourself”—he growls it out just this side of a threat—“and get to that senior rally. I want both you and Ms. Messenger where I can see you tonight. Something is amiss. That cow in the sky has notified me to keep on alert—says my services will be needed later.” He looks around as if he were suspicious of the bowling alley all of a sudden.

That cow in the sky happens to be Skyla’s mother.

My heart jumps around in my chest like a caged monkey because a part of me wonders if I’m the reason his services will be needed.

“I have three more days.” I get back to scrubbing that countertop until it gleams like a son of a bitch.

“Three days can be an eternity if you spend them the right way.”

I look up and hold his gaze heavy as stone. He knows something. He’s yanking my chain, trying to get me to bite.

“I plan on doing them right.” I toss the rag over my shoulder and walk over to him. “I’ve got a cot in the back—enough pizza to clog every artery in my body—oh, wait”—a dull smile rides on my lips—“there’s not enough time to give a damn.”

“Self-pity gets you nowhere.” Dudley bears his tired eyes into mine. “Have you told her?”

“
No
,” I bark it out because I’m not in the mood to relive last night’s argument. Gage has been rattling around in my head all day long. I buried my phone in the office so I wouldn’t have to look at it in the event he’s been bombarding me with a shitload of messages. And for that matter, I’m artfully avoiding Skyla as well. As much as I don’t want to hurt her, I don’t think I can fake happy around her either.

“Very well.” He pulls on a pair of leather driving gloves.

“That’s it—
very well
?” I’m not sure if I’m pleasantly surprised or pissed, both perhaps.

“How you choose to spend your final hours is your bidding. No doubt she’ll be upset either way, not much you can do to alleviate that pain.” He pauses to reflect while staring at the kitchen. “Of course, a long goodbye might be mildly satisfying to someone like Skyla. Women seem to enjoy clinging to the ones they love, and she certainly feels that way about you.” He cuts his serious-as-shit gaze to mine. “What are you waiting for?”

“
Proof
.” There, I said it. “I don’t believe for a minute this is the end of our story. Skyla was meant to be with me, not
you
, not Gage.” I believe it, but it’s like fighting an uphill battle over iced terrain with a million pounds of dynamite strapped to my back. “I feel hopeless.” I didn’t mean for that last part to slip out.

“You’re far from hopeless.” His features soften. “Eternity waits for you. Once you enter paradise—”

“Don’t you get it?” I shout, whipping my towel across his chest. “It will
never
feel like paradise until Skyla is right there by my side. And the fact that I’m looking forward to the day she dies like some love-sick teenager makes me feel like
shit!
” My voice echoes off the walls. It makes the pins rumble until the entire bowling alley thunders.

He winces at me before straightening like he’s got some pole stuck up his ass. “It’s not death that’s the curse, it’s the separation.” My heart goes numb just hearing those words because, holy hell, Dudley is right. “Death has already been defeated, Logan. You’ve nothing to fear. You’re simply walking into another room. Skyla will catch up to you before you know it, and then you can
party
like it’s 1999—propose to one another over the lake, again and again, or whatever it is you do to express your exuberance.” He heads to the exit, then pauses and twists back into me. “I’m sorry you’re in such pain.” His eyes moisten, and I know he means it. “This too shall pass.”

And with that he disappears in a plume of fog.

This too shall pass.

It sounds like the battle cry of a dying man.

It is.

The bowling alley is officially closed, and I take to the task of scrubbing the shit out of the pizza pans. I know full well they’ve been seasoned with the oil we spray them down with until they look like copper, but I’m determined to return them to their stainless state. Sort of the way I wish someone, anyone in the universe, would take me aside and scrub me to my
living
state when I actually roamed this earth as a card-carrying member.

“Who do I have to sleep with to get some service around here?” A light voice bleats from behind, and I freeze.

“Skyla,” I mouth her name, and it feels like heaven. I turn into her before picking up a dishtowel and wiping myself dry.

“You shouldn’t say stuff like that.” It comes out sadder than hell as I let my eyes sweep across her beauty. She’s fresh-scrubbed with her hair swept back in a ponytail, and she’s wearing her cheer uniform from West. I’ve always liked her this way best. There’s something about that hot schoolgirl look that only Skyla can pull off, and she looks sexier than hell in the process.

“Relax, I’m teasing,” she says it slow and measured, a hint of irritation layered just beneath her words. “You know”—she steps in and cinches me close by the belt loops—“it hurts to think you wouldn’t want me like that.”

My eyes ride over her features, her perfect straight nose, her full lips, those cheeks that arch to heaven, and I want to weep.

Her warm breath touches over my mouth, and it’s only then I notice she’s on her tiptoes, gunning for a kiss.

“That’s not what I said.” A painful smile tugs at my lips.

“So, what were you and Gage fighting about last night? He said it was up to you to tell me.” She’s trying to keep cool, but her eyes glower into me as if she’d like to be the first to rip me a new one. “I’m getting kind of tired of you keeping things from me.” She latches those silver eyes over mine and doesn’t let go. Skyla knows I’m keeping something from her. Gage confirmed it, and now I’m forced to stare down the barrel of truth.

“I never kept anything from you to hurt you.” My voice cracks just this side of tears. I take in a lungful of air and try to pull it together. “I think you should get back together with Gage.” I hold her gaze a moment, and she doesn’t flinch. “You guys are probably a better fit.” I pick up a stack of dripping wet pizza pans and start filing them in the storage compartment under the sink.

Silence clots up the air, and, in my experience, that’s never a good sign.

I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t want her to be angry at me, or hate me, and now I’ve effectively done all three.

“I think
we’re
a pretty good fit.” Her voice shakes when she says it.

I look up to find the look of hurt ripe on her face. Her eyes throw poison arrows at me, and she’s all but ready to grab a butcher knife. I can tell.

Fuck.

I give a brief smile before getting to the task of wiping down the counters.

“Would you stop?” Skyla pulls me in by the wrist and forces me to look into her eyes, desperate and pleading.

I drop the dishtowel and hold up my hands.

I give.

I let Gage beat the crap out of me last night. I don’t see why I shouldn’t let Skyla have the same opportunity. Maybe that’s how I’ll spend the next three days—letting those I love kick the shit out of me.

She swallows hard as tears swell in her eyes.

“What’s this ‘be with Gage’ bullshit? What if I want to be with Logan?” she shouts it out like a verbal assault.

“Skyla.” My face pinches with grief watching her heart bleed out over the two of us all because I was arrogant enough to have carved my name across it. I should have never pursued her. As soon as she told me that Gage had a vision of the two of them getting married, I should have backed the hell off. “I don’t think you can ever be with me.” There, I said it.

“But what about the visions?” Her forehead wrinkles. Her lips tremble.

I know she’s talking about our visions—the ones that are proving to be useless.

“I don’t know what they meant.” I match her tone as I swallow back tears. “I could have been in a Treble or visiting from paradise. All I know is that I’m not the one for you.” Skyla shakes her head as if she won’t accept it. “
He
is.” It thunders from me, sterner than necessary.

“That’s not true,” she spills the words easy as oil.

“A Treble can’t last forever.” I close my eyes. How did we ever get here? “I talked to your mother last week.” And there it is. Now she can surmise where this conversation is headed, and we can call a truce. Skyla knows damn well her mother is synonymous with bad news.

Her face bleaches out. She looks like she might be sick, and now I wish Gage were here to comfort her. God knows I can only bring more misery.

“Is this what you and Gage fought about?” She shakes her head because she already knows the answer. “What did she say?”

I pull her in and ride my hands over her back, the look of grief rife on my face. There’s no escaping my death now. Before, with Skyla in the dark, it was as if we could both leave it on a good note, and now here we are, stuck in the pit, in the mire, unable to move from all of the trauma I’ve somehow inflicted.

“Skyla, you’re just wasting your time with me.” The words break through that painful knot sitting in my throat like they needed to. I meant every single one. “I’ll be the last person to toy with your heart.” I swear it.

“You’re toying with it now whether you like it or not. I want to be with you.” She cries out with desperation while threading our fingers together.

I want Logan in the worst way possible especially now that my mother is about to swing another sickle in his direction. I don’t know who to hate more, my mother or Chloe.

“Hate no one.” I pull her in and hold back a smile. I know Skyla doesn’t care for it when I listen in. “You have all of my heart, all of me, and I will love you into the depths of eternity.”

“No.” She shakes her head like a frightened little girl. “We’re going to get our happily ever after, just you wait and see.”

There’s no way I can jump on that bandwagon. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to catch a ray of hope headed in that direction.

“Shit.” She pushes me away and takes a step back. Skyla runs her angry gaze up and down my body as if I’ve finally done it—I’ve finally let her down. “Thanks a hell of a lot for giving up on us.”

Skyla bolts out of the bowling alley with her cheer skirt kicking up in the back, and I savor the moment because it’s the last time I’ll see her running from me, and I know this to be true.

As much as Skyla doesn’t want to admit it, she and Gage are going to live a great life together. I’m already as insignificant as a grain of sand, and she doesn’t know it.

I turn on the sink and run my face under it so I won’t have to own the tears.

But I weep like a pussy.

Yes, I do.