Downtown Devil: Book 2 in series (Sins in the City) (24 page)

He frowned. “Why would you feel like a loser?”

“For starters, I have a bachelor’s and the student loans to prove it, yet I just got laid off from my job at a call center.”

“You also have a big show coming up in a gallery,” he countered.

“I wouldn’t call it big . . .”

“Why not? Doesn’t it feel like a big deal?”

“To me, sure, but—”

“Shut your mouth,” he said, smiling that big, white, perfect smile. “It’s a big show, if it’s a big show to you. And a big deal.”

“I broke up with a guy my mom thought was, like, the best future husband ever, earlier this year.”

“Let her marry the guy, then, if she thinks he’s so great.”

Clare laughed.

“You’re too hard on yourself.”

“Not always,” she said. “I promise. I’m just having a tough time looking on the bright side right now, what with my job, and my twisted excuse for a romantic life . . . I’m giving up on him. On Mica.”

“Sounds like maybe that’d be smart.”

“I thought he was the answer to how I’d been feeling when I ended my last relationship. My ex looked at me with all the passion of a roommate.”

“Ah.”

“It felt so fucking good with Mica. Being with someone unpredictable after three years with somebody so rigid and routine. And just being treated like a sex object once in a while, as unevolved as that sounds.”

“Everyone deserves to feel like a piece of meat now and then.”

“Exactly. I guess I just thought Mica must have been right, if my ex was so wrong, and they’re so different.”

“But no?”

She shook her head. “Obviously not. I don’t regret it, not at all. But I’m not cut out for what he can offer. I guess I need more. The sex was bonkers, and I’ll never forget it, but I also feel like my heart’s aged about forty years in the past two weeks.”

“Yikes.”

“Or like I’ve got the crush version of cirrhosis. I’m not cut out for this. I need to lay off him before something inside me’s ruined beyond repair.”

Vaughn smiled, looking sad. “I can understand that. I’ll miss hanging out, though. For real. Just like this.”

She nodded. “Me, too. Maybe we could grab a coffee now and then, once he’s gone back to LA.”

“I’d like that. My schedule changes a lot, but any time you want to meet up—coffee, drinks, whatever—just text me.”

She would, and she knew he’d reply. She couldn’t presume that much about some men.

“I’ve always thought you were cool, from the first night I met you,” he added. “And frankly, I could use a friend I can talk about this stuff with.”

“I can be that.”

He slapped his thighs, stood. “Well, I better get going.”

“I’ll walk you out,” she said, getting to her feet. “Actually I’ll walk
you the first few blocks—I need to go to CVS. Just let me find some shoes.” She was still in her nice work clothes, and slipped into a pair of booties by the door, feeling ridiculously overdressed when her mood was thoroughly clad in chocolate-stained sweats. “Ready.”

Once they were outside she told him, “Thanks again for coming. It would’ve stunk to go to bed in the mood I was stuck in when you called. At least now I’ll have cold pizza to bother getting up for.”

“My pleasure.”

“You heading right home?”

“I’ve been telling myself I’m going to the gym since I got off work, so I should probably at least do a quick circuit before I call it a day.”

The night was misty, clammy. Atmospheric. It left Clare feeling dangerously sentimental and blue, like the cold had crept in to remind her she might never feel the heat of Mica’s body again. “Do me a favor, Vaughn.”

“Sure.”

“Tell me a dating war story. As embarrassing as possible.”

He laughed. “And it’s got to be my own, huh?”

“Yeah. Embellish as needed to make me feel better.”

“Well . . . Shit, I don’t have any funny ones, I don’t think. Just one kinda sad one.”

“Oh. Well, never mind, if it’s only going to leave us
both
depressed. God, what a day . . .”

“Guarantee you I see way worse messes than the one you’re in, five times a day at work.”

She laughed, nodding. “Yeah, okay. That’s puts my woes in perspective. I may be unemployed and uninsured, but at least I don’t need stitches, right?”

“As for the war story, I don’t mind. It’s been ages.”

She met his stare in the dimness between streetlights. “Okay, then.”

He fixed his eyes on the sidewalk before them and tucked his hands in his pockets. “This must have been four years ago now. I’d been dating a woman for about eighteen months, I think. My longest relationship, whatever that says about me.”

“For our generation? That’s practically a marriage. Tell me about her. Unless it’s painful.”

“It’s not. Not anymore. Well, I loved her. A lot. I was ready to move in with her, given my landlord notice and everything. We met at a party some friends of mine threw—nothing like that housewarming Mica brought you along to. Way less classy.”

She laughed. “Weren’t we all, in our early twenties? Less classy, that is.”

“Her name was Monica. It was one of those fast-and-hard sort of romances to start, a nice old sweaty summer fling, I’d thought. But we mellowed once fall came around, in a nice way. I’m a mellow sort of guy, deep down.”

“Not so deep,” Clare said, swinging her bag in the cool night air, feeling close to this man, and philosophical. “Anyone can tell you’re a stand-up guy pretty much the second they shake your hand.”

“I’m one of the boring old predictable types, like your ex.”

She snorted. “You’re nothing like my ex, trust me.”

He shot her a curious look. “No?”

“No way. You’re not boring, for one. You’re steady, maybe. Reliable. But come on, just look at your job. There’s nothing boring about saving people’s lives. Or bombing through the streets with a siren wailing, blowing red lights—”

“Okay, okay.”

“My ex was a workaholic control freak with no sense of humor,” she said. “You’re just a good guy. There’s a massive difference.”

“Okay, fine. At any rate, this girl, she brought out a more reckless side of me, then. It was nice, maybe a little scary.”

“Oh, now you’re preaching to the choir. How so?”

“She was a little wild, I guess you could say. The kind of girl who’ll lean out the car window and yell outrageous shit at people on the sidewalk, just for a laugh. Not toxic or crazy, I didn’t think at the time. Just intense. And other stuff between us was intense, if you know what I mean.”

“Sex.”

“Yeah. And this was the fall after me and Mica . . . crossed our first line, let’s say. I was carrying around a load of weird tension on that front, and maybe I had some manhood to prove to myself. She made me feel like a different sort of man. And dating her meant that when I met up with Mica for our trip the next summer, I had an excuse all ready for not letting him take things too far again. Shit, you know what? I didn’t even know that was true until I said it just now. That part of why I let myself get serious with her was for the excuse.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah, fucking
huh
,” he said, and laughed softly. “Damn, you know . . . I was never compatible with that girl, for real . . . Shit.”

“Funny how much more sense our actions make with a little hindsight, huh? So how did it end with her?”

“Not unlike how things are ending with you and Mica, actually. I mean, not that they
have
to end. If you gave it some time, decided you’re up for keeping it all casual . . . ?”

She shrugged. “Again, hindsight. All I know for sure is, I don’t like how this feels. I don’t like that he had the power to cut me up like this, and to not even have really realized it, you know?”

“Sure.”

“What happened with the girl? Who hurt who?”

“She hurt me. Bad.”

“Another-guy bad?”

“Yeah. Like, I-walked-in-on-her-with-another-dude bad.”

“Fuck. I didn’t know that stuff even really happened outside of TV and movies.”

“It does if you date a psycho who
wants
you to catch her,” Vaughn said.

“Oh my God, for real?”

“I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I think so. She knew I was coming over to her place that night. And unlike Mica, she could keep her dates straight.”

“Did you totally freak?”

“No, not really. I mean, on the inside, it decimated me. But I just stood there—I had a copy of her key, so I came right in—and I stood there at the door to her bedroom staring at them, like one of those old Magic Eye puzzle things, like I had it just about in focus, could just about make out the real picture, but not totally. Like my eyes saw what they saw but my brain wouldn’t let me register it.”

“And?”

“And I said something, like, I dunno,
What the fuck?
or whatever. And I left. I’d brought dinner, takeout from a Thai place, and I tossed it on her counter and let myself out. I know she was yelling my name from back in her room, but I didn’t care. I just wanted out.”

“Sure.”

“The most fucked-up part about it, though, is that she had the gall to get mad at
me,
for not being
mad enough
. Like we talked the next day when I stopped ignoring her calls, and I was real level about it. I’d decided afterward that it was for the best. We weren’t compatible, long-term, and I’d been lying to myself about that. Don’t get me wrong, that shit still stung, but I’d also realized that a part of me was relieved, too. So I told her she’d hurt me, that we were over, but I was pretty calm. And the girl blows up at me like I wasn’t upset enough. Fucking crazy, right?”

“Quite.”

“Looking back, I’m thankful for it. It did a number on me, definitely had me avoiding the whole dating scene for a couple years, and I was slow to trust women for a while after that.”

“Sure.”

“I was also dealing with a lot of confusing shit around my situation with Mica. But anyway, eventually I was grateful for it all. She must’ve wanted out, too, and she’d slammed her hand down on the self-destruct button as hard as she needed to, to scare me off. Anything less and I’d have been all,
Hey, let’s work on this. Let’s not give up.
But giving up was exactly what needed to happen. I think she knew that. So I have to thank the psycho in the end for saving us both a lot of time.” He paused, and Clare looked over to find him smiling by the neon light of a check-cashing store. “Plus, my landlord had already found a new renter for the fall and I wound up finding a way better place for cheaper.”

She laughed. “You’re the king of silver linings, my friend. I ought to take lessons.”

“Only way to get through this life,” Vaughn said. “If you’re not born lucky, that is.”

“I really don’t know much about you, when I think about it. Your job, and all that stuff with Mica, sure . . . I mean, we’ve
slept
together, but usually by the time I get to that place with a guy I’ve at least had two or three dates with him. Clocked some hours of grilling the dude about his childhood and his plans and everything, you know?”

“Sure. And ditto.” He paused, and she could sense he was thinking, and waited for him to continue.

“You and me,” he finally said, “we’re weird, you’re right. And I think maybe we’re kind of the same—I’m not really into one-night
stands or impulsive hookups or whatever, and you don’t seem like you are, either, aside from the Mica situation.”

“He’s kind of an exception,” she agreed. And he was the ultimate exception for Vaughn, amending the man’s entire definition of his sexuality. “He showed up right when I was needing some adventure, too. Right as I was hitting thirty, and my last relationship was nearly three years. I was feeling restless, and a little insecure, and a little desperate for some attention and excitement.”

“Well, you got that, I guess.”

She laughed. “There’s an understatement. Yeah, never in my wildest dreams did I think the adventure I was after would turn into a three-way, that’s for sure.”

“No regrets, I hope?”

“No, probably not. I feel like a bit of an idiot now, but I know that if I looked back at all this in a couple of years and I’d let the opportunity pass . . . I’d feel way more lame for that than I do now, for falling a little harder than I should have.”

“Falling for someone you’re sleeping with doesn’t make you an idiot,” Vaughn said. “It makes you human. In my opinion, anyway—I don’t see much point in sleeping with people you don’t think you might fall for. Or I don’t anymore. My seventeen-year-old self wasn’t quite so discerning.”

She laughed again. Vaughn made her do that so easily, she thought. Mica made her pulse race, made her blush, made her nervous in a pleasurable way, but she couldn’t recall him ever having made her laugh. It was attractive in a way she’d overlooked for too long.

They reached the corner of Liberty and Wood, downtown’s sidewalks bustling with Friday-night socializers instead of businesspeople, cars’ head- and taillights streaking the damp pavement. And across the street was CVS, where Clare would presumably say good-bye to Vaughn,
run her errand, then head back toward home, toward her couch or bed, a glass of white wine or peppermint tea and a movie or book—and maybe those final two slices of pizza—and end the night dressed in self-pity and loose pants. Too bad. The distraction had been pleasant while it lasted.

“Guess this is where we part,” she said, turning to him as she punched the button for the walk signal.

“I’ll follow you in—I could use a drink for the gym.”

And so they wound up wandering the aisles together, Clare with her bottle of contact lens solution in hand, Vaughn with his bottle of yellow Gatorade. They stalled in the supplements section, pretending to debate the merits of the various muscle powders and male virility pills, then a display of novelty nail polishes, and finally the checkout line. But even once they’d both pocketed their change and it was time to say good-bye, they ended up loitering by the magazines.

Clare took a chance. “You could come back to my place, you know. Neither of us seems like we’re all that eager to be alone. Unless you’re just being nice, of course.”

He shook his head. “I was thinking the same thing. I don’t really feel like going to the gym. Plus, why the fuck not, right? I’m not working until late tomorrow.”