Sempre (Forever Series #1)(11)

His gaze shifted to her, and he jumped, grabbing his chest. “Christ, what are you doing?”

“Just looking,” she said, motioning toward the window.

“In the dark? You couldn’t turn on a light?”

She tore her eyes from his. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he said. “Just try to make some noise next time. You’re worse than a damn cat sneaking around. Maybe you need a bell.”

Traitorous tears formed. Don’t let him see you cry, she silently chanted. “I’ll try.”

“Who are you, anyway? What are you doing here?”

“Haven,” she said quietly, peeking at him.

He gazed at her peculiarly. His eyes were bloodshot, dark bags under them. “Heaven? No, this definitely isn’t Heaven. But I get why you’re confused, since I’m standing in front of you.” She stared at him, and he cracked a smile. “I’m kidding. Well, kinda . . . I have been told I’ve taken a girl to Heaven a time or two.”

“Haven, not Heaven,” she said, louder than before. Nothing about the conversation made sense to her. “My name’s Haven. It means—”

“I know what it means.” His sharp voice cut her off. She recoiled from the tone and pressed her back against the cold glass of the window. His moods changed too quickly for her to get a read on his frame of mind. “So, what happened to you? I mean, no offense, but you’re kinda f**ked up. Looks like you’ve been to Hell and back.”

She reached up to touch her bruised face when it dawned on her what he meant. “I fell.”

“You fell? If you don’t wanna tell me, say so. No need for a bullshit response.”

“Honestly, I fell! I tried to, uh . . . I was . . .”

“You don’t have to explain. It’s none of my business, anyway.”

“But I did fall,” she insisted. He still didn’t look convinced, but she wasn’t sure what else she could say. She pointed to his bandage. “What happened to you?”

He touched his injury like she’d done and shrugged. “I fell.”

“Did you really?”

“No,” he said, laughing as he disappeared down the stairs.

She frowned. “But I did.”

* * *

When Carmine was ten years old, his father brought home a cat, its fur scraggly and tail chopped off. It infested the house with fleas and clawed up the furniture. Two weeks later the cat disappeared. Carmine never asked what happened to it. Frankly, he didn’t care.

When he was fourteen, it was two dogs. The first was a little ankle biter with kinky yellow fur and three legs. It pissed all over the house before chewing up Vincent’s favorite shoes. It didn’t last a week. The second dog was a pit bull with one eye and deformed ears. His father tied it up in the backyard, and it barked all night, keeping them awake. Carmine could barely function in school the next day, and when he got home, the dog was gone.

So Carmine wished he was shocked when his father brought home a girl, but he wasn’t. He figured he was just picking up strays again. But Carmine could tell something was different, and he didn’t know what to make of it. His father was buying the girl things. He hadn’t even bought the last dog any food.

That fact weighed heavily on him as he strolled down the stairs. He told himself it was sheer curiosity fueling his thoughts, but the truth was, in just one day, the strange girl had gotten under his skin. He couldn’t pinpoint why or what to do about it, but he didn’t like the nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach. It irritated him, keeping him awake all night long, like a tiny little hammer chipping away at his insides. Fucking conscience.

He paused on the second floor in front of his father’s office. “Hey, do you want me to—?”

“No.”

Vincent’s sharp voice made Carmine stop midsentence. “You didn’t let me finish. I was gonna ask—”

“I don’t need you to finish,” Vincent said, remaining hunched over his laptop with his reading glasses low on his nose. “I don’t want you to do anything for me.”

“But what about the—?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Vincent laughed humorlessly. “Not like you’d actually worry about it. You don’t care about anything that doesn’t benefit you.”

“That’s not true. I care about—”

“No, you don’t.”

“Christ, can I get out a full sentence? I’m trying to help.”

“I don’t need your help,” Vincent said, shaking his head. “I asked you to do one thing, and you couldn’t do it. Lesson learned, son. I now know I can’t count on you.”

Ouch. The list.

“I forgot,” he said. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“It’s too late. I already asked someone else.”

“Who?”

“Jen.”

He grimaced. “Why her?”

“Well, she knows the sorts of things girls need, since she is one.”

With some effort, Carmine refrained from making a crack about Jen’s age, but he couldn’t hold back his opinion entirely. “If by that you mean they need birth control and a heavy dose of penicillin, I agree.”