Seeing Annabelle today had been equal parts heaven and hell. I hadn’t been able to get my fill of simply looking at her. For weeks, ever since I’d seen her again that first day, I’d been struggling to stay away. The only thing that had kept me from demanding her attention was that she was so busy all the time. At times it had looked like she was going to drop from exhaustion from all the chaos that she and Emmie had to deal with each day.
Now that things were calmer, I’d been trying to find a way to see her. I wanted another chance with her, a do-over—something. Anything. I was tired of feeling so numb, hadn’t even realized just how numb I actually was until I’d seen her again that day in the hospital waiting room. Seeing her again had untwisted something inside of me, and for the first time in seventeen years I was able to breathe again. This morning I’d been handed the chance to try and start the ball rolling for us again.
Only to blow it.
What was I expecting after seventeen years of avoiding her and anything that might be connected to her? I’d skipped award shows where I’d known her brother was up for a country music award. I’d left parties when I’d realized that Noah and Chelsea Cassidy were on the guest list. Fuck, I’d even stopped going back to Tennessee except for when I absolutely had to. When Liam had his accident and we all stayed on Wroth’s farm, it had been the first time I’d even been in the state in over ten years.
Ding. Dong.
Gram and Gramps had both died not long after I’d gotten to California. First Gram that January and Gramps only a few weeks later. It had been like he couldn’t live without her and had gone in his sleep one night. I understood how he felt. Fuck, it was the same for me even seventeen years later with Annabelle. Sure I hadn’t died, but I wouldn’t call what my life had been like without her living.
I’d flown out for my grandparents’ funerals, but that was all. I hadn’t even stayed overnight, leaving the sorting of the house and other things to a lawyer. Some might think that I was being disrespectful, not sticking around to properly mourn the people who had raised me.
I considered it self-defense. The temptation to see Annabelle had been too strong. If I’d stayed even a second longer, I would have been up in Nashville knocking on her door. Knowing she was better off without me, I’d jumped back on the plane Rich had chartered for me and returned to L.A.
Ding. Dong. Ding. Dong. Ding. Dong. Ding-dong-ding-dong.
Shaking my head at the continued ringing of that damn doorbell, I lifted my glass of bourbon to my lips and swallowed half the contents. The hundred-inch flat-screen that took up one wall of my penthouse apartment was on, but the volume was muted. SportsCenter was on, but I didn’t care who had won whatever baseball game that day, or who was playing whom in a pre-season football game.
It was only on because Devlin and Harris had spent the evening at my place. We’d ordered pizza and wings, having a guys’ night while Natalie had gone home to rest after working most of the day at Emmie’s house.
I swallowed the rest of my bourbon, grimacing at myself as I thought about my best friend’s wife. I wasn’t sure why I’d gotten so hung up on Natalie… No, that was a lie. I did know. She was the first person to try to understand me since Annabelle. She’d reminded me so much of the girl I had loved—still loved—that I’d confused affection for something else and nearly ruined not only my friendship with her and Devlin, but also their chances together in the process.
Ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong.
Muttering a curse because obviously whoever was at the door wasn’t planning on going away, I jerked to my feet and started toward it.
Ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong.
My hand was lifted, about to open the door and snarl at whomever was on the other side when my fucked-up head realized that the bell had rung fourteen times. Frowning, I opened the door, figuring it was Devlin or Natalie, hoping for the impossible and that it was Annabelle.
It was neither.
I found a beautiful girl on the other side of the door. No, she wasn’t just beautiful. There was something almost surreal about her. I put her age at somewhere in her late teens, but I wasn’t sure. She could have been in her twenties for all I knew. She was tall, at least five-foot-eight, with long, curly dark hair and green eyes that had patches of gold in them. Her complexion was a soft tan color, making me wonder if it was natural or if she just spent a lot of time in the sun. Her body was slender, with just a few curves in the right areas, but my gaze kept going back to her eyes. There was something about them—not just their color but also the shape—that reminded me of someone.
There was a mixture of emotions churning in those green and gold eyes: wonder, amusement, anger. That particular mixture confused me, because I didn’t understand any of it. Sure, I’d seen young girls like her with wonder in her eyes because she was meeting a member of OtherWorld. I experienced that daily. The amusement confused me, but not nearly as much as the anger.
“Yeah?” I asked, realizing that we’d been standing there staring at each other for several minutes with neither of us speaking.
“She was right. It is like looking into a mirror.” Her voice was husky and full of the wonder I’d seen in her eyes.
My brows lifted. “Excuse me?”
The amusement only increased. “You don’t see it?”
“See what, kid?”
She rolled her eyes, the amusement being replaced with more of the anger. “Never mind. Can I come in? I expect she will be over here soon. After I texted Ben with where I was, he was supposed to wait thirty minutes before he told his dad. I figured that was enough time to at least get in the door.” When I didn’t move, she pushed past me and walked toward the living room, her green and gold gaze taking in my apartment. “Nice place you have here. I like your view.”
I stood at the open door, unsure what I was supposed to do. Who the hell was this girl and what was she doing here? I had no idea, but my gut was churning as I watched her, and I couldn’t help but feel like she belonged there. She sure as hell acted like she belonged there. Shaking my head to clear it, I closed the door and followed her into the living room.
My guest sat on the couch, where Harris had been only an hour before, and picked up the huge universal remote that controlled almost everything in the room. She studied it for less than two seconds before figuring the thing out and turning to the weather channel. It had taken me two weeks to figure out how to even turn on the flat-screen with the damn thing.
“Oh, look. It’s raining in Nashville.” She sighed and sat back before flipping the channel again. “I love the rain.”
“Me too,” I found myself admitting as I sat in my favorite chair. My eyes were still on this kid’s face. Why couldn’t I stop staring? It wasn’t like I was interested. Just the thought of that turned my stomach. No, it was something else. She had a glow about her, and I was so intrigued.
She grinned and dropped the remote, leaving the volume on mute. The wonder was clearer in her beautiful eyes now, eclipsing the amusement and anger. “Mom told me. She told me everything about you, actually.”
“Oh, yeah?” I had no clue who this girl’s mother was, and couldn’t understand why she would be telling her daughter all about me. Very few people knew the real me anyway, so I doubted that this kid knew very.
She laughed, the sound husky and beautiful. My heart skipped a beat at the sound and I rubbed at my chest as if I were in pain. What the fuck? “You don’t believe me, but you will.”
“Whatever, kid.”
“I’m hungry. Got anything to eat?” She stood gracefully, as if she’d spent years dancing or something. Without waiting for me to answer, she walked into my kitchen and I heard the door to my fridge open. “Gross, don’t you ever clean this thing out? This carton of eggs went bad in May. It’s freaking September.”