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She stepped in. Looked around. She went to his bedroom. It was empty.
She looked at the bed where she’d stayed with him when she didn’t know if he was going to live or die. Her next intake of air brought on his scent. He wasn’t here, but his scent lingered.
Her heart almost broke then.
He’d done it to her again. Stormed into her life, made her start believing his talk about loving her, and then disappeared.
Her chest filled with a deep kind of pain and it just curled up and joined all the other pains and regrets she had.
Would she ever learn to stop letting herself care about boys?
* * *
“Where are you going?” Miranda asked Della that evening when she walked out of the bathroom with her jeans and black button-down on.
“Out.” She had her phone in her hands. She planned to text Holiday and tell her she was going out for coffee with Steve, right before she walked out of the gate. She’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission. And who’d said that to her? A certain vampire who’d skipped out on her!
“You seeing Chase?” Miranda asked and Kylie looked up from the computer.
“Did he apologize?” Kylie asked.
Della had confessed to them last night about Chase’s little tantrum. But she hadn’t mentioned his moving out. Who wanted to admit you were an idiot? And that’s what she’d been. Believing in Chase. Believing he really loved her.
“No.” He didn’t apologize. Della felt bad, or at least a little bad, about hiding her excursion tonight, but she knew Kylie was one of those non–rule breakers and she’d try to talk her out of going. Or at least try to convince her to tell Burnett.
Della didn’t want to chance that he would have a problem with it. Nope. She knew it wasn’t exactly legal. But this was to help her father.
“No, I’m going with Steve to grab some coffee.” And it wasn’t a lie, because she’d told Steve they had to so that she wouldn’t have to lie.
Della heard both her friends’ little gasps of surprise.
“With Steve?” Miranda asked.
“See ya.” Della started out.
“Not so fast,” Kylie said, after having shot across the room and blocked the front door. “What’s going on?”
“We’re going for coffee, that’s what’s going on.”
“Is she lying?” Miranda asked Kylie. “Get your vamp on and find out.”
Frowning at the witch, Della said, “Bye, guys. I won’t be late.” She gently picked up Kylie by her shoulders and set her away from the door.
Then suddenly sentimental, she was tempted to blurt out, I love you, or thank you for being here. But she couldn’t find the words. So she just left.
* * *
Della followed Steve into the coffee shop, right around the corner of St. Mary’s hospital. She was instantly hit by the smell of freshly ground coffee beans. How could something smell so good, but taste so bad? She moved with Steve up to the empty counter and tried to decide if she wanted to “fake drink” something, or if she really had to with Steve. He knew she hated coffee.
Steve gave the girl his order.
“And you?” the girl asked.
“Nothing,” Della answered, but then her eyes lowered to the bakery stuff under the glass counter. Her heart dropped a few inches. They tasted like love, Chase had said.
“Wait,” she said as the lady started to turn. “I’ll take a snickerdoodle cookie.”
“I’ve never seen you eat sweets,” Steve said.
