Eastern Lights (Compass 2)

For the first time that afternoon, guilt found its way to me. “No. I’m sorry, Connor, we can go—”

He held a silencing hand up to me, pulling out the cash.

The workers all glanced toward one another then shrugged their shoulders as they walked over to Connor and began collecting their payment for keeping a wannabe bride from having a mental breakdown.

Or, well, for helping a wannabe bride partake in her mental breakdown.

Because nothing about what I was doing was sane.

The DJ started playing music, and I moved to the middle of the dance floor. The lights flashed, and I swayed back and forth, staring at the almost life I’d missed. Then the wave of emotions came crashing into me as a slow song came on. My knees began to buckle, and my eyes began to flood with emotion. The second I began to fall, with the aim of hitting the floor, I was surprised when Connor stopped me.

He pulled me up and he held me in his arms. He swayed back and forth with me. “I got you, Red. I got you.”

When I began to fall, he was there to catch me.

“I broke my promise to you,” I said. I rested my tired head against his shoulder as he moved back and forth.

“What promise?”

“You said to never fall for a man who wouldn’t dance with me. He wouldn’t have done this,” I whispered, crying onto his shoulder. “He would’ve never danced with me.”

“Then why did you choose him?”

I sniffled and didn’t reply because my answer felt too pathetic to face.

Because I was alone and scared of being alone and scared for the small remainder of my life that would’ve been experienced alone.

“Why did you say that the last time we saw each other? Why did you tell me not to marry him? Did you think I wasn’t good enough for him?”

He arched a bewildered brow and shook his head. “No. Of course not. I just knew he was nowhere near good enough for you.”

I wanted to believe those words, but still, it was hard.

We kept dancing until the crew had finally had enough and kicked us out.

“Where would you like me to take you?” Connor asked.

“I don’t know. I have nowhere to go. I can’t go to Jason’s penthouse. It’s not mine. It’s his, and I have no one, nobody to…I have nowhere to go and—”

“You’ll stay with me tonight,” he said, cutting into the panic rising in my chest. “You’ll stay with me.”

15

Connor

I showed Aaliyah to one of my spare rooms and gave her a change of clothes. She thanked me quietly before she went into the room, closing the door behind her.

If there was anything she needed that night, it was rest.

I headed back to my office. I felt exhausted but knew I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep any time soon. Therefore I’d do what I did best: pour myself into work.

Around one in the morning, my phone dinged.

Jason: Hey. Did everything work out?

Did everything work out?

The nerve of the asshole. I’d sent him a million text messages that day, called a billion times, and left a trillion voice messages begging for him to reply. To at least call Aaliyah. To man up and answer for the massive storm he had created. To face the broken heart he had destroyed. Yet I hadn’t heard a peep from him for almost twenty hours, and when he did reply, that was all he had to say.

Did everything work out?

Jason: Is Aaliyah okay?

He couldn’t be serious.

He couldn’t be that idiotic to think there was any kind of scenario where Aaliyah was anywhere close to being okay.

I wanted to cuss him out. I wanted to rip the fucker a new one for thinking any of his actions toward that poor girl were okay. Sure, Aaliyah was a hot mess, but it was because she really cared about the dick. She was the first girl I’d seen Jason with who looked at him as if he were someone worthy of being with. Plus, when she wasn’t completely destroyed, she was kind, graceful, and beautiful inside and out. She had a pure heart, and Jason had felt the need to destroy it.

He’d disappeared without anything more than a few words scribbled on a piece of paper, leaving me to clean up his mess, his mistakes. He’d left as if leaving was the easiest thing for him to do.

So that night, I ignored him. I ignored his messages, I ignored his fake concern, and I secretly hoped karma would find its way to him, if only for that night.

When I got up to head to bed, I was surprised when I heard sniffling from the guest room. She was still up and clearly crying. Without thought, I headed over and knocked on the door. When she opened it, I felt as if I’d been sucker punched. She looked drained. Destroyed.