Color Me Pretty: A Father's Best Friend Romance

Instantly, my best friend said, “On my way, Del.”

I wasn’t sure how long it took, but the knock on my door had me shakily walk over and look through the peephole to see my best friend’s short hair and worried eyes. I opened the door and was instantly wrapped in two arms and the lemon drop scent that was all Lawrence McKinley.

Blowing out a breath into his chest, he guided us inside and kicked the door shut behind him. As soon as he asked those three little words, I broke all over again. “Are you okay?”

I wasn’t. I was far from it. I couldn’t get those words out as I cried into him. He shushed me, rubbing my back, brushing a hand through my hair as he walked us over to the couch and held me close to his side when I drowned his cotton tee with my tears.

It felt like forever had passed before I was able to collect myself enough to speak. I spoke the words into his chest, feeling his arm tighten around me in comfort. “It’s my fault.”

He brushed hair out of my face. “What’s your fault?” Gently, he moved me away to look me in the eyes, examining my puffy, red face with a frown before swiping his thumbs over my cheeks. “Hey. Talk to me.”

Trying to swallow the emotion rising in me, I blinked away the tears until I was able to see him clearer. “Kat is dead, Ren. She was…” His eyes widened as I drew in a breath. “She overdosed sometime this morning.”

“Holy sh—” He shook his head and hugged me again, letting us stay like that for a few long beats. From over my shoulder, he murmured, “I don’t see how that’s your fault. Just because you saw her and argued doesn’t mean anything. Okay?”

My hands fell from where they rested on his back. “I gave her the drugs.”

His entire body jerked away from me, surprise flickering all over his face. Lips parting, he blinked once, twice, a third time. “Come again?”

I palmed my eyes, drawing my knees up to my chest and burying my face into them. Taking a deep breath, I did my best to explain. He’d understand. He wouldn’t judge me or bullshit me if he knew I messed up. “Kat called me crying, so I went to Divers where she was at the bar. The bartender kept looking at her weird and I could see why. Her eyes, Ren, they were so red and puffy and off, she wasn’t acting right.”

“She was high.”

“Or withdrawing.”

Ren frowned.

Daring to look at him again, I sat back on the cushion and squeezed my legs. “A while back, she’d invited me to her place. Sam and Gina were there too. They’d all been drinking. Then one of them pulled out something from their purse and it was pretty obvious what it was. Gina made a line on the coffee table and started…snorting it, and Sam and Kat were trying to get me to let loose.” His jaw ticked before he opened his mouth to ask the obvious question on his mind, but I shook my head. “I didn’t do it. I told them I was leaving because I didn’t want to be part of that. Kat wasn’t herself then, saying she’d done it a few times before and that I’d like it. That I’d…lose weight if I did it.

“She gave me some and I kept it. I don’t

know why I did it, Ren, but I did. Maybe even thought about using it a few times. Until I forgot. Until I found other ways to cope when I was having bad days and wanted to… It doesn’t matter. Anyway, she kept asking me about it when I met her at Divers and that was when I realized it was still in my purse. I didn’t have to give it back to her, but I did.”

Ren swore again. Something he didn’t do often unless it was justified. If now wasn’t one of the times I wasn’t sure what was. “You can’t think that giving her that led to—”

“How can I not? She’s dead.”

Ren scrubbed his palms over his face, his silence thickening the tension in the room. I stood and started pacing, Ramsay near me with each anxious step I took. “I practically killed her! I handed her the weapon that took her life.”

Ren stood too, face red and eyes full of exasperation. “You didn’t kill her. Jesus, Della. I get that this must be hard for you, I really can’t imagine. But you didn’t hand her a gun or anything else that prompted her to end her life. That was her choice. She killed herself. And you don’t even know if she overdosed using the shit you gave her. If she was using before, it could have been anybody’s supply. Feel me?”

I didn’t feel him. I felt too much. Her death was a weight dropping on me from the Empire State Building. It crushed me. It’d end me. And maybe it should have because I’d never know for sure if I handed her the final dose that took her or not.

Stopping in the middle of the room, I hastily scrubbed the tears from my face. “I told her to get help. That was what I wanted. She s-said she wouldn’t use it. I wanted to believe she meant it.”

Ren walked over and gently grabbed my upper arms, squeezing them. “Thinking about what happened isn’t going to help anybody. You can’t go back and fix it.”

What he said sent chills through my body as I thought of Kat’s words to me. “I messed up, Della, but I’m trying to fix it.”

Sniffling back tears, I moved out of Ren’s hold. I wanted him here, but I wasn’t sure what I needed from him. He wasn’t wrong. There was no way I could blame myself solely for what happened to her, but that didn’t make it any easier knowing Katrina Murphy, one of my oldest friends, had died today.

Died.

Vanished from existence.

“I’m going to be sick,” I groaned, bolting to the bathroom. I heard Ren close behind me as I bent over the toilet and emptied my stomach and what little was inside it. He was at the sink, running water, and came over when I sat back against the wall behind me.

“Here.” He squatted down and handed me a wet washcloth, watching as I cleaned off my face and then flushing the toilet while I stared off at nothing in particular. “I don’t know what to say to make you feel better. But I’ll do whatever you need. Call somebody. Have you talked to your guard—Theo about this?”