A couple of girls walking by stared at her and whispered behind their hands. Great. She’d become one of those people who dissolve into drama on the street.
“Come here. Let’s go somewhere and sit down. Somewhere with waffles.” Saxon turned around and retraced their steps.
Stella dug her heels in. “No! We can’t go back that way. Wyatt will see me.”
“Okay, we’ll go around the block. But we’re going to Déjà Vu and we’re going to have waffles with blood syrup. The waitress there makes it for me all the time.”
That sounded like vomit on a plate to her, but Stella allowed herself to be led. It was better than crying in front of every man, woman, and vagrant on the street. “What is blood syrup?”
“It’s just blood. The waitress there is a vampire. She tells people it’s boysenberry so the mortals don’t freak.”
“Oh.” Stella shuffled along behind Saxon, feeling like complete and utter shit. “I want to go home. I want to cry in my pillow.”
“The last thing you need is to be alone, and I want waffles. I know you old folks don’t understand why I dig eating food still, but it’s comforting. Like eating makes me feel that nothing changes, man. You know what I mean?”
She nodded. She did. Vampires hung on to odd remnants of their mortal lives. Stella had hung on to her brother. Now he was gone. She was alone. Just like she had told Wyatt.
Saxon walked in long, loping steps. He reminded her of Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. Though he didn’t wear bell bottoms. Her short legs struggled to keep up with his lanky strides. “Slow down, I’m petite.”
“You’re a runt,” he told her good-naturedly.
“Thanks.” Was this helping her? Was this him cheering her up, or making her want to stab herself repeatedly? “I think I’m going to get a cab and go home.” Her anger seemed to have deflated and in its place, she felt exhausted. Weepy. Bruised.
“No. I forbid it.”
Stella was so stunned, she paused outside the diner. “You forbid it? Is that something you picked up from your dom?”
“Hey, don’t bring her into this. That’s of a delicate and private nature, you know.”
She didn’t know anything. “Are you really like a genius who just has us all fooled or are you actually this random?”
“I’m guessing the second one.” He pulled open the door and hit his shoe with it.
Yeah, she was, too. “Why can’t I go home?” she whined. And why was she staying? It wasn’t like he could really stop her. But for some reason, she went in with him.
Maybe she didn’t really want to face the emptiness of her apartment just yet. Maybe she didn’t want to feel the loneliness that was bound to wash over her like a tsunami. Eternity was a long time, people. She didn’t want to go through it solo. Let it start tomorrow night. Tonight she was going to sit across the table from Saxon and pretend the last forty-eight hours hadn’t happened.
Saxon placed his order with the dark-haired vampire waitress. She offered Stella a glass of juice with a wink when she declined the waffles. “Sure, thanks.”
The seat was sticky. The floor was sticky. The air was sticky. Saxon’s thumbs drummed on the tabletop.
“So you and Wyatt finally did the dirty, huh?”
“Yes. Yes, we did.” Stella pictured riding him, the way he had penetrated her deep and thoroughly. This wasn’t helping her forget the last few days. “But never again, because apparently he just felt sorry for me and he much prefers Karen.”
Saxon’s hand came out. He held up his left hand. “Okay, like this is the information you have. And like this is where you’re going with it.” He jerked his arm way to the right. “There’s all this space in between, man. You got to fill in the gaps before you send him packing.”
She got what he was trying to say, but her battered ego and shattered heart protested. If she went digging for answers, she might hear even more things she didn’t want to. “Here is the one indisputable fact we have. He gave Karen my brother’s necklace. After lying to me and telling me he didn’t have it. That is seriously not cool.”
“Weird shit went down last night. Who knows? Maybe he didn’t know he had it. Maybe he didn’t have it.”
“Now you’re just reaching.” Stella played with a pack of sugar that was on the table, flicking it back and forth. “Why was he with Karen?”
“Look, I don’t mean to be like rude or whatever, but you said you had sex with Wyatt. So did you tell him you care about him? Did you guys say you were like in a relationship or whatever?”
A flush creeped up her neck. “No, not exactly.” She had mostly run away.
“Cuz he’s been digging on you for a long time and it’s like a vulnerable thing for a dude to go there with his fantasy chick. If he didn’t say anything about you dating or whatever it’s probably because he was waiting for you to say something.”
“Well . . .” She bit her lip, squirming in the plastic booth. “He did suggest that maybe we could date. And that he loved me.”
Saxon shot her his hang-loose sign. “Cool. What did you say?”
“I think I just ran away. Then the next night I yelled at him and told him there was no ‘us.’” A strange pit had lodged itself in her throat. “It’s my fault, isn’t it? I sent him into the arms of another woman.”
“Maybe,” Saxon agreed. “But don’t leap to the clouds just yet.”
“What?” She assumed he meant conclusions.
Saxon continued without pause. “And that doesn’t mean you can’t work it out.”
“But the necklace . . .” she protested weakly, starting to realize that Saxon was actually making sense.
Making a pfft sound with his lips, Saxon shook his head. “We were all drunk as skunks last night. Wyatt put on a corset. I rode a bull. We probably would have given away a baby if we’d had one. You can’t put any stock in what happened last night.”
She was starting to doubt herself. But one thing she didn’t doubt. “Being drunk does not make cheating okay.”
“But you told him you weren’t in a relationship, so that is not cheating. And come on, what does every man do when the woman he loves tells him to buzz off? He gets drunk and f**ks somebody else. It’s a fact.”
“That’s a grim fact.” The scary thing was, she knew he was right. It didn’t make it any less wrong or any less difficult to swallow, but Saxon had a point. She had screwed up first by not telling Wyatt her own feelings. She hadn’t even asked him for time, for them to take it slow. She’d just freaked out.