Since Dr. U was the only person who I saw consistently this past week, I had asked her to go with me to the Harmony Grove Nursing Home to deliver holiday joy to the residents—like Mom and I used to every winter. Trevon and I had planned to go together again this December but those plans obviously fell through.

  When we arrived, a nurse led us to a recreation room where people in wheelchairs were watching TV. While the room was a bare white color, there seemed to be an almost divine aura in the air. Dr. U handed me a candy cane and nodded to an elderly man sitting near the window in a maroon recliner, grinning at me like Mom would.

  “What an angel,” he said in a soft, fragile voice. He reached for my hand with his wrinkled one and squeezed.

  I knelt by his side, placing a hand on his. “What’s your name?”

  There was a twinkle in his eye. “All dressed in white and that halo on top of your head,” he said. My smile tightened, and I gazed down at my ugly Christmas sweater and black leggings. Definitely not dressed in white and definitely hadn’t been acting as an angel would lately. He cupped my face and tilted his head. “Beth! Beth!” he said.

  A nurse appeared at our side.

  He raised a shaky hand and pointed to me. “He sent me an angel!”

  She placed a hand on my shoulder and whispered into my ear. “This is Mr. Bennett. He’s been hallucinating lately. Don’t worry about it.” Then she beamed at him. “Her name is Dani!” she said loud enough for him to hear. “She has come to wish you happy holidays!”

  Mr. Bennett gave me a crooked grin and rested his head against the back of his recliner. “I can finally have a peaceful sleep.” He paused for a few moments, squeezed my hand tighter, and turned back to me. “Thank you.”

  I nodded my head. “You’re welcome…”

  He closed his eyes, hand slowly falling from mine.

  “Mr. Bennett, why don’t we get you to your room?” Beth said.

  He didn’t respond.

  She nudged his arm gently. “Mr. Bennett?” When he didn’t respond again, her eyes widened. “Oh, my goodness.” She retrieved another nurse from the next room, and together they shuffled out all the other residents.

  I just stood there, staring down at Mr. Bennet with wide eyes. Did—did he just die in front of me?

  Dr. U placed a hand on my shoulder. “Dani?”

  I nudged his arm, but he didn’t move.

  Holy Hell.

  He was really dead.

  Beth ushered us out of the room, telling me that he was an elderly man and that I had nothing to worry about. It was bound to happen sooner or later.

  Dr. U brought the car around front—deciding it would be best to leave early and come back next week. I scooted in and stared at the windshield with teary eyes. I didn’t know what to think. Everything was going from bad to worse. Trevon cheated on me. Eros was ignoring me. Now, someone just died right in front of me. What would happen next?

  Everyone was leaving me.

  When she pulled up to my apartment building, I still sat there. “Dani,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  My lips trembled. “No, I—I…” A tear slid down my cheek. “My boyfriend cheated on me, my friend is ignoring me, a man just died in front of me, and Mom is dead.” I wrapped my arms around myself. “No, I am not okay.”

  It was probably just the stress of the holidays or the pure shock that I was in, but it seemed like everything hit me at once. The pain of Trevon’s infidelity. The distance Eros was suddenly keeping. And the endless hurt in my heart since Mom’s murder.

  Dr. U was right. I should’ve talked about this with someone.

  She curled an arm around me, pulled me closer to her, and just held me like Mom used to when I was younger. I remembered her fingers gently stroking my hair after story time each night. I’d beg her to tell me every tale she had about all of the monsters in this world. Four-year-old me was obsessed with them at the time. I’d sit in her lap and listen to the passion in her voice. I’d tuck my face into her side and let my tears soak her shirt, overwhelmed with a sense of sadness when she always ended with: “And there may be monsters who haunt your dreams or lie under your bed, but the scariest monsters are the ones that hide behind the faces of good people.”

  And, right then, I didn’t know who in my life was one of the good monsters or the bad. Everything was getting harder and weirder and too confusing to understand anymore. I didn’t even know where I stood. Was I the heavenly angel like the old man had said or the hellish sinner that Eros had made me?

  Maybe I was both.

  Chapter 24

  When I walked into the apartment, Maria was standing in the kitchen—dripping wet—holding a bath towel around herself. “There you are.” She placed her phone down on the counter.

  I peeled off my coat, tossed it over the side of one of the kitchen chairs, and gave her my strongest smile. “Here I am.”

  On the counter, there was a brown paper bag with my name written across the side of it. She looked down at it and smiled. “Looks like you whipped Eros into shape real quick. He’s baking for you and everything.”

  “Baking for me?” I asked, grabbing the bag. Inside, there were six freshly baked Fervor Crisps. “Eros brought these over?”

  “A few hours ago, said he’d be back later to see if you got them.” She winked and walked toward the bathroom. “So, you better be ready for when he does!”

  I pulled one out of the bag, sunk my teeth into it, and sighed. My heart felt fuzzy just thinking about him making these for me. It was definitely needed after watching someone die right in front of me.

  Someone knocked on the door, and I immediately jumped up. Eros. He was here already, and I looked like I walked straight out of Hell with my puffy eyes and smudged mascara. I ran my fingers through my hair, hoping that I would look somewhat presentable, and hurried to the door.

  I couldn’t wait to finally see that damn sexy smirk after a week of being ignored; I couldn’t wait to tell him about today either, to get it off my chest.

  When I pulled the door open, my eyes widened. Not Eros. Definitely not Eros.

  Trevon was standing awkwardly in the hallway, his hands stuffed into his pockets. “Dani,” he said. “Can we talk?”

  All I wanted was to slam the door in his face and give him what he deserved, but I also wanted to know why he was here. Why now? Why more than two weeks after cheating show up to his ex-girlfriend’s front door?

  “We’re not getting back together,” I said, grinding my teeth together.

  He took off the baseball cap that I bought him, and I noticed the dark circles under his eyes. “I know.”

  For a good minute, I just stared at him. Trying to figure out why he was here. Wondering if I should really let him in or just let him wallow in his own misery.

  “Zane, is that you?” Maria asked, walking out of the bathroom with a mascara stick in her hand. When she saw Trevon, she dropped it, eyes widening. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m just here to talk,” he said, fiddling with the hat.

  Maria picked up the mascara and pointed at me. “Don’t let him fool you into thinking he wants to get back together. He’s still screwing Javier.”

  There was no way in hell that I’d ever go back to Trevon.

  “Maria, I’m sorry,” Trevon said. When she walked back into the bathroom and slammed the door, he sighed. “I really screwed up, didn’t I?”

  I stood there, nostrils flaring. “Yeah, you did.”

  He sat on a stool and rested his elbows on the counter, then pushed his head into his hands and took a deep, shaky breath. For some stupid reason, I had the urge to comfort him, but I kept my distance. He wouldn’t fool me again.

  “Dani, I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.” His gaze remained on the counter. I walked around it, so I was standing across from him. “It never should’ve happened. I should’ve broken up with you when it first started happening.”

  I pressed my lips together. So, it had happened more than once. “Trevon, if you’re going to apologize to me, look at me when you do. At least give me that much respect.”

  He picked up his head, and I noticed that his eyes were darker than they usually were.

  “Are—are you okay?” I asked.

  “I need to tell you something. I need to let you know all of it. I need to get it off my fucking chest.”

  “Okay,” I said quietly.

  “It started when we went out with Eros, Javier, and Zane for dinner. I didn’t have to work that night. I was going to meet him at my place,” he said. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. It had been going on since they met?

  “I don’t know why I did it. I just couldn’t help myself. In my heart, it felt wrong—so wrong. But I couldn’t resist him.” His chin trembled. “I never had that type of experience before—man on man—and I didn’t even think I was going to like it.”

  “But you did,” I said.

  “Yes, with him.”

  “Have you tried with others?”

  He looked away from me. “After you found out… but… I didn’t enjoy it as much. Maybe not at all.”

  I paused. “How many times did you cheat on me?”

  “A few.”

  My heart ached. Did that mean three, ten, twenty times? I didn’t know. And that was just with Javier. Who knew if there were other women. A tear slid down my cheek, but I wiped it away with the back of my hand. “Who else?”

  Trevon lifted his gaze and looked me right in the eye. “No one.”

  I stared at him. “No one?”

  “Samantha had flirted with me and tried to get with me, but I would never do anything with her.” He said it with so much honesty that I actually believed him.

  He hadn’t been this open with me since the weeks before we met my new next-door neighbors.

  “If you didn’t do anything, why’d you fire her?”

  “Eros told me that he thought she spiked your drink during the party, so I reviewed our surveillance cameras and found that she did.”

  What a damn bitch. That’s the only word I had for her. She deserved to be fired. She deserved to be put in jail for the rest of her life. She deserved to rot in Hell. I couldn’t believe that she did it, and her end goal was to get with Trevon—a guy who didn’t even want her.

  So many emotions were rushing through me. I was angry at Trevon and at Samantha and at Javier, but all I could think about was that Eros believed me that night. He had cared for me when I was puking up my stomach on the side of the road and in the pouring rain.

  Trevon fiddled with his fingers. His nails had grown longer since we had split. And, as much as I hated feeling like this, I really hoped he was taking care of himself.

  “So, are you with Javier now?” I asked.

  He cleared his throat. “Kinda.”

  “Kinda?”

  “I haven’t been feeling like myself for the past few weeks.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Nothing. It has nothing to do with it.” He snatched his hat and stood. “I should go.”

  I walked him to the door. “Before you go, I have a question,” I said. He gazed down at me. There was so much pain on his face, so much heartbreak. “Have you always been curious about other guys?”

  “No.”

  I frowned. It didn’t make sense. If he was curious about guys, how could he want to have sex with him the first night that they met?

  “But you were curious when you met Javier? How’d you know you wanted to try something with him?” I asked.

  Trevon paused and scratched the back of his head. “It’s… stupid.”

  “I don’t care.”

  He lowered his voice. “I had a dream about him a few nights before I actually met him.”

  My heart raced. “What kind of dream?”

  “I really don’t think you want to know,” Trevon said, grasping the door handle.

  I shook my head. “No, I need to know, Trevon, please.” Not only for my own sanity, but for another reason entirely.

  “We were… uh… hooking up.”

  I sucked in a breath. It was like the ones I had of Eros and the ones Maria had of Zane and Javier. Why were the guys next door suddenly in everyone’s dreams?

  “Did you just have one dream?” I asked.

  He put on his baseball cap and stepped out. “No,” he said. Okay, this was getting weirder by the moment. “Thanks for listening to me. I know you didn’t have any reason to. I just needed someone to talk to.” He nodded. “And good luck with Eros.”

  I smiled softly. “Thanks.”

  He turned and walked down the hallway; shoulders rolled forward—looking defeated.

  “Trevon!” I called after him. “Take care of yourself.”

  Chapter 25

  I sighed and flopped down onto my bed. This was very, very weird.

  Ever since Eros, Javier, and Zane moved in, we were all dreaming of them. And these weren’t normal dreams. These were intense and intimate dreams that left us wanting more.

  But why? Why were we all suddenly thinking of the guys next door?

  I rested my head on my pillow, opened an internet browser on my phone, and typed: What does it mean when you dream about people?

  Hundreds of articles from Psychology Today, Cosmopolitan, and Bustle popped up. I recognized some of them from my Psych 101 class in college when Maria and I had to do a research project on Carl Jung. I doubted that they’d be factual, but I still wanted to know what these dreams meant—even if it was all just a far-fetched theory from Freud or from some psychic who read palms for a living.

  Someone knocked on the front door.

  I groaned and tossed my phone onto the bed. Who was knocking this late at night? It was nearly 1am. Maria was out with Zane, and Trevon was long-gone by now.

  When they knocked again, I pushed myself off of the bed and walked to the front door. I peeked through the peephole, eyes widening. “Eros,” I said, pulling open the door. “What’re you doing here?”

  He leaned against the doorframe, eyes hazy. “Come out with me.”

  “Now?” I asked. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to go wherever he wanted to take me, but I wasn’t prepared. Mentally or physically. “Nothing’s open.”

  His lips curled into a smile, and he took my hand. “I know a place.”

  ~~~

  Eros drove us downtown, near Crimson’s Nouveau, and parked on the side of the road. He curled an arm around my waist, pulling me into his chest. Instead of walking toward the entrance of the restaurant, he led us down a dimly lit alleyway toward the rear of the building.

  Snow was falling around us, flakes sticking to Eros’s thick hair. A few men were standing outside in the alley, passing pills to each other. I grabbed onto Eros’s bicep. “Where are we going?” I whispered to him, eyeing the burly men who were now staring directly at us.

  He directed me to a grey metal door and banged two times on it with the side of his fist. After a few moments, a man—who looked exactly like those in the alley—opened the door. I squeezed his bicep harder. Where were we?

  The man nodded to Eros, and Eros stepped through the door, tugging me in. We walked down a deserted hallway, then down a set of dusty stairs. A single light flickered above us. The low thump of music played through the walls, and I tried to calm my racing thoughts. When we reached the bottom of the stairs, Eros pushed open another door.

  I stepped into the room, nearly bumping into a waiter who was dressed in a maroon suit. Eros grasped my hips and pulled me back. “Be careful,” he murmured into my ear.

  There was a bar in the center of the room, filled with people flirting with each other. Twelve beige cushioned booths sat around the perimeter of the room. Everything was lit with dim red lights which hung off of the brick walls.

  Eros guided me through the crowd of people to a booth in the back. All the women were dressed in skimpy little dresses or short skirts, and I felt out of place in my leggings and sweater.

  “What is this place?” I asked, sitting down.

  “This is The Lounge.”

  “Why are we here?” I grabbed a menu from the middle of the table and tilted it toward the candle flickering between us.

  “Because I wanted to see you.”

  “How can you see anything in this place?”

  He chuckled, the light from the candle illuminating his face. “We can go if you’d like.”

  “No!” I said, quicker than I meant. I took a deep breath. “I mean, no, we can stay.” His lips stretched into a genuine smile, and my heart tightened. I missed that. “So, what is this place?”

  I gazed around the room. The Lounge definitely wasn’t a regular bar. By the way people were straddling each other and kissing, shooting down alcohol and touching, it looked more like a sex club to me.

  A woman at the bar took a sip of red drink, grabbed her friend, and kissed her. Her hands roamed down the woman’s body and dipped between her legs.

  Jesus.

  Eros followed my stare and chuckled again. “It’s a place to let loose.”

  “Why don’t you just go to a regular bar? What’s so special about this one?”

  He pointed to the drink in the woman’s hand. “Regular bars don’t have those.”

  I gazed around the room, noticing that almost everyone here had a similar drink. “What are they?”

  “They’re called Passion Delights.”

  Well, I knew what I wasn’t getting. I was going to stick to my water for tonight. If I had one of those things, I would break and beg Eros to do naughty, naughty things to me before the end of the night.

  I placed down the menu and leaned forward. “So… why’ve you been ignoring me?”

  Eros’s stare remained on me—so dark, intense, and distant. “I’ve been dealing with family.”

  “But you’ve been ignoring me,” I said. I understood that he had his problems—we all did—but he had been over the apartment with Maria and Zane. He had time to see them.

 

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