When we returned back to Manhattan, Hayden was waiting patiently on his motorcycle with a single flower in his hand. As soon as his eyes connected to mine, we shared a smile. My family grabbed their bags and went inside, but I walked over to Hayden.
"So how are you and Kenneth?" he asked. He didn't ask in complete sorrow, but I wanted to see a flicker of jealousy in his eyes.
"How do you think?" I asked, placing my bag on the sidewalk and walking over to him.
"I think that any guy to have you is lucky," he said, looking down. I grabbed his hand and looked up at him. I suddenly leaned over and kissed him. He looked down at me, confused.
"I guess you're lucky then," I smiled. He smiled wider than before and his arms coiled around my shoulders in a hug. He climbed off of his bike when we released and he grabbed my bag, grabbed my hand, and towed me upstairs.
My family was busy putting away their things, so we went straight up to my room anyways. He set my suitcase in front of my closed door and immediately grabbed my waist. He kissed me quickly yet passionately.
"I missed you," he said.
"I missed you too," I said honestly. I missed Hayden because I really did like him, but when I was with him then and there, Kenneth, Dastan and the Proliator were on my mind. How could they not be after Kenneth telling me about the barn fire?
He dipped his head down and pressed his lips to mine again, this time, running his tongue along my lip for entrance. When our tongues collided together, I started to pull away, only because I felt my back hit the softness of my bed. However, when my lips parted from his, he was laughing.
"What?" I asked, out of breath. He lifted his hand to reveal a stuffed lion. Larry.
"You still have stuffed animals. That's so cute," he teased. I took Larry from him and studied its features as if for the first time. How was this on my bed when I had left it in the closet after getting caught by Sebastian before we left?
The Proliator had been here. Or maybe it was Hayden himself.
" Is this your favorite animal?" he suddenly asked, even though I had interrupted our making out for a stuffed animal present that was given to me by someone who I rarely knew, but I was obsessing over.
Hayden's question made me think of two things:
One, the fact that maybe he couldn't be or know the Proliator because he acted like Larry was mine. I would assume a "colleague" would be told about some secret girl...
The second thing I was reminded of was that of Dastan's adorability when we had gone to the zoo and he had asked me my favorite animal.
"Actually, it's a horse," I answered, just to see if he would argue with me like Dastan. However, all he did was nod accordingly and I could see the wheels turning as he solidified that into his memory.
Suddenly, my phone started to ring. When I recognized the ringtone, I left the phone on the bed beside us.
"He's a, a good time, cowboy Casanova leaning up against the record machine! He looks like a cool drink of water, but he's candy-coated misery. He's the devil in disguise, a snake with blue eyes and he only comes out at night. Gives you feelings that you don't want to fight; you better run for your life..."
"Why is Vega calling you?" Hayden asked. My lips twitched.
"I don't know," I said.
"He's a, a good time, cowboy Casanova—"
This time, Hayden answered the phone.
"Vega, what do you want?" Hayden growled. I had forgotten that the two nearly fought the last time I saw them. But then again, he had been the reason for RJ...because he never met me when he said he would. I pressed my lips together as Hayden frowned at whatever Dastan's response was. But, I was still curious as what he was saying. "No, I don't have to let you talk to her...Because she's my girlfriend and not yours..." I slightly twitched into a smile at the word girlfriend. "Yeah, I do care about her...yes, a lot..."
I winced into a frown and Hayden looked over to me as he slowly dropped the phone after a second. Hayden looked to me.
"Do you want to talk to Vega?" he asked me, emphasizing the necessity in his question.
"No," I stated. Hayden hid his smile and raised the phone to his ear once more.
"She doesn't want to talk to you so f*ck off," Hayden hissed and then he hung up the phone. He sighed and then tossed the phone onto the bed. He pulled me into him by my waist and I was cuddled into his chest, suddenly feeling fatigue wash over me.
"What happened?" I asked him in a whisper.
"He wanted to talk to you, but I don't think he deserves it."
"I meant with you two. Why are you fighting?" I asked. Of course, Dastan and I weren't what you would consider "friends," but now there would never be that possibility, like with Mickie, because he and Hayden were fighting.
"We always fight," he shrugged. I shook my head.
"He threatened you on Thursday," I reminded. "He sounded like he hated you and there was no way to sway him. You two argue because you're stubborn enough to do that, but that was not arguing, Hayden. He was actually angry."
Hayden looked at me in a particular way.
"Is that really why you won't talk to him?" he asked.
"Well that and the fact that he left me alone—no. He didn't even meet me in the first place that night when RJ found me. I don't even know why he wanted to meet if he had no intention of showing up," I said. Images flashed in my mind and I shuddered at the thought of him. Hayden's grip tightened and I felt his breath at my ear.
"Don't even worry about that. You'll always be safe here," he whispered. "And leave Vega to me. What we have together doesn't have to change your relationship with him."
"Well I don't want to have any relationship with him if you don't," I reasoned with my eyes closing for sleep. "And Dastan's..."
"He's what?"
"Scary," I finished, drunken with tiredness.
"Scary?" he laughed.
"He scares me," I sighed, nearly in sleep mode.
"He scares a lot of people," Hayden commented. "But...he...He won't hurt you, Angela."
"Everyone says that, but...I have no reason to believe it," I breathed before inhaling the cologne-scented shirt of Hayden and then falling asleep.
Even when Dastan tried to seem "nice" to me at the café, he said I was wrong if I thought he'd hurt me. Even when he was fighting with Hayden, he said that he would ever dare hurt me—when Hayden even said I should've left because Dastan could hurt me. When I was with Dastan, I felt...protected, but when he acted against people, I couldn't help but feel like he could explode upon me next.
***
I woke up in the middle of the night, cradling Larry the Lion in my arms instead of Hayden. I grabbed my phone beneath my warm body and saw one missed call from Hayden and then a text saying that he had to go home before Sebastian forced him to. After I read that message, I found that I had three missed calls from Dastan and a voicemail. Hesitantly, I called my voicemail.
"I...I'm not good with these sort of things...but I need to talk to you and I know that you don't trust me to meet up with you anymore so I'm willing to meet up on your terms...I just...I really need to see you. Call me when you get this, please. Bye..."
He seemed to miss the part that I didn't want to talk to him.
So...then why was I dialing his number to oblige his message? Maybe to be vexing, since my clock read three in the morning.
"Hello?" he asked. And to this day, I've never heard him with a cracking, tired voice...
"Dastan, it's me," I said. Maybe now he'd explode into: "Why the hell are you calling me at this time on a f*ckng Monday!?"
"I know," he said. "Thanks for calling."
Thanks for calling?
"Not really," I said. "Do you have any idea where we stand right now?"
How could he expect me to be so willing to meet up with him (my terms or not) after what happened before I left?
"Yeah, I do," he countered. "Because of the RJ thing, you can't trust me anymore. I never meant for that to happen; something just came up. Plus, because Hayden hates me now, you hate me now too. I just have to win you back and hope for the—"
"How do you know about RJ?" I asked him. There was a slight pause and I swear my thoughts about his relations to the Proliator were running into overdrive.
"What do you think I'm blamed for every day since it's happened?" he asked with remorse in his tone. I took a quick breath in but assumed it was Hayden who chastised him. "I just...need you to trust me again and I'm willing to do whatever—"
"Trust you again?" I repeated. "Who said I trusted you before?"
"You already know that answer, Warden," he said without any sort of scoff. "We were friends. You trusted me. And I screwed up, sure, but don't deny it."
"And how the hell was I supposed to even know that we were friends?" I said with a raised voice. If I couldn't automatically know we were friends, then I surely could not automatically trust him in the first place.
"We just were," he said persistently. Past tense. "And now we're not. I don't want to be."
Excuse me?
"That's why I need to talk to you," he said after all that.
"We're talking right now, Dastan. So stop being so secretive and passive," I replied.
"I can't," he hissed like so many times before. He wasn't the only one that said that. "Not over the phone...I know that I'm not like everyone for actually liking to talk over the phone, but what I have to say needs to be said in person."
"What could be so important, Dastan? I really don't have time for your games," I sighed in a yawn.
"It's not a game, I'm trying to...I just...I can't—"
"Stop saying you can't do something," I nearly shouted.
"I have no choice," he said in a broken voice. I didn't know how to respond. He sounded like he was two seconds away from breaking down or something and it was breaking my heart. "Please."
That was enough to make me submit.