Devon gasped.  “Quit?”

“I’m really thinking about it.  I hate the work.  But it gets worse,” he said miserably.

How could it get much worse?

“When I refused to take his shit, he brought Hadley into it.”

“Oh no,” Devon whispered, imagining Hadley hearing all the things that Garrett’s dad thought of her.  She knew her friend too well to assume she would sit out of the conversation.

“Yeah.  You can imagine the things he said about her.  I’m ashamed to even repeat it.  Small town, white trash, gold digger.”  Garrett shook his head.  “He even called her a fucking drug addict right to my face.  I don’t know where he gets the nerve.”

Devon froze.  So, Garrett still didn’t know.  She wanted to tell him.  She really wanted to, but he was already so down right now.  She couldn’t be the one to break it to him.

“Hadley flipped out at all of his accusations.  Her screams only fueled my father, not that she didn’t have every right to yell back, but I think it proved to him what he thought of her all along.  And then she thought that I was somehow in on it.”

“What?”

“Her anger went from my dad to me, and then she just left.  I was seeing red after that, and I ended up punching through a wall in my parents’ house.  Hadley left upset and took my car.  I took this bottle of scotch and my dad’s Mercedes and got out of there, too.  Hadley won’t answer her cell.  I think we’re done,” he said, ending his story.

AFTER HIS DECLARATION, Devon and Garrett sat there in silence for a while.  Hadley and Garrett were done.  It couldn’t be true.  Hadley was head over heels for Garrett.  She had come to Devon just that afternoon, worried that he was cheating on her.  Hadley wouldn’t have left him for good.  She had probably just overreacted.

And that wasn’t a pleasant thought either.  Hadley’s overreaction in her state of mind was a recipe for disaster.  She had been trying to quit, but stress made people do stupid things.  Who knew where she was right now?  She could be out there somewhere overdosing on drugs.

Devon shuddered and pushed that thought out of her mind.  No way would Hadley be that stupid.

Garrett poured them both another shot, and Devon gladly took it this time.  She wanted to get that image of Hadley out of her head.  Devon was all sorts of dizzy, and she dreaded the thought of standing.  The scotch sure was potent.  She hadn’t allowed herself to drink much ever since her last vomiting experience after she had first arrived in Chicago.

“Hadley will come around,” Devon said softly.  She wasn’t sure who she was convincing.

He nodded.  “Can we just…talk about something else?”  He leaned his head back on the couch.

“Sure.”  But she didn’t have anything else she would like to talk about.  “What do you want to talk about?”

He was silent, considering an answer.  “Why did you leave St. Louis?”

“Uh…” she muttered.

“You said you ran away from your life.  What were you running from?” he asked, suddenly staring at her intently.

Devon glanced down at her feet.  “I think I’m going to need another shot for that.”

Garrett complied, and the fourth shot of scotch gave her courage.

He slid his hand on her shoulder and squeezed.  “It’ll be okay.”

She hadn’t realized that she had started shaking.

Devon moistened her lips and then turned to look at him.  This was just Garrett.  It wasn’t some stranger.  He had poured his heart out to her, so she could trust him with her secret.  Couldn’t she?

“Well, since you told me a story, I’ll, uh…I’ll tell you one of my own.”

“Alright.”  As he straightened some in his seat, he stared at her.

She swallowed and tried to meet his gaze.  How drunk was she?  Could she do this?

Taking a deep breath, she began.  “My mama always told me that once in a lifetime, you are given a chance at true greatness.  That you would know it when it happened, and it would be true love at its finest.  I believed her.”  Tears were already hitting her eyes.

“I wanted greatness, just like my mom.  Her greatness is my dad, and they found each other in their music,” she told him.  “When it hit me, I didn’t know how I could have ever lived another day without it.  I don’t know how to explain it, except to say it was like the universe was suddenly in alignment.”

“So…you fell in love?” he asked, scrunching his eyebrows together.

She could see he was wondering where this was going.  She didn’t blame him for his confusion.

“It’s…more than that,” she said, fumbling for the words.  “It’s not like fate or soul mates because that makes it sound silly, but it’s a sense of rightness of the way things are meant to be.”

“Alright.  I’ll buy that,” Garrett said.

He has no idea, Devon thought.

“Having that with someone opens everything up.  Everything is on the table.  Trust isn’t even a consideration because there could never be anything or anyone else.”

Garrett shifted uncomfortably.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Devon said.

“I doubt it.”

“Well, tell me,” she insisted.  This was hard enough without trying to read him, too.

“Sounds a bit like…obsession to me.”

Devon sighed.  “That’s what I thought you’d say.  I can’t explain it any other way, so try to be open-minded,” she said.  He would need to be open-minded.  “I’m not sure when it started exactly, but the sex changed.”

Garrett’s ears perked up at that.  “Changed…for the worse?”

She shook her head.  “For the better.”  Devon bit her lip.  When she saw that he was watching, she stopped.  She couldn’t believe she was telling this story.

“Not to say the sex was bad before because it wasn’t.  It was amazing.  In fact, I didn’t believe it could get better.  But one day, it was one way, and the next day, I was being held to the bed, forced to comply.”

“What?” Garrett snapped.  “Forced?”

Devon nodded.  “I didn’t think I would like it.  I mean, it sounds really bad.  It’s probably why I never talk about it.”

“Isn’t that…rape?” he whispered.

“Don’t use that word,” she said immediately, drawing her knees to her chest.  Not that word.  Anything but that word.  “It wasn’t like that.”

“Okay, sorry.  I didn’t mean to say…I don’t know what.  Just keep going,” he urged, brushing her blonde hair away from her face.

She looked back up at him, and he smiled.  Her mind blurred from the alcohol, and she scooted closer to him.  It was better to feel him comforting her through this.  “So, after that started, it never stopped.  It only escalated.  I don’t know if you want details—”

“If it helps you,” he said, allowing her to continue.

She took a deep breath.  Here goes nothing.  “He started getting creative—demanding me to do things at any time or any place, holding me down, sometimes choking me.  He would come home to find me in the shower and turn the water to the hottest temperature it would go.  He would bend me over into the scalding spray, and we would have sex like that.  I remember him waiting for me when I got home from school late one night.  He threw me over the hood of his car and told me to be a good girl.  We had sex at the end of the driveway under a streetlight. Anyone could have seen us.  And I let him.”

Garrett was staring at her with a mixed expression.  She wasn’t sure how much she should read into it.  He looked really interested in what she was saying. How could she blame him?  She was talking to a guy about sex, about a particular form of rough sex that he had likely never experienced.  The interest was mingled in there with something resembling disbelief.  She didn’t know if that meant he didn’t believe that she would put up with it or he didn’t believe someone would actually do this.  All she really knew was that he had adjusted his pants, and Hadley had been right about the size of the contents that lay within.