In Her Sights (The Thousand Words Series Book 2) (17 page)

“I assume that was my fault,” Dev said.

“Yeah. I was bringing her up to speed on what was going on with Bren,” Bryan said. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Do you need me to leave so you can finish?” Dev asked, feeling awkward.

“No. We’re here for you to do your thing. Lin and Bren can do lunch another time.” Bryan leaned close and whispered, “Becky’s in there now, by the way.”

“Great.”

Bryan turned to leave but Dev motioned for him to stay, so he had a seat on the floor across the hall. Dev knocked on the door.

“Lin?”

No answer.

“Oh, come on. I just saw you so I know you’re in there,” Dev said.

“That doesn’t mean I’m talking to you,” Lindsay said.

“That’s going to make this conversation difficult.”

“Dev, just go home.”

Dev pulled the ring from his pocket again and opened the box. He looked at it, sparkling and ready for her. Bryan stood up, suddenly interested.

“Is that what I think it is?” he asked.

“What do you think I came here for?” Dev asked.

“To apologize. Oh, shit.” Bryan stared at it. “Uh, Lin, you need to see this.”

“I’m not opening this door.”

“Fine. Becky, you need to see this.”

“Bryan, you piece of shit! You weren’t supposed to tell him I was here,” Becky yelled through the door.

“Whatever,” Bryan said.

“Bryan, hold this,” Dev handed him the ring box, “Stand there and don’t get fingerprints on it.”

“Lindsay?” Dev called through the door. He waited, but she didn’t answer. He knocked. “I know you’re there.”

“Then why are you knocking?” Becky asked.

“I want to make sure I have her attention.”

“You have her attention.”

“Okay.” Dev took a breath. “This is awkward.”

“You’re telling me?” Becky asked.

“Stay out of this.”

“Can’t.”

“Would you like to leave?”

“No. You don’t want me to either.”

“I’m innocent of the charges levied against me you know,” Dev said.

“The evidence is reasonably compelling, but I’m inclined to believe you,” Becky said.

“Hey,” Lindsay’s voice protested her sister’s betrayal. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“Of course I am. See? I’m in your room, not out there in the hall.”

“It’s slightly pink,” Bryan said, holding the ring up to the light.

“I know, it’s by design,” Dev answered, waving him away.

“What’s pink?” Becky asked.

“Right, back to that,” Dev mumbled. “Okay.” He suddenly felt warm, but got down on one knee.

“Dev, I don’t think you need to do that,” Bryan told him.

“I may as well do it right.” He thought a moment then looked back to Bryan and motioned for the ring back. Bryan put the ring back in the box and handed it to Dev.

Taking up what he thought was a classic position, Dev looked to Bryan for confirmation. Bryan shrugged and nodded. Dev cleared his throat. He should have prepared something, but he didn’t think about it until now. He’d have to wing it.

“Lindsay, we’ve been through a lot together. You were so careful at the beginning of our relationship to lead me slowly through the stages of dating, and not scare or startle me. It was nice of you: how much time and effort you put into everything. I appreciate it. I tried to show you how much you meant to me in so many ways even though I didn’t understand you or what you really needed. And you were patient with me when I repeatedly got it wrong. You never let me mess things up. I can’t imagine being without you or wanting anyone else. I love you. Lindsay –”

“No!” Lindsay yelled through the door, pounding on it and making Dev jump. He put his hand on the door.

“Will you –”

“Dev, don’t,” she said. He heard tears in her voice.

“Marry me?” Dev asked, his voice softer. She was only on the other side of the door. He leaned his head against it and felt the vibrations of her sobs through it.
Something
he said got through to her. It was about time.

“No, Dev. No,” Lindsay sobbed, barely coherent through her tears.

She said no, his breath caught. But she was crying, he was getting through to her. Maybe. Dev looked at the ring in his hand, tilting it so it caught the light. Her father’s comment about women being more forgiving when given jewelry stuck in his mind.

“Open the door, baby,” Dev prompted softly.

The door shifted, presumably as Lindsay sat up. “No,” she whispered. If they weren’t separated by mere pre-fabricated hollow-core door that he could probably punch through, he wouldn’t have heard her. The idea of breaking the door had merit.

“Open the door,” Dev repeated.

“I can’t.”

Dev hesitated and eyed the lock. He could. “You can’t or you won’t?” he clarified.

“All right, I won’t,” Lindsay snapped. Dev jumped back away from the door.

“Can we –”

“No! I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I just ... Go away!”

Dev heard movement on the other side of the door and a moment later music started playing, effectively ending any attempt at conversation.

“Harsh,” Bryan said. “At least she could have played something of ours.”

Dev knew he meant it as an attempt at levity, but it just punctuated the gap between Lindsay and him. Looking at the ring box in his hand, Dev closed it with a snap.

The gap under her door caught his eye as he stood, but he quickly decided the box wouldn’t fit and the ring wouldn’t be welcome. Yet.

Would seeing the ring change her mind? Dev didn’t know, but it was worth a try.

○ ○ ○

Dev wasn’t supposed to be in Seattle, so he hid in Bryan’s spare bedroom while considering his options. He didn’t even go out to grab a burger for dinner when Bryan and Brenda had to make an appearance at Bryan’s house, choosing to order pizza instead. It would be his luck to run into Kenny and be faced with awkward questions.

Even the fear of getting caught where he wasn’t supposed to be, or perhaps because of it, didn’t keep Dev still for long. Soon he was pacing the floor and almost crawling out of his skin with the need to do something.

He had to show Lindsay he was serious, show her the ring. How? She wouldn’t open anything he sent her, he couldn’t involve Becky or her family, and they didn’t have mutual friends.

Dev’s eye fell on a wedding picture of Bryan and Brenda in a cheesy Las Vegas chapel and he stopped his pacing. They thought it was somehow romantic that they eloped and left the rest of the band out of their private moment. Dev felt differently.

Lindsay and Brenda were friends, maybe he could use that. They might not be much longer if he used Brenda that way. Memories of how Brenda kept Jess in line by kneeling hard on his groin made Dev flinch and resume pacing. He’d put that off as a last resort.

He looked around the room for any other source of inspiration. A newspaper lay on Bryan’s coffee table. It annoyed him that Bryan didn’t get his news off the web like normal people their age. Dev shrugged it off, Lindsay didn’t read the paper, that wouldn’t help. She did get her news off the web though. Maybe he could put banner ads on the sites she frequented. He didn’t know what sites she frequented, but it wouldn’t take him long to find out. Other than the site he hosted for her.

That made Dev hesitate a moment. Lindsay set up the
Nellie the Nympho
website for him. She set it up a reference material for him, although he always thought that was awkward. He hosted it, and knew she still updated the site regularly, adding new material and now moderating the forum she added. Was that helpful in any way?

No, Dev decided. He wouldn’t touch her website. That was hers. Although he wasn’t going to release it until she at least acknowledged she was wrong if she wanted to move it to another server. Which was all well and good, but left Dev exactly where he was before.

Dev went to his room, sat at the desk Brenda declared to be cute, and opened his laptop. He went through the motions to remotely research Lindsay’s browsing history on automatic while he considered other options, making a list as he went. Dev just prayed Lindsay would at some point fit into Jack’s ‘women in general’ category, it might be the only chance he had.

Lindsay only had a week left of school and she was anxious to be done with it. Dev had been quiet for a couple of days, and she didn’t know what that meant. Maybe he got the message. Ruby said they all gave up in the end. Ruby would know. She went through a lot of men before she found one as similarly minded as Olly.

She got ready for school and checked her email. A purple banner ad caught her attention:
I Love You
was written in delicate script with the diamond-encrusted band of a ring on the far edge. There wasn’t a signature, nor anything to indicate it was directed at her specifically, but Lindsay was immediately wary. She hovered over the banner with her mouse and saw there wasn’t a link behind the ad.

“An ad that isn’t an ad? Really? Who does that, Dev?”

She was tempted to see if Becky and Ruby were seeing the same thing or if Dev just hacked her computer, but decided it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t do anything about it even if she could. It was best to just ignore him.

Lindsay reconsidered her approach when she started her drive to school. The morning radio show she listened to had song after song that reminded her of Dev in one way or another. It couldn’t be a coincidence. She switched to a CD and got on the freeway, a billboard advertised a radio station with a big picture of
A Thousand Words.
She didn’t remember seeing that before. Another announced the band would kick off their tour this summer in Seattle’s KeyArena. Great.

Exiting the freeway, Lindsay had to break and pull over when she saw a purple sign with the same delicate script as on her computer earlier:
Marry me?
signed Puggy. At least this time the message was signed, she couldn’t hope it was meant for anyone else now.

Counting slowly to calm herself, Lindsay resumed her drive to school. Then, right next to the lot she parked in, was another billboard. She never noticed one there before. It could have been built last night for all she knew. She tried to ignore it, but that was impossible as it was apparently the cause of an accident that had traffic lined up waiting to turn into the lot. As she waited, Lindsay felt the purple sign and its message looming over her. Finally she faced it.

Dev’s, or rather, Puggy’s simple message this time was only:
Please?
Beside it was a picture of an engagement ring unlike anything Lindsay had ever seen. She stared at the ring in disbelief. It was totally Dev. Everything about it screamed beauty and perfection and ... Lindsay felt a tear fall on her arm. She reached up and wiped it away as she tore her eyes away from the ring Dev meant for her. It was perfect. She could well imagine what she was going to be hearing whispered about all over campus today.

She was going to kill him.

All through her classes, people talked about the signs. Apparently they littered the roads Lindsay took most frequently to and from school and a few other favorite locations. Some people only saw one sign, other people saw three or four. Lindsay decided she should have seen more, but clearly either wasn’t paying attention or Dev was only trying to get her attention not piss her off.

A few people speculated that Puggy was the Web Wizards hacker Pugmire the Purple. Lindsay bit back the impulse to confirm it, and breathed a sigh of relief when they went on to debate how a hacker had the money to afford that ring. Soon Puggy was transformed into a millionaire online superhero fighting for justice on his own dime by some, and a dark programmer masquerading as a white wizard to hide his nefarious activities by others.

Oh, she was
really
going to kill him for this.

Looking at her schedule, Lindsay decided to skip her last class in favor of dealing with her ex-boyfriend. Lindsay kept her eyes on the road and stubbornly avoided looking at any signs that might make her any angrier than she already was. He cheated on her, she wanted this to be over.

Pulling up at her house, an unfamiliar sports car was parked out front. It wasn’t Dev, but that didn’t matter. Anyone who drove a sports car right now was someone she didn’t want to see. Today just kept getting better, Lindsay growled to herself.

○ ○ ○

Jess sat back on the sofa and considered the new songs. Dev was starting to write almost as much of their material as Kenny, and he was just as good. His lyrics were more polished on their first round actually, although so much of his actual life bled through into them it was almost frightening sometimes. Jess hated Dev’s love songs because he knew they were about Lindsay and singing them made him almost physically ill. They were the best the group had though; the most powerful, the most emotional, the most
pure
. It was nauseating. And now this.

He got up and sauntered over to where Kenny sat at his tiny desk. It amused Jess that they were stars, multi-millionaires, and he and Kenny lived over Flynn’s garage and the whole band developed their songs in his basement. Pathetic. Jess shook his head with the sadness of it all.

“What’s with you?” Kenny asked as Jess leaned against the wall beside his desk. He had an open psychology book in front of him and Jess smiled again at that. Dev was getting a degree he’d never use and Kenny was auditing psychology classes and reading books like a crack addict.

“Just thinking it’s funny we’re still living above Flynn’s garage instead of some stylish high-rise apartment in the city.”

“Yeah. I do it because it keeps me grounded,” Kenny said gesturing to his book. Of course, Jess thought. Kenny looked up at him. “I’ve wondered about you. You mostly moved out after Tiff died, then you came back.”

Jess shifted his weight uncomfortably. “I’ve got other reasons. Yours is as good I suppose. Teri would approve.”

“Cassie?” Kenny guessed.

Jess paused, then nodded. “I still mostly avoid her when she’s home. Except, when she’s not looking, I sneak up on her, in the shadows and try to talk to her. Startle her, you know?”

Kenny nodded.

“But I can’t do it. I just walk off. She never knows I was even there.”

“Testing yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“Dude, you need to get help. Real help. Talking to me doesn’t count.”

Jess looked away. “I did.”

“What?” Kenny asked. Jess heard his interest piqued and cringed.

“I talked to Flynn. That shrink Paul hired for Dev? The one Flynn blackmailed him into going to?”

“Yeah?”

“I got her name and number from Flynn, Dr. Braithewait. She’s in Boston now. She teaches at Harvard and has a practice on the side. Only a few clients, she’s picky. Since she has Dev already, I talked her into picking me up. You know, my problem is Dev’s sister, I work with Dev, it’s all related. Fill in the big picture and all that.”

“Makes sense as a sales pitch.”

“The problem is, she didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know. She even told me that I
knew
she was going to tell me I already knew what my problem was, and how to fix it. I just wasn’t willing to do it. She said I needed to go through the motions to hear it officially, and now I had. Now I had a choice, either she could nag me, or I could ignore her.” Jess shrugged. “I chose ignore her and came home.”

Kenny sighed and slumped back in his chair. “So you still physically can’t speak to Cassie?”

“No.”

“And you’re refusing the help of a well-respected psychologist?”

Jess shrugged and nodded.

“You’re an idiot,” Kenny said with a defeated shake of his head. And returned his attention to the papers on his desk.

“Yeah. Now, onto other problems: Dev’s writing revenge rock.”

“Huh?” Kenny looked up again. “Oh, yeah, I noticed.”

“What’s up with that?” Jess asked.

“I’m not sure. He says nothing. Bryan said don’t bug him about it then punctuated it by glaring and repeating it twice. Apparently we are
not
to ask Dev about it. He’ll be back next week.”

“So something’s up.”

“And Bryan’s handling it.” Kenny nodded, apparently willing to let Bryan handle it.

“I know you’re thinking what I’m thinking,” Jess smiled, envisioning the loss of Dev’s pain-in-the-ass girlfriend.

“I am,” Kenny agreed. “But we’re
not
talking to Dev about it.”

“Fair enough.” Jess nodded. “Is that all we know?”

“For now. I came home from Chicago early with the thoughts that Dev might return early as well. You know, try to talk to the source of all our woes? He’s skipping graduation; that means something. I want to be here when he gets back.

“But not a word to him about it,” Kenny told Jess again, and returned to his book.

Jess paused for a moment before nodding, then went back upstairs. Gunter was playing with crayons at the kitchen table as Jess walked by. He hesitated to call it coloring yet, but the kid was only two and at least matched colors reasonably well. His creations weren’t an eyesore. Now it was just a matter of those inconvenient lines
.
Jess gave Gunter a thumbs-up and tussled his baby-fine hair. Gunter laughed as Jess walked out the back door.

Instead of going to his apartment over the garage, Jess got into his Jaguar. Maybe he should
really
move out, he thought. It was just being here was his tie to Cassie. Being able to sit down with Sophie and watch a movie after she got off a call with her big sister let him stay connected to Cassie. With Bryan filling in specifics from what he got from his wife when he asked, Jess could stay caught up with what Cassie was doing.

So
no
to moving out, Jess decided as he drove through the residential area and slowed. He wasn’t familiar with these streets and checked the address in his phone again as he put Cassie on the back burner in his mind. Jess loved dwelling on her in his spare time, but at the moment he had to deal with her troublesome little brother.

Finding the house he was looking for, he pulled up front just as a little bright blue compact pulled into the driveway and screeched to a halt. Jess casually got out of the car, a smile already on his face. He knew who that had to be. He walked around to the front of his Jag and sat on the hood to wait.

Lindsay got out of the tiny car, blond hair framing her face and blowing gently in the warm breeze. She was fuming at his being here, her blue eyes caught the sun and sparkled and her lips were set in a determined way. She even had her little fists balled up, it was cute. Actually, if she’d been anyone else, Jess thought, she’d be absolutely gorgeous. But she was Lindsay. Pity.

“What are
you
doing here?” she demanded.

“Looking for you actually,” Jess answered. He looked over her tiny blue car. “Interesting. Where’s the Ferrari?”

Lindsay had started to walk around the car toward him but stopped at his question, leaving her by the back bumper. She looked at her car, then at Jess. “What do you mean?”

Jess considered her for a moment, she seemed genuinely confused by the question. If Dev lent her his Ferrari, and she didn’t have it, and wasn’t supposed to have it, what did that mean? Dev could have replaced it, but not with this little generic compact thing.

So Lindsay didn’t have Dev’s car and he was writing revenge lyrics. Jess smiled, Christmas came early.

“So what happened? He catch you cheating on him?” Jess decided to take a guess.

Lindsay blushed. “Other way around. Erika Atlas happened. I found out. Dev didn’t tell you? Surprising. Actually, maybe not. He’s probably embarrassed.”

Jess had to look away to hide his astonishment. The little bitch actually thought Dev was sleeping with Erika? Dev? Like he was capable of an affair. Erika would have to thaw him first.

Of course Erika would happily thaw him out and climb on board. Jess doubted Dev had caught on to Erika’s interest. In his mind, they were associates.
Maybe
friends, although that would be a stretch. Erika hadn’t reached the level of desperation required for her to sit him down and spell it out yet. Although clearly Lindsay figured out Erika’s long game.

He looked back at Lindsay fidgeting by her car. She pushed her hair out of her face and bit her bottom lip, to stop herself from crying it looked like. Jess hated it when they cried, it made them all soft and vulnerable and it brought something out in him that made him want to fix things. But she wasn’t crying yet, and he hated Lindsay. Thanks to her, Bryan’s wife kneed him and – Jess didn’t want to think about that. Lindsay was the enemy. She was a dividing factor in the band, they needed her gone.

But Dev was innocent and Jess knew it. Fine, he’d throw the kid a bone. A small one.

“Lindsay, you know I hate you, right?”

Lindsay gave him a look of pure loathing. “Yeah, Jess, I think I’ve figured that one out.”

“Good. Now that we have that out in the open, how long have you and Dev been together?”

“We’re not together anymore.”

“Right. Point to me. Yay.” Jess waved his hands in the air in the imitation of a small celebration. “How long
were
you together?” Jess grinned, returning his hands to his hips.