The Devil's Reprise Read Online Free

stop.
    Ryan Bettman.
    My ex-boyfriend.
    He was standing in the corner, drinking from a red plastic cup and laughing with some girl I went to high school with. Not the girl I’d caught him cheating on me with a year ago, thank God, but there he was. I hadn’t seen him once since we’d broken up.
    And dammit if it still didn’t hurt somewhere deep inside. I was so over him, it wasn’t even funny. My heart was hung up on someone else. And yet, looking at him made me feel weird, torn in two. Part of me wanted to bury the hatchet and let bygones be bygones, but the other part was like, fuck that, you cheated on me, you asshole. Prepare to die.
    “Why is he here?” I seethed under my breath, my eyes stuck on him. He looked good, which was kind of annoying. Tall, lean muscle clothed in fashionable denim bell-bottoms and a paisley shirt. His hair was shaggy but the kind of cut you knew took hours to blow-dry just right. He wasn’t the stoic, all-black-wearing, muss-up-your-hair-and-go type of man.
    He wasn’t Sage Knightly.
    But who was?
    “I don’t know, don’t you dare think I invited him,” she said. “But every young adult in Ellensburg is here right now; it’s Popular City, Dawn. He’s probably visiting his folks and…oh shitballs, he’s seen us.”
    She was right. Ryan was now staring at us—staring at me—with a charming grin on his face. I guess the combination of the leggy redhead and the curvy black chick was always noticeable no matter where we were.
    “Aaand he’s coming over here,” Mel spoke with her mouth hidden by the beer. “Night, John-Boy!” And with that, she turned on her heel and scooted herself through the crowd, disappearing in seconds flat.
    Fuck this. I smiled awkwardly now that I was in Ryan’s tractor beam. He was coming over, closer and closer.
    Be strong, Dawn, I told myself. He’s no one. You’re someone. You’re Rusty.
    “Hey, Dawn,” Ryan said as he approached, lowering his cup by his side, like he suddenly wanted to hide the fact that he was drinking. Or maybe he was planning on shaking my hand.
    I firmly kept my arms folded across my chest and smiled as breezily as possible. “Ryan. Didn’t think…well, this is a surprise.”
    He looked at the ground, kind of sheepish for a moment, and I was suddenly flooded with millions of memories. Most of them good. Ah, shit. Time to put down the beer.
    “Sorry, I didn’t mean to show up like this. I was visiting the ’rents and Steve, you remember Steve.” He jerked his head toward the back of the barn, where I’m sure Steve was. I didn’t need to look to remember Ryan’s idiotic best friend. “Anyway, Steve heard from someone about your party, and he said we should go check it out, and I figured you wouldn’t mind. Do you mind?”
    I sucked at my teeth for a moment, thinking it over. I did mind. But if I minded, he’d think I still cared. So I just shrugged. “It’s cool. Everyone’s here anyway.”
    He scratched behind his neck while shooting me a shy glance. “Well, thanks for letting me stay. You know, you and I haven’t really, uh, talked in a long time.”
    I swallowed slowly. And whose fault was that?
    “No, we haven’t.” I stared him down.
    He rubbed his hand along his jaw and looked over my shoulder at the open barn doors.
    “Want to go for a walk?”
    No. Not really.
    But he reached out and touched my elbow with his fingers, pointing me in the right direction, and I found myself walking beside him. Even in my platforms, he was about the same height, and as we passed through the barn, our bell-bottoms swishing against each other, I knew we looked good together. We always we did. Tall, athletic, wholesome—Ryan and Dawn.
    But I certainly didn’t feel wholesome. And as we walked out of the barn and into the night air, Ryan walked closer and closer beside me with a swagger that suggested brand-new sexual confidence. He certainly wasn’t wholesome either.
    “I sure do miss this place,” he said,