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“Thanks, man.”

  “Yeah, get back to your piece of ass, you lucky son of a bitch.”

  “I’m not with—”

  “Sure you’re not,” he said before the phone went silent.

  Fuck. Niall can’t know I’m with a girl—Evie, of all people—instead of doing what I was told.

  He wouldn’t know who Evie was even if he’d somehow seen us together, but I couldn’t risk it. There was no fucking way I was going to go through what I did to keep her safe, just to put her right back in danger’s way because of a chance meeting. I texted Flint.

  Don’t do anything. I’m on my way now.

  Less than twenty seconds later, his reply came through.

  Whatever you want. I’ll wait.

  I debated on whether I should just take off or not. Yeah, it’d crush her… again, but maybe it would be for the best. Before I could decide what to do, she came walking through the front door of the hotel, smiling at me and pulling me right back into the fantasy that I could really be with her.

  “I’m all checked in. The lady at the front desk said I could go around to the back of the building to that door. The stairs there are close to the room.”

  “Hop on, I’ll take you.”

  After she did as she was told, we drove around to the back of the building where I let her off. She handed me the helmet, and I placed it on my head. The smile that started to grow on her face faded.

  “So this is goodbye?” she asked.

  “Yeah. That meeting from earlier is back on. Maybe we can get together later,” I said and gave her my number. “Text me and let me know where you all end up, okay?”

  The more I tried to distance myself, the more I seemed incapable of it. There was no way any of it would end well if I didn’t stop, but how do you just give up the only person who ever saw all your flaws, all your deepest secrets, and loved you anyway?

  CHAPTER 10 – EVIE

  I opened the door to my room and searched for a light switch, which I found on the wall a second later. The room was nice enough, and I was extremely thankful for the cool blast of air that hit me as I entered. I flopped down on the bed and contemplated how the hell I was going to get home as I stared at the generic artwork decorating the pale yellow walls. Sophie would take me for sure, but it was so far out of the way for her that I felt bad even thinking about asking her. My best bet was probably to just go ahead and rent a car. I could then look into buying a new one as soon as I could.

  That was a headache I didn’t want to deal with. I made okay money, but since I was self-employed, it was a hell of a lot harder to prove to banks that I was capable of making the payment for the entire term of the loan. This was why I’d been determined to drive my previous car until the wheels fell off. Unfortunately, the engine hadn’t lasted as long as the wheels had, and my car-buying fund wasn’t nearly as well endowed as I’d hoped it would be.

  And if it weren’t for that same, no-engine having car, I probably never would have seen Jet again.

  Sophie calling interrupted my contemplation.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  “Just got into Oakton, babe. Where are you?”

  “I’m at the Oak Inn. It’s on a road called—and I shit you not—Hotel Lane.”

  “I bet whoever came up with that name had to think long and hard,” she said with a chuckle. “I’ll plug it in the GPS, and we’ll be there soon.”

  “Hey, Soph?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you bring any extra clothes or anything? I wasn’t planning on staying overnight or going dancing, so I’ve got a whole lot of nothing.” Even if she had brought clothes for me, I’d still have to go somewhere to get some shoes because her feet were way smaller than mine.

  “I’ve got you completely covered. I knew when I changed the plans you probably didn’t have anything. I’ve got your back, as usual,” she said. “Oh, and I had a pair of heels you left at my house after the last time we went out dancing, so you’re good to go.”

  My legs were longer than hers, but I could make whatever she had work. Her pants always looked cropped on me, and the shirts usually fit well. I just hoped she didn’t bring a mini skirt or a short dress. That would be harder to work with.

  “I can’t wait until you get here. I have a ridiculous amount of things to tell you. You won’t even believe half of what’s happened today.”

  “I’ll be there shortly,” she exclaimed.

  “Come to room 206, okay?”

  I turned on the television to entertain myself until Sophie and her roommate could get there, but it all faded into background noise. Memories of Jet played like a movie in my mind. Painful ones entwined with our relationship firsts. Not painful because they were of Jet, but because of the things he’d told me. Even though we shared some beautiful moments, they were often tainted by the darkness he lived in every day.

  Our first kiss was even tragic in a way.

  It was a Friday evening, and my parents had left for a weekend trip to visit my mother’s friend who’d just had a baby. She lived almost four hours away, so they’d always made a weekend out of it when they’d gone to visit her. I’d stayed by myself overnight a couple of other times when they went to visit her, but generally, I just holed up in my room and pretended to the outside world like I wasn’t really there. This one was supposed to be different.

  Jet and I would be completely alone and free to do as we pleased. Not that I planned on having sex with him. I’d thought about it more than once, but I wasn’t there yet. I just wanted to kiss him without the threat of my mother or stepdad catching me and either giving me hell or making fun of me. With my parents, I never could tell which way they’d go. Of course, they’d forbidden him from coming over while they were gone, but since I had no one to catch me breaking their rule, I invited him anyway. I hadn’t told him they’d be gone and had just let on like it would be like any other day.

  The sad part about it all was that I didn’t even know if Jet wanted to kiss me. I thought that was where we were headed, but I couldn’t be sure until he made a move. There were times when there was no doubt in my mind that he was eventually going to be my boyfriend. I figured we’d be getting to the kissing and holding each other and doing all those things teenagers do when they were in love soon enough, but sometimes, he seemed so indifferent and as far away as he could be from what I wanted.

  We were almost inseparable at school, especially when waiting for buses to go home in the afternoon. No matter what the weather was like, we always sat outside on this long, wooden bench that lined the one side of the canopy out front. You could sit on it like a normal bench, but kids often sat on the back of it with their feet resting on the seat because it was wide enough and there was plenty of space so you wouldn’t fall off. More than once, I’d found myself sitting between his legs because he’d come up and plop his ass down on the back part behind me after I’d sat down the normal way. He’d rest his forearms on my shoulders with his legs on either side of me, and I was in heaven. People even started to speculate about us. The rumor spread that we were together and doing it like bunnies every chance we got. If only they knew, I had never even been kissed.

  He came to my house more frequently, and I could usually tell by his mood at school if he was going to show or not. This particular day, I had a feeling he would, and I couldn’t keep myself from getting up every ten seconds to see if he was outside. After about forty-five minutes of that nonsense, I moved outside to the front stoop. Storm clouds dotted the sky, and I prayed like hell it wouldn’t rain. Not that it mattered either way. It wouldn’t ruin anything, except that I’d have to go back in and continue my staring-out-the-window routine.

  Everywhere I looked, I saw something I could relate to him and my growing infatuation. The gray clouds in the sky reminded me of his eyes. The grass was the same shade of green as a shirt he’d worn once. The chain-link fence reminded me of a design he’d doodled in my notebook. He was everywhere.

  The wind picked
up a little a few minutes later. Maybe a skirt wasn’t the best idea, but at least it was long and flowy. There was only a slim chance that it’d fly up and expose my butt. I’d gotten myself all gussied up for him, and the white skirt was perfect in my mind to complete the look I was going for. I normally wore jeans, over-sized band Tshirts, and a lot of black, but I wanted to try something different. Maybe the way I usually looked wasn’t quite enough to hook him. Was it possible he saw me as “just one of the guys”? Maybe going with a soft and feminine look would be the key to taking our friendship to the next level.

  Standing, I brought my hand to shield my eyes from the strengthening breeze and looked down the street, but Jet was nowhere to be found. I’d apparently gotten myself all fixed up for nothing. He was always there by four thirty if he was coming, and it was already almost five.

  “You look really pretty.”

  His voice was like a ray of sunshine bursting through the clouds. He’d come from around the back of my house. I hadn’t even thought to look for him that way. I whirled around to face him, his voice drawing me to him.

  Just as I turned, he slunk to the ground, holding his side. My heart jumped into my throat, stifling my breath when I saw him. Beneath his crimson-stained fingers, I could see the tattered bits of his T-shirt exposing wounded skin.

  “Oh my God.” I gasped. “What happened?”

  Rushing to his side, I dropped to my knees. My skirt would be stained by the grass for sure, but I didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was making sure he was okay. My skirt could be replaced. He couldn’t.

  “Just a scratch,” he said. His normally pale complexion turned ghostly white and his hand trembled at his side.

  “Do you need to go to the hospital?” I asked. I barely had my license, but there was a car in the garage. I was only allowed to take it out in an emergency when my mom wasn’t home. This seemed like it fit the bill.

  “No,” he said. His voice was stern. I knew unless he was bleeding to death, there was no changing his mind.

  “Let me see,” I demanded.

  “I just need to get cleaned up. Can I do that here?”

  “Of course,” I said and rose to my feet. “Come inside. I’ll get the first aid kit.”

  “I don’t want to bleed all over your floor. Just turn the hose on me and bring me a Band-Aid.”.

  “Get your ass up and inside,” I said, pointing toward the door. I was not playing. This was some serious shit, and it was no time to crack jokes.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He struggled to stand, and if it hadn’t been for me helping him up, I wasn’t sure he would’ve been able to do it on his own. How he’d managed to get to my house was a mystery to me. His wound appeared to still be oozing a small amount of blood under his fingers. He held his side as we made our way inside the house and to the kitchen. I left him sitting in a chair while I ran upstairs to get the first aid kit and a washcloth.

  What could have possibly happened to him? My first thought was that he’d gotten into a fight as he was prone to do at times, but he’d never come out on the bottom of one as far as I knew. I’d never actually seen him fight, but I’d heard it wasn’t pretty when he did.

  When I returned to him, he lay on the floor, still clutching his side, but he’d taken off his shirt. My body tensed, stopping me in my tracks as I got an eyeful of him. His body was made of defined abs and hard pecs and all those muscles that made girls go stupid when they see them. Most boys that age I’d seen with their shirts off were nothing more than a little skin over bones. If they were lucky, they maybe had a little definition. Even the jocks I knew weren’t all that big. But Jet… Jet looked like a grown-ass man sprawled out on my kitchen floor. I often fantasized about what he looked like with his shirt off, but reality blew my fantasies away.

  Shaking the fog from my brain, I grabbed a bowl, ran some warm water into it, and got down to the business of washing the blood from his body and hands. He winced when the alcohol hit his tender flesh after I’d cleaned the blood, but I still thought he was brave. A nasty gash like that would have had me screaming bloody murder before the disinfecting stage.

  “I don’t think you need stitches. It doesn’t look too deep.”

  “Told you it was just a scratch.”

  “Yeah, except scratches don’t bleed that much. What happened?” I asked as I placed some liquid bandage over the wound.

  He made a hissing noise as he sucked air sharply into his lungs when the liquid touched his broken skin. “Nothing. I fell down.”

  I looked at him like he was crazy, knowing he was hiding something from me. The more resistant he was to spill his guts, the more I suspected something huge had happened. But I wouldn’t push him. He had to tell me because he wanted to. Not because I forced him into it.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said and reached for the washcloth so I could start cleaning everything up.

  He sat up quicker than I expected him to be able to with his injury. His hand grazed my cheek. The next thing I knew, his gloriously warm lips melded to mine. Every bit as exquisite as I’d imagined. I knew then that I’d never get enough of him and the delicious way he tasted. But what came out of his mouth when he pulled away floored me.

  “I love you, Evie,” he said, peering deep into my eyes.

  He had me in a trance, but I managed to blurt out the worst possible thing I could.

  “But… we aren’t even dating.” Not the response I’d imagined having the billion times I dreamt of him telling me he loved me. I wanted to believe I loved him, too, but it was all happening way too fast for me to process.

  “I know, but I came over to ask you if you’d be my girlfriend. I just got held up,” he said, glancing down at his wound.

  “You’re serious? You want me to be your girlfriend?”

  “Yeah. I mean, if you want to,” he said, tugging briefly at his earlobe, an act he often did when we spoke about things that made him nervous. “Everyone thinks we are anyway.”

  “Oh, great. You only asked me because of that?” I asked. My heart started to ache. I wanted to be with him, but not because he thought he was expected to date me.

  “That’s not why.”

  “Why then? Tell me what it is about me that makes you say you love me.”

  “I can’t. Just know that I do.”

  “Why not? If you can’t tell me, my answer is no.”

  “Fine, I’ll go.”

  “Wait,” I said. He couldn’t go. I wasn’t ready for him to leave. “Please, don’t… You have to understand something about me. I don’t know how to do this kind of stuff. I’ve never…” I trailed off.

  “You’ve never what?”

  “Never anything. No boyfriend, never been kissed, never anything. I haven’t even held hands with anyone but Sophie when we watch scary movies.”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure I just kissed you, so you can mark that off your never list. And as far as I’m concerned, I’m your boyfriend, so that’s another one down,” he said, taking my hand gently in his. “And your parents aren’t home, so I’m thinking we could knock that last one off your list depending on when they’re getting back.” His eyebrows rose as the corner of his mouth turned up.

  “Jet,” I whispered. “I mean, we’ve been dating for less than two minutes. That’s entirely too fast for me… I mean, I want to, I’m just not quite there yet.”

  “I get it.”

  “Have you? You know.”

  “Yeah,” he said, looking away from me like he was embarrassed. If he were embarrassed, I was absolutely mortified by the thought. “No one you know.”

  *

  People giggling in the hallway outside my hotel room caught my attention, pulling me out of my stroll down memory lane. One of them was definitely Sophie, and I sprang from the bed and sprinted over to open the door. It’d been far too long since I’d seen her. It was an odd thing to go from seeing your best friend nearly every day to
only seeing them every couple of months. We texted each other incessantly so we still felt like we were a part of the other’s every day life. Every time we got together, it was like no time had passed at all since the last time we’d seen each other.

  As I swung the door open, I was practically tackled by my blonde-haired, blue-eyed best friend. Her boobs slammed into me a full second before the rest of her did and almost knocked me to the ground. Seriously, those things were ginormous and could be classified as a couple of concealed weapons.

  Someone close to Sophie’s build but with short, inky black hair and bright green eyes followed her into the room. She was a smidge taller than Sophie, but not by much. I’d never met her, but she had a familiar face. Like one of those people you’d swear you’d seen a million times, but you’d never laid eyes on them before that you can remember.

  “Hi,” I said and held my hand out to her after I freed myself from Sophie’s embrace. “I’m Evie.”

  “I’m Alex,” she said and shook my hand. A mousy smile brightened her face. “I’ve heard so much about you, Evie. I feel like I’ve known you as long as Sophie has.”

  “She’s told me a lot about you, too.” I smiled warmly at her. The vibe coming from her was nothing but positive, and I looked forward to getting to know her better. I’d been concerned that, by some chance, we wouldn’t get along, but my fears seemed to be unfounded.

  They followed me into the room and sat down at the table near the window as I plopped myself on the bed.

  “Well, Sophie, my car finally died on me.”

  “About time. I knew it wasn’t long for this world,” she said as she rummaged through her purse and pulled out a brush. “Surprised it lasted this long.”

  “Are you staying in town tonight?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, working the brush through her hair. “I’m not planning on being sober tonight. Maybe not tomorrow night either. We should make a weekend out of it.”

  “Can you take me to a rental car place sometime before you go home?”

  “Nonsense. I’ll just take you home. It’s not a big deal.”

  “I know, but I’ll need something to use for a few days until I get another car anyway. It’s just easier to go ahead and get one.”