Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Crew
W ith a gasp, I once again woke up after a dream with Aria as the center. It felt like it was the only thing that I did these days.
Go to sleep doing my best not to think about her.
And wake up drenched in sweat because she was the only thing on my mind.
This time it hadn’t been with her screaming, begging me to help and I was too late and too weak to save her. The dream that I’d been forced to endure for the past week since walking in on Travis hurting her felt as if it would never go away. No, it had been another kind of dream.
The whole damn situation felt so unlike Aria. Because that woman was stubborn as hell and always pushed people away who wanted to help her. She had to be the one doing it herself. She had to be the one protecting herself. No matter what came at her, she was the one who changed things. The fact that I loved that she was so damn stubborn probably had more to do with my idiocy than her willingness to walk away. After all, we’d always promised no feelings. No promises beyond those.
I still remembered that first time we kissed. The two of us had been a little drunk, but not that drunk. My dad had said some shit the hour before, and I had nearly made my knuckles bleed against the punching bag. She had walked in from her self-defense class, shook her head, and dragged me to the pub. She’d had an issue with Travis that had nothing to do with drinking and everything to do with the man being a narcissistic asshole. The two of us had one too many beers and fell into one another.
In truth, I’d let myself finally have what I’d always wanted—if only for a night.
No promises, except to always be friends. And we had done a decent job of that. Not a single person knew we had slept together multiple times over the year.
And not a single person knew I was so fucking in love with her that it hurt to breathe if I thought about it too hard. It was my cross to bear. After all, we had promised each other not to catch feelings and that was the first thing that I had done.
It didn’t help that she was a damn Montgomery. And I had already dated Daisy, and while that hadn’t worked out, we had been better friends anyway. Plus I loved Daisy’s husband. We got along, and there wasn’t any awkwardness about the fact that Daisy and I used to sleep together. And contrary to popular belief, Lex and I had never dated. We were just friends, friends that like to fuck with people’s minds because everybody outside of his family was way too judgmental and nosy.
Any feelings I had for Aria were always an issue. Because she clearly didn’t feel what I felt. And after everything that happened with Travis, she was in no place to even want more.
Yet the dream I had shot up from had nothing to do with her being unable to fight back. For me not being fast enough.
No, we were once again in bed, my mouth on hers, her hands roaming slowly over my back.
I had sunk into her, slowly thrusting in and out in that way that teased and made her eyes roll into the back of her head. She loved it when I went slow, even though she begged me to go fast and hard.
We might have played rough, but I knew she liked it soft. So I usually never gave it to her soft. As that would be crossing a line, or would reveal far too much. Because while I knew that I loved her, I also knew I couldn’t have her. She was way too damn good for me. Especially with what I had to deal with today.
I got out of bed and tried to get thoughts of Aria out of my mind. Except the erection currently tenting my boxer briefs said otherwise. My cock felt as if one touch would make me blow but I knew if I fucked my fist in this moment, I’d only be thinking of her..
I quickly turned on the shower, set it to ice cold, and stepped in, ignoring the pinpricks of sensation. Then I did the one thing I knew I would hit myself for later and gripped the base of my cock, stroking myself.
I squeezed hard, just on the edge of pain, imagining Aria’s mouth wrapped around my dick as she sank to her knees, her eyes wide. She’d grip my hips, her nails digging in, and I would thrust harder before coming down that beautiful throat. Or maybe I’d paint her tits with my cum, knowing she’d glare at me for it.
And when I would crush my mouth to hers, tasting myself on her tongue, she would moan into me, and I would send her right over the edge with my fingers. I’d stretch her with two, then three fingers, loving the way her soft pussy would clench around me. I’d be rough at first, then gentle right when she was at the edge, before playing with her clit to send her over .
Imagining her body going weak, her nipples hard, her mouth parting as she came, finally brought me over. I came hard, spurting over the shower wall, my breath coming in pants. I lifted the handheld showerhead and washed off my shame.
I was a monster. A filthy, disgusting monster.
I knew I wasn’t going to stop. There was something wrong with me, but I couldn’t change it. I was far too gone by now.
Afterward, I quickly showered and stepped out of the walk-in monstrosity that Lexington and the others had built for me. I loved the damn thing, but it could easily fit eight people.
It helped having friends who called themselves family in the construction business. My dream home had been built and decorated to perfection because of the Montgomerys. They’d known exactly what I wanted without me having to think too hard on it. There were only a few times where we’d butted heads since budget hadn’t mattered to me and they’d wanted to ensure I didn’t spend my entire savings.
Not everybody knew that I had paid for everything in cash. Lexington did because Lexington knew most of everything. Except he didn’t know about Aria, of course. Nobody needed to know about her.
There was a reason I kept my secrets. Namely why I was in a fucking mood at the moment and it wasn’t solely about the woman I couldn’t get out of my head. I quickly dressed, and knew if I didn’t get out of there quickly, I would be late.
I winced at those thoughts, before pouring myself coffee in a to go mug, and walked out of my chef’s kitchen, through the garage, and into my favorite SUV.
The fact that I had six vehicles and two motorcycles probably showed I had a problem. But I didn’t care. Yet spending money on things that would annoy the fuck out of my parents always gave me an adrenaline rush. Nobody needed to know the McTavish family. Especially when, if things went right, I would be the last of the line.
And with that morbid thought, I revved the engine and headed to where my dad expected me. I snorted at the idea my dad truly cared as I sped down the highway. I wasn’t even sure Dad was going to remember who I was at this point.
Early on-set Alzheimer’s was a terrible disease. I gripped the edge of the steering wheel tight and forced myself to take deep breaths before moving one hand to take a sip of my coffee. I had done countless hours of research into it and knew there was no going back after these moments. We were just taking our steps one day at a time until there would be nothing left .
The doctors always mentioned that he would sometimes have angry outbursts, or rage against me for no reason. And I had always given them a placid expression. Yes, his main doctor thought I was a jerk, someone who didn’t even deserve to be there, and I didn’t care.
Because rages, cruel names, and treating someone like shit was nothing new for the McTavish family.
Coffee sour in my stomach now, I set down the half-drunk thermos before parking in the memory care center. I bypassed the valet, because of course this place would have a valet, and steeled myself for what was to come.
I didn’t even know why I was here anymore. It wasn’t as if my father had ever visited me at school functions, sporting events, or during one of the countless times that woman had sent me to the hospital. The only times they’d ever showed up was to a graduation and medal ceremony so they could look good for their rich friends. When it came to art school, they’d rolled their eyes at me and hadn’t bothered to ask about what I was doing or even my specialty.
When I had sold my first million-dollar piece, they had shown up to the showcase. Uninvited of course. They tried to use me for connections, even though they had countless ones of their own. But it didn’t matter what the McTavishes had. They always needed to go higher on the social ladder. It was what they did after all.
Or perhaps I should say it’s what we did.
I was a McTavish.
It was in my blood.
And would be etched on my gravestone when the time came.
On that morbid thought, I moved toward the welcome area. The nurse up front smiled at me with those widened doe eyes, and I lifted my chin.
“Mr. McTavish. We’re expecting you. Your father is in the Great Room. If you just follow the path down the hall, you’ll find the signs for the main space. Unless you’d like me to show you the way?” she asked, her voice breathy.
I shook my head and walked past her after signing in.
The woman was gorgeous, that was for sure. But every single person employed here was beautiful. It was as if you had to have stunning looks and a pouty mouth in order to be employed here.
It was the most elite memory care center in the state, if not in the region itself. Only the best for the McTavishes. But nothing was going to keep my father alive. Part of me knew I shouldn’t care—not with what he’d done .
That part reminded me why I needed to keep my hands off Aria Montgomery. That part of me was the wretchedness that proved it was a good thing that she kept running away.
I shook myself out of that thought because I needed to be on my toes when it came to my father. His nurse came forward, a broad smile on his chiseled face. “Crew. It’s good you’re here. He’s having a good day.”
I gave the man a brittle smile before nodding. “Thanks.”
“You just let us know if you need anything. Would you like sparkling water?”
I shook my head. “I’m good. Thanks.”
The man said a few other things, but I ignored him, my gaze on my father as he stared out the window toward the Rocky Mountains.
It shocked me how he’d changed. At least physically. He wasn’t the large mountain of a man he’d once been. I was a couple of inches taller than him and broader than he’d been in his heyday, but we’d always looked alike. Something my mother had boasted about to her friends and beaten me for later. I never understood why looking at my face, a practical mere image of the man she loved, would send her to the edge.
My mother never hit my dad—at least not when I had been around. Maybe she’d done so when they’d first been married before I’d come along and taken his place. I wasn’t sure and I’d never asked. But she took her rage and anger out on me. Sometimes with a wooden spoon, sometimes with belts. She’d tied me up with that belt, and continued to beat me where bruises wouldn’t show. She would scream and rage and tell me how horrible I was.
And then she would glare at my father and make him say the same things. She put the belt in his hands and ordered him to do the same as she did. Each lash deeper and harder than what she’d been able to do with her strength.
And he would go along with it. He was never the first to hit me. No, he had to be forced to do it—but he’d still relished it. The same strength I held today had been in his body. I worked out and learned to fight for many reasons, but it had always started with wanting to be anything but him.
I had friends in our circles who had come from broken homes. Where people had dealt with loss, hate, or abuse. The Montgomerys were the only family I knew who seemed to be healthy and whole. They communicated, loved each other, and there wasn’t a hint of abuse or hatred. It was healthy, odd, and I had always been so damn jealous of them.
Our other friends though weren’t always so lucky. Only in their lives, it was the father who became the abuser. Always the father who railed and raged.
Never the mother.
My mother was the McTavish. And my father had changed his name to suit her. He had come from an equal amount of money, but not the same amount of prestige. And my mother was never going to lose her name anyway.
It was the first in a long history of my father capitulating for the woman who had tried to beat the snark and blood out of me. My father had gone along with it because he was scared of her—at first. Then he changed.
He savored it.
He loved being her blade.
And as I stared at the man who had resented me from the day I was born, I once again hadn’t asked myself why I was here.
“You’re late.”
“Wasn’t sure you would care,” I said. I held back a curse for speaking up. Silence was usually better in these situations because my father hated it—even as he was now.
“Talking back. You’re learning. It only took what, thirty years? That doesn’t really matter though, does it? You’re never going to be good enough, Crew. Are you still working with your paint by numbers? ”
The words didn’t cut like they usually did. “You know it. One day I will even learn how to make the color green. It’s a little hard though.”
“You always were a sarcastic little shit.”
“Thank you for reminding me. I’d almost forgotten.” I clenched my jaw, ignoring the pain in my raw knuckles as I forced my fists to relax.
“You should watch your tone with me. I might be in here, but the only reason you’re even allowed to breathe is because of me. You’re nothing. You always were nothing. Nobody wants you. Nobody in here, nobody out there. It’s why you’re spending your afternoon in this godforsaken place. And yet, why are you here? To lord over me with some ill placed sense of loyalty or need. No matter what happens to me, I’m still better than you. That woman will still be better than you.”
I shook my head, ignoring the twinge between my shoulder blades. “Even the woman that left you?” I asked, tilting my head as I studied the man who only loved to belittle me.
“She didn’t leave me. She left you. She loved me. And she never loved you. You were the slight. The accident. But you still have the McTavish name. You’d think with that and your little art, you could find someone to blow you. I know you are a mewling little weasel, but you need to do your duty and find yourself a wife. Spawn a little brat or two. I don’t care. But get it done. You know your duty.”
“Sure. I can figure that out.” I said it so dryly, that the man who called himself my father glared at me.
“You unrepentant waste of air.” My father moved quickly, arm outstretched. I didn’t duck the first blow. Why bother. It didn’t hurt anymore. But when the second blow came, I moved out of the way, tired of this.
I had no idea why I came anymore. It wasn’t as if he had ever loved me.
But watching this man who’d once been so big he made me quake in my shoes become this broken man felt as if it was my penance.
Or maybe my future.
The orderlies came to pull him away, and I turned without a second glance. The Montgomerys had this beautiful family who cared for each other, were always there for one another.
Yet it was his blood that ran through my veins.
I walked past the nurse with wide eyes and made my way to my SUV, cursing under my breath when I realized who leaned against it.
My mother crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me in her three-thousand-dollar suit. “You love to break a good man down, don’t you?” my mom asked, her tone that same banal cruelty I was used to.
I shook my head, exhausted. It wasn’t even lunchtime yet, and I was done with this bullshit.
“That’s rich coming from the woman who left the man currently in there.”
My mother waved that off as if leaving a broken man alone in memory care and never once visiting him was the norm. When the disease had finally been too much for my mother to handle, she dropped my father off without a second glance and filed separation papers. She hadn’t finished the divorce, and I wasn’t sure if it was because she still loved him, or the paperwork would be too difficult to finalize. I did not understand anything that came from my mother. But then again, I never had. When I had gotten big enough to fight back, she stopped hitting me. Then my father had tried to go in, but I had gotten bigger than him as well.
The verbal assault had never stopped until I could leave. They always found ways to get into my life and needled their way through.
The money that I had, the countless investments that’d piled on top of one another, had come from the trust my grandparents had set up. Nothing in my home, in my businesses, or in my life came from my parents. They wouldn’t think of it that way, but I’d done my best to clear them from my life .
“You’re supposed to visit him and make him feel safe. And yet all you do is make him angry.”
“Which nurse tattled to you that I was here?” I asked.
“Does it matter? You’re not doing what you’re supposed to. You never did.”
The nerve of this woman. “This is rote by this point. If you’re not going to go in there and take care of him, why are you in the parking lot?” I didn’t understand her relationship with my father, and I did not want to know. But she stood out in this parking lot ranting at me for visiting when she wouldn’t.
The McTavishes were complicated, and I wanted nothing to do with it.
“That is neither here nor there. You need to do better. Be the son that you’ve never been and actually do something for once.”
Anything I would say would just rile her up or make her believe she had won. So instead I pushed past her and got into my SUV. I nearly threatened to back into her, but she would probably like that too much.
She stepped to the side and toward her convertible, and I peeled out of the parking lot and headed toward my gym. As I did, she pulled out her phone, and I figured she was probably calling her lawyer again. It always made me roll my eyes when she did that. She had been trying to get me out of my trust and inheritance my entire life. But my grandfather’s lawyers were better than hers. She was never going to be able to touch anything of mine. She had already done enough of that.
Feeling a little ill, the memories of my family once again taking root, I opened all the windows in the SUV and made my way down the highway toward the gym. I turned on a familiar rock song to full blast and screamed along with it.
I pulled into the gym parking lot, then turned off the engine. I did my best to calm down, because I needed to walk in there and look as if I knew what I was doing. After all, this was my gym. I knew my friends joked that they didn’t know if I was the owner or not, because I let my managers run it, but I was the financer.
This wasn’t one of those pretty gyms with perky instructors who did their best to sell memberships. No, this was one filled with boxing rings, different martial arts sections, bags to beat all to hell, and places just to get free. It was a safe place, and one that was just mine.
The staff knew I was the owner, because after a while it was harder to hide it, so now the secret was out of the bag. I didn’t mind at this point, too many secrets meant for too many betrayals and hurt feelings. But between my dreams, not seeing Aria for a week now, and the shit show of my morning, I needed to hit something.
I walked inside the gym, that familiar feeling starting to release the tension in my shoulders, and bypassed my team. If they needed something, they would’ve texted me already. But since they hadn’t, I was just going to get a workout in. I stretched, grabbed some water, and wrapped my hands in the familiar way I had done for all of my life.
Lex had known I had been hurt as a kid and had tried to help me heal the bruises. Aria had found out later. Because there was no hiding things from her. Even when I tried. And Lex and I had both started taking classes in order to try to fight back. Lex had invaded then. But he had done them so I had someone to spar against. And his parents had helped me along the way. Had tried to get me out of the situation that there was no getting out of. I knew without a doubt if I had let them, they would’ve taken me out of that home.
But the part of me that had been belittled into nothing had thought I deserved stay.
It’d taken a shit ton of fighting, and even more therapy, for me to realize that I shouldn’t have stayed. That wasn’t my fault. But that still didn’t mean I didn’t have those demons. And bringing Aria into any of this would have just made things worse .
Cursing, I once again pushed her out of my mind. There was no reason for me to even think about her. She wasn’t mine. I wasn’t even sure she was my friend anymore. Not with the way that she’d looked at me. She’d been so damned scared of me. I could have killed Travis that night, and she would’ve watched. Because I had been out of control.
And I couldn’t protect her.
I started hitting the heavy bag, using my training so I could zone out, and just let my fists work. This was the only time I could breathe, the only time I could just let my mind flow without worrying about what I needed to hide, what others saw.
My breath came in pants as I continued to beat down the heavy bag, my fists aching. I moved to the speed bag, but that didn’t help, so I went back to the other, the pain harder. I didn’t know if I was bleeding at this point, but I had a feeling I was. Because my hands had already been bruised from losing control over Travis.
And I deserved that pain.
Out of the corner of my eye I realized I wasn’t alone, and part of me felt the disappointment that it wasn’t Aria.
But I didn’t think she was going to come back here.
Not when she’d seen me lose control .
And not when I hadn’t been fast enough to save her. To keep her from any pain.
Instead Lexington and Kingston stood by and watched me, but didn’t say a thing. They didn’t need to. They took up spaces beside me, not ending my workout, but doing one of their own, and let me be.
This was where I was best. Silent, lashing out at my demons, knowing that they would never go away. I might’ve woken up with Aria in my dreams, but that’s where she needed to stay. I came from the worst, and that meant there was no going forward knowing the path behind me.
So I lashed out until I bled, and the Montgomerys once again were by my side.
Just not my Montgomery.