Chapter 4
Bridger
I wasn’t supposed to ever see Juliette Ashford again.
I had never been an honest man. Lying, cheating, stealing.
It was all a part of the game for me, a way of life.
Guys like me had a lot of hurdles to deal with.
Poor and broken, from the wrong side of the tracks, from a world where chances weren’t given to us no matter how hard we fought for them.
I knew how to lie. I was good at that. But if you held a gun to my head and asked me if I had spent the last five years thinking about Juliette Ashford and I said no, I’d be a dead man.
She had always been there in my head. Some days she was there at the back, lost in the distance, just enough to remind me that I would never forget her. Other days, she was at the front of it all, constantly reminding me of what could have been, because Christ, had it been good with her.
Every moment with her had been special. The sneaking into her room; the sneaking her out of the same room; the rushed kisses; the risky kisses; the long drives; the stolen glances; the afternoons after school at my place because she hated going back to her big ass mansion; dinner nights with my parents; the spontaneous, late-night dates.
If I closed my eyes, I was right back to that day where I first saw her after I got my ass dragged to the principal’s office after getting into a fight. Two fights.
I had never forgotten her. It was impossible, the most difficult task I could ever imagine.
There were some nights where it felt like she would never leave me: those big eyes and sweet smile and rosy cheeks.
They always stayed. It had been worse in prison.
In that old, cold cell. No light, no glory, no Juliette.
Just me and a brain that wouldn’t let me forget her.
The first month in prison had been the hardest. When I had poured my heart out the first chance I got my hands on some paper and a pen, my writing all messy and rushed as I begged Juliette to believe me and still love me and want me, because I had never loved anyone more than I loved her.
You know I would never hurt you.
I need to hear your voice again.
Please tell me this isn’t the end of us. Please visit.
I am so in love with you it hurts. I feel it all over.
And I could recite every goddamn line of that letter.
I had sat there against the tiny desk in my cell, my hand sore from how many letters I had written and scrunched up because I kept deeming the words not good enough, knowing full well that I only had one shot.
I had tried, well and truly, to make sure Juliette knew that I would never hurt her like that.
And what was her response? Her telling me that she had never loved me, that we were never gonna work out, that a girl like her could never truly love a guy like me.
I winced at the memory as I pushed a cigarette between my lips, a deep frown on my face as I lit it up. Me and the guys had broken into Juliette’s home a good four days ago and I still hadn’t quite come to terms with the fact that I had seen her in the flesh.
My hands had felt her warm body. Her soft, smooth skin. That silky hair. My fingers still burned with her touch. God, she was beautiful. More beautiful than the last time I saw her. It was like I could still feel her under my touch.
More memories hit me, hard and fast and brutal and painful. All those times I spent with her in my arms, cradling her to my chest as we watched some dumb movie on my couch in my tiny living room.
Or the way I’d always reach over and let my hand rest on top of hers when she ate dinner at my place in my cramped kitchen, because I couldn’t go a second without touching her.
Or when she’d always sigh so softly, so sweetly, as I held her waist, kissing her goodnight before I had to slip out of her bedroom, because her parents could absolutely not know about me.
Good times. Good days. No, perfect days.
But then I was quickly brought back to the past as I blew out some smoke. I was suddenly back in prison, back in my cramped cell with that letter from Juliette in my hand. The only one she had given me, her sole response. Sometimes I wondered if she enjoyed sending me those hurtful words.
The most pathetic part was that I still clung on to that goddamn thing: the letter with the soft pink paper and the floral border, decorated with Juliette’s perfect, neat handwriting. It was the last thing I had of her. The last thing she had given me. How could I ever throw it away?
I was the fucking idiot for thinking someone like her could ever be my girl forever.
I was the guy she was only supposed to look at and wonder about from afar, but just staring at me hadn’t been enough for her.
We had both needed each other. Both craved what we weren’t supposed to have.
There I was: the criminal with a track record and a habit of causing trouble wherever I went, and there she was: the good girl who lived in a literal fucking mansion.
It would have been easier if neither of us had ever crossed paths.
She looked different the other night. Beautiful, but different.
It was her eyes. They used to sparkle, used to be all big and bright and pretty.
There had been terror in her eyes when I saw her that night, and that was easy enough to understand considering the circumstances, but there was something else too. Boredom.
Seeing her—really seeing her—was still a fact I was trying to accept. My girl. My ex-girl. My whatever the fuck she was. It had been the hardest, most painful punch to the gut.
And he had been right next to her. Gordon Cavendish.
Her husband. The word made my eyes shut tightly.
That was supposed to be my title. Even when I was a dumb, idiot eighteen-year-old, the one who everyone told that it would never work out because a girl like Juliette would want someone with money and power and a good future, I still imagined her being my wife one day.
Some other man got to call her that.
I thought about how easily he had thrown her under the bus.
There had been zero concern for her on his part.
He didn’t seem to give a fuck about her safety.
What kind of man had she found? Did he look after her the way I used to?
Was he good to her? Did he love her? Did she love him?
I didn’t want her to. The thought made me wince.
I moved into the bedroom of my apartment.
Dark blue walls, mostly bare, small. Nothing like Juliette’s place.
My hands were moving before I could stop myself, yanking open the top drawer of the dresser and shoving my hand inside.
I knew exactly where to find it. Another thing of Juliette’s I hadn’t been able to let go of.
My fingers traced against it before I held it tight, pulling it out of the drawer.
There it sat in my palm. The torn and tattered bracelet.
It was made from leather, from some of the scraps my dad used to keep around the house.
Just tattered leftovers, stuff from the hardware store Dad worked at before he lost his job.
I could picture the day in my head: Juliette at my house after school.
The two of us cramped together in my twin sized bed, sitting against the headrest, our knees touching as Juliette braided the three thin leather strips together.
Two black pieces on either side and a blue piece in the middle—blue because it reminded her of the ocean, and she used to say the words herself, no matter how dark it got, at least there was always some part of the world where the water was still bright.
I wore it proudly. It was hers, came from her, from the girl I loved.
It was ripped from my hands when I was sent to prison and when I got out it was one of the first pieces of my belongings that I reached for.
I hadn’t worn it since that day. Couldn’t.
I knew I’d never take it off if I put it back on, because that would mean that I still had a piece of her on me.
There was a knock at my apartment door, snapping me right out of the past. I put the bracelet away and moved out of the bedroom and into the living room. When I pulled the front door open, I was greeted with Bennett’s frowning face.
You would never think Bennett Ford spent his nights breaking into people’s homes.
He had a clean-cut look to him that always kept him off people’s radars.
The guy wore a button-down shirt when he wasn’t on a job, keeping them all neatly pressed and tucked in just like the light blue one he had on now.
He looked like he had just stepped out of church with his blond hair all brushed back neatly and his glasses on.
The only time he didn’t wear his glasses was when we were in the middle of a job. He wore his contacts then.
“I gave you a couple nights to think over what the hell happened the other night, but now we need to talk,” he said, voice unusually sharp.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I yanked him inside, shutting the door behind us. “Nothing happened.”
“You and the girl. What was that about?”
There it was. I shrugged at him. “Do you have a new job for us or what?”
“Of course I have a new job, but we need to talk about what happened before we get into any of that.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. Tell me about the new job.”
He kept his light blue eyes on mine. “Tell me about that girl.”
“What girl?”
“The one you looked at like you hated and wanted to kiss all at the same time.”
I shook my head at him and took a seat on the couch. A second later, he sat down next to me, and I knew he wasn’t letting this go. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“That pretty girl from the other night. You don’t remember her?”
Smoke escaped my lips as I still avoided his gaze. “Was she pretty?”
“Bridger.”