Chapter 19
nineteen
I walked down the road, loose gravel shifting under my heels and the glow of the moon at my back, casting a light on the road that looked like magic. I was fucking alone. Despite how damn perfect of a night it was, I cursed Preston with each step I took. What kind of guy lets his girlfriend walk home by themselves in the middle of the night, not completely sober, I might add?
Preston Jackass Malone, that’s who.
We had another one of our famous fights.
All we did lately it seemed was argue over every stupid thing.
He knew how much I disliked going to parties yet, it was all he wanted to do lately. Drink. Get high. Bullshit with his golfing buddies. And act like a rich douche who wouldn’t take responsibility for anything.
He’d been lying to his parents more, trying to maintain the perfect son image, but when he started to involve me in his lies and ask me to cover for him, Preston didn’t like my response. It was the thing we fought the most over next to the partying. They went hand in hand really.
I should have called someone to pick me up, but I’d dumbly believed Preston would come after me once I left. Five minutes down the road, my boyfriend was nowhere in sight. It didn’t take a genius to realize he wasn’t coming.
I sighed, wrapping my arms around myself.
It wasn’t that far of a walk but so not the point.
Fucker.
I was having one of those moments that seemed to be coming more frequently where I hated Preston. The question of why the hell was I with him sat in the back of my mind. It never seemed to go away, but then he would do something sweet, and that voice would get quiet, shoved aside by our history.
This one-sided argument I was having in my head was rudely interrupted by my heel getting caught in a hole and my ankle buckling to the side, causing me to lose my balance. I went to the ground, my knees digging into sharp, jagged pebbles. Pain sliced over my legs, and without looking, I knew I was bleeding.
“Shit.” My voice cracked as I stiffened my lip. I refused to cry. “Shit.”
Sitting on the side of the road, I took off my shoes and inspected the damage. It wasn’t bad. But it also didn’t feel good. Scraped kneecaps and shins. A rolled ankle, but after testing it out, I determined I could probably walk on it, but I had to ditch the shoes. Mostly, I was just annoyed. With myself. With Preston. With this entire night.
Easing to my feet, I left the heels on the side of the road, not having the energy to give a shit about them. I had too many shoes as it was.
It took me a minute of hobbling in the dark to realize my stubbornness in this situation was stupid. I pulled out my phone and chewed on my lip, contemplating if my first call should be Sam or Mom. My mom made more sense since I wasn’t far from the house.
She didn’t answer.
Odd. But I didn’t think anything of it.
I went to try Sam as a beam of headlights crested over the hill, hitting my back. Instinct had me glancing over my shoulder, assuming and hoping the car would pass me by. As I continued to walk, the car slowed, gradually pulling off slightly in front of me. I had a moment of panic race through my blood, kicking my heart over, until I recognized the car. The Mustang was distinguishable not just because it belonged to my neighbor but to fucking Tristan Malone, Preston’s older brother — the one I’d been crushing on for years.
Yes, I was aware I needed therapy, but the knowledge didn’t stop me from appreciating or coveting what couldn’t be mine.
The window rolled down as I approached. “What are you doing?” he demanded in that gruff voice of his that was somehow both sexy and threatening, but I’d never been afraid of Tristan not even when I probably should have been.
“What does it look like? I’m walking home,” I replied, ensuring my usual sarcasm reserved for Tristan was evident.
A muscle in his jaw ticked. His eyes were mostly concealed in shadows, but I had a feeling they swam in disapproval. “Why? Where’s Preston?”
I leaned against the window, glancing inside. “Probably on his sixth beer at the poker table indebted to one of his friends.”
His lip curled in irritation. “You were at a party? And Preston let you leave?”
“Why does that surprise you? He’s your brother,” I pointed out. Who should know Preston better than Tristan?
Tristan draped an arm over the back of the passenger seat. “Honestly, it doesn’t. What surprises me is that you allow him to treat you like that.”
I flinched, a humorless laugh escaping me. “I’m not in the mood to fight with you. Not tonight.”
“Where are your shoes?”
I rolled my eyes, a bit surprised he’d noticed. “Don’t ask.”
“Fine. Get in the car, Ever,” he ordered, leaning over the seat to open the passenger door. Tristan rarely asked. He commanded and expected people to obey.
“It’s not that far,” I argued to Tristan’s annoyance. “Really, I made it this far without being killed or kidnapped.”
“Then let’s not push your luck. Get in,” he insisted. “My brother might not have a problem letting you walk the streets alone at night, but I do. You can get in the car, or I can follow you the whole way.”
Huffing, I hopped into the seat, shutting the door behind me. He had the top up on the classic convertible. I was a bit disappointed and nearly asked if we could put it down, but the frown on his lips had me switching tactics. “Has anyone told you how annoying you are?”
He smirked if you could call the slight twitch of his lips a smirk. “Today?”
I shook my head as Tristan guided the car back onto the road. We were under a mile from my house when the sky started spitting rain. It was a good thing the top was up and Tristan had come along when he did.
As if he could read my thoughts, the jerk sent me a smug look that said I should drop to my knees and thank him for driving by when he did or I’d be a dripping mess right now.
I squinted at him, wrinkling my nose.
His low chuckle incited a tingling within me as he steered the car into my driveway.
I had to get out of the car, or his scent would bespell me.
I reached for the door handle once the Mustang stopped, but I didn’t immediately climb out. Pausing, I glanced back at Tristan.
He frowned, his lip ring glinting like a star at night. “Don’t say it, Ever,” he scolded as I opened my mouth.
I smiled sweetly, knowing it made Tristan uncomfortable as would this. “Thank you, Tristan, for coming to my rescue.” I chose my words deliberately. He would hate it, which was exactly what I wanted. Attitude and sarcasm were a safe place to be with Tristan. Anything else put my heart in danger. Even if he only saw me as the little sister he never wanted or asked for.
His brows pitched together. “Get out of my car,” he grumbled, averting his eyes from me and staring at my house cloaked in shadows.
My lips twitched, and I opened the door, stepping into the cool rain. It felt refreshing on my skin. Being locked into a small space with Tristan had turned my blood unseasonably warm. I lifted my head to the sky, letting the rain wash over my face.
Without looking back, a difficult task, I dashed up the porch stairs and into my dark house. Really dark, actually, and the first thing I noticed. Or not noticed considering I couldn’t see a foot in front of me.
The lights were all off, which was unusual. My mom was often alone due to my dad leaving at the crack of dawn and returning late into the night, so she tended to be obsessive about leaving lights on. It made her feel less alone.
The floor squeaked as I stepped forward, flipping on the hall switch. “Mom!” I called out, light flooding the entryway. “Mom!” I called again, but only eerie silence answered.
Had she gone out?
No. I had seen her car in the driveway.
It was possible she might have gone next door to hang out with Anna, but then I remembered Preston had said his parents were at a fundraiser for his father’s business.
The first stirrings of unease fluttered into my stomach.
Dropping my stuff onto the kitchen table, I glanced around. An open bottle of wine sat near the sink, and the sliding doors to the pool were opened. Not all that weird, but it was the darkness that continued to strike me as odd, expanding the pit forming in my gut.
I went into the backyard, my bare feet slapping on the wet concrete. The drizzle of rain hit the pool’s surface, the moon a murky soft glow overhead, and it was more than the sinking feeling something was wrong bothering me. The water…it was off…it was…red?
Why would the water be ?—
My gaze landed on something floating in the center of the pool, and my mind convinced me it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. I had to be seeing shit. It wasn’t… It couldn’t…
My feet stopped working. Or maybe it was because I no longer felt my legs — I no longer felt anything for a few breath-stealing seconds, and when my heart began pumping again, it was at a staggering speed.
And then I screamed.
A bloodcurdling sound pierced the night, echoing up to the stars, winking them out one by one until nothing but an icy cold consumed me.
Mom lay face down, floating in the pool, slashes of red staining the crystal waters my dad paid a fortune to maintain. Her beautiful blonde hair fanned out, rippling on the surface. For a split second, all I could think was how pissed Dad would be at having to clean the pool, and then the gravity of what I was seeing slammed into me.
Someone screamed my name. At least I thought they did.
Or maybe it was the roaring in my head.
Ever!
The nightmare shattered. Hell, my world shattered, but through the buzzing agony, a husky, persistent voice penetrated. It tried to reach me, but the noise in my head reverberated so loudly.
“Ever. Wake up,” someone urged again, more insistent this time.
My shoulders shook. I could feel them moving, but sleep didn’t want to let me go—not completely.
“It’s just a dream. Come on, Shortcake, open your eyes for me,” someone coaxed. Tristan. It didn’t matter what state I was in. Conscious or unconscious, my soul recognized him.
What Tristan said wasn’t entirely true. I had been dreaming, but that night had been real—a memory, one my mind had decided to relive when I was feeling down and defenseless.
My eyelids fluttered and then opened. I blinked, the bloody waters slowly giving way to the dark room. I wasn’t beside the pool, sobbing on the ground next to my lifeless mother.
I was in bed with Tristan.
His fingers brushed gently along the side of my cheek. “There you are.” Something that almost resembled relief flitted across his face as he leaned over me. The hard length of his body was close enough that his warmth seeped into me. I wanted to curl into him, bury my head into his chest, and inhale his scent. He was real. I needed something real to adhere to.
Had he been worried about me? I didn’t know how I felt about it. Before the blackmail pictures, I wouldn’t have batted an eye at his protectiveness, but after…
Fighting to level my rapid heartbeat, I lay still, afraid to move…afraid of what I might do. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
His fingers fell away from the side of my face. “I wasn’t sleeping.”
The rain had stopped, and it helped to distinguish between the present and the past. I took a long breath in and let it out with slow control. “Sorry. I know I’m not the easiest to sleep with.” It hadn’t been my intention to keep him from being able to rest. He had to be exhausted. Guilt nudged into my gut with all the other twisted emotions vying for attention.
He didn’t move away but stayed close, propping an arm under his head as he looked at me. “Don’t apologize.”
So many things tonight paralleled the memory of finding my mother unalive. No wonder my unconscious mind went back there, connecting the lines, remembering details of the past I longed to forget. It was so fucking hard to compel my mind to unsee my mother in a pool of blood, stiff, so pale, and lifeless when I was desperate to remember how she looked alive, not dead.
My fingers itched to touch him—to feel his warmth—to ground me to the present. I curled them into the blanket instead. It had always been Tristan who showed up to save me. Never Preston. And each time Tristan swept in, I ended up confused by him. His words and his actions never made sense. They contradicted each other. “Why do you care what happens to me?” I whispered, holding his piercing blue eyes captive.
The wrinkle over his brow deepened. “What makes you think I do?”
I shook my head. “No, you don’t get to do that this time. You constantly try to make me think you’re an asshole, but the thing is, Tristan, you’re not. At least not to me.”
He studied my face. No, study wasn’t the right word. His eyes drank me in, stirring feelings inside me, feelings I wasn’t sure I could handle right now. “You got me all figured out, huh, Shortcake?”
“Don’t be patronizing. It’s getting old.” Tristan might not be ready or willing to admit it, but I knew why he cared. It was the same reason I did.
Something was between us. It had always been there.
How long were we going to continue to deny it? To push those feelings aside? To pretend they didn’t exist?
Neither of us ever wanted to hurt Preston. If there was one thing Tristan and I had in common, it was our tenacity to protect Preston. Tristan went to great lengths to protect those he loved. So did I.
But I no longer cared about Preston’s feelings.
He hadn’t cared or thought about mine when he stuck his dick in another girl. I had to stop thinking about Preston and start thinking about me. About what I wanted.
And staring at Tristan, I knew exactly what I desired.
At least for tonight.
Tristan chuckled lowly, brushing away strands of my hair clinging to my neck and then tucked them behind my ear. “I always thought you were strong. I’m glad you’re finally realizing it too. It’s about damn time.”
Something in the way he looked at me had my breath quickening. “I don’t need a lesson or a teacher for that matter,” I added.
Leaning closer, his gaze remained focused on me—only me like nothing else in the world mattered. “Good, because I’m the last person you should look up to. My motives are purely selfish.”
“Bullshit,” I whispered. “And so what if you’re not always the good guy? Sometimes you need to be bad to protect those you love.” I inched a bit closer to him, my eyes drawn to his lips.
His jaw tightened. “What are you doing?”
Chewing on my bottom lip, I realized how much I wanted to touch him. “No longer being afraid.” His presence banished the last remnants of the dream.
“Ever,” he warned, and I thought he might roll away from me, putting space I didn’t want between us.
“Yes, Tristan?” I whispered before lifting my gaze to his.
He read my expression and sensed where I was going, what I wasn’t saying but trying to convey. “This isn’t what I meant. I’m trouble. Haven’t you been hurt enough?”
His words were meant to jar me back to reality, to put that wall of anger, hate, and bitterness between us he was so good at making me erect. He did it on purpose, I realized, to keep me away.
Tristan knew my fears.
But what was he so afraid of?
Me?
Of what could be between us?
Of all nights, I shouldn’t be considering testing the waters with him when my emotions were so messy, but he was the only thing I was sure of.
His jerky attitude.
His standoffishness.
His streak of cruelty.
I never asked why Tristan hadn’t immediately backed out of my driveway that night and gone home, but the question lingered in my mind for nearly a year. Why had he stayed? I was grateful he had because I didn’t know how I would have gotten through that night without him.
Was it ironic he was here again when I needed him? It was always him. And I might hate myself in the morning. I might regret my decision. I might be riddled with guilt. Sam might be disappointed in me. Hell, I could be disappointed in myself.
Or I could be proud for acting on something I wanted. For being brave and daring.
I could say fuck it and deal with the consequences tomorrow.
It was what Tristan would do.
If I acted on pure emotion…if I let it drive my actions, would it change my relationship with Tristan? My relationship with Preston was already fucked.
What did I have to lose?
Tension stretched between us, the intense, impure kind. I lifted off the bed, bringing our faces close. My cheeks were warm. My heart hammered against my ribs. Fear and excitement hummed in my blood. “You could never hurt me,” I murmured and threw caution to the wind, covering his lips with mine.