Chapter 23 #2
What guts me, though, is this invisible string that ties me, her, and Carlos. Carlos wasn’t just her boyfriend and best friend. Carlos Santiago was my mentor.
“Even if Ever was his girl, he’d never tell her.” What he and I were planning to do in the Eastside would rain hell down on our heads.
Carlos would keep what we were doing a secret from Ever, believing he was protecting her. That was the kind of man he was. He protected what was his.
“Find a way to get a list of names of the guys loyal to José and Carlos from Gage. One or more of them hate my guts enough to lay Carlos’s murder at my feet.”
“Sure thing.”
We stare at the house, each deep in thought.
A loud engine breaks through the silence.
I glance over my shoulder. A lifted pickup truck with tinted windows parks alongside the curb.
The door opens, and a six-foot-one, lean, and tatted motherfucker with a smirk on his face pushes off the seat and lands on his boots.
I turn and grasp Midnight’s extended hand. His cousin, Dare, comes around the truck. He and Slate fist bump. I throw a glance over my shoulder. “Is there an easier way in than busting through the front door?”
Midnight pulls keys from his pocket. “There’s a sliding door to the kitchen.” He swings his gaze across the lawn. “First, you gotta get through the minefield of dog shit.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Slate shoves his hands in his pants pockets.
“Come on, man. Let’s see who comes out on top with less crap on their shoes.” In his joyous excitement to best us, Dare sticks out his meaty palms and shoves me and Slate off the sidewalk and onto the messed-up, littered lawn.
I stumble and catch myself on a filthy fridge.
Slate isn’t so lucky. His foot gets tangled in a coiled-up garden hose.
In his effort to untangle from the hose, he trips over a microwave and lands chest-first on a pile of large black garbage bags.
The bags puff out and break open. A putrid smell fills the air.
Holding my breath, I watch the large and formidable Slate Gray scramble to his feet as a string of curses leaves his mouth.
“Fucking Dare.” He glares at Midnight’s cousin and flips him the bird. “For that, you take the lead. We’ll be on your six.”
Military talk from an ex-marine. I chuckle. Slate could do better than being a bouncer at my club. Hell, he could have his pick of security firms to work for. Or he could become a cop.
Except he’s more mercenary than hero. Someday, a woman will need saving, and Slate won’t be able to resist his natural inclination to protect, no matter the cost to his life.
We follow Dare to the side gate that’s hanging on its hinges.
One blow from a strong gust and that gate is done for.
My gaze slides to the top floor. The windows are broken, like kids used them for target practice.
Shingles hang off the gutters that are barely holding on to the house, while little trees are growing in the gutters.
I shake my head. Birds and their fucking droppings.
I cram my hands in my pants pockets and make a mental note of all the things that will need fixing, starting with clearing junk from the lawn, getting a service to pick up dog crap before the lawn is mowed, and replacing the boarded-up front door.
We make it to the sliding door without stepping on a shit mine. Thank fuck. I can stand stepping on anything, but dog shit is my limit.
Midnight unlocks the door and waves us through. I walk in first. What a bad fucking idea.
The place is worse than a money pit. It’s a fucking disaster zone. Dishes are piled high in the sink. The stovetop is a mess of pots and pans with dried-up what the fuck in them. And the smell? The word biohazard comes to mind.
I’m hit in the face with the stench of dog piss, dog shit, rotting food, and mounds of plastic bags in the living area, festering in the hot house.
Gagging and my eyes watering, I pivot toward the door and run into Slate. He’s choking on the stench. My stomach roils. Bile creeps up my throat. I’m going to lose my lunch, and those motherfuckers Dare and Midnight will have a field day and never let me live it down.
I run out of the house and step in dog shit. The smell hits me before my feet in my shoes send signals to my brain.
A buried memory surfaces.
It’s old as fuck but still has the power to mindfuck me.
My mom was driving me to the house of one of the kids from school, talking excitedly about how this day would change our lives. I’d make a new friend, and she would finally be accepted into the friend group of mothers she’d wanted to be a part of since we moved from McMillan to Alexandria.
She dropped me off without checking whether the parents were home. Mom was already running late for work. I hesitated with my hand on the door handle. She said everything would be fine. I wasn’t feeling it.
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and the knot in my stomach had tightened since my mom told me of the unexpected, short-notice invite before she ushered me out of our house and into the car.
For her, I got out of the car and waved from the front door.
The parents weren’t home. It was the kid and his older brothers. They thought it’d be fun times to lock me outside in the backyard with their large dogs. They didn’t let me back in until I’d picked up and put in a metal bucket, by hand, every pile of dog shit.
I gagged and my eyes watered.
When Mom picked me up, she asked why my shoes were wet and I smelled like dog shit.
No matter how many times I washed my hands with their garden hose, the smell didn’t go away.
I gave Mom the lame answer that we were outside playing with their dogs, and I stepped on crap, slipped in it, and had to wash off my shoes.
Mom didn’t need to know the truth. The circumstances of how I came to be was punishment enough for her without rubbing the mistake of her affair with a married man in her face.
The parents talked about her behind her back while their precious kids bullied and swung at me.
I took the beatings like a champ. Coming home with a black eye or stomach cramps for the hard punches and kicks hadn’t clued her in that all wasn’t right in my world.
And I let her think all was good up to when she took her last breath.
Deep in thought, going by instinct, I run next door and help myself to the garden hose. After hosing off dog crap from my shoes, I turn to leave, thinking I’m in the clear. Slate did reconnaissance earlier, and Ever’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Except she came home early from wherever she’d been.
I run into her, and her body lurches back from the impact.
My arm shoots out and curves around the small of her back while my other hand slides under long, luscious hair that reminds me of my favorite ale.
I cup Ever’s nape and bring her flush against my body.
Her gasp hits me from my chest to my cock.
My cock stiffens, and I drop my face into her hair.
Lilac, honey, and her signature sweetness.
After inhaling a deeper breath, I groan.
Is it wrong to covet my friend’s girl?
Nothing wrong at all, buddy. Carlos’s voice in my head gives me permission. I was meant to be at Crimson rather than drinking away my guilt inside a sparsely decorated house on the anniversary of his death.
I glance up at the heavens before lowering my gaze and staring at Ever’s mouth, a soft mouth that yielded to me and molded to mine when we kissed over and fucking over again.
I stroked myself to completion in the shower to my memories of our kisses.
I woke up with a hard-on to dreams of her small mouth taking the girth and length of my cock.
Fuck. Fuck.
“Baby.” I pick her up by the waist. Thank fuck she wraps her legs around my hips, though she’s shooting daggers at me with her beautiful eyes.
“I’m not your baby.”
“The last I checked, you’re still my girl.”
She smacks her palms on my chest. It doesn’t hurt, but I wince just because I’m a jerk. Concern flashes across her face before she scowls. “Bobby Bliss, I will never be yours.”
Cursing, I grasp her chin and jerk her face to mine. “What did I tell you about never saying never?” My nostrils flare.
She glares. “That it’ll come back to bite me in the ass and steal my heart and soul. Bring it.”
Were she a dragon, she’d be spewing fire and burning me alive.
I jostle her. Her hands come off my chest and interlace around my neck. I smirk. That’s better.
“I intend to,” I murmur on her mouth. “You are mine whether you like it or not, sweetness.” I grasp her bottom lip with my teeth. “You blocked my number. Why?”
“You misled me. You slept at the nightclub because you own Crimson. You, Bobby. You knew the moment I gave you my name that I’m Ty’s sister. You two played football. He was your rival.”
I plow past her accusations. “We have a deal, Ever. An honorable person doesn’t go back on a deal.”
“She does if the offering party misrepresented himself.”
“You spent my money, then cockblocked me.” It’s a shitty card to deal, but I won’t let her convince me I’m in the wrong. I know without a doubt I am. “Hold up your end of the bargain. One day and one night on my terms.”
If my cock weren’t already hard, her withering glare would have the bugger at full staff.
“Cockblocked?” She arches a brow. “You said I get to decide whether our bargain includes sex. Well, I’m saying no.”
Her arms tight around my neck and her fingers playing with the hair at my nape say differently.
“You knew who I was,” she accuses again.
“You must’ve been laughing to yourself when you were video-calling me from your office and private bathroom.
You must’ve laughed even more hysterically when I told you about Ty, that all the girls were wild for him, and that he has the normal name in the family, while I was stuck with Ever. ”
Her voice starts off strong, then slides into this unsure, soft tone that slices my heart in two.
“Never. I’d never laugh at you. And I love your name.
I could say it all day long in a rainbow of emotions.
Happiness. Anticipation. Worry. Tenderness.
Longing. But I wouldn’t say it to mock you unless you and I were joking around.
And I most definitely would not say your name in anger unless you put yourself in harm’s way or were harming yourself. Do you understand?”
Her bottom lip trembles. She looks away from me.
I grasp her chin and tug until we are eye to eye.
I would never treat her poorly, but I did when I withheld the truth from her.
I had the advantage and put her at a disadvantage when I didn’t give her the truth from the beginning.
Still, I have to have my say. It’s important that she understands the reason I had to have the upper hand.
“I didn’t give you my full name, because I wanted the chance for us to get to know one another without my past with your brother biasing your opinion of me.
I didn’t want to tell you I’m Crimson’s owner, because for once in my life, a woman looked at me without seeing dollar signs in her eyes or eye-fucking me.
It’s not arrogance, but I know what I look like, and women can be forward and aggressive as fuck. ”
I let go of her chin, slide my hand under her hair, and cup her nape. “You see me, sweetness.”
And I see her. Ever is dealing with grief, loneliness, and the conflicting urge to be her own person, separate from her brother and his crew and her friends, but she’s afraid.
It must be a nice problem to have. Ever belongs and is welcomed by her family and friends.
I’d give up Crimson and money to be in her predicament.
“Keep calling me out when I’m being a jerk.” I want to do better and be a better person for Ever.
Ever is the moral compass I desperately need to set my life back on course. Good versus evil. Hero versus villain. Me running from what happened the night Carlos lost his life, rather than running toward finding the truth of who wanted me dead and getting justice for Carlos.
Ever bites down on her bottom lip but doesn’t tell me to fuck off or take my hand off her neck. Her brows furrow. “My brother doesn’t like you.”
An emotion I thought had died with Jules’s betrayal surfaces. I want to please Ever by making her worries disappear.
“I’ll change his mind.” I pepper kisses on her cheek, her neck, and along her shoulder where her shirt doesn’t cover.
Why do I feel so much, so fast, for a woman who could ruin me with her connection to my sister and her brother? I’ve sworn to myself I’d never date any of Gwen’s friends, and here I am with one in my arms.
“He’s stubborn.” Her worry lines deepen.
I cradle her ass with one arm—she’s tiny—and tuck her hair behind her ear with my free hand. “You’re worth it.”
She tightens her hold on me. “You don’t understand. He and his crew hate the Bliss brothers, and you’re one of them. He’ll hurt you.”
“Let him. You’re mine, sweetness, and no one, I mean no one, will come between us. You are mine to protect.”
Her eyes widen. “You can’t make that promise.”
“I just did.”
“Take it back.”
“Not on your life.” I fist her hair in my hand and keep her gaze on me with firm but gentle pressure from my hold. “You are mine.”
Her eyes shimmer with unshed tears. I skate the pad of my thumb across the crest of her cheek. We’re alike, me and my Ever After.
We’re both trying to fill the emptiness in our lives left over from losing those we loved and cared about.
Bringing her head to rest on my shoulder with my palm, I glance heavenward. Thank you, Carlos, for sending Ever my way.