Chapter 16 #2
The friend she’s with touches Fable on the arm and tells her she needs to go.
We both wave at her and she leaves, threading through the crowd until it swallows her up.
The song changes, still fast though not as hyped up as the previous one, and Fable swivels her hips, the smile on her face alluring.
Sexy as hell.
“I missed you.” She brushes her chest against mine and I feel like I’m going to shatter. Both from being turned on and the earlier tension I dealt with over the stupid divorce. I wish he hadn’t called. He ruined my mood. My girl senses it, too. Her smile turns into a frown. “What’s wrong?”
I shrug, not wanting to dwell on a bunch of bullshit tonight. I want to focus only on her. “I’m absorbing other people’s problems and stress, which I know is ridiculous but I can’t help it.”
Her frown softens but it’s still there. She probably feels sorry for me and I don’t want her to. I want her free and beautiful and flirtatious. Fable behaving like this makes me feel free. “I can help you with that,” she says, her voice full of promise.
I dip my head to hear her better. “You can?”
“Oh, yeah. You need to learn how to let go of all your troubles.” She whispers the words in my ear, the sound of her sexy voice sending a jolt of lust straight through me. “You chasing me here is the first step.”
I settle my hands on her hips and pull her in closer.
The music is loud, the room is stifling, and the crowd is thick.
But with Fable’s arms slung around my neck, her body close to mine, it’s as if we’re the only two people in this room.
“First step to what?” I ask, confused. My brain fries when I’m with her.
She trails her fingers lightly down my nape and I shiver. “First step to acting like two normal people who are madly in love and can’t keep their hands off each other,” she murmurs right before she kisses me.
I drown in the taste of her, in the feel of her sinful body snug against me. I slide my hands back and forth over her ass and she whimpers, the sexy little sound sending a zing straight through me, making me hard.
Damn. I want out of here. It’s too public, too crazy to indulge like this with her. We’re completely surrounded by people and the song changes yet again, to a popular song that’s been overplayed on the radio, though no one here seems to care.
Including my girl. She’s withdrawn completely from my arms, a little smile teasing her kiss-swollen lips, and she starts moving to the beat. “Dance with me,” she shouts over the music.
I slowly shake my head, my gaze dropping to her hips.
The way she moves, as if she were born to dance.
She knows I’m watching, too, and she puts on a show, just for me.
I watch the sway of her hips in those too-tight jeans, how she thrusts her chest out as she lifts her arms above her head.
The white lace of her bra peeks above the neckline of the tank she’s wearing beneath the plaid button-down shirt and without thought, I grab her.
Let my hands rest on her waist as she moves against me.
“You don’t dance?” She arches a brow and I do the same in return as my answer, standing completely still while she keeps moving. Her hips shift beneath my palms and she turns around, brushing her ass against my front, making me harder.
Glancing over her shoulder, she offers me a sultry smile but doesn’t say a word.
Just keeps dancing while I keep my hands on her.
I pull her closer. Closer still until her back is nestled to my front and I slip my arms completely around her, my hands pressed flat against her stomach.
I smooth them down, to the tops of her thighs, and I swear I feel her tremble beneath my touch.
She looks up at me, her eyes gone wide, her lips glistening as if she just licked them. We’ve been playing a game since I got here and I’m ready to claim my prize.
Her. She’s all I want. All I’ll ever want.
I never believed in the fairy tale, even when I was a little kid.
My life has been full of tragedy since my mom died.
My illusions were shattered completely when I was fifteen years old.
I became such a shell of my old self, I never believed anyone could truly accept and love me.
It sounded pitiful when I admitted to Dr. Harris that I firmly believed I would go through my entire life alone, but it was the truth. I felt completely unlovable.
Disgusting. Shameful.
Being with Fable, all of those old, harsh feelings are slowly evaporating. She loves me for me. She knows every single dark and horrible thing that’s happened to me in my life and she doesn’t care. She wants to help me, stand by me, be there for me no matter what.
She flat-out wants … me.
I’m probably thinking too fast, wanting to move way, way too fast for her comfort, but having Fable in my arms at this very moment, smiling up at me from over her shoulder, I know without a doubt that this is the girl I want by my side forever.
She’s embedded herself so completely into my life and my heart, I can’t imagine being without her.
It’s just that simple and that complicated, all at once.
“Let’s get out of here,” I whisper in her ear and she nods once, her hair brushing against my face. She smells amazing, her cheeks are flushed, and all I can think is how fast can I get her home so I can have her naked beneath me.
Taking her hand, I start to guide her off the dance floor, noticing a group of obvious sorority girls watching us as we go. Fable turns and flips them the bird, sticking her tongue out at them, and I yank on her hand hard to get her out of there before she starts a fight.
“What the hell was that for?” I ask her as we walk down the back stairs and push open the door that leads out into the parking lot.
“They were giving me shit. Saying catty stuff about me. Next thing I know, you walk into the room, and they all flip out.” She smiles and squeezes my hand. “They thought you were smiling at them but really you were smiling at me.”
I shake my head. “Who gives a shit what they think?”
“Me. I do. I’m always looked down upon. They’re practically creaming their panties over the fact that you showed up and I loved knowing you didn’t give a shit about them.
You came there for me.” She pulls me to her and lifts up on tiptoe so she can kiss my cheek.
“Letting everyone know you’re mine makes me feel good. ”
I feel exactly the same way. I entwine my fingers through hers, and we walk toward my truck quietly, my mind racing. How do I tell her I want her in my life for always? Should I even bring it up, or would it scare the crap out of her? The last thing I want to do is put pressure on her.
But I don’t want to lose Fable either.
I hit the keyless remote and the doors unlock, both of us slipping inside the truck’s cab. Fable pulls her cell out of her pocket, a little gasp escaping her as she hits a button on the screen to make a call.
“Where are you?” she asks the moment whoever is on the other end answers. “What do you mean the place is empty?”
I watch her, see the worry and concern wash over her face, the way she white-knuckle grips the phone as she holds it to her ear. My skin prickles with uncertainty and I’m curious as hell over what’s happening and who she’s talking to.
Knowing whatever it is, it can’t be good.
“I’ll be right there. Yeah, I’m with Drew. I’ll have him drive me straight over, okay? So don’t leave.” She pauses. “Ten minutes, tops. Stop panicking, Owen. We’ll be there.” She ends the call and turns to look at me, her eyes wide with fear. “Owen’s at the apartment. He says it’s empty.”
I frown. “What do you mean, it’s empty?”
“Like almost everything is gone except some of our personal stuff. The furniture, all our things, the food in the kitchen—it’s all gone.” She nibbles on her lower lip, lost in thought.
“Were you guys robbed?” I can hardly wrap my head around what she said. It made no sense.
“No, no way.” She shakes her head and laughs, though she’s definitely not amused. More like she sounds distraught. “I think—I think my mom did it. I bet she packed up all her shit, had her loser boyfriend help her, and moved everything out without telling us.”
I grimace as I pull out of the parking lot and turn toward Fable’s place. “Who the hell does that sort of thing?”
“My mother.” She leans her head back against the headrest and sighs. “I told you how I wanted to move out and take Owen with me, but I hadn’t gathered up the courage to tell her yet. Guess she took care of that, didn’t she?”
“But what you’re saying, it’s like she … abandoned you.”
“She abandoned us both a long time ago. I’ve come to terms with it. Owen hasn’t. He still believes our mom loves us and wants to take care of us. He’s young; he’ll figure it out someday.”
The bitterness in Fable’s voice makes me hurt for her.
We both come from really screwed-up situations.
With parents who don’t seem to give a shit about us, but in radically different ways.
I wish I could help heal her heart. She may say the way her mother treats her and Owen doesn’t bother her, but I know she has to be lying. It probably hurts like hell.
My father’s indifference and neglect hurts me to this day. My mom’s death—I sometimes feel like she abandoned me, and it wasn’t even her fault. That’s how irrational my thinking is.
And I can’t even go into what Adele’s done to me. I’m completely fucked up from the mind games she played on me for far too long.
The moment we pull into a parking slot, Fable’s already out of the truck, running toward her apartment building. I follow behind her, taking a little more time, only because I want her to get in a few private moments with her brother first.
When I finally walk into the apartment, I’m shocked. The place is literally empty. No furniture remains in the living room. The table and chairs are gone from the small dining nook. Every cabinet door is hanging open in the kitchen.
Owen and Fable are leaning against the kitchen counter. She has her arms around him and his face is pressed against her shoulder. Tears are streaming down her face, but she doesn’t look sad.
She looks majorly pissed.
“I hate her,” she says vehemently. “I can’t believe she would do this. She took my bed, Drew. She took Owen’s, too. And all the furniture in our rooms. They dumped out all our stuff that was in the drawers and left everything in a pile on the floor.”
“How could she have done this, hauled everything out of here so fast?” I glance around the empty room, amazed that everything’s gone. I’ve only been inside her apartment once, but I remember it crammed with a bunch of stuff.
“She has friends. Or I’m sure her loser boyfriend has a ton of friends. I bet they plied them with beer and they hauled everything out as fast as they could.” She shakes her head. “Owen and I both left before six.”
And it’s past eleven now. “So they had at least five hours.”
“It’s amazing how fast you can work when you need to.” Her mouth screws up into an angry twist.
My arms literally ache to comfort her. Pull her into a hug and tell her everything’s going to be okay. But she’s too busy taking care of her brother, and right now he’s her number-one priority.
Feeling helpless, I walk down the hall and glance into Fable’s room. There’s nothing but a pile of clothes and miscellaneous stuff lying on the floor, as she’d mentioned. Same with Owen’s room, though his is an incredible mess. Her mom’s room is completely empty.
This is truly some of the craziest shit I’ve ever seen.
An idea comes over me so perfect I stride back into the living area, excited to tell her. It’s the perfect solution to their now very major problem.
“I want you to move in with me.”