11. Chapter 11
Idiot.
Jase was an idiot. If he wasn’t sure, the couple hundred bucks’ worth of whisky seeping into the patio bricks from the glass he’d thrown was a hell of an indication.
No, he wouldn’t have chased her down in Austin if it wasn’t for the money. Why would he? Lindsey knew the score. Graham had dumped her, she’d gotten drunk with Jase, and they had sex. That was Austin. By the time they got to Santa Cruz and the end of the maps, things were different.
We have a good thing. It might even be a great thing. Her words from the pier in Santa Cruz followed Jase into the shower.
Don’t tell me you don’t see it.
Jase scrubbed the lines in his face with his old man’s brand of soap. He did see it. The good thing he blew kept him up at night, wondering when he could’ve told her the truth that wouldn’t have sent her packing.
Taking his inheritance with her.
Okay, maybe it was all about the money, even after Austin. Braving the British backpacker invasion, through the Demons in the desert, punches in the face, getting shot at, chasing her through that smelly nightclub, the cheap motel, the extra day on the road—
The extra day on the road. If it was all about the money, he would’ve rushed to Santa Cruz, cracked open the storage unit, and called Whitlock to collect.
Instead he spent an extra day driving up the coast, and an extra night doing all the things he knew he’d probably never get to do again. With her.
Jase cut the water, clean for the first time in days, and dried himself with a towel that didn’t reek of bleach and scratch his skin.
He forgot Mrs. Aldridge ran towels through the dryer twice with extra dryer sheets, the odd luxury his old man was accustomed to and Jase left behind when he left home.
He didn’t need it—home. Not the soft towels and clean sheets or the piles of junk collecting dust in the corners of his old bedroom. Lindsey could have it all.
Graham was unsurprisingly pissed about their dad’s decision. Jase didn’t give a fuck. Not after Lindsey told him to pack his shit and get out of her life. He’d serve his fourteen-day prison sentence the same way he survived the last ten days.
Blind drunk.
Jase prowled out of the upstairs bathroom naked, because he didn’t give a fuck about that either.
Graham and Helen weren’t around. They sped out in Graham’s Volvo while Jase worked up the gumption to confront Lindsey on the patio.
And if Lindsey caught him, Jase’s naked ass was nothing she hadn’t already seen.
Seen. Touched. Licked. Sucked. Fu—
Jase and his zero fucks plowed into the spare bedroom at the end of the hall just to see if Lindsey was inside.
Worst-case scenario, she’d scream and slam the door on his dick.
Best-case, she’d spot his erection that refused to go down and decide to take her fury out on his body.
There were worse ways to spend two weeks than being used for angry sex with a beautiful woman who hated him.
The spare room was empty of people and spilling with clothes from Lindsey’s open suitcases on the floor.
It was really happening. She was actually living here.
He recognized the green dress hanging over a chair as the sexy little number he’d spent hours underneath in Santa Cruz, when tasting her practically sent her crawling up the hotel wall.
He ran his fingers over the fabric the way he’d skimmed her thighs. It probably still smelled like her—
No. No. Abso-fucking-lutely not.
Jase strode down the hall to his bedroom and rifled through his duffel bag for clothes not held together by sweat and spilled alcohol, finding nothing.
He wrenched open his dresser, the drawers crammed with concert T-shirts from high school and jeans that no longer fit over his quads.
He’d almost forgotten what a scrawny kid he’d been.
Tacked haphazardly to the wall above the dresser were pictures of the unwanted loser, all limbs, long hair, and braces, to prove it.
His biceps nearly split the seams of a Led Zeppelin shirt from the top drawer, and he shoved his legs into the least-offensive pair of jeans from the bottom of his bag. Too much happened today to wait there alone while his clothes went through a much-needed wash cycle.
Too much happened in the past month to sit anywhere alone for long.
He was finishing a tall glass of ice water on his way out the front door when his phone buzzed with a text from a number he didn’t recognize.
She’s going to Walker’s. You know it? A few seconds later: This is Helen.
Walker’s, huh? Yeah, Jase knew the place. What he didn’t know was what to make of this version of Helen, who was trying to help him but was also still terrifying.
He slammed the glass down, the ice cubes rattling, announcing to absolutely no one his change in plans. He was an asshole, wasn’t he? And the asshole still had things to say that might be easier now that his fucks were gone and he was fully embracing the asshole way of life.