Chapter 19
Shannen
This doesn’t feel like such a good idea anymore.
I’m dancing with Lianna, the bass is thudding through my bones, and bodies are packed tight around us, but I’m not here. I’m nowhere near here. I’m somewhere else entirely, drowning in an onslaught of memories.
Phoenix.
From the moment we first met—two kids who didn’t know what the fuck we were doing but knew we needed each other—to the first time he held my hand, to the moment he just…
stopped. Now I'm replaying the past few weeks with him back, acting like he never left, and he didn’t spend years haunting my dreams night after night.
He’s absorbed everything I’ve thrown at him. My rage, my pain, and my absolute fury at him for staying away when all he was trying to do was protect me from himself.
He’s never once made me feel like I was too much, even when I was trying to hurt him. He’s stood there, completely immovable, while I’ve hurled every cruel word I could think of, and still, he gives me nothing less than his unwavering devotion.
Even when I’ve been at my absolute worst—vicious and petty in ways that should’ve sent him running—he’s stayed. It’s as if he knew he’d have to survive me to get us here. He knew loving me would mean enduring me at my most toxic and deliberately destructive, and he did it anyway.
And now I’m asking him to show me what it was like for him when he couldn’t call me his.
I thought I wanted to know how he survived that particular hell, but maybe I don’t.
It’s been almost thirty-nine minutes—yeah, I’m checking, I’m fucking counting—and I know whatever he’s doing for Lianna and her security system wouldn’t take this long.
Which means he’s down here somewhere in this club.
Jesus, I practically asked him to let someone else put their hands on him while I watched.
Lianna pulls out her phone mid-song, her fingers curling around the back of my neck as she drags me down so her mouth hits my ear.
“Phoenix messaged,” she shouts over the music. “He said he’s done. I’m gonna give you two some time. You good?”
“Yeah,” I yell back. “I’ll go find him.”
She squeezes my hand once as we slip off the dance floor, then she’s gone, swallowed by the crowd, leaving me alone in the middle of a room that suddenly feels too big and too loud.
For a moment, I just stand there, forcing a breath into my lungs.
In through my nose.
Out through my mouth.
Basic fucking biology that my body seems to have forgotten how to do.
I know he won’t be far.
Phoenix never is.
I know he’s somewhere close enough to see me without being seen himself.
Straightening my dress does nothing for my nerves, but I smooth the fabric over the tops of my thighs anyway.
Jordan’s already waiting for me when I reach the bar and places my usual drink in front of me, along with a shot of something clear—vodka, judging by the vile smell of it.
I grimace, and Jordan just laughs, shaking his head. “He said to make sure you drink it.”
Phoenix.
Of course.
So I knock it back, and the burn lights my throat on fire.
I set the glass down and turn to face the crowd.
Bodies move all around me, and the scent of alcohol, sweat, and perfume suddenly overwhelms me.
The music is too loud, the bass so deep I can feel it vibrating in my chest like a second heartbeat.
The lights are way too bright, strobing and flashing, yet somehow I can’t see anything clearly.
It’s stimulation overload, something that only happens when I’m anxious, and right now, everything in me is screaming that Phoenix is near.
Watching.
Waiting.
Answering the sick, twisted request I made with something I’m not sure I’m ready for.
This isn’t just anticipation.
It’s a whole-ass countdown.
I turn slowly, already knowing he’s here—feeling it in my bones before I see him—but nothing could prepare me for actually finding Phoenix sitting in a small booth across the room with a platinum blonde I immediately and irrationally hate.
Tight little curls brush her shoulders, and bright eyes stay locked on him while they talk.
She's fully dickmatized, and I can't even blame her.
I can see it in the angle of her body. The way her tits are pressed together, giving him the perfect view of her cleavage. The careful tilt of her head that exposes her throat and a smile that tells Phoenix she’s his for the night if he wants her.
I look back at him, and he’s smiling. My smile. And now it’s stretched across his face like it belongs to her.
I rip my eyes away fast, too fast, my hands slamming onto the bar hard enough to send pain shooting up my wrists.
I’m trying to rationalize the rage bubbling up inside me, reminding myself that I asked for this.
But it’s killing me and doesn’t quiet this violent need to cross the room and make it very clear that he isn’t available.
Slowly, I turn back around, and when my eyes find their table again, she’s leaning in so close that her lips are practically touching his ear as she whispers something.
When his gaze finally lifts and finds mine across the distance, it cuts through everything—the crowd, the blur of light and noise, it all just disappears until there’s only him.
He holds my stare, never once looking away, letting me see the devastation on his face, but it’s not because he’s in pain. It’s because he’s the one causing mine. He wanted me to trust him when he told me how this felt, and still I pushed.
But buried behind that devastation is rage, and his eyes say everything his mouth can’t right now.
I fucking told you. I tried to spare you this.
My breath stutters, my body goes electric, and the alcohol running through my veins strips away any semblance of reason.
I want him away from her.
I don’t want her breath on his skin.
Realization suddenly hits me, and a wave of nausea curls in my stomach because Phoenix lived this for real, for years.
He did this.
He watched me.
Oh my god—he watched me.
He saw my body move with someone else. He saw hands on me that weren’t his and mouths where his should have always been.
He must’ve been hurt in a way I can’t even begin to fathom because this doesn’t even come close to what he felt.
How could he do it?
How the hell did he do it?
How did he watch me give away the kind of intimacy he would’ve killed for?
How did he stand in the background and swallow this kind of pain without breaking?
He loved me that hard.
That’s why.
He endured it because he always believed I’d come back. Because somewhere in that huge relentless heart of his, he knew we were inevitable and that no matter how much it tore him apart or how deep he had to bury it, I’d be his in the end.
And fuck—knowing that only makes this hurt worse.
The jealousy is eating me alive, but it’s the guilt that guts me. I put him through this every time I went on a date, every time I kissed someone else, and every time he watched someone else hold me while he was silent and suffering in his own personal hell.
Jesus Christ, I did that to him.
His eyes narrow, the smile gone so fast it’s like it was never there. Whatever’s written across my face must be loud as hell because he starts to rise.
I shake my head, just once, and he freezes.
I need a minute.
I need to sit in the flames I begged for.
I owe him this, even if it’s just a fraction of what he suffered.
I stay exactly where I am and watch them like I’m not two seconds away from crossing the room and slamming her face into the table just to stop her from looking at him like that again.
His black hair falls across his forehead as he leans in slightly to hear whatever the hell she’s whispering—probably begging him to shove her to the floor and let him fuck her dumb for the night.
The image alone makes my stomach tighten, but it’s nothing compared to the rage detonating behind my ribs when I watch her fingers slide into his hair. His hand snaps up in an instant, fingers wrapping around her wrist, stopping her from touching him twice—the rejection in his eyes clear from here.
It should be enough that his body recoiled, but it isn’t. It’s not even close, and my feet are already moving before my brain can catch up to this desperate need I have to get to him.
Phoenix’s face turns to mine.
Anger flashes first, then worry, then something that looks close to awe.
He doesn’t know whether to haul me back from the edge or sit there and watch me jump, but I don’t give him a choice.
I climb onto the table, my knees scraping the wood, glasses tipping and clattering as I crawl toward him like some feral creature.
I swing myself down into his lap, and my back hits the edge of the table hard enough to make it rattle.
Then I kiss him.
Mouth to mouth.
Tongue demanding entry.
My hands fist in his hair, yanking his head back, and he groans into my mouth. He grips my hips, his fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks, and I don’t stop kissing him, making it crystal fucking clear that this man is spoken for.
“Hey!”
I don’t acknowledge the shrill voice coming from the blonde beside me because right now she doesn’t exist.
I devour him, raking my nails through his hair—because I can—trying to get closer, but not being able to is driving me out of my mind.
“Excuse me!” she shrieks again, louder this time, but we both pretend she doesn’t exist—it’s not her fault, but I don’t care.
I pull back just enough to tear my mouth away from Phoenix’s, and when I meet his gaze, it destroys me. He’s hurt. I can see it written across his face. His eyes are completely wrecked, his pupils dilated so dark they’ve nearly swallowed the silver.
“No more,” I whisper against his lips.
His large hands slide down to my ass, holding my dress in place as he stands with me wrapped around him.
I lock my legs tighter around his waist as he carries me through the club, weaving through bodies that press in from all sides while the music pounds up through the floor, vibrating through my bones.