19. Risks
19
Risks
HAZE
“What the actual fuck?” A voice wakes me up. A female voice, to be exact. Forcing my eyes open, I grimace at the light of day. Allie is standing in the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest. Not going to lie, she looks like hell. Her hair is all over the place, and her makeup is smudged down her cheeks. Winter isn’t the only one who got hammered last night.
Winter.
My eyes drift to her. To her body next to mine. She’s still sleeping.
“Good morning,” I say coarsely.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, quietly this time.
I rub my eyes. “I called Winter last night. She was blackout drunk and all alone. I picked her up and brought her home.”
“Tell me you didn’t sleep with her when she was drunk, Haze?” She zeroes in on my bare chest. I tossed my shirt sometime during the night.
“What? Of course not.”
The irony isn’t lost on me.
“I hope you know this doesn’t change anything,” Allie says.
“I know.” Boy, do I know it. “She just didn’t want to be alone last night.”
“You should go before she wakes up,” Allie advises.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I agree half-heartedly. “Can you please make sure she gets this?” I sneak out of bed and tiptoe around the room. Picking my coat off the floor, I pluck the black box I got for her out of my pocket and hold it out to Allie.
She takes the box hesitantly. “Haze, if it’s what I think it is…”
“It’s not an engagement ring if that’s what you’re wondering. Just give it to her, okay?”
She gives in, nodding and closing the door as quietly as she can. I throw my T-shirt on, pick up my coat, and walk to the nightstand to open its drawer. I reach for the painkiller bottle I keep in there, spread out a few pills on the nightstand for Winter to see when she wakes up, and give her one last look…
Before I leave the only person who feels like home.
WINTER
I wake up with a sledgehammer rattling my skull—at least that’s what it feels like. Wincing, I peel my eyes open, only to squeeze them shut right away. The pain is slightly more bearable with my eyes closed, but the pounding in my head doesn’t lie: six tequila shot was definitely over my limit.
The memories of the previous night burst through my mind uninvited, and my eyes fly open, headache be damned.
Haze is gone.
He left.
A handful of confusing emotions seep into me: relief, regret… disappointment? I wish I could say I don’t remember the previous night, but I do.
I remember everything.
Haze calling. Me picking up in a moment of weakness. Him rushing into the club and getting into an argument with some dude at the bar. I remember him trying to change me out of my yucky dress. The way I practically threw myself at him. His teeth on my nipple, his tongue on my neck, my moans…
How fucking pathetic can I be?
I even asked him to stay. So much for being mad at him. I face palm myself and glance sideways. Painkillers are laid out on the night table. I reach over and capture the pills into the palm of my hand with a small smile. I know he left them for me. After all this, after I flat out told him he was a moron last night, he still couldn’t help himself.
I grab my phone, secretly hoping to see a text from him. There isn’t one. I do, however, have a message from Caleb. He’s been blowing up my phone, too.
Caleb: I didn’t tell you everything. There’s more.
I delete the text with a swipe of my thumb. I’m not letting him hurt me anymore. I glance down at the oversized T-shirt swallowing my body whole. Pain radiates off the fabric, digging into my skin and reminding me of who the shirt belongs to.
When I step into the kitchen, I’m greeted by an excited puppy, Allie swallowing pills, Will and Alex eating cereal, and Kass cooking eggs. I hear the shower in the distance and assume that’s where Kendrick is.
“Damn, Winter. You didn’t tell us you got cast in The Walking Dead ,” Will grins at the sight of me, and I roll my eyes.
Kass turns at the sound of my name. “Hey, what happened to you last night? We couldn’t find you anywhere.”
She and Will exchange a not-so-subtle look.
The look.
“Not that we were really looking,” Will mutters, so quietly I almost don’t hear him, and keeps eating.
A smirk creeps onto my lips as I pick up Waze and kiss him like a maniac. I’d pay to know what happened after I talked Will up last night. Did he finally grow some balls? Did he win her back?
“I was…” I’m hesitant to tell them. “I was wasted, and Haze picked me up.”
“You called him?” Kass fails to hide her surprise.
“Technically, he called me.” I put Waze down, walk to the fridge, and grab a water bottle for the painkillers.
“So, that’s why I saw him sneak out this morning.” Will’s insinuations are as clear as day.
“Nothing happened.” I bring his dirty thoughts to a stop. But you wanted it to , a voice in my head taunts.
I can’t help but be disappointed that he took off without a word. He could’ve at least left a note or something. Not that I blame him. He probably thought that I’d kick him out anyway.
“Speaking of.” Allie’s head snaps up. “I came to check up on you this morning. I told Haze to leave.”
Realization finds me. “Oh.”
She’s the reason he left?
Ah. Shit. I hate that I’m mad. I can’t feel this way.
“He asked me to give this to you.” She dives her hand into her pocket and hands me a box. No doubt in my mind that this is what he bought when we saw him at the mall. “And no, it’s not an engagement ring. Or so he said,” she assures me.
I stare at the black box between my fingers and walk back to my bedroom for some privacy with Waze on my tail. I crash on my bed with a speeding heart. Waze lays his head on my lap.
I open the box with trembling fingers. Its contents steals my breath away. It’s a golden bracelet. Very plain, simple. It’s gorgeous. Exactly the type I would wear. Haze knows I’ve never been into tacky, big jewelry.
In the box is a folded note. I pick it up. The five handwritten words inside make my heart swell.
In case you ever forget.
I pick the bracelet up, and my composure dissolves at the tiny yet easy to read quote carved on the inside.
You are the risk I will always take.
Tears come up to my eyes, building up and fighting the heck out of me until I lose and allow one to fall. I remember the moment he said that to me so clearly. It was our second night in town when my mom forced him to sleep down in our creepy basement. I sneaked out and joined him when everyone was sleeping. In the middle of mind-blowing sex, I asked him why he was willing to risk getting caught for me.
I was completely oblivious back then.
Maybe, just maybe, this quote is Haze’s way of telling me that the perfect moments we shared before I found out about his lies… weren’t lies, too.
I wipe the tears off my face and reach a point of no return.
I call it the “ Fuck this shit .”
I grab my phone and dial a number I know by heart. I can’t believe I’m calling him. But I have to know.
It rings twice.
A familiar voice comes down the line.
“Winter?”
I consider hanging up but decide I’ve come too far to back down now.
“Hey, we need to talk. Can you meet me?”
Pulling up into the parking lot of the small coffee shop near my place, I overthink my decision and consider driving back home. I recall our conversation. He was beyond thankful that I agreed to see him even if I had all the reasons in the world not to. I told Alex, Will, Allie, and Kass that I had to run some errands. Allie and Kass seemed suspicious but let me go without questions.
I push the door open and scan the warm and welcoming coffee shop. The walls are a pale shade of blue, and white Christmas lights hang all around the room. He’s nowhere in sight. I order a cappuccino and sit at a table near the large stone fireplace, waiting for him to arrive.
As soon as he walks in, he gazes around the crowded shop until he sees me. He waves on his way to my table.
“Hey, I’m so glad you called,” he says and sits before me. Hope and expectation shine in his eyes.
“Caleb, I… I don’t want you getting the wrong idea.”
His smile fades.
“I called you because you said there was more to the story, and I need to know.”
“And you couldn’t ask Haze?” he hisses.
“We’re not talking at the moment, but I’m sure you knew that.” My tone is colder than intended.
“Let me guess, you’re hoping there’s more to the story so you can convince yourself the bastard is worth forgiving and run back into his arms?”
“Caleb, please,” I sigh. “I’m so sorry about what happened between us. I ruined our friendship. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it a hundred times if you want me to, but… right now, I need you to try and put our differences aside.”
With a clenched jaw, he stares blankly at the table.
“You don’t get it, do you? I was happy that you ruined the friendship, Winter. What sucks is you weren’t.”
Regret climbs up my spine. I can’t even blame him. He has feelings for me. Seeing me show up with a boyfriend after I rejected him so harshly couldn’t have been easy. I grew up alongside him. He’s a good guy, I know he is, but he was hurt. And he acted out.
“You’re right. This isn’t fair of me to ask. I’m sorry.” I reprimand myself and rise off my chair.
His hand flies to my wrist. “Winter, wait.”
I look down at him.
“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to help.”
Unsure, I sit back down.
“I have to warn you. If you’re expecting to feel better, you’re in for a big disappointment.”
I wait for him to continue.
“The day I followed him… he met up with some shady guy who gave him a few names, addresses. I didn’t stay through the whole thing, but I heard them talking about…” He doesn’t complete his sentence, eyeing me cautiously as if to decide on whether or not I’m ready. “There’s no easy way to say this. Are you sure you want to hear it?”
Fear grips me.
“Tell me.”
“Haze’s idea of justice is not to put this guy behind bars. He wants to kill him. Said he’s going to pay with his life.”
My heart drops.
“No, he wouldn’t.” I shake my head. “Haze would never kill anyone.”
“I heard him say it, Winter.”
Of course.
Of course Haze would be planning to kill Marcus.
How could I be so stupid to think he’d be satisfied with putting him in jail? Fourteen-year-old Haze had to watch his baby sister die. Watched her bleed out, held her in his arms while she gasped for air, watched her eyes close. That’s why he started working out and learned to fight. He said it was to learn to defend himself and protect the people he loved.
But it was to kill Marcus.
All along.
“Winter, goddamn it. Do you even realize what I just said? Your precious boyfriend wants to kill someone. I just… I don’t understand how, after all of this, you still love him. I’d never treat you like that. I’d never lie to you the way he does. Can’t you see—”
With glossy, empty eyes, I jolt up and grab my coffee. “I have to go.”
“What?” he blurts.
“Thank you for coming.” I’m barely aware of my footsteps tearing through the crowd and out of the establishment. Caleb calls my name once. Twice. I don’t turn around.
Caleb’s wrong. This isn’t the Haze I know. He’s not a murderer. Haze’s a good person. Just a really , really damaged person.
Getting into Kendrick’s car—I had to get here somehow since I don’t have a car—I open the numerous unopened messages Haze sent me. My eyes glaze over every word as I scroll up to find what I need.
Haze: I’m staying with Vic. Please answer your phone.
He’s at Vic’s. I’m done running from the truth. I’m done running from him. He’s been begging me to let him explain for days.
I’m going to do just that.
The sound of my tires screeching against the silent roads is all I’ve been hearing for the past ten minutes. Vic’s area is beyond confusing. Everything looks the same, every building a sad shade of gray. It’s like they copied and pasted the whole neighborhood. I narrow my eyes in a desperate attempt to remember the one and only time Haze and I visited Victor. When my gaze finally lands on the building that seems most familiar to me, I park my car in the guest spot. What can I expect? I don’t have the slightest idea.
Glad that the front door isn’t locked, I barge in and go right up the stairs leading to Vic’s floor. I walk for a while, then come to an abrupt stop in front of door 234.
Am I even in the right building?
I knock with an uncertainty I have never felt before. Time passes.No answer.
This is my cue.
I’m about to walk away when the door opens in a creak.
In front of me stands a very lightly dressed brunette who seems to be in her early twenties. Chewing on gum mannerlessly, she looks me up and down. Her red eyes and the smell of weed spilling into the hall leave very little to my imagination.
“Can I help you?” She arches an eyebrow. The ink on her collarbone reads the name Steve in italic letters. Around it are two poorly done hearts. Was the tattoo artist blind? I cringe. Getting the name of your boyfriend tattooed. Never a good idea.
Says the dumbass who immortalized her first kiss with her ex.
“Uh… Yeah. Is Haze here?” Why am I even bothering? I’m clearly in the wrong place.
“Who’s asking?”
I open my mouth to speak, but someone beats me to it.
“Winter?”
I crane my neck to peek over the drunk girl’s shoulder.
He’s right there.
In the hall.
With wet hair and nothing but black sweatpants on. It’s clear that he just got out of the shower. My eyes drop to his abs for a second too long. He looks drained, tormented, yet so overwhelmingly handsome it’s irritating
Yep, he’s still perfect.
I wish he looked as awful as the way he made me feel.
“Let her in,” he snaps at the girl. I have no idea who she is or why she’s here, but she doesn’t seem like the type of girls to be friends with Beatrice, Vic’s girlfriend.
Twirling a piece of her hair around her finger, tattoo girl steps aside. I walk in.
“Where’s Vic?” Haze asks her.
“Passed out in his room. He’s going to need that rest, trust me,” she smirks, leaving me and Haze equally disgusted.
Wait, Vic’s not with Bea anymore?
“Is this her? The reason you’ve been a fucking soap opera?” Tattoo girl analyzes me some more. “She ain’t all that.”
“Shut up, Kelly,” Haze snarls.
She gives me the nastiest look she can muster and disappears down the hall.
Apologetic eyes drift to me. “Ignore her. She destroyed the few brain cells she had left today.”
I nod faintly. Expecting me to say something, he buries his hands into his sweatpants pockets and sways from left to right. He gives me the puppy eyes, and I don’t even think it’s intentional.
I miss him.
He broke you. Did you forget that part?
I shut the door with one hand. Only then do I become aware of my surroundings. The neat apartment I once visited is now a complete and utter mess. Cigarette butts and holders are scattered across the living room. The couch is covered in bongs, empty glass bottles, empty takeout boxes.
This is where he’s been living?
“It’s not as bad as it seems,” he says like he’s reading my mind. He knows me so well it’s annoying. “So… you read my texts.” His smile is sincere. Hopeful.
“Yeah, I needed to know where you were staying.”
The maybes in his eyes take a blow.
“Did you get my gift?” He gives hope one last try.
“I did. It was very thoughtful. Thank you.” My tone is hard, but my heart is liquifying. I don’t know what he wished would happen after he gave me the bracelet, but the look on his face displays that this wasn’t it.
“What can I do for you?” He runs a quick hand through his wet hair, and my gaze clings to the drops of water rolling down his pecs. Eyes up here!
“Can we go somewhere private?” I clear my throat.
He nods, walks toward what I remember to be the guest room, and pushes the door open. A sliver of guilt throbs in me. He’s sleeping on an old pull-out couch that seems so uncomfortable my back aches just looking at it. He shouldn’t be here. He should be home.
With me.
He breaks the silence. “Winter, if you came to tell me that you never want to see me again… Please don’t.”
Heart squeeze.
“I didn’t,” I reassure him, and he sighs in relief. “I came because I want to know.”
My sentence catches him off guard.
“Everything. You said you could explain. Well, now I want you to. I need you to.” I hang on to what Caleb told me earlier. I have to see if he’s going to admit it to me. Or lie. Again.
Haze nods and beckons me to sit. We both do, the awkward silence in the air so thick it’s hard to breathe.
“Shit, where do I even start?” He drags out a sigh. “It all started at the airport. I got a call saying that Marcus was in Canada, and I swear, before my source told me, he was the only thing, and I mean the only thing keeping me from getting on that plane with you. The second I would’ve found him, I would’ve been on my way back to you.” He goes in for my hand, and I don’t have the strength to oppose.
“I know you think you weren’t enough. That I never came for you. But you’re so fucking wrong, you have no idea. I thought I was protecting you. I thought I’d let you go home where you’d be safe, keep you out of harm’s way while I sorted my shit out. I thought I could get this over with before I started over in a new life with you. I’m so sorry.”
I suck in a sharp breath. “Then what? What did you expect to happen when you found him? What were you going to do to him?”
Please, Haze. I’m begging you. Don’t lie.
Don’t make me give up on you.
Strangely enough, he seems to know how important this answer is because he chooses his words carefully.
“Send him to jail.”
It hurts like hell.
He lied.
“Or at least, that’s what I told myself.” He adds.
My eyes snap up to his.
“I… I want him to die, Winter. I know it’s wrong. I know that I shouldn’t, but… Fuck, sending him to jail isn’t enough. He doesn’t deserve to grow old. He…” His eyes are red, but not from tears—from pure rage. “Des won’t get to. Why the fuck should he? She won’t get to have children, start a family, laugh so hard she cries, kiss the wrong boy and ask me to kick his ass. She won’t get to make mistakes and learn from them. She won’t get to fall so madly in love that she doesn’t know what to do with herself.” He gazes at me so intently I can’t shake the feeling that he’s talking about me. “Tell me, how the hell am I supposed to move on knowing that he’s out there, living his life as a free man when he stole hers?”
I blink back tears. That’s all I know how to do recently.
“And I know you have every right to hate me. You have every right to never want to see me again, but you have to believe me… I didn’t only come for him.”
“How many times did you lie to me? I want to know when you lied, what you lied about. All of it.”
He rubs the back of his neck. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“It’s the only chance we’ve got,” I press him.
Under my pleading stare, he caves. He goes on to tell me he lied about his job, which I already knew, about the address in his pocket, which I also suspected. He tells me he lied about many phone calls. I take it all the best I can.
He lets out a bitter scoff. “Look at me. Running around like a fucking idiot not to lose you, only to lose you anyway.”
I can’t help myself.
“But that’s the point, Haze. You didn’t lose me.”
His lips part.
I rise to my feet and pace around the room. “And I hate myself because I still want you. I still…” I stop before I say too much.
He doesn’t speak, nor does he acknowledge my embarrassing declaration. He just gets off his nightmare of a bed and steps forward. I don’t move away, but I refuse him eye contact. Not having it, he lifts my chin up with his index.
I shiver at his touch and lift my arm up to cup his cheek. He relaxes at the contact, closing his eyes for a half second. My long sleeve ripples down my arm, revealing the shimmery bracelet on my wrist. He sees it. His features light up.
“You’re wearing it,” he points out.
“Well, it… it looked expensive. I felt bad.” I almost choke on my excuse. He’s smiling now. He begins to lean in, with every intent to finish what we started the night before. Except that this time is different.
This time, I can’t blame it on the alcohol.
This time, it’s all me.
He brushes my lips with his ever so slightly, but just before we can cross the line, he backs away.
“Wait,” he says in realization. “There’s another reason why I couldn’t tell you.”
I frown. “What?”
My phone rings.
Annoyed, I pull it out of my pocket, about to send the call straight to voicemail, but the number on my screen stops me.
My brother.
“I’m sorry, I have to take this.” I flip the screen over to him, and he nods. I pick up. “Jay?” I expect this to be a butt-dial since Jaden never, as in ever , calls me.
“Winter?” I immediately know something’s wrong by his tone.
I hear distant voices in the background. He’s in a crowded room. Sniffles? Is he crying?
“Winter, you have to get here. Mom isn’t anywhere. I don’t… I don’t know where she is. They said they called her. Please hurry.”
“Where are you? What’s going on?”
“I’m at the hospital.” His voice is shaky.
At the hospital.
Hospital.
I replay the word in my head a million times.
“What? Why are you at the hospital?”
Muffled cries fill my ears. He’s barely holding it together.
“It’s Dad.”
My stomach flips.
“He got into a car accident. They don’t know if he’s going to make it.”