CHAPTER THREE Johanna
CHAPTER THREE
Johanna
“ALL TIME LOW” — JON BELLION
Six Years Ago
My stupid, asshole brother.
What is he thinking, leaving me alone in this house all week with a guy I barely know?
Hurricane.
My skin prickled when Brandon had said it—like I’m a damn porcupine. Except it doesn’t hit the same way it does when Grayson calls me that.
It feels… charged.
With what?
I have no idea.
All I know is even though he’d been quiet the whole drive—except for the moments when he wasn’t—the loudest part about him is the silence.
The space he gives me. The things he doesn’t say.
The sideways glances. The way he’d ordered for me without even asking what I’d want.
The part where he just watches me and acts like he knows me.
Not in a creepy way.
In a dangerous way.
The worst part? He hasn’t been wrong.
I had been rattled by the fact that my brother isn’t here. Annoyed he hadn’t even bothered to tell me he’s shoving me off on someone else.
I needed the space Brandon had given me to eat in silence. I kind of hate that he’d noticed, but I feel the chill towards him thaw for the same reason.
The thing is, no one ever seems to be able to give me what I need.
They either push or pull, always wanting something from me that I can’t give or they can’t have.
My time.
My opinion.
My body.
But Brandon hasn’t wanted anything. Not even my gratitude—and still, I’d thanked him.
I’m not sure why I had. It’s like I forgot I don’t do softness.
When we had gotten back to the house, he’d led me to my room and told me goodnight, something glimmering in his eyes as he’d said it.
I thanked him again.
Twice. In one night.
Who the hell is that girl?
Because it’s certainly not me.
Maybe it’s the way he looks at me. He doesn’t look at me like an obligation, or some favor he’d agreed to handle out of loyalty to my brother.
It’s like he sees straight through the sarcasm and the eye-rolling and the brick-wall exterior and finds something...
human. Like he thinks there’s something in me worth holding onto.
He shouldn’t think that.
God, he really shouldn’t.
I know myself. Know how easily I can flip the switch from calm to chaos. Know what happens when people get too close.
They get burned.
Because I’m not the nice girl.
Or the funny girl.
Or the charming girl.
I’m Hurricane Johanna—the girl who leaves only destruction in her path.
Guys like Brandon don’t deserve to be dragged into my mess.
Yeah, he’s older. More put together. Probably thinks he knows better, and that’s the danger—he doesn’t.
He probably just thinks I’m interesting. A little intense. Probably thinks we could have a little fun. Maybe he thinks he can handle me. Maybe he thinks he can tame me.
I hate that part of me wants him to try.
But even if he doesn’t know better, I do.
I can already feel the warning signs. The way he makes my chest feel like it’s on fire. The magnetic pull I don’t know how to name or how to stop—only that it will wreck me, and probably him, too.
It has to stop.
I stand from the bright white comforter on the bed and cross the room, just to remind myself I can.
Throwing open my suitcase, I change quickly into an old vintage band t-shirt that used to belong to my dad and sporty black leggings that don’t smell like airplane, rushing to crawl back under the safety of the covers.
But the images my mind conjures once I close my eyes?
Definitely not safe.
“God damn it,” I whisper into the darkness.
Brandon watching me lick the salt from my fingers like it captivated him. Picturing what it would be like for me to do that to him.
I force my eyes open and shove my hair out of my face, staring at the ceiling fan instead, watching it spin in slow, monotonous circles while begging the heat in my chest to cool. As if it would be that easy.
I blink slowly before allowing my eyes to close again. The second they do, it’s instantaneous—the fantasy snaps back into place, but now it’s hotter, sharper, and more persistent.
“Needy for me, Hurricane?” he’d whisper with a dangerous glow in his eyes.
His fingers would trace against the small of my back and tease my waistline, probably calloused and rough from years of playing bass. The texture of his hands would feel so fucking good.
My thighs press together instinctively as the heat travels from my chest to the pulsation between my legs, and I find myself wishing Brandon’s tongue was there to relieve the tension.
A low, frustrated sound rips from my throat. I can’t remember the last time I felt this wound up, this restless over a guy—this hungry.
A tremor runs down my spine as I accept that the frustrations are winning.
I release the grip that my hand has on the duvet cover and slip it beneath the sheets—hesitantly at first, giving myself one last chance that I don’t take to banish him from my mind. Knowing it’s far too late, now with a desperation for relief, my fingertips brush against where I’m aching.
I inhale sharply, like I’ve just plunged into cold water and finally resurfaced.
“Fuck,” I breathe.
It’s not enough. Nothing close to what I’m imagining it would be like to really be with him, but this is what I’ve got for right now.
I move my fingers again in slow, deliberate circles around my clit, letting the rhythm build and the tension coil tight and hot in my core. Every stroke sends another wave of heat rolling through me, and it takes everything I have not to moan his name.
The fantasy takes over again before I can stop it.
He’s got me pressed against the passenger side door of his Bronco before he swings it open and hoists me into the car.
He’s breathing against my neck and kissing down the side of my throat as he keeps one possessive hand on my upper thigh while the other sneaks up and under the band of my pants.
Oh, how I wish my hand was his.
“You feel fucking perfect with your legs wrapped around me right now,” he’d say, his voice hot and breathy next to my ear.
I bite down on my lip as my hips lift to my touch, chasing the pressure, the friction—the illusion of him. A new rush of pleasure curls through me again, sharper and more intense than the last, and my breath comes faster.
I know I’m close now.
Now my fingers move with intent, ready for the wave of relief to crash over me. The pressure builds and tightens until I can’t think, can’t breathe… can’t do anything except pray for release.
I use my free hand to pull on my nipple in an attempt to push me over the edge, and when it finally hits, it hits hard.
Like a fucking freight train.
The pleasure shudders through me as my spine arches and my hand moves from my breast to cling on to the sheets. I gasp into the empty room as the images of him dissipate behind my eyes and dissolve into white-hot static.
For a few long seconds, everything is quiet. All I hear is the whirring from the rotating blades of the ceiling fan and my pulse in my ears.
It’s peaceful. Still.
As my breathing slows and my body settles back into the mattress, I tell myself I’m fine.
He doesn’t matter.
I won’t let him matter—because he can’t.
If moments like this, moments with my imagination, are all I get with him—so be it.
Eventually, I fall asleep, but not before I promise myself I’ll call Grayson first thing in the morning and remind him exactly why he always says he wishes he’d been an only child.
The blinding California sun coming through the window of the guest room reminds me exactly why I hate LA the moment I open my eyes.
Everything out here is too much—too loud, too golden, too fake.
Too damn bright.
I roll over to grab my phone from the nightstand, my t-shirt twisting further around me as if I’d been fighting demons in my sleep. Maybe I have been.
I tap on the screen—dead.
Of course.
Huffing in frustration, I get up, find my charger, and shove it into the wall. My phone buzzes to life like it’s as irritated as I am.
I tap the contact card with Grayson’s stupid face on it. He answers on the third ring.
“Well, well,” he says, too casually. “I take it your plane didn’t crash on the way to LA?”
“No,” I say, the ice already layering my voice. “But yours might if you don’t get your ass back here. Where the hell are you?”
He laughs like it’s not even a big deal. “Good morning, Hurricane Johanna.”
My jaw clenches. “You know how much I hate it when you call me that.”
“Let’s just get it over with,” he sighs. “You are calling to yell at me, aren’t you?”
The audacity.
“Gee, Grayson, what gave it away? The fact that you lied about being here? Or the fact that you dumped me on your bandmate like I’m some kind of emotionally unstable package?”
“I didn’t lie,” he says. “I just… didn’t clarify.”
“You told me you’d be here,” I whine, knowing exactly how annoying I sound. “I didn’t come here to spend the summer with three guys I barely know. You still haven’t even told me where you are.”
“I’m in Seattle,” he tells me, finally. “And we both know you’re only here to spy on me for Mom and get away from that school she’s making you go to. Let’s not pretend you came because you missed your big brother. You outgrew that excuse when you were six.”
“Spying?” I scoff. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Am I wrong?”
I can’t lie anymore. He's not.
“You could’ve at least pretended you wanted to see me,” I mutter.
“Joey, I did—I do want to see you,” he admits. “But I don’t want Mom knowing anything about my life. I’ve told you that. It’s easier if I stay out of sight. Easier for you, too.”
“Your logic skills are impeccable,” I snap, the sarcasm dripping from my voice. “So, again, just to summarize—you thought the best course of action was to leave me in a house with three guys I barely know and hope for the best?”
He sighs. “I left you with Brandon.”
“Right,” I say. “Because he’s so solid. So dependable. It doesn’t change the fact that I don’t know him, and he’s not you.”
“That’s not fair, Johanna.”
“You know what’s not fair? That you dropped me on him like some kind of ticking time bomb, warned him I’d probably be a problem, and assumed he’d care enough to keep me in line.”
I hate how much it sounds like I’m defending Brandon.
Because I’m not.
Not really.
“Joey,” Grayson says, gentler now. “He’s the most solid person I know. He keeps all of our heads on straight. I left you with him because he’s the one who doesn’t cross lines. They’re all like brothers to me, but Brandon—he’s the one I’d trust to protect you if it ever came down to it.”
I wince. I can’t help it.
“You think you left me with another brother,” I realize. “Another you.”
“Yeah,” he says, like it’s obvious. “Brandon has a sister your age. He’ll protect you the way he would if it were Rylee.”
God help me.
He has no idea what he’s done. No idea the guy he thinks of as a safety net and would never cross a line had looked at me last night like I’m gravity. Like I can pull him under if I want to.
The worst part?
I do want to.
But I can’t—and Grayson can never know I ever felt this way.
“Okay, bro,” I say, my voice flat. “Thanks for the update.”
“Joey—”
“It’s fine, Grayson. I’ll see you next week.”
“You sure you’re okay?”
No—but he doesn’t need to know that, either.
“I’m great. Everything’s great.”
Now I just have to figure out how to make sure it’s still true when he gets home.