"Dude, what are you on?" Quinton asks as he wanders into my bare room. "And where did your mattress go?"
"I have no idea," I mutter perplexedly. "And I have no idea."
"What?"
"I don't know."
He sits down beside me on the floor and crisscrosses his legs, but I can't remove my eyes from the cracks. The cracks I'm almost certain are going grow and collapse the entire house. And the really twisted part is, I want it to happen. Want to crumble with it. Because the only way is down.
"You didn't do a speedball, did you? Tristan, look at me."
I shake my head without blinking. "I can't."
He snaps his fingers in front of my face. "What did you take?"
I glance down at the fresh track marks on my arms. My blood veins map my pale skin that cling to my bones. It's been days since I ate or drank anything, days since I wanted to eat or drink anything.
Maybe I should eat and drink something.
Suddenly, I realize how quickly my heart is racing in my chest. So fast that I need to get up. Now.
I jump to my feet as a surge of energy blasts through me. "I need to get out of here," I say, stumbling for the door. I can hear yelling from inside the house. It's probably Delilah and Dylan going at it again. "Need to go somewhere."
Quinton lunges in front of me, blocking my path out of the room. "We need to figure out how we're going to pay back our debt for those drugs you stole from Trace. Otherwise he's going to kill us. You know his reputation--he doesn't back down."
"Yeah, but does it really matter?" I glance at the tattoos on his arm--Ryder, Lexi, No One. "We're all going to die one day anyway, right?"
"Yeah, but you shouldn't die yet," he says, placing his arm over the tattoo. "You know, you could just walk away from this. Let me handle it. Let me take... the fall."
"Whatever, man. I'm not going anywhere." I reach around him and for the doorknob. "I don't care enough to walk away."
"Tristan, you haven't done anything irreversible yet," he says, refusing to get out of my way. "You can still be... saved."
I look over at the cracks in the wall and then back at him. "No. I can't." I yank open the door and he stumbles out of my way.
I walk out of the room and into the living room where Dylan is shouting at Delilah as she cowers in the corner. The room is littered with pipes, needles, a gun, and drugs.
This is my home. This is my life.
"Dude, you better not be fucking going anywhere." Dylan reels away from Delilah and storms at me. "You owe me money."
"I don't owe you shit," I say, rushing for the front door. "So back off."
"Tristan, get your ass back here!" he shouts, tripping over a lamp as he scurries for his gun on the table. "You will not walk away from me."
It seems like I should be scared. He's holding a gun, all tweaked out, eyes wide, too much adrenaline pumping through him. But there's too much pumping through me as well, and I can barely think straight. I should be afraid, right? I don't have a death wish. I don't have any wishes, just like I have no direction except to take another step, so I do.
"You'll pay for this," he snarls, gripping the gun in his hand.
"I'm sure I will," I utter under my breath then turn away from him and jerk the door open, knowing that death could be waiting on the other side. But it really doesn't matter.
Nothing does.
Present Day...
Chapter 23
If you really knew me then you wouldn't be looking at me like that.
Avery
Some people might say I'm crazy. Some people might think I lost my damn mind in the fire. That the trauma affected me more than I'm letting on. I'm almost positive that the therapy group I used to go to would tell me to walk away. When I go to sleep the night after I make the rules with Tristan, I tell myself the same thing.
I tell myself it over and over again.
Every night for the next week.
Just like every night for the next week I dream about the fire.
Reminding me why I'm here.
And what I need to do to make up for getting a second chance, even after what I did.
The thing that makes it easier is that Tristan will leave my life when the home is finished. That leaves little time to get attached and makes it easier to remain friends.
After the incident with Conner, the days go by slower. The cops never found him because he bailed when they arrived and took off to who knows where. I try not to worry about it, but he's always haunting the back of my mind. He'll show up again eventually. Will there ever be a time when I don't constantly stress about him?
As the days go by, I still keep moving forward. Work. School. Mason. Jax. Building a home. Getting ready to turn twenty-three in just a few days. And then there's Tristan. Just a small change but it feels so epically and horrifyingly gigantic. I'm not breaking my no guys rule or anything. I haven't kissed him or thought about kissing him--okay, well, maybe once or twice. And we don't spend time going out, having fun, and partying like most twenty-two year olds do. No, our time is limited to working on the house and lunch breaks. That's it. And he's been doing well on his part with the rules of our friendship. Well, except for the flirting part. Like he warned, he occasionally slips up with that. All I can do about it is attempt to keep our conversations as light as possible.
The air is extra muggy today. Even with my hair pulled up and a tank top and shorts on, I feel like I'm roasting. Holding true to his word, Tristan has his shirt on, but I can tell he's nearly dying from the excruciating heat. Sweat beads his sunkissed skin and his blonde hair is damp.
"He shaved his back," I announce as I stroll over to where Tristan is stacking plywood and scraps.
It's almost noon and the sun is peaking in the cloudless sky. I've been helping Tristan all morning cutting boards and part of me is almost saddened that I have to leave for the bar soon.
"Huh... What are you talking about?" Tristan grabs a broom that's propped against the wood pile and starts sweeping the sawdust off the table. He seems a little distracted, has all morning.
"Mister Asshole saved his back," I tell him... "I just passed by him and yeah, he's hairless."
Tristan glances up at me, his lips quirking. "Are you being serious?"
I nod. "It's so smooth and his skin reflects in the light now. I'm seriously wondering if he got it waxed."
His nose crinkles as he chuckles, the sight and sound a rare beauty. "Dude, that's so unmanly."
I laugh with him. "And really, really amusing. He's all sexist, but goes to get his body waxed like women get theirs done all the time."
He chuckles again. "You're really adorable when you're being snarky."
My heart skips a beat. It's been a long time since a guy has called me adorable. Years even. My smile withers as I remember the last time a guy complimented me, over five years ago. Five very long and painful years ago.
Tristan must sense my unease because he picks up two boards and says, "Here, help me move these to the front of the house. It'll take your mind off whatever just made you frown like that."
I could kiss him right now if I wasn't so concerned about how much meaning would be behind it. With each passing day we spend together, kissing becomes more and more dangerous. Very, very dangerous.
Nodding, I pick up one of the shorter boards, and tag along behind him toward the front of the house where a work crew is unloading wood from an oversized truck. It's been two weeks since we started building the house and it now has a semblance of walls around the foundation, the skeleton of what will be a home for someone who really needs it.
"You know, if we were in Wyoming, we'd be wearing jackets," Tristan says with a grunt as he adjusts the two boards in his arms. Sweat drips from his brow and his chest is damp, but in the most ridiculously sexy way ever.
"How is good old Wyoming anyway?" I ask and seconds later my phone vibrates from inside my pocket. "You said you went there recently, right?"
"It's the same
as it was when you left, I'm sure." His arm muscles ripple as he heaves a board onto the top of a stack. Then he wipes the sweat from his brow before taking the board from my hand.
"I haven't been there in like four years." I glance at the screen of my phone. It's from the unknown number again. After what happened the other night, I'm almost positive it's Conner.
"That's a really long time not to go home, Avery."
I shove my phone into my pocket. "Yeah, I have my reasons."
"Reasons for not going home? Or reasons for asking about home?"
"Both," I admit truthfully. No one's heard anything from my mother in over a year. I have to wonder if maybe Tristan might know something, considering his past kind of crosses over with my mother's. And even though I don't want to look for her personally, Jax's words echo in my mind.
It'd be nice to know if she was dead or alive.
"Well, I'm sure it's the same old same old, since nothing there ever changes," he says as we turn around and start back toward the table saw. "Why did you leave, though? I mean other than the obvious factor."
"And what is the obvious factor?" I ask, knowing full well what he's talking about but I don't want to acknowledge it. That I lived in a place where most people went nowhere, stuck in the rut that continues to repeat through generations. And while I did go somewhere, it wasn't necessarily a good place in the beginning.
"You really don't know the answer to that?" He kicks a rock across the driveway and it skitters toward the outhouses.
I sigh as we arrive at the coolers by the driveway. "Well, I get that you have to leave the state if you want anything to happen in your life," I say, retrieving a mini size bag of licorice from my back pocket.
He brushes strands of his hair out of his eyes then unfastens the tool belt from his waist. "So that's why you left? To make something happen?"
I shrug, not wanting to lie to him, but I can't tell him the truth either. "More or less." I chew on a piece of licorice and offer Tristan one, which he takes. "And I like it here a lot better than in Wyoming." Lifting the lid of the cooler, I grab a bottle of water then sit down on the ground. "It's warmer. And different. And near the ocean."
He places the tool belt on the ground then takes a seat beside me with the licorice hanging from his lips like a cigarette. "Do you go to the ocean a lot?"
I unscrew the cap from the bottle of the water. "Sometimes."
He picks at the scab on the side of his hand. "I've never actually seen the ocean before."
I pour a bit of water down the back of my neck, but it's only lukewarm and isn't as refreshing as I hoped. "Never? Really?"
He rests back on his hands. "I'm not sheltered or anything. I've just spent most of my life doing pointless shit that never took me anywhere." He looks so depressed and perhaps that's why I say what I do next.
"Well, maybe I could take you there sometime," I suggest, practically strangling the water bottle in my hand. "It's only like an hour drive or something, and we're supposed to be friends so... I mean, friends go to the beach right?"
He stares at me then sits up and gently pries the water bottle from my death grip. "You really want to do that? Go to the beach and hang out with me?" He seems doubtful.
"Sure. Why not?" I say indifferently, but my fidgetiness doesn't match my words.
"I can think of a few reasons." He eyes me over as he opens the bottle and pours water all over his neck and down his shirt. The wet fabric clings to his muscles, which is almost as bad as him being shirtless.
I gawk at him, temporarily wishing that I didn't make up that stupid rule.
"Still want me to keep it on?" he asks, grabbing the hem of his damp t-shirt like he's going to tug it over his head.
"Yes." My mouth feels as dry as sand. I snatch the water from him and devour it while he laughs at me. When I finish it, I get up and dust the dirt off my ass. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to work."
He stands up and stretches out his legs. "But I thought you didn't work until later at night?"
"Normally I don't, but it's Friday night and Benny is interviewing for a temporary carder at the front door. Things get a little intense around this time of year so he always hires extra help on the weekends for a couple of months until things taper off when the weather gets cooler. I'm supposed to help with the interviews because he seems to think I have a good sense of people's characters. Although, according to Charissa, it's because he wants to get into my pants."
"I've seen the way he looks at you," Tristan says, annoyed. "I think Charissa might be on to something."
"You sound jealous," I joke over the excruciating truth--that the only reason I still have the job at the bar is because Benny does want to get into my pants. I wish I could quit, but I can't afford to.
"I am." Tristan's expression is dead serious.
A tiny rush of approval shoots through me, but I bury the feeling down. Not going down that road. "But it's a job so it doesn't matter, does it?"
"Tell that to Nova," he mutters in aggravation. "She's been on my case to get a job."
"She seems like a smart girl." I nudge his foot with mine. "What? Pretty Boy doesn't want to work?"
"No, that's not it." His jaw is set tight. "I really, really fucking do. Badly. In fact I'm becoming desperate at this point." He yanks his fingers through his hair, stressed out. "I'm just having a hard time finding a job when I've only worked as a dealer."
"But you're going to school, right?" I wonder why he suddenly appears so stressed out about this. "That has to help."
He shrugs as his arm falls to his side. "Not really. No one wants to take a chance on a twenty-three-year old ex-druggie/dealer, who has no work history and whose major is general studies." He doesn't look at me. "It's pretty clear how much of a waste I am."
"Hey, you're not a waste." This time I kick his foot in a very serious manner. "I hate when people do that--feel sorry for themselves."
"I'm not feeling sorry for myself." He gazes out at the road in front of the house. "It's just the truth."
"No, it's not," I argue persistently. "And whoever told you that is a fucking liar."
He glances at me from the corner of his eye. "Who said anyone told me that? Maybe I arrived at that conclusion all by myself."
"Someone had to have helped," I say, thinking of my mother and Conner and how they helped rip my self-esteem away for a while there, to the point that I sunk so low I gave up. "Yeah, maybe you came to the conclusion yourself, but there's usually outside help that pushes you in that direction... beats you down..." I trail off as my past flashes through my mind, bright and agonizing.
Everything.
Was.
Taken.
Away.
Bit.
By.
Bit.
And then I got it back.
I blink from my thoughts, overlooking the look he's giving me, the one that asks: what's your story? You saw a glimpse of mine and I want to see a glimpse of yours.
I'm not sure what I'm doing but suddenly I'm offering him another chance into my life. "You know what. Come with me. I'm getting you a job."
"And how the hell are you going to do that?" he wonders in puzzlement.
"Hey, I have connections my friend." I wait for him to take my hand, but he just stares at me, waiting for further explanation. "Okay, fine. I'm going to get you the carder job."
He wavers with reluctance. "At the bar? With you?"
I nod, realizing I just gave him more time in my life and he'll get to witness a side of me no one close to me ever sees. Yet I continue, because I want to help him--need to help him. "It's a super easy job, and temporary so it should work out."
"At a bar?" he repeats, astounded.
"Well, it's not technically in the bar, right?" I tuck my hands into the pocket of my red cut-offs. "Just the front door. And besides, I'll keep an eye on you."
"Is that what friends do? Keep an eye on each other?" he asks dubiously.
"I'm not sure, sin
ce I don't have a ton of friends." I'm still offering him my hand like I did in the motel. It's beginning to become our thing and I wonder how many times I'll do it. Just like I wonder if he'll ever offer me his hand and if I'll take it. "All I know is that I want to help you."
His gaze deliberately glides up my body and rests on my eyes then he slips his fingers through mine. "Thanks, Avery. And I really mean that. Thank you. For everything. If you only knew how much this was helping me, well... I'm going to pay you back one day. I promise." An abundance of emotions reflect from his blue eyes. Intensity. Gratitude. Confusion. Lust. Fear. Vulnerability. I swear it's like getting some insight into his soul. In return I should be showing him a glimpse of mine, shouldn't I?
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