by L. P. Maxa
Crue nodded, pulling his cell out of his back pocket and speaking loudly. “Yeah, I’ll catch up with you two later.” He glanced up, winking at me as Cash helped me down.
Yeah. Crue had always had that flask. And he’d always needed it when it came to dealing with me.
Chapter Ten
Crue
Now
I wasn’t being an asshole. Well, okay, I was. But I was also being myself. I was being the guy Avory fell in love with all those years ago. I’d never coddled her. I’d never bowed to her whims. I challenged her, and she challenged me right back. When we broke up, she put distance between us, her anger simmering from afar. But I needed that hate to blaze in my face. I needed that spark left between us to ignite. I needed to make her burn for me, the way she used to.
Her chin lifted defiantly, highlighting her sharp jawline. “I’m moving to Portland.”
I closed the small gap left between us. “See, that’s where you’re wrong.” I pointed back in the direction of her childhood home. “That nice guy, sleeping peacefully in your parents’ guest room because he oozes respect, he isn’t the guy for you. You’re reaching. You’re playing it safe. You’re trying to be someone you’re not. Nice isn’t what you want, and we both know it.”
“Maybe I’ve changed. Maybe I like nice. Maybe I love nice.”
“I know exactly what you love, Avory.”
“No you don’t. You know nothing about me.” She was staring up at me, the fire I craved burning hot in her beautiful eyes. She was pissed. But she was also turned on. She was gearing up for a fight, begging to be put in her place. No, that tech dude would never be what she needed. If he was, she wouldn’t be daring me with that gaze of hers. The heat was missing between them, and she was seeking out my warmth like she was encased in ice.
“Go home, baby spawn, before I wrap my hand around that pretty throat of yours and prove you wrong.”
She put both her hands on my chest, using all her strength to try to shove me back. “Fuck you, Crue.” She shoved again and again, until she was out of breath and panting. “I fucking hate you.” She shoved me one more time and knocked the flask out of my hand before turning away.
“There’s a real fine line between love and hate, baby.” I watched her stomp through the tall grass, tracking her movements until she was on the safety of the gravel road that wound around the compound.
I’d spent the last five years giving Avory space, giving her the time she needed to see that we were end game. I stayed on the edges of her life waiting for her to forgive me. I didn’t care that she dated, or at least, I didn’t openly care. But that guy? I’d be damned if I let him move my girl across the fucking country. He wasn’t the guy for her anyway. He was safe and boring, and he treated her like she was a porcelain doll, doting on her and giving her her way every chance he got.
But my girl didn’t like to be loved like that.
“Harder.”
I looked up at the gorgeous girl on her knees above me. Her head was thrown back and she was riding my hand, her nails digging into my shoulders. We’d started out the night watching a movie in my parents’ media room. But that hadn’t lasted long.
“Crue, harder.”
I wrapped my free arm around her small waist, flipping us over and laying her out on the ground. “You are the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.” I threaded my fingers in her hair, tugging her head back, exposing her throat. I kissed her flesh, licking my way up to her ear. “You remember the safe word, baby?”
She nodded, and I added a third finger inside her tight pussy, giving her exactly what she was demanding. What she was always demanding from me. More. Harder. I had to work my ass off to be enough for my girl, and I fucking loved it.
No. That guy she claimed to love would never be enough for her.
She wouldn’t be happy with him, and she wouldn’t leave with him.
She couldn’t.
Chapter Eleven
Avory
Now
“I did something bad.” I was pacing in Jett’s office. It was after midnight and luckily he and Marley had both been up at MJ Botanicals. When I left Crue by the back gate, I’d immediately run across the compound, searching out someone to confide in. They had a conference call with an overseas company and the time change was working in my favor.
Jett held his hand over his mouth, stifling a yawn. “You mean other than break up with that super-nice guy?”
Marley’s eyebrows rose to her dark hairline. “You dumped Colin already?” She shuffled some papers on the desk and closed her laptop. “I figured you’d at least wait until you guys got back to Austin.”
Shit. Should I have waited? Once I’d made up my mind, I couldn’t seem to take another minute to end things. Ugh. I was a selfish brat. I broke up with him at my parents’ house and he’d had to pack and leave in front of them. I was the worst. But that wasn’t the current issue at hand.
“I just lied to Crue.” I was pacing, and my watch vibrated on my wrist, telling me I’d met my activity challenge for the day. “I told him that I was going to Portland with Colin. I told him that I was in love and happy, and moving.”
“What the hell for?” Jett kicked his feet up on his desk, knocking over a thankfully empty coffee mug. I originally came to talk to Marley, my sounding board of a baby sister. But Jett was good with advice too. He didn’t sugarcoat things, but he tried to soften the inevitable blow.
“At first, I was trying to help Crue. I thought maybe if he thought I was leaving, he’d finally move on. But then he kept challenging me and shit. Like calling me on my feelings for Colin, and saying all this stuff about how I didn’t love him and he didn’t own my heart.” I paused, taking a deep breath. “Which pissed me off because it kind of turned me on, you know? And I was not expecting that. I don’t compare the guys I date to Crue. I swear I don’t, but my fight with him highlighted what had been missing between Colin and me.”
“Anger and verbal abuse? Is that what was missing between you and the tech genius?” Jett nodded, lips pursed. “Makes tons of sense.”
“It’s not anger, or abuse. It’s, uh, I don’t know, it’s—”
“Passion.” Marley sighed, like we were all stupid and she was tired of dealing with our ineptitude. “You and Crue, your passion is tied up in the way you two don’t back down. You get off on it. You were so young, so impressionable when you fell in love. You don’t know any other way.”
I’d never thought of it like that before. I was only fifteen when Crue demanded I cancel my plans before hauling into his lap, kissing me senseless. Was Marley right? Had Crue and I shaped each other so irrevocably? Were Colin and I doomed from the start because he was a nice guy and I could only fall in absolute love with assholes?
Jett pointed at Marley. “Look at MVP, putting that double minor in psychology to good use on the fucked-up people in our family.” His gaze switched from her to me. “So you lied, he called bullshit, and you got wet.” He waved his hand in the air, encouraging me to go on.
“So I hit him.”
“Physical abuse too, huh? You two are kinkier than I thought.” He sighed. “Closed fist? Backhand? How weird did this get?”
“I pushed him more than hit him, I think.” I shook my head, mad at myself and mad at my first love. “He pissed me off and I reacted. I pushed him and I told him I hated him, and I can’t seem to stop shaking now.” I held my hands out, palms down, showing them the tremors that started as soon as I walked away and left Crue standing in the dark alone, the same way I’d found him. “Fucking Crue.”
“Fuck you.” I shoved his chest, hating him for flirting with another girl, even though I knew it meant nothing. “Fuck you, Crue.”
“Stop.” He grabbed my hands and spun me, wrapping his arms all the way around my body as I vibrated with anger. “You’re being a fucking brat, Avory.”
I struggled in his hold, wanting nothing more than to take all my sadness and hurt and anger out on him. He could
take it. “Fuck you. I hate you. I hate this. I hate all of this.”
“I know it hurts, baby.” He kissed the side of my neck. “It hurts every time one of my buddies stares at your ass. It hurts every time I have to watch them ask you out. It hurts when I have to listen to those chicks whisper shit into my ears. It all hurts, Avory.” He overpowered me, picking me up and sitting down with me in his lap, his arms clamped tight. “But it’s all worth it, because at the end of the day, it’s you and me. All the crap we go through fades away as soon as we’re alone.”
“I fucking hate you.” I was crying, all the power behind my anger gone. It was like he’d siphoned all my frustration, pulling it into his body.
“You don’t.” He kissed my neck again, one of his hands threading into my hair. “You love me, baby.” He tugged my head back, fusing his lips to mine. “And I love you. I love you so fucking much.”
“Do you want to be with Crue? Is this what this is actually about?” Jett was standing now and staring at me as I tried to shake the unwanted memories from my mind. We were explosive back then, there was no doubt about that. So maybe Marley was right, maybe we fucked each other up a long-ass time ago and neither one of us would ever be normal again.
“No.” I took a deep breath, clenching my hands into fists. “I wasn’t in love with Colin, not in the way he was with me. He deserved better, and I never truly wanted to go with him. But I didn’t choose Crue over him.” That wasn’t a lie, and I was proud of my reasons for staying. Proud of myself. “I chose myself. And my family.”
“Then get the hell off this compound before Crue finds out you lied to him.” Marley rose as well, both of them seemingly done with me and this day. “I told you Crue would assume that you stayed because of him, and that was part of the reason you lied, we both know it.”
“I was trying to help him let go, that’s why I lied.”
“You’re afraid that he’ll keep hanging on, and you’re afraid of what you’ll do if he doesn’t let go.” Marley cut me off at the knees, laying the truths out there that I didn’t even know existed.
“I don’t love him anymore.” I didn’t. I’d moved on so very long ago. He’d hurt me and I’d ended things. From that moment on I didn’t let Crue control me. I didn’t let myself miss him. Hell, until recently I never really even let myself think of him. These memories that kept flooding my mind were new, and incredibly inconvenient.
Jett snorted, putting his hands on my shoulders to lead me down the hallway toward the front entrance. “Then you really shouldn’t have felt the need to lie.”
Chapter Twelve
Crue
Three days. That’s how long I’d been holed up in the old red barn. I’d spent the weekend drinking and slipping back into the despair I’d felt when Avory broke up with me. She was leaving. Fuck. She was choosing Colin. She was making a mistake. She didn’t love him, not really. But how was I supposed to make her see that? If I pushed, would she push back? If I demanded her attention, would that only drive her away faster? I was so unsure of my next move and it was pissing me the hell off.
I knew she still felt something for me. I knew it. I’d witnessed the spark that remained between us the other night by the back gate. She’d been angry, she’d yelled and shoved me. She’d raged against my body the way she had when we were young.
But that was days ago. And I’d been too chickenshit to venture outside of this former grow house ever since. I was terrified that she’d still be here. I was terrified that she’d be gone. I was afraid that my family would be talking about how happy they were for her. I was afraid my aunts would be planning a going away party. I was being ruled by fear and uncertainty, and it felt as pathetic as it fucking sounded.
That wasn’t me. Not anymore. I needed to get my shit together so I didn’t become the worst version of myself all over again. Losing Avory would be painful, but letting her slip away without a fight would be crippling.
“Well, look who decided to grace us with his presence.” Jett leaned back in his black leather desk chair, grinning as I tossed him the contracts for the private plan bringing his newest round of investors into Austin later in the week. He was being dramatic. I’d only neglected to come into the office on Monday.
“I’ve got to get to work on the RiffRaff tour schedules for next year, so unless you need anything else, I’m headed to my other job.” I had two, one here at MJ Botanicals and one in Austin at RiffRaff Records’ head office.
“You’re going to Austin today?” Jett pulled an envelope from his desk drawer with Avory’s name written in thick red sharpie across the top. “Can you drop this at Avory’s loft? It’ll save me the cost of a courier. Thanks.” He turned back to his computer, like he hadn’t handed me a smoking bomb.
“I’ll pay the cost of the courier.” I dropped it back on top of the contracts I’d given him. “I’m not going to Avory’s.” I’d never been to her town house, and I sure as fuck didn’t want to head there now to watch her pack.
“Oh okay.” He picked the envelope up and put it in the drawer it’d come from. “I thought maybe you’d be going there to tell her bye at some point or something. But no big deal if you can’t handle it. I’ll get it sent over this afternoon.”
“Can’t handle it? What’s that supposed to mean?” I couldn’t, but he sure as fuck didn’t need to know that.
“Look, I get it, Crue.” He held his hands up. “I wouldn’t want to see my first love packing up her place to move across the country to be with another guy either.” He hit his chest with the side of his fist. “That would be like a knife to the chest.”
Was he reading my mind? Or was I being that fucking predictable? Either way, I didn’t like it.
“What are you talking about? I thought Avory broke up with Colin this weekend?” Talon walked into the office, talking around the apple he was eating, giving me more hope than I’d had since I was eighteen and had ruined everything good in my life.
“What?” I stepped closer to the blond germaphobe, barely resisting the urge to grab him by the shirt collar. “Avory broke up with him? When?”
“Uh, Marley said Avory wasn’t moving to Portland.” Talon’s eyes jerked from me to Jett, like he was unsure of what he’d stepped into.
I narrowed my gaze on Jett, towering over him, daring him to lie to me. “What the hell is going on?”
“You are the actual worst, you know that?” Jett sighed, shaking his head at Talon.
Talon jerked back. “What the fuck did I do now?”
“I wanted Crue to storm into Avory’s apartment and demand she stay, make this big speech or gesture or whatever. And then he’d see that she wasn’t packing and that Colin’s stuff was gone.” Jett threw his hands in the air. “It was going to be this epic moment and you fucking ruined it.”
Talon rolled his eyes, throwing his apple core at Jett. “You’re the most dramatic dude I’ve ever met.”
I ignored their typical back and forth, focusing on the important issue instead. “She lied to me?” Avory fucking lied to me, and then slapped the shit out of me when I called her on it? I knew she wouldn’t leave. I knew she didn’t love him. “Why? Why would she lie?”
“Go ask her.” Jett pulled the manila envelope back out of his desk, launching it to me like a Frisbee.
Chapter Thirteen
Crue
Now
I held the envelope with Avory’s name on it in front of me like a shield as proof I had a valid reason to see her. Hey, it wasn’t my idea. I’m doing Jett a favor.
I knocked on the white door, listening intently, praying I didn’t hear Colin’s voice. Maybe Talon had been wrong. Maybe they’d gotten back together. Maybe she’d open the door and all I’d see were stacks and stacks of brown boxes stuffed with her life inside.
“Crue?” She must have looked through the peephole because she said my name before she even opened the door all the way. “What are you doing here?” She was wearing tight leggings with a black camo pattern and
a black sports bra. Her hair was down and hanging to her waist, and her pouty lips were painted a cherry red. She always looked like she’d stepped off a shoot for Playboy. And no matter how much time went by, my dick always hardened at the mere sight of her.
I held up the envelope, working to clear the instant lust from my voice. “Jett asked me to drop this off on my way to RiffRaff.” I handed it to her and then stepped past her into her loft. I’d never been here before. She’d never invited me, and I’d never felt the urge to barge in until today.
Rich caramel leather couches sat on a vibrant vintage area rug. Between the couches was a glass coffee table edged in brass, which reflected the enlarged photographs hanging on the walls I recognized from her mom’s old photo albums: spilled liquor bottles, and broken glass. They were images from the first tour Aunt Lex went on with the Devil’s Share. I’d been so right about Avory. This girl, my girl, would never leave her family. No matter how much everyone annoyed her, no matter how irritated she pretended to be, she loved every single one of us.
“This envelope is empty, Crue.” I turned around to see her standing by the front door, the package upside down. “Did Jett send you over here as a joke? Or did you lie to me so I’d open the door and let you in?”
Fucking Jett. I was going to wring his meddling little neck the next time I saw him.
I scoffed, not answering either of her questions. “If we’re going to start talking about lies, how ’bout we start with the ones you told me the other night?”
Avory crossed her arms over her chest, drawing my attention there, her hip jutted out to the side. Instant fucking attitude like always. “I was trying to do you a favor.”
I raised an eyebrow, stepping closer, catching the scent of her shampoo, which smelled like high school and warm summer nights. “Doing me a favor? How the hell do you figure?”
“You need to let this fantasy of us go, and I thought if you assumed I was leaving with Colin that maybe you’d finally be able to get over me.” She sighed, like she was bored with our conversation.