by L. P. Maxa
Her words cut, but I couldn’t let her know she wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t over her, and I probably should let go of the fantasy of us ending up together. But then again… “I’ll let it go when you do, baby spawn.”
“I’ve moved on, Crue.”
I chuckled. “Have you? Because the last time we spoke, I was under your skin. I got a big glimpse of that girl I used to know. The one who used to come on my dick and then instantly beg for more.” I was goading her, and I was being an asshole. But that was the only way I’d gotten a reaction out of her a few nights ago. I was living on a wing and a prayer, hoping it would work again.
Avory shuffled her feet, letting me know she was uncomfortable with this conversation. “You’re so fucking full of yourself. It’s disgusting.” She had the same tells she always had.
Avory shuffled her feet, lying to her dad about her plans for the night. “I’m going to a friend’s house after the game, but I’ll be home by curfew.”
I longed for the day that we didn’t have to lie to our parents. “I can pick her up on my way home.” I slung an arm around her shoulders, playing the part of her older protective cousin. “I’ll make sure she’s back before curfew, Uncle Dash.” And she would be. We’d be at the back of the compound, naked and on a blanket underneath the stars.
“All right, you two, you have fun.”
I opened my car door as her dad walked off, helping her inside the cab of my truck. When I climbed into the driver’s seat, she pulled up the middle console and had her mouth wrapped around my dick before we were even out of the school parking lot. My girl was a fucking dream come true and I was the luckiest bastard in the world.
“Crue? Are you even fucking listening to me?” Avory stepped forward, snapping her sassy fingers in front of my face. “I moved on a long time ago, and it’s really time you do the same.”
I didn’t believe her. I never had. I’d hurt her. She’d dumped me, and then spent the next several years making me pay penance for my actions. But when she’d had an out, a way to live her life away from me and the compound where we’d fallen in love, she’d turned it down. And she could say that I didn’t factor into that choice until she was blue in the face, but we both knew it was a damn lie. She was here, in front of me, single and laid bare. It was time I reclaimed the girl that had always been mine.
“No.”
Her doe eyes went wide. “Excuse me?”
“There’s still something there between us, and you know it. It’s the reason you lied to me about moving, and it’s the same reason you lost your shit when I called you on your feelings for Colin. It’s the reason you pushed me. It’s the reason you walked away.”
I closed the gap between us. “We’re explosive, you and I. We always have been, baby spawn. There will never be another man who can love you the way I can, the way I do. Colin sure as fuck couldn’t.” I threaded my fingers through her hair, tugging close to her scalp the way she liked. “I’m done giving you your space. I’m done letting you punish me for breaking us. You’ve been throwing a temper tantrum for half a fucking decade. And now it’s time to grow up, little girl.” I loosened my grip, letting her long locks fall through my fingers.
“Get the hell out.” Her eyes were hard, fire building in their depths. She stepped to the side, pointed to the still-open front door. “Now.”
I watched her for a few moments, taking my time while pissing her off even more. I was done catering to her wishes, to her heartache. I was hurting too. Had been for years. It took two of us to fall in love and two of us to destroy what we had. It was time I reminded her of that. I was done letting Avory Connor run my life. Run our life, our future.
“See you around, baby spawn.” I placed a kiss on the corner of her mouth, riling her up on my way out the door.
Chapter Fourteen
Avory
Now
Marley’s assessment of Crue and me stuck in my head all night. I’d still been thinking about it when he’d showed up at my house a few mornings later. And then he’d said the same thing: that we were explosive and the fire between us was still burning. I threw him out and he’d had the audacity to kiss me before he left.
I’d be damned if I didn’t feel that kiss all the way down to the depths of my soul. And now I was at my parents’ house for dinner, still fucking thinking about it all. Which I’d say was a little inappropriate, but Crue and I had done so many other inappropriate things at my parents’ dinner table.
I bit my lip, trying like hell to keep silent while Crue’s fingers inched their way up my bare thigh. I was wearing my cheerleading outfit, there was a football game tonight. I spread my legs wider, making room for him to do what he pleased.
“Crue, two-a-days start soon, baseball season is right around the corner.”
Crue let out a low appreciative hum and he flicked my clit through my damp panties. “I’m so ready.”
I clenched my teeth, not wanting my wicked smile to give us away either. Crue was ready for something, but it wasn’t baseball season.
“Baby girl, you’re going to have to start driving yourself to school, Crue and Cash will have morning practice.” I should be ashamed of myself, but my father’s concern mixed with Crue’s wandering hands made me feel like a live wire.
“Nah, I’ll take care of her.” Crue moved my panties to the side.
My dad smiled, resting his chin on his fist. “I suppose you could get in some extra study time before school.”
I nodded, my cheeks flushed. I couldn’t open my mouth to speak, a moan would come out instead.
“You kids have plans tonight?”
I couldn’t answer, so I nodded and Crue grinned.
I’d cheered at the game, and then Crue brought me home. We’d stopped in the kitchen to have a snack before we headed out to yet another field party, but then my dad spotted us. He sat at the table and immediately started taking baseball.
“We were going to head out to a party.” Crue moved his fingers lower, teasing my entrance. “But it’s getting late, and I don’t want Avory to miss curfew. Maybe we should just stay here and watch a movie?” He glanced at me, humor and lust evident in his eyes.
“Lex and I were thinking about watching one too, we’ll join you.” He got up from the table. “I’ll pop some popcorn.”
Crue grinned. “Sounds perfect.”
The second my dad was out of sight I dropped my forehead to the table. “A movie with my parents? Really?”
Crue moved his hand away, licking his fingers clean. “Really.” He leaned down, whispering in my ear. “We’ll get a blanket, turn off the lights…it’ll be fun, baby spawn.”
I cleared my throat, and that vivid memory from my mind. Crue was right. Marley was right. I was fucked up, and I’d never be able to fall in love with a nice guy. I wanted to blame Crue. I wanted to believe that he did this to me, that he made me this way. But that wasn’t fair, and was historically inaccurate. I’d craved everything he did to me, always eager for more.
“I always liked it like that.” Shit, I said that out loud sitting with my poor perpetually out-of-the-loop parents.
“What?”
My eyes went wide, my breath caught in my chest. “Um, I always liked burnt rice.” I spooned another bite into my mouth, smiling as I worked to swallow the terrible casserole my mom had made for dinner. “So good, Mom.” I even gave a thumbs-up to really sell it.
“Liar.” My dad coughed into his napkin, spitting some food in there. “You want to tell us what happened with Colin?”
My parents had asked me to come to dinner, and I knew they were fishing for information about my breakup. I hadn’t given them any details after Colin left, and they hadn’t pushed. But it’d been a week and now they wanted answers. I couldn’t blame them.
I moved the dry chicken breast around on my plate, trying to hide it under the doughy roll I couldn’t choke down. “I didn’t want to move to Portland, and I refused to let him pass up that job offer to stay in Austin wi
th me.”
“You could have tried long distance. Did he not want that?” My mom set her plate on the floor, allowing our newest rescue mutt to finish her dinner. But even she didn’t like to eat the food Mom cooked.
“He wanted to stay, or was fine trying long distance. He wanted to make our relationship work.” I nodded, taking a small sip of my wine. “It was me. I wasn’t in love with him, not like he was in love with me. He deserved more.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” My dad reached across the table, resting his hand on top of mine. “He’s a nice guy.”
He was too nice. Apparently, that was the problem. I needed someone to call me a brat and pull my hair in order to fall in love. “He is, and I’m sure he’ll find someone who will appreciate that about him.”
I smiled at them, letting them know that I was going to be okay.
***
After my third glass of wine, my parents had insisted that I stay the night. So, here I was in my childhood bedroom, snuggled under the covers. Even though my sisters lived within walking distance, my mom got giddy when we slept at home. Last year for her birthday, Halen, Marley, and I all stayed at our parents’ house for a night. We’d eaten dinner together and watched movies piled on the couch. My mom cried tears of joy when she caught us up giggling at two o’clock in the morning.
How could I ever think, even for a minute, that I would survive leaving this town? This was where I learned to walk, learned to run. I got stitches after I cut my foot on a rock down by the tank. I’d been chasing Crue and Cash. We were maybe seven and eight? Cash carried me all the way back to my house. Crue? Well, he’d saved the rock, and after I got home from the hospital he'd handed me a hammer and told me to destroy the things that hurt me.
Who knew that ten years later, he’d be the one to hurt me? Think I didn’t conjure visions of using that same hammer on him? Think again.
My phone vibrated on the nightstand. It was late but all my friends from college hadn’t gotten big-girl jobs like I had. I figured it was an invite downtown, so when I saw Crue’s name flash across my screen, I almost dropped my fucking phone.
Crue: You lost your virginity in that bed.
What the hell? Was he spying on me? I closed my eyes, taking a deep calming breath. After I’d broken up with him, Crue had crawled into a hole like a wounded animal. So why now? Why was he pushing me so hard now after all this time? After all the guys I’ve paraded in front of him? After all the years apart?
Avory: I got a new bed after we broke up.
Crue: When did you become such a liar?
Avory: Around the time you became so fucking delusional.
I smiled, proud of myself for that comeback.
Crue: Your window locked, baby spawn?
Avory: Bolted shut.
Crue Matthews hadn’t texted me in years. Like actual years. I was annoyed, but a little intrigued. I didn’t understand what his end game was. I didn’t know what he was after. Did he want to prove that I still wanted him? That he still had the power to make me weak in the knees? Of course he did. No one had ever made me feel the way Crue did when we were kids. He’d been my first love, my first everything. My first heartbreak. My first devastation too.
Crue: I’m sorry about Colin.
Avory: Now who is the liar?
Crue: I don’t ever want to see you hurt Avory. So I am truly sorry if breaking up with him hurt you.
That was sweet. Which pissed me off. I didn’t need him to be nice to me. I didn’t need him to care about my feelings. Fuck him.
Avory: I’m made of tougher stuff than that. A boy broke my heart when I was a kid. Nothing could ever hurt as much as that did.
There, asshole. We aren’t friends, we’re barely family at this point. I didn’t need him texting me in the middle of the night. I didn’t need him dropping by my condo. I didn’t want him to think of me, and I sure as shit didn’t want to think of him. Ever. I should have fucking moved to Portland, if only to get away from him.
Crue: Stupid boy.
Avory: Agreed. Now stop texting me. It’s weird.
Crue: You used to love it when I’d text you at night. I’d wait until you were in bed. I’d demand you touch yourself, tell you exactly what to do with those talented little fingers of yours. Remember that?
How could I forget? And I’d been so eager to please him, so eager to follow his instructions. He’d make me tease myself until he could sneak out of his house and into my window. My stomach dipped thinking about those nights. I rubbed my thighs together, hating my body’s reaction to him.
I should have ignored him. I should have shut off my phone. But that wasn’t who I was, and we both knew it. If Crue wanted to play this odd little game, fucking fine by me. He’d lose.
Avory: I do remember that. I remember everything.
Crue: Tell me what else you remember, baby.
Avory: I remember the baseball dugout before that big playoff game for regionals when I accidentally left my panties behind, and you found them, put them in your pocket, and then hit that game-winning home run.
Crue: Best good luck charm ever.
Avory: I remember the time we went skinny-dipping in the lake, swimming off into the dark while that party got crazy around us. I screamed so loud it scared those ducks.
Crue: We had to walk the long way back around. I carried you and everyone kept asking why my back was all wet.
Avory: Our first kiss, down by the back gate. I’d never been kissed like that before. It felt like all my nerve endings were firing at once.
Crue: Nothing had ever felt so good, so real.
I was leading him somewhere, using his own tactics against him. I wanted to hurt him. But in the process I was hurting myself. I didn’t think I’d care. I didn’t think these memories mattered to me at all. But as I typed, I started to cry. My heart broke all over again for those kids we used to be. My god, we were so in love. So completely enamored with each other. Until we weren’t.
Avory: How about that time we were at family dinner and Uncle Smith showed everyone the pictures of you cheating on me?
Crue: Avory.
Avory: Remember that? I had to smile and pretend like I wasn’t dying inside. I bit my cheek to keep from crying. I bit it so hard that I bled.
Crue: I did it to save you, to save Cash. And you know that.
Avory: Leave me alone, Crue. We aren’t those kids anymore. There’s no use remembering the good times because the bad ones always creep in.
Crue: Only when you let them.
I wiped at my eyes, refusing to let one more tear fall for Crue Matthews. Maybe he had been trying to save me. Maybe he had been trying to save Cash. But that didn’t make it okay, and it didn’t change history. He cheated, and he broke my trust. Without trust, we had nothing.
Chapter Fifteen
Crue
Now
Avory was fucking tough as nails, she always had been. Last night I’d tried to drag up some nostalgia and she’d handed me my ass on a silver fucking platter. I should have known she was leading me somewhere. I should have known she wouldn’t make it that easy for me.
“Yo, you decent?” Cash and Katie walked into my front door, not bothering to knock.
I took another pull from the beer I was nursing on my couch, completely clothed. “And if I hadn’t been?”
“I’ve seen your, uh, stuff more times than I’d care to admit.” Katie sat next to me, stealing the bag of chips I’d been eating for lunch. “I can’t even count the number of times I had to help Cash get your drunk ass into bed.”
Katie and Cash had taken care of me at a time in my life when I’d basically wanted to die. I’d moved to Cali with my brother after we graduated because staying here wasn’t an option. I told Avory I was going to go to the University of Texas and live at home until her senior year was over. She told me if I did that she’d have her parents send her to a boarding school in Switzerland.
“I heard Avory isn’t moving to Portland.” Cas
h kicked his feet up on my coffee table, resting one hand on his wife’s knee.
“Did she tell you that? Or did she lie to your fucking face too?”
“She lied to you?” Katie spoke around a mouthful of chips. “Why?”
“Should you be eating that much salt?” I took the bag away from her, holding it high out of her reach when she made a grab for it.
“You know, I used to think it was sweet that all of you guys were so involved with the females in this family. You go to doctors’ appointments and babysit while people are on bed rest. Joined in pregnancy yoga and made sure they stayed hydrated. But now that I’m the one knocked up, I find the lot of you incredibly annoying.” Katie stood, glaring at me on her way into the kitchen.
“There are some strawberries in the fridge.” I chuckled when she shot me the bird behind her back.
“Avory lied to you about leaving?” Cash seemed content to let Katie and me fight it out, as always. “Why?”
“I asked her the same question, and she told me it was for my own good. She said I needed to move on, and she figured if I thought she was going with Colin, I’d give up on us.”
Cash winced. “Brutal.”
“I think she lied because she’s scared.” I’d thought about it a lot over the last few days. “She didn’t want to leave, and part of that had to do with me.” It had to. Like, it fucking had to or everything I was trying to accomplish getting her back was for nothing.
“Why do you think you factor into her decisions after all this time?” Katie asked while walking in with a bowl of strawberries.
“I feel like pregnancy has given you a bit of an edge.” Katie was the nicest person on the planet, and hearing her spout harsh realities was bumming me out. Like kicking a dog when he was already pretty fucking low down.
“It’s an honest question. What makes you think you still matter that much? I want to know.”
I glanced at Cash and he shrugged, letting me know he was curious as well. I sighed, trying to put how I was feeling into words. “The love I had with Avory, it was so fucking deep. The way we loved each other, I can’t ever imagine someone else being able to measure up. For either of us.” I took another sip of my beer before continuing. “I broke her trust, and trust with us was everything. I deserved her anger, so instead of pushing her, I ran off to Cali with you guys.”