British Bad Boys: Box Set

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  I put some space between us, letting her hand fall to her side. I changed the topic. “Dude. I want to be there when you get a tattoo.”

  She blinked, her face losing its glow, obviously sensing my inward retreat. “Oh. Okay. Sure. We’ll have to do that.” She tossed me my shirt. “I guess you need to put that back on.”

  I slipped it over my head. “You ready to go home?” I asked, stalking to the door and opening it for her.

  Her cobalt-blue eyes met mine. “Not really. I still feel all tingly from the adrenaline. Do—do you want to go somewhere?”

  “You wanna go back inside the club?” My voice was incredulous.

  “God no.” She nibbled on her nail, looking indecisive and incredibly lost. “I kinda want to eat something—although I’m not even sure I can swallow. At least get a soda.”

  “You should probably go back to your hotel and get some rest, Remi.”

  “To an empty hotel room? No thanks.” A defiant look grew in her eyes and then just as quickly deflated. “I—I don’t want to be alone, okay?”

  I pushed down the bolt of need that fired through me at her words. “Alright, love. Let’s go then. I have just the place.”

  * * *

  All four of us walked into Tucks, a tiny kebab place across the street from the club—one of the few places in the area open after midnight. Mostly it was used for takeaway orders for people, but it had a few small tables in the back. Spider went and grabbed us one while I stood with Remi and Lulu to order.

  Remi asked a ton of questions about the doner kebab, which is a huge stack of marinated meat cooked by spinning around a heat lamp. It’s considered the best “drunk food” in London.

  She chose the lamb inside a pita with cabbage, tomatoes, and a spicy sauce. After a few nibbles, she sat the food down with a sigh.

  I bit back a curse. Her throat must be too sore to eat.

  Without saying anything, I excused myself, went to the counter and ordered her a vanilla milkshake. Of course, it wasn’t fancy—just a prepackaged drink, but it was cold and easy to swallow.

  I set the drink in front of her, causing her to stop in midstream something she was saying to Lulu.

  “What’s this?” She flicked her eyes up at mine.

  “You can’t eat and this might help.”

  Her face softened. “Oh? Is that a milkshake?”

  “Yeah. Ours are different from the US—less sugary and thinner. Maybe not what you’re used to, but it’s got some protein to fill you up if you’re hungry.”

  Her mouth parted. “That’s so sweet. Thank you for thinking of me.” She opened it and sipped, her face flushing as she gazed at me.

  I nodded and sat back down. Spider watched me, a questioning expression on his face as his eyes ran from me to Remi.

  I ignored him.

  “I can’t get over Evil Chad,” Lulu said later as she played with the chips she’d ordered. She’d been glum since hearing Remi and me describe what had happened.

  Remi sighed. “Lulu, it’s not your fault. See? I already sound much better.” Her voice had improved, but I was afraid tomorrow she’d feel even worse. Declan was training for the UFC, and the few days following his fights were always the worst with soreness and bruising.

  “I’m totally sick that I managed to find the only two douchebags in London and introduce you to them. I should have known it was too good to be true,” Lulu muttered. “Those accents. The hot Mohawk . . .”

  “You’ve told us a million times already,” Spider said. “You’re sorry. You’re a sucky friend. You deserve to be kicked in the vagina—”

  He grinned at her glare. “What? I can’t say that word? You need thicker skin, love.”

  “Oh, this is coming from Spider, the famous guitarist who hides his identity. I don’t even like Vital Rejects,” she snipped. “Suck on that.”

  I chuckled. Spider’s identity was out once he’d taken his mask off. The girls had been surprised at first and, honestly, not overly impressed.

  I’d laughed a lot at that on the way over.

  Apparently the girls weren’t into alternative indie bands.

  Remi’s eyes slid to me. “Are you living at the house this fall?”

  I shook my head. “Currently homeless.”

  “Me too. Hartford got the apartment, and Lulu is in the dorms with her roommate. I’m sure at this point there’s nothing left but rat-holes around campus.”

  I agreed. “Yeah. I’ll be jumping right into apartment searching when I get home.”

  “Maybe if you find something—or if I find something—we can share the place?”

  I froze mid-bite on my pita as three pairs of eyes looked at me expectantly. I swallowed and took a sip of water. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

  Remi snorted. “You’re totally right. God. Crazy, spur-of-the-moment idea. Ignore me because obviously I’m still in shock.”

  I grinned, picturing us living together. “We’d fight like cats and dogs, wouldn’t we? You an Omega little sister and me a Tau?”

  She lifted her shoulders. “Hmmm, maybe, maybe not. I don’t really care about that rivalry.”

  “Hartford does,” Lulu said. A little giggle came out of her. “He’d stroke out.”

  “I was mostly kidding anyway,” Remi said to me. “I’m not responsible for anything I do or say tonight apparently.”

  I let the topic die.

  After we’d finished and cleared our mess away, Lulu and Spider drifted off outside to smoke, leaving me and Remi alone. She played with her wrist, a wistful expression on her face.

  “Remi, what happened to your father?” I asked softly.

  Her face paled.

  “It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me,” I said.

  She took a deep breath. “No, no it’s fine. It’s just I didn’t expect you to ask. We never got too deep with each other that weekend we were together.”

  True.

  “I know how it feels to lose someone,” I murmured. “I’ve been there.”

  Her eyes studied my face, and then as if she’d come to a decision, she nodded. “It—it was a car wreck on my sixteenth birthday. His SUV hit a patch of ice, crossed the median, and slammed into a tractor-trailer . . . Instant death is what the coroner told us. He—he was on his way to pick me up from my piano lesson. We were supposed to go out to dinner that night and eat at this hibachi place that was my favorite.”

  Her hands clenched on the table. “Anyway, I waited around for him for a while then caught a ride home with a friend. Police officers were at my house. He’d given me the bracelet that morning. He’d been so excited because it had belonged to his mom.” She bit her lip. “Life never was the same after that.”

  A sharp emotion pricked at me, digging at my chest, shifting around and flailing about like a restless animal. She’d been through hell. Like me.

  I reached across the table and unfurled her fist, finger by finger, until her palm was exposed. I pressed mine on top of hers and let our hands touch.

  “I’ve never talked about this to anyone except Declan, but my mum passed away when I was ten—stage four lung cancer. She was dead in two months. I barely knew my father, but Declan and I had to leave behind everyone we knew and move to Raleigh to live with him. Life never was the same after that,” I added softly.

  Understanding lit her face. “How—how did you deal with it?”

  “I was a kid, so I cried. A lot. Sometimes a smell would trigger it, someone’s laugh that sounded like hers, a favorite food. I walked around with a piece of concrete in my gut for a year. I daydreamed I was the victim of a horrible joke, and she’d suddenly come back to life and run into my arms outside the school. TV crews would film it and then we’d catch a plane back to London and everything would go back to normal—only this time, I’d be a better kid. I’d pick up my dirty clothes. I’d tell her I loved her more.”

  Her lips trembled. “I used to think the same thing—that my dad would walk in the door,
give me a hug, and then we’d all sit down to dinner. He told terrible jokes, but I miss them.”

  We sat in silence, each of us studying the other one, processing each other’s grief.

  A glint of understanding crossed her face. “Is—is your mom’s death the reason you push girls away?”

  I froze. “Why would you say that?”

  “It would make sense. Loving hurts, but losing someone . . . devastates you. Changes you.”

  The air became charged with something I’d never felt with a girl.

  The thing is people you love do disappear—like Father when I was a baby and Mum when she died.

  I never wanted to revisit that pain again.

  I refused to give someone that kind of power over me again.

  But she was staring into my broken heart, and I was letting her.

  I sucked in a breath. “Yes.”

  “And control is how you cope,” I added a few beats later, coming to my own realization.

  She lifted clear blue eyes to mine. Earnest. Beautiful. She nodded. “Yes. Plans make me feel safe.”

  And those few words were all we needed to understand each other perfectly.

  Why we were broken the way we were.

  A few moments went by, and eventually it became odd that our hands were touching yet we weren’t actually holding hands. She pulled hers away, her fingers once again tracing over her wrist.

  I let out a heavy sigh. “Don’t be sad about your bracelet. I can’t stand it.”

  She flicked questioning eyes at me. “Why do you care so much?”

  Fuck, I don’t know!

  I shrugged, playing it off. “Just glad you’re okay.”

  “I know how lucky I am,” she said, “and I’m going to be more careful, but I’m also going to savor every moment of this vacation. I could be dead tomorrow.” She smiled. “I’m getting a tattoo and asking Lulu to show me how to dance.”

  I nodded. “Since you’re into making changes, my offer of friendship still stands—only if you’re willing to eat at Panera with me.”

  “Okay,” she said after a moment, leaning across the table with a gleam in her eyes. “But we’ll have to have some guidelines. A plan.”

  I snorted at her obvious enthusiasm. “Why am I not surprised?”

  She grabbed a pen from her purse, pulled out a clean napkin, and began scribbling, her deep blue eyes glancing up at mine from time to time as she wrote.

  “I’m almost scared to ask what you’re doing,” I commented, trying to read her handwriting upside down.

  “I’m making rules, or really just one because there’s only one rule for friendship with Dax Blay.”

  I chuckled. “And what’s that?”

  Her eyes lingered on my lips. “No kissing. Ever. Not on the mouth or anywhere that may cause lady parts to tingle. The End.” She sat her pen down and considered me, a little grin on her lips. “It would help if you didn’t have the most perfect ass in the whole world, but I guess you can’t change that.”

  I arched a brow. “Too hot for you to handle?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Shut up, Romeo.”

  I grinned. “You’re priceless.”

  “You think I’m goofy.”

  “No, absolutely not. Sounds like a very good plan. I’m totally on board.” I kept my face straight.

  “Are you sure you can do the no kissing thing?”

  “I seem to recall just a bit ago your hands were down my jeans . . .”

  “Okay, no need to elaborate, Sex Lord.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She pushed the napkin over to me. “Can you sign your name?”

  “You’re such a nerd. Should we pinky swear, too?” But I took the napkin and looked down at what she’d written out.

  “Thank you for the compliment. Now shut up and sign on the line and date it, there and there,” she said, pointing at the hastily drawn lines. “I already did.”

  I shook my head. If this is what it took to be friends with a girl who’d managed to get under my skin three years ago and stay there, then yeah, I was intrigued.

  I signed it and pushed it back to her.

  She pushed it back. “No, that’s your copy.” She got another napkin and redid the entire thing, putting her copy in her purse.

  This was serious to her. I grinned.

  After all copies were put away, she lifted her milkshake up in the air. “A toast to friendship with a guy I once had a three-night stand with.”

  I smiled. “May the odds be ever in our favor.”

  She giggled, and we clinked drinks.

  My eyes landed on her full lips as she wrapped them around her straw.

  What had I gotten myself into?

  7

  After Dax and Spider had seen us off in a cab, Lulu and I headed to The Tower Hotel. A few blocks from our destination we saw the majestic Tower of London all lit up, and because I was still wired, we stopped and hopped out to walk the rest of the way back to the hotel. It felt safe since a few people were still milling around the street, taking in the illuminating glow of the historic building. My foot throbbed slightly, but I knew from experience it wasn’t bad. I powered through the ache with determination.

  Half an hour later, we walked in the lobby around three in the morning. Thankfully most of the guests were sleeping. My bruises had continued to darken as the night progressed, and I could only imagine what they’d think if they saw me with a giant t-shirt and flip-flops. Wild American girls.

  Lulu dragged along beside me as we hopped in the elevator and headed to her room on the twelfth floor. I was on the fifteenth in the honeymoon suite. It sucked we were so far apart, but the hotel had had limited rooms to choose from considering we’d made her reservations at the last minute. She’d been the one that had insisted on separate rooms, mostly because she wanted me to get lucky. And she had plenty of money since her parents were big in the country music scene in Nashville.

  She leaned against the wall of the elevator, obviously exhausted as she gazed at her phone, checking social media. Her mouth was uncharacteristically turned down. She suddenly straightened. “What the heck?”

  “What?” I craned my neck to see what she was looking at, but she swiped the photo away on Instagram. “Was that Hartford?” I asked, a sinking feeling growing in my stomach.

  “Shit. Yes.”

  “Is he with someone?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. You know how hard it is to interpret social media. It’s fake and filtered. You can’t believe half of it.”

  I scowled. “Show me the pic or I’ll just bring it up on my own phone.”

  Sighing, she scooted over next to me and swiped her phone back to the photo. It was Hartford at Cadillac’s, one of the local college bars at Whitman. Next to him—right on top of him—wearing an overly brightly smile was a perky blonde with super white teeth.

  “That’s Katrina Somebody. She’s in most of his pre-med classes,” I said, clicking on the picture, taking in every single pixel, looking for large pores or a flaw on her perfect face.

  Was she prettier than me? Smarter? Funnier?

  Bottles of beer littered the table and several people photo-bombed in the background. Were they together, together?

  I searched Hartford’s smile, his eyes, looking for a clue. His sandy-blond hair had recently been trimmed and his jaw was shaven. Wearing a plaid button-down shirt I’d never seen before, he radiated confidence; no sign of the conflicted guy who’d told me he needed to think about us before he made a final commitment.

  Lulu shrugged. “He captioned it #studybuddy #goodtimes.”

  I flattened my lips, studying how Katrina’s hand curled around his arm, how his head tilted in her direction.

  I looked at the date of the posting. Our wedding night.

  Emotion poured in, making my chest freeze. I took deep breaths and braced myself against the cold wall of the elevator.

  It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s just the guy you spent two and a half ye
ars on out with someone else.

  I wanted to throw up.

  “Remi, I’m sorry,” Lulu said, a pained expression on her face. “I’m just messing up your entire night, aren’t I?”

  “I’m fine.” I breathed out, handing the phone back to her.

  At least I wasn’t tossing out expletives, beating my fists on the walls, or crying. Definitely progress.

  “You’re too calm. It’s kinda freaking me out.” She gave my shoulder a squeeze. “You’re trying to figure it out and put meaning to it, but more than likely, it’s just a random pic.”

  “He looks happy. She looks happy. I think they’re together. Maybe I wasn’t the one for him and he saw it.” I bit my lip hard. Blinked.

  Her face reddened in anger. “If that asshat cheated on you, I’ll freaking kill him when I see him. . . . dammit . . . he’s such a gargantuan ass! He probably goes to some kind of asshat convention each year in, I don’t know, Asshat, Texas.”

  “Tell me how you really feel.” I sent her a weak smile.

  She nudged her head at the pic. “He’s black and white and you’re digital color, babe. You can do better.”

  “Like who?”

  “I may have had more than my fair share of martinis tonight, but I definitely noticed sparks between you and Dax. It’s weird. He’s starting to grow on me. It’s just—tonight at the diner, the way you looked at him and the way he looked at you. I want a guy to look at me like that.”

  “It’s lust. That’s all Dax has to offer anyone. He only wants to have fun.”

  She stewed on that as the door swished open at her floor. “I can walk you to your room and we can talk for a while if you’re still wide awake?” she offered.

  “No. Get some sleep. Don’t worry about me.”

  She grudgingly left. I waited until she got in her room, and then I popped back in the elevator and pulled out my phone, which had been turned off. I turned it back on, but instead of getting on Instagram and stalking Hartford, I pulled up my phone contacts and gazed at the cell number Dax had added before we’d left the diner. I snorted when I saw he’d added his name as Sex Lord—but with a question mark. Was this Dax’s version of humility?