by Jo Raven
He ignores me. “Have you heard from your girl?”
My girl? Not… “Mind your own business, dude.”
He also ignores my questionable brand of friendliness – but hey, it’s morning, I’m hungover, and he’s supposed to be doing me a favor, not torturing me.
“Haven? Heidi? What was her name?”
“Fuck you, man.”
“Pretty girl, honey chestnut hair, great rack, long legs?”
“I said, fuck y—”
“And so in love with you.”
I swallow hard. “Whatever.”
“Head over heels. Her eyes would light up when she looked at you. She’d smile, that silly, faint smile you only wear when you—”
“Shut up, Jared.” I scrub a hand over my face, scratch at my beard, avoid his shrewd gaze. “She left, and you know it. Why the hell are you rubbing it in?”
“Why did you split up?”
“She’s the one who left.”
“You drove her away and now you spend your nights moping and fucking around. Was it worth it?”
Jesus fucking Christ. “Wake me up when we get into town. And remind me to take a cab next time.”
Seriously.
Scratch what I said at the beginning about being goddamn friends.
Motherfucker.
I manage to cut my hand pretty deep while working on a car at the Garage – don’t ask, I fucking dunno how it happened – and was sent to get stitches and then home early, like a kid caught doing mischief at school.
It feels like a punishment all right, because at home all I can do is think, wallow and rehash everything that went down between Hailey and me.
Fuck, I need to stop thinking about her.
And for the record, I’m not moping.
Just being pensive, is all.
I just don’t get how she got under my skin, when no other girl ever did. When I never wanted a girl like that. With a need melting my bones. I never had to work to get a girl before, never worried I wasn’t good enough for her. I fell damn hard for Hailey.
And look where it got me.
Jesus Christ, that’s enough of this self-pity party. There’s not even booze to go with it, I finished it all. Not even my trusted bottle of Scotch has more than two drops left.
Here I thought I had enough booze in the apartment to get an army unit drunk. Had, being the operative word. Somehow, at some point, I drank it all and guess what?
It solved jack shit. So I don’t fucking know why I’m still looking for it.
The booze, not the solution. I doubt there’s a solution other than pulling my head out of my ass, accepting Hailey is gone for good and starting over. I’ll just… What?
Hit restart? I wish it was that simple. Maybe I’ll go punch the bag at the gym, even though my hand’s fucked up.
Hell if I care. I’m running on a strange sort of fury, mingled with regret and sorrow and the need to do something or I’ll come apart.
A knock on the door brings me up short.
Only one person I know knocks on the door instead of ringing the damn doorbell. What the hell does he want now? Chewing me out this morning wasn’t enough?
I open the door for Jared, and his gaze immediately slides to my bandaged hand. The guy never misses anything, but today I’m over the psychoanalysis, thank you very much.
“What,” I growl, “do you want?”
“Is that a way to greet your neighbor?” He pushes past me with the ease of long experience and plants his ass on my sofa. “Call her.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Beg all you want.” He leans back, spreading his damn legs, making himself all comfortable. “But you should listen to me.”
“Or you should shut your trap.”
“Call her.” He smirks at me. “Otherwise, with the way you’re going, you’re gonna get yourself killed.”
I wince. “Dunno what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“No? Three weeks ago, you crashed your truck and you walked away alive because you’re one lucky bastard. Two weeks ago, you burned your arm on an engine so badly you were sent straight to the ER.” He’s counting the accidents on his fingers.
Fucker.
That burn still hurts, dammit.
“And now this,” he goes on.
“This doesn’t fucking count. Cutting my hand a little isn’t fatal, Jared.”
“No accident is fatal until it is.”
I stare back at him. “Bullshit.”
“And love isn’t love until it is. Cherish what you have, dude.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t have Hailey.”
“You’re not trying to get her back, man.”
“And what would you know about love, huh?”
A shadow passes over his gaze, and I don’t have to ask to know that there’s a story he has never told me. I won’t ask.
That shadow looks a lot like sadness and regret, and I have enough of my own right now.
Because, fuck, why did Hailey have to go? Why did she have to stab me in the back?
And why is this guy intent on breaking me all over again with all these goddamn questions?
I stalk to my room to change for the gym. Still time to punch the hell out of that bag and pretend it’s my own face.
“You should call her, Kaden!” he hollers after me, and I lift my hand to give him the finger as I stumble into my room and stare blindly at my open closet.
What’s the use of listening? I never listen. Stubborn as a one-horned bull, my dad used to say.
Which is probably why I should have seen it all coming…
Chapter Four
Hailey
Hey. I’ve been meaning to tell you this. I accidentally took with me the T-shirt you wore in bed. You know, the one that says ‘Hailey Shit’? I mean I bought it for you and… Anyway, it was a mistake. I will send it back. I’ve just been busy, and I wanted…
[unsent text message]
“Trent,” I hiss into my phone, “stop calling me!”
“You want me back, Hailey, admit it. You were happy we talked yesterday.”
“No, I wasn’t!” The lady sitting beside me in the dentist’s waiting room gives me a reprimanding look, and I turn away, lowering my voice to an almost non-existent whisper. “I wasn’t.”
Oh God, why did I ever think that answering one of his calls would convince him to leave me alone?
And even worse, why does his voice remind me of good moments and make me wish to have them back? I mean, he’s right, we had some great times.
Right up until he put his dick into my cousin and kept doing it until I found out. By chance. So why am I even thinking of the bright spots in the fraud that was our relationship?
Jeez. I’m weak.
I’m lonely.
“…meet up at your place,” Trent is saying, and I blink, the waiting room with its stark white walls and gray seats coming back into focus. “Watch a movie, drink some wine. Relax.”
“I…” I close my mouth, images of me and Trent on the couch hitting me like a ton of bricks. We used to do that. A lot.
Holy shit, am I that desperate to say yes? As if I don’t know what kind of guy Trent really is?
I ignore as best I can other images – of me and Kaden sitting on his couch, doing anything but watching TV.
Touching.
Kissing.
Roleplaying.
Fucking.
God, that was hot.
He’s hot.
And ugh… why am I thinking of him again? That douche.
“Look, I got to go now,” I say quickly and disconnect, before my weakness gets too much to handle.
What was I thinking, answering that phone? I should have blocked that asshole’s number.
And I’m not talking about Kaden here, although… yeah. Not that Kaden ever texted me since I left.
Why would I get involved with two assholes in a row, and fall so hard? It’s as if I can’t learn to save my life.
Quite literally.
“Call Kaden.”
“No.”
“Come on, Hailey.” Maggie makes the best puppy eyes as she stirs her hot chocolate, hip propped against the counter of my IKEA kitchen. “You’re miserable. I bet he is, too. Call him.”
“Jesus, Mags, come off it, okay?”
“You know my grandmother never called my grandad after a misunderstanding. Then he went to war and when he came back she didn’t recognize him. He had to try everything to convince her it was him.”
“That was a movie. But good try, and passable acting. Brownie points for effort.”
“Oh really. When will you tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“What happened between you guys. I thought you were so deeply in luuurve, and it gave me hope – because as you know my love life is non-existent and I live vicariously through my friends – and then you go and leave the guy and don’t even give me some juicy details to chew through!”
“Are you done?”
“So what is the deal, anyway?” Maggie grumbles when I turn away. “We always told each other everything. Don’t shut me out, bestie. Tell me?”
I snort, but I’m caving in. There’s only so long a girl can hold out against her best friend. For so long I kept it all bottled inside, as if that would make it less real, but I’ve been choking on it. Suffocating.
So I guess it’s no surprise it all comes rushing out. Verbal vomit alert.
“He had texts from a woman on his phone, Mags. And pictures! He’s been cheating on me all this time, and I never had a clue. How’s that for naïve, huh? After what happened with Trent.I should know better, right? But he was so handsome. And sweet. And hot, and I…”
I fell so hard I think my heart broke.
“You sure it wasn’t his sister or something? On the phone?”
“He doesn’t have a sister.”
“Or sister in law?”
I shake my head, angry that my eyes are prickling with tears. Didn’t I shed enough already? “I’ve seen his sister in law in pictures. This one looked nothing like her.”
“And was she sexting him?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Was. She. Sexting. H—”
“No, she wasn’t.” I fume at the idea. “Thank God she wasn’t. But she was… very familiar with him.”
“Ah. Familiar as in…?”
I open a cupboard, not really looking for anything, to avoid punching my bestie for pushing so hard, probing wounds that haven’t scabbed over yet. “As in, she called him hon, and said she missed him. And sent him kissy pics!”
“Kissy pics. Wow.”
“Don’t laugh!”
“I’m not.” She puts down her mug to lift her hands, brows arching, all fluffy-kitten innocence. “I would never.”
“Ah-huh.” But I smile a little, my anger deflating.
“Was he replying to these texts?”
“I don’t know! I don’t… Look, wouldn’t you be upset? Finding the texts and pics?”
“I… guess.” She makes it sound like a question. I don’t like that. “If he was promiscuous. If he stared at other girls. Gave you strange excuses to come home late. Did he do all that?”
“No, but come on. He never talked to me about this woman.”
“Did you ask?”
I grab a random mug from the cupboard and study it for chips. I didn’t ask him. I accused him of seeing another woman, and he said he wasn’t.
I didn’t believe him.
“Hailey—”
“You say you have no experience in love, but now you’re saying you’d be above it all? That seeing a pic of another woman on the phone of the man you—” You love. “You just wouldn’t care?”
“I never said that. What I meant was… what if you jumped to conclusions because of your history?”
“You make me sound like a criminal. ‘History.’ Huh.”
“You know what I mean.”
Carefully, I put the mug back inside the cupboard. I do know what she means. She means what happened with Trent broke me, broke my trust.
Maybe she’s right.
And I hate the tiny niggle of doubt in the back of my mind.
“He didn’t take me to his apartment often,” I whisper. “And didn’t talk to me much about his family, his life.”
“But he did take you. And you know what his sister in law looks like.”
I nod. All true. He has trust issues, too, I know that. His ex, a casual hook-up if he’s to be believed, broke that trust, going behind his back and talking about their sex life, then officially accusing him of deviant practices. She dropped the charges eventually, but the damage was done.
Could Mags be right? Should I call Kaden? Should I—?”
No.
No frigging way am I putting myself through that again. I’m done with love, with men.
With Kaden Hansen. We were an unlikely couple from the start – the artsy photographer from downtown Chicago and the handsome mechanic with a penchant for ass-play and raw, rough sex.
Only a miracle could throw us back together again.
They say you should be careful what you’re wishing for.
Then again, I hadn’t realized how much I did wish for it until it happened, and by then it was too late.
Part Two
UNFORGIVEN
Chapter Five
Kaden
The light shining into my eyes feels like knives. I try to turn my head away from the pain, but my head is glued to the pillow. Or weighed down by rocks.
Either way, I can only groan and suffer until the light goes out.
So much fucking better in the dark.
“Well, hello,” a woman’s voice says.
“Wha zup?” I ask, and pause, because my brain hurts and my mouth is doing its own thing, not paying much attention to what I want to say. “Wha,” I try again, “happen?”
Fucking hell.
Just how drunk am I? I feel as if I drunk a truckload of beers. Or maybe chasers? That would do it, wouldn’t it?
Doubt wiggles in the back of my head like a worm. This has happened to me before, hasn’t it?
Wiggle.
There was a time I woke up on the floor of my bathroom, and couldn’t remember my own name.
More wiggles.
It’s fine. I mean, that time it took me a few moments to get my bearings. Remember what I’d done the night before. The girl I’d fucked behind the bar. Her name and all.
So it will come back to me in a minute.
The reason why I’m lying in a bed that isn’t my bed. In a room that isn’t my room. Is it a hotel room? I glance at the bare walls, and wince at their whiteness.
Doesn’t feel like a hotel room.
I’m so tired.
I can’t remember how I got here. Or why I am here.
Wait. Wasn’t there a person in the room just now? Where did they go?
I try to roll my head and a groan tears out of me in response to the blinding pain exploding inside my skull.
Holy motherfucker.
Closing my eyes tight, I struggle through the agony, and it goes on and on until I think I’ll die. My head will blow into pieces. Jesus.
And then it stops – or I pass out, I don’t know which, and frankly I don’t care.
“What is your name?” the annoying guy with the penchant for torture asks me again, shining the pen light in my eyes.
“Told you already.”
“Tell me again.”
“Kaden.”
“Kaden who?”
“Kaden—” It’s right on the tip of my tongue. I mean, obviously, I’m Kaden…Kaden who?
Why the fuck can’t I remember my own name?
The wiggle in my mind is expanding, turning into a snake trying to swallow me whole. I’m shaking, my breath coming in a funny rattle.
“Don’t panic, Kaden,” the man says in what might pass for a soothing tone of voice. I’d punch him if I wasn
’t so shaky. “This is perfectly normal.”
Well then.
“Fuck you,” I manage through chattering teeth. “This isn’t fucking normal.”
He shakes his head as if I’m making him sad, and turns to go.
“Wait!” I make a grab for him, but don’t manage to catch him. “What is my name?”
“Kaden,” he says with a perfectly straight face. “It will come back to you, I’m sure.”
That makes one of us.
Because it should have come back to me already, shouldn’t it? What kind of booze makes you forget your name for so long?
How many hours will I need?
There’s a glass of water on my bedside table. I can’t remember anyone bringing it, but I grab it and take a long gulp. I just need to hydrate, and maybe eat something.
Yeah, eating something would be good. It will help me recall what the fuck I did to land in this… hospital.
I am in a hospital.
Never a good sign.
My heart is booming in my chest, and I slam the glass back on the table, feeling sick. My stomach is churning, threatening to bring the water right back up.
Why am I in a goddamn hospital? What happened?
What do I remember?
I try to think back, but my head starts to throb. My heartbeat pounds behind my eyes, hammers against my temples.
Fuck. Who can tell me? Who can I call?
A face flashes through my mind, and I lean my aching head back, relieved. Yeah, of course. I may have forgotten my own name, but I could never forget hers.
I need to call my girlfriend.
I need to call Hailey.
“Some people are here to see you,” the nurse says, a nice lady with a low voice that is very much appreciated, given how my headache only has a) blinding or b) ‘shoot-me-now’ levels.
“Hailey?” I rasp hopefully. I’ve asked for her several times only to be told they don’t have her contact information.
I really need to declare her as my next of kin one of these days.
“No, not Hailey,” she says, dashing my hopes. “Your family is here.”
“Really?” I blink at her nonplussed. “So fast? I’ve only been here an hour.”