I shake my head. “Wow. Just wow. I’m going to give you about five seconds to explain why I would even be remotely interested in throwing myself at Chris like a piece of meat until he decides he wants to fuck me like some kind of animal.” I don’t mention how a shameless part of me—a part located just between my legs—heats at the idea and all its dirty implications.
“A hundred thousand dollars,” Alec says. His eyes don’t shift this time and he doesn’t flinch. “Cash, and I’ll take care of the taxes and everything on my end. You get him to write the book, you get the money. It’s that simple.”
I lean my back against the door and brace myself because my legs feel suddenly weak. I already saw how bad a liar Alec is, but he’s showing no signs of dishonesty now. He’s just watching me with those lifeless eyes, waiting. My brain instantly jumps from all the bills and debts I could pay with that kind of money, to how I could invest in my blog and Amelia’s beauty school.
“You’re serious?” I ask.
“I’m serious. He writes the book, you get the money. It’s that simple.”
“And he fucks me too,” I say dryly.
Alec shrugs. “Probably. Yes.”
“Assuming I actually believe you, and assuming I’d actually do this… how would I trust you to follow through?”
He pulls a folded stack of papers from his pocket and opens them up so I can see. “A contract. You can have a lawyer look it over if you want to be sure it’s legit. I’ll even pay their fees.”
I run a hand through my hair, shaking my head slowly. “I can’t do it. I don’t care if Chris is Satan himself. I’m not going to sneak behind his back so I can make a few quick dollars. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.” Even though the right words come out, they only thinly cover the greedy desire to do whatever it takes to get that check, and I’m worried if he pushes the issue at all, I’m going to cave.
“No? So you’d protect your delicate little conscience while he stays up there self-destructing his career and his life? You get to sleep easy at night knowing you didn’t try to help him because it would’ve been wrong. Think about it. You get to do the right thing and you get paid for it. Don’t kid yourself,” he says, looking at our small house. “You need the money.” He sticks the contract in my hand. “Think it over. My number’s in there if you change your mind.”
I slip back inside a few minutes later when I’ve composed myself enough to keep my sisters from figuring out something is wrong.
“What did he want?” asks Brooke, who apparently decided bacon and eggs were more important than finishing her makeup or getting dressed.
Amelia looks up curiously too, with that same concern she’s been wearing since Chris turned me away two days ago.
“Nothing, really. Just wants to know if Chris told me anything about working on a new book. I guess he was supposed to have some new big novel out and his publishers are getting worried.”
“Has he?” Brooke asks through a mouthful of bacon. “Told you anything, I mean.”
“We’re not exactly best friends,” I say.
“Then what do you two do when you’re up there?” she asks.
I shake my head, sitting down to the plate Amelia made for me and shrugging. “Argue? I guess? Or it’s more like I keep stupidly trying to be nice and he keeps reminding me he’s a jerk.”
“Ah,” says Brooke. “Don’t feel bad. Falling for an asshole is a womanly right of passage. It’ll make you appreciate the next guy who comes along more.”
“I’ve never fallen for an asshole,” Amelia says thoughtfully. “I don’t see the appeal. I mean, I want a guy who will baby me when I’m sick and ask how my day went. Who wants some grumbly jerk?”
“It’s more complicated than that,” I say with a sigh.
“Yep,” Brooke agrees. “The way they get you is making you think you can fix them. No matter what they say, people don’t want the perfect and put together guy to fall into their lap. It’s like those model airplanes dad used to build. He cherished those things like they were priceless, but it was because he put them together himself piece by piece. He cut his fingers on the sharp edges and made his own tweaks to the paint jobs. If you gave him a model somebody else built, he wouldn’t have cared about it.”
Amelia makes a skeptical face. “That’s kinda messed up, though. I mean… You can’t just shape and mold a guy to be exactly how you want. What about what he wants?”
Brooke grins. “Give it time, Meels. You’ll understand one day. The prototypical bad boy sucks women in like a mirage. They see the potential, the looks, the danger, the excitement. Being with a guy like that is a thrill because you know it’s wrong. So you convince yourself you can change him, that you can fix him, because then you don’t have to feel guilty about riding that sexy ass wave.”
I laugh at Brooke’s attempt at wisdom and the look of confusion on Amelia’s face, but deep down, I can’t help feeling the truth in what she’s saying. I’m probably telling myself a convenient lie about the supposed good I see in Chris. He writes beautifully, but it doesn’t necessarily translate to who he is as a person.
“Some guys that seem like bad boys really are good on the inside though,” I say in a frail attempt to convince myself.
Brooke gives Amelia a knowing look. "See, Lindsey is currently in the denial stage. First comes lust, then denial, then acceptance. It's a three-stage process. The guy is hot, so you start talking. You realize said hot guy is actually a royal dick, but you deny what's in front of your face and spin some pretty lie about how that one time he smiled at an old lady it proved he's actually nice deep down. You have your fun, then eventually you accept he really isn't going to change. He never was. But now you have a fun memory and you'll learn to appreciate the nice guy when he does finally come along. Right of passage," she says smugly, popping another strip of bacon into her mouth.
Amelia looks to me with an expression of vague horror, like she wants me to convince her it’s not true.
“She’s being dramatic,” I say. “Just because Brooke got burned by an asshole, it doesn’t mean her one experience is some kind of universal standard. There are nice bad boys out there.”
Brooke rolls her eyes. “I’m having trouble hearing you over those raging hormones, Linds. Besides, Ryan was your first asshole. You’re just too stubborn to learn your lesson the first time.”
“My hormones aren’t raging. And I’m done with Chris anyway, so that already proves your little theory wrong. I mean, Chris writes like a poet, but—”
Brooke claps her hands in victory, laughing. Amelia even grins at me a little guiltily.
“See?” asks Brooke. “She’s trying to say she won’t be knocking on the door of his cabin tonight, but she’s still making excuses for him.”
“I’m not making excuses,” I say, frustrated that my own stubbornness is making me argue for Chris, even though I’ve been spending so much time trying to make myself forget him. “I’m just saying you make it sound like it’s impossible for there to be some good inside a guy, even if it doesn’t seem like it at first. Besides, maybe it’d be like doing the world a favor to try to fix a guy like that.” I have to try not to wince at how desperate I sound. Whether I like it or not, the idea of Alec’s money is rattling around in my brain just as much as my desire to see the finished manuscript. I’m even more ashamed to admit that somewhere just beneath all that noise is my stupid body’s tendency to feel like fireworks are going off when I’m near Chris.
"Well," Brooke says. "Then maybe you should prove me wrong. If there was ever a bad boy worth risking a little heartbreak over, a mega-millionaire superstar is probably not the worst place to start."
“Just be careful,” Amelia says . She gives me a sweet but concerned smile. “If you do still want to give him a try, I mean.”
I look at my plate, feeling like I don’t have an appetite anymore. “When did we decide that I was even doing anything close to dating or trying to give Chris Savage a chance again?
Because from my perspective, he thinks of me more like an annoying gnat than a living human being. So even if I did want something else, I don’t even know where I’d start or how my sense of self-respect could survive another moment with him.”
“Oh Lindsey,” says Brooke, who squeezes my hand and puts on her best matronly expression. “Amelia told me all about what happened in the grocery store. Even his agent knows you’ve been talking to Chris. Trust me, he’s at least interested. But a guy like him is used to having women throw themselves at him. I bet if you just give him the cold shoulder for a few days, he’ll have a chance to see what he’s missing and come around.”
“Plus,” Amelia adds. “He’d be crazy if he didn’t think you were super hot. Just look at you!”
If anyone else tried to say the things Amelia does sometimes, I’d roll my eyes, but she doesn’t have a mean or sarcastic bone in her body, so I actually let her words sink in and improve my mood a little bit. “Well,” I say with a sigh and a quick smile for Amelia. “I was planning to ignore him anyway, so I guess that shouldn’t be too hard to test. No more going up to his cabin. If he wants me, he can come down here.”
The words leave my lips with surprising finality, almost like I just cast some sort of curse over myself. Either way, I mean them.
I’ve suffered one too many embarrassing rejections from a man I’m not even technically trying to date. I just want him to write his stupid book, but somehow along the way he made me feel like a desperate groupie slathering over his boots.
No more though. Chris Savage can come to me, or our strange, confusing little tango is over.
10
Chris
I’m woken by the sound of beer bottles clinking together and the rustle of a trash bag from the living room. I groan, kicking my feet out of bed and tossing on a shirt and some pants before I step out of my bedroom, not sure what to expect.
A half-grin forms as I open the door though, because I’m suddenly sure it must be Lindsey out there. Maybe she decided my place was such a mess that she’d just let herself in and clean up. She probably wants—
I let the air out of my lungs in mild disappointment when I see it’s not Lindsey in my living room. It’s just my sister. Lydia’s wearing a backless workout shirt and yoga pants, as usual, with a pair of shoes that are such a bright shade of neon green that they hurt to look at.
“The fuck you doing?” I ask, ruffling a hand through my hair and yawning.
“Trying to make sure you don’t get eaten alive in the night by cockroaches, or maybe a rat the size of a coyote.”
“I don’t need you to take mom’s place just because she died,” I say, grabbing a plate I set by the couch and walking it to the sink. Annoyingly, Lydia chooses not to respond to that, so I’m forced to listen to my own words repeat in my head for the next few minutes, feeling more sour about them each second. “I never wanted people taking care of me,” I say more softly after some time has passed.
“You made that pretty clear,” she says. Her voice is tight enough to let me know I offended her. She never had the strained relationship with our parents that I did, so mom’s death is a lot less confusing for her. It’s just tragic. An open wound. For me it’s… It’s more like a scab that itches like hell, and I still don’t know if the wound beneath is healed or just waiting to bleed some more. “Do you try?” she asks.
“Try what?”
“To push people away. You know, I knew you before all of this. You’d think you would stop the act around me, at least. But it’s like you’re just constantly on duty, making sure nobody gets a chance to see the real you. What are you so afraid of, Chris?”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” I say, still scrubbing the same plate in the sink even though it was spotless a few minutes ago. Except those journals. Or getting closer to Lindsey. Or letting anybody in, because it’s easier to let them hate the version of myself I made up than the real one.
“Bullshit,” she says, slamming a bottle into the bag hard enough that it shatters inside. She sighs in irritation, setting the bag down and going to the pantry behind me to get a new one. “You know it’s not just free. Mom and dad died, so I reached out to you. I knew they’d want us to at least get connected again. And I sure as hell knew you weren't going to reach out. So I came to you. I’m making the effort, and my patience is almost up. So pretty soon you’re going to have to decide if you care enough to try, because I’m getting really sick of this one-sided effort shit, okay?”
“Yeah?” I ask. “I don’t remember asking for charity. I came out here to get the fuck away from everything. You’re the one who showed up.”
“You came to mom and dad’s cabin, right next to where they are buried. This place is as much mine as it is yours.”
“I bought it from the bank, and it’s my name on the papers.”
She shakes her head, dropping the bag of trash. “Right. Of course. Because you can throw your money around and that means you deserve to be here leaving your trash all over my parent’s house, that you can tell yourself you’re paying them respect when all you’re doing is shitting your life away.”
I want to tell her she’s wrong, that I’ve been doing something meaningful since I came here or finding some kind of peace with their memory. But all I’ve done is make excuses, waste time, and fail to write a book, all while I can’t even bring myself to read mom’s journals.
She lets out a long breath, softening her features as she walks closer. “Chris,” she says. “You’re all the family I have left. I want that to matter. I really do. So whenever you’re ready to care about it, I’ll be waiting. Okay?”
She gives me a quick hug, squeezing even as I keep my arms limp by my sides and my fists clenched.
“You big idiot,” she says with a sad smile before punching my arm and walking out.
I close my laptop with a frustrated sigh. It’s probably the tenth time this week I’ve tried to work on the manuscript again. Alec said the publisher will extend my deadline by six months if I go on a promo tour across Europe. Two weeks of book signings and a few public appearances for six more months of time. I told him to tell them they’d get their fucking book one way or another, even if I barely believe it myself. Right now a trip to Europe is the last thing I want, and I’m not even going to bother denying a big part of that is because I don’t want Lindsey to find an empty cabin when she finally does come back to see me again.
I thought about just putting out another T.S. Barnes book to occupy my time, but it feels empty. There’s only one book inside me that’s worth writing. Everything else is just a distraction, a waste of time and energy, or a money grab. Problem is, the book worth writing is the one that makes my brain feel like it’s shutting down. When I first came out here, I was able to do it. Word after word came so effortlessly it was practically writing itself, but then I started to realize what I was doing.
I wasn’t just writing some book. I was writing something that tried to make sense of all the shit that went wrong: my parents, my sister, the way fame fucked me over, the fact that I could barely tell you more than a handful of things about the women I’ve been with, if that. Once my own motives were clear, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t write a book to make sense of what I didn’t even understand. I put so much effort into closing myself off to my family that I could barely write a blurb about them, let alone an entire book.
So I tossed it.
I thought that was the end, but of course my neighbor down the mountain had other ideas.
Thinking about her hurts, whether I like to admit it or not. I guess telling her to fuck off by my parent’s graves when she offered to help was the final straw for her, because it has been over a week and I haven’t seen her again. It’s probably for the best, but I keep finding myself wishing I had given her offer real consideration. Maybe it’s just my cock confusing my brain, because even though I thought she was nothing more than average, lately I keep thinking about the small details about her in a way that has me
fucking obsessing over her.
I remember the way her ears are a little too big and how she’s constantly adjusting her hair to cover them, or how her smile is just the slightest bit crooked and that when she bites her lip she always bites the left side. I think about how she dresses so modestly but can’t hide the swell of her hips and the perfect shape of her ass, or how she was naked that first night in my bathroom when she came to me covered in scratches and with dead leaves in her hair.
I’m romanticizing the fucking woman and it has only been a week, yet I can’t stop myself from doing it. I have nothing but dead time. Nothing but quiet and peace and endless moments for her to slip into my thoughts and grow there, like a stubborn weed that just keeps coming back bigger and stronger no matter how many times I cut it down.
I throw my head back on the couch, running my hands through my hair and staring at the ceiling. I know what I need to do to get her off my mind. I just need to fuck her.
Forget all the emotional crap. Forget playing nice or doing the right thing. I need to fuck her so I’ll realize she’s nothing special. It’s just another pussy and another mouth like all the rest. One night is all I need to wipe away the magic and the mystery my brain seems intent on surrounding Lindsey with.
The gloves are coming off, neighbor.
Hate at First Sight Page 28