Conrad

by Emily Rose

  “Where have you guys been and why did you do that to Josh?” I asked.

  Dare stopped, meeting my gaze like he hadn’t noticed me until that moment, but Miles stood a foot or two behind him, watching me evenly.

  “A response would be nice,” I went on.

  It was Dare who spoke first, “He deserved it, and I had some work to do. Miles was just helping me,” he said before he vanished through the Christmas lights without uttering another word.

  My eyes met Miles’ and despite what Lila had just told me, I couldn’t stop myself from examining him for cuts or bruises. Something that told me he had helped Dare, but there wasn’t a single indication that he had done anything at all. The black hoodie he wore wasn’t dirty besides being wet and his jeans weren’t torn. His boots weren’t muddy like I thought they might be, and his ink black hair rested over his forehead in wet locks like he had just stepped out of the shower.

  He looked… normal.

  “Are you done?” Miles asked.

  I blinked up at him, “What?”

  He held my gaze. “Are you done checking me over?”

  For whatever reason, my face flushed and I dropped my gaze from him, hoping like hell he hadn’t just seen that. Without another word, Miles walked over and laid down on the couch, letting his boots hang off the edge since he was too tall to fit comfortably. He tucked his arms under the throw pillow there and rested his head on it, turning his face away from me and Lila.

  It was clear that he was just flat out exhausted.

  “Do you need any pain medication?” Lila asked him.

  Without lifting his head or turning to face us, he responded. “No.”

  Lila shook her head, which told me that he needed some, but he was refusing to take anything. Before she lost her temper with him though, she got up and vanished between the Christmas lights in search of Dare, leaving me alone with Miles.

  Instead of bothering him though, I slowly laid down on my side and pulled the blanket over me. Next, I rested my head against the throw pillow that had been sitting on the couch and took a slow breath as I gazed at Miles across from me. His torso lifted and fell with even breaths. It made me wonder if he was already asleep. I had so many questions that I wanted to ask, but at the same time, Lila’s fear kept them at bay.

  So I left him alone and let my own eyes drift closed. It wasn’t long before I fell into a deep sleep with a coffee table being the only thing separating me from Miles Conrad.

  The ghost.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Lesley

  A boom of thunder shook me awake and I looked around, startled. The room was pitch black except for the flash of lightning that flickered from time to time. Yawning, I leaned up and realized that I was still at Lila’s. Scrambling, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked the time only to see that it was almost 3 am.

  “Great,” I whispered and dropped my phone on the floor before I laid back down on the couch. My dad was going to kill me, but I could only hope that Lila had called him since I didn’t have any missed calls or texts from him.

  Turning my head, I had almost forgot that Miles had been asleep across from me until that moment. He was still there, but he had moved to lay on his back instead of his stomach. It was too dark to see his face, or really much at all considering he was wearing black, but I could tell that he was using one of his arms to cover his eyes.

  I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth before I released it. “Hey… are you awake?” I whispered, so I didn’t wake up Dare who I was sure slept in the loft above us since Lila only had one bedroom, which she currently slept in.

  The only response I got was the rain and thunder outside, so I rolled onto my back and closed my eyes, trying to fall back asleep. I had barely got settled when I heard his deep, low, and relaxed voice.

  “No,” he said.

  I kept my gaze on the ceiling instead of looking toward him. “Do you know if Lila called my dad? I passed out,” I asked, not knowing what else to say even though that was probably the lamest attempt I’ve ever had at starting a conversation.

  Miles took a deep breath, “Yeah, she did.”

  Relieved, I chewed on my bottom lip in thought as I stared into darkness. It was strange just laying here next to someone that was supposed to be dead. At that moment, it sounded like he was moving, and I shifted my gaze toward the noise only to see him sitting up on the couch now. He sat there for a second, rubbing at his forehead, before he reached behind him and pulled his hoodie off in one smooth motion, throwing it onto the side of the couch. I was about to break the intense silence when Miles lifted his black T-shirt, exposing his stomach.

  I was so glad it was dark in here or he would have seen the way my face suddenly grew hot as I looked away and spoke. “Um… are you okay?” I asked, clearing my throat.

  “I’m fine,” Miles said and stood up, pulling my attention back to him, but his bare stomach became a faded thought when I noticed the way he swayed a bit to the side, catching himself on the edge of the couch.

  I sat up quicker than I should have and dizziness washed over me, but I pushed it aside as I came around the coffee table. My hands came out to steady him, but then I dropped them back to my side and decided on asking his permission first.

  “Is it okay if I take a look? You about hit the ground,” I said.

  Miles somehow found his footing and looked down at me, causing the lightning outside to cast an unearthly glow over his face. “Sure,” he said lowly.

  My heart raced, but I ignored it as I turned on the lamp sitting on the table beside me and slowly pulled his shirt up, so that I could see his injuries. That was when I saw the bandage on his side. I didn’t touch his skin, but it wasn’t hard to see the streaks that were coming out from underneath the bandage.

  “Jesus, Miles. How long has it been like this?” I asked, concerned.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know, a few days.”

  My gaze lifted to his and I dropped his shirt before reaching up with my hand, using my wrist to press it against his forehead. That was when I felt the scorching warmth of his skin, which told me that he was clearly running a fever. I dropped my hand back to my side and glared up at his towering height.

  “You are not bulletproof, and you have an infection,” I scolded.

  Miles took an awkward step back from me and responded, “I know, but I had shit to do.”

  I crossed my arms and steadied my glare on him, “Like what? What was so important that you had to ignore the obvious infection in your side and risk collapsing?”

  His beautiful gaze watched me evenly and he answered as if he didn’t even have to think about it, “You were,” he said.

  His answer made my heart do something funny and I dropped my gaze to the floor in shyness before I responded, “I’m not worth your life,” I whispered.

  Miles took a deep breath. “You are family. That makes you worth it,” he said.

  I blinked up at him and saw the seriousness in his gaze. It was with that small confession from him that I realized something about Miles Conrad.

  He was the type of guy to always put his family before himself, no matter who they were.

  “Well, I’m fine and you need help, so I’m going to help you,” I said before I lost the sudden braveness that washed over me.

  Without waiting for his response, I grabbed his wrist, ignoring the sudden electric shock that seemed to race up my arm at the contact, and pulled him behind me until we came through the Christmas lights where I released him quickly.

  Heading over to the medical supplies cabinet, I opened the glass doors and looked around for the right stuff to clean his wound with. I found those things, which included a new bandage, peroxide, some anti-bacterial cream that I had seen Lila use before, and medical tape. Once I had that stuff, I started looking for the antibiotics and spotted those sitting with the other medication.

  “Are you allergic to any medication?” I asked him without looking back.

  “
No,” he responded in a somewhat tired voice.

  Scanning my eyes over the bottles, I snatched the one I had seen Lila use on several occasions and tried not to drop anything as I placed it all on the table before I looked up at Miles as he stood patiently, watching me.

  I took a deep breath, “Ok. I think I have everything. Can you come sit down or just come here?” I asked.

  He didn’t argue or say anything as he filled the few steps between us and then removed his shirt, laying it on the table. It wasn’t until he was closer with his torso completely bare that my nerves kicked into high gear. I tried not to let the fact that I was about to touch him or that I could clearly see that “V” that disappeared beneath the waistband of his jeans bother me as I stepped in front of him and slowly reached for the old bandage on his side.

  But as I began pulling it off with my fingers, my hands started trembling just the slightest bit and there was no hiding it either.

  That was when he moved. Miles reached up with one of his hands and grabbed mine, forcing them to a stop and causing me to look up to meet his gaze.

  “You don’t have to do this if it’s making you that nervous,” he said.

  I laughed once with embarrassment and dropped my gaze, pulling my hands free of his without answering him. There wasn’t much I could say. Yeah, he made me nervous, but there was no way I could actually say that, so I pushed those feelings aside and went to work. Gently pulling his bandage off, I threw it into the trash and looked over his injury. It definitely looked infected, so the next thing I grabbed was the bottle of peroxide.

  “Can you lean back for me? Just so this stuff doesn’t spill all over the place,” I asked.

  He obeyed and leaned back onto the table as far as he could without lifting his boots off the floor, using his elbows to brace himself. When he got into position, I grabbed a towel and placed it directly under the injury before I looked up to catch his eyes again.

  “This might sting a little,” I said.

  Miles studied me, but didn’t respond, so I took that as my cue to go ahead with pouring some of the peroxide onto his wound. It made contact and started to bubble, but he never even flinched or changed his breathing. Instead, he continued to watch me as I sat the bottle down and then wiped the remaining peroxide off his skin, trying to ignore the fact that his muscles were a bit tense under my touch.

  Once that was done, I sat the towel and the bottle down on the table before I grabbed the cream. Holding the tube just an inch or so above his wound, I squeezed it until some came out and then sat that down, so I could use my fingers to spread it around. As soon as my hand touched it though, he flinched.

  My eyes caught his, “Sorry.”

  Miles seemed to release a breath he had been holding and relaxed beneath my touch, so I looked away and continued spreading the cream across his side. In the process, I couldn’t stop myself from noticing the scars again. They were beautiful. Like tattoos in his skin and it made the urge to ask him about them even stronger.

  Finally, I gave into that urge. “Hey, I don’t mean to pry into your business or anything, but I’m curious. How did you… you know… get these scars?” I asked without looking at him.

  To my surprise, he answered as if the question had no affect on him. “Someone caught my bar on fire and I was inside,” he said.

  This shocked me. I looked up quickly. “Oh my, I’m so sorry. Was it the same people that Lila keeps warning me about?” I asked.

  Miles tilted his head to the side like he hadn’t expected me to ask such a thing. “Who has she been warning you about?”

  I shrugged, feeling the need to keep that conversation to myself now considering Miles was actually one of the people she warned me about.

  Pulling my hand away from him, I turned back to the supplies. “No one. It was a stupid question,” I said as I picked up the new bandage along with the tape.

  Turning back to him, I gently covered his wound and used my free hand to grab pieces of the tape, using them to get the bandage to stay on. Once that was done, I stepped away from him and caught his stare, which held a look that made me want to disappear. He had clearly seen right through my bullshit excuse and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, so because of this little fact, I decided it was time to change the subject.

  “Did you really hurt Josh?” I asked.

  Miles pushed himself off the table before he grabbed his shirt, pulling it back over his head and down his torso. “Would you even believe me if I told you that I didn’t touch him?” he asked without meeting my gaze.

  I thought about that and I wasn’t sure if I could or not. I wanted to trust Miles, but my feelings for him were mixed. I was confused and I had never been a very good liar, so I went with the only thing I could.

  The truth.

  “Probably not,” I said.

  He looked up. “Then why ask?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe just to see if you would tell me or not.”

  Miles stared at me like he was trying to decipher exactly what I wanted from him, but I knew he wouldn’t figure it out, because I didn’t even know.

  And then he inhaled, “There’s a lot you don’t know about me and some of it you might not ever know, but I’ve lied to people I love before and even if I thought I was doing what was best for them, I wasn’t. It cost me… everything,” Miles paused and then dropped his gaze like memories of whoever he had lost hit him harder than he intended, but then he continued, “I’m all out of lies, Lesley,” he said.

  My heart broke for Miles, because his words were laced with so much pain and anger that I felt them resound deep inside my own soul.

  But I believed it.

  I believed him.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  Miles glanced up to meet my eyes, but he said nothing. We simply watched each other like we were each trying to read the other’s mind. Miles thought that he was completely invisible, but he was far from it. I saw him and I saw his pain. I felt it and even if the man was extremely good at hiding what was going on inside his head, pain and anger controlled him.

  They were the emotions that drove him to do what he did.

  They danced like demons in his eyes, igniting the very darkness that rested deep within his tortured soul.

  And I saw them clearly.

  “Lesley, why are you crying?” Miles asked.

  I blinked and that was when I felt the tear that escaped my eye slide down my cheek. My eyes dropped quickly and I reached up with my hand, wiping it away. “Oh God. This is really embarrassing,” I admitted as I turned my back to him and used the sleeve of my shirt to wipe the rest of the tears away.

  Jesus. I must be close to that time of the month if I was crying this easily. I was about to make up some bullshit excuse for my actions when suddenly, I felt him. My breath stalled in my lungs and I slowly dropped my hands back to my side. Miles stood directly behind me, so close that I could feel the heat rolling off his body.

  A moment later, I felt his fingertips slowly graze down my arm, leaving goosebumps in their wake. I couldn’t stop my eyes as they drifted closed at the sensation and even though all I felt like doing at that second was letting my head fall back against him, I forced myself to stay where I was as he continued to rub my arm until he reached my hand.

  I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth and refused to open my eyes as he gently intertwined our fingers.

  And then I heard his voice directly in my ear, “Lesley…” Miles spoke in a pained, raspy voice.

  With my heart racing and my breathing all over the place, I tried to speak as clearly as I could without sounding completely ridiculous. “Yeah?”

  “Stop fucking reacting to me. Don’t cry for me. Save your tears for someone that deserves them, because it’s not me,” he said and then he pulled away as quickly as he had stepped up behind me.

  I sucked in a sharp breath and stayed frozen in place. All I could see was my own reflection in the glass of the cabinet and I w
asn’t blind to the wild look that had taken over my eyes. It scared me and sent an adrenaline rush thrumming throughout my body, almost like a drug, but I didn’t have time to even process what had just happened before I heard the sound of an engine roaring to life.

  And then he was gone.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Miles

  Lesley was becoming a fucking problem.

  I wasn’t an idiot and I had already been down that road before. It never ended well for anyone when there was more than one guy involved, so she needed to stop.

  I needed to stop.

  Whatever the fuck this was becoming needed to stop.

  I had other things I needed to stay focused on and my life would never be simple until those things, those people, were wiped off the face of the fucking planet. And the last thing I wanted to do was drag Lesley over the edge with me.

  She was young. She had a whole goddamn life ahead of her and I was the last person she needed to get mixed up with.

  These thoughts raced through my head as I shifted my Chevelle into a higher gear, letting the sound of the engine calm my nerves. Driving had always been an escape for me. I could drive for hours and it never bothered me. Instead, it gave me the chance to clear my fucked-up mind without the eyes of others on me, trying to figure me out.

  I never really had any particular place that I went. Usually, I would let my thoughts guide me, and wherever they took me was just where I ended up.

  Only this time, I did have one place in mind.

  One person.

  I slowed my speed as I came up on the street and then turned down it. Flipping my lights off, I parked next to a tree on the opposite side of the road from the house and cut the engine. At this angle, I could see the driveway and the front of the house, but I couldn’t see directly inside it. It didn’t take me long to spot the car sitting in the driveway.