Spinning Out

by Lexi Ryan

  She holds up both hands. “Gwen, I know. Gwen. I’ll behave. I promise.”

  She disappears inside the house, and I give my attention back to Sebastian. He watches me, his head tilted to the side, his eyes narrowed slightly.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Is it true you’re waiting for Brogan?” he asks. “That’s the rumor, you know. That you were already committed to him so you’re his until he dies.”

  I look longingly toward the pool. It’s so hot out here. I can’t wait for everyone to leave so I can dive under the water and swim so hard and long there’s no more room for thoughts in my head. No room for wondering how Arrow feels about me. No room for the guilt and regret and constant second-guessing of every decision I made that night.

  I swallow hard. “That’s the rumor?” I hate the idea of people talking about me, but I suppose what they’re saying could be worse.

  “Seems a little dramatic. You’re so young. I know you love him, but . . .”

  I was trying to break up with him that night. That’s why we were arguing. That’s why he wouldn’t let me out of the car. That’s why I had to get my brother to come save me. That’s why they were in the street . . .

  Sebastian studies me, and I wish I could turn off my thoughts rather than risk him seeing them on my face. “There’s also a rumor that you were pregnant with his baby and that’s why you haven’t left his side.” His gaze drifts to my stomach and then back up. “But I imagine that would be noticeable by now if it were true.”

  I release a dry laugh. “No truth to that one, I’m afraid.”

  “You see,” he says, “I look at you and I see a gorgeous young woman who has her whole life ahead of her.” He takes a step back and tucks his hands into his pockets. “I see someone I’d like to get to know, someone I’d like to make smile when she’s ready to smile again. But I can’t decide if your little research project is going to help you move on or if it’s going to trap you in the past even longer.”

  I stare at the patio, not sure what to say and too tired to try.

  “Yeah, so that’s where I am,” he says. “If you were wondering. That’s why you don’t have your list yet. Because I like you, and I don’t want to do anything that’s going to make you hurt longer than you already have.”

  I close my eyes and hear him walk away. His steps across the patio, the click of the French doors opening and then closing.

  Alone, I look up into the night sky. By warning me off this search, Sebastian’s trying to protect me from some faceless demon. He doesn’t understand the demon already has me in its claws.

  “Is Mia going to join us?” Sebastian looks over his shoulder to the light coming from the kitchen window.

  “I told her to come out here,” Bailey says with a huff. “Miss Antisocial doesn’t even have the baby as an excuse tonight.”

  Since Katie is with Gwen’s mom, Coach Wright insisted on taking Dad and Gwen out for a drink, and after Dad gave me a long, hard stare that told me he thought I might bust up the other hand while unsupervised, they left. Mason and—unfortunately—fucking Sebastian hung around, and everyone moved to the patio to play cards. Everyone except Mia.

  I push my chair back and stand. “I’ll get her.”

  Bailey arches a brow. “Yeah. Good luck with that.”

  Ignoring her skepticism, I head inside and find Mia in the kitchen sterilizing bottles.

  She jumps when she sees me. “Arrow.” Ever since the night she accused me of hating her and I told her I wanted her, she’s been like this any time I’m around. As if she’s afraid of me. Except for the night I broke my hand. She wasn’t afraid of me that night.

  “Because you regret it and I should, too.”

  “Do you need me to do anything for you?” Mia asks.

  My back teeth slam together. I fucking hate when she acts like my servant. “Yeah. Actually, you can.”

  Surprise registers on her face but she tries to hide it with a plastic smile. She pulls the last bottle from the steaming water, flips off the stove, and turns to face me, her back against the counter. “Great. What’s that?”

  “Take the night off. Katie’s gone. Gwen’s not even here. Come outside and hang with us, and anything on that list of yours that you don’t get done, I’ll help you with tomorrow.”

  She opens her mouth—probably to object—and then closes it again.

  “Please,” I whisper, stepping closer.

  She sneaks a look out the window and tugs her bottom lip between her teeth. “I don’t know how to do it anymore.”

  “Do what?” I take a final step and stop, because if I step any closer we’ll be touching.

  She keeps her eyes on the window. “Be like them.”

  A puff of laughter escapes my lips, and she looks back to me, frowning. “You were never like them, Mia. And I don’t think that’s what you mean at all.”

  Her eyes search my face. “Then what do I mean?”

  “You don’t know how to live anymore.”

  “What’s the point, Arrow?” She shakes her head. “I can’t even feel anything.”

  God, this woman’s going to break my heart. “Close your eyes.” At first, I don’t think she’s going to do it, not with as tense as things have been between us, but then she does.

  I take half a step closer, brush the hair off her neck, and lower my mouth to her ear. When the scent of her fills my senses, time skips like an old record hitting a scratch and backing up to a better song. I’m back in the car with her, watching the morning sun stretch out over the water, her body tucked into mine.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Reminding you,” I say against her ear. My hands find her waist first, settling at the top of her hips and waiting for permission. It comes in the slightest shift of her body toward mine, the barest arch of her neck to give my mouth better access to her ear.

  It’s so easy to slip my hand under the hem of her skirt. So natural to put my hand between her legs. She gasps, but instead of stepping away, she drops her head to my shoulder, wraps one arm behind my neck, and uses the other to brace herself against the counter. Just this—her letting me touch her, her responding to my touch like this—is enough to have me hard and aching against the fly of my jeans.

  “I wonder if you have any idea how often I think about this.” I scrape my teeth against her ear and chase the guilt away by telling myself this is for her. I can’t stand seeing her moving through life like the walking dead, and if all I can give her is this . . .

  I tug her panties down so my fingers can explore the sensitive flesh between her legs. Again my brain treats me to flashes of the night at the lake and the next morning when I spread her out on her bed and put my mouth between her legs.

  “Do you feel that?” I ask as I take her clit between two fingers. And I know she does, because her hand tightens around the back of my neck, her nails biting into the skin. But I want an answer, so I graze my thumb along that swollen piece of flesh and ask again, “Does the numbness go away when I touch you?”

  “Yes.” She lifts her hips, pressing into my hand in a wordless plea that I’m helpless to resist. I slide a finger inside her and hear my own groan as her tight heat envelopes me.

  She takes a fistful of my shirt as she tries to pull me closer, and I focus on the sounds of her breathing, the slick heat of her body as I stroke her. Maybe, just maybe, I’m pulling air deeper into my lungs than I have in months. Maybe my blood’s pumping harder, sending sensation buzzing through nerve endings that have gone numb with disregard. Maybe she’s not the only one waking up.

  “You’re beautiful,” I say. “I don’t even know if I deserve to look at you, but some days it feels like you’re the only piece of beauty left in the world.”

  She draws in a ragged breath and circles her hips in one last effort to control her need before she fully fucks my hand, grinding against me, pushing my fingers deeper. I tug her earlobe between my teeth then drop lower, latching on to her neck and sucking hard
until she moans. With every sound, her movements grow more frantic, as if I woke her and she discovered she’s been sleeping underwater and is now desperate to swim to the surface.

  “You are beautiful,” I repeat, my face between her breasts now. I straighten so I can look into her eyes. I want to see Mia undone. I want to know I can still do that for her. “And you’re alive.”

  “Only when you touch me.” Her nails bite into the back of my neck, and her sex squeezes tight around my finger. She arches her back and sinks her teeth into her bottom lip, and I can only watch in awe as she comes.

  Beautiful isn’t the word. It’s grown too weak with overuse. Mia is something greater than that. Bigger. Brighter. More important.

  I remove my hand from between her legs and swallow hard as I back away. She opens her eyes and brings her fingertips to her mouth. Because I didn’t kiss her there? Because she wishes I did? Or because she said something she wishes she hadn’t?

  “I need this job,” she whispers. Her big brown eyes sparkle with tears.

  “No, you don’t. Quit, Mia. I have money. I’ll pay whatever my father’s paying you.”

  “Would it be worth it? Just to get me away from you?”

  “It would be worth it to make you stop hiding from your life. You didn’t die with your brother. You aren’t brain-dead like Brogan. Stop acting like you lost your life that night. You don’t have to live in this purgatory you’ve created for yourself.”

  “Me?” Her eyes go big. Too big. Angry. Outraged. “Look who’s talking, Arrow. You had everything, and you threw every bit of it away so you didn’t have to face the pain of living your life without Brogan by your side. I know you feel responsible because of what happened between us, but I was the one who decided to tell him. I was the one who broke up with him. I was the one who texted my brother when Brogan wouldn’t let me out of the car.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. It’s easier to think of Brogan as a saint who was wronged than a jealous man holding Mia hostage and demanding her heart as ransom.

  When I open my eyes, Mia’s brimming tears finally spill over and course in rivulets down her cheeks. “Maybe I’m living in purgatory,” she says, “but that’s only because I deserve worse.”

  Mia blaming herself for my crime is buckshot to the soul. “Don’t say that.” I thread my fingers into her hair and cup her jaw. Maybe if I can hold her together, I won’t fall apart. And the fact that I even care about myself is a revelation. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Didn’t I?” She reaches up and wraps her fingers around my wrist. “Thank you for not blaming me. But if you want to help me forgive myself, you have to stop being a casualty of that night. Seeing your life fall apart too is nothing more than another punishment for me.”

  “Don’t let it be. You were never the one I was trying to punish.” I close my mouth and swallow back words before more can rush out. I’ve said too much already.

  Releasing my wrist, she lifts her hand to my face, tracing the edge of my jaw, then my lips. Even after what I just did to her—especially after that—the touch feels like the most intimate one we’ve exchanged. I turn my face into her hand and press a kiss to the center of her palm.

  “I don’t understand what you want,” she says. “You send me away and then you come in here and touch me.”

  “I don’t want to be your mistake.” I don’t know if I’m talking about tonight or last October, or maybe there’s no difference. She said she doesn’t regret October, but tonight . . .?

  She opens her mouth as if she wants to reply, but then she stops herself, darts her tongue out to wet her lips. I need to taste her there. It’s as much a choice as taking the next breath.

  I lower my head to kiss her, and she draws in a soft breath, sways into me. Just before our lips brush, I hear footsteps and pull away.

  “Whoa,” Trent says. I spin around, and it’s evident on his face that he saw us. He clears his throat and holds up his hands. “Listen, man, I’m not judging. I mean, it’s not like Brog is dead yet or anything, but go ahead, help yourself to his woman.”

  “Fuck,” I mutter. This was careless. Foolish. Trent’s words were intended to hurt, but they dug into all my open wounds even more than he could know.

  I start after him, but Mia stops me with a hand on my arm. “Don’t.” Her eyes are wide. Is she upset we were discovered, or that I touched her at all? “There’s nothing you can say.”

  I can’t look out back when the guys are all here. It hurts to see them cruising along with their lives. I know tragedies happen and the world keeps turning, or at least I know intellectually, but seeing it firsthand is a hot iron poking at my grief. It seems like there’s always someone from the team here now that school’s out.

  Then there’s Arrow, watching me when he thinks I won’t notice. Tiptoeing around me since that night a week ago when he slid his hand up my skirt and made me feel things I didn’t believe my body could feel anymore.

  I’m not sure if I’m supposed to feel guilty or satisfied or pissed at him for not explaining what it means. He didn’t even kiss you, Mia.

  I’ll get these dishes done and spend the day upstairs. It’s better that way. I remind them of Brogan, and judging by the laughter coming from around the pool, they don’t want to think about him today.

  “Mia.” I turn from the sink at the sound of Sebastian’s voice. He closes the patio doors behind him and comes into the kitchen and around the island. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  He tucks his hands into his pockets. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something.”

  Tensing, I put the dishrag down. “Is my dad okay?”

  “You think I’m only going to talk to you if your dad needs something?”

  “Of course not. I—” I shake my head. “What do you need?”

  I spin around, but with him on this side of the island, my turn puts us uncomfortably close. He leans against the thick slab of granite, legs wide and leaving me almost standing between them.

  “Do they ever give you a night off?”

  “Sure,” I say. “I’m not a slave, and contrary to what my dad may have told you, Uriah is actually a very good employer.”

  His lips twitch. “Good to know. So does that mean you’re free to join me for dinner some night? Maybe a movie? It’s gotta get old hanging around this place all the time.”

  “Um.” I dry my hands on my apron. I’m stalling. Sebastian is incredibly handsome, and this was what Bailey was talking about, wasn’t it? She said I’ve been letting life pass me by, and I feel like if she were here, she’d be jumping up and down, nodding. She’d also probably make a few inappropriate sexual innuendos about what could happen at the movies. “It’s just that . . .” I drop my gaze to my hands, now wringing the apron.

  “Isn’t this cozy,” Arrow mutters.

  When I swing around to the sound of his voice, I stumble forward. Sebastian catches me. After I right myself, he doesn’t bother to take away the arm around my waist.

  “Hey, Woodison,” Sebastian says, unfazed as I step out of his embrace. “Thanks for inviting me. I was looking for an excuse to see Mia again.”

  I shoot Sebastian a warning glare, and he meets it with a smile.

  Arrow’s gaze ping-pongs between me and Sebastian. Emotions I can’t identify flicker through his eyes, and I wait for him to say something nasty—about me or Sebastian, I’m not sure—but instead he gives a sharp nod, turns on his heel, and goes out back.

  He had his hand up my skirt a week ago, and he just walked away at the sight of another man holding me.

  “So that movie?” Sebastian sidesteps around the island. I have to give him credit for understanding that giving me space increases his odds here.

  “I don’t think so.” I flick my gaze up to peek at his expression but find myself drawn in by his dark eyes. It’s not as easy to look away as I’d like. “I’m just not ready.”

  “And is that because of Brogan?” He li
fts his chin and points his gaze out the window behind me. “Or because of Arrow?”

  I stiffen. “Don’t act like you know me. You don’t.”

  “No, Mia. I just want to. And when this world is full of people who want to take advantage of us more than they want to know us, I like to think that’s a good thing.” When I don’t reply, he sighs, fishes in the pocket of his low-slung jeans, and comes up with a folded slip of paper. “Here.”

  I take it from his hands and frown. “What’s this?”

  “It’s a list of everyone who had body work done on an SUV this winter. We’re not the only place in town, so it’s only a small piece of the puzzle, and you can’t tell anyone I gave that to you, but I hope it helps.”

  I unfold the paper and scan the list. “Coach Wright’s here.”

  Sebastian shakes his head. “Yeah, I worked on that one myself. Not what you’re looking for. He hit a doe coming out of his driveway.”

  “Okay.” I press the paper to my chest. “Thank you. This means a lot.”

  “I know you think you want answers,” he says, his gaze steady on the men on the other side of the window, “but before you dig too deep, make sure you’re really ready for them. Answers to these kinds of questions rarely bring us the peace we seek.”

  “And what do you know about it?”

  He gives me a sad smile. “How are you holding up? I overheard Coach talking to Mrs. Barrett today. She told him the news about Brogan. I just wondered how you were taking it.”

  “News?” The only thing that’s been consistent in my life since the accident has been Brogan. When it comes to him, nothing changes. No matter how hard I pray. “About what?”

  “His kidneys. Since they decided not to do dialysis. Don’t you . . .” He flinches. “Shit. You didn’t know. Why haven’t they told you?”

  “What about his kidneys?” I ask, but he just shakes his head and doesn’t have to say more. Suddenly, I’m in the dark again, the sleet biting into my skin as I climb from the car and rush to the boys. I’m in the dark feeling for a pulse. I’m in the dark punching numbers into my phone, watching with detached fascination as blood smears across the screen.