by Lindsey Hart
He could still taste her. Taste the chocolate vanilla on her tongue. Taste the dusky sweet honey of her below. Her moans echoed in his ears when he tried to sleep at night. The feel of her body, lush, ripe, hard and vital pressed up against him assaulted nearly every waking minute. Her legs spread, the heat of her core burning right though two sets of denim, into his thigh. The spot where she’d ground herself still tingled.
It tingled now, when the little shadow jarred awake, whipped around to face him, and let out a little gasp. It was followed up with a sigh of relief then a grunt of annoyance when she recognized him.
“What are you doing here?” she snapped. She crossed her arms and tilted her chin like the stuck-up little princess he was staring to realize she was.
“This is my place,” he edged out. He clomped out a few more steps so the tower creaked and groaned, but Alix remained completely unphased. She stared at him, her eyes glowing strangely in the near dark even though there was no light to illuminate them.
“It’s not yours,” she snorted. “You don’t own it.”
“You don’t own it either.”
“I know. I never said I did.”
Their conversation was starting to get back to the two-year-old maturity that it seemed they couldn’t help but slip into. He didn’t want to go there again. He just wanted to be away from the house, here, alone, to think about all the shit that he couldn’t control and what the fuck he was going to do about it.
“Right. I don’t know why you’re up here or how you even know about this place-”
“Are you serious?” She cut him off. “You and Chance used to come here all the time. I followed you once, in my car, to see where the heck it was you guys took off to half the time. I liked it. I came back a few nights later when no one was here. It’s peaceful. It’s cool. You can see half the city from up here. I like looking at all the lights winking and glowing in the distance. It’s like the sky reversed itself and crawled down from up there and all the stars ended up on the ground.” She swallowed loudly after, like she was embarrassed that she’d admitted that out loud. To him, at any rate.
“Great. It’s good to know that we’re the ones responsible for you being out here alone. Where anyone could find you and hurt you. You were sleeping up here!”
Alix’s nose scrunched up. He could just make it out as his eyes adjusted to the darkness blanketing them. “I’ve never seen another soul out here, thank you very much. If you have to know, I parked a few blocks over, and I always have my keys with me.”
“What are those going to do?”
“I don’t know. Wreck someone’s face?”
“Fat chance you’d ever be able to use them on someone who actually wanted to cause you harm. You shouldn’t be here by yourself.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t either.”
“I’m a dude. Have you seen the size of me? I think most people would think twice before they took me on.”
“Well… I shouldn’t have to leave just because you’re here. I was here first.”
Ross shuffled a few steps in and sunk down against the rounded metal. It was warmer higher up, in the places that couldn’t escape the sun. He let out a sigh that said that pretty much everything was wrong with the world.
“Do we have to act like five-year old or can we be adults for a minute?”
“I’m pretty sure that you can never be an adult,” Alix shot back.
Ross didn’t turn to look at her, but he heard the annoyance dripping from her tone. That feeling was definitely starting to be mutual.
“I’m pretty sure you can’t either, given that you’ve held this stupid grudge for over four years now. You’re the one who asked for a truce then shot that to hell too, so you know what, Alix, I just give up. Right fucking now. I’m giving up. No fucks given, or whatever people say. I’m done. If you want to act like a spoiled little brat and not come to our family gatherings and hurt my parents, then go right ahead. If you want to act like a stuck-up bitch who tells me to go to hell every single time we bump into each other, go ahead. You want to tell me that I’m a prick for trying to man up and do the right thing and not take you up on something you would have no doubt regretted, then tell me. You want to hold onto that ridiculous hate and anger, or whatever it is, then you do that. I don’t fucking care.”
Silence. Dead. Silence. Finally.
If he’d known that all he needed to do to snap her out of her little self-entitled world was yell at her, he would have done it a long time ago. Except that he never yelled at Alix. He’d spent so many years protecting her, treating her like the little sister that he never had, it was almost ingrained in him.
She’s not my little sister. That was pretty fucking obvious given that since she’d got back from college, all he’d done was lose sleep and walk around with a hard on when he thought about her. She never was like a sister. His parents never made any secret about the fact that they would have been overjoyed if he ever decided he wanted to date Alix. Obviously, they didn’t see her like his kid sister either. No one did.
Fuck, he hadn’t really either, growing up. He’d just used that as a convenient excuse. The truth was, Alix was just there. She was annoying when she was younger, then she turned thirteen and guys started noticing her and she was even more annoying because he and Chance had to work overtime to keep them the hell away from her. He’d kicked more than one kid’s ass because they wouldn’t heed their warnings.
He’d never thought of her as anything other than a kid. A younger kid. A girl, but still way younger. A kid he’d grown up with. A kid who wasn’t quite a friend because she was so much younger than him. She wasn’t his sister, but she was Chance’s sister and there was always a line there, drawn in the sand between them that he’d never cross.
Then she went away.
She went away and he didn’t let himself think about the fact that he missed her. That he missed her being annoying. Bratty. He missed having to watch out for her. He missed swatting guys off of her. He missed her sunny smile and her easy laugh and her tender heart. He missed the way she and Chance used to spar with each other. Chance was the only person on earth who could coach or aggravate Alix into saying dirty things once in a while and that was funny too. She was a piece of his puzzle and he threw himself into work and stocks and making money. He’d thrown himself into other things too- mostly the arms of anyone who was available and willing- but he didn’t want to think about that any more than he wanted to admit to himself that he’d missed Alix when she was gone.
Then she came back.
And everything went straight to shit.
He felt like he was living in a shit castle in the middle of a shit storm in a world composed of shit. That’s what his life felt like at the moment. He didn’t need any more shit, but apparently Alix wasn’t done with him.
She peeled herself away from the water tower and tucked her legs in underneath her, even on the hard metal. Her face was twisted into a mask of fury and he knew she was going to unleash a class five fucking storm his way.
“You! You don’t give a fuck? That’s nice. How nice for you. Tell me something I don’t know! Wait. Maybe I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what it’s like to be on the receiving end of this shit my whole life.” She thumped a hand over her chest, right above her beating heart. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to love someone for years? Years! Years and they never notice you? Not once. I finally broke down and begged you. Yeah. That night. Prom. I begged you to notice me. I said something that I hoped would get your attention. It didn’t. You looked at me like an annoying fly that wouldn’t leave you alone. That you wished would just drop off the face of the earth. You saved all the good parts of yourself for everyone else. You gave them to everyone else. Everyone. But. Me. Do you have any idea how much that hurt?”
Oh. That was rich. It was all about her. It was news to him that she had a crush on him or whatever. He hadn’t known. She’d hid it well. Or maybe he was just that dense. Either way, she wasn�
��t getting away with making him out to be the bad guy in their story.
“Yeah?” he snarled, practically baring his teeth at her. “You think you’re so hard up? You had everything. You had Chance and me to protect you your whole life. Here’s a news fucking flash for you. I would have taken you to prom. I would have, but I would never have taken you somewhere like here, in the backseat of my car, and ruined you. Maybe now I get why you asked, because you claim you felt something for me, but think about it from my end. I’d spent my whole life watching out for you. You were just a kid in my eyes. A beautiful girl who was growing up, but I wanted to keep you safe. Safe from the guys who wanted to get in your pants. Safe from guys who just wanted to use you and spit you out. It’s a miracle you graduated a virgin, based on how much ass Chance and I had to kick.”
She looks surprised at that. Her lips parted in shock. Obviously, she didn’t have a clue what was going on right in front of her face. Maybe I wasn’t the only dense one.
“After all of that, how do you suppose that I’d think it was okay to just to stick my dick in you and get it out of the way, like you said? Jesus. Don’t you think that there should be more to it than that? I wanted your first time to mean something for you. I was trying to keep you safe. From me. From yourself. You want to call me an asshole for that? Go ahead. You want to say I’m a manwhore, that’s fine. It’s not like everyone doesn’t know it anyway. Just stop punishing the people around us for something they didn’t do. My parents did nothing but love you when yours were off all over the country selling fucking RV’s, so don’t punish them for it. My mom misses you. She thinks she did something wrong. Just- just stop…”
To his shame and horror, his voice cracked like thunder mid-rant. Alix stared at him. He couldn’t take the way her eyes bore through him, like she could see straight through to the other side. Like she was looking at this Ross Rivers for the first time. A Ross she didn’t know. A Ross dangerously close to the truth. A truth no one ever saw because it was so much easier to paint them a different fucking picture.
Vulnerability and feelings and shit… that wasn’t sexy.
When he got drunk for the first time, at thirteen, he’d barfed all over the bathroom at Chance’s house. Their mom made him clean it up with bleach. He’d inhaled a little by accident, just the fumes from the bottle, and it singed his nose. It burned for days. He felt a little like that now. His nose burned and his eyes pricked dangerously.
He turned because he couldn’t stand Alix’s golden hued eyes seeing through him for another second. He needed pain. Physical pain to combat the pain ripping him apart from the inside out. It felt like his blood was made of razor blades and every single heartbeat shredded him.
Still sitting, Ross drove his fist into the metal side of the water tower. He and Chance used to ask each other how thick the metal was. Turned out it was pretty damn thick, because it didn’t give. So he hit it again. And again, with the metallic bellow screaming in his ears. He kept pounding, kept beating that metal until his fists were as red hot as the fury and despair gnawing at him. He beat it blindly, the fiery burn spearing through him like a balm to the ragged shrapnel that exploded in his chest and stomach right before he’d left the house.
“Stop!” Soft hands landed on his shoulder. Warm breath puffed out near his ear. “Stop it! Ross, you’re bleeding!”
His eyes flew open and he looked straight ahead, at the water tower. At the rusty metal surface. Smeared on the dark brown was a lighter stain, a deeper red. His blood. His own life force. He raised his hands and looked at them, studying them in a detached way, like they belonged to someone else. He couldn’t feel the pain. All he felt was numb, but even that was better than feeling like he’d ingested glass for a living for the past decade and it was finally catching up.
“Oh my god…” Alix’s voice shook. Her hands shook. All of her shook. Her hands, soft and smooth and dainty, curled around his wrists. She brought his fists up between them and studied the broken, bloodied skin herself. “Why?” Her hands stayed, but her eyes flew to his face. “Why would you do that? Are you that angry about- I’m sorry. I’m sorry… it’s okay. It’s fine. It’s all fine. I’ll forget about it. You’re right, it’s the past. I acted stupid. Then. Now. Always. I was being mean. I was angry, but I’ll try and let it go. I get it…” her voice reached a fevered pitch as his knuckles started to drip little drops of blood all over the metal platform. “Please- Ross…”
His name in her mouth. Falling from her tongue. From her lips. It was different than before. Like he was hearing it for the first time, just like when he’d been in her bedroom, his head cracked open, and she’d been leaning up against her door. She wasn’t the Alix from before. She was a new Alix. A grown-up Alix. A dangerous Alix. An Alix that he wanted, and he didn’t know what the fuck to do with that.
Especially now.
“Ross…” She breathed, her face drenched in sorrow. She shifted her hands, unfolding and clasping his fingers, careful not to brush up against all the skin he’d just busted in the most spectacular idiotic fashion. She leaned in, her entire being leaching worry. “I’m sorry.”
“This wasn’t you.” He tugged his hands away and tucked them at his sides. “Not all you,” he amended, because he was still pissed the hell off and she was there, so she was going to have to take part of his fury, even if it wasn’t right. “Mostly not you.”
“What then?” Her voice wavered tears intermingled with her words.
“It’s Mom.” He turned to stare at the lights twinkling in the distance. They really did look like stars in an inverse night sky. “She’s dying.”
CHAPTER 9
Alix
“Dying?” Alix gasped. She watched a tremor rip through Ross. “What do you mean?” When he didn’t answer her, she put her hands on his shoulders and shook him. Hard. She stared into his face so that it was impossible for him to look away. “Ross? What are you talking about?”
He shook his head and she dropped her hands and leaned back on her bottom. She tucked up against the metal wall away from the spot Ross had just tried to punch a hole through. That water tower was the first thing in her life that she’d seen Ross not be able to plow right through.
“Two years ago, she found a lump in her left breast. She had breast cancer.”
“What? No! I- what? No one told me that!”
“No one knew.” Ross’s voice was vacant, lost, like he wasn’t really there at all. “No one except your mom. She’s my mom’s best friend. Your dad doesn’t know. Chance doesn’t know. Mom is proud. She didn’t want to lose her independence. She didn’t want to just be seen as a cancer patient.”
“But I- I saw her- at the party. She looked… fine.”
“She was fine. And she’s good at hiding things. There’s makeup, wigs… she had a double mastectomy, as prevention, since they thought the cancer could spread. We told everyone that she and my dad took a two-month trip to the Maldives.”
“I remember that,” Alix gasped. “I mean, my mom wrote me something about that. Over text. It was jumbled up with a bunch of other stuff. I was coming home for break. I think she didn’t want me to ask her questions in person about where you guys were, not that I would have, because I was trying to avoid you, since I’d see right through her.”
“Yeah.” Ross turned his face away, back to studying the lights in the distance. It felt like they were a hundred miles away, even though it was just a few short miles back into the better illuminated parts of the city. “Probably.”
Alix resisted the urge to shake Ross again. She wanted him to tell her everything, but what right did she have to his personal information? She’d done her best to avoid him for four years. He owed her nothing. He went on anyway, his need to tell someone, to open up, greater than his need to despise her at the moment.
“She did treatment after. It was really hard on her. She went into remission though. She was cancer free for the past two years. Her hair never really grew back. She still wears a
wig. Her skin is frail now, her nails brittle, but you wouldn’t be able to tell any of that from looking at her. She started feeling really tired last week, then she spiked a fever. She never said anything to me, but dad took her to the doctor. They did some tests. It’s back. It’s in her lymph nodes.”
“Where?” Alix asked desperately. She wanted Ross to turn to her and tell her he was freaking kidding. That he was just trying to get a sick rise out of her. Of course, he wasn’t. No one joked about things like that.
“I don’t know. Lymph nodes are all over. Her neck. Her armpits. Her chest. It’s not good. She’s going in for chemo in a few days. They’re going to blast her with seven rounds and then do six rounds of radiation and see where she’s at, but she was upfront when she told me this evening. Even with the treatment, it’s not good.”
Alix was glad she was both sitting down and leaning against something to support her. She knew she would have wilted right over otherwise, just melted, slithering along the ground like a boneless mess.
She imagined Evelyn. Bright, vital Evelyn who was always laughing about this or that. She was a nice person, truly. She had one of those hearts that was so big, there was always room for one more. One more charity, one more cause, one more person to love. She’d been like a second mom growing up. Ross was right, the Rivers’s had watched her and Chance more times than she could count while her parents were away. Their home was a second home. It was somewhere she’d always felt safe. Wanted. Cherished. Loved.
“Ross…” She wanted to tell him that she was sorry, but she didn’t want to say the word, because it sounded so final, so grim, so ugly. “She’ll make it. They’re good at treating cancer now. And there’s experimental treatments. Places in Mexico or Europe where they have better drugs-”
“Yeah,” he cut her off, but the word had no power behind it. It was more just a rush of breath than any real agreement, devoid of all hope.
He raked a hand through his hair, then brushed it along his temple, leaving a dark, bloody streak there. Her heart hitched. Ached. Stopped. Restarted.