Thankfully, Stone’s business took him around the country—and sometimes around the globe—so as time went on, their interactions became fewer. Taking Stone’s abuse, even as it became rarer, but harsher, was a price he was willing to pay.
But Frost hadn’t been just biding his time during this sentence. No, Nick Frost was always good at working in the shadows; he was always good at digging in the dark dirt and coal and finding a goddamn diamond.
In this case, that diamond had been bitcoin. Taking what money was left to him—that he hadn’t spent on drugs—when his father died, he’d invested it all and made a fucking fortune.
I only knew because when I came back and decided to stay with him, still at the very bottom of the fucked-up ride life had me on, he told me to prove that there’s always something to be made out of nothing. Like something good could still come out of me…
Nick Frost was the richest motherfucker in the state of Colorado and no one fucking knew it.
Why? Because until his probation was up, if his mom—if Stone knew, they could take it all from him. They could throw him under the bus at his hearing in a few months, claim that he hadn’t done enough, that he’s a detriment to society; hell, they could even manage to take Lila from him, and that… that was the worst fear of them all. They would do it, too. Stone would make sure that everyone who needed to agree with those statements did.
So, instead, he lived off the income from his graphic designs, freelancing them on the internet for the time being and telling everyone the lie that one day he’d be working for one of the major snowboarding companies. The truth? He could buy all of those companies and not even be hurting for it. And his real dream? To get him and his daughter the fuck away from Jane and Levi Stone.
“Hold on.” I put my hand up. “Are they here because of Eliza? Do they know she is here? Why the fuck is she here?”
The only thing really worth knowing about Eliza Blackman and why she did the things that she did was that the only thing she truly loved was herself. It was why she’d come to Frost five years ago, telling him that he had a daughter and that he could either pay her to leave Lila with him or she was going to just leave her on the street and hope that she ended up in the foster system before anything even worse happened.
So, of course, Frost paid her off on the condition that she never came back and never contacted him again.
I only learned about this after the fact. Had I known before, I would have told him that there was no way in hell she would listen because at some point she would realize that there could be more to gain by the situation.
His self-deprecating laugh was like nails on a chalkboard. “Why do you think?”
I felt my face twitch with anger. His eyes had an eerie fog over them; they were already the lightest blue, but now they looked like the sky in the middle of winter right before it was about to dump a snowsquall over the Earth; the storm in them forecasted a reckoning that was brewing.
“You had a deal. There’s nothing she can do about it.” I shrugged my shoulders, trying to keep calm partially for his sake, partially for my own. “Didn’t you have her sign something?”
“Of course I fucking did, but that doesn’t matter when she’s going to accuse me in court of being an unfit guardian over my daughter.” The statement was like a crack of thunder over an already tense atmosphere.
Fuck.
“Fuck.” I rubbed a hand over my mouth. “I fucking knew that bitch was trouble.”
Eliza had gone to high school with us, but had been a year or so younger. Even then, she was always sleeping around to get people to do things for her—whether it was write a paper, give her the answers to a test, or buy her things, like drugs. She had values, but none of them had anything to do with integrity or respect for herself. For the most part, she hadn’t been on our radar in high school. But senior year—after Frost’s dad died—the parties that he started throwing attracted women of all ages.
And coke doesn’t care about the age of the cunt.
“How do you know she is back?”
“Showed up here yesterday looking for Lila. Thank fuck she was at daycare, which I figured Eliza might find out eventually, so I had Sofia go get her early; God, she was so upset.”
“Where is she now?” My brow furrowed like I expected him to pull the little girl from his back pocket.
“Sofia is with her and my mom. They’ve been entertaining her since yesterday. Stone and I had a dialogue,” meaning that they’d gotten into a fight, “but he left early this morning to take care of business in Denver for the rest of the week. So, I’ve got a few days to get this pigsty cleaned up and figure out a way to entice a five-year-old to want to live here. With me.”
“Shit.” Fate was not a friend to Frost. The closest thing the man ever got to luck in his personal life was me—and not because I was his friend—but because my name was Chance. “What are you going to do?”
“First, kick you the fuck out before someone realizes that I haven’t completely let my old habits go by the way-side—and that I’ve let your sorry-ass influence pervade my domain.”
Right. Except weed, alcohol, and the occasional three-some was a tad more palatable than being so coked out that he couldn’t even remember his own fucking name—or where he’d put his dick last.
“Didn’t see you complaining during any of our little gatherings or threesomes over the past several weeks,” I retorted. I wasn’t the only one going to take the blame. He’d enjoyed it as much as I had—but that really wasn’t the point to be arguing right now. “Have you seen Eliza? Does she know that you are still living here?”
He swore. “I have no clue, but I’m sure at some point she’ll find out especially if she happens to come in contact with my mom or Stone. When she does, I don’t want there to be any fucking doubt about my fitness as a parent. I’m not letting that bitch take Lila with her again.”
The way his hand flexed, I thought for sure he was about to send it through the goddamn window as he said, “I might not be the best father, but I’m fucking working on it. She, on the other hand, will fucking exploit my perfect, innocent—“ He couldn’t even finish; I’d never seen him so angry—or emotional—before. “Plus, you should stop running anyway—and that’s all you are doing here.”
My body tensed. First, he was kicking me out and now, he was insulting me? Still, I stood there and took it because he’d helped me—in some sort of fucked up way—when I’d returned from California.
“I said I would go. And I was never fucking running.”
“Bullshit, Pride,” he sneered. “You’ve been running so damn fast you could give Usain Bolt a run for his money.” He smirked at his pun. “I figured you’d come here and figure this out on your own, but now I have no fucking time. So, here’s the deal. Stop running because, as someone who tried his damnedest to outrun my entire fucking life, you can’t escape it; the farther you run, the farther you are from where you need to be. So, get over your fucking knee and find something else to do with your life.” My lip twitched with the desire to deny everything and the inability to deny the truth.
“You done?” I clicked the home button on my phone again. Fuck. I needed to eat and leave in thirty minutes if I was going to make my therapy session. I held back a groan realizing that there was a good chance I wasn’t making it today. Sorry, J-bird.
He pretended to think for a second but really he must have been reading my thoughts since he opened his mouth to speak of the pink-haired devil, “Oh, and make sure you know exactly what you are doing with Jessa-fucking-Madison because you know what they say—‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…”
Oh, I wasn’t going to be fooled by her again. Only, the way he said it sounded like it had been my fault both times.
“Ironic that you’re the one telling me not to be fooled by her when you were the one who had your tongue down her throat.”
It had been eight years—and the fact that we were still friends said that we’d h
ad this discussion in the past. The truth was, unless she told me, I’d never know what really happened that night because Frost was high on so much shit when she kissed him that when I went back over to beat the fuck out of him the following morning, I found him passed out in a pool of his own vomit. He had no recollection; he didn’t even remember touching what was mine.
Which is probably why the memory had festered—because aside from the obvious and only assumption that she left me with, that she wanted Nick more than me—I would never know what the hell happened in Frost’s kitchen before I got there.
“Yeah, well, the fact that I’m going to miss my appointment this afternoon to clear my shit out is really gonna seal the deal there,” I smirked. Of course, I’d make it up to her. The problem was getting her to let me.
“Right. I’d sympathize if wanting to fuck my ex-girlfriend was my main problem in life,” he said sarcastically.
I glowered at him. It wasn’t my only fucking problem… but it was the one I seemed to be the most concerned with at the moment.
“Now pack your shit. I’m calling the cleaners to come this afternoon to work some magic before my mother and Shithead Stone notice anything and add fuel to the goddamn inferno.”
In spite of how he spoke to me, I asked, “Need me to do anything else?”
He grimaced. “Take all the weed with you. I can’t have it here,” he replied curtly, holding the door open before adding, “Oh, and figure out a way to convince my daughter that I would never hurt her—and that it’s ok to love me.”
Eliza Blackman. Levi Stone. Frost’s mom. None of my thoughts surrounding them made me as violently nauseous as Frost’s biggest problem: that Lila was wary of him. Current speculations were that Eliza came and left the girl with Frost because her then-sugar daddy, Wes, wasn’t too thrilled with having the baby around.
From what I’d gathered, Lila was fine around women, but men were a different story. It had taken over a year before she could see and remotely interact with Frost without screaming and bursting into tears. The disgusting truth went unsaid between the few people involved that the girl had been abused.
The look in Frost’s eyes told me the even worse truth that he knew this was something that Eliza would try to use against him if she knew how their daughter reacted to her own father—that she would try to accuse Frost of abusing his own kid.
“If I think of something, I’ll let you know.” Ducking my head, I grabbed my backpack and started throwing a bunch of my shit into it, quickly realizing just how much stuff I had already brought over here. Shit.
“Thanks.” For a second, I thought I heard him mumble ‘sorry,’ but by the time I looked up, he was gone.
Fuck. I didn’t want to go home. Further proof that Frost’s annoyingly penetrating insight was right: I was still running.
There comes a point in life when you think that you know someone—for better or for worse—Shit. No. That was not the right phrase to use with respect to him. And then they do something that is completely unexpected, something that rips the rug right out from underneath your feet. For some of us unlucky few, that point is like an alarm on a clock that we consistently and unavoidably reach each day. Or week. Or year. In my case, I reached that point every time my damn alarm clock chimed ‘Chance.’
I sat on the bench opposite the free-weights, looking up at the clock for the fifty-sixth time in the past twenty-eight minutes. That’s right, I couldn’t stop my gaze from straying to the clock on the wall, on my wrist, on my cell, or on my iPad, every thirty seconds from the moment that Chance should have been here but wasn’t.
Kyle had already checked on me twice in the middle of his own appointment and Monroe… well, I just ignored her; I didn’t have time for her petty little smirks and effusive negativity.
I had the front desk call him when he was ten minutes late. I broke down and called him at the twenty-minute mark. Neither had produced any appreciable result.
After what happened earlier in the week, this—not showing up for his appointment today—was the last thing I expected. I expected him to show up gloating and teasing me like every day since, tempting me to beg for more—which I, of course, returned with every rebuttal in the book. But no, he was a no-show.
The worst part was that way, way, way deep down inside, I was mostly upset because I wouldn’t have the chance to give in again. All week he’d worn me down, my desire dissolving my denial. And today of all days, I wanted to give in. And that’s what made me the most annoyed.
Maybe he knew this. Maybe this was all part of his grand scheme to have me begging for him back.
Asshole.
So, I sat there and worked on my notes and then my exercise plan for Betty; at least she was doing phenomenally. I was also afraid that the second I left, that gorgeous asshole would stroll through the door, complain about why I wasn’t there, and then have one more thing to taunt me about.
“Hear anything?” My head darted up, Kyle standing in front looking down intently at me.
I shook my head, realizing that it was the end of the hour. Chance had officially missed his therapy appointment. “Not a word.”
“Wonder what happened. Hope he’s ok.”
I rolled my eyes. I hoped he’d zipped his dick trying to put on his pants and was currently crying like a baby in a doctor’s office somewhere.
Think that’s a little much there, Jessa?
Smilingly tightly, I said, “He probably overslept or oversmoked; he’s not a compliant patient.”
Kyle raised an eyebrow at me. “I don’t know about that.”
“Why?” I stood, not wanting to linger too long; I’d taken a car-full of my stuff from Tammy’s this morning and had a few last things to grab.
Kyle walked next to me as I made for the door exiting the gym. “Just seems like he’s been working his ass off to impress you all week.”
I laughed out loud. Literally. “Yeah… I don’t think that’s what’s going on.” More like working his ass off in an attempt to work me over.
“If you say so. Just telling you what I see.” He shrugged and I really had to appreciate what nice shoulders… and chest… he had. I cursed the lower parts of me for not giving a shit.
“Thanks,” I responded, wryly. “I gotta head out. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Have a good night.” His smile beamed at me. He was so nice, so thoughtful.
Why couldn’t I want him again?
Why did I have to want the asshole who explicitly told me that he was determined to break my heart? The asshole who’d blown off our session today after enjoying his victory over my nether regions yesterday. What was the purpose? Why disappear now after I’d just—foolishly—given into him? There had to be something else going on.
I turned in my iPad and took the stairs two-at-a-time to grab my purse from the lounge area upstairs.
What had happened today? That was a better question to focus on rather than why I wanted a man who hated me.
It was also an easier question to get the answer to. Why I wanted Chance… that question I didn’t like the answer to; as the saying goes, the truth hurts.
Six of Cups: A card of nostalgia and generosity, you return to a familiar environment or nostalgic place where a friend or past lover may turn up again. In the midst of change and crisis, the Six of Cups suggests that looking back at what you have endured is a good way to assure yourself that whatever trials lay ahead, you will meet them and you will overcome them as you overcame others.
JESSA
I think I grabbed the rest of my stuff from your apartment. If you come across anything else just let me know and I can swing by to get it.
TAMMY
Ok! Sorry I couldn’t be there to help you today.
JESSA
Don’t worry about it. Everything going ok at the doctor’s?
TAMMY
Still in the waiting room.
JESSA
The worst.
TAMMY
I brough
t a book; it’s not so bad.
JESSA
Was Lila at daycare today?
TAMMY
No. I tried to call. No answer.
JESSA
It’s only one day. I’m sure she’s ok.
TAMMY
I’m going to give it to the end of the week. Well, I’m going to try to.
JESSA
Let me know if I can do anything. Love you.
TAMMY
Thanks. Love you, too.
JESSA
Left you some La Croix in the fridge FYI. A little parting gift to remind you of me ☺
TAMMY
How can they remind me of you if they are in the fridge instead of strewn half-empty around the apartment? ;)
JESSA
Rude.
TAMMY
☺
I laughed to myself as I clicked off my phone. Arm around the back of the passenger headrest, I backed out of the spot in front of Tammy’s apartment, hearing my numerous candles clank in the box I’d loaded in the back seat. I should have gotten all of this stuff earlier in the week—like the day after Ally told me I could move into her vacant house, but by the time I got to work each day I was physically and emotionally exhausted.
Every day had been the same—a great morning working and chatting with Betty followed by afternoons from hell. Working with Chance was like having a chocolate bar put in front of you, only you’re never allowed to eat it. A chocolate bar that unwraps itself no less.
If there was one thing to be said about me—beside that I was a spirit-searching hippie—it was that I was determined. Right now, I was determined to not let things go any farther with Chance. But it was so. Fucking. Exhaustingly. Hard.
Enjoy the Ride (Winter Games Book 3) Page 13