Eliza starts to punch in the number on the keypad to unlock it, but the door is already opening. She falls forward into Jaxon’s arms who was obviously waiting for her at the door. They hold each other like they had been separated for years. I am so happy for them, but they are also blocking the way to the inside and I really need to get in there, so I clear my throat loudly.
Eliza starts giggling and pulls away a little. “Sorry,” she says shyly.
“Calm down Jen, you’ll get yours soon enough,” Jaxon teases. Then he looks to my sister. “You must be Josie.” He holds out his hand. “I would like to say that I hear a lot about you, but I really hear very little about you.”
“And you must be Jaxon,” Josie says and shakes his hand. “I have heard a lot about you. Jen talks about you guys all the time and I am sorry she kept me a secret. She didn’t want to, but my family is pretty secretive when it comes to that whole subject. Anyways it is so great to finally meet you.”
“Wow, there really are two of you.” Jaxon steps aside to let us in while keeping an arm tightly around Eliza’s waist. “Hunter is inside with the doc. They are almost done.”
I take Josie’s hand and pull her behind me into the club. We walk through the hallway leading up to the dance floor. It’s weird being in here during the day, without so many people present, and no loud music playing in the background. Our footsteps sound eerie echoing in the hallway.
As soon as we make it into the large main room, I see three guys in one of the sitting areas. Hunter is sitting on a couch. Next to him, what I assume is the doctor Jaxon was referring to. Only that he looks more like a neighborhood thug than a doctor. The only thing making him seem like that he actually does knows what he is doing are the gloves on his hands and the way he is holding the needle he is currently using to sew up a gash on Hunter's arm.
Frederick is sitting on the couch next to them, but I don’t have time to acknowledge him. With the tunnel vision that I am currently experiencing, my eyes can’t see anything besides what is right in front of me, and that is Hunter.
I walk up to them, with Josie still in tow. I want to throw myself at him, want to hug him and squeeze him tight but I halt a foot away from him, not wanting to disturb the doctor or cause Hunter any pain.
“I'm okay, come here,” Hunter says when he sees my apprehension. I briefly turn back to Josie who is smiling at me approvingly. Only then I do let go of her hand and lean over to wrap my arms around Hunter's neck. He pulls me down with his free arm and makes me sit on his leg furthest away from the guy working on his arm.
I bury my face in the crook of his neck and breathe in his scent. “I missed you,” I mumble into his skin.
He doesn’t say anything back, but his arm around me tightens. We hold each other like this for a moment and I almost forget where we are and that we are not alone. I look up when I hear footsteps approaching. Jaxon and Eliza take a seat on the last free couch in this U-shaped formation.
I look back at Josie to find she has also taken a seat next to Frederick. “Hunter, this is my sister Josie,” I tell him the obvious.
“I would have never guessed. You two look nothing alike,” he teases. I know he is trying to be funny, but I can’t ignore the desolation in his tone.
“Are you okay?” I put my hand on his chest right over his heart. “You seem sad. Why aren’t you happy that you are out? What happened? How did you get into a fight?”
“The fight was nothing. I’ll be back to normal in a few days. And I am happy, trust me. It’s just…” he trails off.
“It’s because of Colt. You are sad because he died.” Hunter looks like he is about to say something to defend himself, but I hold my index finger in front of his lips.
“You don’t have to explain yourself. I know that he was your friend and that had nothing to do with how I felt about him. You have every right to be sad and mourn your friend. You are not the only one mourning him.”
There is a dead silence in the room. We both know Jaxon is mourning his friend just like Hunter is. I also know that for whatever reason Josie is mourning him as well. I wasn’t going to say anything about that but apparently Josie feels the need to do so. “I know Colt has done some very bad things, but in the end, he did save us and sacrificed himself. I didn’t want him to die and I wish we could have done something to help him.”
Jaxon speaks next. “I know I should hate him and be glad that he is gone but it’s hard to do that when someone was your friend for so long.”
A loud sigh comes from the guy next to us, “All done.” He takes off his gloves and throws them on a small pile of trash next to him.
“I promised not to say anything but seeing how you guys are having a heart-wrenching memorial for a guy that’s not dead makes me a little uncomfortable.”
“What are you talking about Mason?” Hunter snaps.
“Colt is not dead. I dug a bullet out of him and patched him up this morning. He was fine when he left my place. So, unless he died since then, he is still alive,” Mason said while packing up his stuff.
“Where is he now?” Josie surprises everyone by her question.
“Don’t worry, he won’t come after you. He has no reason now,” Hunter says soothingly.
“I couldn’t tell you anyways,” Mason says before getting up. “He didn’t tell me where he was heading, just that he was leaving town and never coming back.”
Frederick gets up at the same time. “I’m heading out too. Glad we were able to get you out so quickly. You had me worried there for a bit. Call me if you need anything.”
“I should go back home,” Josie says quietly when they are gone. I get up from Hunter's lap and sit next to her. “I need to go back and finish school.”
“You don’t have to leave now. I have to go back to school too. I already missed a week.” Now that I don’t have to hide my sister from my friends anymore, I can actually stay here. I’m so close to being eighteen that I doubt anyone would care, and I’m sure Hunter would drive me back and forth to see her. If we are even allowed visitation that is.
As if Josie was reading my mind she says, “Why don’t you stay and finish school here? We both know we won’t be able to see each other for the next few months.” Dread spread through me in an instant. Not seeing my twin sister for the next three months is going to be a nightmare.
“As you said, not much longer and then no one can tell us what to do anymore.”
I spend the next hour trying to convince Josie to stay for at least the weekend, but she insisted on going home today. Ironically, Jaxon is driving her back home now since Hunter took some pain meds and can’t drive.
“I’m going to call you as soon as I can,” she says in my ear while hugging me goodbye.
“You sure you don’t want me to come and take you home?” I feel bad just staying here with Hunter even though I want that as well.
“No, you stay here and take care of Hunter. He needs you. I’ll be fine,” she promises. I also suspect that Hunter needs me more than he leads me on to believe. He keeps saying that he is fine, but he is walking funny and sitting up too straight. I think he might have a bruised rib or something. I’m planning on finding out later when I take his shirt off.
Back at Hunter's place, I make him sit on the couch while I am whipping up something to eat in the kitchen. I make him a plate and pour him a glass of juice. I bring everything to him before making my own plate and joining him on the couch.
“I love this,” Hunter mumbles with his mouth full of food. He finishes the food in his mouth before continuing.
“I love how you take care of me and I love taking care of you. And I love you.”
I only pause for a split second. My fork hovering in midair. “I love you too, Hunter.”
He leans over to kiss me. “I want you to live here. I want you to finish school here, so you can stay and don’t have to go back. I will drive you to see your sister whenever you want. Or I’ll pick her up and when you guys are eighteen, we can
move her closer. Hell, she can move in too if that’s what you want. We’ll figure something out okay? I just want you to stay with me.”
I take our half-empty plates and set them on the coffee table. I swing my leg over Hunter’s lap and move over to straddle him. “I want to stay with you too.” I grab the hem of his shirt to pull it over his head but his takes my wrists and holds them still.
“Don’t freak out, okay?” I frown at him in response. He lets go of my wrist and helps me get his shirt off of him. I take in a sharp breath when I see his torso. There is a trail of bruises decorating one side of his rib cage and a large bandage sticking on the other.
“What the hell Hunter?” I shriek. “And for your information, telling someone not to freak out doesn’t mean they are not going to freak out!”
“I gather that you are freaking out right now.” If he wasn’t already hurt, I would inflict some pain for that snotty comment. “It’s really not that bad. A few bruised ribs on this side and a small stab wound on the other.”
“Did you just say stab wound?!”
“Small stab wound,” he explains. I am about to seriously start yelling at him for downplaying his injuries but then I can’t get a word out because his lips are on mine. He snakes his arms around my waist and pulls me closer until there is no space left between us.
Without thinking, I wrap my own arms around him trying to pull him even closer. In my love-hazed brain, I forget all about his injuries and all the other hardships that we had to endure the last few days. I forget about all the uncertainties and the fear for the future. For now, we exist solely in this moment.
The End
Epilogue
Josephine
It’s in the middle of the night when I walk up the half-mile long driveway leading up to the picture-perfect house I grew up in. I asked Jaxon and Eliza to drop me off at the gate instead of driving up to the door. No reason for them to have to meet my parents. I wish I never had.
The impeccably maintained front yard always made me gag. Thousands of dollars are spent just so every shrub is cut the perfect shape, every leaf is just the right color. The grass is permanently flawless and some kind of color-coordinated flowers are always blooming. Everything must be perfect. It’s part of the charade that is my life. Everything looks perfect to an outsider by design and only I know how broken this place is on the inside.
I open the front door and walk up to my room hoping that I can avoid a conversation with my parents tonight. My dad is a light sleeper, so I am extra quiet when I sneak past their room. I almost make it. Almost.
My parents’ bedroom door swings open. “Josephine!” My dad’s voice fills the otherwise noiseless house. “What were you thinking running off in the middle of the night like that? You better be glad that we are not close to the election yet. Can you imagine what this scandal would have cost me? It was hard enough to keep this under wraps as it is.”
“Can we please talk about this in the morning? Unlike what you are probably thinking, I had a rough couple of days and I would like to go to bed now.”
“Very well, we’ll talk in the morning,” he says before returning to his room. I am neither surprised nor offended by the lack of concern that my dad is displaying. I am far too use to this treatment to be experiencing either. I slept a little on the car ride over here, but I am still very much exhausted. I strip down to my underwear on my way to the bed, dropping my clothes on the floor as I go. I climb onto the extra soft mattress and pull the blanket over me. I think I’m asleep before my head hits the pillow.
I wake up in the morning to the sound of someone mowing the lawn. I put my pillow over my head and try to go back to sleep, but then the leaf blower starts going off right underneath my window. Now it is impossible to not wake up further. I uncover my head with a groan and open my eyes, letting them adjust to the light peeking in from my window. On my nightstand I find a note from my mother.
Oh honey, I am so glad you are home safe. Is what I would expect a normal mother to write. Instead my mother writes: Don’t leave the house! I’m surprised I am not chained to the bed.
On the bright side, they didn’t wake me up and it’s Saturday which means both of my parents will be at the country club for most of the day. Dad will be on the golf course pandering to all the donors to his campaign and Mom will spend the day gossiping with the other wives. She likes to call it networking but everybody knows all they do is gossip and talk about clothes.
The gardening crew is moving away from my window and I contemplate staying in bed. It’s not like I have anything else to do. I close my eyes trying to make myself go back to sleep when I hear an unfamiliar noise coming from beside my bed. My eyes fly open, and I am about to scream but a hand is already covering my mouth pushing my head into the mattress. Panicking I grab for the hands trying to get them away from my face. All my movements freeze when I realize who is standing over me.
“Are you going to be quiet?” Colt asks with a devilish grin. I nod, and he lifts his hand.
“Are you here to kidnap me again?” I honestly don’t know how I would feel about that right now. Anything seems better than being stuck here.
He shakes his head. At the same time, he lowers himself onto my bed and lies down next to me. I turn on my side, so we are facing each other. A single tear escapes my eyes and rolls down onto my pillow.
“Why are you crying?”
“I thought you were dead.”
“No reason to cry. No one would have missed me.”
“That’s not true. Hunter and Jaxon would have missed you.” More quietly I add, “I would have missed you too.”
Colt makes a low snorting sound. “They wouldn’t have, and you don’t even know me.”
“I know enough to have missed you.”
“Do you always sleep naked?” Colt changes the subject.
I pull up my blanket and tighten it over my chest. “I’m wearing underwear,” I try to defend my choice of sleeping attire. “Plus, it’s not like I was expecting anyone to break into the house and sneak in my room. Why are you here anyway?”
Colt gets up from my bed with a grunt, holding his side like it's painful to get up. “I’m returning your phone.” He gets it out of his pocket and hands it to me.
“Thank you,” I say weakly. He turns around and heads towards the door.
“They mourned you,” I tell him. Trying to draw out the time before he leaves me.
He turns back to face me. “What?”
“Jaxon and Hunter, they mourned you when we thought you were dead. They were sad that you’d died.”
Colt shrugs and tries to act like it doesn’t matter to him, but I know it does. The small smile tugging on his lips gave him away.
“Where are you going?”
“Someplace I can start a new life.” He is looking at me like he wants me to say something else, but he doesn’t. I want to say so many things myself, but I can’t get a single syllable out. I am too confused about what I am feeling at the moment.
Take me with you. The words are on my tongue, but I just can’t bring myself to say them out loud. What kind of person would that make me? Running away with the guy who hurt so many people in the past, as well as kidnapped me and held me hostage just days ago.
At my silence, I catch a flash of disappointment in his eyes before he turns and walks out the door. Leaving me behind wondering if I will ever see him again.
Next in this Series
The Lies We Tell
About the Authors
Cassandra Hallman is one part of the international bestselling author duo Beck & Hallman
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Jenna Reed
Bestselling Author Duo J.L. Beck & C. Hallman
A Friends t
o Lovers Romance
Everyone knows the rules of friendship, right?
Rule #1: Don’t kiss your best friend.
Rule #2: Don’t have sex with your best friend.
Rule #3: Don’t pretend like it didn’t happen the next day.
Bailey Renshaw is my best friend.
Kind. Sweet as a peach, and so beautiful it should be a crime.
Since we were kids I’ve wanted her, and one time when we were nothing more than teenagers I kissed her. It was the first mistake I ever made in our friendship. Giving her my heart and hoping she felt the same were my second and third.
That night she broke me, ripped my heart out of my chest and stomped on it. Anyone else would’ve hated her for it, but it only made me value her more, and realize that I would do anything I could to keep her in my life even if it was only as a friend and nothing more.
As a permanent resident of the friend zone, I promised myself that I would never cross that line again no matter how badly I wanted to, and I wanted to, badly.
Every time she smiled at me, licked her pink lips, or flashed her doe eyes my way I came a little closer to breaking the rules again… but I didn’t. I couldn’t do that to us. Until one night when we decided to break the rules together.
The Things We Hide: A Friends to Lovers Young Adult Romance (Pushed Aside Book 2) Page 12