by Wynne Roman
My brother straightens like he’s got a goddamn pole suddenly shoved up his ass. “You telling me he busted your cherry?”
“Son of a bitch.” I hear Ajia’s sigh.
Shit. I realize my mistake then, when it’s too late. Well, I’ll have to brazen it through.
“That is not what I’m trying to tell you—and it’s a disgusting way to think of it—but, yes, Ajia was my first. That’s because I wanted him to be. I…waited. I had other chances, there were other boys. I didn’t take them.”
“Because of this motherfucker?”
“Because I wanted to be with Ajia, yes. And you’re just gonna have to get used to it. Accept it. He’s your friend, part of the band. Those things aren’t going to change simply because I slept with him.”
Knox wants to move. He wants to hit something. I see the barely-leashed emotion vibrating through him. I know this is a lot for him to take in, but it shouldn’t be. I told him! In Austin and Phoenix. He’s had time to prepare for this. He should have known it was coming.
“There’s shit you don’t know, Bree.” His voice is low and rough. “He’s not the guy you think he is.”
“Knox, let me do it.”
Ajia’s voice sounds oddly ragged, and I look at him. His whiskey-colored eyes are dark with pain.
“Ajia?”
“I’ll tell you everything, baby. I was going to tonight, anyway.”
Knox snorts, but I ignore him and shake my head. “I know everything I need to.” I look back at my brother. “He’s not some stranger I just happened to run across, you know.”
Knox glares past me, at Ajia, I’m sure. “He’s got secrets, baby girl. Shit you don’t know. Shit that—”
“Well, fuck me, Knox.” I frown. “We’ve all got shit, and you know that as well as anybody. Ajia’s can’t be any worse—”
“Don’t kid yourself, Bree. If you knew the truth about this fucker, you wouldn’t say that.”
“Don’t start with your drama queen shit, Knox. Now isn’t the time.”
“You gonna tell her?” he snaps.
Ajia is sitting so straight on the bed, his spine must be screaming. “Yeah,” he says without moving. “I said I would.”
“What?” I look between the two of them. “What are you two talking about?”
“Your boyfriend here.” Knox snarls the word.
“Knox…” He’s really pissing me off.
“Let me get the conversation started.” I’ve never heard that tone before, both snotty and demanding at the same time.
“About what?”
“The girl.”
“What girl?”
“The one he killed.”
CHAPTER 22
AJIA
I don’t say anything until Knox is gone. Literally, nothing. What’s there to say? He’s done his damage, and there’s no going back.
Bree doesn’t say much, either, except to tell him to get out. She ignores him after that, totally focused on me. I know it, feel it, can’t really bring myself to look at her. Yet. We need to talk—alone—and we all know it.
Knox doesn’t argue much about leaving Bree alone with me. Why should he? He thinks he’s getting his way. And maybe he is. He doesn’t even try to hide his satisfied smirk as he strolls out. Fucker.
I wait until the door clicks shut behind him, and even after that. “I should have told you,” I finally say, soft enough I’m not sure she can hear me.
“Why didn’t you?”
She stares at me as I sit on the bed. She’s standing maybe halfway between me and the door. My Zeppelin T-shirt looks so fucking good on her. Her legs are gorgeous, surprisingly long for a short girl and sexy as hell.
She takes a step toward me when I don’t answer right away. “Ajia?”
I shrug, because it’s all I can do. “I wanted to. Meant to. Knew I should. It’s why I told you we needed to talk tonight. Then we—” I break off and offer her a sick fucking smile that she doesn’t return, so I give her honesty. “The truth is, as much as I wanted to tell you everything, needed to tell you, I was more afraid.”
Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, and she takes a step closer. “Of what, A? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you scared of anything.”
I snort an ugly laugh. “Oh, baby, if you only knew. I’m the weakest fucking person you’ll ever meet.”
“Ajia…sweetheart—” The look she gives me is so tender, not at all what I deserve.
“You know how you wanted some time—just us—before we told Knox? It’s the same for me. I wanted that kind of time before you found out what a piece of shit I really am.”
She sighs and gives a little shake to her head. I love the way her hair brushes over her shoulders. Makes me want to sink my fingers deep and pull her against me for a kiss. Will I get to do any of that after I tell her everything?
“Okay,” she says. “So we’ve both been outed. Now what?”
“Now I tell you everything.”
I so fucking don’t want to do this, even as I know it’s the one thing I fucking have to do.
I shift around to sit straight on the side of the bed. I know I shouldn’t, but I pat the mattress beside me. An invitation I shouldn’t make and one she sure as hell shouldn’t accept, but it’s out there now. She blinks, looks from the spot next to me and back again. I can’t tell what she’s thinking, but she finally comes closer. She doesn’t sit exactly where I wanted, but she does take a place next to me.
“Okay,” she says again. “I’ll listen to whatever it is you need to say. I want to hear about the things that give you so much pain.”
She’s looking at me. I know because I feel the pull of her gaze, but I stare straight ahead. Doesn’t matter that I knew this was coming. That I don’t want to see the look on her face when I tell her what a weak, disgusting son of a bitch I really am.
“If I do this, it’s everything. Shit not everybody knows.”
I catch the movement as she nods. “Everything. I want everything you are, Ajia Stone.”
It takes me a minute. I haven’t actually talked about it in a long, long time. It’s never far from my head, yeah, but I stopped saying the words years ago.
“Her name was Lara.” I blow out a heavy breath. “We got together when we were fifteen. My first real girlfriend. She was just a girl I’d known at school—and then she was more.”
I think back to the slim, leggy girl I’d known, and even thought I’d loved back then. I didn’t, not in a way that would have made it past high school, but in tenth grade, we were totally into each other.
“She was older than me.” My lips twist in what’s supposed to be a smile, but I know it isn’t. “She turned sixteen a few months before I did, and her folks gave her a car. We gave the back seat a hell of a workout. We were each other’s firsts.”
Somehow, I’m able to give a soft laugh as I remember. “It was over almost before it started. I knew what to do, even had a condom, but being that close to a girl’s naked pussy?” I slant a quick glance in Bree’s direction. Her small smile is soft, understanding.
“I went off like a firecracker. After a few more times, it got better, and we tried other shit. It was fucking heaven for a fifteen-year-old kid! And we were kids. We did the usual other shit. That meant drinking when somebody could score beer. One night, a buddy got hold of some tequila. Shitty stuff, but who cared?”
“Sure it wasn’t Knox who bought it?” Bree asks with a trace of amusement in her voice. “The cheaper the better for him.”
My lips twitch. Her attempt to lighten the tension warms me. It doesn’t work, but it means a hell of a lot that she tried.
“I didn’t know him then, but you’re right. He has lousy taste in booze.”
I sigh, knowing I have to say the rest. “Lara got wasted, and so did my best friend, Mason, and his girlfriend, Jill. I’d pretty much stopped drinking early on. Kept thinking about her new car and how pissed her paren
ts would be if anything happened.” I look at Bree for real this time. “It was totally selfish. That car wasn’t mine, but I loved it. It was freedom, a place to fuck. No way was I losing that.”
She nods, seriously. She gets it. Every teenager is desperate for independence and privacy. Hell, she’s still fighting Knox for it!
“Lara and I fought over who should drive home. I wasn’t sixteen so still didn’t have my license, but—” I shake my head “—she was too fucking drunk to do it. She only had permission for me in the car, but I couldn’t leave Mason and Jill on their own. I thought I was Superman or some fucking thing.”
The words die out on their own. I remember how everybody piled into the car, laughing and shrieking. Mason got Jill in the back seat, and they started making out. Lara was in the passenger’s seat, pouting, and I was kind of pissed. I was trying to do the right thing, and she wanted to fight about it?
The mattress shifts as Bree moves closer. She strokes one hand down my arm, and the heat of her skin against mine shoots through me.
“It was okay for a while. Lara started messing with the radio, and then Give it to Me came on. She loved that song, loved anything JT did, but that one always got her all crazy. Next thing I knew, she was trying to give me a blow-job, and I’m still driving.”
A breath huffs from Bree’s lungs. Not sure what it means, but I know she’s never done anything like that. I look at her, at the fear in her dark green eyes, and I nod.
“I can do a lot of shit now. Done a lot of shit. But a horny fifteen-year-old kid without any real experience or stamina? My reactions were off. I couldn’t concentrate on my dick and the road.”
I swallow so I can force out the rest of the words. “I remember looking down. Seeing her head in my lap. Feeling her lips around my cock. Swear to God, I don’t know why I didn’t blow my load right then.”
Bree’s rubbing my arm again, but I barely feel it. Can’t bring myself to look at her. “When I looked up—” my breath chokes a little “—there was a deer standing in the road. A fucking deer. I might have yelled—don’t know for sure—and must have swerved. Lara’s head came up, I couldn’t see and…. Fuuuuck.”
I close my eyes, shudder like a fucking pussy, but the sounds in my head only get louder. The engine squeals, metal scrapes and twists with a horrible deadly groan, the inhuman screaming. And then…nothing.
Bree’s next to me suddenly, hip to hip. Don’t know when she moved, or maybe it was me. Somehow, she presses against me and wraps her arms around my waist. I want to hold her, sink into her softness, forget in her kisses, but I can’t. Not when there’s so much more I have to say.
“Next thing I remember, I was all scrunched down in the seat. Lara was between me and the air bag. She didn’t move, didn’t answer, even when I screamed her name. I could hear Mason and Jill moaning…and that’s the last clear memory I have.”
“Ajia. Baby—”
“Except for the blood, everything else is fuzzy,” I interrupt. I can’t let her say anything else. Not yet. “Like a flash of a dream you really can’t remember. I got out of the car and called 911, I guess. And—fuck!” Jesus, I hate how hard this is. “I wasn’t hurt bad. Lara’s body took the full impact. She died instantly.”
“Oh, no.” I hear tears thicken Bree’s voice, but I keep going.
“Mason broke his back. Still has problems. Jill…traumatic brain injury. She has the mentality of a seven year old. Didn’t think she’d live for a while.”
“Baby, I’m so sorry.” Bree runs a hand up and down my back, and she kisses a spot on my chest, right above the Wycked Obsession logo tat.
“What the fuck was I thinking? Why didn’t I do something? I’ve never been able to answer those questions.”
“It’s bad, A. No doubt about it. And I know it hurts. But it doesn’t make you a killer.”
“There’s more.” I slip my fingers under her chin so I can tilt her head back. She needs to look at me while I say the rest. “Never quite knew how it happened, but the cops pieced together a story that had Lara driving and me trying to—fuck, I don’t know—save the day or something.”
“You were.” Her gaze clings to mine, and I can’t look away. “Maybe not in the same way they thought, but you were.”
“Everybody kept telling me what a great job I’d done. How I’d tried so hard.” I shake my head with an ugly laugh. “Fuck me. I hadn’t done a great job. I caused the whole fucking thing!”
“You didn’t tell them the truth?”
I blow out a ragged breath and lift one shoulder. “I tried, but people weren’t listening. I was out of it for a day or two. Shock, they said. A concussion. They kept me in the hospital, and I finally saw Mason when I got out. He was fucked up, in the hospital, and there I was, trying to piece all that shit together. He was on some good fucking drugs for the pain, in and out of it, and he gave me advice I wish I’d ignored.”
“What?”
I close my eyes. “‘Let it go, man,’ he said. ‘Lara’s dead and we gotta live with this shit. Let ‘em think she was driving. So what? It won’t change a damn thing if they know it was you. It woulda been her if she got her way.’ And I listened! Fuck.” My chest feels all empty and achy. “Fuck me, I listened.”
Bree kisses me again, right in the same place. “You were a kid,” she whispers. “Fifteen and scared.”
“Fifteen and stupid.”
“You’re allowed to be stupid at fifteen.”
I swallow. “I’ve been so pissed off at Lara for fucking around like that. Then I’d get pissed off at myself for letting her get drunk. For letting her go down on me in the car. So much shit has gone on in my head. Mostly guilt cause I didn’t get everybody home. I didn’t even get hurt, except for some cuts and bruises and the concussion. And then—what a fucking piece of shit I am for letting her take the blame.”
“You never told anybody?”
“I tried, off and on, for a couple of years. First I tried to hide in music, the one thing I always loved. I wrote a bunch of shitty songs about it. Haven’t touched the subject since. I was depressed as fuck, and the best I could do was just fucking survive.”
I take a deep breath. “I finally got the balls to tell my dad the truth around the second anniversary of the accident, but Mason denied it. Everybody thought it was some sort of survivor’s guilt or something. I tried to talk to Lara’s parents, but they said the same thing. Nobody would listen.”
Bree’s arms tighten. “And so, here you are, stuck with the guilt and the pain and all the shit that only makes you feel bad about yourself.”
I shake my head. “Here I am, the same piece of shit I was ten years ago. Lara’s still dead. Mason’s hooked on painkillers and prescription meds, still refusing treatment that might give him a chance at a real life. And Jill still lives at home, happy as any first grader would be. And me? Hell, I’m Ajia fucking Stone! A fucking rock star with money and women and a career I don’t fucking deserve.”
Bree climbs over me then, straddles me and looks at me straight on. Sorrow darkens her gaze, and her lips turn down with pain. “Ajia. Oh, baby. You didn’t kill anybody.”
I stiffen, and she clutches my biceps to stay steady. “Weren’t you listening?” It’s a harsher demand than I meant, but I don’t apologize. “I did! I killed and hurt people beyond their ability to recover. I destroyed families and lives and—”
“It was an accident.” She takes my face between her small, gentle hands. “You were young and not prepared when life got out of control. You didn’t try to make any of that happen. It was a terrible, terrible accident, and you did the best you could.”
I shake my head. “My best. What a fucking joke.”
She leans in, presses a soft, quick kiss against my mouth. “Don’t take this the wrong way. Please don’t. But maybe it’s about more than just you.”
“What?” I blink a couple of times. “What does that mean?”
“Well…�
�� She glances away for a heartbeat. “I’m not sure I know how to explain, but…I had some pretty heavy questions when my dad left. Mom was upset, Knox was pissed, and I only had my grandparents to talk to. Mom’s parents. It took years, yeah, but I finally got it that Dad leaving pretty much had nothing to do with me. Sure, I was one of the people left paying the consequences, but he didn’t think squat about me when he made any of his crappy decisions. It was all about him, and I was just collateral damage.”
I don’t know how to respond, and then she continues before I figure it out.
“It was Gram who helped me see that I could live with the fallout of what he’d done, because he’d never know or care either way. What he did to me wasn’t anywhere on his radar. It just didn’t matter, and I needed to take responsibility for my life and my choices from there on out. You can do the same.”
“Yeah?” I close my eyes and think of all the fucked-up choices I’ve made and how they’ve affected other people. Even her! That girl at the party in Phoenix is a perfect example!
“I’ve done such a fucking outstanding job of it so far,” I snort. “Look at all the great fucking decisions I’ve made and how much they helped people.” I swallow and force myself to meet her gaze. “Look how much I’ve hurt you.”
She shakes her head and gives me another sweet kiss. “That wasn’t about me. I understand that now. It was about you making you feel as bad as you possibly could.” She smiles sadly. “And it’s proof that this shit isn’t easy. I mean, look at how I’ve fucked up!”
“You?” I’ve tried not to touch her, but I can’t help it anymore. I push her hair back from her face, slide the backs of my fingers down her cheek and rest my palm over her shoulder. “You’ve done everything right.”
She reaches across her chest to lay her hand over mine. “Oh, A, you know that isn’t true. I lost myself in the demands of school and didn’t really live my life while I—I don’t know—pined for you. I was afraid to take a chance. And I haven’t taken control of anything where Gabe’s concerned. I just ran away. Going on tour with you and the guys reminded me it was time to step up and do the right thing for me.”