Wait (Bleeding Stars #4)

by A. L. Jackson

  Damian sauntered into the middle of the room, wearing that smirk that claimed he knew too much. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess this sour-puss mood you’ve been rocking for the last two days has something to do with that chick you went and ruined your show at The Lighthouse for on Tuesday night. And by the way, Craig is so not impressed. You’re totally on probation. Said one more fuck up and you’re out.”

  Like I gave a shit.

  I gave him an answering scowl. “Fuckin’ up seems to be my forte, now doesn’t it?”

  “Whatever, man. Use that as a bullshit excuse. You just can’t help yourself. Sound about right?”

  “Sure does.”

  He shook his head. “God, you can be such an asshole. You do realize taking it out on me isn’t going to change anything?”

  Dropping my head, I set my hands on my waist, trying to suppress some of the bullshit emotions doing their best to escape.

  Because he was right.

  None of this had anything to do with him.

  I managed to fuck shit up all on my own.

  His voice quieted in caution. “You about ready to tell me who she is?”

  I swallowed over the lump that suddenly felt prominent in my throat. Like that regret was compounding. Growing bigger. Pressing. I wondered just how long it would be until it exploded.

  “An old friend.”

  Labeling her as only that? It felt like another damned betrayal.

  Because she’d been everything.

  But betraying?

  That’s what I did best.

  “A friend?” His tone was all kinds of incredulous. “Sure didn’t look that way to me.” He tossed it out like an accusation, his words like darts nailing me to the wall.

  I spun toward him. In surrender, I threw my arms out to the side. “Fine. You want to know who she is? She is someone important. Someone I hurt. Two nights ago was the first time I’ve seen her in years.”

  Not since she’d packed her things and ran. It was the night I’d gone and taken the secret she’d offered me like a gift and tossed it out like it was yesterday’s news.

  I was supposed to protect it.

  Protect her.

  Instead I hadn’t done anything but leave her to be trampled underfoot. Revealed what he was never supposed to know.

  It was my fault.

  I knew it. Losing my fucking head the way I had.

  And there was nothing I could say in her panic to get her to stay.

  I can’t believe you would do this to me. After everything I trusted you with. Just…stay out of it. Stay out of my life and my business because I can’t trust you. Don’t make this any worse than you already did.

  That’s what she’d left with me, the words forced out through her sobs, horror in her eyes gleaming through the tears staining her face.

  Then she’d vanished into the night. Days had turned into weeks and weeks had turned into months.

  It was the years that had passed that assured me I’d lost her forever. I’d been so damned careless. Taking the fragile and tossing it around. Stupid enough to think when it fell, it wouldn’t break.

  Her parting words spun through me.

  Stay out of it.

  Unease swirled. A sudden onslaught of nausea.

  Maybe I should regret it. Regret the fact I’d ignored her final plea. Sticking my nose deeper into her business than I’d ever allow her to know.

  But I couldn’t.

  Couldn’t find any remorse for making that bastard pay.

  Of course she had no clue it was me.

  That I was responsible.

  That was something that would only hurt her more. The girl was too kind and too good to understand that sometimes the right thing to do most people would consider wrong.

  You know the old rule.

  An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

  Only thing I regretted was I wished I could have taken more from him.

  God knew he’d just about ruined her.

  In discomfort, Damian shifted, hesitant as he hedged the subject. Like he was trying to get to the heart of it all without uttering it aloud. Figuring he would set me off.

  Smart boy.

  God knew I was one misstep from coming unglued.

  “She’s really pretty, yeah?”

  A disoriented chuckle rumbled in my chest.

  Pretty.

  Not even close.

  She was fucking gorgeous.

  It was like the girl had been created just for me. A replica of my every fantasy.

  But it was the inside that left me a jumbled mess.

  The gracious and the good.

  The girl was the only one who shed a light strong enough to pull me from the dark. The one who held the power to call me from the blackened waters where my lungs were filled. At the cusp of succumbing.

  Right where I belonged.

  But that girl…that girl had given me air.

  A reprieve from the unending storm.

  I raked an agitated hand through my hair. Fuck. Just the memory of her standing there two nights ago threatened to harden my cock, and that right there should be warning enough.

  Here I was again. Wishing I could plow right through all those lines I was forbidden to cross.

  Itching to taste. To touch. To take.

  My stomach twisted, thinking about the way she’d looked when I’d seen her Tuesday night.

  How she still managed to affect me.

  My dick had gone hard while all the hard, brittle, broken places inside wanted to go soft.

  To melt beneath the sweet and the pure.

  My fingers twitched with just the idea of diving into those waves, now longer than before, that beautiful mess of hair so blonde it was almost white.

  My mouth watered with just the thought of getting one more taste of those soft lips that always rested in a seductive pout.

  Guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when that asshole had swooped in like some kind of glorified deliverer. Staking his claim. Taking what should have been mine.

  But I was the one who was the fool. The one ignorant enough to let her go.

  It was jealousy that had gotten the best of me the first time. I wasn’t about to let it win twice.

  That didn’t mean watching him tuck her close to comfort her didn’t sting like a bitch.

  Did he get her the way I did?

  Had she let him in?

  Did he know?

  Thinking about it had me antsy, fingers twitching with the urge to yank out all my hair, my masochistic mind hung up on the idea of another man touching her.

  God, I was a selfish prick.

  Had been for my whole damned life.

  Taking the good and crushing it in my hands.

  Shit.

  I didn’t want to be.

  I didn’t want to continue to be a failure.

  But it seemed impossible to right all those wrongs.

  Because this disaster I’d caused?

  It’d rippled wide with a devastating effect.

  Ruining lives.

  I’d forever regret ruining hers and destroying the last good in mine.

  “Come on, man. Just…go…talk to her.” Damian shrugged like the solution was simple.

  I huffed. “Talk to her? She made it pretty damned clear she didn’t want to see me, let alone talk to me. And it’s not like I have her phone number and can just dial her up.”

  With his index finger, Damian scratched behind his ear and averted his gaze to the floor. The way he always did when he was feeling guilty. Finally, he looked up. “You know Deak knows her, right?”

  I froze. A scowl marched across my face as his words sunk in. “What do you mean, Deak knows her?”

  Deak was the owner of this house. Three months ago, Damian and I had come to Santa Cruz with the expectation of passing through, not staying for longer than a week or two, the way we always did. But on the night I’d first played at The Lighthouse, he and Deak had struck up a convers
ation. Didn’t take them long to realize they were both addicted to the sea and the surf, Deak growing up on the big waves of Australia while Damian had braved the freezing waters of the Washington coast.

  That night, Deak had offered up his place. Said he’d been looking to let out a couple rooms in the house he’d inherited from his grandparents. He’d been living here alone for the last two years since he’d moved to the States.

  I’d told him I couldn’t promise how long we’d stick around, because I wasn’t about to get myself tied to one place.

  Not when I had no idea where I belonged or where I was headed.

  Still, we’d been hanging here for the last three months.

  The house was perched on a cliff that overlooked the ocean. Night after night, the sound of the waves filled my ears, calling to me just the same as they pushed me away, his presence strong and profound. Same way it always was anytime I was up close to the sea.

  Precisely the reason I never got far.

  I’d thought that’s why I felt incredibly bound to this place.

  But I guess I’d been tied to it in a way I didn’t get.

  Not until now.

  Not until her.

  And fuck, if it didn’t feel like fate.

  Eyebrows drawn, Damian cocked his head as he began to explain. “That guy? The one you looked like you were about two seconds from tearing apart?”

  I gave a short nod.

  Like I could forget.

  “He owns the surf shop where Deak helps out sometimes. Name’s Jed. Turns out your girl works there too, works the register at the shop. Rooms with him and his sister at a little place a couple miles from here. Apparently Jed said something to Deak about her freaking out about some guy playing at The Lighthouse. Deak put two and two together. Asked me this morning if I knew how you knew Edie Evans. Said something about her being a sweet girl who didn’t need any more trouble.”

  Anger burned through my veins.

  Rooms.

  Was she sharing his bed?

  Turning away, I raked a hand down the back of my neck, rubbed at the tight muscles, not sure if I had it in me to process what that fact meant.

  Maybe fate was too damned late.

  “Never seen you this spun up, man. She’s different than the rest?” Damian asked.

  I knew what he meant. Wanting to know if this was just about me wanting to get my dick wet. If she was like the girls I blew through town after town.

  Wishing for someone or something to fill the void.

  Knowing it was impossible.

  But at least for a few sex-fueled moments I could forget.

  It’d never been about that with Edie. Even though that’s what had fucked it all up in the end.

  My need for her had grown to a place where I couldn’t see straight. Couldn’t think straight. Because of it I’d burned what we had straight into the ground.

  “Yeah, man. She’s different.”

  So different.

  So different and perfect and right.

  Too perfect for me.

  But that didn’t mean I didn’t ache for her with every messed-up part of me.

  He huffed out a sigh. “Seems to me you have some amends to make.”

  Guilt throbbed in my conscious, heavy and hard and suffocating. I looked toward the ceiling, the words raw when I forced out the confession. “I’ve made more mistakes than I could ever make up for.”

  There were some mistakes you couldn’t take back.

  Damian might think I was a good guy.

  He was wrong.

  “Then you’d better get busy, my friend, because hanging out here acting like a straight-up asshole isn’t going to win you any points.”

  Her fragile voice echoed through my mind. Touching me like it used to in the dark, her hands fisted in my shirt like a plea.

  When I’m with you, it doesn’t hurt so bad.

  Hope sparked in that dark, dark place.

  That place only her light could reach.

  There were so many mistakes I’d made that I could never redeem.

  But maybe…just maybe…this one I could vindicate.

  Age Seventeen

  I tossed and turned. Kicked the covers from my body. Stared up into the darkened ceiling of my room.

  Everything felt too close and too tight, my skin slick with sweat, my heart beating too goddamned hard.

  A creeping dread sank into the pit of my stomach as my ear tuned to the quiet sobs that seeped through the wall from the room next door.

  Fear and sorrow.

  I felt it. Recognized it.

  Even when the sound was muffled by her pillow.

  By the walls and the distance.

  I recognized it.

  I slid from the confines of my bed. I gripped handfuls of hair as I paced and listened some more.

  What the hell was I supposed to do?

  This was the girl who’d been too shy to even look at me earlier when she’d stood in the front doorway, while her brother had grinned like a fool at her side, all too eager to announce his baby sister was staying for the summer while the band was on break.

  God. Even with her head cast low, she had to have been the best thing I’d ever seen.

  Girls came and went in this house.

  All the damned time.

  Sex and sin.

  Fucking easy.

  No one seemed to mind when I just reached out and took my share¸ like I was some kind of twisted, fucked-up partner to the band.

  Those chicks were always game.

  Good to get whatever taste they could.

  Even if it was just me.

  An outsider who wished he was good enough to step into the ring.

  But this one? She’d all but ignored me when it felt like for the first time in my life, my eyes were open and I could finally see.

  Because I’d felt them. Fuck. I’d felt them. The quick peeks. The stolen glimpses fueled by the strange curiosity that neither of us had seemed able to shake.

  Sure. I’d met her a few times through the years when we’d been nothing more than little kids.

  Then?

  It’d seemed like nothing.

  Now?

  It felt like everything.

  Now I knew something profound was prodding at me. Calling to me from that room.

  A room that was clearly off-limits.

  Another stifled sob that hit me like a dagger to the heart, and that was all I could take. I didn’t even take the time to think it through, the rash decision made somewhere in my subconscious when I dropped to my knees to dig into the back of my closet.

  I rooted out what I kept hidden in a small chest and clutched it in my hand, welcoming its relief. For the flash of a second, I let my grandma’s voice caress me like a song, the same as it’d done when she’d given it to me when I was eight.

  Pretended like I might possibly deserve it.

  Keep it close, sweet boy. Whenever you’re scared or the dreams come, cling to it, and it will hold them for you. It will give you peace and safety. Whenever you need it, think of me and remember what I told you.

  I knew with every part of me this girl needed it.

  That she deserved it.

  I edged out the door, slinking slowly with my back pressed against the hallway wall, hiding in the shadows.

  Like some kind of sick, perverted fuck sneaking around.

  Some part of me was screaming that I was doing something wrong.

  Crossing a line that’d been invisibly drawn right in front of her door.

  The rest of me just didn’t care, and I was slowly, quietly, turning the knob and stealing into the darkness of the guest room.

  Moonlight filtered in, lighting up her white hair in a soft, milky glow, her skin an almost alabaster white.

  Damn it all if my breath didn’t hitch. My stomach was twisted in a thousand knots.

  I took a cautious step forward.

  The floor creaked and my spirit thrashed.

  Her little b
ody froze, no doubt sensing my approach, her back to me where she quaked and clung tighter to the blanket covering her face.

  So goddamned much fear trembled from her, it chipped out another fragment of my brittle, broken heart.

  It seemed impossible.

  That this virtual stranger could possibly make me care.

  But I couldn’t stop the intrinsic need to soothe her pain. To take it away.

  Everything else faded away and my sight narrowed on one singular goal.

  I couldn’t get my fingers to stop shaking when I tentatively brushed them through her hair, couldn’t ignore the surge of energy that flashed through my veins. “Shh…I’ve got you.”

  She gasped at my touch. And maybe we both were shocked by it, but there was no missing the way her tensed up body relaxed, the way she shuddered out a relieved breath.

  Like maybe she got I was there to hold her.

  Never to hurt her.

  That was all it took for me to go crawling in behind her.

  Pulling her into my arms.

  At the contact, I sucked in a sharp gust of air. Like I was taking the first real breath I’d breathed since the day I’d stolen his.

  Light.

  It strobed against the blackness obliterating my heart.

  God. Who was this girl?

  Hesitantly, she turned in my arms.

  Aqua eyes, wild and bewildered, stared at me through the subdued light.

  Still, they glinted like the sharp cut of diamonds.

  Everything trembled and shook.

  My heart and my spirit and my mind.

  Fear and awe.

  It reflected between us, like two mirrors that went on forever.

  Eternal.

  My throat was tight, and I pulled her closer, my mouth pressing a bunch of kisses into all her wild hair, to the soft skin at her temple. I lifted the hoop with the tangled web over our heads. My words were a strained whisper. “See. You don’t have to be afraid. This…it will hold all your dreams. They have no power over you. They can’t hurt you. Keep it with you always, and it’ll give you peace and safety.”

  I couldn’t help hoping she’d allow me to give her a little bit of it, too.

  Waves rolled against the sand. They came as a quiet thunder as the tide ebbed and waned. The familiar rhythmic lurch of the sea filtered in through my open window, and the flowy drapes framing it blew in the gentle breeze.