Chaos (Blackwell Bayou Series Book 1)

by Chelle C. Craze

  My fingertips followed the rim of the bottle, and I traced its smooth edge as I pulled my phone and earbuds from my pocket. I found the music that allowed me to relax and put it on shuffle, taking a swig and allowing my eyes to close as the burn coated my throat. I had no clue what the singer was saying, but that was the beauty of listening to rap in Spanish. I used it to drown out the noise of the world, and combined with alcohol, it was a welcomed distraction.

  About halfway into the first bottle, I was a little numb and could finally breathe. Resting my head against the bark, I closed my eyes and toed my boots off. The socks followed. The current song had great bass, and it really drew me into the rhythm, but for all I knew they were singing about a loaf of bread. I promised myself at that point if I ever decided to do anything else with my life, I’d learn Spanish. On the other hand, I’d probably hate what I was listening to because I usually didn’t enjoy rap. I loved the music, but didn’t care for most of the lyrics.

  The list completed, but it didn’t matter. There wasn’t anything here to escape. The only sound that was floating across the air was the crickets and frogs. A huge splash forced my eyes to open, and I jumped to my feet. Looking across the lake, I saw nothing that could have been responsible for the splash.

  Great. I was crazy. I’d developed auditory hallucinations. I yanked my earbuds out of my ears, wrapped them around my phone, and tucked them into the toe of my boot.

  Waves rippled across my bare toes, and I breathed a sigh of relief before stepping backward, out of the water’s reach. I thought I had lost what little sanity I had clung to for some time now. A dark figure popping out of the water caught my attention. There was no question it was a woman or a tiny man with long hair, but I couldn’t make out their face. Their hands wandered up their face and then combed through their long hair.

  I cocked my head to the side, setting my bottle down, and against everything I believed, walked into the water. Other than drinking, rudeness, and cussing, curiosity was one of my biggest downfalls. I guess those were some huge imperfections, but I wasn’t trying to impress anyone.

  The sound pierced my ears before I could cover them. The person was definitely female. A fucking crazy woman, wading water, and screaming at what I was certain the top of her lungs. There was only one thing to do, so I did it.

  “What the shit, woman?” I yelled in her general direction, my voice echoing across the lake, anxiety getting the best of me as the waves splashed against my waist.

  She jumped at the sound of my voice, and I chuckled as I turned and quickly got out of the water. One second in this lake was too long; I’d made my point, so there was no reason to stay in this deathtrap.

  She covered her body with her hands, and it was then the moon found her. It was her. Eris. There she stood in perfection. Crazy perfection. She wore a white bra, and below her stomach was still submerged in the water. She shook her head, and her shoulders rose and fell as I could only imagine her rolling her eyes and calling me a “dick”.

  “Woman?” she yelled to me while walking out of the water, not stopping there. She was headed around the bank, and I knew she was coming here, so I saved her the trouble of walking the entire way and met her.

  Her blonde hair was plastered to her forehead that had a scowl painted onto it. Her ice-blue eyes burned with hate, and I knew I was the igniter to it. The closer she drew to me, the more her bottom lip twitched with anger.

  “Are you stalking me?” she spat out and poked me in the chest, but I couldn’t answer her. My eyes followed the water dripping down her beautiful frame that was barely covered. I was staring, but I couldn’t help it. In thirty-two years, I’d never seen anything more beautiful. From her milky white skin to her blue eyes, she was everything I wasn’t. Everything I wanted.

  “Are you stalking me?” After a few seconds, I repeated what she had asked as hateful as she had, trying to sound convincing, and poked her in the sternum.

  Her eyes followed my finger as it lingered there, and I flattened my palm against her chest. I couldn’t move. My skin against hers, despite how little, stopped my world. Each beat of my heart pounded in pain and begged me to give in to the ache. Her heart fluttered beneath my fingertips, and I knew by its quickness, she wanted me as much as I needed her, but I knew I would fail her. Each beat screamed louder and louder, and there was no doubt in my mind that I wouldn’t stop myself. If I were sober, that was. Usually, when sober, I held back because the world was one big colossal fuck up, and I was the number one reason. I wasn’t sober, though. I was a selfish bastard. I had to feel her.

  My fingertips traced her collarbone and circled her shoulder. She kept her eyes on my hand as she held her breath, and then only allowed small, shallow breaths. I swore I’d let her go, but soon my left hand mirrored the path the right had taken seconds before. I told myself to stop when both of my hands found her neck and then slithered their wicked way up to cup her face. Her eyes found mine and told me not to stop. She was flawless, and I knew I’d only bring imperfection. I shook my head and the stupid ideas trying to surface away before they had a chance to set into place and take us to a place neither of us could return from.

  I broke our gaze and turned from her, finding my bottle and pressing it to my lips. I took a long drink, longer than I should have, but I needed to touch anything other than her. I took a few steps to put some distance between us.

  I couldn’t think when I was near her, let alone when I touched her. That was a lie. I couldn’t stop thinking, actually. I’d breathed her into my body and was addicted. I knew it, but like any other good addict, I denied I had a problem. Addiction was very similar to the stages of grief. At least for me it was. Although they came and went very quickly right now. I was pissed at myself, because the longer I watched her, the closer my feet took me to her. I knew we were both stubborn, and the sexual tension was growing with each inch that disappeared behind my feet. She pulled the bottle from my lips and brought it to hers, taking a long drink similar to mine, and then her fingers lingered around the neck. I didn’t know what else to do, but do the same to her. I took a quick swig as she watched me and reached for the bottle. I wanted to give it back to her, but couldn’t. I had to keep my hands busy, so I put both of them around the bottle and took another step backward.

  “You’re an asshole,” she said and looked beyond me to the other bottle against the tree. She walked over, opened the whiskey, took a drink, and glared at me over her shoulder.

  She was right. I was an asshole. Ironically, I was trying to do the right thing, though. I knew us being together was an extremely bad idea. Despite how amazing the sex would clearly be, it was obvious from the constant arguing I was no better for her than she was for me.

  After setting down the bottle, I rubbed my fingers across my beard. I knew I was losing control. I wanted to be what she needed. I needed her to be what I needed. Maybe we could have each other once and get it out of our systems, and then I could move on with my miserable life. Bargaining. I knew what I was doing, and I was lying to myself. At this point, though, being sensible no longer mattered.

  “And you’re crazy.” The words flew from my lips before I could stop myself from talking. Those weren’t the words I wanted to say, but they were the ones that crept out of my mouth around the brutal mixture of alcohol and being an asshole. Where the words came from didn’t matter. The effect on her was the same. I couldn’t take them back. I couldn’t stop her from breaking. Pain spread across her face as she opened her mouth to say something, but quickly closed it. She was fast to break our eye contact, recapped the bottle, and then set it back where she found it. Her teeth raked across her bottom lip as if she was doing her damnedest to remain silent.

  She made me want to do things I shouldn’t. I wanted to tell her I really wasn’t a dick all the time. I used to be a great man. She would have loved who I used to be. I wanted to be the past me for her. For the first time in a very long time, I wanted to be someone I was no longer capable of being
. Acceptance and cruel reality swirled around me. I would never be the person I used to be. He was the only version of me that might be good enough. For Eris, I wanted to do the impossible, but I knew it’d never happen. She gave me false hope. I had been lying to myself for years about one thing or another, but it had never been hopefulness.

  Regardless of her hurt demeanor or the fact I was a huge dick, she closed the space between us and put her palm against my chest. She swallowed my hatred and met me toe-to-toe. Our breaths gave each other air. When I exhaled my imperfections, she quickly breathed them in without questions. Standing so still as the world spun around us, each moment her chest rose, she took a little of my soul into her body with her breaths. As we stood still, the world spinning around us, each moment her chest rose and fell she stole a little of my soul into her body with her breaths. Apart, the two of us had faced the world and survived. Together, there could be only one outcome. We’d destroy each other.

  She pressed her lips to mine, but didn’t move from there. I didn’t either. I didn’t move even a millimeter of my body, because with the slightest movement on my part, I knew I wouldn’t stop. A millimeter of touch would lead to a foot of guilt, and then she’d be left to live with a lifetime of regret.

  “You’re crazy, too,” she whispered against my lips, and the faint smell of whiskey floated around us, lying to us both that we wouldn’t ruin one another. Over the years, whiskey had been my best friend, my confidence, and sometimes my excuse. By the way she handled her liquor, it was no stranger to her either. Tonight, it would be our empty promises of tomorrow. Tonight, I’d allow the whiskey to take me to the past, and I’d treat her as she should be. She should be handled with care and compassion… As soon as that thought crossed my mind, I forced my foot backward, knowing I was heading somewhere I shouldn’t with my thoughts. My foot slipped on the bottle and flew out from under me. Eris reached for me as I landed in the mud.

  “Fuck. Thanks,” I said to the world. I needed some type of interference before I wrecked her, but this wasn’t what I had in mind, at all.

  “What?” she said, her eyebrows knitting together, pain and hate returning to her eyes.

  “Not you. Shit. Dammit. No. I…” I corrected and got to my feet, trying to wipe the mud from my clothes, but it was useless. I was covered, so I gave up.

  16

  Eris

  “Fuck!” he said as he ran his hand and mud through his hair. I thought about telling him before he did it, but he deserved it. I tried to catch his ass and then he cussed me, so I didn’t feel an ounce of guilt right then. As soon as he realized what he’d done, he blew out a frustrated grunt and shook his head. I couldn’t help but laugh at him, not that I tried to stop myself. I knew better than to think this was a good idea, but I just wanted to forget. I didn’t want to be me anymore. I needed to be someone else. Although I didn’t know who that was.

  “I wasn’t…shit. Eris.” The tone of his voice broke as he heavily exhaled in visible annoyance.

  Without a clear direction, I turned away from him, my foot slipping, and almost landed in the mud right beside him. When I realized it was him calling me “woman” from across the lake, I had intended to remind him what respect was, but I wasn’t sure that was something in his vocabulary. I came here to relax, and he wasn’t helping that situation at all. In fact, if possible, I was even more disgruntled than when I arrived.

  The fact I still wanted him was wrong, but it didn’t stop what I felt. Everything about him—his beard, his tattoos, his attitude—was something the old me would never want. That made me need him more. He stood for everything that my past wasn’t. It was as if I hated the very air he breathed, but lived for his entire existence.

  “Eris?” His voiced wrapped around my name. Each letter danced on his tongue, and it tortured me. I knew in that moment I never had a chance of leaving him.

  Despite the distance I tried to put between us, he must have taken two steps when I took one. His voice sounded like he stood right behind me, which pissed me off. No clue why. This was just how Drex and I were. We pissed each other off, and at times I was sure we couldn’t stand the other, but we were drawn to one another.

  “What, Drex?” The words fell from my lips as his cold, muddy fingers slowly ran the length of my arm, leaving behind a brown streak. My eyes traveled down my arm and stopped on his fingers around it. I waited for him to answer, but, of course, he didn’t reply. I turned to face him.

  “What is it, Drex?” I whispered, startled and turned on by how close we stood. A light drizzle trickled down from the sky and slid down our skin.

  I saw it in his eyes, the same torment swelling within my heart. He stood motionless, apart from his uneven breaths. It was clear we both felt the desire radiating between us. It pulled us together with such a force neither of us could deny it.

  I wanted to leave because he didn’t say the right things, in between the small spaces left, when he wasn’t cussing. I needed to leave because he was an asshole. It was blatantly obvious he was a drunk, but I wasn’t judging him any more than he did me. Neither of us was perfect, but it was our imperfections that bound us together.

  On any other given day, I would have walked away, leaving his soul to bleed out, without any hope of mercy. Today was Tuesday, and not just another Tuesday. It was today my soul left the earth years ago and I’d fought so hard to barely survive on this day every year following, I just didn’t have it in me anymore. I didn’t have the strength to fight today. When you’d struggled for so long, eventually you gave up. Today, I didn’t want to be strong. For once, I wanted to give in.

  I was certain there were times we barely liked each other, and it was clear we were closer to hate than we were anywhere near love. It didn’t stop my heart from needing an escape as much as his soul needed a purpose. Until Drex, I didn’t know it was possible to need someone you almost hated and to move without ever taking a step. We stood perfectly still, but the vibrations between us were unmistakable.

  We needed each other to fill the empty parts of us that were missing from the past. To let our ghosts rest, even if it was only for a small amount of time. A temporary blip on the radar of a shitty life was worth it to me.

  I didn’t know who his demons were or what life took from him, until he became what he was today: an asshole. An angry, mud covered, cussing asshole. None of that gave me enough reason to stop. I didn’t need to know. Perhaps it made it easier to be near Drex, because we didn’t know each other’s heartaches. We just were. I knew what the world took from me.

  Most days, I wasn’t sure if I’d choose to be alive or dead anymore, if truly presented the choice. Drex wasn't giving me a choice. He made me choose life. He was forcing me to live and feel every ounce of the pain I so wanted to forget.

  Tears found my eyes and they had very little to do with Drex, but he was here and I didn’t want to cry in front of him, but I couldn’t stop. I was thankful for the rain. It hid my weakness, but I still hated water.

  "You're an asshole." My eyes flicked open as I told him again, pushing him backward against the tree, his fingers finding mine as they landed over his heart.

  "And you're a shit," his lips quickly mumbled, finding my mouth as he whispered the tiniest sliver of life back into my body. Not that I would ever admit it to him, though.

  I knew I should have walked away, but knowing and doing were two different things entirely. I was free-falling through life, but everything around me seemed to stand still. It was static. My life was static. Drex came into it and pulled the ripcord before I collided into the earth. I wasn’t sure if I was thankful or if I still wanted to crash.

  His hands glided down my body and he pulled me on top of him. The moment our bodies met, it was as if the world protested. Thunder cracked and echoed across the lake, while rain picked up and surrounded us. I didn’t know if it was the whiskey whispering temptation in our ears or the hunger we both shared for self-destruction that drove us, but I knew neither of us would s
top. His touch was intoxicating.

  When his fingertips wandered up my sides and under the lace of my bra, I winced as his fingers found my tattoo. My hand landed on his and I tried to hide the pain from him, distracting his fingers to the clasp of my bra. It didn’t work. He raised an eyebrow and brought us up from against the tree. His hand abandoned mine and went back to the small ark tattoo on my left side.

  I had hidden my insecurities from the world, and Drex, someone I had known for less than a month, was unknowingly begging to see them. A tattoo was more than just ink driven into skin; it was a story written in blood, an everlasting memory. It was my hidden broken heart. My devastation. Each outline screamed what I’d lost and the love I once had. It gave a glimpse into my soul, something I wasn’t sure if I was ready to let him see. I didn’t let anyone get close.

  “Eris?” His voice climbed into my veins and soothed my fears.

  I nodded my head, giving him silent permission. I wasn’t capable of words. He removed my bra and traced every thin line, beginning with the blue elephant. He placed his lips where his fingertips had just been and lightly kissed my side. With one kiss, he pulled me from the grave I’d lain in for years.

  His eyes slowly rose from my side and locked with mine. A peaceful, crooked smile crossed his mouth. He didn’t ask about the reasoning behind it, like the tattoo artist who didn’t get an answer. He didn’t demand an explanation as my mom had, even though we both knew why I got it.

  He just let me be who I was, and I accepted him for him. This was one of my favorite things about Drex. I didn’t have to explain my every move. In fact, more was said when no words were spoken than when we actually spoke. That was the thing about being alone; you spent most of your time in silence. When you found someone whose heart also knew loneliness, words weren’t needed. You were content just to have someone who understood your soul.