Crazy: Gibson Boys Book #4

by Locke, Adriana

  Our breathing is ragged as I stand in front of him. Someone walks behind him and claps him on the shoulder, making some comment that I don’t quite register.

  His eyes are so blue, the color of the angry sea, as he looks down at me. A mixture of confidence and vulnerability dances across his face as he watches me for my reaction.

  “You don’t dance too bad,” I say.

  “You either.”

  I bite my lip to keep from smiling a big, lopsided grin. My hand is still encapsulated by his when he looks down at them.

  “Guess I could let you go now,” he jokes.

  “I mean, you can,” I say. “Or just keep me close in case your fans want an encore.”

  His eyes light up. “Maybe I can instigate them into it.”

  “I have a feeling you could do that with very little effort.”

  He raises our interlocked fingers between us. We both watch as he separates our hands.

  The energy between us thickens, preparing for the next interaction. The trouble is, I don’t know what I want that to be.

  I mean, I do know. I want him to pick me up and set me on the bar and grind against me again. That’s the hedonistic answer. That’s the response of a woman who hasn’t felt this light and amazing in a very, very long time.

  But the responsible woman knows that the longer I encourage physical contact with this glorious man, the more it will make things harder in the long run.

  Like the next time I run into him half-naked in the dark.

  I shiver. “I, um, I need to use the ladies’ room.”

  He nods. “It’s over there.” He points at a sign next to the pool tables. “Want me to walk with you?”

  “I got it.”

  “Okay.”

  I dip my chin. As I make my way through the crowd, surrounded by bodies and laughter, I feel … exposed. Vulnerable. Defenseless.

  “It’s time to build up some walls,” I mutter. “Before I find myself a mess. Again.”

  Fifteen

  Peck

  I flop down on a barstool. My heart thumps in my chest as if I just ran a marathon. Sweat dots my brow, and I wipe it off with the tail end of my shirt.

  What the fuck just happened?

  The smile on my face and throb in my balls will both stick around for a while. As a matter of fact, I doubt either will ease up until I figure out how to deal with Ms. Dylan Snow.

  I can still feel her skin in my hands—the smooth curve of her hip. The warmth of her body and the way it molded to my palms.

  Motherfucking hell.

  I look toward the bathrooms but don’t see her. I have a half a notion to go back there, but there’s really no reason to. Except that I crave that feeling—the one where every cell in my body feels alive when I’m next to her.

  “That was some show you put on up there tonight,” Navie says.

  She slides a beer my way. Propping her elbows on the bar, she rests her chin in her hands. She’s getting comfortable. It’s her way of letting me know she’s not going anywhere until I humor her. I usually do, but tonight, I kind of don’t want to talk. It feels like it would spoil it somehow even though I don’t know what “it” is.

  “What?” I tip the drink back. It spills down my throat. The cool liquid splashes into my stomach, soothing the riot in my overheated veins a bit.

  “You know what,” Navie scoffs. “What the hell was that? I mean, I loved it. I think it’s epically great. But … you know … what’s it mean?”

  I shrug.

  She sighs. “Come on, Peck.”

  The bottle hits the bar top with a thud. “I don’t know what it means. I was just fucking around. But …” I look for Dylan again. “I’m not mad about it.”

  “It looked like you were pretty damn happy about it, if you ask me.”

  The corner of the label is nicked. I pick at it instead of looking at her.

  I suppose it’s obvious that I am pretty damn happy about it. How would anyone not be dancing with Dylan and having her enjoy it and not be pretty damn happy about it?

  I probably need to reel that in a little bit.

  “See?” I ask. “That’s the thing. I didn’t ask you.”

  I tip the bottle back and forth. The rattle is a nice distraction from the pressure of Navie’s interrogation.

  “Well, for what it’s worth,” she says, standing tall. “I think the two of you together are magic.”

  Magic. A smile plays against my lips.

  I don’t know what she means by that, exactly, but I know being around Dylan feels a little like magic. Special. Easy. Like something—anything—could happen at any given moment. And having her dance with me tonight—a stupid tradition I started years ago—was epically great, as she put it.

  But magical? That’s not even a real thing.

  “Hey, bartender! I need another drink,” someone shouts from the other end of the bar.

  Navie’s face falls. “I’ll catch you later. But this conversation isn’t over, pal.” She starts to turn but pauses to give someone a penetrating glare over my shoulder before she walks away.

  I don’t have to guess who she’s looking at.

  A hand squeezes my arm. I turn around and see a pair of whiskey-colored eyes looking back at me.

  “Having fun?” Molly asks. She bats her eyelashes my way to hide the irritation behind them. “It looked like you were too happy to make an ass out of yourself up there.”

  I search Molly’s eyes for some thread of warmth, for some inkling that she’s in a good place tonight, but there’s nothing besides a vacant abyss that I’ve looked into time and time again over the years. The only emotion in the midst of the light brown orbs is a sadness that is as constant as the little mole beneath her right eye.

  That’s what pulls me in, what weakens me, every time she pulls one of her stunts. And that’s what this is, make no mistake about it. She saw Dylan and me, and she’s not happy about it.

  Good for her.

  Because tonight, for the first time maybe ever, I like how I’m feeling a whole hell of a lot more than I care about her being pissed off.

  “I didn’t see you come in,” I say.

  She squeezes my arm one last time before letting her hand fall to her side. “Yeah, well, I just got here a few minutes ago. Long enough to see your little performance.”

  The question she didn’t ask, the one about Dylan, hangs in the air. She doesn’t want to lower herself to ask who she is, but she’s not about to leave before finding out.

  It’s her modus operandi, the way she operates. She strings me along just enough to think there might be a chance between us someday, and for the most part, I go with it. I tell people I love her—and I might. I care about her a whole hell of a lot, even if she isn’t the nicest person sometimes. But I see what Molly does and who she is. I know her better than anyone. And I know it’s driving her absolutely crazy to see me enjoy myself with someone else.

  “Who are you here with?” I ask.

  “My sister. She’s talking to some guy outside.” She blows a strand of hair out of her eyes. “I didn’t want to wait out there like a third wheel or something.”

  “Can I buy you a drink?”

  She flashes me a half-smile. “No. I’m fine.”

  She is fine. She’s just pissed, but I’m on too much of a high to really worry about it too much.

  I take a long drink. Molly stands beside me and watches like she expects me to swallow and then explain all the things she wants to know. I would if that would make her go away, but it won’t. Not a chance.

  I start to get up to go find Dylan and talk her into getting a burger somewhere else when she slides up next to me.

  “Hey,” Dylan says. Her smile falters as she assesses the situation. “Am I interrupting something?”

  Molly’s hand goes to my shoulder. “Oh, no. You aren’t interrupting,” she says sweetly. “I was just talking to Peck.” She runs a fingertip down my arm.

  Dylan watches Molly’s a
ntics. “Oh. Okay. Don’t mind me.”

  I expect her to leave, but to my amusement, she doesn’t. She sits on the stool to my right. I can’t fight a chuckle as Dylan stands her ground against a woman most women avoid.

  Molly bristles to my left. “Who are you again?” she asks Dylan.

  “Molly …” I warn under my breath. I hear the edge in her voice that indicates she’s about to get out of hand.

  Shaking my arm out from under her hand, I sigh. “Molly, don’t you need to go find Megan?”

  “No. Megan’s a big girl. She’ll be fine,” she says.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Molly,” Dylan says. There’s an emphasis of her name—a confirmation that she’s put a few things together. Namely, that this is the person she’s heard about me being in love with.

  Shit.

  “I’m Dylan Snow,” she says.

  “I’ve never seen you before.”

  “No. No, you haven’t. I’m new to town.” Dylan lets her gaze drop to mine. She’s hesitant, careful even, as she picks her eyes back up and looks at Molly. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Molly laughs. “I’m sure you have.”

  Dylan takes a step back. Her posture is more rigid, her jaw set firmer than before. Still, a practiced smile is on her face.

  “Peck,” she says, “I’m going to head on out. I’ve had enough excitement for one day. See you at home.”

  I cringe as I look at Molly out of the corner of my eye. Her brows shoot to the ceiling. She grabs my forearm instinctively as she recovers from the shock of Dylan’s words.

  “You didn’t mention a roommate,” Molly coos beside me. “Is this your cousin or something?”

  “Nope. Not a cousin,” I say. That would make a lot of thoughts incestuous.

  “Oh.”

  I should say something. I should at least try to explain the situation to Molly and get her to go find Megan and do whatever it is she does on Friday nights.

  But I don’t.

  I don’t say a word because there’s a hint of misbehavior in Dylan’s eyes that I kind of want to see play out. She has the situation under control.

  “No, we aren’t cousins,” Dylan says with a laugh. “That would make things … weird.”

  “That would make a lot of things really weird,” I agree.

  Our eyes meet in the space between us. Even though we aren’t touching, we’re close enough to kickstart the buzz I feel when we’re together. I want to reach out and touch her—even if it’s the top of her hand.

  She searches me for an answer to a question I’m not privy to. But the longer she looks, the more my stomach clenches. Because what if I don’t have the answer? Or what if she doesn’t like the one she finds?

  “As Peck’s closest and oldest friend—” Molly begins but is cut off by Machlan.

  “Yeah, that’s my title,” Machlan says. He wipes the bar in front of us. “It’s definitely not yours.” He flips Molly a disgusted look before venturing away.

  Molly ignores him much the same way she ignores everyone. “Peck and I have been friends since we were children. Isn’t that right? We’ve spent many nights together, curled up in his room, watching the sunrise—”

  “Molly, I—”

  “Why do you wear this hat?” Molly interrupts me. She takes off my hat and runs her fingers through my hair. “I love the red one with the blue socks on the front better. It brings out the blue in your eyes. I wish you hadn’t lost the one with the fish on it. It was so you.”

  I duck out from underneath her hand and take my hat back from her. I shove it on my head. “Molly, stop.”

  “What?” she asks, a tinge of hurt in her voice. “Am I not allowed to play with your hair anymore?”

  I roll my eyes.

  Dylan laughs, getting to her feet. “Peck, tonight has been … real.” She glances over my head at Molly. She laughs again and lets her gaze fall back to me. “See ya later.”

  She gives me a final smile, one that’s laced with annoyance, and walks right out of the bar as if she owns the damn place.

  I’m still watching the door when Molly sits down beside me in the chair Dylan just vacated.

  “What the hell was that?” Molly asks.

  I drag my eyes back to her. “Just stop. You don’t care. You just want—”

  “I always care. You know that.”

  Her eyes soften as her entire face shifts to something more vulnerable. It’s true—she’s vulnerable. But not in the way she’s playing me right now.

  “Molly, just stop it. Please.”

  “Why are you being mean to me?” she asks.

  “I’m not being mean to you.”

  She takes my beer and downs half of it. Her bracelets clamor against the bar as she sets the bottle back down. Without Dylan around, there is no touching my shoulder or batting her lashes. Why? There’s no audience.

  “I’m not being mean to you,” I repeat, “but don’t do that. It’s not cool.”

  “Don’t do what? Don’t put that girl in her place? She was making a fool out of you, Peck.”

  I glare at her. “No. You know what just happened? She made a fool out of you.”

  Her jaw drops.

  “Why do you do this to yourself?” I ask her. “Damn it. You’re better than this, Molly. You don’t have to go up to some woman who’s done nothing to you and be a jerk.”

  “First of all, I wasn’t a jerk.”

  I slow blink in response.

  “Second, she did do something to me.”

  “What? What could she have possibly done to you?” I pause, waiting for an answer that doesn’t come. “She had the audacity to have fun with me in your presence? Is that what she did?”

  “Peck …”

  Navie slides me another beer. A bit of the liquid sloshes out on the bar. I’d normally grab a napkin and clean it up, but I don’t. My head hurts too bad, my body too pulled to a place outside this establishment to care.

  Instead, I take a long, slow drink before turning my attention back to Molly.

  “Dylan is nice. You could’ve made a friend there,” I tell her.

  “I don’t want to be her friend.”

  “Good, because it’s probably not going to happen now.”

  “Good, because I don’t care.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “She’s not right for you.”

  A chuckle passes my lips, but it’s not one of humor. It’s filled with years of frustration at a woman who refuses to see the light. Any light. Anything besides the darkness that’s surrounded her for the past twenty-six years.

  “I like Dylan,” I tell Molly. “She’s funny and sweet and …”

  Her face falls.

  I sigh. She’s going to play this card until it can’t be played anymore. The longer I sit here, the more I want to leave. To go home. To see Dylan and make sure she’s not fucked up by this little show Molly’s put on. She’s not used to her antics and might not write them off like everyone else does.

  “Molly, I need to get going.”

  “Are you going to see her?”

  “Well, we live together.”

  A look of panic settles on her face. It’s a fear for herself, not for me. She’s never really cared about me.

  This is not a revelation. I’ve known this stinging fact about her my entire life. I’ve always just been unsure that she was able to care about anyone, like maybe that part of her is broken. I’ve never blamed her for that, considering the reason behind the nights we’ve spent together over the years. Reasons I’d still go to prison for if the police hadn’t taken care of it already.

  I take Molly in—the feel of her hand on my arm, the smell of her perfume dancing through the air. The pull of her gaze trying to bring me back into her world.

  Usually, those things matter. They’re so familiar, and I worry that if I don’t have them, my life will be off-balance. That or someone else will be in my place and hurt her.

  But tonight, things are … different.

&
nbsp; It’s not her touch I crave, and the strength of her perfume is strangling out the remnants of Dylan’s on my shirt, and that alone annoys me. The eyes I want to be looking into—the ones I want to be checking to make sure they’re okay—aren’t whiskey colored. They’re the prettiest shade of green there ever was.

  I let the rest of the alcohol flow down my throat. “Molly,” I say, motioning to Navie that I’m leaving, “have a good night, okay?”

  “Peck.” My name comes out in a rush as she reaches for my arm. “I’m sorry,” she says.

  She bites her bottom lip, waiting to see if I’ll cave. I always do.

  “I just sort of lose my mind when I’m triggered, and it’s been a bad night,” she says. “Then I come in here and see you and her and … I just love you, you know?”

  Dylan’s words on love, which have stayed with me since she said them, come barreling back. Can you really, truly love someone who doesn’t love you back? Love should be based on mutual respect. A healthy love, anyway. Molly doesn’t respect me. She’s happy to have me on the periphery, someone she uses when needed. But she doesn’t want me or love me.

  And maybe, just maybe, love isn’t what I feel for her either.

  “Good night, Molly,” I say again.

  A streak of panic flashes across her face. I give her the best smile I can manage before I walk out. And for once, I’m walking away from her. And it feels just fine.

  Sixteen

  Dylan

  “Well, this isn’t going to work.”

  I take out the last shirt from my suitcase and lay it flat on the bed. The remnants of the wardrobe I packed to last me a few days until my rental was ready stare back at me from the top of Peck’s black guest room blanket.

  My options for work at the bank are more limited than I realized. It’s fancier than the bank in Indiana, and I don’t think I have enough pieces to really stretch my wardrobe longer than six days or so.

  I try to focus on my clothing predicament and not the other one—the one prickling at the back of my brain. It’s must easier to worry about the logistics of getting clothes out of the barn, or getting a dresser, or moving into the rental Joanie might have information about rather than thinking about what Peck is doing with Molly right now.