Excitement skitters through her.
“Why did you run?” he asks again, but this time his voice is soft, and there’s a note in it she recognizes. A seductive note.
And that’s when it all comes back to her, like a song she once knew. The melody of Road. She remembers being with him, remembers it. Not the tormenting dreams, but the actual night they spent together five years ago.
She hasn’t thought of it in years, wouldn’t allow herself to think of it.
The memory washes over her like warm rain. The feel of his skin under her hands and the taste of his mouth on hers. It was indescribable at first, the heady thrill of touching Road. So powerful, the way he filled her senses. She’d wanted him so much it made her reckless and blind.
But she wasn’t blind for long.
He was a surprise to her, but unfortunately, not in a good way. Because as it turned out, Road was not that great in bed.
In truth, he was terrible.
Granted, he’d been drinking whiskey all night, so she had to take that into consideration, but he was still a letdown. It was the only time she’d ever seen him drunk, though his drunken state was the reason they’d done it at all. Blair knew sleeping with her wasn’t a choice he would have made if he were sober.
This was back when she was still roommates with Tori. Road showed up late one night, hammered. Drinking straight from a bottle of Jack Daniels.
“Princess,” he said, standing on the front porch, grinning like a pirate.
“Road?” Blair was surprised to see him. “Is everything okay?”
“Guess you haven’t heard.”
“Heard what?”
He snorted. “Nothing. My sister around?”
“No, it’s just me here.”
He turned to go, but Blair stopped him. “Do you want to come inside for a little while?” He was obviously drunk, and she decided it was safer than sending him away.
He studied her for a few seconds then shrugged.
Blair figured he was probably looking for a place to crash-land anyway.
“Tell you one thing, they deserve each other,” Road muttered as he made his way into the living room and flopped down on Tori’s couch. “What do I care, right?”
“Who?”
“Gwen and Logan. Caught ’em in my bed together. Can you believe it? Screwing each other in my own damn bed!”
Logan was one of Road’s best friends, and Gwen was Road’s live-in girlfriend. Blair listened in silence as he ranted on about the two of them, too stunned to even speak. How could any woman be so dumb as to cheat on Road? It boggled her mind.
“Christ, why do I keep ending up with all these bitches?” Road muttered, then took a swig from his bottle. “Need to change, need to find something better.” His eyes flashed over to where she was sitting on the end of the couch. “Someone more like you. A good girl.”
Blair studied his handsome face, his long, muscular body splayed out before her. Even drunk Road was incredibly hot.
He took another sip of whiskey, licked his lips, then put his head back and closed his eyes.
That’s when her heart began to hammer, her breath unsteady because she knew what she was going to do. Saw opportunity where previously there was none. Saw how a path once dark and closed to her had lit up and was flashing a neon ‘open’ sign. Blair knew this was her chance to finally be with Road. Her one and only chance.
And she was going to take it.
NATHAN GRIPS THE steering wheel and listens with annoyance as the Honda’s engine struggles with sixty-five on the interstate. This car sounds like shit. He decides he’s taking it into Brody’s and giving it a tune-up and oil change himself. Hell, if things continue on the way they are, who knows how long I’ll be driving this damn car.
He glances over at Blair. She hasn’t said much since the incident in the hall, and he can guess why. Wonders where she really hid Isadora’s keys, if they were even in her condo at all. She could have put them anywhere. She’s smart, smart enough that he never should have underestimated her.
Going to have to start bringing my A game to this situation.
Blair fiddles with the radio, and a whiff of perfume from her hair drifts his way. It smells clean and elegant, just like Blair herself. He likes it. Too much.
Nathan lets his breath out and thinks back to what happened upstairs. The feel of her soft curves pressed against him. Another thing he liked too much. He wonders how this is going to work with him staying there, if his willpower can possibly hold out.
He knows he should feel guilty invading Blair’s space, and he does, but he also knows she’s keeping something of his. That car is important to him, means something, and he’s not leaving without it.
“Just pick one,” he says in irritation as she keeps flipping from station to station on the radio. “Any station will do.”
She shoots him a haughty look then continues changing stations. “I’ll stop when I find something I enjoy, and not before then.”
He chuckles to himself, amazed at how much she’s changed from the shy Blair he used to know. Even back then, he’d suspected there was more to her than meets the eye. It was one of the reasons he’d offered to marry her.
Should have known it would end in disaster.
They’d only had the one night together, though that’s all it took. In truth, he was so drunk he barely remembers it. He rarely drank like that, but it had been tough finding out two people he trusted were sticking a knife in his back.
He thinks about Blair in the hallway upstairs again, their bodies touching just right, until he’d finally come to his senses and pulled away. And then he thinks back to the night they had together years ago. Good girl Blair. He remembers wondering if she’d be shy in bed, but she wasn’t at all. She took what she wanted from him, and seeing that side of her had made him think later how a marriage between them might work.
Not that they ever had a chance to find out.
A messy business. That’s what it was, and he was sorry it went down the way it did. Never wanted that. He was ready to make a go of it, but it went bad right from the start, with Blair bleeding almost immediately after they took their vows at the courthouse. They spent their wedding night in the ER and their three-day honeymoon in the hospital before being sent home on bedrest.
He moved into the second bedroom of the house they’d just rented, while her family moved in to help care for Blair. He’d go to work at the garage early every morning and come home late every night feeling like a stranger, like he didn’t belong.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
And then there was the way they all looked at him—her whole tidy, upper-crust family, but especially her mom—like he was nothing but a piece of trash. Some lowlife scumbag. The scumbag who’d gotten their perfect good girl daughter pregnant. Didn’t matter that he’d agreed to marry her. And what sucked was he knew they were right. He never should have slept with Blair. It was selfish and he wasn’t thinking clearly, but deep down, he hoped some of it would rub off on him, too.
Some of that good girl magic.
They stuck it out for as long they could, but things never improved. Blair kept bleeding. Finally, she lost the baby. His child.
That was the worst part.
Nathan takes a deep breath and exhales.
It was a long time ago, and you can’t hold onto those things. You have to let them go or they’ll chew you up. He knows that better than anyone.
He didn’t leave her right away and stuck it out for another month, but the writing was already on the wall. Scribbled there in ugly black marker. Blair barely said two words to him in a day, and her family glared at him with open hostility whenever he was around, so finally he stopped being around. Bought a plane ticket to a place that was as far away as he could go. India. And he’d always figured everyone was happier that way.
As soon as they turn onto the street where Road and Tori grew up, Blair hears music. Loud music. It isn’t until they’re closer sh
e recognizes AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell.”
For someone who was never into heavy metal, she knows every single song. Of course, Tori loves heavy metal, but that’s not why Blair knows them all.
There are cars parked all along the street and the driveway is lined with motorcycles. It looks like the party’s been going for hours already. Of course, at the Church house, the party never really stops.
Road pulls the Honda beside the open garage onto a grassy area. Blair sees people standing out front on the porch with bottles in their hands, talking.
The house is a worn-down rambler, the last one on a dead-end street, surrounded by woods on two sides. Tori once told her how one of her mom’s boyfriends had set up a still out there, making illegal moonshine. Compared to her own family, the Church’s house seemed wildly exotic, and Blair sometimes felt like a foreign exchange student visiting Tori.
Blair always tells herself she would have been best friends with Tori no matter what, even if Road hadn’t been her brother, even if he hadn’t rocked her world that first day, because Tori was an amazing friend. But deep down, she can never be one hundred percent sure. Road’s allure was too powerful. She knows it’s one of the reasons she kept going back, lying to her parents, playing down the amount of partying that went on at that house, because if they’d known the truth, they never would have let her spend time there at all.
“Ready?”
Blair turns to find Road watching her. “I don’t see Tori’s van here. I hope she’s coming.”
He reaches for his door handle. “Wouldn’t worry about that. She’ll be here.” He swings the door open.
They both get out and walk toward the house together. It’s early evening, and the sun is starting to sink in the sky. Heads are turning their way.
Blair hears a loud shout then another as someone yells Road’s name. Suddenly, Kiki is running toward them.
Kiki throws herself onto Road as she squeals with delight. “You’re here!”
Blair smiles, watching the two of them. Kiki used to be pretty wild, but has toned it down quite a bit the past few years. Getting engaged seems to have helped calm her.
“Hey, freak!” Road laughs, hugging her back.
“Everybody’s been waiting for you!” Kiki tells him after she untangles herself.
“That right?” he asks with a grin.
“Yes!” She grabs his arm and pulls him toward the house. Kiki turns and waves enthusiastically at Blair. “Hey, Blair! I’m glad you came!”
More people are coming toward them and before she knows it, they’re surrounded by a crowd as they head toward the front door. People are shouting “Dude!” and “Roadster!” Some muscular guy with long, dark hair is hugging Road, and she sees it’s his cousin, Brody, who helped her with Isadora.
“‘Bout time you came back home, jackass!”
Road laughs. “Guess I missed being around a bunch of assholes!”
Everyone’s laughing and talking at once, and then Lori is there. People step aside to let her through.
Lori grins at Road. Her blonde hair is pulled up at the sides, teased into a frizzy halo around her aging beauty-queen face. “Waited long enough to come see me, didn’t you now?”
“Saving the best for last, is all.”
She laughs. “Come here, you!” The two of them hug each other as people around them whoop and holler.
Blair forces a smile, but already feels uncomfortable and wishes Road hadn’t talked her into coming. She isn’t good at parties, and these are the worst kind. Without Tori at her side, she’s just some weird, preppy chick who looks and feels like a square peg.
Mother and son pull apart. Standing next to each other, it’s easy to see their resemblance. Lori’s eyes are blue, though, not green. No one in Road’s family seemed to share his remarkable eye color, and she’d once asked Tori if her dad had green eyes, but Tori said she didn’t know.
“Blair!” Lori turns to her, smiling. “It’s so good to see you, honey. How have you been?” They hug each other and when they pull apart, Blair smells the alcohol on Lori’s breath. Lori’s eyes are bloodshot and, if Blair had to guess, she’d say Lori’s probably been drinking since this morning.
Garth, another worthless loser in a long line of the loser men Lori dated, is trying to talk to Road. Blair could never understand why Lori dated nothing but losers. Pictures of her pageant days proved she’d been a fresh-faced beauty, and even now she was still attractive. Although, all the partying had taken its toll, and there were deep lines etched around her eyes and mouth.
“I’m well, thank you,” Blair says politely. Despite everything, Blair likes Lori. Lori has always been kind to her and had shared in her sadness about what happened years ago.
“Tori should be back soon,” Lori tells her. “She had to leave and check in on one of her animals.”
Blair nods in relief then holds up the grocery bag. “I brought some food and wine. Should I put it in the kitchen?”
“That’d be wonderful, hon.”
Blair heads through the crowd of people. The house was built in the seventies and very little has been updated since then, so the kitchen still has avocado counters and chipped, white cabinets. Blair spent so much time here as a teenager it’s almost endearingly familiar. There’s already plenty of food laid out. She has to say one thing for Lori’s friends. They can cook. The food is always rich, with plenty of heavy pasta salads and fried or barbecued chicken, but it’s always delicious.
Blair dumps the chips in a big wooden bowl she finds in one of the cabinets and the salsa into a small soup bowl. She tries to arrange everything neatly on the table, cleaning up some of the mess people made, resisting the impulse to line things up perfectly.
She sticks the bottle of wine into a fridge that’s already stuffed with more food and bottles. Then she goes through it and throws out stuff that’s clearly gone bad.
Shifting things around, Blair notices a glass bowl of vodka gummy bears. She figures Tori brought them, since Tori likes whimsical stuff like this. She made vodka gummy worms for one of their girls’ nights a few months back. Blair picks out a gummy from the bowl and puts it into her mouth, rewarded with a burst of sweet alcohol.
“What’s that?”
Blair turns and is surprised to see Road standing behind her. She figured he’d still be out in the living room, hugging people and being affectionately called jackass by all his cousins.
“Vodka gummy bears. Tori’s doing, I’m sure.”
“Let me try one.”
Blair reaches into the bowl and picks out a green gummy bear to hand to Road. He ignores her hand, though.
“Pop it in my mouth.”
Blair hesitates. He leans in closer, opening his mouth for her, and she brings the gummy close to his lips and pushes it inside, her fingers brushing against him.
Road watches her with a mischievous grin, but when he starts to chew the gummy bear, his grin changes.
“Yuck!” He looks as offended as a kid who’s been fed a piece of broccoli by mistake. “Gross!”
Blair laughs, watching with amusement as he goes to the sink and spits out the vodka gummy bear. He keeps spitting a few times, trying to get the taste out of his mouth.
“Damn, that’s foul.”
She laughs some more. “I like them. I think they’re good.”
“You can’t be serious. Tastes like a piece of rubber soaked in alcohol.” He comes back to the fridge and searches inside, reaching for a bottle of pale ale. “Want a beer?”
“Sure, why not.”
He pulls two bottles out, twisting the cap off one before handing it over to her.
“There you are! I’ve been looking for you everywhere, handsome.” A woman about the same age as Blair is suddenly sliding up next to Road, hugging him. Her perfume’s so strong, it’s like standing in a cloud of gardenia scented bug spray.
“Hey there, Marla,” Road says, hugging her in return, and when Marla finally pulls away, Blair recognizes he
r. Marla was one of Road’s old Skank Factor X girlfriends. They’d dated for a little while after high school.
“What are you doing over here?” Marla asks, still staying close to Road. She puts a hand up and runs it possessively through his blond hair. “Lori told me you went out to your car to get something.”
“Yeah, had a few gifts for people.”
Marla smiles, and Blair notices with annoyance that she’s still gorgeous.
“I hope you got me something,” Marla says with a wicked grin. “Because I might have something for you, too.”
Road takes a swig from his beer. “I’m just over here seeing what my wife is up to in the kitchen.”
“Your wife?” Marla’s scowls.
“Yeah, you remember Blair, don’t you?”
Marla turns toward her. Blair can see Marla’s light brown hair is tipped blonde on the ends. She’s wearing a lot of dark eye shadow with a line of shiny blue on the inside corners. It should look weird, but instead it looks great. Her white Harley Davidson tank top is tight and low-cut, with plenty of smooth, tan cleavage on display. She’s studying Blair with confusion, but then her confusion clears. “Oh, that,” is all she says before turning back to Road. Not even a hello to Blair.
Typical Skank Factor X behavior.
Marla stares down at Blair’s navy Keds with a superior smirk on her face. “You guys are still married?” she asks Road. “I thought that wasn’t for real.”
“Oh, it’s for real, all right,” he says.
Blair glares at him, but can see him pretending not to notice.
“Huh.” Marla takes this in. And then she smiles, puts her hand up to Road’s cheek and leans in, starts whispering something in his ear.
Blair watches the two of them, watches Road’s face as he chuckles over whatever Marla is telling him, and wishes she could strangle them both.
This was once her life. She remembers it so clearly now, remembers the constant acidic taste in her mouth as she watched Road with all these horrible women.
Not anymore, though. That’s over.
She turns to leave the kitchen, to escape, when suddenly she sees Tori headed her way.
Return of the Jerk (Sweet Life in Seattle, Book 2) Page 10