“Thank you so much!” she squealed. “I can’t wait to hang it out front!”
I placed a hand against the small of her back, enjoying more than I probably should how well it seemed to fit in the dip there. “You’re welcome. I thought it was something that would make the place seem that much more real to you.”
Craig cleared his throat from where he stood off to the side. His eyes were dark and his arms were folded across his chest. He was pissed. Obviously, what I’d done to him hadn’t put any sense of fear in him when it came to me. Regret that I hadn’t added a few more punches to get my point across better rippled through me.
Paige released her grip on me and stepped away, smoothing the fine hairs around her face. There was a look of sheer panic in her eyes. I pondered for a brief moment if the panic swirling in her eyes and tightening the muscles of her face was because she was scared of Craig. If so, then why the hell had she given him a second chance?
“What do you think?” Paige asked Craig. It was obvious she thought drawing him into the conversation would curb his attitude. Generally, I would think this move was funny, because it was almost as though she was pacifying a small child by including him in the conversation to avoid a hissy fit. This time, however, I couldn’t find any humor in the situation. I frowned at her, and then cut my eyes to Craig. What was the point in being with someone you had to walk on eggshells with? Screw that.
“Eh, it’s all right. I don’t really get why the closet theme needs to be on the sign too. To me it’s just overkill.” He shrugged and I wanted to throat punch him.
Of course, the little prick wouldn’t like anything that came from me.
“I think it ties in well, personally, but it’s not up to either of us—this is Paige’s place.” I turned my attention back to her. “If you don’t like it, I can always trash it and get you whatever you want.”
Her eyes widened. “No. I like it. Don’t do that. It’s great, really. I’m with you. I think it ties in with everything else. Thanks.”
Craig tensed beside her and I fought the urge to roll my damn eyes at him. “All right, well, that’s all I came by for. Glad you like it. I’ll see you around.”
“Thanks. I do.” She flashed me a small smile, and crammed her hands into the front pockets of her cutoffs. Her smile didn’t do the excitement glowing in her eyes any justice, and I hated it.
“See you later, caveman,” I shouted over my shoulder at Craig as I exited the shop, unable to help myself. I fucking hated him.
Craig and I had always butted heads, even when we were little. Just because our parents were as close as could be didn’t mean we had to be. The more I was around him lately, the more things about him I added to my list of reasons why I couldn’t stand the fucker.
Climbing into my car, I cranked the engine. Some Five Finger Death Punch blasted through my speakers, and I turned it up louder. Even though I was twenty-five, I still dedicated songs in my head to fuckers like him all the time and this song was one of them. Music was the expression of the soul, and this song expressed how much I loathed Craig Owens right now. He’d ruined my moment with Paige.
I glared at the two of them through the large windows along the front of the store; they were obviously already having an argument about my gift. A shit-eating grin twisted my lips. Maybe this would be the final straw, and Paige would come to her damn senses about him.
I could hope.
Afterward, I’d have no problem swooping in and taking his place, becoming the replacement guy Lauren had mentioned the other night. I could rock her world like no one else. She’d been right when she said there wouldn’t be a damn thing she could do with me that she’d ever regret; I’d make sure of it.
Backing out of the parking space I’d been occupying, I started toward the hardware store. I’d reached the point in my renovations of my parents’ house where I needed to decide on some paint colors. Rolling my windows down, I lit a cigarette and headed to the other side of town. I was nearly halfway there when some lady in a minivan cut in front of me and forced me to lock my brakes up. Something in my backseat fell to the floorboard with a clanking noise, startling me. I’d forgotten to give Paige the bolt package that came with her sign. Fuck.
Rolling my head on my neck and letting out a sigh, I cut into the closest parking lot and turned around. If I didn’t give them to her now, I might not have another chance, and I sure as shit wasn’t giving them to Craig to pass along.
When I pulled in front of Paige’s shop, I didn’t cut the engine of my car. I figured I’d stirred the bee’s nest enough for one day and I’d just drop and go with the bolts. The second I reached the shop door, that notion drifted from my mind in an instant. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but I could see the look on Paige’s face and the tears streaming from her eyes as Craig gripped her upper arm with too much force. I didn’t think; instead, I merely reacted. I was through that door and lunging for Craig in seconds. Red exploded around the edges of my vision, and all I could focus on was him. Gripping his shirt, I pulled him backward and away from her so quickly he had no choice but to release her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
PAIGE
Cameron moved into the shop like nothing more than a blur. Before I realized what was happening, he had Craig by the shirt and was growling in his face about something. My hand gripped where Craig’s insanely tight hold had been seconds before, and I stood paralyzed, staring at the two.
“What the hell? Get off me!” Craig shouted. He thrashed his body, trying to get free of Cameron’s grip, but couldn’t.
“Paige,” Cameron shouted over Craig’s curses. “Tell me why he was holding you like that.”
I blinked and sniffled a few times, trying to wrap my mind around how the entire situation had changed so drastically.
“Paige, tell me,” Cameron pleaded, his words a little more intense this time. My eyes shifted to meet his; they were concern-filled and tender. “Tell me so I know I’m justified in what I’m about to do.”
“Oh what, you wanna go at it again?” Craig shouted. “I’m not drunk off my ass this time, fucker. I’ll take you.” His elbow came back and slammed into Cameron’s ribs.
In the next instant, Cameron pressed Craig against the wall with his forearm crushing his windpipe. Craig’s hands, still balled into fists, came crashing into Cameron’s sides until his blows lost all power behind them and his face turned a shade of red I’d never seen before.
“Let him go!” The words sliced through the air, surprising even me. Why was I telling him to let Craig go? Maybe it was because I didn’t want to see anyone get hurt. “Please, that’s enough. Just let him go.”
Cameron un-wedged his forearm from under Craig’s chin, and we both watched as he slumped to the floor, gasping and choking for air. A frustrated grumble spurred from Cameron and he turned to face me.
“You okay?” he asked. He rubbed his hands over his face.
“Yeah.”
“What was that about?”
I dropped my hand from the area burning with the pain Craig had inflicted. “I don’t know.”
I did know, but I wasn’t about to tell Cameron that Craig had been pissed because he’d bought me a sign for my shop. Craig thought it meant something—that Cameron and I had been seeing each other behind his back.
“You do know. You just don’t want to say,” Cameron sneered.
“Get the fuck away from her!” Craig shouted, his voice still winded and crackly.
Cameron’s jaw tensed, but he didn’t retaliate as I thought he would. “Step outside with me.”
It wasn’t a question. He was telling me to step outside with him.
Craig stood and lunged at Cameron, but he pushed him back up against the wall. “Stay the fuck back or so help me God I’ll give you an ass kicking like no other.”
Craig’s hands came up in front of him in surrender, and the knots in my stomach loosened some. “Fine.”
I followed Cameron outside and won
dered what he planned on saying to me this time. As soon as we stopped at the other side of the parking lot, I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath.
“Now, what was that all about?” Cameron asked me again.
I bit my bottom lip, wondering how to word it. “He just wasn’t happy you’d gotten me the sign. He thought it meant that something has been going on between us.”
I hated how the words made me feel—dirty, embarrassed, and completely guilty, because I had been thinking about him earlier. I’d even said some inappropriate things on Thursday night while drinking. There was no way for Craig to know that, but it didn’t lessen my conscience any.
“It was a gift for the shop.” Cameron shook his head, frustration sweeping across his face and tightening his features. “Jesus, this entire situation is freaking blowing my mind right now.”
I didn’t speak. What was there to say? All I wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed to cry. My hand went to press against the area Craig had gripped. The realization that I’d allowed myself to be placed in a situation like last time shredded at my insides.
“I told you before and I’ll say it again.” Cameron reached out and lifted my chin, forcing my eyes to meet with his. “You deserve better than this, than him, and I hope now you truly realize that.”
I closed my eyes in an effort to keep the tears threatening to spill free at bay a bit longer. Words formed in my mind—each of them an argument or excuse for why Craig had done what he’d done again—but they never made it to my lips. Cameron was right. I did deserve better than this.
“I know you don’t want to hear it right now—and I might even be hanging myself in your eyes by saying this—but…if you were mine, I’d never hurt you the way that asshole does. Ever.” The pad of Cameron’s warm thumb brushed along my bottom lip, causing my breath to hitch and my heart to hammer for a whole new reason.
All too soon, Cameron’s touch was gone and I was left standing at the edge of the parking lot, wishing he would come back. My hands curled inward; my fingernails dug deep crescent shapes into my palms as I watched his retreating form. He walked back into the shop, and through the windows, I could see him lift Craig up by the front of his shirt and get in his face. Icy tendrils of panic slithered through me. I feared he would beat Craig like he had before.
Closing my eyes, I turned my head away, not wanting to watch what I’d caused to happen all over again.
“You deserve better than this, than him…”
Cameron’s words fluttered through my mind once more, and I realized with certainty that I had become that girl, the one I never thought I would be. The one who blamed herself for the way her asshat of a boyfriend treated her. The one who, over time, would lose every piece that made her who she was, all for the sake of keeping the peace.
“If you were mine, I’d never hurt you the way that asshole does. Ever.”
I latched on to the final snippet Cameron had said to me as though it were my life raft. I was done with Craig, and while I wasn’t going to jump right into a relationship with Cameron, I was incredibly grateful he had walked into my life. Feeling more empowered than I ever had before, I started across the parking lot to dump the asshole who’d tried to physically hurt me for a second time, and move on with my life.
CHAPTER THIRTY
CAMERON
“What do you think?” Richard, the guy I’d hired to paint the inside of my house, asked as I walked out from the kitchen and into the living room. He was painting the walls the shade of taupe I’d picked out.
The paint had actually been called Melodious Mushroom. I didn’t fully understand the reasoning behind the name—using the term mellow where melodious was would have made more sense—but whatever. Either way, I loved that it had the word mushroom in it. Not only was it a fun word to say, but it had also been my drug of choice—when I could find them.
“Looks good, right?” Richard rephrased his question when I didn’t answer the first time.
I pulled myself from my thoughts and nodded. “Yeah, very tranquil and neutral-looking, just the way I want it.”
My mom had painted the room sage green. I’d vowed to avoid repainting anything the same shade she had, even though some of them I enjoyed. Melodious Mushroom was splashed throughout the entire house. It was a bland and boring color to choose for an entire house to be painted on the inside, but it was a tad better than white and nothing like the lively colors my mother had. It suited me fine. Besides, I’d add color elsewhere.
As I walked out to the back deck, my thoughts shifted to where they’d been for most of the day—back to Paige. The moment I’d asked her to step outside with me flickered through my mind, just as it had so many times since it happened. I could still feel her warm, soft bottom lip pressed beneath my thumb. What possessed me to do such a thing, I didn’t know, but I didn’t regret it at all. The image of her closing her eyes and remaining where she stood would be forever etched in my memory.
I pulled my cell from my back pocket and scrolled through my contacts list until I spotted her name. The sad part was that I’d done this a million times over the last four days, but still couldn’t gain the courage to call or text her to see if she was all right. What the hell was wrong with me? This was all so unlike me. Eva would laugh if she knew what had been going on inside my head lately. She’d tease me about being in love and not knowing how to handle it.
While it was still too early for me to even think about the term love and Paige in the same sentence, something was happening. I couldn’t deny it. There was something there; I felt for her what I’d never felt for anyone before. I truly cared for her. I cared for her like I cared for Eva, but with Paige, it was something more and I couldn’t even wrap my head around it.
Pulling the canvas from yesterday off the easel, I stared at its harsh reds and brilliant oranges. Even the sunset yesterday looked angry to me. It was reflected in this painting. Leaning it against the rail beside all the other images I’d created over the last few days, I walked to the little speaker system I’d hauled outside and placed my phone right in the center. Clicking on my newest music app, I got some tunes going before I rolled up my sleeves and decided what size canvas I wanted to use today.
Colors by Crossfade came on as I was choosing a smaller canvas. I grinned, loving how there were times when the perfect song—one that would tie into everything you were feeling, everything that was going on in your life at that precise moment—came on. It made me believe I was where I needed to be, right where I was supposed to be, even for a moment.
I set the canvas on the easel, and moved to grab my palette. Staring at the colors before me in their tubes lined up on the banister, I picked up black first and squirted a little out. Dabbing my large sponge brush through it, I laid into the canvas, letting the beat of the music move me and the lyrics help guide my strokes.
If music was the expression of my soul, then my paintings were snapshots of certain moments taken of my soul.
When I finished with that painting, I moved on to another one without taking a break, without breathing. This moment was my release. This was where I needed to be and what I needed to be doing right now. After working through my third canvas, the music stopped as a phone call came through. Flicking the ashes off my cigarette, I wiped my messy hands on the old towel I’d been using for such things and picked up my phone. It was Eva.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Well hello there, Picasso, planning on coming up for air and getting your ass over here to eat lunch with me?” Eva asked.
Shit. I’d completely forgotten I’d agreed to meet her for lunch today at The Point. “Jesus, I’m sorry. I forgot, but I’ll be there in about ten, all right?”
She laughed. “No worries. Don’t die trying to race over here. I’ll just go ahead and order, so when you get here we can eat. What do you want? A sub, a salad, some wings?”
“A Philly cheese steak would be nice.”
“All right, see you soon.” She hung up
before I could respond.
I slipped my phone into my back pocket and sighed. Capping all my tubes of paint, I scooped up the brushes I’d been using and rushed inside to wash them. In about fifteen minutes, I was pulling into the teeny parking lot of The Point. I hated keeping Eva waiting, because unlike me, I knew her time was limited. She always had so much shit to do. Between work and school her schedule had been slammed lately.
Walking inside The Point’s door, I glanced around at the few tables and booths lining the walls until I spotted her. She was sitting alone at a booth along the back wall.
“Hey, sorry I’m late.” I slid into the seat across from her. “I got caught up in a few paintings.”
“I figured as much. You’re like an obsessed crazy person when you’re in the zone.” She grinned and set her cell on the tabletop. “Created any masterpiece you’re willing to give up?” Her right brow raised and her grin grew.
I shook my head. “Nope, not yet. They’re all made for rooms in the house.”
“Right, because without them your walls would look like shit. Seriously.”
I laughed. She hadn’t been a fan of my paint color for the place. “True.”
Our food came then and I ordered a sweet tea to go along with it.
“Perfect timing.” Eva flipped her hair over her shoulders and picked up the sandwich she’d ordered. “So, tell me about Paige, any news?” she asked around a mouthful of food.
I picked up my Philly and popped a green pepper coated with cheese that had fallen out into my mouth. “What do you mean? News about what?”
“Have you talked to her since you nearly kicked Craig’s ass over the weekend? Do you know if she was stupid enough to give him another chance? Have you tried to talk some sense into her, if so?” She glared at me as if I should have known this was what she’d been asking all along.
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