I swallowed. The answer would not work in my favor. “Fuck, Tenley. I don’t know. I didn’t keep a journal chronicling my sexual exploits. I’ve done a lot of shit I’m not proud of. I don’t need written documentation to prove how much of a deviant I’ve been.” I took a step closer and she stiffened, so I stopped. “I’ve always rebelled against normal codes of behavior. Even when I was a kid with great parents who gave me just about anything I asked for. I have always pushed the boundaries. Socially, physically, sexually, all of it.” I needed to shut the fuck up before I said something that would make her run, or worse. But at the same time, part of me wanted to be done with pretending that the way I was with Tenley was the way I’d always been. She was different; she made me different. Better. She had to see that.
“What does that even mean?” she asked on a whisper.
“It means I didn’t follow the normal rules.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“Do you really want details? Because I’m pretty sure you’d be much happier without them.”
“And I’m not sure I agree with you. Do you know how it felt to walk into my friend’s house and be bombarded by an entourage of women you’ve clearly been with?”
“I would hardly call it an ‘entourage.’ ”
“Oh no? Just out of curiosity, how many people at that party have you slept with? I counted five.”
She was spot on, but admitting it didn’t seem all that smart. “I didn’t sleep with any of those women.”
“Semantics, Hayden. Sex, fucking, whatever you want to call it, it amounts to the same thing.”
“Like hell it does!”
“What’s the difference? They get off, you get off, everybody’s happy,” she said acidly.
“I was never happy!” I shouted. “Shit.” I ran my hands through my hair, paced the length of her kitchen, and tried to calm the fuck down.
Tenley chewed on her nails, staying safely on the opposite side of the counter. I couldn’t blame her. I was acting like a psycho.
I took a deep breath. “I’m not doing a very good job explaining myself.”
“Or answering my questions.”
“Look, this isn’t a topic I’ve had to discuss before. I’m not exactly comfortable with it.”
“Maybe not, but tonight might have been easier if I hadn’t been blindsided,” Tenley fired back.
I threw my hands up in the air. “What did you want me to say? ‘I fucked this stripper back in the day. She likes to make my life hell by not letting me forget it. I hope you’re cool with that. Oh, and while we’re on the subject, there might be several women at this party that I’ve fucked before, too, but no biggie, they were just one-timers.’ Excuse me if I wasn’t all that excited to share those lovely details with you.”
Tenley looked shocked, and a little repulsed, which was the reason I didn’t want to tell her in the first place.
“Sienna is a stripper?”
“Was. Now she’s just a slut.”
She grimaced, like my words left a bad taste in her mouth.
“And you only had sex with her once?”
She looked so goddamn hopeful. It was like being stabbed in the chest with a rusty butter knife. I wanted to be able to answer in the affirmative. It would make things so much easier if I could say yes, but I’d omitted enough truths.
“Not exactly.”
She glared at me.
“I don’t usually do repeat offenses.”
“Excuse me?”
“That came out wrong.”
“You better hope it did,” she snapped. And this was why I wanted to be with her—for all of her naivete and her tragic past, she was still so full of fire.
“I was with Sienna more than once. We didn’t have a relationship, but she let me do raunchy shit with her and she didn’t mind tag-a-longs, so I kept it up for a while. Usually they were one-shot deals.” I cringed at how awful it sounded.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why were they usually one-shot deals?”
“Because that was all it was.” I had no desire to explain any further.
“Elaborate, please.” She threw my words back at me.
I took a step closer, the urge to touch her almost debilitating. “After my parents died, I didn’t give a shit about anyone but myself. I didn’t want to connect with anyone, and I was fucked up on enough booze and drugs to make it easy to avoid falling into that trap. If I never went back for an encore, then I didn’t have to worry about someone wanting more than I had to give.”
“But you slept with Sienna more than once.”
I paused, caught up in memories from the past. I didn’t want to tell Tenley about the shit I did. I was snorting through my paychecks faster than I could cash them. Jamie, who was also working for Damen at the time, started talking about opening his own shop, but he didn’t have the money to go it alone. Even with Chris, they couldn’t manage it. There was all this money I couldn’t touch until I was twenty-one, and another chunk that would be freed up at twenty-five. My dad was a smart fucker in that respect. He set things up so that I wouldn’t piss it all away if something happened to them. He probably knew from the beginning how badly I would fuck things up when left to my own devices.
Nate and Jamie essentially saved my ass from becoming a brain-dead cokehead. I signed over temporary control of my finances to Nate so I could buy what eventually became Inked Armor. Jamie was the one who cut off the coke. Chris made sure I stayed clean. Nate ensured I didn’t piss away my money. But it came with a cost, because I couldn’t cope without vices. Sienna filled that role. Or rather, I filled her. Whenever. Wherever.
“Sienna and I fucked. That was it. And yes, it was more than once, but it wasn’t like either one of us was particularly attached. It wasn’t monogamous. She was up for pretty much anything. I was twenty and looking for ways to deal with my shit. I needed another outlet. It worked for a while, until I got bored and she got . . . whatever she got. Then she fucked Chris and we instituted the rule.” It was the only thing we brought with us from Art Addicts to Inked Armor.
“Chris had sex with her?” Tenley seemed disturbed by the idea.
“A couple of times.”
“And you were okay with that?”
“No. I wasn’t okay with it at all, but I couldn’t do anything about it after the fact.” I’d been furious with Chris. He was one of my closest friends. It had felt like a betrayal. I expected it from Sienna; that was how she worked, but never Chris.
“And that was it, then? You were done with her?”
“Not quite.”
I went back, again and again. For years. I went months without seeing her, and then she’d magically appear at Inked Armor asking for touch-ups or whatever bullshit excuse she could come up with. Other times I’d cave and end up at The Dollhouse looking for some kind of release from the endless fucking torture of living in my head.
She would be there, promising no boundaries, telling me it was okay that I was angry with her and she would make it up to me. And like a fucking idiot, I bought it. Every time. Desperate for the escape. It took me almost four years to finally get a clue and stop feeding into the bullshit. My uncle would probably have a field day with that if he could ever shrink-ify me. So far I had evaded his offers for therapy. I already knew I was fucked up. I didn’t need to pay someone to tell me that.
Tenley looked dumbfounded. “Why would you go back?”
“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”
But that wasn’t it at all. Sienna was all I thought I deserved. She reaffirmed my inherent sense of worthlessness, because she suffered the same affliction.
“But it’s been more than a year since I’ve been with her,” I explained, wanting to be sure Tenley knew I was done with all that.
I understood now why I’d never tried to do anything like this before. Why I avoided getting close to anyone, or even giving a shit about them. Because I would have to explain
my previous actions. And not just to Tenley, but to myself.
Tenley had lost nine people in a plane crash, and she wasn’t fucking every guy who looked at her. She was with me, and that led to a whole barrage of questions I didn’t want to ask. But she hadn’t gone off the deep end like I had. In fact, aside from a massive tattoo and a cupboard full of prescription pills she didn’t seem to take much anymore, she had picked up the pieces of her life and figured out a way to move on.
I didn’t want to believe that Cross or Sienna could be right—that eventually Tenley would wake up and see what a mess I’d made of her life. All my baggage, all my shit, all the ways I would corrupt her if given the chance. Now that she’d seen who I really was, how could she want me?
She lifted her eyes to mine and asked meekly, “Sienna and that other woman, were you with them both at the same time?”
I exhaled a heavy breath. Why the fuck did she have to ask that question? When I didn’t answer right away, she made a little sound. “Is that what you want from me?”
“What?”
“The . . . sharing. Is that what you want?” She looked utterly terrified.
“No! Absolutely not. If anyone but me touches you, I’ll cut off his dick and beat him to death with it.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “That’s not what I meant. Let me rephrase: I don’t want to share you with anyone. Ever.”
Her shoulders sagged. It sickened me that I’d made her think it could ever be a possibility.
“But what if I’m not enough?” Her eyes lifted, and that hollow stare scared me more than her words. It was as if someone had pulled her soul out of her body and left a shell behind. “It would be exactly what I deserve.”
“What are you talking about? Of course you’re enough. Don’t you get it? I don’t want anyone else. I want you.”
“What happens when you’re done with me?”
“I won’t be.”
“You can’t know that. You got bored with Sienna. What if you get bored with me? I can’t share you like that, and I don’t want to be shared.” Her lip curled in disgust. “I would hate myself if I allowed something like that to happen.”
There was so much more behind her admission than I could process. It confirmed in so many ways that Tenley and I were on the same page, maybe more than either of us realized.
“But it wouldn’t. I did that shit a long time ago. I haven’t done anything like that since her. That’s not what I want anymore.” When she remained silent, I took another step closer and reached out. She flinched away.
“Tenley, you’ve got to see that it’s not like that with you.”
Her fingers drifted over the edge of the counter. There was a mar in the Formica. A pit in the otherwise flawless surface. Her finger kept sliding over that divot, back and forth. “I think you should go,” she said, and her voice broke. Her head was down, her hair masking most of her face as droplets splashed on the counter in front of her. She was crying, and it was my fucking fault.
“Please—”
“I just need to be alone right now.”
“I don’t want to go. I want to fix this.”
“I don’t know that you can.”
29
TENLEY
I could feel Hayden’s eyes on me in the silence that followed. He took another step closer, his hand rising, and I felt the whisper of his fingers floating over my hair.
“I never wanted to hurt you.” The pain inside my chest echoed in his words.
His shoes barely made a sound as he headed for the door. Once he was gone, I let the sob that had been choking me free. Tears slid down my cheeks, blurring my vision. TK jumped up on the counter and into my lap. I folded myself around her, hugging her as I was consumed by the hollowness carved out in my chest. Karma had finally come to claim me. It was right. Just. I shouldn’t have the one person I wanted, because I’d been responsible for killing the one I hadn’t wanted enough.
Nothing that happened tonight should have surprised me, but still I was left reeling. Hayden claimed he hadn’t had a relationship with Sienna. Maybe not in the traditional sense, but to me it counted, in spite of the dysfunction. Four years was a long time to spend with someone.
Connor and I had only been together for three. Even then, we’d broken up for a short time during my last year of college, when the stress of our long-distance relationship had interfered with our goals. It had been difficult. Painful. But I couldn’t tell Hayden. There was already so much on the table that if I added anything else, the legs would collapse. I wasn’t in any frame of mind to deal with something like this. Not now.
The door to my apartment opened. I swiped at my eyes with the back of my hand, afraid Hayden had returned, but it was Sarah.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Not really.” I hiccupped.
She closed the door and crossed the room, pausing to grab a box of tissues on the way. She handed me one and I wiped my eyes, but those stupid tears kept falling.
“What happened? What did he say to you?”
“Nothing that should have surprised me. I asked him to leave.”
“Yeah. I got that. Chris just took him home.” Sarah pushed my hair over my shoulders. “Whatever he said must have been bad if you’re this upset.”
“He had a relationship with Sienna. He was with her for years; there didn’t seem to be many boundaries.”
Sarah sighed. “Chris gave me the impression it was a long time ago. From what I know, Hayden and Sienna don’t have anything to do with each other anymore.”
“She came to Inked Armor while I was there, and she was all over him tonight. Obviously there’s still something there,” I replied, pulling another tissue from the box. The more I thought about it, the more ill I felt. “I don’t want to share him.”
“What? Why would you have to do that? Is that what Hayden said?”
“No, but what if he loses interest in me? He can say he won’t, but who knows what could happen in a few weeks or months? I can’t allow myself to get more attached to him. I can’t get hurt like that again. Just thinking about it . . .” I choked on the words and the fear.
Sarah drew me into a hug.
* * *
I didn’t work for the two days following Lisa’s engagement party, which was a relief. I needed the time and the space from everyone. Hayden called several times, but I let it go to voice mail, afraid I wouldn’t be able to hold it together if I talked to him. I was having difficulty as it was. Being apart from him hurt. After twenty-four hours of silence on my part, he sent a text message asking to come over and talk. I told him I wasn’t ready yet.
My sleep was riddled with nightmares, but they weren’t about the crash. They were a replay of what I saw in Lisa’s bathroom; Sienna’s hands all over Hayden. In the dream he didn’t try to push her away. Instead he pulled her closer. Before he slammed the door in my face, he told me I was too damaged to love.
I woke to a pillow wet with tears. It was early, but I had no hope of going back to sleep, so I got up and prepared to face the day. I covered the dark circles under my eyes with concealer and packed antianxiety pills in my bag. Considering how unhinged I felt, I doubted my ability to make it through the day without them. I’d done so well over the past couple of weeks. Ever since the outline of the tattoo had healed up, I hadn’t taken more than regular Tylenol. Being around Hayden had made everything manageable; without him it was hard again. He had become a new addiction, one far more dangerous than pills. He had the power to hurt me in ways a dependency on painkillers could not.
I left early and drove to campus on autopilot. As soon as I was parked, I popped an antianxiety pill, letting it dissolve under my tongue. I sat in my car for a good half hour, waiting for the calm to take over. It helped alleviate the buzz in my head and my body, but the empty feeling inside remained.
Later, after I finished teaching my seminar class, I went down to my office to mark essays and clock a few hours on my thesis. Ian stopped by and asked if I
wanted to hit the pub, but he was alone and I didn’t feel like dealing with him without the buffer of at least one of the other guys.
It was already evening by the time I finished with the essays and my research. I packed up my laptop and rubbed my eyes. I’d been at it for hours, and while I didn’t want to be home alone, I didn’t have the focus left to be productive. I shrugged into my coat and limped across the room, my hip stiff from sitting for so long. I needed a bathroom before I tackled the drive home. I was just about to leave when there was a knock. If it was Ian again, it was possible I just might take him up on the offer to go for a beer. Hanging out with him would be better than being in my apartment, which said a lot about my state of mind.
I opened the door to find Professor Calder on the other side, the most recent copy of my thesis tucked under his arm. It was Monday, and our next meeting wasn’t until a week from Wednesday. I could only assume his seeking me out meant he had further issues with my newest research.
“Ah, Miss Page, I wondered if I would find you here. Working hard?”
“I was just on my way home.” I looked beyond him at the empty expanse of hallway and wished I’d left five minutes earlier. I didn’t have the patience to deal with him.
“I’ve had a look at your most recent additions. It’s starting to take shape.” He held up the fistful of papers marked in red. “However, I’m afraid it’s still rather elementary. I was under the impression you’d read the articles I provided, but I see no evidence in here.”
I bit the inside of my lip, irritation flaring. I was done with his less-than-subtle attempts to bring me down. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “The articles are quite fascinating, and it’s definitely a topic I’m interested in learning more about. However, it’s not quite the direction I anticipated taking my thesis.”
“That’s rather unfortunate, don’t you think?”
“Excuse me?”
His smile was vulturine as he assessed me. “I wonder if you’ve given any more thought to my offer.”
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