Going Under (The Blackhawk Boys Book 3)

by Lexi Ryan

  I cover my mouth, but laughter slips out anyway.

  I take care of business, wash my hands, and push out of the restroom to return to our table. I’m starting to think that maybe I can handle this dating thing, but all my confidence fizzles away when I get to the table and find Logan chatting with Sebastian.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sebastian

  Alex walks toward me in a black dress that hits her right in the middle of her soft thighs. Her hair is down, hanging past her shoulders and curled at the ends, and her lips are painted a bold red that sends my imagination into overdrive.

  Did she know I was coming here tonight? Did she dress like this to torture me?

  “Sebastian,” Logan says, snapping my attention back to him. “I’m sure you know my date, Alexandra. She works for your dad.”

  Alex stops by the table and smiles at Logan before sliding into her seat. His date?

  I blink at Alex. “I didn’t realize you were seeing anyone.” It feels like a betrayal. As if I’ve been punched in my heart by the only person who has access to it.

  Alex meets my gaze and holds it for a beat. I wish I could read her thoughts, because I can’t read her expression. Is she nervous? Is she worried I’ll tell Logan we kissed?

  “This is our first date,” Logan says when the silence has stretched a bit too long. “But hopefully not our last.”

  “How do you two know each other?” Alex asks.

  Logan and I exchange a glance before he turns his smile on her and says, “That’s a story for another time.”

  Some days I’m glad to be back home in a town where I’ll see a familiar face almost anywhere I go. Tonight, Blackhawk Valley feels so small that I’m suddenly claustrophobic. Seeing her with Logan is only one reminder of what it will mean to have Alex live here when I’ve promised to stay away.

  “Sebastian!” Chris calls from a booth on the other side of the bar. “We’re over here.”

  I swallow hard and nod to Logan. “I won’t take any more of your time. Enjoy your date.” The last word comes off my tongue like it has a bad taste, but I don’t bother trying to cover it or allow myself to look into Alex’s blue eyes for one more minute.

  I head to the booth where Chris is waiting with a pitcher of beer and three glasses, and take a seat. I was glad when he called me. I spent all of my scant free time this week getting settled into my room at Bailey’s. I needed to get out of the apartment and away from my thoughts before I did something stupid—like calling Alex and telling her I liked kissing her and I wanted to do it again.

  Chris fills my glass.

  “I might need something stronger tonight,” I mutter.

  He follows my gaze across the bar to where Logan is holding Alex’s hand on top of the table. “Well, shit. Who’s the guy?”

  “His name is Logan Lucas. He grew up here, lived in Indy for a while, and just moved back to open that bar next door.”

  “Do you trust him with Alex?”

  My knee-jerk reaction is to say no, but I don’t know if that’s because I wouldn’t relish seeing Alex with anyone or because I have actual reservations about Logan. He’s five years older than her, which seems like a lot, but she’s not a kid anymore. Her twenty-one to his twenty-six isn’t all that odd. The truth is that Logan’s always seemed like a good guy, and he was a friend when I needed one the most and deserved one the least. But does that mean I trust him with Alex? “I don’t know.”

  Chris fills his glass. “Either way, it blows.”

  Frowning, I point to the third glass. “Who else is here?”

  “For fuck’s sake, Chris,” Mason says when he steps up to the table.

  “Sit.” Chris points to the spot next to him in the booth. “I can’t have you filling my locker room with animosity.”

  Mason glares in my direction, not sitting. “You mean like he did when he thought you got his sister pregnant and took a swing at you?”

  I flinch. I still feel bad about that, even if Chris was quick to forgive me.

  Chris rubs the back of his neck. “Jesus, Mase. Just take a fucking seat.”

  Mason slides into the booth, but tension radiates off him. He stares at the table as he speaks. “There’s nothing to talk about. I know Bailey isn’t my girl, and I have no right to be pissed about her moving some other dude in with her.” He lifts his gaze to meet mine. “But that doesn’t mean you should have done it.”

  “There is nothing between me and Bailey,” I say, knowing he needs to hear it again.

  “But what happens after you two have been living together for a month? Three months? Does that change?”

  Chris leans back, watching. It’s as if he’s designated himself the fucking referee for this conversation.

  “It doesn’t change,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Because I wouldn’t do that to you. I know something about wanting someone you can’t have.”

  Mason’s eyes are full of frustration and anguish. He’s such a good guy, and I wish I could make it better. I’m not about to become some meddling female who’s going to sit Bailey down and give her a come-to-Jesus talk. I figure she has her reasons—and drawing the line with Mason probably has more to do with her dead ex-boyfriend, Nic Mendez, than with Mason himself.

  My gaze drifts across the bar to where Logan is helping Alex out of her seat.

  “Alex?” Mason asks.

  I don’t think I’ve ever admitted my feelings for Alex to anyone, so it’s not easy for me to do it now. I might be transparent to my friends, but there’s a big difference between having people think you have feelings for someone and outright admitting it. Even so, acknowledging my internal torture with the slight lift of my chin feels like a weight off my shoulders.

  “So why don’t you go after her?” he asks.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I know all about complicated.” He offers me his fist, and I bump it with mine. It’s a truce, and I’ll take it.

  When I turn to check on Alex and Logan again, they’re already gone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Alexandra

  It’s the quintessential Blackhawk Valley autumn night. Summer is finally relinquishing its hold on the temperature, and the air is cool and crisp. As Logan and I walk through downtown, the sounds of the high school drumline echo off the hills.

  “May I buy you a scoop of ice cream?” Logan points to the shop on the corner.

  If that can’t make me appreciate this night, then nothing will. Logan is cute, and kind, and charming. Even so, when we study the menu, and he points to the fresh apple pie, I hear myself say, “I’m in the mood for a triple-fudge brownie sundae.”

  Logan steps up to the counter and orders two of my favorite childhood treat, and then we return to the sidewalk and wander toward the park while we eat.

  “You’re awfully quiet tonight,” he says. “Is something on your mind?”

  “I’m just tired. It’s been a long week.” I know my mood’s changed since seeing Sebastian, and I hate that he affects me so much. I point to a bench nestled between two tall maple trees before sitting.

  I take a small bite of my ice cream and silently curse Sebastian for showing up tonight. And for never straying far from my thoughts.

  “I lost my twin sister four years ago.”

  He shifts forward, giving me his full attention. “I heard about that. And you got caught in the fire too. It’s so terrible.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek. Four years later and talk about that night sometimes results in spontaneous tears. That’s the last thing I want tonight. “It’s just that I haven’t really dated since,” I admit. “I’ve been so tied up in trying to figure out who I am.” I shrug and put my sundae down on the bench beside me. My appetite is nowhere to be found. “Truthfully, you’ve been so sweet, but I’m sitting here questioning whether or not I’m ready.”

  He swallows his bite and puts his bowl next to mine. “If you promise to call me when you are ready, I promise I’ll take it as slow
ly as you need.”

  * * *

  Martina’s Journal

  Since the day in the boys’ bathroom four weeks ago, Sebastian’s been avoiding me. It’s ridiculous. It’s as if when I said he needed to keep his distance from Alexandra he thought I meant from me too.

  For a couple of weeks, I told myself I didn’t care, that there were plenty of boys who were interested in me and I didn’t need him. But it’s kind of like when you go on a diet and tell yourself you can’t have chocolate. Suddenly you want chocolate more than you’ve ever wanted anything in your whole life. I’m not talking a little baby craving that’ll be gone by morning. I’m talking “I’d trade my right tit for some sweet cocoa plant goodness right now.”

  For the last month, I’ve been on a Sebastian Crowe diet, and now I want him more than I want anything. Maybe it makes it worse because Alex goes on about him. The way he made her laugh when they were studying John Donne in English class, the joke he cracked in chemistry.

  My sister is awesome. She’s fucking amazing, and anyone would be lucky to have her, but guys don’t usually see that. So when I hear Sebastian Crowe seems to be going out of his way to make her smile, I feel like the green-eyed monster and I don’t even have green fucking eyes. Yeah. I’m jealous of my twin sister, which is stupid, because I want her to have better things than I have. I want her to be happier than I am. I fucking love that goody-two-shoes buzzkill. And if Alexandra knew the kind of guy Sebastian is, she wouldn’t be interested anyway. Jealousy isn’t necessary here, but I have it anyway.

  I tracked him down at the quarry. It was a beautiful autumn day. The wind was blowing and the leaves were falling off the trees. A group of people were sitting around the bonfire. Other than Sebastian, I didn’t recognize anyone from school, which confirmed my suspicions that he hangs out with older kids mostly. Are they dropouts or college students? Who knows?

  I tried to act like I wasn’t looking for him, but he had that look in his eyes that said he’s used to girls looking for him. I hate being that transparent.

  There was a girl hanging on him and another staying close by between her shots of God-knows-what. This gathering just seemed so ordinary compared to the night I first met him. I waited until the girls were distracted greeting friends before I made my move.

  I asked him if he wanted to get out of there, go somewhere and have some real fun. He arched a brow. “You think that just because I’m not with you, I’m not having fun?”

  So here’s the deal. I don’t just have a thing for bad boys. I have a thing for assholes. I can’t stand boys who hang on my every word and want to kiss the ground I walk on. It makes me feel like they’re short a few circuits. So Sebastian’s cold-shoulder treatment didn’t exactly scare me away, and it wasn’t helping my—yeah, I’ll admit it—crush.

  “Do you have anything so we can party?” I asked.

  He nodded toward the cooler of beer. “Help yourself.”

  “That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Stepping forward, I dropped into his lap and looped my arms around his neck. “Come on. Don’t you want to play?” I trailed a hand down the front of his body, and his eyes went hot.

  “You’re trouble,” he said.

  I grinned. “You’ve got that right.”

  Next to him, his buddy drained his beer, crushed the can, and tossed it into a pile of other empties. “Come on, Crowe. Give the lady what she wants.”

  “She doesn’t know what she wants,” he said, not taking his gaze from mine.

  I licked my lips. “But I do.”

  “See?” His buddy chuckled. “She wants to party.”

  He flashed a hard look to his friend. “I don’t have anything.”

  “Right,” the guy said. He chuckled again, as if this was hilarious. “Whatever you say.”

  “You sure are making an impression on my sister,” I said. I just wanted his attention at this point. I was sick of getting the brush-off. “You make her laugh. She tells me about it.”

  He arched a brow. “Is there a law against having a sense of humor?”

  “No. It’s cute. It’s cute how much she likes you.”

  He drained his beer and added it to the pile. “Come on,” he said. “You’re sober. You can drive. Let’s get out of here.”

  “I like the sound of that,” I said, and followed him to his car.

  We didn’t go anywhere exciting. He said he needed to drop something off at a friend’s house, so I took him to campus. I have my suspicions as to what he was delivering, but I kept my theories to myself.

  When he got back in the car, I climbed over the stick shift and straddled his lap, guiding his hand up my shirt. His eyes were glazed, and I thought he probably took something in that house. He was a little drunk and maybe high, but not far enough gone to forget to stop me when I unzipped his pants.

  At this rate, this boy is never going to let me seal the deal.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Alexandra

  When I got to Mom and Dad’s for Sunday dinner, there was a package waiting for me. It had a Blackhawk Valley postmark, but there was no return address, and no note—only a box with a tattered journal inside. I recognize the journal and know it belonged to Martina. The date on the first page is the day of our sixteenth birthday.

  As soon as I spot the date, I close it fast and run it upstairs to put with the others. Who sent it? Why did they have it? Why did they address it to me and not my parents? And why wait until now to send it? My hands shake as I put it in place on the shelf.

  Can you invade the privacy of a dead girl? Because looking in her journals seems wrong. But maybe it’s not just that. Maybe I’m not ready to read about life from her point of view. I haven’t even had the courage to read her diary entries from middle school, but the idea of reading what she wrote in her last year? It leaves me sick to my stomach.

  My twin sister’s gravestone has a circle of fairies etched into it because when she was nine years old, she was mildly obsessed with them, and my parents thought it would be a good way to remember her. That’s what we do when people die. We revise their story. Maybe we change some of the details and maybe we don’t, but we all mentally smooth out the rough edges. We camouflage their bad choices by highlighting their goodness. We cut down the hard-to-love parts and beef up the easy ones.

  I’m no better than my parents in this way. When I think of Martina, I think of a childhood playing Barbies and hide-and-seek. I think of late nights when we’d sneak down to the basement to watch movies after bedtime, of giggling so much our stomachs hurt. I think of the way she held my hand through haunted houses—because I hated them as much as she loved them. Those moments are the keystones of the safe space where I keep my memories of her.

  But sometimes, when it’s dark and I’m tired and sleep is an elusive stranger, I think of the girl I tried to save from the fire. She wasn’t like the addicts you see in movies, the painfully thin girls with acne, greasy hair, and track marks. She was still beautiful and funny, if thinner and quicker to anger than the girl I’d grown up alongside. Her ability to appear “normal” meant everything to her, but in truth, she was like the stereotypical addict in the only way that mattered: She was controlled by an addiction so much bigger than herself and so much stronger than her willpower. Sometimes the darkness of that night grabs me by the throat and I have no choice but to relive it—horrified panic that made me run into a burning building, the heat, the searing pain of fire licking skin, the horrible smell, and the terror.

  I know the answers I want won’t be in her journal. I can’t imagine she sat down the night she died and wrote an explanation of why she was going into that meth lab. Hell, until today, I wasn’t even sure she kept a journal at all during that last year. She wasn’t like herself.

  I sit on my childhood bed and stare at the journal in the bookcase as if it’s a scary toy I’m afraid might come to life.

  * *
*

  Martina’s Journal

  Guess who came to the house tonight? Sebastian fucking Crowe.

  Alexandra’s been home sick, and she sent him a text asking him to bring her their chem study guide.

  I answered the door, which threw him off, but I could tell he was uncomfortable being there anyway.

  “Her room’s this way,” I said, waving him into the house.

  He held out a packet of papers. “You can just give these to her. I don’t need to come in.”

  “She’ll want to see you.” I intentionally walked away without taking the papers, and he took the bait and followed me in the house. “Mom,” I called out as we passed the living room. “This is Sebastian, the boy Alexandra talks about so much.”

  Mom hopped up off the couch so fast you’d think I’d just announced that the queen of England stopped in for a visit. “Sebastian!” She held out a hand. “I’m so glad to meet you!” She glanced over her shoulder, presumably to make sure Alex wasn’t around, and lowered her voice before she added, “Alex thinks very highly of you.”

  Sebastian cut his eyes to me, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Nice to meet you too, Mrs. DeLuca. I’m just here to drop off some paperwork for Alex.”

  “Alex said you like classic cars,” Mom said, totally missing Sebastian’s attempts to dodge this “meet the mom” moment. “She’s just wild about them. She’s been working on cars with her brothers since she was old enough to hold a screwdriver. And your dad owns Crowe’s Automotive, right?”

  Sebastian was practically squirming, so ready to get out from under her inspection, but Mom persisted.

  “I had some work done there a couple of years ago. Silly me, I backed into my garage door. I wasn’t even paying attention. You know how it goes, late for work, mind not on the task at hand, and crash! Your dad thought he might be closing for business back then. Really glad he didn’t have to do that. Do you want to stay for dinner? I have plenty.”