It was easy to fall in love with someone at night, with the dark covering the truth and the chance to run when the sun came up, but in the light of day Jonah’s sleeping body hid nothing and I knew I could fall in love with him. Because for the first time since Alex stared coming home beat up and bloody I felt safe and for the first time ever, I felt like I was home.
With a light kiss on his chest I slipped out of his arms and headed for the bathroom.
While washing my hands I couldn’t help but smile at my reflection. Even though I looked like I’d spent the night drinking my body weight in alcohol, I truly felt alive and it had everything to do with the man sleeping in the other room.
This time I wouldn’t let him talk me away, that boy was going to be mine.
Opening the bathroom door I half ran back to the bed only to find it empty.
Ok, so not the greatest start but I could work with this.
Or not?
What was I suppose to do? Wait for him to come back or go find him? Gosh why did this have to be the first time I woke up in a guy’s house?
Darcy I need to call Darcy.
Finding my purse by the door I grabbed my cell and ran back into the bathroom, all I needed was Jonah walking in while I was on the phone to Darcy asking what to do.
Finally on the tenth ring Darcy picked up, “Were are you?” Darcy shouted.
“I need your help?” I whispered.
“Doing the morning walk of shame are you?”
“What? No.”
“Oh. Then what?”
“I woke up next to Jonah,” I had to pull the phone away from my ear from the piercing scream, “Don’t get too excited all we did was sleep.”
“Boring.”
See, there was the reason I called Darcy. “Anyway, I went to the bathroom and when I came back he was gone.”
“And you want me to do what about that?”
“Well, you wake up in guys rooms all the time. If the guy leaves the room do you wait or going looking for him?”
“Ok one, ouch, you make me sound like I sleep with everything.”
“You do.”
“Secondly I do neither. Once I wake I grab my stuff and head home.”
Of course, “Well what should I do?”
Once again I had to pull the phone away from my ear but this time it was from the yelling match between Darcy and Ty. “Olivia don’t listen to this man eater or ask her for advice for that matter. Hang up the phone and go find your man.” Without even a bye Ty hung up the phone, which I guess, settled that. I was going to go find Jonah.
Throwing my cell back into my purse I straightened my dress and walked down the stairs.
When I made it to the bottom I heard voices coming from behind one of the doors, I decided that would be a good place to start.
As soon as I walked in I wished I’d stayed in Jonah’s bedroom.
Two sets of eyes looked at me in shock and I looked right back at them, a similar expression on my face. Sitting on the couch was a man bleeding from a cut above his eye while Denny sat in front of him going through a medic kit.
Images of Alex coming home looking the same flashed through my mind, I had to distract myself to stop the onset of a panic attack.
Not wanting to show Jonah or anyone how messed up I was, I took the first distraction offered. “Do you need help? I can fix that cut for you; I’m studying to be a vet.” I blurted out while walking across the room and taking the rubbing alcohol and cotton pads out of the medic kit.
Before either of them could answer I pushed Denny out of the way and went to work cleaning up the dried blood around the cut.
“I’m Olivia.” I said to the guy, he was as skinny as a stick and had a sweet baby face. He looked odd hanging out with two guys full of piercings and tattoos.
“Kay.” The guy said wincing as I ran the cotton over the cut.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok it’s not like you’re the one who hit me−”
“Shut it Kay.” Jonah snapped from the doorway staring at Denny with murder in his eyes.
“Not my fault brother.” Denny said gesturing his hand between Kay and I.
Pulling my eyes off of Jonah who looked like he’d just caught me beating his friend up, not helping him I quickly finished putting two butterfly strips across the cut. “All done,” I muttered anxiously, feeling Jonah’s eyes burning into me.
“Thanks Olivia.” Kay said standing up.
“Upstairs. Now Olivia.” Jonah barked out harshly.
Was he mad I didn’t stay in his room?
With a sympathetic look from Kay I ran up the stairs after Jonah.
Standing in the middle of his room Jonah had his glasses off rubbing his eyes.
“Are you ok?” I asked. Not understanding why he was so mad.
“No Olivia, I’m not ok I just had to watch you clean up Kay’s bloody face.” He spat looking at me with disgust in his eyes.
“I was helping him,” I whispered, my voice tightening, a lump rising in my throat.
“I don’t want you helping with that.” Jonah said quietly, letting his head drop, “You shouldn’t have to.”
“You don’t want me to help your friends when they’re hurt?”
“Not when they’re hurt by something I don’t want you to be a part of.”
Oh no, that didn’t sound good. “What happened to Kay?”
Putting his glasses back on Jonah fell onto the bed with a heavy sigh his anger turning to hurt. “I can’t tell you.”
Blood and secrets all too much like Alex. “It’s a secret?” I mumbled, hating how scared I sounded.
“Yes. I have a lot of secrets Olivia, and not one of them is good.”
Backing up I felt the door hit my back but it didn’t hurt, my body had already gone numb, knowing what was coming next. “I can’t do secrets.”
“I know.” Jonah said looking up at me with eyes so full of pain I wanted to fling myself into his arms and comfort him.
“We’re not even going to try are we?” I asked without hope.
“If we did I would only end up breaking your heart and that is just something I don’t want to do.”
“Well this is a first. I’ve never been dumped before the first date.” And damn did it hurt.
“Let me get changed, I’ll take you home.”
“Don’t worry about it; my car is just down the street.”
“Then let me walk you.”
“I’m fine.” I yelled. He didn’t care enough to tell me his secrets so why should he care about my safety.
“I’d really rather you didn’t walk alone.”
“That’s really not your choice.” Jonah’s face fell further, his yellow-green eyes going back to that haunted look. Breaking my heart a little bit more.
Feeling my eyes fill with tears I grabbed my purse and ran to the front door.
My hand was on the door handle when a strong hand gripped my upper arm spinning me around. “Please don’t leave like this.” Jonah asked his voice cracking and his body so close I could feel his heart beating wildly in his chest.
His eyes dropped to my lips causing a shiver to run through my body. How could I feel so angry and hurt by him but still want to kiss him like crazy.
Jonah bent his head bringing his lips with in an inch of mine, all I would have to do is pucker my lips and I would be kissing the man of my dreams.
But one kiss from Jonah would never do, it would only make it harder to walk away.
“Please don’t.” I spoke across his lips as a single tear fell.
Catching the tear with his thumb Jonah backed up opening the door.
Turning around I flung myself through the door and fled from the man I had already fallen in love with.
****
Vinnie was talking but all I could see and hear was Olivia running away from me down the street without once looking back. Her tortured face and that single tear were running a close second. In a matter of minutes I’d wrec
ked us both and lost the only girl I could ever see myself loving all because I was in business with a drug lord.
Elbowing me in the side Denny brought my attention back to Vinnie.
“The boss of their business, if we can call it that,” Vinnie hissed taking a drink, “Lives out of state. Nick, his right hand man use to run a pretty good business running drugs through the private schools four years ago but left suddenly. Now he’s back and he wants the private schools back.”
“We don’t sell to the teens.” I responded immediately a bad feeling hitting me in the stomach.
Giving me an evil smile Vinnie shrugged, “Sure we don’t.”
Fuck, I was going to be sick I could barely handle the adult scum we sold to but teens running drugs through their schools...No.
What the hell was wrong with me? This was so wrong.
Closing my eyes and trying to breathe through the sick feeling, I did something I had never done before.
Without a word, I walked out.
Chapter 8
Wet gravel squashed under my boot covered feet, it was a Saturday and once again I was at the animal shelter. I was feeling unloved and as lost as all the animals.
It had been one week since I let Jonah go and in that one week he had become the lead role in every dream and in a couple of nightmares too. Even in the day I couldn’t get away from him, he seemed to occupy my every thought. And it was the freaking what if questions that had me staring into space.
I left no room in my life for secrets. Alex had kept a lot of secrets and died because of them. What if I knew his secrets would it have changed the outcome? Would he be alive right now and I would be somewhere warm wrapped around Jonah not caring that he had secrets?
With the sky starting to turn dark and my fingers and toes numb and flirting with frostbite, I called the dog running in the field back to me to return him to the shelter.
Like I’d done almost all week when I got home I went straight to my room and laid on my bed and stared at the walls, wondering if I was truly crazy like my mother said I was. Was it normal to be caught up on someone you never really had? And why him, what was it about Jonah that I just couldn’t let go?
I was still thinking about this when Ty and Darcy sat on my bed giving me unhappy looks.
“Are you ready to tell us what happened last weekend?” Darcy asked pulling my feet across her legs to make more room for herself.
“There is nothing to talk about, I barely knew him. I saw him all of four times it’s not like he made a dent in my life.” No he hadn’t made a dent; he had made a huge freaking Jonah shaped hole in my life.
“I think if you’re this hung up on the guy after only seeing him four times then he must mean something to you, Olivia.” Ty said giving me a look that said he knew just how much Jonah meant to me.
Hating how right he was, as it wouldn’t change anything, I pushed myself off the bed marching across the room to my closet.
Taking my anger out on my poor clothes, I tried to find a stupid outfit to go to stupid dinner with my stupid parents. I knocked dresses off their hangers and threw shirts and jeans out of the way. God I didn’t want to deal with them on top of everything else.
Clutching an outfit that I knew would have my mother bitching up a storm − a white strapless bustier that showed a little too much cleavage and a black pencil skirt dress that showed a lot of leg − I turned to Ty and Darcy and asked the question I hadn’t been able to answer all week. “What if Jonah has secrets he’s not willing to share?”
“Everyone has secrets Olivia, even you.” Ty sighed his eyebrows rising in challenge.
“What’s Jonah’s last name?” Darcy blurted face going slightly pale.
“Diaz I think. At least that’s what the bouncer at the door of Club Risk told me.”
“Have you told him about Alex or Nicky or were you planning on telling him about them?” Darcy asked causing me to drop the hangers I was holding and Ty to take a sharp intake of breath.
“Please, don’t say his name.” I said my voice high-pitched and shaky. It hurt just to hear his name and saying it out loud was something I hadn’t done in a very long time. There was no question; I wouldn’t be telling Jonah about him, ever. Maybe one day I would tell him about Alex, but never him.
“You don’t have to answer that Liv.” Ty hissed staring at Darcy with hatred, “But answer me this are you going to let him get away just because he has some secrets?”
“Maybe you should just bang him out of your system, I’ll find you someone hot.” Darcy smiled.
“You just can’t help yourself can you?” Ty yelled.
“It’s not a bad solution Ty.” Darcy shouted back.
Shaking his head Ty look back at me “Do you remember our first hangover?”
Surprising them and myself I started to laugh. “God, yes.” I laughed some more as the memory played out in my mind, “I made you go wake up Alex because I thought I was dying from alcohol poisoning.”
Slipping off the bed Ty took my free hand, “Remember you asked him why people drink if they’re just going to feel like death after it.”
“Yeah, he said the good times were always worth the risk.” I answered smiling.
“So isn’t Jonah worth the risk?” Ty asked.
Letting the smile drop I answered honestly, “I don’t know.”
“I don’t think he is Olivia.” Darcy said with hatred in her voice.
“What is wrong with you Darcy?” Ty snapped.
“I have to get ready for dinner.” I whispered leaving them in my room.
Running from their yelling voices I locked myself away in the bathroom.
Alex was a risk taker and where did that leave him? But I wasn’t Alex and this was not the same kind of risk, so could I take a risk on Jonah?
****
I stayed locked in the bathroom for over an hour waiting for Darcy and Ty to stop fighting with each other and to leave for the night so I wouldn’t have to face them. This however, made me late for dinner. Nevertheless my parents started without me, not even caring to order me something, and spent ten minutes yelling at me for being late.
Unfortunately for the couple sitting next to us my mother turned her attention on them. “Look at them they’re acting like they’re in a bedroom not a public restaurant where others are trying to eat.”
A young couple sat close together; their foreheads almost touching as the guy fed the girl fruit from his plate. As she ate he kissed her nose and looked at her like she was everything he would ever need.
A stab of jealousy sliced through me. But as my mother was talking loud enough for them to hear I couldn’t help but stick up for them. “They’re happy and in love, it’s beautiful.”
Huffing my mother shook her head. “I hope you never act like that Olivia.”
I would if I could, I would do anything to be loved like that.
Isn’t Jonah worth the risk? Ty voice sounded through me head. If I took a risk, would Jonah love me like that?
“I wonder what his parents think; he is obviously too high class for her.”
“I have to go.” I said pushing my chair back so fast I almost knocked it over.
“Oh don’t get on your high horse Olivia, we both can see that girl has cheap written across her face.”
The couple obviously heard; as the girl threw her napkin on the table and ran to the bathroom, with the guy following close behind.
My mother was such a bitch.
“For once mother I’m not running away from your mouth. I just have somewhere better to be.”
****
I’d been in a terrible mood all week, so Denny had become my shadow to keep my temper in check. It was annoying the first, second and third day, now a week on; it was just plain pissing me off. Denny was acting like I was just going to grab someone and start taking my rage out on them. The idea did sound pleasant but it was my bad life choices that caused this mood in the first place, so adding to them by getting in a fig
ht wouldn’t change anything.
Olivia was out of reach no matter what way I looked at it.
I was involved in a business Olivia should never be a part of and considering her brother was on drugs if she found out what I did she would hate me.
To have any relationship with me would be based around lies and secrets and that’s something Olivia said she wouldn’t do.
It was for the best.
So why couldn’t I stop thinking about her?
“You still in a mood brother?” Denny asked facing the room while I chose to watch the bar as the only thing the dance floor did for me was make me think of that erotic dance Olivia had been doing.
“What the fuck do you think?” I growled.
Chuckling Denny drained his drink, “I think your mood is about to improve.”
“What?” I asked raising my eyebrows at him.
“Jonah.” The sweet voice I’d been dying to hear sounded above the music.
“Olivia?” I turned saying her name like a question not quite believing she was standing in front of me.
“You’re worth the risk Jonah. Am I worth the risk?”
Was she worth the risk? The risk to love? Yes, there was no question; I could see myself loving her for the rest of my life. Was it worth risking her to a drug business? No, for a million different reasons. But did I want to risk losing her forever because of Vinnie? Vinnie had already taken so much from me was I going to let him have this too? There was only one thing to say to that and I sure as shit didn’t need words.
Cupping her cheeks I pulled her lips to mine crushing our lips together doing something I should have done the first time we met.
Clearing his throat Denny smacked me on the back, “Take it outside lover boy I’ll cover for you.”
Reluctantly I pulled away, with a nod at a smirking Denny I grabbed Olivia’s hand leading her to the back of the club and out to the alley behind.
Risk Page 5