Beautiful Wreck

by Kasey Lane

  She pulled the plates from the cupboards and scooped their pasta while Bowen filled their glasses with water. Leaning her hip against the counter she admired his backside and debated if his perfect ass was his best feature. Then he turned around and flashed that dimpled grin her way and she about melted inside from the heat. Nope. Maybe that gorgeous face was the winner. But, of course, he lifted their plates and set them on the table and she watched as his ropey arms tensed and bulged.

  Damn. Maybe he didn’t have a best feature.

  “You gonna stop staring at me and sit down to eat?”

  “Yes,” she said, but what she’d really wanted to do was grab his whiskered face in her hands and pull him down for kiss. A big, wet, hot kiss that would maybe—no, definitely—morph into something hotter and sexier. But they’d agreed to be done. And he was acting like he really was finished with her.

  “Don’t flatter yourself, pretty boy.” She sat across from him and that sweet comforting feeling drifted away and was replaced by an uncomfortable finality as they dug into their dinner.

  “I really love how my tattoo turned out.”

  He chuckled. “I know. You’ve told me about a thousand times. I love that you love it.”

  It was now or never. She was packed. Everything crammed into her little car and they were planning to make one more trip to her new place where she’d already set up a new air bed. “I love you, Bowen.” The words just spilled out of her mouth, like she hadn’t spent a lifetime trying to control her mouth and her feelings. Blah, and there they were, scattered across the table between them like sharp, awkward, ugly objects nobody wanted to look at, yet couldn’t help it.

  Bowen froze, the fork balanced halfway from his plate to his mouth. A look of horror painted his face. The silence stretched about between them, before she took a deep breath and laughed nervously. “It’s okay. I get it—I do. We had an agreement. And now I’ve gone all rogue.”

  He dropped the utensil to his plate and ran his hands through his dark, shaggy hair. “Gabby…” he started.

  “No, please don’t say anything. Not yet. I’m sorry, I truly am. Somewhere along the line I fell in love with you. You became the only real home I’ve ever had. Please don’t mock me by saying it was because you were my first. I’m not a child. It’s more than that. We’re more than that.”

  She looked down at her plate and dropped her hands into her lap. This wasn’t going the way she wanted it to. Not at all. She squared her shoulders and looked back into concerned, but not loving eyes. Her heart felt cold, almost hollow again.

  “Look, I really care about you. But I took advantage of you. I’m the bad guy here…the villain.”

  Her cold heart turned to ice and shrunk in her chest. “Oh God, no. Just don’t.” How could she have gotten this so wrong?

  “I do. I really do. But I don’t have…I don’t have anything to give you. I told you that in the beginning.” His eyes looked so sincere, like he actually believed the bullshit he’d been telling himself for so long.

  She stood up. “Oh bullshit, Bowen. Stop with the excuses. We all have challenges, baggage, responsibilities. It’s how we confront them, manage them, that determines who we are. So you’re an alcoholic and you owe your sister some money. So what. I’m an abuse survivor with a suitcase full of regret and shame bigger than this apartment building. But I’m here.” She walked to his chair and stood in front of him. “I’m right here, Bowen. Ripping my heart out and handing it to you on a silver platter. I’m willing to do that. Willing to show you the real me. Show you that we belong together. If I can do it so can you.”

  She thrust her hand forward, palm up. “Put your hand in mine,” she whispered. “And we can do this together.”

  But he didn’t put his hand in hers. Instead he slowly looked up with an expression that bordered on anger. He stood and smiled almost cruelly before placing his hands on her shoulders. But the snapping zing between them was gone. The fire she usually felt when he put his hands on her had been doused by the look in his eyes. He truly believed there was no future for them.

  Her frozen heart shattered into a million little splinters.

  His mouth looked almost cruel and his eyes seemed empty. “I don’t love you, Gabby,” he said stabbing her in the heart. “And I will never love you.”

  He couldn’t just leave her dying inside; he had to twist the knife and dig it in.

  She pulled from his grasp and his hands dropped heavily to his sides.

  “No, of course, you couldn’t. The pretty boy never falls for the geek.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I don’t care what you meant.” She turned and made her way back to the bedroom where she pulled her duffel bag and backpack from the closet. The last remaining items of hers from his home. His place. Not hers. “What you don’t get and will never understand is that you’re not the bad guy here. You freed me, Bowen—can’t you see that? You cracked my walls and you showed me how to be myself. The real me.”

  “What are you doing?” His big body filled the doorway. “You don’t have to leave. We’re still friends, right?”

  She laughed, a hollow sound that covered the howling sob she felt boiling in her chest. “Friends? Did you not hear me, Bowen? I fell in love with you. I can’t be your friend anymore. Didn’t you hear anything I just said?”

  “Goddammit, Gabby, this is what we were trying to avoid. You promised you could handle it.”

  She continued shoving the rest of her paltry belongings into her bags. “Well I lied. I can’t handle it.”

  “Stop packing.”

  “No,” she said and emphatically continued stuffing her duffel.

  “Where are you gonna go? Please just stay. Let’s talk about this. Please.” Desperation showed in his eyes. But that wasn’t what she was looking for. She was looking for love and she wouldn’t settle for anything less. “I’m not ready for you to go.”

  “It’s time. I’m leaving, Bowen. And I would love to stay friends, but I can’t. Because as I mentioned, I fucking fell in love with you, asshole.” After zippering her bag and backpack she threw them over her shoulders, grabbed her messenger bag, and pushed past him into the living room. “Good luck with your self-flagellation and self-loathing, pretty boy.”

  She made it to her car without shedding one single tear. She even made it to Jami’s driveway without crying. It wasn’t until Jax opened the door that Gabby started sobbing so hard she couldn’t even tell him why she was standing on their front step ugly crying so hard she was beginning to gasp for air.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Over a week since he’d broken her heart and still total radio silence from Gabby. Kevan was trying to tell him something, but his mind kept drifting back to that moment when he’d told her didn’t love her, that he couldn’t.

  “Bowen, did you hear me?”

  “What did you say?” Bowen asked his sister again. Kevan smiled and placed her hand over his. She sat across from him at her kitchen table. The beginnings of what promised to be a brutal northwestern spring storm brewed outside her glass patio door, where trees branches smacked the windows. He wondered if Gabby had had her tires checked like he’d recommended.

  “I said ‘we’re going to have a baby.’” Her smile dropped slightly and concern lit her eyes. “You’re going to be an uncle, Bowen.”

  A baby. Kevan and Mason were having a baby. “But, I thought…” He’d thought what? That their childhood pact to never extend their fucked-up little family would somehow last a lifetime? Would somehow withstand real love? Just like Gabby had promised she could handle screwing him and staying friends. “I thought you didn’t ever want to have kids.” Maybe it was an accident.

  “That was before Mason,” she said quietly. “Now I do.”

  It wasn’t an accident. “You planned this?”

  She looked at him with patience and a hint of pity. “Yes. I want this baby with my whole heart.”

  “What about Mason?”
/>
  “What about him?”

  “He comes from a pretty fucked-up family, too.”

  “So.”

  Bowen stood, pushing back his chair with too much force. “So? How can you bring a child into this family? Into this world?” They’d made a pact years ago, dammit. No kids. Not in this family. And now she wanted to go back on her word and change everything. If he couldn’t count on Kevan to stay true, stay the course, then he didn’t have anything. She was as bad as Gabby.

  Kevan stood and reached for him. “This is a really good thing, Bobo.” Somewhere in his periphery he saw Mason lean against the hall doorway. “We can do this. All of this. We don’t have to be defined by who we were…who we thought we were. We can be more. And so can this little life.” She pushed him back toward the chair where he flopped down, the wind in his sails gone.

  What the fuck was he so afraid of? Why was he so fucking anxious and empty again?

  “Look, I know everything seems crazy right now with Gabby talking about moving to Eugene and you touring with Manix—”

  “What? Gabby moved across the river.”

  Kevan furrowed her brow and shook her head. “No. She’s considering a transfer to Eugene. Said she’s going to try and fix things with her mom. Be there for her while she’s in rehab for the next six months. Gabby’s thinking about going back to school too. I thought you knew.”

  Gabby surely wouldn’t uproot her whole life on a lost cause like her mother. And she hated school. She was almost completely self-educated other than some technical training. She wasn’t moving to Eugene. A thick rope of dread wound its way through his chest. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  A knowing smile lifted Kevan’s lips before it disappeared. “What do you care? Eugene is only a couple hours away. And she’ll be here once a week to work at Quirk. Besides, you’re going on tour. It’s not like you were dating or anything. You made that pretty damn clear, didn’t you?”

  God, he’d been such a cold dick. Telling himself that he’d corrupted her. That he was a villain. The dread squeezed harder, crushing his lungs in his chest. She’d kept telling him something completely different, that he’d freed her. But he hadn’t let himself believe her. Stood there and cruelly told her she wasn’t part of his plan and that she should move on.

  What a joke he was. He was most definitely not moving on. And she was.

  “Bowen.” Kevan’s hand was on his hand again. “Isn’t that what you said?”

  He nodded. “This is for the best then, right?” she asked and he nodded again. He was a goddamn bobble-headed idiot. This sick feeling inside his gut, was this what Gabby thought was love?

  A heavy hand smacked down on his shoulder and Mason dropped down into the chair next to his wife…his pregnant wife.

  Fuck. His sister was pregnant. Everything was changing. Everything, but him.

  “Here’s the part where I tell you to pull your head out of your ass, buddy.” Mason crossed his arms against his chest and leaned back in the chair. “You’re in love with that girl. Don’t even bother to deny it. And you’re either too much of a pussy to admit it or, more likely, you think you’re not good enough for her. Frankly, I don’t care which it is. If you want to mope around like a miserable fuck the rest of your life, beating yourself up and playing the martyr, then go for it.”

  Anger and shame played king of the hill with the dread sitting on his chest. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about—”

  “Bullshit. I played that role my whole life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I’m not in recovery. So what. I know what it’s like to be a miserable SOB. I was goddamn good at it.” Mason leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table and looking Bowen in the eye. “You have a choice to make here, Brother.”

  “Yeah? And what’s that?”

  “Door number one is keep doing what you’re doing. Focus on your recovery, your music, work, and the money your sister doesn’t even want back.”

  He should just get up and walk out. The baby. This talk. It was too much right now. He needed to keep shit simple and this was getting very complicated. He didn’t want to hear what Mason’s other option was, but couldn’t keep the words from coming out. “What’s door number two?”

  “A real life. Your family…one that includes your new niece or nephew—our baby needs you. Your work. Your music. The stuff that makes you the creative man you are. And love.”

  Bowen started to respond, started to tell Mason to mind his own fucking business and stop micromanaging everyone else, but he let it sink in for a moment instead. What did a life modeled after door number two look like?

  “Okay, so maybe a fat little baby might be kind of cool.”

  “And?” Kevan prompted.

  “And, I still want to pay you back. It’s important to me. But maybe I can slow down a little. Spend some time enjoying my art and my music.”

  “And?” Mason said.

  Bowen sighed. “It was supposed to be for fun. Nothing serious. We both agreed.” He sighed deep and long. “It was supposed to be no strings and then back to friends.”

  “Things change.”

  “Yeah, no shit.”

  “Do you love her, Bowen?” Kevan asked.

  The truth was he didn’t even need to think about the question. Of course he did. Why else would he be so fucking miserable? But as soon as he admitted how he really felt and said the words aloud then everything would change for him. He’d go from being some screwed-up loser to a lovesick dope. And being lovesick was equivalent to white-knuckling it. It was the same thing as being hooked on booze or drugs. Unrelenting. All consuming. And he couldn’t afford to go through that again. Best just to skip it altogether.

  “Do you love her?” Mason asked.

  Rigorous honesty though. That’s what he’d learned in six months of recovery. We are only as sick as our secrets. Maybe it was best to just get it out there. Then he could move on, get over her like she so clearly was doing.

  “So much,” he said. “So fucking much.” All the anger and shame and dread he’d been carrying around for the last six months dissolved. Just dissipated like so much smoke after a fire. “But it doesn’t matter. She’s leaving and she’ll probably never forgive me for what I did. For what I said to her.” His stomach pitched remembering the look in her eyes as her face shifted from joy into a dark kind of hollow pain he’d only ever felt after he’d hit bottom. “I ruined everything.”

  The doorbell rang and Kevan jumped up from her seat. “Maybe not.”

  “Bettie, what did you do?” Mason asked. Kevan shrugged and ran to the door.

  “Maybe I’m just helping you along, Bobo.” She swung the door open and standing there was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen despite the dark circles shadowing her eyes and the grim set of her mouth. When their eyes met he was shocked by the visceral punch to his heart. How had he pretended for the last few weeks that he didn’t love her? How could he have even thought that they could remain friends for more than one minute? The overwhelming relief and pure unadulterated need he felt for her was so obvious.

  She on the other hand looked entirely different and he realized he had his work cut out for him because Gabrielle Alvarez was not happy to see him.

  *

  “What the fuck is he doing here?” Gabby asked. Sure, she should have tempered her reaction to seeing Bowen standing next to Kevan and Mason’s kitchen table, but really, what the hell was going on? She should have known better than to expect Kevan Dillon to butt out of her business. Once that woman took you into her fold she considered everything her business.

  “I thought you said you were still friends,” Kevan said quietly. Oh, so maybe it really was a coincidence. He was Kevan’s only sibling after all.

  She took a deep breath. This was why moving was a good idea. She couldn’t handle the gut punch of seeing him everywhere all the time. Obviously her mom was just an excuse since if she actually stayed in treatment this time she’d be there for at least si
x months with another six months in sober living.

  Gabby took a step into the house. “Of course. Sorry, hello, Bowen. How are you?”

  Bowen smiled, that damn cocky smile that now she knew hid all manner of emotions and depth…cruelty, kindness, and everything in between except love for her. “Pretty shitty, you?”

  “I’m good,” she said ignoring his response. Get in, get out. Move the hell on. She deserved better and she knew it. She had him to thank for that realization and for that she would always be grateful, but she knew without a doubt she wasn’t going to settle for less than the real thing. Not now and not ever.

  He took three long strides in her direction, stopping just short of her. “Liar.”

  Leveling her shoulders and straightening her spine, she had to angle her head up slightly to look into his face—his beautiful, sad face with dark patches under his eyes. Shit. Had he relapsed? Was he drinking again? She wouldn’t know what that looked like anyway since she’d never seen that part of his life.

  “No. Really. I’m fine. I’m transferring to Labyrinth’s Eugene office in a couple weeks. Decided to be closer to Alma. Might go back to school.”

  Bowen’s hand reached for her and she ached to meet it with her own. Just for a moment. Just for one little touch of his calloused fingers to brush against her skin. One more time. But he dropped it back to his side and shoved it in his hoodie pocket. The moment was gone. The last open window to feel his hands on her had closed. “I don’t believe you, Gabby.”

  “I don’t care what you believe, Bowen. I’m just here to drop off the stuff your sister lent me after McNeil trashed my apartment.” She shoved the box she’d been holding into Bowen’s arms, then turned to Kevan and Mason. “Thanks. For everything.”