by Melissa Blue
The dark-haired man kind of turned his head her way but his eyes were glued to the game. “Victor Yang,” he offered in a no-nonsense tone that didn’t encourage her to ask any other information.
Now the problem was she’d already bitten into her taco. She hadn’t eaten all day and even lukewarm meat had made her stomach growl in hunger. Not replying was rude. Opening her mouth was rude.
She settled for, “Hmmm.”
Victor snorted, finally breaking his stare from the TV to glance around the room. And then he released a quick smile in her direction, revealing a long dimple in his cheek. “She’s a keeper.”
The sudden rush of heat to her face had to have turned her red as a tomato. Grady squeezed her ankle, chuckling too. Oliver dug into his pocket for more money and tossed it to Victor.
Wade frowned at his friend. “What was that bet?”
Oliver shrugged. “That Victor wouldn’t like her. He doesn’t like Ashley, and that’s like hating a box full of cute puppies.”
Both Wade and Grady snorted at some inside joke. They were seriously a lot alike, not just in the looks department. She stopped shoving food in her mouth to ask, “Bets?”
Grady shifted beside her. “Oliver has a gambling problem. We try to fleece him often since he’s a millionaire. Or is it billionaire now?”
Her eyes widened. She was sitting in a living room, stuffing her face with a billionaire. “What?”
“I’m not,” Oliver said. “I illustrate comics.”
That factoid she remembered from earlier, but it totally didn’t explain why his friends believed he was rolling in money. Something more was going on there. She rested her plate in her lap.
Instead of being nosy, she said with a wry smile, “Color me impressed. No pun-intended.”
Victor tossed the money to Wade, and she had to laugh. “What bet was that?”
Wade didn’t smile. In fact, he no longer appeared amused. “Another bet bites the dust. That one being you’d find a way to charm even Oliver. He’s as finicky as Grady.”
The way he intoned the words in a grave voice told her it wasn’t a compliment. The food she’d just eaten didn’t sit so well in her stomach. “Oh.”
He’d been nice enough to her the day before so something must have happened. Eva glanced at Grady. His jaw tightened. Something had happened between the brothers when she’d been asleep. Another complication. Dammit.
Maybe Grady felt the tension coiling inside her because he caressed her ankle with his thumb. No matter how nice that felt or the promise of more, she couldn’t stay, especially if her very presence was causing tension between close brothers.
Once again, the blond god’s gaze went to Grady’s hand. “Victor, we already know you’re going to win. Give the controller to Grady so we all can beat him, literally, at his own game.”
Apparently, that was too good of a deal to pass up because Victor tossed the controller and then leaned back, wearing another dimple-deep smile.
She finished eating the last of her tacos then excused herself from the living room to dump her plate and figure out a smooth exit strategy.
Her bag was upstairs, along with her shoes. She’d strolled to the coffee shop that morning. She’d done some fast-talking to assure Grady she was fine to walk to the campus alone after her attack. It would clear her head, yada, yada. But he’d driven them both to his house on his bike. That meant he’d have to take her home since she lived across town.
Dammit.
She felt more than heard someone enter the kitchen as she poured the rest of her beer down the sink. Eva glanced toward the opening. Wade. His mouth was a hard line. He didn’t look happy at all. He crossed his arms, blocking her path.
His eyes narrowed on her. “Grady’s taking the easy way as an adjunct professor.”
She blinked, having not expected that opening. From the way his brows furrowed into an angry line, she’d thought he’d tell her to fuck off and never come back.
Wary, she asked, “What do you mean?”
“Soon my brother is finally going to get off his ass and get his doctorate.”
She frowned, not seeing where this speech was going. “Okay.”
“He likes taking the slow road. That way when he does make a decision, it’s not on a whim. He goes for it with a blind determination. Knowing him, he might even become Dean somewhere.”
Eva tried to imagine Grady in that role and it wasn’t that far-fetched. He had a way about him that made most people like him, listen to him. Hell, half the class had been putty in his hands the first day and the rest the second. He was a fantastic instructor. His background had prepped him to deal with complicated politics. He definitely didn’t have problems telling people what to do.
“I’m guessing you’re not just telling me this.”
Wade shook his head, his mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “My brother likes to cut to the chase, too. So, don’t be here if you’re not serious or if you’re waffling. My brother is picky but he doesn’t do anything half-assed.”
She blinked. “I think you’re misinformed and this is probably—”
“You wouldn’t be here unless he cared about you. He’ll go balls to the wall for you. He’s done it for me, for all of us. So walk out that door if you’re just going to dick him around.”
Her hands balled and she took a step forward. “What’s between your brother and I is just that—between your brother and I.” She scoffed, having faced down bigger and meaner threats than Wade. She thought that until his gaze hardened.
“Why did you try to kill yourself?”
Her stomach clenched. If he’d hit her with a two-by-four that, maybe, would have hurt less. He just pulled that question out and gut punched her with it. “Wow. None of your business.”
“But it’s Grady’s, right? And you haven’t told him. You’ve known him for months. I get it. You met online, but you haven’t told him.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and his exhale was harsh. “I know how this shit ends.” He held her gaze again. His certainty vibrated through her like a tuning fork. “But my brother is eternally optimistic. So do him a favor and leave now.”
Maybe if he didn’t sound like a more bitter and cynical Lauren, she could have shaken his words off. But he did. Doubts started to snake their way into her heart.
“I don’t know what makes you think I’m just going to dick him around. I don’t know what made you believe it was okay to wait until your brother wasn’t around to scare me off. You don’t know me, Wade.”
He took a step forward. His eyes were dark, yes, and…tormented. She gasped. She knew that haunted light. She knew it better than the curves of her face. She’d seen it in the mirror enough times.
“Yeah, Eva, I do. He doesn’t need someone else in his life he has to worry about. You blew him off once before when you found out who he was. You’re going to do it again when shit gets tough.” He shook his head as though disappointed. “But, whatever. I’ll still be here for him when you do flake.”
He strolled out of the kitchen with that as his parting shot. A few seconds later the front door slammed. She put a hand on the sink, needing something to lean on. How in the hell did he get into her head and know her past? Had he fallen into unlikely relationships and forced them to crash and burn because of his demons?
Yes, they were both…not the norm. Yes, they both cared about Grady, who from a glance was “normal.” And, yet, they stood on opposite sides of him.
“Wade!” came from the living room and then the front door slammed a second time. Grady was going after his brother. Eva was…a temporary fixture. From what she’d seen between the two men, they’d be brothers to the bone until they both stopped breathing. So, yeah, it was well past time for her to go.
Eva left the kitchen, not bothering to make eye contact with Oliver and Victor before climbing the stairs. Her backpack sat on the nightstand and she found one shoe at the end of the bed. The house shook as one more slam rocked it.
Wher
e in the hell was her other sandal? She didn’t remember taking them off. Eva had just climbed into his bed, her bones aching. Sleep had hazed anything else.
Getting down on her knees, she, with great hesitation, checked under Grady’s bed. No shoe. No porn or other forgotten items. She couldn’t say the same about what might lurk under her bed.
Still kneeling on the floor, a sweet, woodsy scent filled the room. She glanced up and found Grady standing in his doorway. He didn’t close his door and his mouth was pulled into a thin line.
“I can’t find my shoe,” she said lamely.
His gaze was on her but he was there and not. She wanted to reach out to him and comfort him as he’d done for her. “Grady, what happened?”
He walked over to the bed and plopped down. Grady laughed, and it was only a shattered sound. “I’m used to being the one looking out for my brother. I’m the baby, so I don’t get overprotective with it. But, Wade’s finally decided to return the favor. He’s the older brother. That means he got all the asshole protective genes.”
But was Wade right? Eva had been so focused on Grady being her teacher, a reminder of a past mistake that nothing more had really managed to sink in. She’d been determined to avoid the downward spiral of being with him.
What was she to him? Why wasn’t he more worried about the consequences of being with her?
She dragged her hands through her hair. Goddamn complications. “Grady…”
“Eva, I’m going to ask you a question and I’m going to need the truth before you start backpedaling on…what we are.”
Was she that obvious that he could tell with a look what she wanted to do? She put her hands in her lap, still kneeling on his floor no more than ten feet away from him. “Ask me anything.” He deserved that much.
“Where did you get your scars?”
Wade and Grady were so similar but they were worlds apart. His brother’s question had been blunt and had smacked her dizzy. Grady’s was searching, thoughtful. There was no point in keeping the truth from him.
Still, she had to inhale deeply before starting. “I fell in love with a man twenty years older than me. He was also my professor. We…dated for a year. In that year he showed me worlds I never knew existed. I was twenty and naive. At least compared to him. How could I not be?”
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his thighs. “I guessed that much.”
Grady was no slouch. He would be able to tack together the bits of truth she’d revealed over the last few months, especially the last week or so. “What I didn’t know is that he had a yearly pet. I heard whispers, but he didn’t have a wandering eye when we were together. He treated me with respect, loved me and I was seeing white picket fences.”
Grady’s gaze heated and narrowed. “You’re no one’s pet.”
The fierceness in his reply warmed her, right down to her bones. “Doesn’t change the fact when he told me we had to keep our affair a secret, I went along with it. At first it was fun and forbidden. Then I loved him and I thought that meant sacrificing my own moral compass and how I felt. Turns out he didn’t lie but he was never honest.”
“What happened?”
She shrugged. “Word got out like it always does. On campus I was a whore, giving it up to the professor. The boys tried to get a piece. The girls refused to get close to me for fear they’d get painted with the same slut-brush. A lot of people didn’t know, didn’t care, but enough did that my sister and I had to move here.”
He nodded as some sort of understanding dawned on him. “That doesn’t explain the scars.”
She flipped over her wrists and looked at the proof of what had happened. Closing her hand over the physical reminder, she gave him the answer, “Being isolated to the point of a self-exile isn’t enough? Being betrayed and tossed aside by the man you thought loved you? Your parents are only annoyed because you dropped out of college. And a sister who comforted me out of one side of her mouth while out of the other she berated me. I did put myself into the situation. So didn’t I deserve it?” It wasn’t until she uttered the last that her voice shook. She dropped her gaze back to the floor. The truth didn’t hurt all the time but when it did, the pain cut deep.
She shivered and just tried to breathe. She wasn’t that girl anymore, but Eva carried her in her soul like a blackened keepsake. Maybe as a reminder. Maybe a parasite that thrived on the awful memories. She didn’t know. No matter how hard she tried to shake that depressed suicidal Eva, that naive girl held on, whispering reminders of the past.
“So,” her voice was so small, “one day, after the hundredth guy in a span of weeks asked if I was ready to fuck a younger man, I slit my wrists.”
He put his hands in his face. “Jesus Christ, Eva.”
There was nothing left of her to hide. Nothing to shield her. Not the Internet, not even the somewhat valid excuse he was her teacher. Her knees had started to burn from kneeling on the carpet so long, but that pain barely registered “So your brother is probably right. He knows you better than I do. You probably do need someone who never looked at the world and thought I can’t take another moment.”
He muttered the same curse, his face still buried in his hands. Something wet hit her breasts and she blinked. Tears. How long had she been crying? Is that why he couldn’t look at her? She scrubbed them away with her fists and stood.
“I can’t find my other sandal,” she said.
She tried to walk past him, but he grabbed her leg. “Eva.”
That hand climbed up to her hip and the other joined in until he’d pulled her into him, his face buried in her stomach. She hesitated before running her hand down his silken locks.
No man had ever reached so far past her walls after she’d told them that story. No one had ever made her want to bare herself like that. They wouldn’t understand. They’d call her selfish when she wasn’t around or sometimes even to her face, not willing to even consider that, at the time, she couldn’t see that even her dysfunctional family wanted her alive and loved her in their own way. In that bleak place, all she could see was the next boy who asked for a quick fuck, the former friends who pretended to not know her—the kind of body numbing misery she couldn’t escape.
She cupped his face and forced him to meet her gaze. Her heart twisted. “Don’t, Grady. The memories hurt. They do. But don’t grieve for that girl. She’s long gone.”
He took her hand and pressed her knuckles to his mouth. Grady was quiet so long she didn’t think he would ever speak. Finally, he sighed. “You’re so full of shit.”
His response was so unexpected all she could do was blink. “What?”
He stood, reaching his full height. His body rubbing against hers. That was a faint impression because his words still had her reeling.
Their stares connected. There was nothing he didn’t see. “You’re fine now? That girl is gone? I shouldn’t feel what I feel for you because some old shriveled prick used you years ago? I call bullshit.”
She stepped back and he followed, his lids lowering until they were slits. “What the hell do you know?” she threw at him.
“I know you told me the truth about everything else. But I stood in a filthy alley with you no more than six hours ago. You were scared shitless, couldn’t breathe and now magically you’re fine?”
Fine. He had a point, but that didn’t give him the right to bully the truth out of her. She stood her ground. “Do you want more gritty details?”
“I want…” He tugged at his hair and then blew out a breath. “Triggers. ’Cause you’re not fine. Something sends you over. It happened when we first met and then again today.” He didn’t, maybe couldn’t, look at her when he said, “You weren’t the only one scared shitless in that alley, Eva.”
Just like that her anger dissipated. Eva couldn’t even continue to hold a grudge against Wade. Okay, she let some of the annoyance go. He doesn’t do anything half-assed. It was too soon and too fast for Grady to love her, but that sticking point was negligible f
or him. She was in his life and until she was back out, he was all in.
It’s probably why he was picky. Definitely why he only pseudo-bitched about his brother and friends eating all his food and making copies of his house keys. What he had was theirs, and there had to be a level of certainty and comfort that the same was true in reverse. To anyone else, what Grady did was have a lot of faith in people.
But, no, just that the people he put his faith into had showed him again and again it wasn’t foolhardy. A pang of jealousy hit her. To have that, God. How could he not be home to the people around him? He knew if he ever fell, they’d catch him. That wasn’t crazy or martyrdom. She didn’t have a word for it.
Her heart started to thump fast and thready. “Do you know just how vulnerable you are?”
He tilted his head, confusion crinkling his brows, likely because her face had gone pale like before. “Why does that scare you?”
Because she couldn’t help but want to be the same with him. To put faith in the fact he’d catch her. That she could catch him. And that left her wide open. All the evidence showed she could trust him, but it would give him so much power.
She placed her hands on his chest. “You can hurt me. It’s just that simple.”
He didn’t call bullshit again, but the way his gaze narrowed more, he wanted to say it. Eva laughed. “You can be annoying at times.”
“You should know what you’re getting into.”
So do him a favor and leave now.
But Eva couldn’t leave. The warmth of his body so close to hers was beating back the sadness, the memories, the doubts. With her next deep inhale she took in his scent. She trembled and then he smiled probably knowing exactly where her thoughts were headed.
She balled her fist in his shirt. “Where are your friends?”
“They left.” He dropped his hands to the hem of her shirt.
Her stomach jumped. “Wade?”
“He’s probably at home being a dick.”
So that left them alone with the perfect excuse to get naked. “I see.”