by KB Winters
Around ten the door opened and Tate made a shit ton of noise as he came inside carrying a paper bag that smelled like home cooking. “I guess you already ate,” he grinned. “Guess I’ll eat this later.”
“What is it?” I looked over my shoulder at him, trying to get a look at the bag. “Where were you?”
Tate rolled his eyes. “Dinner. Steak nachos. It was damn delicious and the company was good too. She made too much, she said, but we both know she just wanted to make sure you were eating. Not that you deserve it.”
I couldn’t argue that point even though it did make my lips curl to hear proof that she felt as fucked up as I did. “She’s better off,” I told him even though I didn’t believe it.
“If you say so.” But he laid me bare with a gaze that told me he knew I was lying to myself. “I’ll just put this in the fridge for later then.”
I was off my feet in a hurry, practically chasing my brother into the small, sparse kitchen. “I didn’t say I didn’t want it. Gimme.” I held out my hand and in that moment I was catapulted back in time and holding my hand in the same way for Tate to give me a toy he’d taken from the corner store. He’d refused and I picked his scrawny ass up and tossed him over my shoulder as I made my way back to the store and Mr. Collazo, the owner who always looked the other way when we were a little short on cash. The memory made me laugh.
“Okay, you’ve officially lost it. Go talk to Jana and get your shit straightened out.” He backed away, purposely looking like he thought I might snap.
I told him about the memory and he laughed. “What a weird memory.”
Tate shrugged as he unloaded the bag. “Better than the other memories you’re having. Guess that’s why you always come home.” His words were said without judgment but still, it stung to know anyone had been around during my nightmares.
“Yeah. The nightmares are a bitch, but I’m handling them.”
He arched a blonde brow up at me. “You sure? Is this what caused the beef between you and Jana? Because I gotta say, she seems like the supportive type.”
“She is, and no it’s not.” I told him what I said to her and watched his eyes grow bigger and wider. “Now she’s not speaking to me at all, and I don’t fucking blame her. But I can’t leave her alone.” I shook my head, still unable to wrap my mind around everything. “The crazy thing is she’s more pissed about this than the fact I nearly choked her in the middle of a nightmare.”
My brother stared at me for a long time. For so damn long that I thought maybe I had guacamole on my face as I dug into the nachos. “You’re in love with her.”
I frowned. “I don’t do love other than, you know, mom and you.” It was crazy to think that after just a few weeks, okay more like a few months, I could have fallen in love.
“Well then I won’t tell you that Jana looks pale and sad, withdrawn. She probably wanted to cancel on me, but she did as promised and gave me an evening of good food and great conversation.”
I was still jealous as hell of Tate, but not the way I was when he’d first told me about her invitation. This time, it was because he was welcome and I wasn’t. “Yeah I’m glad for you.”
He laughed and shook his head like it was the most amusing thing in the world. “You’re a terrible liar, but that’s okay. I’d be feeling like an asshole too in your position.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I told his retreating form and turned back to finish off the nachos, wishing I was sitting in Jana’s colorful kitchen eating it while the smells of cooking still filled the house. Her sweet smile shining down on me, waiting for me to take that first bite. “Shit.” I stood and went to get my phone, shooting off a quick text that simply read, “thanks for the food.” I waited and waited but she never replied.
I felt shitty. Awful. But also, proud that she’d stood up for herself.
Too bad it was against me.
I grabbed the bottle of Jack and went to my room to face my demons.
Alone.
***
As soon as my eyes opened—for the second time—I hopped up, showered to wash off the drunk sweats and got dressed. I had only one thing on my agenda for the day and that was getting Jana to talk to me. I owed her an apology, a bigger one than I knew how to give so I hoped simple would do. When I finally left my room, I found Tate already in the kitchen. “You’re up early.”
He shook his head. “No, you are. Tough night?”
I shrugged and went for the coffee pot. “You could say that. What are you up to today?”
“Meeting with the lawyers.”
“I’m headed to Jana’s. I’ve got to get her to listen to me so we can talk.” I shook my head and set the empty mug in the sink. “Listen to me, I sound like a fucking pussy. You spent six years in prison for a crime you didn’t commit and I’m bitching about a woman.” Disgusted, I looked around for my boots and found them under the kitchen table.
“See? That shit right there, that’s why I accepted Jana’s offer to dinner. She talked to me, about her boring ass job, her beautiful best friend always trying to make her go out in public and how she misses the parents she can barely remember. She didn’t hold back on her shit because of mine. That’s what I need.”
Shit. “You couldn’t have just said that shit? For all my good looks, Tate, I am not a goddamn mind reader. You know how helpless I fucking felt when I came here and found out what happened? I’m your older brother, been protecting you most of my life. Fuck.”
“First off, fuck you, I’m the pretty one.” He batted his lashes and just like that the tension disappeared and we were both laughing like fools.
“You might be pretty, but I’m the hot one. Everyone knows that.”
Another smile curved his lips and he stood. “Well get your hot ass on over to that woman and grovel if you have to. And Max, trust me, you have to.”
The drive to Jana’s was short, but even obeying every traffic law hadn’t delayed my arrival by more than a couple minutes. I sat inside the air conditioned car for a few minutes to gather my thoughts but I knew I couldn’t stay long before someone called the cops about the perv sitting in his car. I made the short trip from the curb to her door, only she didn’t answer. But her car sat in the driveway, cool to the touch and I knew she was home.
I had a feeling I knew where she would be this time of day with the sun shining but the heat not yet oppressive, and that’s where I found her. Enticing figure kneeling on the ground, heart-shaped ass wiggling in the air as she played in the dirt, giving me a long, seductive look at nearly all of her curves. I kept my presence quiet for several long moments so I could just…soak her in. “I’m sorry,” I finally blurted out.
Jana froze at the sound of my voice, pushed her hands on the hard earth to spring up to her feet. A scowl had already set on her pretty face, making the red scar an angry shade of red. Clearly, she was unhappy at my unannounced visit. “Don’t be, Max. You said what you thought.” She slid her sunglasses over her eyes, shielding them from me as she crossed her arms over her chest. There was enough distance between us for me to know just how much my words had hurt her.
“I didn’t mean it, though. That’s why I’m apologizing. It was anger and jealousy talking.” I took a step forward and she didn’t budge. “I was an ass and I’m sorry. Forgive me?”
She shook her head, blond tendrils flying loose from the high bun on her head, framing her face like a halo when the sun caught it just right. “No, I don’t forgive you Max. Not because I’m mad, because I’m not really. I shouldn’t have expected more than the sex, but I think we’ve run our course.” She spoke so calm and quiet, like she’d given this a lot of thought. A lot more than I had if I’m being honest.
“Well I don’t.” I tried to match the calm in her voice but I heard the tension and I knew she did too.
But she shook her head again, this time sending the entire blond bun falling down around her shoulders. “That’s because you don’t want an actual relationship. You want someone to sleep with
who won’t make demands of you, and you thought I was that girl. It’s not your fault, I thought I was that girl too, willing to accept what I could get. But it turns out, I’m not.”
“I can’t believe you would say that to me. What have I done to make you think that?”
She scoffed and shook her head. “Really? Okay, let’s start with the fact that you never stay the night because heaven forbid I see the pain you’re in. You won’t even talk about it with me, and there’s the fact that you think I’m the kind of woman who could fuck you, your brother and a client of mine. I think that covers it.” She grabbed up her gardening tools and dropped them into a large plastic pail.
“So, I’m a bad guy for wanting to protect you?”
“No,” she said, a smile ghosting around her lips. “I never said you were a bad guy, because I think you’re one of the good ones. But I don’t think I’m the woman for you.”
“Why?”
“Because if I were you’d understand my desire to want to help and protect you too. But you don’t, and that’s okay Max.”
“It’s okay? I’m glad it’s so easy for you to walk away.”
Finally, she shoved her glasses off her face to hold back her windblown hair and let me see the tears shimmering in her eyes. “It’s not easy, Max, trust me. I wanted this to work out, but how can it when you don’t trust me enough to let me be there for you? Or to not sleep with other people, apparently.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“You did. If only I could so easily forget being called a biker bunny, or seeing the hatred in your eyes as you said it.” Tears fell faster and she didn’t bother to get rid of them, just let them fall down her cheeks and her neck until they finally fell to her shirt or the ground below.
Her tears gutted me, but my frustration at her unwillingness to listen was getting the better of me. “Now I’m not allowed to make a mistake?”
“Of course you are! The problem is that you don’t want to correct the mistakes, Max! You plan to spend your life barely sleeping until you lose your mind and hurt yourself, or someone else?” Then she did swipe away the tears and took several deep breaths to calm herself.
“I did hurt someone. You!” How come she couldn’t see that? “I leave to protect you, Jana. Don’t you realize that I could have killed you?”
She shook her head, sadness hanging off her like fine jewels. “But you didn’t, and honestly, I’m more worried about the damage you’re doing to yourself. Max, this isn’t easy for me, not at all. I’m in love, for the first time in my life, and he doesn’t trust me. Doesn’t want me. I’m sorry.” More tears fell but it was the soft sniffles that tore me in half.
“No, dammit. This isn’t how things were supposed to go. You are supposed to be supportive and stand by me. Or was all that just bullshit so you could seem like the wise old woman who didn’t let her scars keep her from living?”
She gasped and took a step back and I immediately regretted my words. When all the fight left her, I knew I’d fucked up bad. “I guess maybe I am, Max. The difference is that I let you and Teddy drag me out once in a while because I knew it came from a place of care and concern. I don’t think you can say that, if you’re honest with yourself.”
I knew I couldn’t, but right now my pride wouldn’t let me. “So I don’t move on your timeline and we’re over?”
She let out a sob that kicked me in my heart and my balls at the same time when she dropped the pail and clutched her chest. “Max, I’ve asked you to stay and instead of just telling me you’re worried about your nightmares, you sneak out so you don’t have to deal with it. Or you lie about why you can’t stay.” She shook her head. “It isn’t about my timeline, it’s about the fact that I don’t see it changing and I hate the fact that the first time I took a chance on a man, that I wasn’t enough..” She turned towards the door and I called out to her.
“You are enough, more than enough, Jana. That’s why I’m here. I miss you, I’m sorry. I need you.”
She sighed and leaned against the door frame. “I miss you too, Max. More than I miss you when you’re here with me lately. Thank you for the memories and for making me feel beautiful. I hope you find what you’re looking for.” She closed the door so softly I barely heard the click, but I heard the soft thud of her leaning against the door and sliding down.
I sat in that same spot, outside and listened as Jana cried her eyes out. Over me. I should’ve got up and left, gone far the fuck away from the way her tears tore my heart and ripped it to shreds. But I couldn’t move, I was held captive by her pain. Eyes closed, I leaned my head on the door as she cried and cried, barely stopping to catch her breath. Eventually the tears stopped and I stood, frozen and confused. I wanted to force my way in and wrap my arms around her to console her, but I also wanted to flee from the feelings Jana stirred in me. “I’m sorry, Jana.”
And I was. A sorry son of a bitch because everything she said was right on the fucking money. With one last look at her door, I left. With a plan that started and ended with proving Jana wrong.
Chapter 16
Jana
“You have to stop sulking.” Teddy started in as soon as I answered the phone, and I didn’t bother trying to hide the eyeroll she couldn’t see.
“I’m not sulking. I’m working.” That was true, mostly. I did have a lot of work to do because I’d taken on three new clients this week, small businesses that needed my help. And because I was doing my best to ignore the pain in my chest, the constant desire to cry and the face that flashed in my mind at least a million times a day. Work was my jam, where I excelled in life. Work was clean and easy, and everything usually made perfect sense, so I threw myself into it with the intensity of someone who had nothing but her career, working late into the night until I fell in an exhausted heap into bed.
“They aren’t mutually exclusive, Jana.”
I let out a frustrated groan. “Agreed but since I’m not sulking, it’s a moot point.” Besides I was doing a lot more than working. “I’m finishing up my sketches for the art show, smartass.”
She laughed as she always did when I fought back because Teddy was as strange as she was beautiful. “You’re being secretive about it and it’s got me curious.”
“We both know that’s never a good thing,” I told her with a laugh, but the truth was that I did have a reason for keeping quiet on the subject. “I want to ask you something. Feel free to say no. I want to sketch your legs.”
The other line went silent just as I knew it would. Teddy was strong, she was a badass, but she was also insecure as hell about her legs. It was a sore spot for her and asking might change our friendship.
“It’s all right, Teddy. Really. I have a self-portrait as the centerpiece of the collection, titled ‘Beauty & Pain’. If you say no, I’ll do something else.” After hours spent staring at my reflection and thinking about how I’d probably be alone forever, I was emotionally drained. Usually I hated self-portraits because looking into a mirror was at the very bottom of my list of fun activities, but with everything else that had happened, sketching myself had been cleansing and the end result was…good art. “It’s just a sketch, but your legs are fantastic and they would make a great subject.”
“I know friends are supposed to make you feel better, but ‘fantastic’ is a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?”
I shook my head even though she couldn’t see me. “No, I don’t. They’re beautiful, period. The scar doesn’t take away from that.”
She laughed bitterly. “Too bad you can’t see that when you look in the mirror. But I’m saying yes because I hope you can see the same beauty in your face that you see in my legs.”
I laughed. “Thanks, Teddy. You’re the best.”
“I know. But don’t think I’m standing next to it during the show like some freak show.”
This time I laughed outright because my friend was nuts. “Never. Hell, I’m hoping for a wardrobe dilemma that will make me so late that it’ll be pointl
ess to show up at all.” I wished for it every morning, but Moon had worked hard on this show and I couldn’t let her down. I would be there, awkward and uncomfortable, but there. “Are you calling me to put off your own work?”
“Yes. No. Maybe.” She let out a heavy sigh. “The groom wants fish as part of the theme, Jana. Fish! Dammit, hang on.” The phone went silent but not dead, but after a few minutes I hung up and went back to the sketch I was finishing up until my muscles began to ache. A long bath loosened the muscles but it also created unwanted tension as my thoughts wandered to Max and his poor opinion of me. To Max and waking up with his hands around my throat. I didn’t blame him for that but I did blame him because he was the one who pretended it was all under control when it wasn’t.
I knew my life was out of control when being choked by a man hurt less than knowing that man thought I hunted for biker cock and would hop from the bed of one brother to the other. Even if I had the ability to be that woman, I wouldn’t and the fact that Max didn’t know that, hurt. Then again, he accused me of being someone I’m not, so maybe he was doing the same thing.
I’d always believed that it was better to know what people thought of you up front, but knowing just how low his opinion of me was, considering all that we’d talked about and done together, it hurt like hell. And as an added bonus, it didn’t make me feel any better. It didn’t dry my tears faster and it didn’t satisfy the aching, burning sensation in my chest.
That meant, it was time to put on my big girl panties and get back to life as usual.
Chapter 17
Max
“I can’t believe all the shit I said to her. Hearing it back from her and seeing the devastation all over her face, made me feel like a complete asshole.” I’d been in Dr. Singh’s office for more than an hour and we were no closer to any fucking solutions. “Now she won’t talk to me or take my calls. And she hasn’t been in class for two straight weeks. What if she’s not leaving the house, Doc?”