by Lauren Asher
“Are you suggesting I should run away?”
“Nope. You’re all fight. And that’s what makes you dangerous.” I play it cool despite my own instinct to run in the opposite direction of her. It’s a feeling starting from deep within me, whispering how nothing good can come from this. A feeling I need to hold on to, for the sake of my dwindling sanity.
I don’t want to like her. Bloody hell, I don’t want to crave her like a lovesick twat who can’t keep his dick in check. And I sure as fuck don’t want to let her in.
Some people have defense mechanisms while I have weapons of mass destruction.
And like a detonated bomb, I can’t take them back.
“We’re so proud of you. You’ve been having such a splendid performance this year.” My dad’s pride carries through the phone.
“Who knew I had it in me this season?” I hang around the garage, checking in with mechanics after my earlier qualifier round.
“We did. We always knew you’d be a front-runner once Liam left. We love him, but we can’t help being happy for you. I mean, what an amazing qually today! You’re a powerhouse this season.” My mum’s voice gets louder as my dad hands the phone to her.
“Don’t keep boosting my ego, Mum. Elena won’t be able to keep me in check if you keep it up.”
“Who is this Elena girl you’ve mentioned a couple times?” my dad grumbles into the phone.
“He talked to her last week when you went to the bathroom. I think Jax likes her.” My mum attempts to whisper except the phone’s microphone picks up everything.
“Should we run a background check on her?” My dad’s voice drops low.
I picture my dad rubbing his eyebrow as he thinks about contacting a private investigator. Might as well nip this concern in the bud before they get carried away. “I hope you both know I can hear you. Let’s not overreact. I don’t have a crush, and I wouldn’t exactly appreciate someone snooping into my past, so let’s leave hers alone.”
“Oh, yeah. He’s definitely interested in her.” My dad laughs.
“Are you two for real? What has gotten into you? I barely know her, let alone like her. It’s the opposite actually of what you think. Can’t stand her presence.”
Mum giggles. “Oh, enemies-to-lovers. Nice. That’s a great story to tell people when they ask how you fell in love.”
I exhale a wheezy breath. “Who the hell said anything about love? She’s my PR rep for fuck’s sake. I’ve been around her for all of three weeks.”
Three weeks of heated conversations and disgruntled reactions. Days filled with palpable tension neither one of us tries to alleviate, which leads to more awkward moments. Mornings of her puckered nipples taunting me as she pours herself a cup of coffee. Evenings of her lounging on the couch with her toned legs on display, begging me to grip onto them and explore her body. And worst of all, there’s no escape from her laughs and daily challenges. I look forward to hearing the shit coming out of her mouth, which adds to the level of concern growing in my chest with each passing day.
Basically, living with Elena is like treading water by myself in the middle of an ocean—deadly, useless, and one wrong move away from going under.
“Mums get these types of feelings about things.”
My clammy fingers grip my phone. “Dad, please control your wife. She’s delirious.”
Dad’s laugh sounds like thunder rumbling. “Why would I want to control what makes her special? That’s like asking the sun to stop shining.”
Their romance makes acid crawl up my throat. Not because I dislike how they love each other, but for how bitterness takes up a spot in my heart knowing my mum will be robbed of these moments. My dad will wither away with her once she gets worse, losing a part of himself too.
Their random call to congratulate me means everything to them, but it destroys me bit by bit. It’s sickening to pretend I’m okay despite the mentally exhausting war I’m losing week by week.
Instead of voicing my concerns, I keep them hidden. “I’m going to hang up before you both ruin my appetite. When I call you tomorrow, please keep the flirting to a minimum. It’s rather gross.”
Mum snorts. “Maybe if you flirted with the right kind of woman, then you wouldn’t be disgusted by us. Imagine going on a real date. And I’m not talking about the rubbish you do with random women.”
My dad takes over. “Ignore her. She’s only having fun with you.”
I let out a laugh. “All right. I need to get going before Elena reams me about being late to a press event. Talk to you both tomorrow.”
I hang up once my parents say their goodbyes. Despite the sad feeling lingering after our chats, I answer their random calls because I’m a sucker for my parents. I love them, and I want to make my mum the happiest, despite her one wish I won’t fulfill.
I arrive at the press area with a few minutes to spare. My feet freeze as my eyes land on Elena and Elías talking, causing a grumbling reporter to slam into my back.
An irritated groan seeps past my lips. My teammate clearly hasn’t learned Elena is mine for the season. She should be concentrating on me instead of him. Without thinking, I eliminate the space between us, pulling up to Elena’s side. Her scent calms me, centering me enough to not make a fool of myself.
“Oh goody, if it isn’t my favorite person.” My words come out as a snarl as I stare Elías down.
“And what does that make me?” Elena smirks and crosses her arms across her chest.
My eyes lazily flick over her in feigned disinterest despite the craving to scan her body from head to toe. “Hell reincarnate.”
“At least I’m hot.” She shrugs.
Elías laughs to the point of bending over.
My fists curl on their own accord. “Can’t you do your job instead of flirting with my teammate?”
“Ay, Dios.” Elías sighs.
“Weird, you know jealousy has a way of making people do dumb things. Kind of like marking your territory for no reason since there isn’t a threat.” She purses her lips.
“I’m not marking my territory. I’m simply stating facts.” I tap her scrunched-up nose.
“Careful, Kingston. With how you keep acting, I’d think you care about someone else besides yourself.”
Her words do little to ease the growing agitation inside of me. Of course, I care about others, including my friends and family. Who is she to cast shitty judgments? I keep my comeback to myself, choosing to brush past Elías to take my seat next to Noah.
“Hey, man. I thought you were about to bitch out Elena and Elías there.” Noah’s eyes assess me before returning to Elías and Elena whispering in a corner.
If looks could kill, Elías would’ve been eviscerated. Instead, I return my gaze back to Noah, catching his poorly hidden smirk.
“Elías can’t take a hint. They hired Elena to help me, not spend time with him.” I flick a piece of lint off my black jeans.
“Why does it bother you if he talks to her?”
“Because we tend to argue, yet whenever Elías is around, she’s all happy and shit.”
“You sound envious of their relationship.”
“Their friendship.”
Noah’s head drops back as he laughs. “Right. Friendship. Tough luck with Elena. But what do you expect? I doubt she wants to risk her job for a one-time fling with you.”
“What am I supposed to do? I can’t exactly turn my dick off and act like I’m not interested in fucking her.”
Noah crosses his arms. “If you’re only interested in fucking her then you don’t need to act on your impulse. I think you’ve made enough mistakes to last you a lifetime. So that means you keep your dick in your pants. Let her do her job and leave her alone.”
Screw Liam and him for cocking up our routine of fucking around and having fun during the season. Now I’m stuck avoiding PR disasters and a seductive roommate, all while my friends are too busy snogging with their girlfriends.
I’m on a lonely path of destruc
tiveness with no end in sight. Turns out misery loves company, and I found her in a bottle of Jack and a refill of Xans.
10
Elena
I walk into the hotel’s elevator with my takeout bag. Jax told me he’d stay in the suite while I went out and grabbed dinner for myself. When the elevator stops onto the floor of our room, I can tell something is not right by the music thumping through the hallway.
My frustration increases as I approach the door, awareness running through me at how Jax decided to take advantage of my thirty minutes of freedom.
I enter the suite, finding it dark and packed with bodies. Music pours from speakers, which weren’t present before I left.
Lovely. Droves of people partying like rock stars. Lots of bodies dance, swaying to the music violating the hotel’s policy. I move around them as I look for the man behind this.
It doesn’t take me long to find Jax, sitting on a couch with a bottle of Jack in one hand while a woman tries to speak to him. She leans into him, whispering in his ear as she strokes her hand across his bicep.
I roll my eyes at the sight of her. Fury replaces irritation as Jax remains oblivious as I rip away the bottle of whiskey from his hand.
Jax looks up at me, bored and distant. “Look who it is.”
“Get everyone out now.” My voice remains eerily calm despite the anger threatening to burst out of me.
“Love, you’re killing my buzz. If you don’t mind, please go to your room.”
Instead of fighting with him, I turn around and go to my bedroom in a rush to collect myself before I explode. I enter my bathroom and go to the sink, dumping the amber liquid down the drain.
“You will not kill him. You will not kill hi—”
Someone shouts in the distance about shots.
“Okay, you’re totally going to kill him.” I grip the bottle tighter as I shake the last few droplets out of it.
“Why are you pouring out good liquor?” Jax’s husky voice surprises me.
“Because tonight’s fun is over. I don’t care if you landed on the podium earlier, this isn’t how you’re supposed to celebrate.” I leave the empty bottle on the counter.
Jax gives me room to walk around him. “Your eye is twitching.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard when that happens, people better run. You included.” I grab my phone and look up the top clubs in Bahrain.
After I find the perfect one, I give them a call. I repeat Jax’s Amex information to the hostess because he needs to learn his lesson. At the start of the season, he gave me the approval to use it in cases to help his reputation, and well, this calls for it. I’m saving him from himself.
Jax’s lips form an O as I hang up the phone. I exit my room, not waiting to check if the object of my frustrations follows behind me. With little effort, I find the speaker cords and tug hard, basking the room in silence.
“Sweet, sweet quiet.” I cross the living room and hit the lights, resulting in groans from suite-crashers.
I make my way to the wooden coffee table in the center of the room and stand on it. “I’d like to invite everyone to Club XS in honor of Jax’s epic race this morning. First twenty people there get free bottle service on Jax!”
The room clears in a matter of minutes, with people nearly tripping over one another as they rush out the door. Not even groupies can resist access to one of the most exclusive clubs on someone else’s dime. I would laugh if I wasn’t pissed.
I check out the hotel room. Plastic cups litter the floor, along with counters covered with half-filled alcohol bottles and some white powdery substance I have no interest in cleaning. A rolled-up euro next to it screams the debauchery expected of the rich and shameless; meanwhile, Jax hangs around, looming in a corner, gauging my reaction.
Jax’s eyes bounce between me and the counter. “I didn’t do drugs. I only drank to the point of feeling a little tipsy. I’m not even drunk, sadly because I couldn’t go through with it.”
Instead of yelling at him, I grab a trash bin and start cleaning up the mess. It takes ten deep, cleansing breaths for me to gather a few words to express myself. “I shouldn’t speak when I’m this pissed.”
“To be fair, you told me I couldn’t go out. You never said people couldn’t come in.”
The extra breaths I take do nothing to calm my escalating heart rate. “Are you seriously trying to justify this?” I gesture toward the mess around us. “Week after week I try to help you boost your image and make you look like you have it all together. Clearly, it’s a lie, based on the way you keep trying to ruin everything good I’ve done.”
I clean up the room in silence, ignoring Jax who helps. He even cleans up the drugs on the counter.
“I thought it would make me feel better.” Jax places a discarded cup in the bin I’m holding.
“And how did it work out for you?”
“I felt nothing. All these people here, and I stared at the front door, waiting.”
I freeze, unsure of his confession. “Why?”
“Why do I feel nothing?”
“No. Why did you stare at the door?”
His eyes flash with a rare vulnerability I’m unaccustomed to seeing from him. “I was waiting for you. Because when you’re around, I feel something.”
“And what’s that?” My hoarse whisper fills the quiet. Based on how he acts lately, I can’t tell whether he has the good or bad kind toward me.
“I don’t know. And I really don’t want to find out.”
My chest squeezes to the point of discomfort. I can’t ask Jax what he means because he retreats to his room, shutting me out, leaving me to clean up his mess yet again.
My eyes open to the sun peeking through the curtains. I shut off my bedside lamp before stretching out in my bed. Like every morning, I grab my picture frame of my parents and say a quick prayer. I place it back on my nightstand and go through my morning routine of shutting off all the lights in my room.
I’m slightly ashamed to admit I still don’t sleep in the dark. I can’t stand the shadows creeping in at night, reminding me of memories I struggle to let go of. One day, I’ll sleep like a normal twenty-five-year-old. Until then, I’ll continue to sleep with the lights on because it keeps the nightmares away.
Opening the door to my room, I pummel straight into Jax’s body. I let out a squeak as I lose my footing. My hands grab onto his chest to steady myself from falling over. A very strong, tattooed, shirtless chest I wouldn’t mind exploring. The same chest belonging to a male who makes me angrier than a scorned woman on Jerry Springer.
“Oh, I was about to go check if you were still alive. What a shame. I almost thought you suffocated in your sleep, but I realize I’m not that fortunate.”
Somehow the two functioning brain cells working before my morning coffee assemble some words together as I remove my hands from his chest. “Good God. Do you take asshole pills every morning instead of vitamins?” My eyes run up and down his body before settling on his face.
Why was he waiting outside my door? Why is he shirtless? And why the hell does he have to look so damn good? No one should look like him at 7 a.m. It’s a disgrace.
His lip twitches. “Nope. This kind of attitude doesn’t require a supplement. I was about to wake you up because I don’t want us to be late for our flight.” He sucks in an audible breath as I reach out and brush my fingers across a tattoo of an unfamiliar constellation.
“Hmm.” I trace the individual stars, trying to make sense of the way my body responds to him. It’s a mystery I’ve yet to fully comprehend. I never liked confrontational assholes before, but here I am, intimately touching him. A lover’s caress when we’re anything but.
“I’m a Gemini.” He lets out a soft sigh, his skin pebbling where my fingers linger.
Interesting. Joy rushes through me at the idea of me having the same effect on him that he has on me. At least my attraction isn’t one-sided.
“That explains so much.”
“Do tell.” His vo
ice has a humorous tone to it.
“You’re hot and cold. Up and down. Kind of like that Katy Perry song.” My fingers impulsively run down a set of butterflies near his rib cage. His muscles contract at my touch. He may be all sharp edges with his words and attitude, but the delicate butterflies trailing his side tell a different story. A story I might never get to know, seeing as he resists any semblance of a friendship with me.
“And what’s your sign then? My turn to judge, especially when you’re feeling me up for free.”
I rush to remove my hands from his body, too embarrassed to pay attention to the way my fingers buzz from touching him. “Virgo. AKA the best one.”
“Spoken like someone who’s biased.” He grabs his phone from the pocket of his shorts and taps away. “Oh, look. Analytical, observant, sarcastic, judgmental. Ah, and they even mention Virgos in the bedroom. It says you like a heavy dose of petting before getting, and you might be one for many fetishes. I wonder what weird shit you enjoy?”
“Besides guys who actually treat me with respect? The horror.” I mockingly gasp.
He laughs, the sound soft and unlike his abrasive personality. “My guess is porcelain dolls watching you while you have mundane sex. You scream creepy doll addiction since they kind of look like you: vacant and small.”
I laugh to the point of wheezing. Unfortunately for me, I find him funny when he says something so ridiculous with a seriousness I admire. “Oh, God. You caught me. I thought my secret was safe, but here you go figuring me out in a few weeks. I keep a doll in my carry-on for those types of nights.”
“Hmm. I knew you were weird.” He continues scrolling. “Oh, see they say Virgos tend to suffer in silence.”
“So, we have something in common then?”
The glare he sends my way makes me feel as if someone dragged an ice cube across the base of my spine. “Suffering means I feel guilty. And if you’re trying to get me to admit I feel bad pissing you off, try again. Just because McCoy hired you doesn’t mean I need to make your time here any easier.”