A muted groan squeezed past my lips.
Edging out from under him, I padded lightly across the carpeted floor and through the partially open doorway. The keys he’d confiscated last night sat discarded atop the kitchen counter. I snatched them up, grabbing my sneakers and easing the trailer door open before slipping through it.
The irony of what I was doing wasn’t lost on me. Last night, I’d judged him for doing the exact same thing.
But this was different. Somehow.
Air wheezed out through my clenched teeth as I clicked the door into place and turned to sag back against it. My eyes settled on the staggering hues of lilac and pink streaking the early morning sky. I expelled a shaky breath that fogged the cold air, then smoothed my hands down my sides and started toward the car on bare feet.
Prying the door open with trembling fingers, I sank down into the seat and immediately lifted my gaze to the rear-view mirror.
I slept with Leon Bradshaw.
Virginity. Gone.
But it was what happened after I let the supposed bane of my existence punch my v-card that bothered me. He’d kissed me, threaded his hands through my hair, and kissed me with a tenderness that took my breath away and warmed the ice around my heart.
I’d fallen for it. Without a shadow of a doubt. Last night, I’d fallen for the act, then fell asleep in Leon’s arms.
But everything always looked different in the cold light of day. All I could see now was that he’d earned those all-important bragging rights, and he’d done it in fucking style. Because Leon Bradshaw might have touched more than just my body last night.
Snapping my jaw tight, I snatched my gaze away from my reflection and started the car.
***
Mind consumed with the monumental mistake I’d made, I almost forgot what drove me out of the house and into Leon’s bed in the first place.
It hit me like a ton of bricks the second I strode through the door, and I pulled up short.
My eyes rounded, heart stalling at the sight of my aunt standing at the end of the hallway, her arms fastened across her chest and a look of quiet disappointment on her face.
Reality I could no longer escape slammed into me with the impact of a freight train, and my knees buckled. I grasped for the wooden handrail in front of me, my knuckles tight and pale.
“You really worried your mom, Liss,” Bree said, her voice laden down with quiet reproach.
My head came up, eyes hard, because when I felt attacked, I struck back. And Bree had no right to fucking judge me. “You knew,” I muttered. “All this time, you knew, and you said nothing.”
“Liss,” she sighed and looked down.
Uncle Jim and I can’t have kids. We’re looking into adoption, but in the meantime, I just want to make the most of you guys.
I shook my head. Lies. More fucking lies. My gut twisted. It was true they couldn’t have kids, but that wasn’t the reason she was here.
Lies. Fuck her. Fuck them all.
Was it so fucking difficult for anyone to speak the fucking truth?
I’m here because your mom is dying, Liss.
I’m being nice and acting like I care because I want to fuck you, so I can boast about it to the reprobates I call friends.
See, it wasn’t fucking hard. Just tell me straight up so it didn’t feel like the rug was constantly being tugged out from under me.
“Your mom didn’t want to worry you,” Bree murmured, moving down the hall.
“Didn’t want to worry me?” A brusque scoff broke from me. “She’s going to forget me in a few years. What does it matter?”
Bree’s head fell to the side, the hard lines of her face softening as tears pooled behind her lids. “Liss, sweetie, we need to sit down and talk about this properly. It’s late—or early, now, I guess—but we can talk this through with people who can explain everything properly. I know how devastating this is, but we need to focus on the positives.”
My eyes misted, a crushing weight settling on my shoulders. The positives?
“How long, Bree? Really?” My voice cracked, drifting off as I focused every bit of my attention on staving off the tears hazing my gaze.
Bree shifted on her feet. “It could be years, Liss. There’s no reason she can’t—”
“I don’t want the best-case scenario!” I snapped, my head jerking up. “You’ve kept me in the dark long enough. Do you think I didn’t go look it up when I left here? That I didn’t read about how she’ll forget her own fucking name? How she won’t even know how to tie her shoelaces? Stop treating me like an idiot and tell me the truth. I deserve to know. I need to know,” I finished on a heartbroken plea, and hated the weakness ringing in my voice.
She dipped her head, lips pinching. “We don’t know how long exactly, Liss, and that’s the truth. That’s not me playing things down. But yes, her condition will continue to deteriorate. Maybe another handful of years, at best, before she really starts to—” Tears clogged her voice, and she looked down again, blinking.
Before everything that made her who she was would be gone, ripped from her against her will, leaving her a shell of the person she used to be.
A sob lodged in my throat, choking me, strangling me from the inside.
Give me a physical threat, a tangible enemy, something to fight. Anything. Anything but this. I couldn’t fix this. I couldn’t fucking do this… I didn’t know how.
“I don’t want to watch her fade away,” I rasped. “I can’t do that. I won’t be any good at it.” My head shook. “I won’t be any help.”
A firm hand clasped my forearm. “You will, honey. We’ll all be here. We’ll deal with this together.”
“No.” I shook my head, the steady thumping inside of it increasing in tempo, in intensity. “No.”
I took the steps two at a time. Bree was slow to react but jumped into action, climbing up behind me.
“Liss,” she hissed, keeping her voice low.
The floorboards creaked under the weight of my feet as I burst through my bedroom door and grabbed the duffle laying open by the bed. Yanking open my closet, I snatched handfuls of clothes without bothering to look and tossed them inside the bag.
“Liss, stop! What are you doing?”
I ignored her, making my way to the bathroom, and dumping whatever toiletries I could find on top of the random assortment of clothes. Sliding the zipper closed, I pushed past my aunt in the hallway and bound down the stairs, ignoring the crushed expression she wore.
“Liss, please. This will devastate her.” Her pained voice cut right through to the heart of me, slicing clean through like a sharp-edged blade, and I hesitated.
But nothing—nothing—could be as painful as watching my mom disappear.
And I couldn’t fucking do pain.
I wasn’t built that way.
Bracing my shoulders, I grasped the brass door handle like it was a life-preserver, like it was the only thing keeping me afloat. Without turning, I said, “I need some time.”
“Liss, please,” Bree whispered. “Time’s the one thing she doesn’t have.”
My heart plummeted to the floor with the weight of a falling rock and smashed open before my eyes. I’d moved so freely within my castle of isolation, believing I’d hardened myself so thoroughly nothing could touch me, but now the walls were closing in. Everything was falling apart.
I drew in a harsh breath, collecting every morsel of shit I couldn’t deal with right now, all of it, and locking it away deep down inside.
“Thought we were being positive, Bree?” I murmured, then pushed through the door, a lead weight strapped to my chest.
The miles disappeared beneath the tread of my tires as I drove away from Claremont, the screen from my phone flashing periodically from its position on the passenger seat cushion. I wanted to bag it up with my old life—with every-fucking-thing that had happened in the last twenty-four hours—and toss it out the moving window.
Aside from the hastily packed bag lying
face down on the back seat of my car, I wasn’t bringing anything from that town with me this time.
TWENTY
LISS
The heavy beat of the bass thrummed through me, strobe lights dancing across the backs of my lids as I swayed in the middle of the dance floor.
Five months, and I was still running with no hope of escape. My past clipped my heels with every single step I tried to take away from it.
My mom called weekly, leaving voicemails that made me question my decision to keep my distance.
I wanted to go back, but I couldn’t make myself.
I wanted to be a better person, but I didn’t know how.
And Leon.
I’d shut down any attempts at contact immediately. They’d started up less than two hours after I’d slunk out of his trailer at dawn on New Year’s Day. I hadn’t bothered reading them; we had nothing to talk about. He got what he wanted, and I’d spared him the awkward morning after conversation he usually strove to avoid. It surprised me that he’d called at all. I could only assume he didn’t enjoy being on the receiving end of it.
I hadn’t spoken to him or seen him in five months… but that had no bearing on how often he played on my mind. Sleeping with him should have purged him from my system, instead of hard wiring him further into it. But that’s where we were.
So many aspects of my life had spiralled out of my control, all I could do was ignore them. A skill I’d been trying to perfect since the start of the year, since a sinkhole the size of the Grand Canyon opened up in the landscape of my future and swallowed a huge chunk in its meaty jaws, distorting it beyond all recognition.
I couldn’t see ahead anymore, and I was too ashamed to look back. I wasn’t proud of the choices I’d made, and now I found myself imprisoned in a never-ending state of limbo, running in place.
“Liss? You okay?”
The thread of concern in Olivia's voice pulled me from my thoughts. Blinking, I realized I’d stopped moving. I turned to find her gaze on me, her dark brows knitted.
“Yeah.” My lips twitched in my best attempt at a smile. “Fine.”
She was as close to a friend as I had here in Florida, but I hadn’t shared what was going on with anyone. Not even Riley. Not during our frequent phone calls, or the week she’d visited over spring break.
Olivia’s frown deepened, her unwavering scrutiny threatening to peel back the layers of my carefully constructed façade. I swallowed and glanced away, eyes skating around the room and settling on a cluster of four guys standing at the edge of the dance floor. Sifting through the group without hesitation, I instantly disregarded the two brawny blondes, and then a copper haired guy with inked sleeves climbing up his forearms. Which left one.
Fair skinned with a slim build and a mop of shaggy brown hair that curled around the tops of his ears. At well under six feet, he was the shortest of the bunch, only a couple of inches taller than me, at most. He might have been attractive; I didn't notice. Didn’t care.
All that mattered was he looked nothing like Leon Bradshaw.
Of the three guys I'd brought back to the room since the start of the year, that was the only prerequisite. I didn't look too closely into it. Didn't need to.
“You'll do,” I muttered to myself, moving away from Olivia's stare, and blocking out her sighed Liss.
Prowling across the room, I noticed Short Guy’s eyebrow piercing, and the two tattoos peeking out beneath the short sleeves of the hunter green tee that matched his eyes.
“Hey,” I said.
Four heads swivelled to the sound of my voice, pausing before making a slow track down my face and over my body. I wasn't a stranger to the leering look these guys were throwing me, but it never failed to activate my bitch sensor—even when I invited it.
It was programmed into me, an ingrained part of my DNA. Resisting it didn’t come easy. My lips itched to curl into a snarl or unleash a disparaging remark—the words practically bristled against the seam of my lips. Reaching for the froth-topped beer in Short Guy's hand, I put it to my lips and threw my head back to take a deep swallow that kept my mouth occupied.
“Hey, darlin'.”
The smooth, throaty drawl came from one of the blondes—the better looking one. The one who brimmed with easy confidence and a boatload of swagger.
Of course it did.
Tilting my head and lowering the glass from my mouth, I gave him my attention.
His blue eyes sparked before sliding down my torso again, sticking to my bare thighs. The denim shorts I'd paired with a slinky, black camisole were barely legal; tight enough to be uncomfortable and short enough that my ass cheeks hung out the bottom.
I'd worn them for a reason. I hadn't intended to go home alone tonight.
But Golden Boy wouldn't be coming with me.
I twisted round to Short Guy, pressing the glass back into his hand and curving my lips up a fraction.
A glimmer of surprise flitted through his speckled eyes as he read my intention. Based on his reaction, I’d say he wasn't used to being singled out amongst his group of friends.
All three of them were broader, taller, more conventionally handsome.
They were everything I wasn't looking for.
Slipping my tongue between my lips, I waited until his gaze locked on it, then dragged it back through my teeth slowly and watched his pupils expand.
“What's your name?” I asked.
Those moss-green eyes took on a dazed quality as he straightened, blinking twice, and swiping a quick hand through his unruly hair. “Uh... Evan. Ev. Call me Ev.”
He offered his free hand; I placed mine into it. Time suspended for a few fleeting seconds as I waited for… something. Anything. A flutter, a twinge. I'd take a bolt of fucking static electricity at this point.
Nothing.
There couldn't be just one damn man in the whole fucking world who could stir a reaction in me.
When disappointment rose, pushing at the walls of my chest, I shoved it down and slid my hand from Evan's loose grasp.
Noticing my single-minded interest in their friend, two of the others grumbled and turned for the bar, but Golden Boy's hooded eyes had yet to shift from my legs. I dug my teeth into my lip, battling the rising tide of irritation his lingering stare produced.
Don't do it, Liss. Don't punch the dude.
Evan shuffled on his feet, dipping his head with an awkward cough.
Refusing to overthink my actions, I murmured, “Wanna see my bedroom, Ev?”
Poor guy almost swallowed his tongue, choking out a garbled response as his head drew up. “Uh... yeah.” His voice broke on the word.
My mind jumped in with a dispute, and my livid heart thumped against my rib cage—the way it had each time I'd propositioned a guy.
I hadn't listened those times; I didn't intend to now.
Leon wouldn't debate whether to take a girl home. He'd be balls deep before a single doubt entered his head, then sneaking out of her bedroom a few hours later.
And I'd yet to actually have sex with another person.
I brought them back… kissed them, touched them. And then I shut down.
And it was fucking crazy.
Crazy that I even thought about Leon. Crazy that I still wanted him. And crazy that he was affecting my life when I was doing my damnedest to forget he existed.
Grabbing Evan's moist hand again, I pulled him behind me.
Golden Boy emerged from his trance to announce, “Ho, ho! Ev's scored! He's gonna tap that ass for su... hey, where the fuck did everyone go?”
I set my jaw, shaking my head.
“Hey, um... you sure about this?” Evan said from behind me as we emerged into a puddle of light on the sidewalk.
“Yes.” No.
Yes.
My phone vibrated in my pocket three times as we paced the short distance to Fletcher Building, hiking up three sets of stairs and down a narrow hallway without saying a word.
I opened the door and pushed into
the room, slamming it shut behind us and shoving Short Guy against it. When I grabbed his hair in my hands, I tried not to focus on the fact I didn't have to rise to reach his mouth as I fitted my lips to his. Instead, I squeezed my lids closed and worked to erase a set of playful blue eyes and the stroke of tender fingers from my memory with each pass of my lips.
But a frustrated growl tore from me, my hands fisting in this random guy's hair when Leon's face swam before my closed eyes. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to stop or keep going and pretend it was Leon I was kissing.
“Hey, hey… wait.”
Gentle hands closed around my wrists.
When I flicked my lids open, curious green eyes awaited mine and my features twisted into a scowl. I'd rather this kid just close his eyes and enjoy the ride. But his soft gaze filled with empathy as he assessed me, putting me under a microscope.
The tempo of my heartbeat escalated. He was trying to crack me open, but he didn't know how hard I was working to keep everything inside. I wasn’t interested in confronting any of it.
What part of running didn't people understand?
I didn't want to stop. I couldn't stop.
When I went blindly for his lips again, Evan grasped my shoulders and eased me away, moving until he caught my eyes and I could no longer escape his gaze.
“Hey, you okay?” Genuine concern filled the voice of this near stranger.
I nodded, glancing away.
“I didn't even ask your name,” he murmured. “That was a dick move. Sorry.”
“Liss.”
“And what's the guy's name?”
My brows dipped as I took a slow breath in. “What makes you think there's a guy?”
“You were kissing me like you were trying to perform an exorcism on yourself.”
My head fell, lids with it. I turned and planted my ass on the twin bed closest to me. Evan exhaled then made his way over, the mattress dipping under his weight.
“Sorry, I'm not trying to be a dick. I just wouldn't want to take advantage.”
I huffed a quick laugh, shuffling back and dropping my head against the wall. “You couldn't just be a normal guy and use me for sex, huh?”
Unthinkable: (Unstoppable - Book 2) (The Unstoppable Series) Page 13