The Consequence of Loving Me: An Enemies to Lovers Romance (Aftershock Series Book 1)

by Kat Singleton

  “The palms of my hands were bruised from trying to do so many chest compressions on him. I went off the deep end after that. I refused to talk to anyone, including my parents. The only person I even remotely talked to was my therapist, and even that was the bare minimum. It took me a year and a half to tell him the whole story. I was so shitty, I didn’t even go to Connor’s funeral. I was too much of a coward to even look his parents in the eye after what happened. They’ve reached out over the years, even going as far as staying friends with my parents, but I still can’t look at them without wishing I was the one who drowned.”

  My lip trembles. “I was the reason he died, Maverick. Me. It was me and my fucked up head that doesn’t know how to accept love from others. I don’t know anything other than living in my own selfish insecurities. And he died because of it. I didn’t hold him underneath the water until his lungs quit, but I might as well have. Because we were in there for the most bullshit of reasons and I can’t even look myself in the mirror because of it.”

  It’s silent for so long.

  I stare at him as if I have a magnifying glass to his face. Every single tiny movement is one I don’t miss.

  “So that’s why you were glaring at that note the day we first met?” he asks.

  What the fuck?

  Did he hear anything I just said?

  Did he not see the fucking embarrassing tears escaping out of my eyes? And he’s asking about a flyer?

  All I can do is nod, too confused to do anything else.

  He thinks over it for a minute, like he’s working everything out in his mind. I try to find what’s running through it right now. His hands are still on me, so he can’t be completely repulsed by my actions.

  But I spoke too soon because his hands lift off my hips then. They stay suspended in the air for a moment. I stare at them, already missing the weight of them against me.

  And then he does something that turns my world upside down.

  Those large hands go to both of my cheeks and cup them, his fingers curling around the back of my head and landing in my hair. He pulls my face against his. We’re forehead to forehead again—our eyes pinned on the other person.

  “Veronica, you messed up. You made a mistake—a mistake that had a very large consequence—and I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry that happened to you. No one should have to go through that. But it isn’t all your fault. We all make decisions that affect others. It’s part of life. You made yours and Connor made his. It sounds like Connor’s decision was to be in that water, to swim deeper, and it cost him his life. And I hate that that happened to the two of you, I do.

  “But you need to learn to forgive yourself for what happened. Because if you truly were selfish, you wouldn’t carry all this guilt with you, years later. Forgive yourself for the mistake you made. Forgive yourself because you are here and Connor isn’t, and even though I know you would’ve rather been the person to have drowned, you didn’t. So all you can do is be a person Connor would have been proud to love. Be that person, Veronica.”

  At that, I’m a puddle of emotions. My first impulse to lash out at him, to say something to make him understand that it is all my fault, but I don’t. Instead, I turn his words over in my head. My eyes close, unable to look at him another moment longer. I’m too overcome. There are too many things happening at once. I want to retreat. I need to retreat.

  He must see the fear written all over my face because he doesn’t stay and pin me down for my answers.

  No, he does something worse.

  He brings his lips to my forehead and presses those imperfect lips right between my eyebrows.

  And then he leaves.

  He leaves because he just read me like an open book.

  He leaves, and I think a little piece of my messed up heart leaves with him.

  22

  Veronica

  I paint all night. My heart pours out onto the countless canvases I fill.

  Green eyes.

  Blue eyes.

  Eyebrow scars.

  Lip scars.

  My mind doesn’t even keep track of the time. The only things I focus on are my paintbrushes and the canvas. Every feeling overtaking me is added to the canvas. The hate, despair, guilt, loathing, pity, love, want, hope, all painted in many different colors.

  The shades of my emotions.

  After I run out of paint, I finally step back and look around at them. They’re scattered all over my bedroom. It looks like a gallery of my life. Of my obsessions.

  Of imperfections.

  And for once, mine are included on display. It’s odd. I’ve always been so used to capturing others’ imperfections that it never even occurred to me to paint my own. But after speaking with Maverick, I felt the impulse to capture my own. To put them on display—as my decision, the way I wanted them put out there.

  I fall asleep long enough to allow the paint to dry. Too exhausted, emotionally and physically, to even change out of my clothes beforehand that are covered in paint.

  When I wake up the next morning, I realize there’s paint splattered all over my room. On the walls, the dresser, the door. All over my sheets after I fell asleep with wet paint on my clothing.

  I’m too desperate to get to Clementine’s gallery to care. I quickly put on new clothes and carry all the canvases I can manage up the stairs and to my car.

  I’m busy putting the first load of canvases into my trunk when Maverick runs up the sidewalk. It’s apparent he’s just coming home from a run. Sweat drips down his forehead, even though the November breeze is frigid.

  “What are these?” He pulls a headphone out of his ear, stepping right next to me to peer into my trunk.

  Facing up, is a picture I painted of myself. It isn’t one that made me go too deep into my emotions. It’s of my back. Above my left hip sits a birthmark that’s large and two shades darker than the rest of my creamy white complexion. “My paintings. My imperfections.”

  He isn’t even looking at me right now, his eyes taking in every curve of my artwork. Yet it feels more intimate than any other time he’s ever looked at me. The way his eyes follow every brushstroke, it makes me squirm.

  “Hey, could you help me bring the rest up?” I ask him. I can’t believe I’m about to let him see what I painted—to see that I painted him. Maybe I’m just too burnt out to care.

  All I need right now is to get these paintings—these imperfections—out into the world. Which means I need to get them to Clementine’s right this moment.

  He nods, gesturing for me to lead the way.

  We’re silent as we walk through the house and into the basement. It briefly occurs to me that I haven’t seen Aspen or Selma in days.

  When we enter my room, Maverick abruptly stops. His eyes dart around the room like he doesn’t know where to look first. I don’t blame him, there’s a lot to look at.

  I’m allowing him into my life on a whole new level. My words are one thing, but my art is something completely different. And the way he’s looking at my art—like fucking Picasso did it, not me—makes my toes curl in my boots.

  I watch him stare at the piece that is so obviously him. It’s a profile of his face, the side that features the scar down his lips.

  At first, I just wanted to paint his lips—the lips that I dreamed of having on me last night, even though he very much has a girlfriend—but it felt too intimate.

  In the painting, his jawline is sharp. Those blue eyes brought to life in oil paints stare back at you the same way Maverick does, like he’s busy figuring you out.

  “Veronica,” he says, looking at me, his hand over his chest. “I don’t even know what to say. These are—”

  “Don’t say anything,” I say, picking up the closest canvas to me. I wrap my arms around it and turn to face him. “Please, just—nothing. I can’t even believe I’m letting you see these. I just need help taking them to my car and getting them out of the house.”

  It must take some time for him to process what I s
aid, but I give him credit for leaving it at that. Instead of saying anything else, he helps me gather the rest of the canvases and bring them to my car.

  Just when I’m about to slam the trunk shut, he reaches in and pulls a canvas from the top. It’s the one I painted of myself. My most vulnerable one.

  In the painting, I’m staring at something in the distance. My hands encompass both sides of my face, the way he did last night, and tears run down my face. My shoulders cave in, the invisible guilt weighing me down. All the edges are smeared and run down the canvas in a trail of emotions.

  It showcases everything I’ve ever felt.

  And I never want to see it again.

  It was a cathartic experience meant to only be that—cathartic and then forgotten.

  “I’m keeping this,” Maverick says, wrapping it in his hands like it’s the most precious item he’s ever owned. I want to argue with him that he has no right to snatch it, but before I can he’s already walking toward the house.

  He doesn’t even look back at me. He just leaves me alone with my thoughts for the second time in twenty-four hours.

  When I drop the canvases off at Clementine’s, she cries. Only because I’ve never brought these many paintings in at once and because I tell her to sell them all, under a name that’s not my own. I drop them off with her and leave, unable to think about who might buy them. I can’t think about the fact that they won’t know that every part of my grief is attached to the different colored brushstrokes.

  I can’t think about any of it.

  23

  Veronica

  “You consider us friends, right?” Aspen asks as he barrels into my room, two days after I dropped my paintings off at Clementine’s.

  I look up from my laptop, my fingers pausing on the keyboard while I take a look at the man in my doorway. “Excuse me, what?”

  Aspen rolls his eyes, his hand lifting to rub at the buzzed hair on his head. “We’re friends, right?”

  My lips purse as I think over his words. If anyone asked me when I first moved in here if Aspen and I could ever be friends, I would have laughed in their face. He’s exactly the kind of guy I would purposely ignore. He comes off as a complete douchebag, but I knew from the beginning that underneath all the playboy antics, he had a golden retriever heart. Loyal to a fault. The need to be loved.

  All the other mushy gushy stuff, I still want no part in. But the guy has weaseled his way into my heart, little by little. I’m stunned to realize I actually might consider him a friend.

  As I’m thinking it through, he walks into my room and plops down on the foot of my bed. He cradles his head in his hands, releasing a long breath. “I mean I know you have this whole don’t fuck with me attitude about you, V. But I was kind of thinking that you and I might be friends, and I need a friend right now—like right fucking now.” There’s strain in his voice as he talks to the floor, staring at his perfectly clean loafers.

  Aspen peeks out at from beneath his fingers, and in his eyes, I see something I’m not expecting.

  Fear.

  I could recognize that look in anybody’s eyes. Because it’s a look I’ve found on myself in the mirror for many years now.

  I know what I’m afraid of.

  But what is Aspen afraid of?

  Even though my feelings are all over the place—like the splatters of my paint—I decide to let Aspen splatter the canvas a little more with whatever he’s dealing with.

  As soon as I place my laptop on my nightstand, Aspen turns around to look at me.

  “I guess we are friends,” I say.

  He gives me a haphazard smile, picking a piece of lint off his chino pants. “Okay, then as my friend, I really need your advice on something.”

  “Why can’t you talk to Maverick about it?” I ask him.

  His eyes widen for a split second. The muscles underneath his T-shirt tense at my words. Aspen sucks in through his teeth and says, “This isn’t exactly a conversation I can have with Maverick.” His eyes find mine and then it all clicks together.

  Oh.

  I nod as I sit up in bed, my shoulders resting against my tufted headboard. I try to pull the comforter up to my shoulders, but it’s stuck underneath his body. “Take off your shoes.”

  “Veronica, I need you to not pay attention to my shoes. I need you to listen to me before I lose my shit. I—”

  “Fucking listen for once in your life, Aspen. Take off your shoes and get your ass off my comforter so I can pull it up. Then come sit here.” I flip the comforter over in the empty spot next to me, inviting him in.

  I’m willingly letting Aspen in my bed. Who would’ve guessed?

  But by the look in his eyes, I know this is something serious. Something to do with a girl. And for some reason, I want to be there for him.

  I wait as Aspen slides those hideous loafers off and crawls into my bed. His head bumps against my headboard as he gets comfortable, his body stretching out across the side he’s on.

  For a minute, he and I just sit there. Both of us underneath my white comforter, staring at the mirror across from us.

  We aren’t touching at all, but I can feel his presence next to me. It’s oddly comforting. To know I have a man in my bed and there aren’t any expectations—just friends. I want to be a good friend to him, now that I’ve realized his heart is taken. I don’t think he’s realized it, but it’s pretty obvious.

  Now the only question is: What she will do with it?

  “So, who’s the girl?” I ask, turning my head to look at him.

  His head whips to the side, facing me. “I can’t tell you.”

  I nod, not looking away from him. I’m fairly confident I know who’s putting his heart through the wringer right now, but I won’t butt into his business. If he wants to tell me who it is, he will.

  “I can tell you, though, that I think I have it bad,” he says. “Like, really fucking bad, Veronica.” He groans as he stretches his long legs underneath the comforter. His body inches down the headboard until his buzzed head rests against my pillow, and he folds his hands over his stomach.

  “Does she know this?” I stare at the way he twiddles his thumbs around and around.

  “No. She thinks I hate her. Or at least that I’m repulsed by her. But in reality, I haven’t slept with another girl in ages. Because when my lips touch another girl’s, her damn face pops into my head.”

  I contemplate what he’s saying. “Well, do you plan on telling her that?”

  “No. The thing is, we would never work. It’d be too complicated, and it’d hurt somebody else in my life. I can’t do it. But I want to do it. How is that even possible?”

  Maverick’s face flashes in my mind—along with the feelings for him that have started to spin around in my heart and in my head. Feelings I shouldn’t be having. Because we can’t be anything. I know that. But it doesn’t mean I don’t want it.

  “Are you sure it would hurt somebody else?” I ask him. I think of Selma, feeling guilty for wanting something from a man who has a perfect relationship with a perfect girl.

  She’s perfect. I’m nothing but imperfections. If it were up to him, who would he choose?

  As soon as the thought enters my mind, I rub my eyes, trying to force it out. My selfish heart is doing what it does best—wanting what it wants, consequences be damned.

  But I won’t pursue that. I will continue to force down the feelings I’m starting to develop for a man I swore I would stay just friends with.

  The shifting of Aspen’s body brings me back into the present with him. “I’m sure it would hurt somebody else. I know it’d hurt everybody involved. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less now, and it doesn’t make me want her any less. I’m starting to realize that maybe—maybe I’ve wanted this for years.”

  I mimic his movements from earlier, sliding down the headboard and resting my head against the pillow. My hands reach out and pull at the ponytail that’s holding my hair up, the position of my head on the pillo
w making it uncomfortable to lie on.

  “I think you should tell her.”

  Aspen gasps next to me. “Are you not listening to me at all? I can’t tell her, that’s the problem. I don’t think I want anyone but her, but I can’t have her. So now I’m stuck going crazy. And I’m horny.”

  I laugh. “I don’t know what else to tell you then, bud. Either you tell her—or show her—how you feel, or you need to move on and find somebody else. But I can guarantee you that if you stay in this limbo you’re in right now, it won’t do anything but continue to drive you crazy.”

  Look at me giving advice. Damn, maybe I can be a good friend.

  “You suck at this, V.”

  My eyes dart to him. “All I’m doing is pointing out something you already know.”

  His hands slide over his face, pulling at the skin on his cheeks. “You’re right. I need to forget about her. They’re just silly feelings. They’ll go away.”

  I flip over to look at him. This is not going in the direction I was hoping it would. I was thinking with a little tough love, he’d be pushed in her direction. My thought process was that maybe he would grow a pair and go for it.

  But apparently Aspen has other plans.

  Just as I’m about to ask him if he’s sure, a soft knock interrupts my thoughts. I lift my head from the pillow to find Maverick in the doorway. His eyes roam around the bed—the bed in which Aspen and I lie—where it may appear a little less innocent than it actually is.

  “Oh hey, Mav,” Aspen says, propping himself up on his elbows. The movement causes the comforter to slip off the both of us. Aspen’s eyes follow its path, his gaze stuck on the pool of white on my carpet.

  Maverick’s still staring intensely at the comforter on the floor when Aspen says, “What do you guys think about throwing a party tonight?”

  This catches Maverick’s attention, his eyes traveling to where Aspen has fully sat up in my bed.