That shit was for the guys who were getting some. Who were pussy-whipped and proud of it. I would’ve been okay with that—hell, I would’ve been proud to be that guy for her. But no, that wasn’t going to happen with Everly and me.
All I was ever getting from her was my very own permanent residence in the friend zone.
“Justin Cohen, I know you can hear me, dammit!” she yelled out. Judging from the way her voice carried, she was about a block away. How she was keeping up on her injured ankle was beyond me. I’d had a good three-and-a-half-minute head start.
I kept walking toward my apartment, hoping and praying I’d left some liquor there to drown my pain in. My anger swirled faster inside of me, filling me with a rage and hurt I hadn’t felt since I was a kid and my dad had knocked me around and I was powerless to stop him.
He always loved an audience. If I’d been stupid enough to have a friend over, that would be the day he’d have to tell me what a worthless piece of shit I was. In intricate detail.
Some small voice inside of me said I
was
a worthless piece of shit. At the very least, I was obviously a glutton for punishment. I still visited my asshole of an old man from time to time. Still took his bullshit and pretended it didn’t affect me. And I spent the majority of my time chasing a girl who pictured me as a chunky eleven-year-old all over the damned countryside.
Except now she was chasing me. And because I was truly the most pathetic excuse for a human being, I couldn’t handle knowing that she might be doing further damage to her already injured ankle. So I slowed to a stop and turned to wait for her to reach me.
She had a slight limp, which made me feel even shittier. But I was dealing with enough of my own painful agony not to sling her up on my back and carry her home myself.
“You shouldn’t be traipsing all over town with that ankle. Go home, Ev.” I folded my arms and glared at her.
All I could see was him, Kennedy ‘Golden Boy’ Hale, touching her hair. Grinning at her like a fucking idiot. Making a play for her because why? Because I’d acted like a gorilla earlier? Was he going to sleep with her to prove something to me?
My fists clenched at my sides. I dug my fingers into my palms for a distraction.
“What the hell has gotten into you?” she shrieked at me as she approached. “How could do that to me?” The closer she came, the brighter the tears welling in her eyes gleamed underneath the street and twinkling white holiday lights.
“It was just time for me to go,” I said evenly. “I’d watched you make eyes at Kennedy Hale all I could stand. It was either bail or throw up the food Maya had left for us right there on stage.”
“What in the world is that supposed to mean?” Her brow furrowed as she glared up at me.
“It means,” I began, taking a step into her personal space, “that I am done. Done being bitch boy Jubby who was stupid enough to think he ever had a shot.”
“A shot at wh—”
“Don’t,” I commanded, practically snarling at her. “Don’t fucking do that. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Her lower lip trembled, and I wanted to place a finger on it—or better yet, my mouth—to keep it still.
Hurting her was like hurting myself. My instinct was always to heal her pain, not cause it.
“I don’t know what you want from me anymore.” Her eyes filled with more glistening tears. It looked like she was working pretty damn hard to keep them from falling. “I can’t call you Jubb, and then you, we, almost—whatever that was, and then you do that. You left me on stage…stranded.” Her voice cracked on the last word, breaking me damn near in half. She shook her head. “How could you do that to me? You know how I feel about this place, how terrified I was of performing here for those people.”
“To hell with those people,” I snapped at her, throwing my hands up. “Who are they anyway? Bunch of small-town nobodies when you really look close. And the few who aren’t, Bree, Maya, Sami, well they weren’t judging you, dammit. Those of us who care about you don’t do that. And you don’t need anyone’s fucking approval anyways.”
“I’m still that girl, okay? I’m still the one who wants them to approve, to accept me as an Abbott. To not be ashamed of me.” She snorted, or maybe she was sniffling. I wasn’t sure. “I get it. You got all buff and everything changed for you. But it’s not like that for me, Jubb.”
I huffed out a harsh laugh. “Oh yeah? I must not have changed too much because all anyone, including you, sees when they look at me is little Jubby Cohen. A fatass with a dickhead of a dad.”
Her expression was wounded, as if I’d hurt her with my words instead of announced my own excruciating truth, when her gaze locked on mine. “No,” she whispered, reaching a hand toward my face. “No, Jubb. I don’t see that. I see my best friend. The guy who has my back always, no matter what. Until just now.” She dropped her hand before it reached me. I felt like I’d lost something I’d never had. Which I was pretty sure was worse than losing something I’d actually had. At least then I’d have had the memory of it. As it was, I had jack shit.
Time to do something about that.
“Yeah? Well, I got news for you, Ev. It’s been a long time since I saw you as just a friend.”
She glared at me as if I were the most exasperating creature on the planet. “How am I supposed to know that? When did you just decide our friendship wasn’t enough for you anymore?”
This girl. I closed my eyes and tried to think past the rage and the frustration and the hurt.
“Everly,” I began, speaking as evenly as I could manage under the circumstances. “You’re twisting what I’m telling you. I love our friendship. I do. But it’s never been all I wanted. I need more than that.”
“So what do you want? What do you need from me?” She closed her eyes and shook her head. I could tell she felt pretty much the same as I did in this territory. Completely lost. “I need to know, Jubb. I’ve lived my whole life failing to meet everyone’s expectations. You were the one person who never expected anything, who took me just as I was. And now I find out you’ve been disappointed all along. Just like everyone else.”
The corners of her mouth turned down, and I couldn’t resist touching her any longer. Using both hands, I pulled her toward me. She was freezing. Her flesh felt like ice under my hands. Shrugging out of my navy blue hoodie, I wrapped it around her.
“Hey. Look at me,” I instructed, using my forefinger to tilt her chin up so her eyes met mine once more. “I have never once been disappointed in you. I was frustrated with myself because I didn’t know how to tell you how I felt. Didn’t know how to get from where we were to where I wanted us to be.”
“And where is that?” she asked, her eyes never leaving mine.
“Honestly?” I wasn’t sure if she was ready for my answer, but keeping things from her had gotten me nowhere.
“Yes, please.” She pulled her lower lip back with her teeth, and I barely resisted the urge to do the same.
Leaning down so our foreheads touched, I let my gaze press into hers, past the point of just looking at each other, to a place where I knew we were really
seeing
each other. The way we always had, even when no one else did.
“You never saw me as more than a friend, and I never saw you as anything less than the girl I wanted to spend every day of my life with. I didn’t know what it meant when we were kids. I didn’t get that you were teaching me about love and acceptance because no one else ever had.”
A thick knot of emotion clogged my airway and my head swam from lack of oxygen.
“There hasn’t been a day that I haven’t woken up excited to see your face, to hear your voice. Until recently, I wanted you in the most innocent ways. I just wanted to be there for you, whether it was here or on the road or wherever.” I forced a smile and straightened.
I could see the confusion and mixed emotions swirling in her eyes. She didn’t know what to do with all this new information. And shit was about to get really heavy really fast, so I tried to give her what little bit of space I could.
“What happened recently?” She was still biting her lip and it was still killing me.
Taking a deep breath, I used my thumb to tug her lip from her teeth. “You started sleeping with me.” Something flashed in her eyes, but I couldn’t identity it. “Night after night, I tried to tell myself it wasn’t a big deal. But it was. It is. I want you in other ways, not just innocent ones. At some point it became stronger than just want. Being near you and not having you, not being able to say that you’re mine, is fucking killing me, Ev.”
“Jubb—”
“Don’t,” I said, shaking my head and backing up another step. “I get it. You don’t feel that way about me. But I feel that way about you. And I can’t do this anymore, Everly. I’m sorry. I just can’t.”
“What do you mean? You mean you can’t handle me sleeping in the same bed with you when we’re on the road? I can stop. I can get a cot or start sleeping in a different room or—”
“No,” I said, forcing myself to turn toward my apartment door and away from her. “I mean I can’t handle this.” I paused and turned back to wave a hand between us. “The band. You, me, the friends-with-PG-benefits thing, all of it. I just can’t anymore. Something’s gotta give here.”
“Is this sudden revelation because of Kennedy Hale? Because honestly, even if me and you were together like that, it’s not like you can piss a circle around me and decide who can come near me and who can’t.”
Fuck yeah it was because of him—well, partially. But truthfully I knew it ran a whole lot deeper than him and his bullshit. I took another deep breath to keep from throttling her. For a smart girl, she could be pretty damn dense sometimes.
“It’s not just about him. It’s about you and me. About how those nights while you sleep I lay there, wishing I was buried deep inside of you. I want to know it’s my name you’ll be moaning every night and my arms you’ll wake up in every morning.” I shook my head. “It’s Dax I want to sleep in another room. Not you. Damn sure not you.”
She couldn’t have looked more unsteady if I’d have tossed her onto the Miller’s frozen pond. Her entire body appeared to be trembling. Or maybe she was shivering from the cold.
“Look, we don’t have to decide anything right now.” I ran a hand over my head. I was almost surprised at the rough stubble. I’d forgotten that I’d shaved it not that long ago. “Just come inside and get warm and we can talk about where we go from here, okay?”
Her eyes met mine. Fear. That was what had flashed in her eyes before. I knew, because it was flashing in them again.
“Jubb…what if we…” She paused to take a deep breath. Every second she didn’t speak felt like she was gripping my heart through my chest and squeezing. “What if something happens between us and then it doesn’t work out? What would happen to the band?”
I knew it would come back to this. I tilted my face up to the sky as if it would produce some grand answer to our epic dilemma. I was afraid of this too. But that was the difference between her and me.
I was willing to risk it.
Hell, I couldn’t
wait
to risk it.
Attempting a shrug and failing, I met her conflicted stare. “I guess we don’t know for sure what would happen. Could go either way.” My shoulders were weighed down by the knowledge that she still wasn’t with me on this.
The gorgeous girl in front of me, the one I wanted so badly she was damn near edible in my opinion, looked away from me. And then down at her feet. Her hands pulled at the excessively long sleeves of my hoodie. She sighed, her eyes meeting mine with an apology in them.
Dammit. Dammit to hell.
I knew I needed to do something, anything to fix the awkwardness that would wedge itself between us if this continued going south. “We don’t have to decide anything right now. I just needed you to know. I needed you to—”
“I need to go,” she interrupted gently.
Stepping back as if she’d shoved me, I gaped at her. “Go where?”
She scrunched her face, looking like she’d rather tell me I had terminal cancer than what she was about to say. “Ken asked me to meet him. I need to talk to him…about last year. About why he—”
“No fucking way.” I snorted out a harsh laugh. “Please tell me you’re kidding.” Jesus. I’d have rather heard I had a deadly disease.
She pulled her pouty face and I could tell she was barely resisting the urge to stomp her foot. “I’m a grown woman, dammit. If I want to go talk to him, I’ll go talk to him.”
Adrenaline and testosterone made a raring comeback, filling me with a surge of heat and wound-up nerves. Much like when I’d been confronted with him unexpectedly before, I felt the powerful need to pummel the shit out of something.
“What do you think he’s going to say, Ev? You think he’s going to make some grand proclamation about why he’s such a fucking tool?” I shook my head in disgust. She was so strong and so amazing and yet, when it came to this tiny-ass town, she suddenly needed approval from people whose opinions didn’t amount to shit. I didn’t get it. I lowered my voice, since a few townies were passing by on their way back from the festival. “You’re looking for something he can’t give you,” I informed her.
I’d been where she was. All those years of waiting for my dad to sober up and say, “Hey, kid, your mom bailed on us and I’m a drunk. Sorry about your shitty childhood.” That day was never coming. Once I realized that, I moved the hell on.
“You might be right. But I just…I don’t know how to explain it. I just need…” She trailed off, giving me her best please-don’t-be-mad-at-me-even-though-I’m-ripping-your-heart-out expression.
She took a step back, and the distance made my throat constrict.
“I’m done,” was all I could get out. “Go do whatever you have to do, but I’m out. Say hello to shithead for me.”
“Out?” she repeated, freezing where she stood. “What do you mean, ‘out’?”
I glanced over at my apartment door and prayed once more that there’d be alcohol in my fridge. It was going to be a long night. “You need closure from him, and I need closure from you. It’s time I started living in the adult world and stopped tagging along in Everly Abbott fantasyland.”
She shook her head. “You don’t mean that.”