Authors: Jay Crownover
along.”
He grunted and let his eyes drift shut again. I was following along as best I could with his story, but I
was kind of lost. I felt like there was someone else he should be telling all of this to, but for whatever
reason I was the one he had let in, both figuratively and literally. He hadn’t known Phil was his father until
the other night? That was huge and just as hard to work through as the fact that his loved one was
terminally ill. No wonder he was just a mess. I couldn’t blame him.
“He looks like he’s dying … so fucking sick, and he called me son. For twenty-five years I called him
Uncle Phil and now that he might not be around much longer, he has the nerve to call me son. I grew up
thinking I wasn’t good enough for anyone. Not my mom, not that shithead she married, not my dad who
couldn’t even be bothered to see what kind of kid I would turn out to be … only Phil made me feel like I
was worth a damn, and now I don’t even know what to do with any of this shit. Why didn’t he just tell me?
He was more my dad than my uncle all along anyway.”
I sighed because he was spinning himself in circles and I could see the faster he turned the worse it was
making him feel. I put my other hand on his and leaned forward.
“I don’t know, Nash. What I do know is the only person who can answer those questions is sick and
hurting just as badly as you are. And I know that the two of you obviously need each other right now. This
is wasted time you will never get back. I see it every day and you will live to regret it if you don’t move past
it and go see him.”
He was drunk, obviously distraught and not thinking clearly. I doubted he would remember much of
this heart-to-heart when he sobered up, but there was just a nagging part of me that wanted to try and make
this heartbreaking situation more manageable for him. I thought I still hated him, still held him responsible
for all my shattered teenage dreams of love and romance, but right now I just felt sorry for him. It didn’t
matter how big and strong he was, or how much of a badass he appeared to be on the outside, not being
able to fight back against something as devastating as cancer, especially when it was affecting someone he
obviously loved, sucked. I knew it made him feel impotent and ineffectual, and right now it was obviously
making him scared enough to think hiding from it was a viable option.
I gasped a little in shock when both of his wide hands suddenly seized my face on either side. His hands
were a little rough but his touch was soft as his eyes suddenly flashed from periwinkle to a dark, intense
indigo. His eyelids drooped down, and his erratic breathing suddenly slowed, making those flames dancing
across his shoulders and pecs look like they were alive.
“You’re really beautiful, Saint.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and lifted my hands to wrap around his wrists. My fingers didn’t reach all
the way around and I didn’t want to think about how sexy that was. It was on the tip of my tongue to
remind him that he hadn’t always thought that, in fact if my memory was correct he had said it would take a
bag over my head for him to be interested in spending any kind of intimate time in my offensive presence. I
still felt the burn as the memory flashed behind my eyes.
“I just want to help.”
“You are helping.”
No I wasn’t. I shouldn’t have come here. He wasn’t my problem. What he was struggling with and
whatever complicated family dynamic he was working with had nothing to do with me, but it was like I
was seventeen again and couldn’t deny that there was just something about him that grabbed at me, pulled
at my too-sensitive heartstrings.
I sighed and gave him a tight smile. “No I’m not. You need to let the people who love you, who care
about you, in to help you out with this. That’s a heavy load to try and balance alone. Especially on top of
everything else with your parents. It’ll be all right, Nash. You’ll see.”
His eyes got even darker, and it was like watching midnight fall over the sky. I was balanced on my
toes, and he had a firm grip on my face, so when he suddenly pulled me forward I was both startled and off
balance. I had to let go of his wrists to catch myself as I fell forward, and I swore the heat coming off his
bare skin when my palms landed on the smoothness of his naked chest was enough to meld me to him
forever.
I was going to ask him what in the hell he thought he was doing. I was going to tell him that I had
stopped by more for his father’s sake than his. I was going to snap at him that he was the last man on earth
I would let put his hands on me after the lasting damage his unnecessarily cruel actions and thoughtless
words a lifetime ago had done. I never got the chance.
One of his hands snatched up the end of my long braid and wrapped it around his fingers like a rope.
His other slid across the nape of my neck and unceremoniously jerked me forward until we were chest to
chest, mouth to mouth, and I was plastered all along the very much undressed front of him. I pushed
ineffectually at his rock-hard shoulders, tried to wiggle my way free, but he was too strong, had too good of
a grip on my hair—and if I was going to be entirely honest, even drunk and sloppy he was one hell of a
good kisser, so my effort to get away may have been halfhearted at best.
I had spent a good portion of my last year in high school wondering what it would be like to kiss Nash
Donovan. Granted, in my fantasies it usually involved candles, soft music, and him being madly in love
with me while I just laughed at him and told him there wasn’t a chance in hell he ever had a shot at getting
with me. Wouldn’t it just be fate to shove it in my face that even though I didn’t particularly care for him,
didn’t think there would ever be a situation or set of circumstances in the whole wide world where I would
let him put his hands on me … that as soon as I was tested in those beliefs I crumbled like the Berlin Wall
coming down.
His lips were a little dry, his skin rough from too many days without a shave, and when he moved his
head just a fraction to run his tongue along the seam of my lips, I refused to open, and I felt the slight brush
of metal against my upper lip from that hoop in the center of his nose. I thought it would weird me out, but
it made me shiver, and when he pulled my hair just hard enough to make me huff out a breath of pain, he
got the entrance he wanted and I quickly slipped from indignant and annoyed to something squishy and
foreign that made my heart rate pick up and my pulse flutter jerkily under my skin.
Man, could he kiss. He was intent on it, like whatever was happening between my mouth and his was
somehow the only thing that mattered to him in the entire world right now. He used his tongue, his teeth,
and somehow lured me even closer so that I could feel the rapid rate his heart was pounding out against the
flattened palm of my hand where it rested on the burning surface of one of his impressive pecs. I could
taste all his vices as his talented tongue danced across my own and glanced against the sensitive curve of
my upper lip. There was the tang of tequila, the acrid hint of cigarette smoke, a tinge of sorrow, and the
unmistakable residue of injury caused by wounds self-inflicted by his stubbornness and fear.
One of us groaned and the other sighed heavily, and just as I was about to forget myself, forget why I
was here and who this tattooed and inconsolable boy was to me and do something idiotic and unforgivable,
there was a pounding knock at the door that had both of us jerking apart. His gaze was wild and hazy with a
mixture of passion and confusion. I pulled back and jumped to my feet like that fire that was inked all over
him was alive and could actually singe me.
I was breathing hard and felt like I wanted to maybe kick him or fall back on top of him and kiss him
all over again. The banging on the door increased in intensity and I cleared my throat and shoved my now
messy, tangled column of hair over my shoulder.
“Your pizza is here.”
He just looked up at me like I had landed from another planet. He ran his tongue across the damp curve
of his lower lip and lifted an eyebrow at me, like he was daring me to say something, like he was savoring
the taste I had left on him.
I glowered down at him and turned on my heel to head toward the door. I should’ve listened to my
instinct that had yelled at me as loudly as it could that I should just leave well enough alone. The past
belonged buried in the Pandora’s box of hurtful memories and savage misconceptions I left it in. Nash had
no place in my here and now. No matter how gorgeous I thought he was, no matter that he was the best
kisser ever or how desperately my libido was screeching at me that I needed to know exactly where those
wings on his stomach and hips disappeared to … I knew there was more under the surface of him, and it
wasn’t very pretty.
“You taste like a bar floor that hasn’t been scrubbed clean in a month.”
I snagged the half-full carton cigarettes he had sitting on the breakfast bar that divided the kitchen from
the living room and waved the box at him over my shoulder.
“I told you that you needed to quit. Stop acting like a spoiled brat. Yes, people you love being dishonest
sucks, but you’re an adult now, so deal with it accordingly. You said your uncle took you in, believed in
you, taught you a craft you clearly love, so focus on all that he did do and not what he didn’t do because
you don’t know how much longer you might have with him. Man up, Nash. It’s how we deal with the
things that hurt us most that defines us.”
I pulled the door open just as the pizza guy was getting ready to pound again and slipped around him. I
heard a shuffle of bodies, male voices muttering to each other, and I was almost out the security door when
I heard the neighbor’s sultry voice float across the hall.
“Honey, if you’re gonna have this much traffic on a daily basis, you need to invest in a doorbell.”
I paused just long enough to look over my shoulder. Both Nash and the pizza guy were staring at her in
all her toned and glorious beauty. I rolled my eyes at the obvious display. Nash flicked his gaze in my
direction and then back at the beauty queen.
“Who are you, exactly?” He sounded less discombobulated, less scattered.
“I’m your new neighbor.”
I heard him chuckle and it made me grind my teeth together as I pushed through the door.
“Welcome to the neighborhood.” I didn’t need to see him to know he was grinning at her, and that she
was probably spellbound by all that dusky skin and ink barely concealed by his boxers.
It shouldn’t twist my guts up. It shouldn’t make me want to pull all of her fabulous auburn hair from
her head and knee Nash in the balls so hard his future grandchildren would walk with a limp, but it did and
that was something I absolutely didn’t want to think about. Not now, not ever.
It took me another full day and a half to pull my head out of my ass and stop acting like a lunatic. I was
a mess. Torn up about kissing Saint, mostly because I didn’t regret it for a second but also because I knew
better. In the haze of tequila and sorrow, I could still taste her, feel her pressed up against me, and it was the
only good thing I could seem to recall in the last few weeks.
I would love to be able to say that Saint’s surprise visit had smacked me across the face with some
much-needed clarity, but that wasn’t the case. After her hasty departure because I mauled her like a uncouth
jackass, I finished off the bottle of tequila I’d been steadily working my way through before she interrupted
me and passed out on the living room floor. The next day was more of the same, only at some point I had
made my way to the couch and had managed to doze off using the pizza box as a pillow. Oh yeah, I was
totally behaving like a responsible adult.
I cracked open an eye when the front door to the apartment swung open and heavy footfalls made their
way over to where I was straight up wallowing in my own piss-poor choices and inconsolability. The only
person who still had a key to the apartment was Rule. Obviously he was done letting me have a pity party
for one and was tired of me ignoring all his phone calls. My head felt like it was stuffed with cotton and it
took more than a minute for my hazy gaze to clear enough to meet his angry, pale blue eyes.
Rule knew me better than anyone. We were best friends for a reason. There was no judgment, no
censure, and no disappointment from either of us, even when the situation sometimes called for it, like right
now. We were a team no matter what, and the role we played in each other’s life was that of rock-solid
support and more often than not official ass kicker of the other one when they needed it, which was clearly
what he was thinking as he crossed his arms over his chest and lifted his pierced eyebrow at me.