Recklessly (21 page)

“I figured, which is why I called. Hurry up. Momma doesn’t like to wait.”

“Give me, like, a forty-five minute window. Buy me the time, Grayson, I’ll owe you.” Wes’ excitement was beating in his chest as heavily as the bass smashing around the walls of the lounge.

“Okay…only because I like the thought of you owing me something. Bye.”

Wes moved quickly through the club once more when the call ended, seeking out the friend who would give him the least amount of grief about bailing on the bachelor party he’d put together. They hadn’t even imbibed a quarter of the tab required to book the room, so they’d be plenty entertained without him. “Too drunk to notice” was his hope.

Only one of them was not buried in a blanket of hair extensions and inexplicably limber limbs. Kai was sitting on a bar stool on the far side of the room texting as he approached, and Wes took in a deep breath, bracing himself for the taunting to come when Kai looked up. It was just retribution for his own relentless ribbing when Kai first met Dylan two years ago, and he’d fallen all head over heels. Yup, they were older, but their friendship was still enjoying middle school.

Kai grinned. “Go. Abel and I got it covered, Deuce,” he said, surprisingly, before Wes could even speak. It was all he said but he squeezed Wes’ shoulder and pressed out a deep smile. A big, evil, mocking…supportive,
knowing
one.

Chapter 7 Stripped and Beautiful

Abel’s motorcycle engine quieted as Wes pulled up to the front of
Vices Hollywood
, and he booted the kickstand to the pavement. The hard breath he blew out was as much from his anticipation to see Lana as the nervousness from making the ride. He’d been taking motorcycle-riding classes for weeks, but those were far different from maneuvering along the deathtrap highways in Los Angeles. He knew a ride home on a bike wouldn’t cure whatever had happened with hers, though, if only for a moment, if it brought some splendor to her night, it was the least he could do.

Wes glanced down at his watch. He had timed it perfectly thanks to Grayson, and she’d be out the door in a few minutes. His stomach clenched lightly, an endless stream of nerves gripping it when the door swung open again and again as people walked out. He was partly shadowed where he parked, so he would see her before she saw him. A group of women suddenly stepped out into the darkness, dressed in the black top, shorts and shoes that was the uniform of
Vices.
A smile broke out on Wes’ lips, a warm tingle coating his skin, when he saw Lana in the middle of them.

He was disguised beneath the helmet and a jacket, so they kept walking, though all three sets of stares settled on him for a moment as the ladies strode to their cars. Lana waved to the other women, shooing them off when they asked if she wanted them to wait with her.

“So, you need a ride?” he said, rolling the bike to her side when her coworkers were gone. She cringed with revulsion at the sight of him and he nearly laughed.

“No,” Lana said sharply, “I don’t...”

“How about now?” Wes asked, yanking off the helmet after he set the kickstand.

Lana dropped her bag to the ground, gasping, and then covered her mouth. When she lowered her hands, she revealed a smile so big, so filled with gratitude, his breath caught. Coming here like this had totally been worth it.

“Oh my God! Hi!” Lana flung her arms around his neck and he kissed her cheek. “You’re on a bike…Wes Elliott,
you
are on a friggin’ bike.”

“…For you,” he said when she pulled back, and he stroked the side of her face in a tender gesture.

“
Really
?” She pushed her face into the crook of his neck again and sighed, hugging him tight. When they pulled apart, he sat on the bike facing away from the handlebars, and she sat astride it across from him with her thighs resting on his.

“Yup,” Wes said, taking her hands. “For you, beautiful.”

“Oh…I’m so glad it’s you,” she said. Every part of him warmed on the “you” and the silence that followed. Nearly dying on the I-10 had been worth this moment.

He dropped the spare helmet on her head and adjusted the chinstrap. “I’m here to take you home…”

Lana pressed out a transitory smile and there was sadness in her eyes. “Please don’t…not right now.” And it was all she said before she slid behind him when he turned around. He wasn’t sure where she wanted to go exactly, so he made no plan, took the longest way out of Hollywood, and hoped she would be able to clear her head. L.A. was beautiful at night, and strangely serene when you weren’t cut off from the sensory elements—the ambient noises, the feel of the wind—inside a car. And on a bike, it was freer the way you could sneak by cars and easily dash away. He finally understood why she loved moving around like this; it reminded him a lot of surfing.

With his house vacant, it seemed like the perfect place to eventually end up, and so after riding around for longer than he even knew, he pulled into his and Abel’s driveway.

“Start up the Netflix?” he asked when they stepped inside. “Have you eaten?”

“Not since earlier at work, and mostly just nibbling on chicken tenders. I hate eating there. I smell the food all during my shift, and it’s the last thing I want to eat by the time I’m really hungry,” she said, flipping through their Netflix queue, a light smile in his direction acting as a veneer for the solemnity in her expression. “So, we’ve cleared our queue, but we can watch a movie.
Office Space
?”

“Sure. I don’t know why I offered you food, by the way. There’s really nothing here except enough to make something we might be able to call Sausage Con Queso. And I’ll go steal the chips Char smuggles into her room to keep Abel and me from stealing them. That job you got her keeps her so busy. She gets home pretty late. Anyway, you feel like chopping?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Sure.”

“So, where’s your bike?” he asked, passing her a knife.

“Rosarito Beach, Mexico. In an impound lot,” she said with clenched teeth as she cut through a tomato, splashing its juices everywhere. “Expired tags, they say.”

Wes chuckled. “You were in Mexico? Like this whole time?
They
say? Your tags weren’t expired?”

“It had been
a day
!” she said, aiming the tip of the knife at him. “I tried to explain I would take care of it once I got back to the U.S., and they said ‘Sure’ then pointed me to the nearest U.S.-bound bus and told me they would await the paperwork. I almost lost my job trying to get back here on some bus that stopped, like, a million times.”

“Why’d you go to Mexico?”

“It’s a lovely country. You’ve been.” A terse tone, then another hard chop to another defenseless tomato. “What’s going on with that?” Lana asked, cocking her chin at the crumpled envelope on the coffee table, the letter from Erin. He realized he had stuck it in his pocket earlier when Kai came barging into his bedroom and must’ve taken it out with his wallet when they walked into the house.

Wes was staring straight ahead but he felt Lana’s gaze on him. “The guy—my ex-friend—who Erin was cheating on me with, he gave that to me. He told me she broke up with him that day…for me. He said everything’s in that letter. She was going to give it to me, confessing everything and begging for my forgiveness.”

“Oh…wow. After all this time…how do you feel about that?” She seemed interested but her voice was distant. Something was wrong, beyond the bike.

Wes shrugged. “It definitely changes her
again
in my mind. Love to hate to not hate…or…I don’t know. I don’t even know if I care about reading it now. Either way, it makes me not as pissed off about the situation…” He watched her chop the peppers, her momentum heavy-handed and brutal. Definitely more than the bike. “You gonna tell me what’s really going on with you?”

“I’m just tired…”

“Just tired?” he asked with a skeptical tone.

“Fine. They’re moving, Wes…the Olins. They’re
moving
…” She put the knife down so hard it skidded across the kitchen island, and she hung her head. “Mike’s job offered him a promotion in Russia. He told me during the U.S. Open that he’s taking it, and they’re moving soon. Fuck. I just thought I had more time with her…enough for her to know she mattered to me even though I gave her up…enough for her to want a friendship or something with me down the road. Enough for her to come looking for me.
Fuck.
She’s
six
, Wes. She won’t remember me eventually. She’ll think she didn’t matter to me, regardless of what they tell her.” She turned away from him as soon as the first of her tears fell. “I’ve been drawing her for an entire week—an entire
fucking
week—wanting to give her something nice, so she’ll know what she meant to me. I was going to paint it and I can’t get the fucking thing right in the first place. And I have no paint supplies. I’m not going to have time and—”

A cry exploded out of her before she finished, and Wes caught her on his chest when her knees gave out. The origin of the pain was deep, paralyzing, and he could tell because she was frozen against his chest, not even clinging to him. His heart squeezed in sympathy for her as he pet her hair, not to urge her to stop crying, but silently letting her know that it was okay to not want to stop. Still, from the moment he’d met her, he’d connected to her happiness, the sound of her laughter, the curve of her smile, and he wanted to give that back to her. It was hurting him not to be able to.

“Well, that wasn’t in the recipe,” she said, finally, muffled into his shirt after a couple minutes.

“We’ll blame the onions,” he said as she went back to chopping, though, much calmer than before. “You okay?” he asked, brushing the moisture away from her cheek.

“Yup.”

“Are you sure? You don’t
have
to be okay, Lana. I told you, the friendship is the benefit, too.”

“I know. And I’m glad we’re friends. But I am okay. I just…I…I’m okay.” And they made the rest of the queso together in silence. But even as parts of her usual demeanor slipped back in once they were watching the movie together, she was still mostly withdrawn, eyes turned to the screen but retaining nothing.

“Okay…enough of this.” He shut off the television and stood up.

“Wes, I’m really not in the mood to fuck.”

“Good because you’re about to get some pure, unadulterated, intense, mind-blowing, sweaty, rough…cuddling.” That got a giggle out of her and it made him smile as he quickly went upstairs. After a quick change into a t-shirt and sweatpants, he grabbed a blanket and a book and returned to the living room.

“This is new,” Lana said as she flipped
The Awakening
back and forth in her hands. “Why’d you buy it? I own, like, every modern edition ever released. I could’ve loaned it to you.”

Because like the motorcycle, I’ve been finding myself doing things you like lately.
“Didn’t own it yet. Wanted to.” Once he was supine, she lay on him, inching up to kiss his lips. It was aggressive, the way her mouth took in his. He kissed her back with energy just as fierce, just as crushing, as he gripped her hair. But they went no further, a mutual decision by both it seemed; it was just a needed connection between two people who hadn’t seen each other in a while. When they stopped, she tucked her head beneath his chin and he wrapped his arms around her.

“When did you become an expert cuddler, Wes?”

“How do you know I wasn’t already?”

“You own a penis?” she said, laughing.

“Okay…fair enough. Look, I just want to read a good book and hold one of my good friends at the same time. Is that okay?”

“I’m one of your good friends?”

“Yeah…maybe my
goodest
, actually. None of the other ones can do what you do with your mouth.” When Lana laughed, a wave of happiness rushed over him, too.

“More things for that sexy resumé I’m putting together.”

“For
me
, I hope.”

“What’s with the emphasis?” she said. “
Just
for you?”

“I didn’t say that…”

Lana sat up suddenly. “But is that what you meant?”

Come to think of it, it honestly hadn’t bothered him before that she was sleeping with other guys, if she was, but since freaking out over her and Brody during the U.S. Open, he was uneasy about it. The thought of
any
other
guy touching her, kissing her, being inside her body, being where he had been, was a million cuts to the psyche. Wes gulped down and her face scrunched as she watched him do it.

“Wes? Is that what you meant?” Her expression became entirely too unreadable.

He pulled her down against his chest. “I didn’t mean anything. Satisfied? Can I read now?”

“Fine. Will you read just the first two pages aloud for me? I love the way it begins,” she said. And he did, listening to her soft whisper of the words, spoken purely from memory, just beneath his voice, but he kept reading beyond her request, and she didn’t stop him. Within the close of the third chapter, though, her breathing got very quiet, and he was glad that she had finally managed to filter out enough of her worries to fall asleep. He continued reading, but his mind was back to his thoughts from earlier.

He definitely didn’t like the idea of Lana sleeping with other guys, and he was okay with not sleeping with anyone else, either. In fact, he hadn’t since…

He couldn’t even remember. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept with multiple women. When had he started sleeping with
only
Lana? Wes put the book on the floor, struck by the realization.
Shit. I’m only with her.

A piercing, gnawing tone jolted him awake a short time later with Lana still curled against him. His phone was ringing. Wes shifted to get it off the coffee table without waking her; he didn’t want to have to let her go. “Hello,” he whispered groggily.

“Wesley…where the fuck are ya?” Abel said. No, slurred. He definitely slurred it.

“With Lana…”

“At a funeral? Why are you whispering?”

Wes laughed. “No reason…”

“You guys going out?”