Vertical Lines (The Vert Series Book 1) (24 page)

She hits the shelf, knocking boxes of cough syrup and other medicines to the ground. Abandoning my crouch on the floor, I grab her free arm and steady her, easing her down on the floor where she wraps her arms around her knees. Eyes closed, she leans her head back against the shelves and takes a few wheezing breaths.

“Sorry—just a little lightheaded I guess.”

Her voice is thick and scratchy, and her eyes stay closed. I study her face while I sit with her. She has dark lashes like Brooklyn, and though her face is gaunt and pasty, despite the thick coating of makeup, I can see more similarity in the slashing cheekbones and jawline.

“Would you like me to call someone for you?”

Ashton starts to shake her head
no
, and then stops, probably because it will make her dizzy. “No. I’ll be fine in a minute. Just a little fuzzy in the head with this cold.”

I press my lips together and say nothing. She’s still taking wheezing breaths, and my hand on her wrist feels the slow and thready beating of her pulse. Her body is wrapped in a long white sweater, leggings, and boots with thick socks. Her hands are a reddish-purple hue, and they feel like small blocks of ice.

“Low circulation.” Ashton speaks, dragging my eyes from her hands to her face. Her eyes are dark like Brooklyn’s, that near-midnight brown, but instead of expressive, I just see exhaustion in Ashton’s. They’re red and swollen, glassy from her cold and lack of energy.

“Have you seen a doctor? For your cough,” I add when she pulls back a little.

“It’s a head cold. Nothing a doctor can do.”

I hold her eyes, trying to show her I understand—that I’m here to help.

As if she understands, she shakes her head, almost imperceptibly, enough to reject my unsaid offer. “I’m ready to get up now.”

I stand first, and then I turn and grip Ashton’s arm, holding her gently and helping her to her feet. “Are you sure you don’t want me to call someone for you?” I ask when I lean down to retrieve her basket.

“No, thanks. I’ll be fine.”

My heart pinches a little when I hear those words—wondering how many times a day she says them to herself and others. I want to tell her I know Brooklyn and Nala. I want to remind her that we met, but I don’t because this girl is struggling. I fear any of those pieces of information will send her into a panic and I don’t think her heart can take any more stress.

“Would you like me to drive you?”

She shakes her head, burying another small cough. “Like I said, I’m fine.” She turns to walk away. Five steps in, she stops and looks over her shoulder. Meeting my eyes, hers stay dark and serious. “Thank you, for everything.”

Whether she means today or the last time, I don’t know. I can’t tell if she remembers me or if she’s just being polite, but I nod and watch her walk away, one unsteady step at a time.

+      +      +

Nala is asleep when I return to our dorm. Setting the bag of medicine down on her desk, I leave her a note to call me when she wakes up. And then I head to Brooklyn’s.

He’s not expecting me, but it’s after seven and his truck is in the drive. I knock and wait, unable to ignore the small flutter in my belly when he opens the door, a scowl on his face and a beer in his hand.

The scowl goes away instantly. Before I can apologize for coming over without calling, his hand is around my waist and I’m on my toes, pressed against him while his mouth plays over mine.

“Come inside,” he says. I nod, following him, wrapping around him when he closes the door and reaches for me again in the entry way.

“Want you,” he says between kisses. “I want all of you
now
.”

I think about stopping him, but then his hands are on me, gentle, always so gentle even when they demand, and I only say, “Yes.” The olive-colored cashmere sweater I put on this morning is lifted up and over my head, dropped somewhere on the floor behind me.

The camisole I was wearing beneath follows, and soon, I’m standing in front of him in nothing but my cream-colored panties.

“I want to paint you like this,” he says, running his hands from my hips to my ribs, around my back and up until they are tangled in my hair. “I want to put you against the wall, your palms flat, your head back, and I want to paint you, recording every blush mark on your skin from here,” he traces the fingertips of one hand around my neck down the center of my chest, “to here.” His hand is between my legs now, gently working.

The intensity in his eyes is stronger than normal—the dark glowing as he watches me. His words thrill and terrify me. I know if he asked for real, I would let him. Feeling this way, wanting him this way, it’s terrifying, because I know I’ll give him whatever he wants, just so long as he never goes away.

“Christ, your face. I can see everything you’re thinking.” His lips come down on mine, and though I feel him trembling with need, he doesn’t let loose. I know he holds back for me, because I’m innocent compared to him, and though I want to tell him not to, I’m not sure I’m ready.

“Put your arms around me.”

I do as he says, leaning up to kiss him while he carries me the few feet to his bed, shoving the sheets and comforter away before he sets me down. My hands grip the bottom of his shirt, pushing it up until he balances on his knees and yanks it over his head.

He stops me before I get to the button of his jeans. And then he has our fingers locked, pinning my hands to the bed while he uses his mouth, starting at my neck and moving down. My breasts ache with pressure when he assaults them, a responding tug low in my belly.

“I want you, Jordan. Every day. To see you, hear you, feel you. I was coming to you,” he says, lips skimming over my stomach. “I told myself not to, told myself you needed time to study for midterms, but I was losing my battle.” His breath puffs over me and I arch my hips, too far gone to be embarrassed by my forwardness. “I was coming to you and then you were there at my door—all I could think of was having you.”

His tongue laps at me over my panties and I cry out, moving to the rhythm he sets. When he releases me to lean back and shed his jeans, my chest is heaving, my skin sheened with perspiration.

Brooklyn grabs a condom, rolling it on before he kneels over me again. I widen my legs, welcoming his weight. He curls a hand around one of my hips, dragging it higher, but still not fulling pushing inside.

We stare at one another, the air snapping and pulsing around us, our breathing ragged. When I fear I might explode from need, I say, “Yes.” And again, “Yes, Brooklyn. Please.”

His face goes dark—need clouding his eyes, and then he thrusts, hips slamming against mine. I cry out—the pressure beautiful and excruciating all at once. And then his movements gentle, his lips seek mine, and together we move.

Chapter 38

Brooks

“I didn’t tell her who I was.” Jordan pauses. She’s wrapped around me, her head on my shoulder, my arm banding her to my side. Even though I just had her like my life depended on it, I haven’t been able to let her go. Just the feel of her makes me…
something
. Something I’m starting to depend on.

Now, she’s telling me the reason she came to see me in the first place; there is pain and rage threatening to boil just beneath the surface, but I don’t let it loose. I wait, and I hold her.

“I was afraid that would make her anxious, or stress her out, and I didn’t want her to put any more stress on herself.”

I nod, turning my head enough to press my lips to her head. Shame coats me when I realize I regret that Jordan’s telling me this. If she hadn’t seen Ashton… if she had just come over instead of going to the store, we could stay here, like this, cocooned in one another while we pretended for just a while that bad shit wasn’t waiting outside.

“I need to go see my mom,” I say, and wish it wasn’t true. “Somehow, we need to figure out a way to get Ashton to the doctor before she lands herself there.” What I don’t say:
I could go to Mason’s, drag her out screaming, and force her to the hospital.
But she wouldn’t stay. And the stress… Jesus, the stress might be too much. Instead, I have to be careful.

Jordan nods, holding the sheet to her chest when she sits up. “I need to go check on Nala and make sure she has taken some medicine and eaten.”

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and grab my jeans, shoving my legs through them before I stand and yank them the rest of the way on. Next to me, Jordan is stepping into her panties, quietly dressing. I know she’s waiting for me to react, to explode—I know she feels a little responsible.

“You couldn’t have done anything more,” I say. Walking over to the front door, I grab her sweater and bring it back to her, slipping it over her head and waiting for her to put her arms through. My fingers weave into her hair, and comb it out of the collar so it lays over her shoulders.

“I know,” she says after a second. “But I wish I could.” Then she reaches for me, wrapping her delicate hands around my wrists. “I wish I could somehow change this, for her and for you—for Nala. It’s useless to wish for, but I can’t seem to stop myself.”

I understand that, too. The useless thoughts and dreams that come from wanting to help someone who might be beyond help. My heart aches when I look at Jordan and understand what it means that her practical mind would go to wishing—for me.

“What if I stop by your dorm when I’m done in La Jolla?” My fingers leave her hair for her neck, thumbs tracing under her jaw until she tilts her face to mine. “Would you come back here with me? Stay with me tonight?”

I watch her swallow, her throat working as if it’s gone bone dry. I know the feeling. It’s the first time I have asked her for something like this. I’ve gone and collected her, persuaded her to come home with me, even demanded she stay at times. I’ve never asked her though, never shown her my cards enough to let her know I need her. More than I should, more than I knew I could… I need her. Even now, when my heart is breaking for another girl.

Leaning down, I press my lips to hers, somehow trying to stem those emotions at the same time I bring her closer. My nose rubs hers when we break our kiss—I drag it from her cheek to her neck, breathing her in one last time.

I feel her nod against me. “I’d like that.”

I pull away, doing my damndest to control my breathing. My heart is racing, my pulse skittish. “Come on, I’ll follow you home first.”

“I’m good. Go ahead, Brooks, I know you need to see your mom.”

We walk out, and I watch her walk down the short drive to her car. I hold my keys, waiting for her to click open the locks. She glances at me over her open door; I stay where I am, watching her, the eye contact enough to have my body raging like an inferno. For a second time tonight, I’m trying to tell her something I’m not even sure I’m ready to admit to myself.

Jordan’s smile blooms, soft and happy, and then she curls her fingers in a wave before disappearing into her car. I rumble the truck to life and follow her as far as I can before she heads toward the university and I head north.

+      +      +

When a man opens the door to my mother’s house, it takes me a minute to adjust and remember this is her husband, the doctor. Chad, maybe?

His face doesn’t really show surprise… or anything else. Like a model for one of his patients, his skin is taught and smooth, golden brown against painfully-white straight teeth. His hair is golden, done up in a perfect cut that reminds me of Jordan’s brother and his friends that day at the beach.

“Dr. Chaz Braithwait.” He holds out his hand.
Chaz
. Close.

“Brooklyn Novak,” I say, without holding out mine. He tilts his head and I wonder if he’s trying to be an asshole or he really has no idea who I am. “Cheri’s son.”

“The artist. Of course. Come in.” He steps back, I step inside. “Cheri is upstairs getting ready for the benefit dinner tonight.”

He scans me from my hair that I forgot to pull back, to the soles of my scuffed Romeos and back up. I do the same to his penguin suit.

“It won’t take long.” Before I can ask him to call for her, she appears at the top of the stairs, looking every part the perfect arm candy in her floor-length black gown that manages to still be sexy and slinky.

“Brooklyn, honey what are you doing here?”

She steps down the stairs, her hand gliding over the banister in a perfect decent. But she doesn’t air kiss or shy away from me—she grabs my shoulders and hugs me, easing my discomfort and annoyance when she puts her lips on my cheek.

“It’s Ashton,” I say.

“Cheri, honey, the car is here.”
Chaz
is hovering by the door. I spare him a look.

“One minute, darling,” she coos. “Brooklyn, what’s wrong with your sister?”

What’s not fucking wrong?
I want to rage. Instead, I ask, “Is she here?” But I know—goddammit,
I know
, and the shock in her eyes confirms it. She isn’t here—and Mom
didn’t
know. “How long has it been since you’ve seen her?”

My voice is tight, but I keep it low, hoping to avoid hysterics and crying. “Well, I’ve been busy,” she starts. “And so has your sister. She has a boyfriend.” She practically crows this—as if the fact that Ash has a boyfriend will somehow trump the fact that my mother hasn’t seen her in too long to remember.

“I know. I met him—so did Nala, when she found them at a party together, drunk and high.”

My mother’s face pales.

“Cheri, I’ll be in the car. Two minutes and we’re leaving.”

Her eyes track to Dr. Douche and I see the panic—the desire to escape with him and forget this conversation ever happened.

“Mom.”

“What do you
want
from me, Brooklyn?” Her eyes are wide and scared, but her voice is exasperated. Responsibility has always been overwhelming for her and I have never resented that as much as I do right now. “She’s been with her boyfriend. It’s not abnormal for a girl to spend time with someone she loves, and it’s not abnormal for kids to party.”

“Don’t,” I say, refusing to let her take the easy way. The blind way. “She’s sick, we both know it—which means she can’t do what is normal for everyone else her age, because it could seriously hurt her. The doctor warned us her immune system was down, just like he warned her that drugs of any kind would compromise it further. You need to engage, Mom.”