Immediately following the accident, I’d hated life and everything in it. That included my father, included Devlin, and included the unfairness of life in general. Now I was stuck between anger and something else… I don’t know what it was, but it felt a lot like motivation to be better.
That was some shit.
I punched in the code for the garage door as headlights slashed over the house, looking forward to being alone. I trudged upstairs to my home away from home, grateful I didn’t have to talk to Paul about what had transpired this evening.
I pulled a bottle of water from the fridge and frowned at the empty love seat. It was too quiet in here, and I was too amped from tonight’s festivities to go to bed. I settled for flipping on the television and scrolling through my phone, wondering if it was too late to text Tasha.
Probably. Even if that was a thing we did.
For the first time in a very long time, the solitude wasn’t welcoming. As much as I’d looked forward to being here by myself, now that I was, I realized I didn’t actually want to be alone.
I didn’t want to be alone at all.
Chapter Six
Tasha
God, I loved Taylor Swift. I loved dancing to her music. I was currently shimmying around my kitchen in a pair of boxers and a T-shirt, my Bose speaker cranked as loud as I dared while being considerate of my neighbors.
I was still in celebration mode since I’d learned of my permanent employment. I’d gone so far as opening a bottle of wine—not bubbly since I was saving that for a girls’ night with Rena—and tossing a pizza in the oven. Not the frozen grocery-store kind, either. This was a take-and-bake from Sonny’s Pizza. Sonny, former bookie and Devlin’s godfather of sorts, didn’t run it any longer, but the place was still open. They made the best pizza in town—with the kind of dough that bakes up crispy on the edges and chewy in the middle.
Oh, sweet carbs, take me home.
I uncorked the white wine, looking forward to an evening of kitchen dancing, vino, and consuming way too many calories. Anything to stop obsessing over Cade almost kissing me two days ago. Only I hadn’t stopped obsessing about it, clearly, since I was currently obsessing about it.
This called for more wine.
The next song was an Ed Sheeran tune. Much as I loved him, a drippy love ballad wasn’t going to cut it. I skipped to the next song.
Sipping my wine, I checked on the pizza before noticing my slightly frazzled reflection in the oven’s glass window. School had been extra sucky today. I was pretty sure I’d failed my Critical Analysis test, and I’d spotted Tony making out with his new girlfriend on campus.
My ex, who was bad enough on his own, was infinitely worse when accompanied by a petite, perfect woman with big green anime eyes and a skirt so short I spotted tan lines. I finished my wine in one gulp.
Tony and I used to spend the weekend lounging on his couch, making food, or making love in his bedroom. And if he wasn’t available because of work, although I later learned he hadn’t been available because he was a filthy dirty lying cheater, I would invite my girlfriends for pizza and movies over to my place instead.
That habit had stopped when I found out Tony was sleeping with at least two of those friends. I caught him kissing Jamie and confronted him to find out that not only was Tony kissing Jamie, he was sleeping with her too. Jamie, to defend herself, threw our friend Mariah under the bus, who’d also been sleeping with him. All while he and I had been dating.
That rat bastard.
I refilled my wine and was considering polishing off the entire bottle when the buzzer rang. I went to the speaker box next to my front door and pressed a button. “Hello?”
No response.
I tried again. “Hellooo?”
Nothing.
I gave up, but when I turned my back, the buzzer announced itself again with three quick zzzts.
“I said hello twice,” I told my silent visitor. Wait…silent? No way was it—
“It’s m-me,” a low, disgruntled male voice announced.
“What are you doing here?” I glanced at the clock on the wall. “At ten o’clock at night?” Moreover, how the heck did he know where I lived?
He answered by buzzing again, this one a long constant blare. I held down the button to let him in and then opened my front door and peered over the railing. That’s when I noticed my bare legs, my bare feet. My nearly bare everything.
The plaid boxers and a threadbare green T-shirt with the number seventeen on the front was my standard sleepwear and, until ten seconds ago, the perfect attire for a private party in my apartment. Pizza didn’t care what I looked like. Cade, on the other hand, had never seen me in such disarray.
He appeared on the stairs, chin lifted, hand wrapped around the railing. I froze in place, aware of his masculine presence as he ascended toward me. Frozen in place by the idea he’d come to me.
As he came closer, the overhead fluorescent lights shadowed the severe pleats in his forehead and the oppressive frown on his lips. He was clearly unhappy, his sandy-colored eyebrows drawn so low I could barely see his eyes. I felt them, though. His intense perusal sent tingles drifting down my arms and legs.
On the landing he loomed over me, still unhappy, still incredibly sexy, but now with heat blooming on his cheeks.
I tried for casual. “What’s up?”
Then he said the last two words I ever thought I’d hear him say. “Fffix me.”
Cade
Work lately had been an exercise in learning to be a Zen master. I had done exactly what Devlin asked me to do for the past two days: I’d kept to myself, kept my fists to myself, and ignored Hamilton.
In the hierarchy of the restaurant Serengeti, I was the lame one in the herd. I understood, not that understanding made life easier. Especially when Hamilton put one meaty paw on my shoulder and blew me a kiss. I doubted the offer was sincere. More likely he was trying to get a rise out of me, and even more likely, get me fired.
I gritted my teeth through the rest of my shift, ignoring the name-calling and the laughter that chased my back whether I was walking into or out of the kitchen. On the drive home I turned over the million responses I could’ve said. The responses I wished I could’ve said.
I drove to Tasha’s apartment like a bat out of hell, humiliation and rage flowing through my veins like lava. She’d been trying to help me, and I needed help. I could either go to her or continue skulking through life like a kicked dog. Both options sucked, but there was only one obvious choice.
Her prim brows rose as I tried my level best to keep my focus above her neck. She was wearing almost nothing. It was a miracle I managed the two words I spoke considering my tongue was spot-welded to the roof of my mouth.
“You look…” Her blue eyes swam over me, maybe checking for more blood. I must have looked and sounded as pissed off as I felt. “Enraged. Are you all right?”
I was, now that I was looking at a pair of smooth, tanned thighs curving out of a short pair of boxers.
“Sorry. I wasn’t expecting company.” She smoothed a hand over the shorts almost self-consciously.
A flash of hot pink caught my attention as she backed toward her open apartment door. Fluorescent nail polish on her toes. It was the second sexiest part of her. No, the third. Don’t get me started on what was beneath her super-thin shirt.