Chapter Twenty
Evie
I was wearing my own clothes, but I was snuggled under Nicky’s covers. After our fight last night, I’d changed and then gone back to sleep. This morning he’d made me breakfast, sitting next to me to make sure I ate it all. He also made me drink some disgusting protein shake from a can. The guy needed a weekly grocery service and a blender.
We’d barely spoken since our screaming match in the middle of the night. But he’d slept next to me, hugging the edge of the bed and staying out of my way.
“How are you feeling?” He walked in the room, a bottle of water in his hands. He’d been gone for a few hours, said he had some work to do in his office and that I should rest. I didn’t know what kind of work a tattoo artist could do from home, but I hadn’t had the energy to ask at that point.
I cleared my throat and sat up a little. “My head hurts.” Hurts was an understatement—it was pounding. “You can’t go cold turkey with Adderall, Nicky.” I held up my hand, showing him the tremors. “See?”
“I know.” He handed me the water and pulled a bottle of ibuprofen from his pocket, tossing it to me as well. I missed and it landed in my lap. “I Googled.”
“Okay great, so can you please bring me my pills?”
He shook his head. “I told you, I flushed them.”
“I have more in my room. I’ll call the car service and…”
“Not a chance.” He sent me a large grin and then crawled back into bed, picking up the TV remote. “I made you a doctor’s appointment for tomorrow morning. We’re going to find someone to help wean you off. And we’re going to be honest with her about your addiction and how long you’ve been taking them.”
“We?” Logically I knew I needed to see a doctor if I was going to stop taking pills all the time.
But Nicky was ignoring the fact that I wasn’t entirely sure I was ready to stop the Adderall, and that pissed me off. When Nicky got bored of trying to save me, and I went back to my real life, I’d need them. Classes would pick back up in a couple of months and I was head of our rush committee. I was busy. I didn’t know how to function without them. I didn’t think I could.
“We.” He clicked on the TV, searching through things to watch. Nicky was taking this way too seriously, but for now I was fine sitting in his apartment for the next few days. I was due some down time, and I’d already made arrangements to be gone. The only difference between Nicky’s place and Maykin’s studio was that here, I was sober.
Other than the headaches, it wasn’t so bad. My captor was easy on the eyes, and his bed was comfortable as fuck. Now that my anger had faded, for the moment, I was feeling pretty okay. I wasn’t stupid. I knew that the anger would return at some point. Mood swings were a part of any detox, right?
I took the pain medicine he gave me and then leaned back against the covers. He’d picked some documentary about the pyramids of Egypt. Was he trying to make me pass out again? He was still shirtless, and wearing those low-sitting shorts. I could see every inch of his tattooed torso. His upper chest was covered in a large piece that looked like a cross between a bird and a skeleton, the wings stretching out to his shoulders. He had designs trailing down his arms, trees and roads and mountain peaks. His hands were bare except for his knuckles, and they were resting on his stomach. God Lord, his abs.
“Your phone is ringing.”
“Huh?” I quickly tore my eyes off his body to find him looking right at me, a smirk on his face.
“Your phone is ringing, little bird.”
I shook my head and quickly turned to grab it, fumbling around a little before I could finally hit accept on Beau’s call. “Hello?”
“How’s it going, Evs?”
Out of all my cousins, I talked to Beau the most often. We’d bonded when he’d moved back home after his biological father’s death. He knew a little about what I was going through, and it felt nice to have someone I didn’t have to completely lie to.
“It’s going fucking spectacular, Beau. I’m living in the sorority house now. I’m in charge of spring rush. I’m spending the week finalizing details for the officers’ dinner next weekend. Busy, busy, busy.” I used my fake Evie James voice, the one that said I had it all under control and everyone better bend to my fucking will or else.
“Oh yeah? Awesome.” Beau’s chuckle on the other end of the line matched Nicky’s beside me. “Now tell me the truth.”
“I’m currently wearing next to nothing, curled up in the bed of my tattoo artist-slash-kidnapper.” I looked over at Nicky, sending him a toothless smirk. Take that, chuckles.
“Is this like a TMI situation? Or do I need to send the cops to his door?”
“Jury’s still out.” I raised an eyebrow when Nicky kept staring at me, a smile on his stupid gorgeous face. “He thinks he’s my saving grace or whatever. He’s helping me cut back on the Adderall.” Demanding was more like it. The guy had decided that I was going to detox and stay that way, but he hadn’t consulted me. Design flaw if I’d ever seen one.
“’Bout fucking time, Evs.”
“Yeah, yeah, everyone’s got an opinion.” I trained my gaze on the TV, no longer able to take the lust that was forming in my veins from staring at Nicky. “Tell me what’s going on at the compound. How is Hales? How’s Wyatt?” Our baby cousin Wyatt was the cutest, happiest baby on the planet. I wished I went home more. I wished I wasn’t missing him grow up.
“Wyatt is good, he’s starting to crawl. And Hales is good, she’s taking summer classes so she can graduate early.” He paused. “But, um, some stuff went down here a couple of days ago.”
“What’s wrong? What happened?” I stayed away from my family because I didn’t want to bring them into my shit. Because I didn’t want them to see me like this. Because I didn’t want to disappoint them. Not because I didn’t love them. I loved them all so, so much. And I missed them constantly.
“Long story short? Crue cheated on Avory.”
“What? Are you fucking kidding me? How is she? How is he?” Crue loved Avory. No, he worshipped her. I could never imagine him hurting her in like a trillion years.
“Avory is staying with Landry and Brody. They told Aunt Lex that they needed the extra help with Wyatt because they’re both so busy.”
It was us against the world, always. And if Avory hiding out with her older cousin would help her cope, then Landry would lie to Aunt Lex and Uncle Dash until she was blue in the face.
“What about Crue? He’s got to be feeling so fucking shitty. Did Cash kick his ass?” Cash was his twin’s moral compass, had been from the second they’d exited the womb. And Cash loved Avory like a sister. I was sure he was beyond pissed at Crue for hurting her.
“Crue is laying low. No one has really seen him since it all came out. At brunch. With the ’rents.”
Beau put some dramatic pauses in the last part, making me gasp. “Shut the hell up.”
“Yeah. Did you not see the pictures? The chick he cheated with leaked them to the press. One of the suits sent them to Uncle Smith while we were having family time at the pool house.” He sighed. “Avory found out in front of everyone, and held it together like a champ.”
“Wow. That’s so terrible.” I closed my eyes, feeling pain in my chest for what my cousins were going through.
“And our little Cash fell in love with Katie Cadence, aka Mason Maxwell’s daughter. He is in Europe with her right now, touring with her family.”
“What? Damn. I need to call more often.” Nicky snorted beside me and I poked him in the ribs.
“Yeah, Evs, you really do. Or, come home every once in a while? We haven’t seen you since Christmas.” Beau sounded sad, which made me sad.
“I know. I will.” We both knew that I was lying. Beau knew better than anyone that sometimes, coming home was harder than staying away. Our reasons weren’t all that different either. He’d stayed away because he thought it was the best thing for Halen, the love of his life and the girl he’d crushed. I did it because I knew it was the best thing for my parents. Better they love the lie than be disappointed in the truth.
“Call them, okay? Maybe since you aren’t home in the middle of everything they’ll tell you more.”
I nodded to myself since he couldn’t see me. “I will. Love you.”
“Love you too, Evs.”
I hung up and sat my cell on the nightstand. I had texts waiting to be read, but I didn’t have the strength. Or give a damn. I hated that I was missing so much back at the compound. I talked to my parents and my baby sister a few times a week. Neither one of them mentioned anything happening with Cash and Crue. But that wasn’t surprising. Emmie was too young and my parents didn’t really ever know what was going on.
When we’d first met, I’d told Nicky about the mentality of my cousins, and how we banded together and kept each other’s secrets. And two years later, not much had changed. The ’rents knew about Beau and Halen, their whole story and that they’d been in love as long as any of us could remember. But they only knew because everything was good now; they’d been kept in the dark the whole time things had been hard—on everyone.
Our parents knew about Landry and Brody, how they met and how she hadn’t been sure at first who Wyatt’s father was. But again, they found out after the fact, after things were well on their way to perfect.
We shared the bad, only after things were good. We didn’t involve them in our struggles, in our hard times. My parents would be devastated if they knew what my life in Dallas was really like.
And I’d move heaven and earth to make sure they never had to go through that.