Jared
Comfort.
I’d gone without it for a lot of years. It was like this hole had been hollowed out inside me, begging for anything to fill it. Like hunger pangs when you’re starving and your body eats at your insides, searching for satiety when there’s no sustenance to be found. The idea of it’d become a vague memory, there to taunt me with what I could no longer have. Mocking me with loneliness and desolation, reminding me I’d lost the right to be loved.
Leaving me to rot.
Because without love, what’s left?
Nothing.
And that’s exactly what I’d become.
I’d accepted it because that’s what I deserved.
My life as a penance.
A due.
In the hazy morning light, I breathed in the coconut and the good and the girl. Swimming in her warmth, I lost myself in the way it felt to have Aly’s perfect little body all tucked up close to mine.
Comfort.
It surrounded me now.
I brushed my fingers through the silken strands of her long, dark hair, so dark it looked black in the silhouettes of the soft morning light that filtered in through her bedroom window.
Did I deserve that comfort now? I had no fucking clue.
Really, I didn’t know anything aside for one fact.
I loved this girl.
I was in love with Aleena Moore.
Now that I’d finally admitted it, it was all I could see.
Part of me wanted to climb out of bed and grab my journal, my fingers itching to pour my confusion out in words across the pages, to release the chaos tumbling through my mind. But at the cost of leaving Aly’s bed? Not a chance.
A soft sigh slipped through her parted lips, and a little moan of contentment flowed from her mouth as she sank further into the security of my hold. That little sound lit every one of my nerves.
I pressed all my hard to her soft, holding her close against me as I flattened myself to the snowy skin of her back.
Mmm… yeah.
I was in love with this girl.
And I wasn’t going to let her go.
Not ever. Days without Aly were darkness, and I was done surrendering to it. The seedy shit I always found myself in. The self-destruction. That fucked-up kind of life was over because I had finally come to accept Aly was my life.
I’d been lying there in her bed awake for hours. Just thinking, trying to sort it all out while I watched her sleep. Guilt fluttered along the fringes of my consciousness. Pressing in. All night, I’d been asking myself if I was wrong by coming back here to her.
Would she and our baby be better without me? Was I still taking what I had no right to? Was this gorgeous girl curled up in my arms tainted by me? Had I wrecked her good by putting part of myself inside of her? Would I destroy her?
I’d been certain I would. Now I had no idea what to believe. Because Aly had shattered all my beliefs.
Coming back to Phoenix yesterday had terrified me. I had no idea what to expect or what I would find. All I felt was the intense need spurring me forward. One that told me I had to somehow get her back.
Or maybe I’d come here to win her for the first time.
God knew I’d spent so many nights while I’d been staying with Aly and her brother over the past summer, sneaking into her room, that she and I had never really felt real. I’d given us over to fantasy. Figured if I couldn’t have her, at least I could pretend. Take a little before I lost it all, before she became just another fucked-up memory.
Turned out she’d always been mine.
I’d just been too much of a fool to see us for what we really were.
Aly and I had grown up together, this girl a part of me for all my life. We grew up living across the street from each other, her brother, Christopher, my best friend, our mothers best friends, too, like our families were one and the same. Until the day I turned sixteen – I’d been so careless. Reckless. My chest tightened as visions flashed. Guilt pressed in as all the air seemed to get sucked from the room.
I killed my mother in a car accident that day.
I was driving us home from getting my license. I’d slipped quickly after that day, diving into drugs and alcohol, hoping it would cover up the suffocating guilt of what I’d taken from this world. But that lifestyle had never dimmed the shame, that shame growing so much that two months after my mother’s death, I tried to take my life. But Aly, this girl, had been there. Saved me.
That act had sent me away to juvie until the day I turned eighteen. My father had shunned me, and I’d thought I had nothing left in Phoenix, so when I was released, I ran. As far as I could, living for four years in New Jersey. But I’d been drawn back here. Should have always known it was Aly, that we were connected in ways I didn’t understand.
Six months ago I came back to Phoenix and ran into Christopher, who took me home to stay at his place. He was living with Aly. What grew between Aly and me was intense, and I soon found myself trying to keep from falling for her. But I did. I fell hard.
We kept what was going on between us a secret, mostly because I couldn’t accept what we were or what I was feeling. I’d always believed love wasn’t something I deserved. I didn’t get happiness. But we’d also kept it a secret because of her brother. He knew as well as I did I wasn’t good enough for his sister. So when he’d discovered us and everything had come to a head, I did what I did best. I ran. I fled everything I couldn’t face and ended up in Vegas for the last three months, once again trying to drown out the pain of my life.
I thought I’d always be running until I crashed my bike one night three weeks ago. In that flash of a moment before I hit the pavement… in that singular moment… it was the first time I didn’t want to die since I’d turned sixteen.
And I knew it was Aly. Even if I had to live with this guilt for all my life, I knew then I had to come back to her. And I finally made it to her last night.
Now her back burned into my chest. As I slowly slipped my hand down to her abdomen, my breath got all locked up inside me. I was filled with both fear and a need I didn’t quite understand. My palm came to the flat plane of her stomach, to the place that harbored one of the greatest shocks of my life.
Beneath my touch, Aly’s stomach lifted and fell in a slow rhythm, her breaths calm in the depths of sleep.
Pinching my eyes closed, I did my best to imagine what was happening inside her, this little life I had no idea how to manage.
If I’d expected anything, it sure as hell hadn’t been this – the news Aly had given me last night when I returned to Phoenix, the new weight that had been added to my shoulders.
Yeah, a weight. I’d admit it. I wasn’t cut out to be a father, and the idea of it scared the shit out of me.
But this weight was no burden, and the strongest sense of devotion pumped a new kind of need through my veins. Something overpowering. Something right.
Aly made me want to be better.
I pressed my hand firmer to her belly.
This made me want to be better.
Last night, I warned Aly that I was fucked-up and I was always going to be. I could feel it there, still simmering in my bones, the truth of who I was.
And damn, Aly and I were young. I got that. She was only twenty and I was twenty-two, and I knew that only added to our issues, too.
I buried my nose in her hair and held her as close as I could get her. Because I thought my love for her… maybe… maybe it was stronger than all of that shit.
God, I hoped so.
I needed to be better, because there was no doubt these two needed me.
What scared me most was how much I needed them.
Aly sighed and mumbled, these cute, muddled sounds that did something crazy right at the center of my chest.
I nipped at her ear, coaxing her from sleep. “Baby,” I whispered low. I just needed to see her face. Talk to her. Make sure it was all as real as it had felt last night. “Come here.”
In my arms, she slowly rolled over to face me and her eyes blinked open. The intense green slipped all over me, memorizing, searching my face in the shadows like maybe she was needing reassurance of the same thing.
Today was a first for us. Waking up next to her instead of sneaking out of her room in the middle of the night like the asshole I’d been, hiding us away and making her ashamed.
A slow smile curved her perfect mouth, and I couldn’t do anything but lean down and brush mine against the fullness, kiss the girl who’d undone me.
My chest tightened. All the months I’d been gone, I hadn’t known what to do with what I felt for Aly. The truth of what she was that I’d been fighting for so long. Now it was prominent, thrumming wildly with every pulse of my heart.
“Hi,” she said quietly.
Shifting, I wedged a knee between her legs as I climbed over her, hovered close. Damn, she was the most gorgeous thing. She stared up at me, her olive skin all smooth and flawless, her cheeks high and striking, defined.
Still, everything about her was soft.
Good.
I cupped my hand around that trusting face. “Morning, beautiful.”
God, how perfect was it waking up next to her?
Soft fingertips fluttered along my jaw. Something powerful simmered in her eyes. “You stayed.” The words seemed to come from somewhere deep within her, revealing the fear she still kept harbored inside.
My gut twisted because I wanted to take all that away from her, all the pain she’d been living with during the months I’d been gone. For the longest time, I just looked down at her, a promise held in my stare. “Baby, I already told you, I’m not going anywhere.”
My hold increased on her cheek, my nose an inch from hers. Because inside I already knew the answer to all the questions plaguing me.
Aly needed me.
I let part of my weight settle on her, careful not to hurt her, because I was finished with all that hurting shit. I murmured close to her ear, “I need you to believe that. Yeah, we’ve got some shit to deal with, but we’re going to do it together. Okay?”
Leaning back, I let myself get lost in her hopeful gaze. Instinctively, I twisted a lock of her hair with my finger. A bond. My home.
I’m not going anywhere.
Aly blinked like she was absorbing what I’d said. She wound her arms around my neck and buried her face in it. A breath of words flooded out to kiss the skin just under my ear. “I believe in you, Jared. I always have.”
Affection pounded against my ribs. God, it felt so good because this girl really fucking got me, understood when no one else could.
“Thank you.” I gripped her face and swept my mouth across hers. “Thank you for seeing something in me that I didn’t know was there.”
I kissed her deeper. My tongue dipped in to taste the sweet and the good, and Aly met me, her tongue all soft and welcoming.
And damn if just that little brush didn’t cause every last inch of my body to harden.
Motherfucking trigger.
For so long I’d thought of her that way, provoking all these feelings inside me I didn’t believe I had the right to feel.
Turned out I didn’t mind this trigger so much after all.
Outside her room, a door slammed, hard enough to shake Aly’s walls.
We both froze, eyes going wide, before our attention flashed to her closed door. For so many months, that door had hidden us away. Like some kind of sick, dirty little secret. Instead I should’ve been screaming out about how much this girl meant to me.
That’s how twisted I was. But I never claimed I was right in the head. Far from it. Thought I was doing her some kind of warped favor, saving face when in turn I’d just brought her shame.
Worry flashed in Aly’s eyes when the heavy footsteps plodded down the hall. A shadow blinked under the door when her brother passed.
I dropped my forehead to hers, and I suppressed the groan that rose in my throat.
Fuck.
Could anyone blame me for being none too excited at the thought of going toe-to-toe with her brother Christopher? Him finding me here? Dude was not gonna be pleased. But that meeting was inevitable.
No time like the present, I thought sarcastically. Seize the day and all that.
Pretty sure it was going to be Christopher seizing my balls.
Last night Aly told me she’d confided in him about the baby and how important it was to her that he’d been there for her in the time I was away.
“Think I have some business to take care of. Why don’t you wait here or maybe grab a shower while I have a little chat with your brother?” I whispered softly, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear.
Wasn’t exactly a question. More like a plea.
Aly didn’t need to deal with more of the shit storm I conjured, then fled from the moment it hit land. I wanted her to stay here where I could protect her from what needed to be said. Or maybe I just didn’t want her to hear it, whatever Christopher would spew, because in it would be nothing but the truth.
Aly grimaced, like maybe I’d just wounded her.
I shook my head, knowing exactly what she was thinking. “Give me ten minutes, baby, then I’ll come back and we’ll spend the day in bed. Just you and me.”
Knowing eyes peered up at me. The look alone called out my bluff. “You can’t start hiding stuff, Jared. We’re a team now,” she emphasized. “We’re supposed to do this together.”
Old pain twisted my face, and I edged back a fraction. I was so used to handling shit on my own, just dealing, pushing it all aside so I could stay afloat. Really, I’d just been drowning.
And here was this girl, promising she’d stay by me and help me keep my head above water.
I searched for her hand and pressed her palm to my face. I hoped somehow she could feel the sincerity in my words. “This isn’t because I want to hide you away, Aly. But I need to do this alone. I’m the one who fucked it up and I’m the one who has to make it right. I’ve known your brother a long, long time, and this isn’t just about you and me.”
Before I left, I’d lost control on my oldest friend, beaten him bloody, my mind a cloud of rage and agony. It was the night he busted in Aly’s door and discovered us together. He’d confronted us, and the tension between us had escalated fast. I didn’t even realize how far I’d slipped until it all came back into focus and I realized his body was a heap in the middle of Aly’s bedroom floor. After what I did, I had no idea if I even could make it right or if he’d give me the chance. No doubt, I didn’t deserve one. But for Aly, I was going to ask for it. Face him. Own up to the shit I still wasn’t sure I knew how to control.
I brushed my fingers through her hair. “Let me talk to him, okay? I need to start facing some stuff in my life. It started with you yesterday, coming back here. Now it needs to be him. I can’t keep running, can’t keep tossing walls up to hide behind. Please understand.”
“I get it, Jared. But I also need you to know you’re not alone anymore.” Tender fingers burned into my skin where she ran them down my jaw. “I want to be a part of whatever you have to face in this life so I can be a part of your future.”
Her statement washed over me like a balm. Like overwhelming peace I didn’t deserve. But there was no stopping myself from submerging myself in it. I placed a closemouthed kiss to her lips, before I turned to the soft shell of her ear and whispered, “You are my life… my future.”
Never had one without her.
Aly’s fingers curled in my neck as she drank in the words that had been locked up in my heart. I could feel them race through her veins and take hold. Because the two of us?
We fit.
This fucked-up puzzle that finally made sense.
Reluctantly, I climbed from her bed. Grabbing the jeans I’d left in a pile on the floor, I couldn’t help but smirk as she watched me pull them on. Those eyes raked down me with pure need. It felt amazing that this girl wanted me as badly as I wanted her.
Her fingers trembled toward me from where she lay on her stomach. I came back to her and brushed my lips over her fingertips. “I mean it, Aly.”
“I know,” she said, everything I never thought I’d have lighting in her eyes.
Then I turned and headed out her door. Quietly, I latched it shut behind me.
I stepped out of the sanctuary of Aly’s room. In one second flat, all my nerves were wringing me tight. My chest tightened, and I could hear my pulse drumming in my ears, this steady progression of unease spinning me up and stringing me out. Harshly, I blinked and squinted, trying to adjust to the bright light blazing in through the sliding glass door in the living room.
I had no clue what to expect when it came to Christopher, but I sure as hell didn’t want a repeat of the last time I walked out Aly’s door, that argument and fight that ended with me running to Vegas for three miserable months.
Some things were unforgivable. All the fucking deplorable sins I’d committed that would haunt me all my life. I drove my hand through my hair. Pretty sure beating my best friend to a bloodied pulp qualified as one of them.
Figured the fact I knocked up his little sister probably didn’t sit very well with him, either.
I drew in a deep breath and pushed all those thoughts aside.
Didn’t matter. I made the decision when I came here. I was finished hiding.
Silencing my feet, I inched down the hall, buying a little time, trying to feel him out.
I spotted him over the bar that separated the main room from the kitchen. He was flinging open cupboards and slamming them closed just as hard. I studied him as I passed.
The shock of black hair on his head was a fucking disaster, sticking up everywhere, probably three inches longer than the last time I saw him. He wasn’t wearing anything but a pair of holey jeans. Color bled all over his back and arms, intricate tats sketched in beautiful patterns across his skin, the opposite of the horrors that stained mine.
But I didn’t miss the way his muscles bunched in his shoulders, his entire being ticking with hostility and his movements harsh. He kept banging shit around, all wound up and fucking on edge. Tension radiated from him as he shoved two pieces of bread into the toaster.
Awareness prickled between us like a live wire, just waiting for the spark, one little movement that could cause us to combust.
With my stomach twisted in about fifteen knots, I rounded the bar, hesitating right between the border of the kitchen and the small, round dining table. He kept his back to me, like maybe I was dead to him, the way I should be.
He will hate me before I’m gone.
How many times had that silent promise made its way through my thoughts? Enough times to know their truth – that was for sure.
Finally, I pulled out a chair from the dining table, turned it around, and sat down facing him. Slumping forward, I rested my elbows on my knees. I rushed my hand over my face and down my chin, as if the action could wipe away all the shit we had to deal with.
Christopher had been my best friend all through my childhood, our tie thicker than blood, the brother I’d never had. Without question, he’d welcomed me in when I’d first come back to Phoenix last summer, the guy cool enough to overlook all the crimes that had sent me away in the first place years before.
And what had I done to repay his welcome? Lied straight to his fucking face, taking advantage of the situation – and his sister – with every turn I made.
Shame. It was thick. Stifling. I hated what I’d done, how I handled things, the way everything had gone down when it all came to a head. The sad thing was I’d known it was coming. It’d been so clear what was building, and I’d just fucking stayed until the situation had exploded.
But it was because of Aly. Because of her I couldn’t walk away all those months ago. Because of her I was sitting here today.
Still, Christopher didn’t turn around. The toast popped up in the toaster, and he jerked a plate from the cupboard. Utensils clattered when he ripped open the drawer and grabbed a butter knife.
And I just sat there. Waiting. Giving him time to let out whatever was roiling inside him.
When he finally spoke, his voice was tight, laced with disgusted amusement. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the infamous Jared Holt. Figured I’d be seeing your sorry ass this morning. Saw that piece of shit bike sitting in that spot downstairs when I got home last night. Then I come inside and, lo and behold, my little sister’s door is all locked up tight.”
A hot breath pushed from my lungs, and I tipped my head up to witness the disdain pouring from him when he turned around to meet my face. He crossed his arms over his chest and backed up against the counter. “How ya been, man?” It was all sarcasm and sneer. “Wait… let me tell you what it’s been like around here first.”
“Christoph —”
“Why don’t you shut your mouth and listen to what I have to say? Or do you feel compelled to feed me some more bullshit first?”
I sat back, staring up at the venom pouring from his gaze, welcoming it because I knew I had this coming. I mean, shit, I had no defense. I knew what I’d done.
“So how did it feel last night? Climbing right back into my little sister’s bed?”
My jaw clenched at the accusation, and my lips pursed into a thin line to keep from lashing out. Dude knew how to hit me where it hurt. I jerked my head with one harsh shake, nausea winding through my being while he stared down at me like I was some kind of bastard traitor. And maybe I was, but I hated the way he saw it, thinking I was taking advantage of Aly. As if she wasn’t the most important person in this world. To him, I’d just been fucking his little sister.
“Come on, man,” I muttered low. I rushed a shaky hand through my hair and cut my eye to the wall before I found the courage to look back at him. “It was never like that.”
“Wasn’t it?” The accusation dripped from his twisted mouth.
“No.” The word grated from my throat with the sound of remorse, and my knee was fucking bouncing because I didn’t know how to handle it. That old warning flare was blaring, telling me to grab my stuff and go. I strangled it, silencing that shit because nothing could tear me away from Aly.
Averting his gaze to the floor, he grasped the counter, contemplating something before he angled his chin up. “Did she tell you?”
My nod was slow, filled with understanding of what he was asking. “Yeah.” Shame hung my head, and I felt a new kind of guilt wash over me. God, I wished I’d been here for all of it. Wished I’d been the first one to hear Aly’s news. Wished she hadn’t had to rely on him.
Thank God she had him, though.
Christopher edged forward. Every step was calculated contention, anger, and hate. He worked his fists as he advanced on me. My chin lifted further with each step he took until he was right up in my face. “You think you can just come back here and act like nothing ever happened? Like everything is the same? Well, guess what, asshole. Nothing is the same.”
Aggression spiked, heated in my stomach. A tremor of that same fucking insanity that had tormented me for years rolled through my body. My own fists flexed, and I struggled under the weight of it. He was breathing his bitterness all over me, and it took about all I had not to shove it back in his face.
He laughed, smug, and his voice dropped lower. “Does me getting in your face piss you off, Jared? You want to hit me again? Watch me bleed? Lose control? Will that make you feel better?”
He was baiting me. I knew it. Maybe that pissed me off the most. My jaw clenched and I squirmed under the anger blazing from green eyes that were so much like Aly’s.
Something that sounded like fear wove into his words. “What happens when it’s Aly who pisses you off? Are you going to beat her, too? How about when that baby gets in your line of fire?”
Every nerve in my body fired – pressed and pulsed with a crushing pain.
“Never.” I blinked hard. My hands fisted in my hair and I choked over the words. “Fuck, Christopher, I would never hurt them.”
He took a single step back, still glaring down at me like the piece of shit I was. “Yeah, and you’re supposed to be my best friend, too, and you didn’t seem to mind letting it out on me.” Conflict reigned in his gaze, questions and worry and blatant hurt.
Guilt knotted in my throat, and I found myself trying to explain what had sent me over the edge that night. “I know you didn’t mean to, but you hurt her and I just… I lost it, man. The thought of anyone hurting her makes me crazy.”
Understanding flashed like a bolt across his face before his eyes darkened. The anger from seconds before was replaced with disappointment. “Yeah, well, guess what, Jared. You hurt her, too. You want to know what it was like while you were gone? Her not knowing where you were, or if you were coming back? The pain she’s been going through? And guess who was here taking care of her while she puked her guts out for three straight months. Guess who held her while she cried and wondered how in the hell she was going to make it. Me, Jared. And now I’m not going to stand aside and let you ruin her. Not after everything you’ve already put her through.”
I ruin everything I touch.
The thought slammed me like a kick to the gut. Air wheezed down my throat as I struggled to pull it into the well of my lungs. That was something I was going to have to come to terms with – the fact that I didn’t have the first clue what Aly had suffered while I was away. I only knew my own pain, the fucking misery I’d endured day after day – all those days praying she’d somehow find a way without me, not knowing I’d walked away and left her with the greatest reminder of me I could have. Marking her. Scoring my body into hers.
Even if I hadn’t left her with our baby inside her, I’d been a fool to believe she could ever forget about me. As if I didn’t feel the honesty in her touch and hadn’t witnessed the truth in her eyes.
Aly loved me.
I shot to standing.
Caught off guard, Christopher stumbled back. I began to pace. I turned back to him, hoping he could feel the truth in my own confession.
“I love her, okay? I’m fucked-up. I’m the first to admit it. But it doesn’t change what I feel about her.” The words bled from my mouth. That girl, the one lying in her bed down the hall, she was it.
My truth.
“You can hate me, Christopher, blame me… because it’s my fault. All of it. But it doesn’t matter what you say. I’m not going anywhere.” My voice dropped in the same second my face did, so that I was staring at my feet. “Before I came back the first time, I hadn’t felt anything but hate for a long, long time. It’s the only thing I felt until the day you found me in that bar and invited me into this apartment and I came face-to-face with her. She did something to me…”
Something terrifying and completely right.
“She changed me. And if you spent so much time with her over the last few months, then I know you know Aly and I are supposed to be together. None of this other shit matters. None of it. Nothing except for her and the baby.” I met his eye. “You and I have been through a ton of shit, Christopher. I know I messed up. I messed up with you and I messed up with your sister. And I’m sorry. I wish I could change the way I handled everything, go back and do it differently, but I can’t.”
I saw the hurt bleed through the anger in his eyes, and he shook his head as he looked to the wall. “You lied to me, Jared. Fucking lied straight to my face when I asked if you had something going on with my sister behind my back.”
“Yeah, I lied. But you didn’t just ask if there was something going on. You told me there couldn’t be. Aly and I… there was no stopping us. We were going to happen.” I swallowed hard. “And I was ashamed of it, ashamed that I couldn’t stop myself from going to her. You think I didn’t know I should stay away?” I touched my chest. “I did. But I couldn’t. Keeping it from you was shitty. Wrong. But I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want Aly feeling any of the shame I was feeling, and I thought by keeping us a secret, I was somehow protecting her. And that’s all on me.”
I looked at my oldest friend, fucking laying myself bare. “The first night I snuck into her room, I knew I was going to hurt her, Christopher. I knew it because I wasn’t right inside. And I’m never going to be completely right. You and I both know that. I’ve destroyed a lot of shit…”
I let my gaze fall, drift, and I slowly shook my head. “But Aly… I’m always going to love her. Pretty sure I have since we were all little kids growing up together. You can hate me all you want, but you’d better get used to seeing my face around here because I’m not going anywhere. And if I do leave, I’ll be taking Aly with me.”
My attention darted to the movement at the end of the hall. Aly was standing there tucked up against the wall, listening. Dark hair tumbled all around her shoulders, her eyes swimming with the assertion I’d just made. The girl was staring at me like I was her light.
I swallowed hard.
But she was mine.
And fuck, it hurt thinking and talking about everything I’d done, the past I could never outrun, the sins I’d committed, the destruction I continually left in my wake.
Still, she was there, her eyes flooded with all the love she felt for me.
I stretched a hand out in her direction, beckoning. She dropped her head, shuffled forward, and folded herself in my arms.
“I love you,” she mumbled when she buried her face at the side of my chest.
I kissed the top of her head before I ran my hand over it. Holding her close, I looked over at Christopher. He watched us with something that maybe looked like relief, all wrapped up with a ton of distrust that I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to erase.
Of course I wanted to fix the damage I’d done. Bottom line, Christopher was my best friend. He’d been my entire life.
But the girl in my arms?
She was the one who really mattered, the one I had to make things right with, the one I was going to love for the rest of my life.