Chapter 7

Fox

Lily-Rose’s light, flower-like fingers moving across the keys could not distract me from this stirring anger. Bucking up from the piano bench, I tried to make my voice calm.

“Lily-Rose, I just need to take a little break outside before we keep going. Okay?”

Lily-Rose nodded, her large eyes watery. “Are you going to be sick?” she asked, as if she could see directly through me. “Because there’s some crackers in the cabinet. I always eat them when I feel sick.”

Unable to respond, I sped through the kitchen and into the bright sunlight of the backyard. Leaning forward, gripping my knees, I watched as Andrew’s pickup sputtered back down the road, cutting to the right. Seeing Andrew had been like seeing a ghost. The way he’d barked at me – like a wild dog, territorial – had given my feet that familiar itch. Get the fuck back in your car and drive back to Los Angeles, my brain spoke, so clearly. There’s nothing for you here. You destroyed it. It’s dead.

Andrew and I had been close as kids. Me, standing always a good six inches taller, a dominant force on the playground, blasting my fists into the arms and legs of the boys who teased him. My t-shirt was so often splattered with mud and blood, my mother always had a full supply of bleach. “If you’re going to fight on the playground, it’s good you’re doing it for your family,” she’d whispered to me once, her eyes kind, so akin to Andrew’s.

But jealousy had sliced through our relationship after our mother’s death. I’d grown moodier, depressed, cutting tattoos into my skin and revving down the road on a motorcycle I’d stolen from a nearby town. Andrew retained his good-boy status, slipping into pastel-colored polo shirts and joining the golf team, even getting a scholarship. We went weeks without speaking, darting through our gritty living room like ghosts. Our home was no home at all. It was always plastered with our father’s beer bottles and stink vaguely of last week’s pizza.

In any case, the first time he’d met Talia, I’d seen that glint in his eyes. He’d wanted her. I had everything: the looks, the intrigue, the fucking guts, and the gorgeous girl. A goodie-two-shoes girl. The exact kind of brand that would suit his image.

In the back of my mind, I’d often wondered why Andrew and Talia hadn’t shacked up together the second I’d skipped town. Even now it turned my stomach watching as Andrew had tried to shoulder her away from me, clearly exhibiting some kind of long-held belief that he had a power over her.

Talia stepped out from the kitchen, her eyes heavy. I dropped to a porch chair, staring at my hands. Inside, Lily-Rose continued to blare scale after scale.

“Don’t you have some errands to run?” I asked Talia, feeling as though the world was spinning. But I had to maintain this gruff exterior. I glared at her, wanting her to get away. Wanting her to let me deal with this bullshit on my own.

But Talia stepped forward, as if she could read me. She slid to her knees in front of me, placing her hands on mine. The touch was so tender, so unexpected. Immediately, it brought me back to some of the softest moments of my life—when Marissa had unconsciously held my hand in bed. Just the touch of another person, when you thought you were alone in the silence.

“I’m sorry he upset you,” Talia murmured.

“That asshole? He didn’t,” I said, my voice bold.

Talia didn’t speak for a moment. My heart surged, suddenly feeling a wave of emotion for her, one I’d been consciously avoiding since we’d fucked. I brought my eyes toward her, hesitating. My tongue flicked along my lips, yearning to slide along hers, to inhale them… her.

“You know, I didn’t leave this hellhole town because I wanted to get away from you,” I said, surprising even myself. “I left because I couldn’t fucking take my family. That know-it-all Andrew, trying to prove something with his scholarships and his grades and his ‘good guy’ facade. It was all such a fucking joke. Especially when you saw where we came from…” I trailed off, shaking my head. “Fuck. I mean, I still have nightmares about the old man. How he’d come home, drunk out of his mind. He’d rail me against the wall, shoving his fist against my cheek. And he’d ask me, over and over again, why I couldn’t be a better person, like Andrew. Why I had to steal and fight. He fucking hated the grunge band, Talia.”

Talia gripped my hands now. She eased into my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck and holding my face against her shoulder. Her fingers swept through my hair.

“You remember that time I told you I broke my guitar because I was angry?” I whispered, remembering the image like a nightmare. “My father broke it. Just tore into my room and smashed it against the dresser. Andrew never did anything to stand up for me. Just told me to do fucking better. And then—it was always so obvious what he thought about you.”

Talia drew herself back a bit, showing her own devastation. Her lips quivered, indicating she’d always known.

“I never wanted him. You know I was always madly in love with you,” Talia murmured. “I always knew things weren’t going well at your place. I always knew your father was cruel. But you should have told me. I would have understood, or at least would have tried.”

“I just needed to fucking go, Talia,” I muttered. Reaching for her, I wrapped her tighter against me. I could feel her heartbeat fluttering against my chest. “I needed to fucking go. But now, I’m here. I’m back.”

Suddenly, my lips were upon hers. I felt her moan against me as we kissed. Her breasts pressed harder against my chest, and her arms traced my neck. She sighed into me. Our tongues danced for a soft, delicate moment, and I felt my cock stirring in my pants, thrusting against her slender thigh.

Maybe this was it. Maybe Talia had always been it. The empathetic, lovely fire of my life. A woman who’d waited while I’d raced across the world, only to return to her again.

But as I tore my lips from hers, a stab of regret shot through me. Something echoed inside my head, telling me it was too late. It had always been too late. My mother, my brother, and my father—they’d always known I was a monster. I could still feel it, pulsing behind Andrew’s eyes.

The moment it got hard, or bad, or boring, I inevitably would tear from Talia’s embrace. I would destroy her. Or worse, like Marissa, she could die. And it would all be my fault. I would have triggered the events leading to her demise.

Andrew was fucking right about me, I knew. I’d torn into town, only to destroy it. Just seeing love flourishing behind Talia’s eyes told me what I knew, beyond anything else: I had to get the fuck out. And soon.