The Pucking Wrong Guy (Pucking Wrong, #2)

by C.R. Jane

She put her hand to her ear, mouthing she couldn’t hear me, trying to act like she was fucking confused! Monroe was hysterically laughing next to her. “I’m disowning you!” I yelled to Monroe, who was fucking crying now from laughing so hard. “Payback is a bitch, Ari darling,” Lincoln sing-songed as he skated by.

I froze in place, the razor blade sitting on my skin as we stared at each other. He walked towards me and stopped a few inches away. Without taking his eyes off me, he slowly slipped off his shirt, throwing it to the ground afterwards. “Hurt me, sunshine,” he murmured, grabbing my hand that was still holding the razor blade, and pulling it up to his chest. “Every time you feel pain…hurt me instead. Let me take it from you.”

😭😭😭😭 poor Blake but honestly this is making me love Ari even more

“Sunshine, you haven’t realized, you’re saving me right back. I gave you my soul all those years ago, and I’ve just been existing ever since, waiting for you to come back to me. You aren’t some girl. And I’m not some boy. We’re soulmates, twin halves of the…Same. Fucking. Soul.”

Two days later when I woke up…Ari showed off a brand new tattoo of my name he’d inked where I’d cut his skin. I asked him why, and he just laughed. And somehow, Ari Lancaster…he did the impossible…he took my pain.

"Ari Lancaster is the reason we aren’t together.” I nodded, confused. I mean, yes, he was the person I’d met. “No, sweetheart. Ari Lancaster has been stalking you. He saw you, made a plan, and methodically went through with it to push us apart, Blake. He’s been behind the scenes pulling the fucking strings this entire time. Just so he can control you.”

“I’m sorry, Clark, “ I whispered, my eyes locking with his. “It’s over.” He flinched like I’d slapped him. "Don’t say that, Blake. I love you! I’ve loved you since the second I saw you.” Tears streamed down his face, his vulnerability laid bare before me. Old habits were hard to kill, and I wanted to wrap my arms around him, to make him feel better. I think I had loved him once, but not in the way he deserved to be loved. Not in the way I deserved to love someone.

“It’s just not enough,” I responded, even though I knew that wouldn’t make sense to him. His face grew determined. “I would love you in any way that you needed." “I think you would try,” I said gently. “But that wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”

“It’s all true, isn’t it?” I whispered as we locked eyes. He stared at me warily, exhaustion marring his perfect features. I watched as the wariness faded into resolution. “Yes. And I’d do it all again,” he swore. “I’d do anything to keep you.” I nodded, a sick thrill rushing through me that didn’t make sense. I’d do anything to keep you… No one had ever seen every part of me and vowed to never let me go.

Me: I’ll send you pics of the wedding… Lincoln: What? You’re getting married? Me: Yeah. But again…She doesn’t know it yet. Lincoln: … Me: … With a plan in place, I pulled her closer to me…and quickly fell into a blissful sleep.

The door opened and I was jarred back to reality, to remembering all that had happened. Ari had that way about him, the ability to make me forget myself. I guess that's why I missed all the signs about what he was doing. I was caught in his spell. The bad part was, I was wishing I was still in it.

"Time for another round!" Rachel Crenshaw said as she passed me a shot. "Your shoot was fucking amazing," she said, clinking her glass with mine. "Cheers." I glanced at the pictures decorating the walls. They were fucking amazing. Ari and I looked like pure sex in all of them, like we were seconds away from ripping each other’s clothes off. The tension and chemistry were physically tangible…even through the lens of a camera.

“You know I thought I was going to marry you when we met,” I slurred. Something was nagging in the back of my head that I shouldn’t be saying this, but I pushed it away. Because Ari was my safe place. Even when I was mad, hurt, upset…he was still somehow my safe place. He was where I most felt free.

“No, Ari. I want to know why I have a ring on my finger and you’re calling me “wifey!” I snarled. “Because we got married last night in Vegas, obviously,” he responded calmly, holding up his own ring clad finger.

When Elvis had asked, "Do you take this man to be your husband?" I’d literally slurred “hell yeah” and pumped my fist. Wonderful.

“This isn’t a joke? You really took me to Vegas while I was black out drunk and married me?” He nodded his head, his grin fading as his lips settled into a determined line. “Yep. And you said “yes,” sunshine, so you’re stuck with me.”

As I wrestled with my emotions, the most overwhelming one…was despair. I’d believed Ari was my hero. A person I was safe with. A person I could trust. The weight of Ari's words and the depth of my emotions threatened to drown me. I knew I needed to confront him, to figure all this out. But for now, I needed a moment. Because my heart had just been broken.

But I had really good intentions. I was going to make Blake happy forever, just like I’d promised. We just needed to get past this little…speedbump first. Or at least that’s what Lincoln kept telling me.

Her silence was deafening. I had expected anger, frustration, and maybe even resentment, but this cold, unyielding silence was something else entirely. I missed her. I missed her voice. I missed her laugh. I missed the feel of her skin. The taste of it… I missed fucking everything about her. I was living with the ghost of her and it was excruciating pain.

It wasn’t a surprise, but I hated how easily she could cast aside Blake. Blake was priceless. Worth more than anything else in their pathetic life. I chuckled darkly. "Stay away from Blake and you won’t have to find out.”

“I love you, Ari, but you can't manipulate people you love. You can't trick them. It's wrong.” “I’ll say I’m sorry a million times, sunshine,” Ari whispered in a broken voice. I flopped back onto the couch in utter defeat. “The problem is, you won’t mean any of them.” He didn’t deny it.

What I didn’t say, at least not yet, was that I’d never be able to break it off. I needed time to get past this, but I already knew I’d never be able to say goodbye. I loved him too fucking much.

"I'm going back to Dallas,” he whispered. My hands began trembling. “What?” He fidgeted, picking at a string on his shirt. “My agent’s working on a trade with the Knights—a midseason trade in exchange for some draft picks.” There was a loud buzzing sound in my ears, a tightening in my chest, like my heart was being squeezed in a fist. I rubbed at it, wondering if this was what it felt like to have a heart attack. Ari's gaze was filled with pain as he continued, "I can’t watch you be so miserable. I can’t be the reason that all your light fades. I love you enough to let you go, to stop forcing you to be with me.”

Tears streamed down my face as I looked into his eyes, my heart breaking with every passing moment. I couldn’t find words. It’s like they died somewhere inside of me. I wanted to scream. To tell him how dare he. Tell him that I deserved more. That was fucking it? He’d tricked me, manipulated me…lied to me. He’d fucking married me while I was black-out drunk. And he was giving up. All those times he’d said we were forever. That we could get through everything. That he’d never let me go…this was what he’d meant? The way I loved him was desperate and dark…and it felt poisonous at the moment but…I hadn’t given up. I was trying to fix things in my fucked up head. I needed time. I needed the grace to be pissed and sad at him for everything. But he was giving up?

“I’m perfect,” I whispered, trying the words out on my tongue. I’d said them with Ari before, but never by myself. Never like this. “I’m perfect. I’m perfect. I’m perfect. I'm perfect!” I screamed. And I heard his voice in my head, cheering me on, because the only thing he’d ever wanted from me…was to be happy.

I’d said I was tired of it. But what had I ever done to fix it? Nothing. I hadn’t done anything. And that stopped today. I pulled myself off the floor and grabbed my makeup bag, sliding out the razors I kept in a small side pocket. Staring at them for a second, I threw them into the toilet. And then I flushed. My scale was on the floor. I grabbed it and strode outside, and I threw it onto the hard concrete so it shattered into a million pieces. I grabbed a broom and cleaned it all up, the remnants going in the trash. The model agency actually had a mental health program. You could get free sessions of

counseling. I didn’t know if the therapists were good, but contacting them was a start. I filled out the form online and set up an appointment for two days from now.

I’m so proud of her 😭😭😭

I knew what he’d done wasn’t normal. It didn’t fit into society’s idea of right and wrong. But…had it really been that bad? It had been over the top, crazy possessive. But had it been bad?

“Give me your pain.” “Tell me where it hurts.” “I love you.” “I see you, sunshine. I’ll ace every test.” "I'll make you happy," he said. "It might take a while, but someday I'll make you happy for the rest of your life."

What the fuck was I doing? I’d always let life happen to me. I’d gone through the motions, accepting all the crap it threw at me. And then it decided to gift me Ari Lancaster…my fucking soulmate. And I was going to fuck it all up. Yeah, he was a stalker. And questionable. And he’d done terrible things to ensure he and I were together… But he also possessed the most beautiful soul of anyone I’d ever met. And he was offering me all of it. What the fuck was I doing? I needed to find him somehow, convince him he was my forever. I wasn’t going to let this divorce happen. I was all in. He could stalk me whenever. Just as long as I got him.

Me: We're not breaking. You said you wouldn't let us, and I'm saying it now. You're mine, Ari Lancaster. You’d better not get on that fucking plane.

“Good. Because I figured out I'm crazy for you too.” “It’s about time, baby,” he murmured, stalking towards the house. “But I would have waited forever.” I continued to smile dreamily at him as he opened the front door and stepped inside. “But thank fuck I didn’t have to.”

Staring at me soulfully, like I was his biggest dream come true. I didn’t feel like I deserved it after I had tried to break us. But I wasn’t going to point that out. He was giving me another chance. I’d spend the rest of my life showing him that wasn’t a mistake.

He was it for me. Maybe he could be a hero and a villain at the same time, just like I could be. And maybe it was what worked for us. Maybe it was the only thing that would work when you had someone with so much still to work through like I did. But at least now I was finally working through it.

He closed his eyes, exquisite pain passing over his features. I knew what he was feeling. It hurt how much we loved each other. Your soul wasn’t supposed to exist in another person, yet here we were. Ari had captured mine, and I finally had gotten to a place where I could truly let him have it without any reservations.

“I couldn’t love you like you deserved when I hated myself so much,” I admitted. And it was the truth. Hating yourself was hard work. It was hard to find room for anything else. “And how’s that going?” he murmured, his finger moving to my cheek as he softly brushed against my skin. “It’s a work in progress. Maybe it will always be a work in progress. Maybe I’ll always have some sort of sadness or self-loathing trying to suck me in. It’s just…I’m not going to let it anymore. I deserve better than that. You deserve better than that.”

I’d had a plan for everything. It may have sounded extreme. But I knew my girl. I knew she had to really feel it, she had to feel how much our relationship meant to her. She had to really let go of all the shit that had been holding her back, and come to the decision that she was all in. No matter what.

“I love you so much it hurts,” I told her, and it was the truth. Our love was a living, breathing, painful thing. Because having someone else own your soul was always going to be a painful, beautiful experience. One I wouldn’t trade for anything. One I would fight for with my very last breath.

“I haven’t gone stargazing since I left the group home,” I murmured, frowning. “I think it hurt too much, because I associated it…with you.” “I was a cheesy fucker back then, wasn’t I?” he grinned, and I snorted, bringing his hand from my face to my chest so I could snuggle against it. “You’re still a cheesy fucker. But I love it,” I said, leaning forward to give him a kiss.

“So you got a one night stand pregnant?” I asked, still very confused. “Naw. She’s the love of my life.” Lincoln and I glanced at each other, twin grins on our faces. Because we were big fans of true love nowadays.