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“If you ever speak to me this way again, I will knock your teeth out.” I stare down into her eyes, a new energy filling me that kind of scares me, but I won’t fucking stop. Nothing comes between Liv and me. “Do you understand?”
“The bay doors were open,” I go on. “Blowing loose locks from your ponytail into your face, your white smile so big even from yards away. I remember I couldn’t hear your laughter, but I could like . . .” My voice drops to a whisper, remembering the moment I knew I was in love with her. “I could feel it inside me.”
“Maybe she is hooking up with one of my brothers.” Liv shrugs. “Maybe more than one. I have five, after all. Sometimes they work as a team. I mean, how could you compete?”
I speak low to Krisjen. “What are you doing with Trace?” “We hooked up the night of the brawl,” she whispers over her hand. I knew it.
I lower my eyes. I want everyone to know she’s mine. She has my heart, and it scares me that she may not want it as much as I want her to have it. She still hasn’t acknowledged that I told her I loved her. “I wanted to tell them so badly that it was your bed I was in,”
There’s something mentally wrong with people like Olivia Jaeger. I shake with a laugh at Amy’s words today. Then there’s something wrong with me, too. I’m so hard for her already.
“Start getting more possessive, and I won’t have to. Tell me I’m your girl.”
“Fuck me, princess,” she says.
“You’re so wet, baby.” And then she meets my eyes again. “But I’m dying to stretch you.”
“Ride me, Clay.” “Yeah,”
“You want it, baby?”
Everything hurts, and I don’t mean my body. I’m falling. I hate seeing her leave, even though we’ll see each other in a couple of hours. But I hold back as we walk past the living room to the front door. I don’t grab her again, even though my arms are screaming. God, I got pathetic.
I flash my eyes to Clay, seeing her watch us. The look in her eyes, like she’s not breathing, owns me. She owns me.
“I have a girlfriend,” I tell her gently. I belong to someone.
But I really like my crazy-as-fuck Barbie doll with a mouth that pisses me off one minute, and arms that hold me so tightly that I don’t care if I can breathe the next.
The world swims, how hard I’m used by you. How all I have when you’re done with me is my bones.
I don’t care what I look like anymore as long as I look like yours. Marked, raw, tangled, sore, and scented like you—I don’t care. As long as I look like yours.
As long as I look like yours.
I need her. I need her skin on mine like I need food. More than I need food. I love Clay Collins.
As long as I look like yours.
Clay, I’m dying, I type. You’re killing me. Please stop. A text rolls in a moment later. Can you?
I don’t believe for one second that she wants me to stop. She’s capable of walking away when she wants. She’s proven it.
“When your heart beats too fast,” I grit out, “it doesn’t pump enough blood to the rest of your body. It starves your organs, making you light-headed, unable to breathe, dizzy, weak, you can’t think . . .” I dive into her, pressing my forehead to hers. “I do that to you. Not him. I’m real.”
“You don’t have to tell them you’re gay,” I whisper. “You just have to tell them that you’re in love with me.”
“Just take my hand,” I murmur. “Please take my hand.”
“Clay . . .” She shakes her head, backing up more and more. “Clay, don’t do this.” “I’m sorry,”
“Goddamn you,” I growl. “Goddammit! I told you to stay away from me, didn’t I? I told you to leave me alone!” I knew this would happen. I always knew she was a cunt. She sobs, and I get in her face. “Why didn’t you just leave me alone, huh?”
That’s why he does this. Because hurt people hurt people. He doesn’t want me. He doesn’t want Clay. I know what he wants.
If she wanted to be here, she’d be here. She doesn’t want to be here. She doesn’t want me. She’s not thinking about me right now. She wants to be free of me.
“You’re going to leave,” he grits out. “You’re going to leave here and leave any hope of her. You’re going to do the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do, because it’ll save you, Liv. Because you’re Trysta Jaeger’s daughter, and we’re going to do what she would’ve wanted us to do and didn’t have the courage to do herself. We keep biting back. We survive, because sometimes that’s the most violent thing we can do to other people. We stay alive.” My body shakes as the tears pour. “And in a year, you won’t even understand how you could have loved her this much,” he tells me. “I promise you.”
But I can’t imagine not wanting her. I can’t see not hating her with someone else and wanting anyone else as much as I want her. I cry, covering my face with my hands again, so he doesn’t see how fucking awful and pathetic I became because of her. How I let this happen to myself? But for a moment, maybe I understand a fraction of what my mother felt all her life. The despair. God, I hate it. I hate it so much.
Just be understanding. Just love me. I loved her so good. It should’ve been enough.
“It was always a house of cards!” I hiss. “Because we’re weak! We were always weak!”
“You know what these families need.” She drops tools to the tray, picking up another one. “Funerals aren’t for the dead, after all.” They’re for the survivors.
“I’m in love with Olivia Jaeger,” I say, just above a whisper. I feel the walls crash in, and I close my eyes, waiting for it. Waiting for the meltdown. She doesn’t say anything, and I don’t look up. I know she heard me. “I’m in love with her a lot,” I finish.
“There’s no feeling in the world like being in love,” she says. “Are you in love?” It doesn’t take a moment for me to nod. “I think about her all the time,” I tell her, my voice thick with all sorts of feelings. “I want to be with her all the time. Everything feels good when she looks at me and kisses me and breathes on my neck and . . .”
“I would never want you to not feel that,” she finally whispers. “Henry will never feel that.” Needles prickle in my throat, the constant reminder behind the closed door of a little kid’s room down the hall that this life is our only shot. “I will always love you.” She kisses my forehead. “No matter what.”
But she ruined it. She made what happened between us dirty, and now, every memory of feeling her and holding her is covered in shit, because now I know I can’t trust her. I’ll always be waiting to be kicked to the curb again, because I’m only good enough when it’s on her terms. After hours. When no one’s around.
Clay hurt me hard. She won’t get a chance to kill me.
I haven’t read any of her texts today, but I’m dying to. I miss her. I want to know she’s dying for me.
And now, maybe, I finally understand that Clay’s fear isn’t because she doesn’t love me. It’s because she loves them, too. I don’t want what happened to Alli to happen to her. I’d rather see her from a distance than never again.
“She’s dying on the inside,” Krisjen says in a low voice. I lift my gaze, meeting hers. “She’s dying without you.”
“She made a mistake,” Krisjen says, my brothers still standing around while Macon sits in the chair off to my left. “She’s going to make lots of mistakes. She’s spoiled, a little self-absorbed, angry about a lot of shit, but she’s learning.” Krisjen lowers her voice. “And she’s yours.”
“Your crazy, impulsive, wild, complicated girl,”
My crazy, impulsive, wild, beautiful girl. My girl.
“None of that matters!” she growls. “Just be here now!” I’ve stopped breathing, Krisjen’s anger startling me. “There’s no tomorrow,” she goes on. “What are you worried about? Just be here today!”
I don’t want to be hurt. Maybe I love her. Maybe she’ll break me again or I’ll break her, or maybe we’ll leave each other in August. Maybe we’ll never see each other again. But maybe she’s worth a few more months. A few weeks. One more day.
I just want her to want to talk to me. I don’t want to stalk her. I’m going over there. I’m done. I need her, and she loves me. I know she does.
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But then Liv’s words come back to haunt me as I study the tie. I need a good handle on you. I blush, hoping she likes it. She can drag me around by it for as long as she likes, I don’t care.
