Hard to Love, Book 1

by W Winters

  And so it’s a stalemate, but I can’t face a stalemate anymore. I’ll take the hit. I’m terrified, but I’m trying to be strong.

  Dropping down to his knees, he cups my jaw in his hand. I don’t even realize my bottom lip is trembling until his thumb is there, running over it, caressing me and gentling the pain that keeps me from looking into his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper and he whispers back, “Don’t be. There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

  He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand and I can’t say it.

  It’s this life or me.

  I can’t say it because it’s wrong. I can’t. I can’t do it.

  The first kiss is gentle, caressing. I’m eager for it, but when he deepens it, I pull back, covering my hunger for him with my hand over my mouth. Bracing myself on my left hand, I lean backward and dare to meet his gaze.

  A raw desire, coupled with a primitive agony, stares back at me. I swear I must have known this man in another life. He was made for me and I for him, but I don’t want this life.

  “I can’t live like this.” I don’t know how I manage to speak, each word dangling there between us like easily broken threads. “I want you to get out of it,” I repeat. “I need you to.”

  Seth takes a moment, watching me, considering my words before standing up and turning his back to me.

  He’s silent as he heads to the kitchen and I continue watching him from where I am. I watch him finish the beer and then grab his keys from the blue bowl.

  “Don’t go,” I say. The next words rush out of me. “I need you.” How selfish I feel in this moment is almost unbearable. Especially when he turns to look at me again.

  He raises the hand holding the keys in the air, to point at me. “And I need you,” he says like it’s a confession that will bury him.

  “Don’t leave, Seth. Please, we can talk this out.”

  A smile akin to a sick joke graces his face but it quickly disappears. “There isn’t much talking that can change our situation, Babygirl.”

  Hopelessness is all I can hear in his tone. He can’t be the hopeless one. I cover my face with both hands, feeling an onslaught of emotions. Tears prick but I don’t let them come.

  Be strong, Babygirl. I hear Seth’s voice in my head. Even at my lowest moments, the memory of him is there. It will kill me to lose him. It will kill me to stay.

  My shoulders are shaking as I rock myself. I’ve never felt like this. This misery that feels so much worse than mourning. It’s worse because I have control over it. I can make it stop. I can just say the right words. I can pretend it’s okay. I can stay here with him and pretend I don’t feel this ominous sense of dread. That I’m not constantly scared for not just me but him too.

  The keys slam down on the counter and within a split second, Seth’s strong chest is pressed to my back. His arms are around me. He rocks me until I’ve stopped. It’s easy to calm down when he’s here. His smell, his voice. The way he loves me even if he doesn’t say it.

  I have nothing without him. I have absolutely nothing. I cling to him.

  “It’s okay,” he tells me and even with all the misery I want to believe him.

  “I have nothing left,” I finally speak.

  “I need you to leave because I’m terrified,” I confess to him. “Bad things happen here. I don’t have control over any of it.” My words make him pull back, breaking his hold on me.

  He doesn’t say anything for a long time. I grab the cocktail he made me and practically chug it. It does nothing. There is no relief from this whatsoever.

  “You need time—”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head and cutting him off before he’s finished.

  “You need time for me to show you it’s okay. You need time because it’s been a rough few years.”

  “It can get rougher,” I speak without thinking. It’s the truth though, and the look in his eyes tells me he knows. He’s all too aware. I rest my cheek on the sofa, thinking maybe I’ve been like Cami all the time we’ve been together, and I’ve just now crossed to the other side.

  I’m not strong enough for this side of things. I wish I were, but I’m nothing compared to him. He should know that. It’s easy to see.

  “Hey, come here,” he says and his voice is gentle. He’s always soft with me. This strong man with rough edges and a past that would frighten most… his tone caresses me. I can’t help it. I’m drawn to him like a moth to a flame.

  I crawl over to him, settling down in his lap. He’s so tall and his shoulders are so much wider than me that it feels perfect here. He’s warm, and when I lay my cheek against his shoulder, peeking up at him and wondering why he picked me, he kisses me. Stopping my questioning, stopping the pain. It’s all replaced by an immediate spike of heat. An immediate desire.

  Does he feel it too? How it soothes every inch of me. How that lust turns to wildfire in my blood and nothing stands a chance in its path. With his fingers at my chin, he keeps me still while he breaks the kiss. When I open my eyes, feeling the forgotten beads of moisture in my lashes, he’s there, staring at me. His light blue eyes shine with devotion. It’s real. I know it’s real.

  His cadence is rough when he says, “Let me make you feel better.”

  “We have to talk about this,” I tell him as if it’s a demand, but I’m begging him. “I lost everything.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says, rushing the words out. “I will make it up to you, but you can’t leave and neither can I.” The resolution in his tone forces me to bury my face in the crook of his neck. I know I won’t be okay either way.

  His whisper, his touch, and the air around us are all I have to stay whole. “Let me make you feel better.”

  Seth

  What about the chair in the living room? I text Derrick and wait. All I can hear is the sound my foot was making earlier. The tapping on the leg of the steel chair as I stared at Wright’s body.

  Four hours of digging for information with Connor’s blade, and he swore he didn’t tell Mathews. He screamed it, he begged for us to believe him. But I didn’t. Hours later, at home in the kitchen, my foot’s motionless but the anxiousness is still there.

  The black sedan doesn’t belong to one of Mathews’s men, it belongs to one of Fletcher’s.

  I don’t want to believe it. More than that, I still don’t believe Wright, not even his dying words.

  I don’t know. It’s in rough shape. It takes me a moment to remember what Derrick’s talking about. Right, the wreckage from the fire.

  Try to save it, I text back and inhale as deeply as I can. I can’t even salvage a fucking chair, let alone this fucked-up situation.

  If Wright didn’t tell Mathews, and it was Fletcher…

  Are you ready?

  Ready to find out if Fletcher double-crossed me. Yeah, I message him, I’m ready.

  How is she? he messages before I’ve even set my phone down. The whole crew knows; they all know someone wanted Laura dead.

  We assumed it was Mathews, but thinking it might be Fletcher… fuck, that means we have no one to back us up. Leroy won’t go after Fletcher. We can’t trust Mathews.

  Derrick’s the only one who knows we’re not okay. I lean forward on the counter, my forearm brushing the beer, which is now warm and still full. I can’t move from this spot. I can’t do it.

  She was trying to leave me last night. She’s never done that before.

  I could see it in her eyes that I’m losing her, so I lie to him, I can keep her; she’s just going through shit right now.

  To my right, I picture her there, sitting on the rug and looking up at me with goodbye in her eyes and I lose it. Tears pricking at the back of my eyes, I slam my fist down on the counter.

  She loves you.

  Derrick’s message means so little. She does love me, and I thought I could keep her forever because of it. But love isn’t that easy. It’s not that strong either.

  I lay with her in bed until she fell asleep, and then I to
ok out all that pain and rage on Wright. He didn’t feel enough of it though. Even with his dying breath, he didn’t feel loss like I was feeling.

  Maybe Fletcher’s henchman will feel it. Luke Hartley. The owner of the black Audi with license plate number 175632. The fucker who took off. Something tells me I’m not going to believe him either. It’ll be more than four hours though. It’s going to take more than four hours to make him feel this pain that’s inside of me right now.

  Leroy’s guy said 220.

  Derrick’s text forces me to move to the bedroom. Every step is careful and quiet and I don’t look to my right as I pass the living room. I swear the ghost of last night is there, watching me.

  Two hundred and twenty thousand for him to send up four men in case we need them to go after Fletcher. The code to the safe is our anniversary date. It’s three days and one year after the shit at Hammers went down. It took me that long to get her to love me enough to give in.

  I only get the first two numbers punched in before I rest my forehead on the safe, feeling the cool metal against my hot skin.

  Derrick texts something else, probably asking if he should tell Leroy’s guy it’s a go or not. I have to enter in the rest of the code and check the tally inside. There’s a pad of paper I use to track it all.

  It’ll be close and it’ll slow down business, but we can manage.

  I text him confirming it’s a go, and that I’m on my way before slamming the safe door shut and getting out of this house as fast as I can.

  When I start the car, I sit there for a moment, staring at the damn house I had built in the middle of nowhere to protect us. She would have been safe here. If she’d listened to me. I need to remember to tell her that. I can convince her.

  If she’d listened and moved in with me by now, she’d have been safe. I should have made her move in. I should have told her she needed to let go sooner.

  Fuck, it’s my fault. It’s all my fault.

  A series of pings comes through on my phone, and I have to calm myself down, shaking off this regret, this feeling like I’m losing her to read what Derrick’s telling me.

  They’ve got Luke, but more importantly, Fletcher’s warehouse was broken into, their stash stolen.

  Mathews? I question him. Mathews went after Fletcher? Mathews thinks Fletcher is the one who screwed him over.

  Derrick’s reply back sends a chill down my spine.

  I don’t know, but Fletcher thinks it was us.

  Laura

  Dr. June’s been off during the procedures. I’ve been here for at least two hours, subjected to stress tests and being poked and prodded.

  No black dress and heels today for the doctor. She’s wearing the sneakers I’d wear as a nurse, which I find ironic.

  “Everything okay?” I ask her as she looks at my chart. She entered the room at least a minute ago and didn’t even say anything to me. She’s just looking at the results of all the tests.

  “Fine,” she says then gives me a tight smile and returns to the clipboard.

  I don’t really feel fine. There’s nothing that’s fine. The way she’s been makes me think something is very, very wrong.

  In most cases, medication is all that’s required to manage arrhythmia. But then there are the more severe cases.

  I channel my inner Cami, wishing she were here. We’re going to be positive, I tell myself. Dr. June just got dumped is all. Yeah, that makes me feel better. When did I get this bitter?

  “You didn’t bring anyone?”

  I stare back at Dr. June when she sighs heavily and lowers the clipboard to the metal cart to her right.

  “Forgot to ask,” I lie to her. She doesn’t need to know that Cami stood me up. That little tidbit makes me feel a little more lonely. I’ve realized I don’t like being lonely.

  “I’m going to prescribe you a medication,” Dr. June tells me before pulling out a pad of paper from the back of the clipboard. I watch as she scribbles out a prescription. “You can have it filled at any pharmacy. Make sure you take it daily,” she drones on, like she’s reading from a script.

  I interrupt her telling me about possible side effects to ask, “So everything’s fine?”

  “Well, you have an irregular heartbeat, but it’s treatable with a calcium blocker. Your heart itself is in good condition, which is a great sign. The arrhythmia is virtually harmless, but this medicine will do the trick to keep it beating normally.”

  “Medicine to keep your heart beating normally,” I echo and I can’t help it when my eyes water.

  “Yeah.” The doctor finally shows some emotion as she says, “We should all have access to it, shouldn’t we?” Her sad joke mirrors the look of despair I’ve been feeling from her for the past two hours.

  “That’s a joke.” She quickly corrects herself and gathers the clipboard as she stands. As if I didn’t get it.

  “I know,” I tell her solemnly. I’m such a weirdo, I want to stand up and hug this woman. A woman I know nothing about. A woman I’ve been inwardly bitter toward. Am I really that lonely?

  “This is for you.” Handing me the script, she tells me how I can exit the office once I’ve changed out of my patient gown. She’s back to her robotic self with a fake smile as her parting gift.

  I accept it and tell her I hope she has a great day. Everyone says that, but I do mean it. I hope she can at least feel that I mean it.

  When she’s gone, I sit back on the crinkled paper and stare at the prescription before getting dressed. Pills to keep my heart going. I’m going to really need these.

  Checking my phone, I see Cami hasn’t answered. It’s so not like her. She told me she’d come. Regardless, I let her know that I’m all right. I haven’t told her about last night yet. Maybe she already knows, maybe Seth told Derrick and Derrick told her.

  My face crumples as I lean forward, as does the fucking paper under my ass. It mocks me, and oddly enough, I’m fine with it.

  I deserve to be mocked. How did I really think this was going to end?

  I text Cami again, telling her I really need her and that I have to tell her something. All the while I get dressed, I watch my phone, waiting for the buzz or for it light up. Anything.

  But I get nothing.

  Even as I’m driving, I expect her to say something. I convince myself her phone is broken and when I do that, I feel slightly better. Nothing compared to the relief I feel when I see her car in Seth’s driveway.

  Oh thank God, I think and breathe out in relief. She’s been waiting for me to get back. I knew it, I knew her phone was just broken or something.

  I haven’t parked a car this fast in a long damn time. Gathering my purse, I climb out and prepare to tell her everything. She needs wine for this and I need vodka.

  Maybe we should go out first and get enough booze to last us through this.

  Even as I’m coming up to the door, I think I already know what she’s going to tell me and it calms the deepest part of me.

  You love him. I can hear her voice over the sound of the keys. She locked the door. Of course she did, she’s in there all alone. I have to fiddle with the lock to get the door open, and through the clang of metal, I hear her tell me that I love him and that love will find a way.

  She’s told me before. So long as you choose love, it will all work out.

  Breathing out at the door, rocking the key out of the lock, I let her unspoken words sink in. She’s right. I just need her to remind me. And I need Seth because I love him.

  It will all be okay.

  I center myself for the first time since the fire two nights ago. I have to laugh a little as I push open the door and speak loud enough for her to hear me in the living room. “I didn’t even need the pep talk; you’ve given me so many, I can hear your voice in my head.”

  My smile fades when I don’t see her in the living room. She’s not in her usual spot. We each have a spot.

  I turn on the light in the hallway, and even though the light’s off in the bathroom, I s
till check for her there. “Cami?” I call out, and she doesn’t answer.

  That gut feeling, that instinct of danger I felt two nights ago? It’s back. It’s chilling. “Cami?” I call out louder as I head for my bedroom door.

  Why would she be in there? Maybe she had to sleep. She’s only sleeping, I lie to myself. I know it’s a lie. I’m so aware of it before I hear the creak of the bedroom door opening.

  Sobs hit me hard and fast as I fall to the floor on my knees.

  “Cami,” I whisper her name and reach toward her. “No, Cami.”

  She’s so cold. She’s so cold.

  * * *

  Years ago

  * * *

  Everyone in this cafeteria is somehow both staring at me and not looking at me at all. Everyone except Seth and his friends. They’re two tables over, sitting at the one closest to the doors, and when I look up they don’t mind that my eyes catch theirs every once in a while, but everyone else immediately looks away.

  They all know what happened two weeks ago and what happened this past weekend. Shit, the bruise on my cheek is still there although it’s an ugly green and I can’t stop crying every ten minutes. Just as I’m reaching up to touch the bruise, as if I’ll be able to tell if the makeup is still covering it or not, Cami sits next to me.

  Our table is empty except for the two of us, so when her tray hits the table and she climbs into the cheap benches our high school bought, the whole thing jostles.

  I imagine I’m looking at her just like everyone else is looking at me. Slack-jawed. None of my so-called friends sit by me anymore. She did though.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here after the accident,” she tells me as she cracks open a soda. “Are you doing okay?”

  I’m still staring at her when she turns in her seat, tucking her right foot under her and then squares her shoulders. “I feel like a shit friend; I just found out on the way down here.”

  I don’t say anything. She’s talking about my dad and the accident. I don’t want to cry. Not when everyone has such a good view of the spectacle I am.