by Aria Cole
Copyright © 2020 by Mila Crawford & Aria Cole
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Park Avenue Punk
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Second Epilogue
About The Authors
Also by Mila Crawford
Also by Aria Cole
Excerpt from Pile Driver
Park Avenue Punk
(Park Avenue High #1)
ARIA COLE
MILA CRAWFORD
Jameson Styles
Deven Fairchild
It's been five years since I last saw her.
Years since she broke my heart.
Five tortured years since I forced myself to hate the girl I loved.
But I couldn’t stay away.
And every part of me felt that old familiar pull to her when Deven caught me red-handed outside of her building on Fifth Avenue.
I’m not who she remembered. I’m the Park Avenue punk, tagging the city’s buildings one night at a time.
She may have saved my ass once, but I won't let her sway her curvy hips into my head again.
Or so that’s what I told myself even though I knew it was a losing battle when it came to Deven.
She’s my heart's worst enemy. I plan on making her feel every cold-hearted inch of my hate, one forbidden moment at a time.
Chapter 1
Jameson
“Hey!” The old man’s voice interrupted the last slash of red on brick. “I’m calling the police this time, you little punk!”
I let off the trigger of the spray, drips of paint bleeding between the cracks of the brick in angry rivulets.
Not perfect, but it’d have to be, for tonight anyway.
I shot one last look at the shop owner, who was thrusting the phone in his hand my way as he yelled at the top of his lungs. I shot off around the corner of Fifth Avenue at a full jog, crossing the street—nearly empty of traffic at this time of night.
and lost myself in the overgrowth of Central Park.
I could still hear his angry voice shouting from the corner as his eyes scanned the darkness in search of me.
I didn’t blame him.
I’d been working that piece for the last three nights. I was surprised he hadn’t painted over the current work in progress, a fist wrapped in barbed wire with splashes of red, meant to be a symbol of consumer oppression.
I hovered at the path just inside the treeline and just outside of the nearest streetlamp. The truth was, I liked watching the angry man spit nails as much as I liked making the art on his brand-new brick wall.
Graffiti on the corner of 59th and 5th, the heart of uptown shopping, was never looked kindly upon.
And then I heard the siren.
A vicious grin twisted on my face as I launched the spray cans I had on me into the garbage can at my side before, head down, hustling the other way along the path deeper into the park.
“Shit…” A hot beverage soaked my shirt as my eyes cast up. “I’m so, so sorry. I wasn’t watching where I was going. I’ve had the worst fucking day. I shouldn’t even be around people right now.”
Her hand launched out to wipe my black shirt with a recycled napkin. I caught her dainty hands, halting them before she could make contact.
“Stop,” I gritted.
Her head was still bent, fat ugly tears rolling down the planes of her creamy cheeks. “I said I was sorry.”
“So that makes you entitled to my forgiveness? Think again, rich girl.” I glanced over my shoulder to see a cop car slowing at the curb before coming to a stop at the start of the path we were on, eyes nailed on us.
“Shit.” I breathed, realizing this would look really bad if I took off running now. I was as good as caught red-handed.
“Jameson?” Her voice sucked in a breath of air at my shoulder. “Jameson Styles?”
My jaw physically hurt, I was clenching it so damn tightly. The cop was walking toward us now, eyes on me, and I could only pray he hadn’t heard this fucking meek little thing just utter my real name.
“Evenin’, kids.” The middle-aged officer stopped short of us. “Pretty late to be out in the park.” His voice trailed off, forming a question, and I hated him for it. When neither of us answered, he shuffled on his feet, throwing a nod over his shoulder to the shop owner, still talking to himself on the corner as he tried to watch. “Any chance you may have seen anything…suspicious?”
I could feel the way he was taking me in, trying to determine if I was the criminal he was looking for or just another waste of his time. I cleared my throat, thrusting a hand through my dark hair and about to make up some excuse about the night shift, when little miss meek threaded her fingers in mine.
A tremor of disdain rushed through me before her tiny voice spoke up. “We haven’t seen anything, Officer. My boyfriend here thought a stroll through the park at night would be romantic, until I spilled coffee on both of us and…” She rolled her eyes, bouncing her shoulder into mine like we’d known each other for ages.
“Hm.” The officer’s gaze hovered at her hand clasped with mine, a cloyingly sweet smile decorating her face as she rocked back and forth in her designer boots. “Well, stick to the well-lit areas. There’s been some reports of an uptick in crime around here this late at night.” He shoved a hand into his back pocket and pulled a card out, passing it to her. “Please, give me a call personally if you see anything that stands out.”
His eyes lingered long and hard, and then I physically had to restrain myself from kicking his arrogant fucking teeth in.
I’d only been adding a little artwork to the face of one of the fine establishments on Fifth. This guy was visibly eye-fucking a strange woman at night under the guise of law and order.
I shook my head, ready to speak up to him, when she put her other palm on my chest, siding herself a little closer and putting her body in between him and me. She tipped her head to one side, silky teased ringlets following over her shoulder when she whispered, “Honey…”
The desperate saccharine tone in her words caught my attention, and I finally dragged my gaze down to meet hers.
And then I knew where we’d met before.
How could I forget this girl?
She was the fucking bane of my existence.
“Can we go home now? It’s getting chilly out here.”
I almost shook with her lie-riddled words, the memories dousing my ability to manage my emotions properly in this situation.
“Please?” Her words clung to mine, begging.
My teeth ached with the pain of grinding my teeth, preventing my ability to talk and forcing only a jerky nod out of me.
“Well…” The officer was still lingering, this time his gaze not on me but on her ass. His glance travelled up her form before he stopped on my face. “Have a good night, then, kids.”
As soon as he turned on his shiny shoes, I tore the officer’s card from her hand and threw it in t
he garbage behind him. “I wouldn’t let you call him, even if I did give a shit about you.”
Her face fell, hand dropping from mine. “Wait. I just saved your ass. Call me crazy, but I thought you’d be a little more grateful, Jameson.”
“Stop using my name.” I kept walking, but unfortunately for me she kept up.
“Well, I know it’s been a while, but unless you changed your name—”
“I didn’t. I just can’t stand the way it sounds on your lips.”
That stopped her in her tracks. “Maybe I should run back to Officer Feinman and tell him where he can find those cans of spray paint you tossed right before I walked up, then.”
I froze, chest heaving with the adrenaline still coursing through my system. “You would do that, wouldn’t you?”
“Why so cruel, Styles? Doesn’t Park Avenue High have some time-honored rule about being loyal to your Park Avenue Crew first?” She tipped her head to the side, sarcastic grin flirting on her lips.
“I’m more loyal than you’ve ever been.” I put myself in her personal space, my hand hovering at her hair, whether to pet her hair or yank it, I wasn’t yet sure, before I whispered, “The thing is, you’re not a human at all. You’re just a spoiled Park Avenue Barbie desperate for attention. You were then, and—” I made a point of looking her up and down “—from the looks of things, I don’t think that’s changed.”
I turned, leaving her behind me, right where she belonged.
Chapter 2
Deven
“You don’t know the full story about what happened back then!” I shouted at his shrinking form before I launched after him, catching him by the arm when I was close enough.
He yanked out of my grip and kept walking. “I don’t need your bullshit story. What I need is your hands off me.”
“I’m not a spoiled Barbie. Things in high school were…complicated for me.” Annoyed tears formed behind my eyelids again, and I swept them away before he could notice.
“Said every spoiled princess ever,” he seethed, continuing to stalk down the gravel pathway as evergreen branches hung low over his head.
He looked every part the villain he’d become. If I were in law enforcement, I’d have given Jameson Styles a once-over too. Black on black was his daily uniform, but it was more than that. He’d always had that devious glint in his eye. It was just one of the things that had drawn me to him in high school. The way he scared everyone, put them on edge with just a look, sent thrills of excitement through my skin.
I battled to fight that same reaction to him now.
“Jameson…” My voice had softened, and his steps slowed when he reached a bench. He turned, leveling me with his eyes then. I crossed the pathway in his direction. A late-night jogger looked warily between us before nodding at me once and giving Jameson a wide berth. “It’s been a lot of years since then. I don’t even feel like the person I was when we last knew each other.”
“That sounds like a win.” His voice was monotone.
I didn’t react to his dig, only sat at the bench at his shoulder. “So you’ve been the one decorating all of 5th Avenue in graffiti? You made the top headline in Page Six last week. Your designs are gaining a cult following. A few more runs from the law like that, and they’ll erect a statue in Williamsburg in your honor.”
He cracked a grin. “Leave it to Brooklyn… If you can’t beat them, join them.”
I laughed then. The idea of Jameson Styles in a beanie behind the counter of a coffee shop was laughable in and of itself. “That scowl of yours would scare off your clientele. It’s all peace, love, and light vibes over there.”
The laughter died around us just as an older man walking his dog passed us. He nodded our way, warm smile on his face.
“If he only knew he was sitting in the presence of danger,” I teased, bumping my shoulder with Jameson’s in an effort to get him to warm up. While it’d been four years since we’d graduated from Park Avenue High, time seemed to have stopped for him. There was the same dark glint in his brown eyes, and the angles of his face were more pronounced and more appealing to my needy fingertips.
“Painting walls is hardly a danger.” His thick voice finally broke the silence. “I just want them to know someone sees them.”
I sat silently at his side, taking him in. His sadness hit me in waves, and I realized that was the thing that had changed about him. Jameson Styles’s eyes weren’t just etched with rebellion now. They were shadowed with sadness.
“Who is them?” I finally asked.
In slow beats, he turned to take me in, gaze crawling up my form with measured movements.
I’d never felt so naked and vulnerable as I did under his intense stare, like he could see through to the heart of every bad thing I’d ever done. Most people saw the designer coat or the Italian leather boots or the limited-edition Birkin mini on my shoulder, but not him. Never him.
I’d never been able to hide a thing from Jameson Styles, and maybe that’s why he made me so uncomfortable.
“Them—” he leaned slower, sucking in a breath of night air as his lips brushed against mine for a fraction of a breath “—are the people who take advantage of other people as easily as breathing.” His thumb dashed across my jaw and sent a shudder of sensation through me. “Them, Deven Fairchild, is people like you.”
And then he stood, walking off into the night, and left me seething.
By the time I’d walked the short distance out of the park and crossed W. 59th to my building, my muscles were strung tight with tension. I didn’t know who Jameson Styles thought he was, talking to me like that, but I wasn't accustomed to it.
Especially not now, when the world had fallen out from underneath me, the pain still raw and processing like cement through my tired body. I dashed home, faster than I normally did, wanting to outrun the disgusted look in his eyes and disdain in his voice.
“How’s your mom holding up today, Ms. Fairchild?” The doorman of my building held the elevator door and let me pass him.
“Not so great. I just left her. She’s been having night terrors since my dad…” I trailed off.
“I figured that’s what had you out so late, miss. Let me know if you need anything. I’m here for you.” He patted my shoulder, his kindness nearly crushing me. Since my dad had passed two nights ago, the doorman at my building had shown me more kindness than anyone else.
The Fairchilds may be one of the most prestigious names in the city, but most of the family had died out. It was only my mom and brother and me now that my dad was gone. We’d never been an especially close family, mostly because my dad worked too much and mom was busy with her charity events and dinner parties, but somehow, without him, the world seemed dimmer.
When the elevator dinged and opened to my modern apartment, windows overlooked all of Park Avenue and the verdant green of the park beyond it. It was breathtaking, my father’s twenty-first birthday present to me. Before I’d even had a chance to redesign the kitchen, he’d been diagnosed with an aggressive metastatic tumor, and his radiation and chemotherapy had started the very next day at Lenox Hill Hospital.
I’d sat at his side every day while they’d pumped toxins into his system, watched him lose himself to his illness while my mother avoided anything too heavy from day one. And my brother Matt hadn’t even come home from school in California.
I was the only left to hold his hand through his sickness.
But his sickness wasn’t just a sickness. It was a slow and steady decline. For nearly two years he fought—we fought together. I’d spent hours each week researching new treatments, avant-garde international doctors running cutting-edge trials and therapies. Many had visited my father at his bedside. None had been able to fix the problem.
My father was dying. We would need to prepare ourselves for that.
I’d spent hours with the grief counselor in the days leading up to my father’s passing, while my mother sobbed to her psychiatrist that she needed a stronger prescript
ion for her anxiety.
I was losing my father and watching my mother fall apart at the same time. While the last two years had been the hardest of my life, the last two days took the cake.
While mom was drugging herself into a permanent mental vacation, I was planning my father’s visitation. He’d explicitly stated in his will that he wanted no funeral—only a visitation if his family preferred it.
With mom a near vegetable, wavering between numb and incoherent with loss over my father, and only me to plan the service, I did not prefer a visitation—but here I was planning it, mostly because my father was one of the most prominent businessmen in the city.
His passing had made the top page of the obituaries in the Times. Going without a funeral was nearly unheard of for someone of his stature. Hosting a visitation would be required, bare minimum.
I swallowed the ache that’d been lodged in my throat for days, the very ache I’d been trying to dislodge with a hot cup of coffee and a stroll through the park on the way home from my mother’s apartment, until Jameson Styles had happened.
A frown formed instantly when I thought of the way his eyes had cut me up and down, as if they held invisible swords. He’d been vicious, not that I should have been surprised.
