by L. P. Maxa
Talon was still on the compound, but I hadn’t seen him in a few days. He’d been avoiding me and I’d been staying away from anywhere he might possibly be. Which meant I was pretty much relegated to my bedroom and the barn basement. I didn’t think he’d be dumb enough to venture to either of those places.
Kicking him out of the barn had felt good, but I’d still cried myself to sleep two hours later. I could act tough, because I was tough. But Talon broke me. He kept pushing me away, only to pull me back, and I couldn’t take it. It was too hard, and it hurt too much. I liked him, a lot. And rejection wasn’t anyone’s favorite emotion.
“Marley, come on, we were supposed to leave five minutes ago.” Jett was banging on the bathroom door, impatient to get to his loyal subjects. Usually, he’d have walked in on me by now, but I locked the door. I wasn’t in the mood to joke around.
I’d agreed to go to a party, which was a stupid thing to do. But Jett had asked me this morning, right after I’d been forced to listen to the demo Clashing Swell had recorded for the new album. I was feeling vulnerable and raw, so I’d said yes to Jett when I should have said no. I was usually much smarter than the last few days would suggest.
And now I was in the bathroom, spending much more time on my appearance than normal because I was feeling bruised and a little down. Lip gloss always perked Avory right up, but as I swiped a shiny nude color across my mouth, I didn’t feel any better.
“Marley Van. Get your cute ass out here and let’s go get wasted.”
I threw open the door, glaring at the smirking guy standing in front of me. “You’re a perpetual pain in my cute ass.”
He threw his arm around my neck and smacked a kiss on my forehead. “Thus is my lot in life.”
I let him lead me down the hallway and out into the living room, where he took my hand and spun me in a circle before pulling me against him and dipping me back. It wasn’t until I was upside down that I noticed we had a rather large audience.
Fucking hell. When had my living room filled up with people?
Jett put me back on both my feet but kept me pressed against him with his hand resting right above my aforementioned ass. Jett liked to toy with our parents. It was funny to him to play into the fact that everyone thought we were secretly dating. But our parents weren’t the only people staring at us tonight.
Talon was standing in my kitchen between Dane and my dad, and the glare he had trained on Jett rivaled my father’s.
“Where are you two kids headed?” My uncle Luke was the only one who never wondered if there was anything sexual going on between Jett and me. He ignored Jett’s games and I loved him for it. Jett only messed with everyone else because he got a rise out of them.
“I’m taking my favorite girl to a party.” Jett put both of his hands on my hips, ushering me toward the front door. “Don’t wait up.” He winked over his shoulder.
“Jett,” my dad growled his name. “If anyone touches a hair on her head…”
“Does that include me?” He waggled his eyebrows and then doubled over when I backhanded him in the stomach. “Geez, M, I was kidding. Uncle Dash knows that, right?” He pouted, looking to my dad to save him.
“That includes you.” My dad sent him a tight smile. “Guard her with your life, not your body.”
Jett saluted him with an exaggerated eye roll. “Got it.” He opened the door and placed his hand on my lower back, leading me out on the porch. I wanted to turn around. I wanted to see if Talon was still shooting daggers at Jett. I wanted to see if he was jealous, if he regretted his decision to push me away again. I wanted to know if he felt as hurt and alone as I did.
But before I could make that stupid mistake, Jett slammed the door shut. Saving me from myself, and cutting off my dad’s continued lecture for Jett to keep his hands off my ass.
***
“Marley. You look like you’re at a funeral, not a party.” Jett hopped up on the tailgate next to me, knocking his drink against the bottle of water in my hands. “Lighten up, you’re bringing the whole vibe down.”
I snorted. “No one has even noticed me sitting here. I’m not harshing anyone’s vibe.”
“You’re harshing mine.” He rested his head on my shoulder, gesturing his arm out wide to encompass the field full of drunk teenagers. “You’re the only one not having a good time. What gives?”
“I have a lot of work I should be doing, and it’s making it hard to let loose I guess.” I always had work to do. My bad mood had nothing to do with that, and everything to do with a certain surfer back in my kitchen. “I’m going to be terrible company tonight. I’m going to head home.”
“What? No. Come on, M.” Jett grabbed my shoulders, trying to shake some sense into me, I presumed. “Let’s drink and dance and act our age.”
My age was currently the cause of all my problems, so it was the last thing I wanted to act at the moment. Too young to own and operate my company. Too young for the only guy I’d ever liked. Too young…
“I’m losing this argument, aren’t I?” Jett stuck his lower lip out, pouting in a way that most girls found adorably enticing.
I grabbed his lip and pulled it out, making him wince. “I’m going to go to the barn, and you’re going to have a great night with some random piece. You won’t even miss me when I’m gone.” I patted his cheek, a little harder than necessary.
“That’s where you’re wrong, M.” He nuzzled my palm like a little puppy. “I always miss you when you’re gone. You’re like my phantom limb.”
I smiled, because I loved Jett more than most things in life. Without him…well, I honestly couldn’t even begin to wrap my mind around what life without Jett would be like. He made me smile, and he made me laugh. He made me live, and he backed me in every way possible. My dreams were his dreams, and he’d been my number one from the word go. The last thing I wanted to do was bring him down or let on that I was feeling low. He’d work tirelessly to fix it, and I couldn’t even tell him what was wrong this time.
I put a grin on my face, taking his cheeks in my hands. “And you’re mine. Now, have fun, but be good.”
I let him wrap me in a big hug, ignoring most of the female glares I knew were aimed my way. I pressed my body tighter against his and dug my hand deeply into his front pocket. I bit my lower lip, then smiled sweetly at one particularly catty cheerleader like she’d caught me in the act.
Jett chuckled. “You get mad at me for giving your dad a hard time, but you enjoy doing the same thing.” He shook his head as I pulled his keys triumphantly out of his pocket.
“I do it to rile up dumb jealous girls. You do it to my poor father.” I rolled my eyes, waving over my shoulder as I left the party I should have never agreed to come to in the first place. “Make good choices.”
“How can I? My conscience is leaving.”
I was in fact leaving because I knew my mood wouldn’t improve until Clashing Swell got the hell off the Devil’s Share compound. And that sort of pissed me off.
I wasn’t this girl. I wasn’t weak, and I didn’t cry over boys. I was strong and determined. I was smart. I had a goal. I had aspirations. But Talon had changed everything.
I hadn’t been ready for him, and he’d wrecked me without ever touching me. His words. His attention. His admiration. I’d become addicted to him, to his presence in my life.
He wasn’t my safe place, no, uh-uh, that was Jett.
Talon wasn’t my missing piece, because I was whole all on my own.
And yet, he’d broken my heart all the same.
Chapter Ten
Talon
Before
I watched until I couldn’t. My gaze fixed on Marley until Jett closed the door and took her away from me. My jaw clenched, and I fought every instinct I had screaming inside me to go after her. But what would that even look like? Me down on my knees begging Dash not to send me to jail or kick my ass? No, she wasn’t mine. I’d made sure of that a few days ago. I’d walked into that basement with a pla
n in place, a plan to put distance between us permanently. I didn’t get to say what I wanted to say, but it’d worked. It’d worked so well that she’d kicked me out and told me to fuck off.
Now I was some dude, standing on the sidelines watching her live her life.
“Your kid needs to keep his hands to himself.” Dash pointed across the room to Luke, a parental threat in his tone.
I wholeheartedly agreed. Jett touched Marley like it was his right, like it was his place. And it only made my jealousy, my longing, that much worse. I was trying to be good, and he was making it exceedingly difficult.
Luke snorted out a laugh. “He only does that to fuck with you.”
“Jett’s only motivation in life is to fuck with us, all of us.” Jacks picked up his guitar, strumming through the notes I’d contributed to a song he was writing. “It’s like he should be my kid.”
Jett had dark hair and dark eyes, like Jacks and Bryan. Luke and his wife, Harlow, were both fair-skinned and blonde. Brax must have been thinking the same thing I was, because he took a sip of his whiskey and added, “He looks way more like Jacks too.”
Luke glared and Jacks chuckled. I wasn’t sure anything rattled that guy. Well, other than the night he found out Brody had knocked up his daughter. He’d been a little shaken at that particular family dinner. “If we’re going off looks, then Marley should be mine too.”
“And Halen should be mine.” Luke smirked and Dash reached across the island and punched him in the arm. “Oh come on, don’t be such a baby.”
“That’s not funny.” Dash was scowling. “None of you are funny. You keep your dick away from my wife, and you both need to keep your sons’ dicks away from my daughters.” Dash pointed at Luke and Jacks, who were both doing their best to hold in their laughter.
All of this was somewhat comical especially if you factored in Dash had no idea that Crue and Avory had been hooking up.
“Wait, did Luke and Lexi have a thing back in the day?” Dane raised his eyebrows, a look of shock on his face.
Smith scoffed. “Luke fucking wishes.”
“Hey.” Luke wrinkled his nose. “That’s not cool.”
“Can you imagine if Lexi and you had gotten together?” Jacks shook his head. “We wouldn’t have Lo, we wouldn’t have RiffRaff. Fuck, who knows where we’d be today.”
“That’s true, man. Lexi and Dash getting together was the catalyst.” Smith nodded, a faraway look in his eyes. “Lex getting pregnant changed all of us, instantly. And if she hadn’t gotten pregnant, I wouldn’t have met Dylan.”
“With no Dil, there’d be no Bryan.” Jacks sighed. “Without B, who knows how I would have handled Landry? And Beau? Would I have even felt capable of taking on another kid so soon if I’d been on my own?”
Smith smiled against his beer bottle. “Good thing Luke was so terrible with chicks, huh?”
Everyone laughed, except Luke.
“Everything happens for a reason, and we’re all pretty good evidence to that.” Dash glanced across the room to where Brody was asleep on the couch, his son on his chest. “Without RiffRaff, we wouldn’t have Clashing Swell, and without them, there would be no Wyatt.”
“Speaking of keeping dicks away from daughters.” Jacks shot an angry look at my sleeping friend, but within seconds it softened into a sincere smile.
“Sorry, dude.” Brody opened his eyes, chuckling quietly. “Your daughter is a magnet for my dick. I couldn’t keep it away from her to save my own damn life.”
Jacks got up and gently lifted a sleeping Wyatt off Brody, passing him to Dane. “Here, hold my grandson while I kick my son-in-law’s ass.”
Brody shot up off the couch, laughing as he jumped over the back of it. “You’ll have to catch me first, old man.” He ran through the house and out the back door, Jacks hot on his trail, holding his guitar like a weapon.
These guys had been through so much together, survived so much together. Their families were intertwined to a point where it was hard to keep track of who belonged to whom. And now, we were part of that family. Brody had given all of them their first grandchild, and I was Wyatt’s godfather. I was wound around all of them, woven into this amazing life they all lived side by side.
I’d taught Jett to surf, and I’d watched as he and Marley set out to change the world. I would be part of their memories. I would be part of the history of these people.
It was humbling in a way. It made me feel connected. But more than that it made me feel sad, scared. I’d be here to watch Marley fall in love, get married, and then have kids. I’d have to stand aside and watch that beautiful, perfect girl love someone who wasn’t me.
And that was going to fucking suck.
Chapter Eleven
Talon
Before
We all stayed at Dash’s for a couple more hours after Jacks had chased Brody outside. We’d drank and listened to the Devil’s Share tell more stories about the days when they were young and starting out. It was like getting to hear all your favorite superheroes’ origin stories, straight from the source.
Dane, Brax, and I were all back at the pool house now, which was our temporary home for the next week or so. Our second album was almost done, but we needed to start working on postproduction—fine tuning things until none of us could hear any flaws.
Sitting outside, I was alone, staring up at the starry sky. Dane and Brax had gone to bed over an hour ago, but I hadn’t been able to settle down. I felt antsy and I knew it had everything to do with the fact that Marley wasn’t on the compound. She was out, partying with a bunch of people I’d never met. I worried about her, whether I was a thousand miles away or only a few.
I thought about her, always. It was as if she lived inside my mind. She was a part of my every breath. I didn’t know when that had happened. Was it that first moment I saw her? Was it the first time I heard her sassy mouth? Maybe it was the first time my heart skipped a beat at a text notification.
Either way, I was utterly and truly fucked.
I stood, telling myself that it was time to man up. That I’d made my bed, and it was time for me to lie in it. We couldn’t be together. She knew it and so did I. I couldn’t stay up thinking about her. I couldn’t wait up hoping to see her come—”
Jett’s car was at the barn. When had I missed that? They were home already? I checked my watch and saw that it wasn’t even past midnight. From what I’d witnessed, Jett stayed out ’til the early morning hours.
Maybe something was wrong? Or maybe Jett and Marley had fooled us all? It would be the perfect cover, right? Saying they’re going to a party and then going to hide in the barn’s basement? Their parents never checked on them there, and everyone who knew about their grow operation wouldn’t think it was odd for them to be there in the middle of the night.
Instantly, I was infuriated, my blood boiling while my imagination was running fucking wild. I’d pushed her away and straight into Jett’s arms.
I started clomping through the grass in the direction of the old red barn before I could even get those thoughts straight in my head. But that was how it worked when it came to Marley, wasn’t it? Reaction before logical thought. What was I hoping to do? Catch them? Was that really what I wanted?
I cursed my own stupid curiosity the whole trek over, but I didn’t stop, and I didn’t turn back. It was too late now. I was crunching up the gravel of the front walk. I punched in the code, taking a deep breath as the lock slid open. Frantically, I searched the ground floor for Marley and Jett, listening intently, hoping to god nothing broke through the silence I was greeted with.
I crossed the empty space, moving the old wooden board out of the way in order to access the second keypad. I stepped through the door, expecting to see Jett. Steeling myself to interrupt her and Jett together, to catch them.
But Marley was all alone, her back to me as she typed on a laptop. I knew she’d heard that door open. The sound of the keypad alone would have alerted her that someone was here. The fact t
hat she hadn’t turned around most likely meant she knew it was me and she was pissed off.
She had every right to be angry. I’d stormed over here, invaded her safe space in order to prove that she’d moved on. Or that she’d lied. And I’d been wrong. I knew shame and embarrassment should be washing through me, but all I felt was relief.
I moved down the stairs, letting my palm drag on the cool metal railing. “I know I shouldn’t be here.”
She barely spared me a glance over her shoulder. “Then go away, Talon.”
Her tone was so sad, so tired, and it made me take pause. “Marley, I—”
“No, I mean it. Go away.” She used the back of her hand to brush some hair away from her face. “I don’t want to hear about how you shouldn’t be here, or how it’s inappropriate, or any of the other million contradictions you spew every damn time we speak.”
She was so good at that, at calling me out on my bullshit. I did contradict myself when it came to her. I had from day one. She knew I cared for her. I had showed her all the time. The texts, the letters, the phone call. The shirt she’d been wearing a few days ago, the one I’d worn threadbare and then sent to her with the image of her in it and nothing else.
“You’re right, and I shouldn’t—”
“You shouldn’t be here?” she growled, like actually growled as she whirled around to finally face me. “Are you freaking kidding me right now? Could you be any more predictable?”
Apparently not. I took a deep breath, trying again to explain myself, “I came here…” I came here because I was jealous and irrational. “I saw Jett’s car and I wanted to make sure that everything was okay.”
Her hands went to her hips, her sass starting to show. “You wanted to make sure everything was okay? Then send a fucking text, Talon.” Her eyes narrowed, a smudge of dirt visible on her cheekbone.
I sighed, taking a few steps closer. “I was jealous.”
She raised one dark eyebrow but said nothing.
“Tonight, seeing you with Jett, it stung. And then when I saw his car here, I thought…”
