Thick & Thin (Thin Love Book 3)

by Eden Butler

  “Any of those times did you ever not mean it?”

  “No,” I told her, giving up the weak fight to keep the truth from her. “Even…shit, even the first time in the studio when I was still beating myself up over Emily, over everything and I kissed you? Even then, makamae, I damn well meant it.”

  She nodded, staring longer than was necessary at my face, moving her gaze back over my features as though she tried to see how different I was. The only change in me was the realization of what I’d thrown away and how staring at her now, still wanting her so desperately, probably made me look a little pathetic.

  “So you meant it, the other night. Even though you knew I said yes to Ethan.”

  “Aly…”

  “Even though you didn’t believe me when I said we should keep things in the past.”

  She skated so close near the truth, her body moving toward mine stiffening when she did. Still, I couldn't let her challenge go uncontested. “What if I don’t want anything kept in the past? Especially not that last night when you left me?”

  Aly shook her head, keeping her gaze steady, her eyes unblinking. “It has to be. Past. I’m…I’m moving forward.” That strong-lined chin lifted, taunting.

  She was everything I’d ever wanted. Then. Now. Always. She wanted my friendship. She probably came here looking for my support, for me to reciprocate for all the times she’d given me hers. My instinct told me to back away. Let her believe that she really was moving on, leaving me behind even though those eyes, that look, promised that just wasn’t true.

  Logically, I knew I should be an adult, respect the boundaries she tried to set for us. But dammit, I just couldn’t keep silent. Not when she looked at me like that. Not when my heart told me I was right.

  “Ke aloha, I’m sorry. But…no. You don’t want to keep anything in the past. Not deep down. I refuse to believe that.”

  “What?” She curled her fists at her side and all the happiness that had colored her cheeks before was gone. “Why do you think that?”

  “Because…” I exhaled, bracing for her anger, “you don’t love him.” Her lips parted and I knew I’d insulted her. It was a challenge that may have went too far, but I was beyond saving her feelings. Then the press of her lips, the heavy curl of her mouth had me losing hold of any tact I might have. “Fuck, Aly, you know you don’t. Not like you love me.”

  She pushed me then, swatting away my grip when I tried holding her arms still. “You know nothing!”

  A quick lunge to the left and I blocked her from leaving before she made it across the living room and into the foyer. “The shit I don’t know could fill a library, but you not loving him? That is fact, nani.”

  “Spare me your Hawaiian pet names, you bata.” Aly ignored my smile, grunting low, then sighing as I held her away from the door, earning another painless smack against my shoulder. She was taking it easy. If Aly wanted to injure me, she would have put in a lot more effort. The small taps at me were warnings that held no real vigor. “You don’t know anything about me and Ethan. He loves me. He sees me. He fucking respects me!”

  “And I don’t?” I stopped her from leaving, holding her still by the elbows. “You really believe that?”

  “Yes,” she said, jerking out of my touch. “Of course I do. I did leave for a reason, didn’t I?”

  Grunting, I closed my eyes, tried to rein in my anger, the blinding fury that filled my head when she reminded me how she left and why.

  “So you say.” It was a weak response, childish, but the anger inside me would not cool, not when the reminder of that night, the sting of it, still felt like a hitch in my side that I could never be rid of.

  She tried moving around me again, but I jumped in front of her, feeling stupid and desperate, pushing back the inclination to stand in front of the door and block her path. I wanted her to tell me she’d missed me, that I was right, that Ethan, no matter how she felt about him, wasn’t me.

  “You are being a brat.” She sent an elbow to my rib before she had a hand on the door knob.

  “Yeah, well, my favorite toy is being tossed off to some asshole who doesn’t know how to play with it.”

  That stopped her suddenly and I knew, the moment Aly turned, hands balled into fists, that any swats that came my way now would hurt something fierce. She wasn’t playing any more. Not even close.

  “It?” she said, taking two slow steps toward me. "Toy?"

  “Aly…”

  Her voice was lethal; like something that would kill me if she'd let it, but I couldn't step away. “You know what, you son of a…” She lifted her eyes, absently shooting her gaze behind me toward that wall of framed pictures before she amended her curse. “You’re a selfish, spoiled joko!” She wanted to hit me, I could feel it, see it in the white knuckle grip she held at her fists, but Aly was subtler than I was. Anything she did, physically, was level and thought through, unlike that spontaneous acceptance of Ethan’s proposal. ‘Imbecile’ leveled at me in Creole seemed to appease her a little. “I am not an it or a toy…”

  “I know you aren’t,” I said, grabbing her, a little desperate, a lot turned on by my anger, by hers.

  And when I grabbed her face, hopelessly holding her still as though my kiss could bring her back, make her admit that she still loved me, Aly only frowned, hauling back to smack me across the face so hard I stumbled. “You will never, ever have me again, Ransom.”

  Anger filled the air between us and even the throb on my face and the curl of her mouth didn’t ebb my unjustified upset. She’d never been this angry, not in the past, not in Miami and though my own fury bubbled, I couldn’t help but watch her, see the difference in the woman in front of me and the girl I’d loved for half of my life.

  “Is that what you tell yourself? That I was just a plaything? Something to amuse you when you felt like it? Is that how you justified my leaving you?” she said, my face inches from hers. She didn’t even flinch. “After everything you did, the things you didn’t do, you have the nerve to try and convince me that what we had shouldn’t be buried in the past?”

  I should have matched her anger, but instead, my feelings for her flared even hotter. This was the Aly I had first gotten to know, the Aly I had first fallen in love with, fiery, confident, angry. But I couldn't be angry with her—all I knew is how much I wanted her, how much I still needed her, needed what we had been to each other. She didn’t fight me, barely moved or breathed at all when I slid one finger over her cheek. “You want me to remind you what we were?”

  “You will never…” she started to repeat herself, voice low, steady, but then I licked my bottom lip, turning my fingers over her cheek to hold her face still. One touch and her body shook, arms, shoulders trembling as I took a cautious step closer, eating up the space between us. That fury that kept her raging against me receded and that low, surprised gasp told me Aly, despite her anger, remembered, too. Remembered how it has been between us before life and my own stupidity drove us apart. Now all I had to do was convince her we could have that again.

  I slipped my hands down to her waist and the shivering quickened, eyes fluttering closed as I kissed her forehead. Inches between us and the air thick and hot again, weighted as she stood there, letting me touch her, move my hands down her back, my lips over her face. “Don’t tell me you stopped loving me.” She opened her eyes, frowning when I held her face between my fingers.

  “It’s the truth.” She pulled away from my mouth, stretching her neck to keep my lips from her skin.

  “No,” I said, voice soft. “It’s not.”

  She stopped attempting to extract herself from my hold until I inhaled so deeply I smelled the sweet whiff of sweat mixing with that familiar vanilla fragrance. I wanted to taste a bit of her myself. God, it had been too damn long. “You can tell yourself all the lies in the world about how easy it was to walk away from me, how you’ll never let yourself really love me again, but it’s not that easy with us.” She turned her back to me then, arms curled arou
nd her middle, pretending as though she couldn’t hear me, despite how she tilted her head, profile in front of me as though she couldn’t help but listen.

  “We’re visceral. We’re inside each other.” Gaze right at me, Aly kept as she stared. There was nothing but the space between us and words that got caught in our throats. But I wasn’t completely speechless. I was reckless and desperate and knew there was something inside her that wanted free. I wanted to bust it loose.

  She turned toward me when I approached, holding one palm flat against my chest with no real strength in that touch, as though she wanted me to stop, but wouldn’t hold me back completely. “No one will ever make you laugh and cry and feel like I can. No one but me will have you clamoring for release, for the freedom inside my touch. No one else can give you all that you crave and push you even further. We’re it. We’re always.”

  She exhaled then, a small pulse that heated her skin before she closed her eyes, and then she pushed me with a force I did not know she possessed. She’d been holding back. No matter how angry I’d made her in the past, she’d never pushed me as hard as she did just then—a shove that had me staggering back as she marched right by me and out of the foyer. The front door bounced against the wall when she threw it open, cracking the lower pane of glass.

  She didn’t look back. Aly didn’t bother to even slow her steps as she headed for her car. I could have watched her walk away all day—I would have, imagining scenarios in my head of what she thought as she peeled away down the street or how many times she’d shower just to be rid of the smell of me. But the patio door on the other side of the room slid open and there came a low, amused chuckle behind me, taking me from any thoughts I might have of my ex and where her temper would bring her to.

  “Man, I gotta say, that shit was fun to watch.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  The stranger pushed off from his lean against the patio doorway and jerked his chin in way of a greeting. I immediately caught the scent of cigarettes wafting off of him. “Keira said you headed out before she could tell you I was here.”

  “Still doesn’t tell me who you are.”

  The man was fit, but no taller than 5’10. He wore tight blue Wranglers and leather shit kickers that hadn’t seen a shine in a long while. In his hand he held a straw cowboy hat rolled severely at the sides, cupped so that the ends almost touched the crown. Girls probably went a little stupid for him because he was a pretty boy with high cheekbones, a long, straight nose and eyes that were somewhat slanted and crystal blue. He could have been an actor, I supposed, but for the scar that ran the length of his temple to the curve of his left cheek, like someone had gone at him and left their mark behind for him to remember every time he caught his reflection in a mirror.

  He came further into the room with his hand outstretched and when I only looked at those calloused fingers, lifting my eyebrows in a challenge I didn’t really mean, that scar on his cheek dented deep with his smile. “Cass Colson.” He kept that hand outstretched and nodded, encouraging me to shake it. “I’m working with your mom on a recording contract.”

  “So I hear.” I shook the man’s hand, just to get him to lower it, but still kept my distance, arms folded as I watched him shrug, passing off my rudeness like it didn’t bother him. “You come here a lot? When no one’s home?”

  “No, not really, but Keira said Mack had practice for a school…”

  “Makana. Her name is Makana.”

  “Your little sister,” he tried again, leaning against the back of the sofa with his long legs outstretched and those ugly boots crossed at the ankles. “Anyway, Keira had to get her kids to school and I was here early because my pick up had a flat this morning and the only ride I could manage had to be in Lafayette by eight.”

  Something about this guy got under my skin. Maybe it was how relaxed he looked, how he moved around the house like he’d seen everything in it a thousand times before. I didn’t like the constant smirk or how nothing seemed to get to him. I had a good eighty pounds or so on this guy and I wasn’t going out of my way to be friendly. Riley-Hale Intimidation 101 that my father had instilled in me since I was sixteen and desperate for his approval. Still, this Colson guy didn’t flinch, didn’t seemed worried in the least that I wasn’t friendly.

  “So, who was the girl?” he asked, walking around the sofa to sit, propping one grimy boot on the coffee table.

  “No one you need to know about.”

  “Okay, man. I got you.” He sat up, as though he thought readying himself for a pounce was necessary. “Relax. She’s not my type anyway.”

  Dumbass. Aly was fucking flawless. She was everyone’s type. This asshole just didn’t want me thinking he had ideas about her. Not that it mattered. She wouldn’t give a redneck like him a second glance no matter if he looked like something out of an old sixties Western.

  “I wouldn’t give a fuck if she was and neither would she. Trust that shit.” I moved to the column, leaning against it like I’d taken Colson’s advice and relaxed a little. But my guard was up and it would stay there as long as this guy was in the vicinity.

  Sometimes you meet people and they just don’t mesh with you. Something about them grates your nerves, has your instincts warning you that that person meant trouble and it wasn’t the sort you could easily be free of.

  I was protective of my family, sure, especially my mom, but this went a little deeper. I just couldn’t put my finger on why.

  “I got zero time for hook ups. Your mom keeps me real, real busy.” That he added with a little too much sarcasm, like he thought it was funny to get me worked up. This idiot was clueless if he thought making jokes about my mom, no matter if they were harmless or not, was epically stupid. My father was still possessive as hell when it came to Mom.

  When I cocked my eyebrow at him, Colson didn’t bother hiding his smile which only annoyed me further. “Take it easy, dude. I’m just messing with you.”

  “That is not a good idea, dude. Not today.”

  He messed with his hat a little, shifting it between his hands before he slid it on his head. “Well, I can see that, but if you want my advice…”

  “I don’t.”

  Colson lifted his hands, a mild, disinterested surrender that I ignored. I was ready to kick this guy out of my folks’ house, tell him to come back when my mother’s voice carried from the other side of the front door.

  “No, I told you ten a.m. Kona, are you ever going to write appointments down?” Then her voice went silent before she made a sound loud enough for me to hear. “What the hell happened to the door? Son of a…”

  “Mom, in here,” I said, swinging the door open before she could investigate it fully.

  “What the hell is this?” She nodded to the broken pane and glanced at me, rolling her eyes when the voice on her cell sounded. “The pane is broken. What? I don’t know. God, Kona, no.” She looked at me, nodding to Cass who stood behind me. “Ransom, what is this? Did you do this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Actually, it wasn’t him,” Colson jumped in, with a damned twinkle in his eye, “it was the girl who stormed off that did it.” My blood boiled when he outright laughed.

  “It’s fine. Yeah, okay, baby. Don’t forget…okay.” Mom ended the call and slipped her cell into her purse. “Aly?” she asked me, coming fully into the house. It was then that she noticed the lingering mark of Aly’s slap on my cheek. She put her hand on my chin and turned my head to look at the red welt that was still somewhat tender. Who knew the woman could pack such a wallop? But I lifted my chin away from Mom, and ran my hand across my cheek.

  “It was my fault. The door and the slap. I pissed her off. The door probably just slipped out of her hand.” I took my mother’s kiss, careful on my other cheek, as she patted my chest. “I’ll pay for it.”

  “I'm not worried about the door, or your cheek—or your pride,” she said. “I’m more worried about you and Aly.”

  “Uh, Keira, I’m gonna go set
up in the studio,” Cass interrupted not waiting for my mother to answer him before he disappeared down the hallway toward the home studio my mother had built years before.

  “I don’t like that guy,” I told her. Walking with her into the living room. “Something about him is off.”

  “Now you sound like Koa.” She bent down, grabbing my sweaty shirt off the floor before she tossed it at me. “You boys are territorial.”

  “Well what does Dad say about this guy being here when no one is home?”

  Mom turned around, glaring at me. “He doesn’t say anything, son, because I’m a grown ass woman running a business.” Mom dug in her purse, pulling out a small bottle of Purell to dollop in her hand. She exhaled, when I frowned, feeling like the idiot I was. She rubbed the gel between her fingers as she stood in front of me. “Besides, he’d have to pay attention long enough to know that Cass is here.”

  That wasn’t the first time she’d made a comment like that and the idea that something could be wrong with my parents set like a rock in the pit of my stomach. They were stupid for each other, but I’d picked up a vibe since I’d returned for the recital that something was going on with them. When my mother shrugged, distracted herself with tossing her purse on the sofa and slipping her thin sweater off her shoulders, I stopped her, holding her arm, keeping her still long enough for her to look at me.

  “Mom, what the hell is going on with you two?”

  Six full seconds passed as she watched me. I counted. There were small shadows beneath her eyes, almost as deep and dark as there had been a decade before when Makana was the parasite sucking the energy from her. Now she just seemed worn, exhausted for reasons I knew that went further than how hectic her life had become in the past few months.

  Finally, when I moved my head, squinting to really look at her expression, Mom lowered her shoulders, pulling free of my touch to rub the bridge of her nose. “Life, that’s all.” I wasn’t buying it, maybe she saw that in my expression, because then my mother smiled, a wide gesture that I guessed was meant to ease me, before she touched my face, inspecting the fading welt on my cheek. Satisfied I’d live, she continued in a nonchalant way. “We’re fine, just both incredibly busy unlike we’ve ever been before. He has the championship and I have the label.” She stepped back, tossing her purse on the sofa table. “In between that we have a family to raise. We’ve just been missing each other a little bit.” When my expression tightened, worry pinching my mouth, Mom shook her head again. “Ransom, relax. Things will settle down again after the season ends.”