“Glad to see you have some balls after all,” he said against my hair.
“I just borrowed yours for the night.” We walked slowly to the fire pit, but it felt more as though he was dragging me.
Caleb laughed. “You’re welcome to them anytime.” He leaned forward and winked at me. “C’mon, the gang's been dying to see you all night. Ooh, is that for me?”
I hugged the vodka to my chest when he tried to grab it from my hands. “This is for me and my friends.”
Caleb leaned back and held up his beer with an incredulous gesture. “Are you trying to hurt me on purpose, Danica?”
“Are we going to pretend everyone doesn't hate me tonight?”
Caleb jostled me against his side in what might have been intended as a hug. “To be fair, you knew what you were walking into. Ten years is long enough to let go of old grudges, right? Besides, I think they’re more curious about you than pissed at you.”
“Okay, let’s do this.” I gripped the bottle more tightly as we came closer to the fire. People had already turned toward us, firelight and shadows playing over their features, and were talking among themselves while sneaking glances at me. I tried not to make eye contact with anyone, though I already knew Adam wasn’t there. That knowledge gave me enough courage to lift my chin and paste a confident grin on my face.
Caleb announced me again, as if everyone didn’t already know. “Danica Pavlova, in the flesh! I told y’all she would show up, didn’t I? Time to pay up!”
I scanned the crowd briefly and noted all the familiar faces. There were a couple of newbies in the group who must have come along after high school. Jameson, as we called the one jock of our group, was nursing a beer and grinning with blatant appraisal. He had a lot more tattoos than I remembered, sleeves crawling up his bare arms and peeking from his shirt collar to scroll around his neck.
“Hey, Danica,” he said as he approached us and reached out to pull me into a bear hug. “Where the hell have you been the last ten years, baby?”
I opened my bottle of vodka. I was definitely not sharing now. I took a sip of liquid courage and smiled back at him. “Everywhere. Where have you been?”
He laughed and glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the group. Three more of the guys came over to join our conversation, while the women hung back in a huddle. “Danica, you may remember these three assholes,” Jameson said.
My smile strained a bit, but I managed to keep my tone civil. “Hey, guys.” Shane, Jake, and Ted were indeed assholes I had dated at one point or another.
“Looking good, Pavlova,” Jake said with a nod as he lifted his beer to his lips.
Wish I could say the same for you, psycho, I thought. I forced my smile to stretch and said, “You always were the charmer, Jake.”
He laughed to himself and nudged Shane next to him. Shane was black and the only one of the three I could somewhat stand. Ted still rubbed me the wrong way.
“Long time, no see, beautiful,” Ted said with a creepy smile.
Still date-raping teenage girls, Ted?
Jameson stepped in before the words could escape the tip of my tongue. “You really were gone too long, Danica. We’ve missed having you the life of the party.” He leaned in to whisper, “The other girls don’t have your talent for outdrinking me.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t drink.” I took another swig of vodka and savored the burn. It wasn’t Russian, but it would do for the night. I had no intention of outdrinking Jameson or anyone in this town.
Peter and the kids are counting on you.
Jameson laughed and slipped his arm around my waist. “Baby, your accent is so much thicker than it used to be. It’s sexy as hell.”
“Glad you approve,” I murmured and tried to ignore the muscles poking through his shirt. The boy had always been in shape, but now he was ripped. “So what do you do for a living?”
He leaned back, and I shrugged off his arm. “I’m a security contractor for the highest bidder.”
Caleb put his hand on my shoulder and leaned enough to show me how drunk he already was. “What he means is he’s a gun for hire.”
Jameson shrugged. “No one respectable would hire me. I used to ink, but the contracting pays more.”
I turned to Caleb and shoved the attraction I had for Jameson aside.
Been there, done that, I reminded myself. Jameson was the only one I’d come close to having sex with. He was also the source of most of the nasty rumors about me.
“So, Caleb, I didn’t get a chance to ask you what you did these days,” I said.
Caleb saluted me with his beer. “High school math teacher.”
I choked. “What? Are you kidding me? After all your talk about vet school?”
Caleb shrugged. “I fell in love, settled down. Andi and I keep pets and horses in the barn.”
“You’re kidding.” I turned to the crowd of girls and saw Andi’s smiling face. Her hair was as red as ever and her doe eyes just as innocent as the days we called her “goody.”
“I know what you’re thinking. How did a Brewer ever get so lucky?” Caleb sighed and winked at me.
“I’m happy for you. Kids?”
“Yep, already asleep in the house. Andi just came out before you showed up. They sleep like logs.” As if his words had summoned the petite redhead, Andi Brewer, née Pink, joined us. The other girls hesitated by the fire.
“Thanks for coming by, Danica!” she said, sweet and saccharine as ever.
“Thanks for the invite,” I replied. I’d never felt comfortable around the girls since most had called me a whore and thought I would steal their boyfriends. Andi had always been nice to me, and this made me nervous for some reason. This feeling doubled when she took my hand in hers.
“I think it’s a wonderful thing, what you’re doing for Peter.”
“How do you know about that?”
She smiled. “Caleb already knew and told me you came back to help with the kids. We babysit sometimes, I guess you know.”
“I didn’t know,” I said, but found myself smiling back. Andi had that effect on people. I wasn’t the best babysitter or aunt in the world. “Thanks,” I choked and took another sip before adding, “for babysitting.”
Thanks for being here while I wasn’t.
Andi squeezed my hand and let go. She melded against Caleb’s side. Her pale features next to his darker brown worked somehow. I liked her for not making me feel seventeen again.
“Oh shit,” Caleb hissed under his breath.
I turned to follow his line of sight. “Shit,” I whispered.
Two of the other girls greeted another latecomer to the party. He was taller than I remembered. His shoulders were broader, chest thicker, and his hair shorter.
“Didn’t think I could get off in time to make it tonight,” Adam King called to Caleb, ignoring the girls hanging off his tanned arms.
Caleb’s voice was obviously affected, but he tried to play it off by going up to Adam like he had me. “Glad you could make it, man!”
Adam nodded and took the hand Caleb offered for a quick shake. His smile didn’t reach his eyes, didn’t break the shadow that made him look so haggard. He was so withdrawn into himself, so different and so the same in other subtle ways. I couldn’t breathe.
The rest of the crowd moved to greet Adam King, and his beautiful eyes rose to meet them. I wanted to duck and run. I thought the bottle might break in my hands. He tensed when Caleb leaned in to whisper in his ear.
It was the look in his eyes as he looked directly at me I didn’t recognize, when I realized we were strangers.
6
Something I Can Never Have
I wished I could say I stood my ground and walked up to Adam with a saucy grin on my face. That was how I imagined it playing out in my head, at least. But the truth was I was a coward. I ran. That was the gypsy in my blood.
“What the hell, Caleb!” Adam shouted. I heard the early stages of a scuffle behind us. I didn�
�t turn around to watch.
“Sorry, man, didn’t know you would be here tonight!” Caleb protested.
A girl screamed.
“Caleb!” Andi screeched.
“Chill out, guys!” Jameson growled.
I dared a glance over my shoulder to see Adam, my best friend, throw a heavy punch in his face. Jameson fell to the ground, and Adam looked up.
I turned the moment our gazes clashed for the second time and stumbled through the backyard, into the shadows beside the house. My vision blurred, and I rubbed the tears out as fast as I could. I hated this, hated this stupid small town and the stupid guys. I hated Adam for being so different, but not as much as I hated myself.
I dropped my keys next to my car and cursed. I crouched down to feel the grass and gasped when another hand brushed mine. It was nearly twice as big as mine, with long, calloused fingers and numerous scars I didn’t remember. I stood and nearly collided with Adam King. He pushed the keys into my hand, but I barely noticed. I might as well have been dead.
I hadn’t even heard him come after me. His chest heaved from the fight, and his once beautiful eyes were filled with something wild and burning. His voice was deeper—the voice of a man, not the boy who’d loved me.
“You don’t belong here,” he began, and I could tell he was holding back more, a lot more.
He might as well have cut me with the words. I wanted to agree with him, lie down, and admit I had screwed up. But that was when I remembered the shell of a man my brother was now, when I saw the faces of my niece and nephew. So instead of giving in, I saw red.
“I’m pretty sure I was invited here,” I said as I gripped the bottle in one hand and my keys in the other. The pinch of pain woke me up.
His voice rose. “It was a mistake. Caleb was trying to stir up shit.”
“You mean it was a mistake to invite the biggest slut in school. No one lets me forget that, do they?” I spat back. The muscles in his forearms bulged, and I noticed the grease staining his skin.
He spoke past clenched teeth. “You know what this is really about!”
“Do I?” I challenged, but I was finding it harder to stand my ground. He was standing a lot closer than I realized. While the old Adam King was an open book of facial expressions, this Adam might as well have been made of stone. Again, I hated him for doing that to himself.
“You had no right showing up here. These are my friends! You left all that behind a long time ago!” He leaned forward, fury breaking past the mask on his face.
“You have no right telling me where I’m allowed to go or who I’m allowed to see!”
“I never told you what to do!”
“Pretty sure that’s exactly what this is! What are you gonna do? Forbid all our old friends from speaking to me? Well, congratulations, that won’t be a problem. ’Cause the last place I wanna be is around a bunch of assholes still hung up on high school!” It was a low blow, I knew, but I wasn’t in control of my tongue anymore.
“What the hell, Danica! Cut the bullshit!” he shouted.
“Quit acting like a controlling boyfriend!” I pushed his chest with my bottle hand, but he didn’t budge. Instead, he grabbed the vodka out of my hands.
“You aren’t leaving like this!”
“Oh, so now I’m not allowed to leave?” I grabbed the neck of the bottle and tried to tug it free. “That’s my liquor, asshole!”
He raised his arm up higher and held me off with his free hand. When did he get so freaking strong?
“You’ve had enough of this shit!” He threw the bottle aside, ignoring my scream, and grabbed the keys out of my other hand.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Caleb and Andi came running up to us then. Caleb’s face looked as if it had been rammed by a concrete block.
Andi picked up the tossed vodka while Caleb put his hand on my shoulder. “Please, guys, you’re going to wake the kids up.”
Adam took my hand in his and pulled me out of Caleb’s grasp. “I’m taking her home,” he grunted.
“Hell no, I am not going anywhere with you,” I hissed and dragged my feet.
Adam pulled me to the passenger seat and set me inside as if I weighed nothing. His willing touch sent a series of violent sparks, a chain reaction that made me lean into him, only slightly. I froze when I heard the click of my seat belt.
“Bastard,” I spat at him. His arms flexed as he shut my door, scowl frozen in place. I crossed my arms over my chest. I could have tried harder to escape, but I didn’t know this new Adam. He was a lot more physical than I remembered and a lot less patient, apparently. I was too pissed, in more than one way, to do anything other than sulk.
Caleb tried to grab Adam before he could climb inside my little SUV. “Man, I swear I didn’t know. When you said you were working tonight, I just assumed…”
“Not now.” Adam shoved Caleb’s hand off and slid into the front seat. He glared at Caleb while adjusting the seat to fit his much larger frame. “We’ll talk about this later, Brewer.” He slammed the door shut before Caleb could touch it and revved my engine to life.
He didn’t speak again until we had pulled out of the Brewers’ winding drive onto the back roads. I was still too angry to speak and too dumb to do anything adult about it.
“You shouldn’t have come tonight.”
I snorted. “Obviously.”
He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “I didn’t mean to lose it earlier.”
“I tend to have that effect on men,” I murmured and rested my elbow on the door, my chin in my hand. “You didn’t have to pitch the vodka. It was a twenty-dollar bottle.”
“You drank at least thirteen of that.” And then, after another long moment, he said, “You were running away from me again.”
I dragged my knees up to my chest and stared out the window. “You were yelling.”
“Guess I have that effect on women,” Adam said after an even longer pause. I turned to find him staring straight out the windshield with the same scowl creasing his brow.
“Was that supposed to be a joke?” I blurted.
“What, I can’t have a normal conversation with you?”
I didn’t reply because I didn’t know the answer to that. I didn’t know this Adam. I was too afraid to try.
You’ll only hurt him again.
Adam sighed as though releasing a weight off his chest. “Seeing you there tonight took me off guard. I wasn’t ready. But it is what it is, and I need to go ahead and get this off my chest. I don’t want you to talk, just listen.” He glanced at me again and took another tense breath.
“Okay.” I shifted in my seat and tried not to study his profile, the two days’ worth of stubble on his square jaw, or the scar running across his forehead and down the side of his face into his hairline.
“I’ve got a life here that took me a long time to come back to. The way I said it earlier was wrong, but I meant it. I don’t want you coming around the Brewers’ place anymore.”
I dug my fingers into my knees and bit my tongue at that comment.
“For me, the Brewers’ is one of the few places I can go where I feel like myself. I’m not telling you what to do. I’m asking you for a favor, if you ever cared about me. I know you’re in town for Peter and the kids, and that’s fine. But I think it’s best if we don’t see each other.”
I waited, and when he had nothing else to add, I looked up to find his eyes on me again. This time, they weren’t hard and withdrawn, but weary. What had given him the worry lines at the corners of his eyes and forehead?
It doesn’t matter. You heard the man. You’re poison.
Adam had every right to be angry with me, but some part of me couldn’t let it go.
“It’s been ten years, you know,” I said and held his gaze. “Can’t we at least be civil?”
His eyes narrowed slightly, and his mask fell in place again. “Guess what happened was nothing to you, just another high school fling. Except it didn
’t just happen with some guy, Danica. It happened with me.”
My head was spinning slightly, but I recognized the lights on Peter’s house and knew we were already home.
Adam leaned between the seats and reached over to pop open my door. “I’ll get the car to Peter tomorrow.”
I stumbled out of my car and opened my mouth to say all the things burning in my throat. I wanted to cut him, hurt him like his words hurt me. He pulled the door shut behind me before I could speak. I teared up again. I wanted to hate him, but he was right, and I was just the bitch who’d broken his heart.
7
In the Morning
I dreamed about Adam’s lips that night, the way they traced lines down my face while his hands squeezed my backside and traveled up my spine. The Adam in my dream was the boy I loved, a little pudgy around the middle, with freckles dotting his bare shoulders. His legs were useless because of his accident, and I had to help our lovemaking along. I was getting so close and moaned when he flipped us over so I was on my back. I opened my eyes and stared into the tanned, creased face of the Adam I’d met last night. His body had grown, filled out with muscle, and his arms led me with their new strength. When he rocked into me, he filled me completely and stretched me deeper. I gripped the bedsheets and arched my back…
KNOCK, KNOCK
I opened my eyes and stared not into the beautiful eyes of Adam King, but the glow-in-the-dark stars I had stuck on my bedroom ceiling in junior high. I let go of the sheets I’d nearly ripped and threw an arm over my face. My breath came in shallow gasps, and the urge, the need was still there.
Someone knocked again on the door downstairs, and I was thankful it wasn’t to my bedroom. I heard my brother’s slightly muffled voice and cursed the house’s thin walls when Hailey King’s voice answered him.
She Walks In Moonlight (Second Chances Romance Book 1) Page 5
