by Jo Raven
I’m not sure this time I’d be forgiven.
***
After a sucky, mopey and lonely Sunday, which I spend alternatively reading a crime novel and dozing on the sofa with images of Shane’s silky long hair and dark eyes teasing my memory, doubts nagging at me and boredom torturing me, I decide I need to get out.
Enough is enough. Staying in isn’t helping me make up my mind one way or another—talk to Shane, ask if he likes me, like really likes me, and risk losing him as a friend, or leave things as they are.
Besides, plenty of men in the sea, right? Or fish. Whatever. Shane might be a hottie, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I should sleep with him.
And since when has sleeping with Shane become so important to me? A blind man—a blind girl—would see he’s sexy off the bat, and I surely didn’t fail to notice, but after he failed to notice me time after time, I guess I gave up.
Which begs the question why now I’m back to thinking about him that way. As if there is a chance he might come on to me, push me against the wall and press that beautiful mouth to mine, mold that strong body to my curves, shove his hands in my hair and—
And what the hell’s wrong with me these days? Why can’t I just be friends with Shane? What changed?
Too many questions, no answers, and my head frigging hurts. That’s it. No more weird thoughts about Shane. No more feelings. I need to withdraw, put my defenses back up. Be the happy-go-lucky girl I used to be. Live for the moment. Stop making plans in my head with a boy who doesn’t love me back.
So where should I go?
My first thought is Halo, but then I change my mind. Not ready to face the firing squad just yet.
Okay, I exaggerate, but I don’t know how my apology to Jesse and Amber went down, and I’d rather have a drama-free evening.
So by the time I’ve applied my makeup and pulled up my hair in a ponytail, dragged on shiny leggings and my high-heeled boots, my long black sweater and long coat, I know where I’m heading.
No squad and no Shane to confuse me. Since Asher’s wedding, I’ve been trying to be someone I’m not, and maybe that’s why I’m also so unsure about what to do with Shane and my attraction to him. The thing is, Jesse Lee might have found the love of his life, and it changed him, but me?
I’m still Cassie, and I need men to notice me. I want to have sex and a good time. No complications. No strings attached.
I don’t know how to handle men without this. Without the sex. Not if I’m attracted to them. So I’m going to do what I’ve always done, even if deep inside my mind a tiny voice is wailing that this is exactly what my mom keeps doing to cover up her sadness.
Go grab me a man and have some fun.
***
Don’t know how many shots I’ve had, but the lights overhead swirl and make me want to laugh. A guy is dancing with me, flashing his straight white teeth at me, and I can’t help thinking he looks like a horse.
It makes me giggle. God, I’m wasted. The guy’s eyes are glued to my cleavage as he grabs my hips and twists his hips, and we dance together.
He’s hard. I can feel his boner against my stomach as he writhes against me, and I laugh harder.
Hilarious.
Just like old times.
He snaps my hips right and left, using me like a marionette on the dance floor, then leans closer, breathing hard in my ear.
“Oh, baby,” he moans. “Let’s go somewhere. Your place, my place, I don’t care.”
Yeah, okay. That’s what I came here for, right? I want to pull back, look at this face, but he’s glued on me like a sticker. He drags me away from the dance floor although I haven’t replied or said anything in return, and I stumble along, almost tripping on my heels.
This is normal. This is okay. Done it so many times. I don’t even have to think about it twice as he grabs his jacket and then resumes dragging me away—toward the exit, I guess.
“My coat,” I say, resisting. Good thing some of my brain cells are still active.
“You don’t need a coat, baby,” he mutters, still pulling on my arm. “I’ll keep you warm.”
Gah, I hate that he calls me baby. It’s not so funny anymore.
“Need my coat,” I insist, tugging back, and he turns to scowl at me.
I blink, taken aback—not because he looks like nothing special, or because his face isn’t so pleasing to my eyes, but because…
He’s not Shane.
Suddenly I don’t want to follow him. I dig in my heels and try to free my arm from his hold.
“I changed my mind,” I say. “I’d rather stay and dance.”
“What? You can’t just change your mind like that. Come on.”
I can’t? I frown at that. “I don’t want to go with you.” My voice slurs a little. Dammit. “Let me go!”
Instead of releasing me, he backs me up against the wall. “Cock-tease, huh? You think that will fly with me?”
“Fly?” Somewhere inside my head alarms are blaring. “I said let me go.”
“You think I haven’t seen you around before?” he hisses, his breath heavy with alcohol fumes that make me dizzy. “You’re easy with everyone but not with me?”
Easy? I stare at him, my mouth hanging open. Yeah, okay, I can’t remember turning down a guy before, but still…
“I don’t feel so well,” I mumble, nausea rising in my throat.
He slams me against the wall once, his face twisting into a snarl. “Bitch,” he spits, lifting his hands, then he turns around and walks away.
Holy crap… Trembling, I push off the wall and straighten. Cold shivers wrack me. Too many horrible thoughts are crowding my mind.
Like the fact I’m easy. That I sleep with men I don’t know. Because I’m lonely. Because I don’t know how else to be around them.
When the one guy I keep thinking about is Shane, who doesn’t want me.
The guy called me names and shoved me into a wall because I refused to sleep with him. Like I’m a cheap slut, like I had no right to refuse or change my mind.
And oh crap, is this how Jesse felt when I kissed him?
Shoving my way through the thin crowd, I make it to the ladies’ toilets just in team to upchuck everything I’ve drunk tonight, and probably yesterday, too.
Not that it makes me feel any better.
Shit, I’m such a mess…
***
Monday I’m still a mess, and I have to drag myself to work. The weather is gray and cold, a wind of knives whistling down the streets and avenues I have to cross to get to the gym. By the time I’m behind the desk with the computer on and checking memberships and schedules, the place starts to fill.
I’m helping a newbie fill out his registration form, when the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Someone has just walked in, I know it without turning around, my peripheral vision catching a glimpse of a tall guy with long, dark hair.
No frigging way.
By the time I’ve actually spun around in my swiveling chair to see, he’s gone in the direction of the men’s changing rooms.
Shit.
“Like this?” the guy asks, showing me what he wrote in the “other” field, and I shake my head to clear it.
“That’s right.” I slip off my chair, stalk around the desk and start toward the men’s changing rooms.
Then stop and blink, because, come on, what am I going to do? Walk into a room of half-naked men to check if I’m hallucinating or not?
Maybe I’m still drunk from last night. And hey, Shane’s not the only guy in town with long hair, right?
Right.
Still, as I reassure a nervous girl with a twitch in her eye that nobody can make her use the elliptical machine if she doesn’t really want, I can’t help looking up from time to time, checking for the guy.
“Nobody can force you to use it,” I explain again, and the words catch in my throat and bounce around inside my head like echoes from last night. No idea what her issue with the machine is, but does it mat
ter? “Nobody can force you to do anything. I promise.”
The girl sits down to fill out the registration form, and I really need some caffeine to tone down the pounding in my head. Going out on Sunday night, before work? Not my brightest of ideas—and instead of taking my mind off things, like I thought it would, it only made the chaos in my mind worse.
There’s a coffee machine next to the women’s changing room, and making sure nobody is in desperate need of my help right now, I head that way, taking out my cell to check for any messages.
Two missed calls from a number I don’t know. Pressing redial, I fish some coins from my jeans pocket and put them into the machine, then press the button for a cappuccino. Coffee machine cappuccino is as far from a cappuccino as the earth from the sun, but hey.
Caffeine is caffeine. I’d shoot it up my arm if I could.
“Hello?” a woman says after a few rings, and I frown, because it’s a familiar one.
“This is Cassie. Cassie Reyes. You called me?”
“Hi, Cassie. This is Dakota, Zane’s girlfriend. Got your number from Ev.”
“Um.” The coffee is pouring into the plastic cup, and I watch without really seeing, not sure what to say next. “Hi.”
Nervous laughter is bubbling up my throat, and I struggle to keep it down. Is this—her wanting to talk to me—good or bad? I have no clue, and it’s twisting up my already upset stomach.
“I don’t know if you heard,” she says, “but Zane and I are getting hitched this week. It’ll be a small ceremony and a party with family and friends.”
“I heard. I wish you all the best.” I really mean it. “You two look cute together.”
She laughs, a resonating, sweet sound. “Thank you!”
“It’s the truth.” My non-cappuccino is ready, so I extract the plastic cup from the holder and straighten. “So…”
“So I would like to invite you to our wedding,” she says breathlessly. “This Saturday. It’s a bit out of town, but not too far. We’d love to have you.”
I open my mouth, close it. “You’re inviting me. To your wedding.” I’m hearing things. I really must be drunk still.
“Yes, I am.”
“Why would you?” The words are out of my mouth before I know it, and now it’s too late to take them back. Damn, where’s that “undo” button in real life?
Her laughter is quieter this time, a little embarrassed. “Because you apologized to J and Amber, said you were sorry. And because Ev and Shane vouched for you.”
Maybe it’s the phrasing that makes me want to kick something. Vouched for me like I’m a criminal out on probation.
But I’m starting to get it, starting to realize just how bad I screwed up with Jesse and Amber, today more than ever, and… and I can’t help the warm feeling in my chest when I think Shane said good things about me.
Aw shucks. Does that mean he likes me after all?
“Cassie?” Dakota clears her throat. “Does this mean you don’t want to come, or…?”
“I do,” I say, before my courage deserts me. “I do want to come. Shane is going, right?”
“Yes, he is. At least he said he was. I think.” She pauses. “You really like that boy, don’t you?”
I swallow hard. “I do.”
“He seems to like you, too. Why don’t you ask him yourself if he’s coming?”
“I don’t even have his phone number.” And what does that say about our so-called friendship, after all this time? “As for him liking me… not so sure, you know? Anyway… Thank you for the invitation.”
Someone taps me on the shoulder, and I turn around, the cell pressed to my ear, my coffee sloshing in the plastic cup.
“If you wanted my number,” Shane says, head cocked to the side as he looks down at me from his six-foot-two height, dark hair draped over one muscular shoulder, “you could just ask.”
Chapter Five
Shane
She’s staring at me like I’ve grown a second head. Did I hear her wrong? Didn’t she say she wanted my number?
I replay her words in my head and wince.
No, she said she didn’t have my number, and that she didn’t know if… she likes me? Oh, hell. I’m already backpedaling, sure now I’ve put my fucking foot in my mouth.
“Shane.” She puts her cell phone away in her pocket and steps toward me, blue eyes wide. “So it was you.”
No idea what the fuck she’s talking about. I adjust my duffel bag on my shoulder, wincing as the strap digs into the bruises from my fall, and rub a hand over my mouth.
“This is my gym,” I finally say.
She nods. “Yeah. Seth said something like that. Well, I work here now.” She takes another step toward me—then another girl bumps into her from behind, and the cup she’s holding drops, splashing all over the floor.
Next thing I know, she’s toppling over, too, eyes wide, and I make a grab for her. I catch her and twist my body to cushion her fall. We go down, and my back slams down as she lands on top of me.
The air is knocked out of my lungs, leaving me stunned. Then the pain hits, blacking my vision out for a long moment.
Bruises, meet the floor. Floor, meet my bruises.
Ah fuck.
“Shane?” Cassie scrambles off me, a good thing all things considered. Freaking out on top of everything would suck ass. “Oh God. You all right? Crap, your back! I didn’t—”
“’M okay.” I grunt, trying to remember how to breathe and speak at the same time. “You?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine, because you took the brunt of the fall, and I’m not saying I’m not grateful, because oh boy I am, but your back.” She bites her lip, fists her hands, and I have a sudden urge to laugh.
Or kiss her.
Not good. In fact I should get off the floor before a flashback hits me. That wouldn’t be funny at all.
Yeah, time to get up. Putting my elbows down, I give an experimental push, trying to sit up, and a groan rumbles up my chest at the blades of fire digging into my back.
Shit.
“Let me call someone to help,” she’s saying, twisting her hands together, her gaze shifting from my face to my chest, as if she can’t decide if she’s allowed to touch me.
Maybe she really can’t. God knows I’ve scared her lately with my bad mood.
“It’s okay.” My back’s bruised, but this level of pain is manageable. I sit up, wait for my muscles to stop spasming and realize with a start how close our faces are. Her eyes are blue like a summer day, her lips made for kissing, soft strands of pale gold hair framing her face.
What would happen if I gave in? If I tried?
And if it all goes to hell and I scare her away for good?
“Let me, then,” she says and holds out her hands to me. “Let me help you.”
But I don’t think she can.
***
“So you come here often, then?” she asks as I hobble toward the exit of the gym. “To exercise?”
“Yeah.”
“Alone?”
“Sometimes I train with Rafe and the guys.”
She nods, turning and walking backward to face me. “Then I guess I’ll be seeing you around.”
Yeah. I hope I won’t drop any weights on my feet from staring at her. Fuck.
“Why did you come in today? You didn’t stay long enough to do anything. Except save me from hitting the floor.”
“Just came to pick some stuff up from my locker.”
“Run out of clean clothes at home?” She winks at me, and I take a long moment to bring my derailed thoughts back on track.
“Actually, it’s the opposite.”
“You… left dirty clothes here?”
My turn to nod.
“Makes perfect sense,” she says, and I fight not to laugh.
My lips twitch. “Need to wash them.”
“Right, right.” She skips a little as she walks backward to keep up with me. “Hey, are you going to Zane and Dakota’s wedding?”
I stop. “Yeah.”
“Me too.” She smiles, and fuck, it’s beautiful. She’s so fucking pretty it hurts. “Dakota just called to invite me. She says you vouched for me.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Why?” Her gaze is searching, and I don’t know how to hide from her. She’s so close. Always so close, closer than I’ve ever let anyone in years. “Why would you?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
She swallows, and her eyes grow brighter. “I just… thank you.”
I shrug, pleased she’s happy. At least I think she is. “Sure.” I put down my duffel to zip up my jacket before I head out.
“Hey… Want to go with me?”
I still, my hand on the zipper, and don’t answer immediately. I replay her words in my mind. Can’t get it wrong again.
“Go with you?” I mutter.
“I’ll understand perfectly if you don’t want,” she rushes to say, her hands fluttering. She tugs on her ponytail. “It’s, like, nobody needs a date to go to weddings nowadays, right? Ridiculous. I just thought it might be practical, you know, to travel there together in my car. Although of course you’re probably going with Seth, and Manon, so…”
I don’t hear everything after that. My mind’s stuck on one word.
Date.
I tilt my head at her, wait until she’s done talking and waving her hands. A smile is spreading on my face, and damn, I can’t remember the last time my heart beat so fast without any trace of a nightmare haunting me.
She trails off, staring.
“You want me to be your date at the wedding?” I tuck my hair behind my ear, feeling nervous myself. God, this is like high school.
She bites her lip, gives me an uncertain half smile, then nods emphatically. Her cheeks are reddening.
“Deal,” I say and get the hell out of the gym before she says anything else.
Before she changes her mind, and before I fucking change mine.
***
Writhing bodies. Pain zipping up my spine, slicing me like a knife. A dark current twisting around me, cold and hot, freezing and scorching. The men laugh and taunt me, their voices mingling in a dizzying din that scrapes the inside of my skull.
Let me go. Let me fucking go.
Nobody hears. Nobody comes. I’m dragged across the floor, thrown against a wall. I curl up in myself, but hard hands stop me, spread me, flip me over.
