Going Under (The Blackhawk Boys Book 3)

by Lexi Ryan

  I look up from the ticket I’m writing up to see Logan Lucas standing on the other side of the service write-up counter. “Logan. Is everything okay? Nothing happened to your car, did it?”

  He laughs. “No. I’m not here about my car.”

  “Oh. Did you need to talk to Sebastian?”

  He scratches the back of his neck. “I’m here to see if I could talk you into going out to dinner with me.”

  “Oh.” It’s been over a month since my date with Logan, and I really did intend to call him once I sorted out what I wanted. Then, almost four weeks ago, I was half naked in a pool with Sebastian, who made it very clear things between us couldn’t go anywhere. Instead of thinking of Logan, I’ve been burying myself in school and work and telling my love-sick heart to stop whining.

  Logan winces. “Oh? Is that sweet girl for ‘No, please get out of my life’?”

  “No!” I shake my head. “Not at all.”

  He shrugs. “I know I said I’d wait for you to call me, but patience has never been my best attribute.” He folds his arms on the counter and leans forward. “What do you say, Alexandra? Put a guy out of his misery?”

  Logan’s in a pressed, long-sleeved black oxford shirt and dress pants, and I’m in my work uniform—making me feel like the cheap beer to his expensive champagne. “I’m a mess. I can’t go out with you looking like this.”

  He leans across the counter and says, “I like you just as you are.”

  As he pulls back, a smile curls my lips without permission. I can’t help it. This guy says the sweetest things. Sebastian made it clear that nothing can happen between us, and I’ve had a month to attempt to forget about his mouth between my legs. It’s time for me to give Logan a real chance. “I can’t go tonight. What about Sunday? Or the next weekend?”

  Logan cuts his eyes away from me for a split second, and I follow his gaze and realize Sebastian’s watching us, standing in the corner with his arms folded. Determined to ignore him, I turn my attention back to Logan.

  “Sunday works,” he says. He lifts a small black bag to the counter. “I brought you a present. You don’t have to open it now, but I saw it and it made me think of you.”

  I grin. “Seriously?”

  “What can I say?” He points to his chest. “This guy’s got a crush. I’ll see you Sunday.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “That makes two of us.” He lifts my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles before releasing me and turning to leave.

  I watch him go—the broad shoulders, the slight swagger of a man who oozes confidence—and when he’s gone, I push past Sebastian and into the locker room to open my gift.

  The bag is stuffed with purple tissue paper, and I bite my lip as I remove it. My nerves click to life when I pull black, sheer fabric from the bag. It’s absolutely beautiful, but if this is lingerie—

  I drop the bag, and the sheer material slides through my fingertips. It’s a long scarf that’s embroidered with flowers.

  “Jesus Christ,” Sebastian says behind me. “Now he’s dressing you?”

  I swallow back a thousand possible responses—about how at least Logan thinks about me, about how I can’t wait around for a guy who doesn’t want me.

  Setting my jaw, I spin on my heel to face him. “You know what? Fuck you. Did you ever think I might want a guy who looks at me like a woman? Did you ever think maybe I don’t want to be just one of the guys? Maybe Logan thinks about me when I’m not in front of him, and maybe I like that. And if you don’t, that’s too bad.” I force my hands to relax where I’ve wrinkled fistfuls of the beautiful fabric. I wince as I study it. I’m not being fair. I told him I wanted one night, promised we could go back to friends after, and I’m breaking my promise. “Fuck you, Sebastian,” I mutter, even though it’s not fair. It’s always him, and I don’t know how to make my heart let go.

  “Alex.” The sound of my name startles me, and when I lift my head, he’s right there, inches from me. He places his palms against the lockers on either side of my head and leans forward. “Do you think this is easy for me? Do you think I like walking away when you offer yourself to me?” His gaze dips to my lips, and he studies me so intently that he might as well be touching me. My skin tingles, and everything inside me seems to dissolve. This is what Sebastian does to me. He turns me to liquid, weakens my defenses, and makes me melt from the inside out. And then he walks away.

  “I don’t know what to think about you anymore. I’m just trying to move on.”

  “Does it have to be with him?” His voice is low, rough, and he drops one hand from beside my head and cups my face. “A guy who tries to cover up your scars? You deserve better.”

  “Who do you think is better, Sebastian? Because let me tell you something about women: we want to be with someone who wants to be with us. I just want to be wanted.”

  The intensity in his gaze falters. He smells so damn good this close to me, and God help me, but I want to feel the rub of his beard against my neck again. I want to know if his lips could possibly feel as good as I remember. I have a date with a beautiful, kind, thoughtful man, and I’m standing here silently saying a shameful prayer for Sebastian to kiss me. To prove me wrong and insist that he wants me more than anyone else.

  Sebastian steps back, and his eyes drop to the sheer material that’s fallen from my hands and pooled at my feet. “He’d better not fucking hurt you.” He shakes his head before pushing out of the locker room. The door slams closed behind him, making the room shake, and I lean back against the lockers and slowly sink to the floor.

  * * *

  Sebastian

  I use my key to let myself into Mom and Dad’s, and walk to the den where Dad pays the bills.

  The good news? Dante said Dad’s been paying him again. He still insists I’m worried over nothing.

  The bad news? Dad bought Mom a Camaro. A fucking Camaro.

  I lost my mind today. I’d just found out about the car and it brought all my old worries to the surface, and seconds later I was faced with Logan Lucas arranging a date with Alex. It was too much at once, and after four weeks of being on my best behavior where Alex is concerned, I slipped again.

  “I just want to be wanted.”

  Those words twisted the knife that’s been in my gut since she got home, but I remembered the fucking Camaro Dad just bought Mom and I walked away.

  Mom’s dreamed of that car for as long as I can remember. The only reason he didn’t buy her one back in the dealing days was because he didn’t want her to be suspicious. He didn’t want Mom carrying the burden of the lines he’d crossed to take care of his family. That was “a man’s burden,” he said, for him and me alone. In retrospect, he was giving a boy a man’s burden, and even though I thought I could handle it, I wish he never had.

  I just need to know for sure that he isn’t back in that world, and need to see it for myself.

  The checkbook is on the desk, and I flip to the register, scanning the deposits and withdrawals. Everything looks normal, except that his deposits from the shop are more in the last two months than they were before. He gave himself a raise, and the cash-flow situation at the shop certainly supports that the raise is coming entirely from Crowe’s Automotive funds.

  Dad’s not stupid enough to deposit big chunks of cash, but if he bought the car with cash, it would have been a red flag.

  When I see it, I sit taller. He wrote a check for the Camaro—a deposit paid to a local dealer. When he was dealing, he bought everything he could with cash from people who weren’t going to leave a paper trail. He’d buy a car from a guy for five grand, pay cash, and the guy would write a receipt that said he’d paid a hundred. People do it all the time to avoid paying taxes on their vehicles, but Dad did it as an easy way to launder drug money.

  I flip through a stack of papers and stop when I find a folder from the dealership. Inside are details about the loan for the car and the payment plan. My shoulders sag with relief.

  “What ex
actly did you think you’d find in there?” Dad asks from the hall.

  My pulse races at the sound of his voice, and my face heats from the disappointment in his tone. “I was worried.” I put the papers back down and return everything to neat stacks. I should apologize. I’ve invaded his privacy and broken his trust. But I don’t feel fucking sorry.

  “Worried I broke our promise?” He steps into the den and flips on the overhead light. “Worried that I’d gotten greedy?”

  I close my eyes. “The time away from work. The trips out of town. You bought Mom a fucking Camaro.”

  “I’m not allowed to spend time with my wife? I’m not allowed to buy her nice things? I’ve worked hard my whole life.”

  I stand and wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans. “I needed to see for myself.” I know he’s waiting for my apology. I know I owe him one. But it’s stuck in my throat, tied down by bitterness for the man who used his fifteen-year-old son as his own personal drug mule.

  “Get out of here,” he whispers.

  I keep my eyes cast down as I leave, and with every step I feel the fissure in our relationship grow wider, a chasm I’m not sure either of us is capable of spanning.

  * * *

  Martina’s Journal

  Mom confronted me after school today. She sat me down at the kitchen table with a snack like a six-year-old and asked if I was depressed. “If you need to talk, I’m happy to listen.” She flashed that watery mom smile that told me she was way more worried than she would admit. “Or if you’re not up to talking to me, we could find someone outside the family, maybe.”

  I know “someone” is code for a shrink.

  I insisted that everything was fine and she doesn’t need to worry. She doesn’t want to know anyway. There are things that I won’t even write about here—because why relive the shittiest experiences? And because I’m scared some day she might read this, and I don’t need her to beat herself up.

  Are you reading this, Mom? Fucking stop. It’s not your business. There’s shit I don’t tell you BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, BITCH.

  Do I look depressed? Because I feel great. Mr. Bedroom Eyes bought me a diamond necklace. It has three-quarter-carat diamonds, each situated on a trio of golden petals.

  It’s so beautiful, and I spent the whole night in nothing but my sparkling gift and a pair of heels. I don’t need a shrink. I have him. Not that I can tell Mom that. Her sixteen-year-old daughter with an older man? The horror.

  You see, I think normal sixteen-year-olds are more like me than they are like Alex. They spend a lot of time with their friends, hiding out in their rooms, and avoiding their parents. Surely Mom should know this by now, but Alex gets my parents confused. She likes spending time with Mom and Dad. She likes making sure she’s home for dinner every night. She likes laughing at Dad’s corny jokes and watching Mom’s old VHS tapes of Murder, She Wrote. Alex is always setting unrealistic expectations that I cannot be expected to meet. She sets the bar for “perfect daughter” really high, and Mom forgets that I’m not like Alex.

  I wish I could be…

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Alexandra

  Sebastian and I stare at each other from the table in Mr. Patterson’s massive kitchen. “They’re not gonna show,” he says. “They didn’t even bother coming for the test yesterday.”

  We’ve procrastinated as long as possible on this group project, and it’s do-or-die time.

  We were supposed to meet with our group tonight to come up with questions to ask the curator we’re interviewing in New Hope. I thought meeting here would be a great idea. We could work around the big island in the kitchen, and I could feed the stoners to make them happy.

  Instead, our group members have ditched us, and Sebastian and I are back in the same house where things changed four weeks ago. It’s like everything that happened that night is hanging in the air between us.

  “So much for my dreams of playing hostess,” I mutter. “I even cooked.”

  “I’m sorry they stood us up,” Sebastian says, closing his notebook and grabbing another pastry-puff-wrapped hot dog from the tray. I think that’s his third. “The mummies are delicious.”

  “Don’t look at me like that,” I say, biting back a smile. “They’re festive. Halloween is just around the corner.”

  He waves his hot dog at me. “You really think Beavis and Butt-Head would have appreciated the theme?” He shakes his head. “Never mind. It’s food. You’d be their goddess.” He swallows the last bite and frowns up at the cabinets. “Is that a raccoon?”

  “The whole house is full of taxidermy,” I say. “If I thought Mr. Patterson wouldn’t care, I’d give it all away so I didn’t have to live with it. But he’s a little obsessed, so I’m pretty sure he’d notice.”

  “I can’t get over this house,” he says. “It’s insane. I didn’t even know there were people this rich in this city.”

  “Do you want to see the rest of it?”

  He cocks a brow. “Like, a tour?”

  “Sure. I’ll be your tour guide.” It’s gotta be better than sitting here thinking about what would have happened last month if Dante hadn’t shown up. I leave the kitchen and head into the foyer. Sebastian follows me up the stairs. “When I was little, I always wanted to live in a house with two sets of stairs. This place has three.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s so fucking huge, I guess.”

  He laughs. “No, why did you always want to live in a house with two sets of stairs?”

  I shrug. “Because it was cool. Then, when I was older, probably because I imagined sneaking boys up to my room on the back stairs.” All those fantasies were specifically about Sebastian, but I’m not going to tell him that.

  At the top of the stairs, I show him the two guest bedrooms, each with its own king-size bed, five-piece bathroom, and walk-in closet. Then I lead him to the end of the hall.

  “This is my favorite room,” I say, swinging open the double doors. The library has floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, vaulted ceilings, and a stone fireplace.

  “Goddamn,” Sebastian whispers. There’s a look of wonder on his face.

  “That’s where he drinks his favorite scotch.” I indicate the center of the room, where there are four leather armchairs around a circular coffee table. “And stairwell number two,” I say, pointing to the wrought iron railing off to the right.

  He arches a brow. “And this is where you’d sneak up your boyfriends.”

  “Why not?” I grin. “Can you even imagine growing up in a place like this?”

  “Honestly? No. I don’t even know what that would be like.” He turns a slow circle, his gaze pointed at the ceiling. “Not a fucking clue.”

  “Me neither.” I keep my tone light because his mood has gone dark. “Your kids will be able to tell us what it’s like.” When he frowns, I say, “Come on, you’re amazing, Bash. What are you guys now, five and one? That’s insane.”

  He grins, and their season has been so impressive, it should make him smile. “I’m not the only one on the team. We couldn’t have done it without Chris and Mason and, hell, everyone else. The team works together to make it happen.”

  “Sure, but what you do on the football field is like magic. You just go and push and churn your legs like there aren’t three giant dudes trying to pull you down at the same time. If you wanted to go pro, I bet you could.”

  “I…” He shakes his head. “Thank you. I put myself at the disadvantage by coming back here, so I’m not sure what’s going to happen.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “If you play D1 ball, there are rules about transfers. They don’t want people hopping around from school to school, so they require you to sit out a year. Now I’m in my junior year, but it’s my first season playing with this team.”

  “You’re already making such a big impression. The fans go crazy when you have the ball.” I grin. “I sit in the stands and want to tell everyone that you’re my friend. It’s like knowing a cel
ebrity.”

  He studies my face, and his chest rises as he draws in a deep breath. “I won’t pretend I don’t dream about it. We’ll see, I guess.”

  Suddenly, it’s all I can do not to throw my arms around his neck, rise onto my toes, and press my mouth to his. Sebastian is so modest when it comes to his game, and it’s almost as if he’s afraid that hoping too much will make his chance disappear. What is it like going through life afraid to hope? The idea makes my chest ache for him.

  “What about you?” he asks.

  “What about me?”

  The side of his mouth hitches up in a lopsided grin. “What do you dream about?”

  Your mouth on mine. Your voice in my ear. Your hand in mine. But I dream about more than Sebastian, don’t I? I lift my hands and turn up my palms. “I don’t know. I feel like everyone knows what they want to do with their life but me. My brothers think I should spend the rest of my days working on cars, but as much as I love to drool over a hot classic, I don’t want to be a mechanic forever. Does that make me a snob?”

  He shakes his head. “Not at all.” He releases a puff of air that’s more frustration than laugh. “I tell my dad all the time that loving cars isn’t the same as wanting to make a career with cars.”

  “Exactly, but that’s always the thing I’ve been good at, ya know? It was what made me special, so if that’s not what I want to do with my life, I’m not sure which way to turn.”

  “When you left to work for your aunt, I thought you were leaving Blackhawk Valley for good,” he says.

  “I guess that was the plan at first.”

  His eyes skim my face, like he’s trying to figure something out. “Why did you want to leave?”

  “It was just too much, you know? I saw her everywhere I looked. Every morning I woke up in the bedroom we’ve shared since we were kids. Every meal, I ate at a table where we grew up fighting over who’d gotten the bigger serving of ice cream. Everything reminded me of her, and everyone looked at me with so much pity in their eyes. It was just too much.” Some days I could barely breathe. “Leaving seemed like the right thing to do, and at first it was kind of a relief. Aside from my aunt, no one knew my story. No one looked at me and saw my dead sister. But it didn’t make the pain go away. I missed my family, and after two years I realized that I wasn’t moving on with my life at all. I was in homeostasis. Hibernating until I could heal up enough to come back home.”