by Abbi Glines
Linc had called later that evening to ask if I wanted to see a movie. The idea of getting to be close to someone again and feeling connected had sounded wonderful, so I had of course told him yes. Both Linc and Krit had been around me enough to know if there was evil in me. They would have seen it by now and been disgusted by it. Both of them seemed to genuinely like me.
A knock on the door brought me out of my thoughts, and I looked up from my computer screen, where I had intended to write some of my book. The door opened, and Krit stuck his head in. His eyes scanned the room until they found me, and then he smiled. The smile that always made me feel like warm honey was running through me.
“You really should lock this door,” he said as he stepped inside.
“Why? To keep out the riffraff?” I asked teasingly, then cocked an eyebrow at him.
He shrugged. “Well, you left it unlocked and look what happened.”
I nodded and gave him a serious frown. “I can see what you mean. Maybe I should get an extra bolt,” I replied.
Krit grabbed his heart. “Ouch,” he said, then fell back into the chair, facing me. “That was deep, love. Fucking sharp.”
I rolled my eyes and leaned back in my chair. “You’ll survive. I’m positive of it.”
Krit propped up both of his feet on the coffee table in front of him and studied me for a moment. “Come tonight and listen to the band. We’re at Live Bay again because of a scheduling change this week. You can sit with Trisha. You didn’t get to hear much the other night.”
This was where us being friends was going to be difficult. Telling him I had a date with Linc to see a movie shouldn’t be a big deal. But for some reason it was hard to say so out loud. I didn’t want him to think Linc was more important, though I had a feeling Linc wasn’t asking me out again because he wanted just to be my friend.
“You have plans already, don’t you?” he said before I could come up with something to say that wasn’t awkward.
“Linc asked me to go to the movies with him tonight,” I admitted. I had no reason to feel bad about this. No reason at all . . . but I did. Dang it.
Krit let out a sigh. “Fine. He asked first. It’s all good. But Thursday night I’ll be playing at Live Bay, and I want you to come.”
Okay. We could do this. He was making it easy, and I was making it harder than it had to be. “Deal,” I agreed.
Krit nodded, but he didn’t seem happy. “You eating on this date?” he asked.
Linc hadn’t said anything about dinner. He’d just invited me to a movie. I shook my head.
Krit pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Good. I’m starving. What time is he going to be here?”
“Six,” I replied.
“That leaves us with two hours,” he said, and a smile had replaced his frown. “Thai or Italian? Or do you want to get those fajitas from that Mexican place again?”
He was ordering us takeout. I didn’t want to feel that squishy feeling in my chest that made me feel tingly. At least not where Krit was concerned. But oddly enough, he was the only person who managed to trigger that feeling.
“Not that hard of a question, love,” he said, reminding me that I needed to answer him.
I had bad memories of Thai food. “The fajitas sound good.”
“That’s my girl,” he said as he dialed the number to the Mexican place. I knew he didn’t mean anything by it, but I had never been referred to as belonging to someone before. The simple my girl meant more to me than he realized. In fact, if he knew how deep that struck with me, he would run off again—and this time he’d possibly never come back.
I studied my screen like I was actually thinking about what to write next, but I listened to Krit order food. He acted like he belonged there in my place. Maybe that was supposed to freak me out, but it didn’t. It did the exact opposite.
When he hung up, I had gathered enough courage so I could turn to him and blurt it out before I realized how stupid I sounded.
“Can I take a picture of us on my phone? I don’t have a picture of us . . . and I’d like one.”
Krit glanced around the room, as if noticing for the first time that I didn’t have a picture of me with anyone, and then his eyes came back to me. “Only if you text it to me so I’ll have it too.”
Smiling in relief at him not laughing at me or running off again, I stood up and walked over to him. Before I could figure out how to take the photo exactly, Krit grabbed my hand and tugged me down onto his lap. “I’ll take it and send it to you,” he said, then pressed a kiss to my cheek and snapped a photo with his phone. Laughing, I pulled away to tell him I wanted one where I could see his face, but he grabbed my head and pressed my face to his cheek like I was kissing him and took another photo.
When he let go of my head, I saw the wicked gleam in his eyes and laughed harder. “Look at the camera, love,” he said before sticking his tongue out and licking the side of my face.
Shoving him off me and wiping my face with the palm of my hand, I couldn’t even pretend to be grossed out. It was the first up-close view I had had of his tongue piercing, and I was a little more than fascinated.
“Most women beg me to lick them, and I give it to you for free and you push me away,” he said with a fake pout on his face.
“You’re crazy.” I giggled.
“I’m the good kind of crazy, though.”
I wasn’t going to argue with him about that. He was definitely the good kind of a lot of things.
“There, I sent you all three of them. And I’m posting one on Jackdown’s Instagram because I’m so fucking photogenic.”
I wouldn’t disagree with that. “Hmmm” was the best I could do in response. Telling him he was anything less than beautiful was a lie. I needed to get up and off of him. I started to move, when his hand clamped down on my leg. “Hey. I didn’t say you could get up yet,” he said as he messed with his phone. One hand stayed on me as if that was all it took to keep me here.
When he was finished posting the picture, he looked up at me. “What’s your Instagram?”
“I don’t have one.”
His pierced eyebrow shot up. “Everyone has Instagram. Why the hell don’t you? Face like yours needs to be shared daily.”
How was it that he could say the sweetest things one minute and the dirtiest things the next? I shrugged and hoped I wasn’t blushing. “Don’t really do social media. Never have.”
Krit didn’t push me to say more, although I could see he wanted to. It was like he knew my boundaries and didn’t cross them. One day, if I was ready to talk about my past, he was the only person I could imagine talking about it to. But not right now. I wasn’t there yet.
“Want to see a picture of me with long hair?” he asked, changing the topic and moving his attention back to his phone. The amused look on his face when he found it made me want to take a picture of him. I loved how expressive he was.
“Look at this,” he said, tugging me closer so he could show me his phone instead of handing it to me. I tried not to think about being all cuddled up to him, and I focused on the picture.
His hair was the same color, but it brushed his shoulders. He looked like a surfer gone alternative. His face was younger too. “How long ago was this?”
“About three years, I guess. I hated it long, but the girls liked it,” he explained as if that was the answer for everything. The girls would like him without hair. Surely he knew that.
“I like it better now,” I told him, and moved back again. Being so close to him that his breath tickled my skin was too much.
A knock sounded on the door, and Krit pinched the inside of my thigh. “Food’s here,” he said before taking me by the waist and standing me up.
“Already?”
Krit shot me a crooked grin and shrugged. “The owner’s daughter and I know each other.”
Not surprising. I wouldn’t be requesting Mexican again. No! Wait. That was not the correct response. I shouldn’t have cared about what females Krit
knew. He and I were friends. I wasn’t going to ruin our friendship for him or me.
“I’ll go get the plates,” I told him.
“You got sweet tea?” he called out after me.
I stopped and thought about lying to him. Telling him I ran out of stuff to make it. But I didn’t want to lie, and there was also a chance he might see the tea bags if he went through my cabinets.
“No, I don’t have any made,” I replied, then hurried into the kitchen.
KRIT
If she had just said no then I wouldn’t have noticed. But she’d stopped and frozen up on me for a minute. That was what gave her away. And I felt like a piece of shit. I was a piece of shit. Damn it. She loved sweet tea, and she’d been so proud of herself for making it right. And I had screwed that up for her by being an ass.
Well, she was gonna make some more sweet tea, damn it. I was gonna stand right there with her while she did it. If I had to stand over her daily, she was gonna keep sweet tea in her fridge because she liked it. I didn’t want her associating it with a bad memory. Not when teaching her how to make it was one of my favorite memories.
I placed the food on the table and headed into the kitchen. She was getting two plates, and the frown on her face told me she was worrying over the sweet tea thing. I didn’t deserve her time. I wasn’t good enough to get her sweet smiles, but she gave them to me anyway.
“Where’re the teabags at, love?” I asked, walking over to stand behind her.
She tensed up.
I placed my hands on her shoulders and gently squeezed. “I was an asshole. You scare me, and I didn’t know how to handle it at first, but I’m good now. I won’t run off on you again. I don’t think I can even if I want to. The idea makes me fucking sick to my stomach.” I stopped because I had opened my mouth and was saying all kinds of shit I had no business saying. Regrouping, I finished. “We’re gonna make some sweet tea. And every time I come over here, you better have your sweet tea in the fridge. Not for me, but because you like it. I want you to have the things that make you happy.”
She relaxed under my hands and then she nodded. “It was silly. I should have kept making it,” she said, then turned to slay me with the most sincere, honest, fucking precious smile on the face of the Earth.
There was a tight painful feeling in my chest that was completely unfamiliar, but it hurt like a motherfucker and breathing was difficult.
“I’ll get the tea bags and sugar. You boil the water,” she told me, completely unaware something was happening in my body that was freaking me the hell out.
I managed to nod and move over to the stove. Fumbling, I filled the pot with water. No reason for the clamp on my chest to be there. What was wrong? She had smiled at me. That was it. Sweetest smile I’d ever seen, but still, it was just a smile.
“The other night, that was my first date. Not just with Linc, but my first date ever. I’m not good with guys. I don’t understand them, and sometimes I do things that I shouldn’t and react ways that are ridiculous, and I don’t realize it. So, if I do something dumb or say the wrong thing, just tell me. I promise, I’ll get better.”
I couldn’t turn around and look at her just yet. I knew I needed to because that was the most she had shared with me about her past, but fuck, how could I look at her while I processed this? Fury, confusion, bafflement, and pure icy cold jealousy swamped me at one time.
Her first date? How in the hell was that possible? She was almost twenty years old. Did they keep her locked away in an attic?
I tried hard not to let the fact Linc had been her first at something eat me alive. I wasn’t going to date her. I didn’t date, for starters. I tried that once, and I sucked at it. But I didn’t like sharing her either. She was mine. No, she wasn’t. She was my friend. Boundaries. I needed some boundaries in my head. Blythe was my friend. She made me happy. She was not mine. She never would be because I didn’t want someone to be mine.
“You’re not moving.” Blythe’s voice sounded worried. I was worrying her.
I let out a breath and relaxed my face into what I hoped was a casual expression. Glancing back over my shoulder, I gave her a reassuring smile. “From what I’ve seen, you’re pretty damn near perfect. Don’t apologize. Anything that happened with us before is because I’m fucked up. Not you, love. Never you.”
I turned back to the pot of water and lit the gas on the stove top. I couldn’t stand there and watch the water boil, so once I was finished, I turned back around to face her. She was wringing her hands and watching me.
Reaching over, I grabbed one of her hands to make her stop. “I meant what I said. When I act like an ass, it’s because I’m all kinds of fucked up. You are perfect, Blythe. I swear. Stop worrying, and let’s go fix our plates. Those fajitas smell incredible.”
The tension in her shoulders eased. “Okay,” she replied, and started to walk toward the table. The she stopped and glanced back at me. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re fucked up. I think you’re perfect too.”
So not what I needed to hear her say. She was going to kill me slowly, and I was going to let her because I wasn’t going to be able to stay away from her.
It was time I faced the facts.
I was addicted to Blythe Denton. More addicted than I’d been to anything in my life.
Chapter Ten
BLYTHE
Linc didn’t show up at work on Monday, but he did text me several times. He had to go to Mississippi for his dad for the next few days. He didn’t give me details, and I didn’t ask for any. Something about his text seemed like he was trying to avoid an explanation. Two dates and some doughnuts didn’t make me his girlfriend. I had no reason to expect an explanation.
Krit, however, did show up for dinner that evening with cheeseburgers and fries. We ate at the table like we always did, and he asked about my job and made me laugh with stories about his bandmates. I was always sad when it was time for him to leave, but I didn’t let him know.
* * *
Tuesday at eleven fifteen I pulled up to the Pickle Shack. I was incredibly nervous about eating with Krit’s sister. I had spoken to her for maybe ten minutes at Live Bay. If she started asking questions about Krit and me, I could answer truthfully, but I was afraid my pink cheeks would tell her something else.
The hope that she could be a friend and maybe my first real female friend outweighed all my other fears. I wanted to do this. I just needed to prepare myself for questions about my friendship with Krit.
Walking into the restaurant, I immediately spotted Trisha. Her blond hair and gorgeous face were hard to miss. She waved at me, and I explained to the hostess that I was meeting a friend before walking over there.
“You came,” she said, smiling brightly at me as if she thought I wouldn’t have shown up. I found it hard to believe people ever turned her down. Male or female.
“Yeah, sorry, I’m a bit late. Traffic getting out of the parking lot after class was backed up.”
She shrugged as if it was no big deal. “No worries. I just got here myself. I had to take some cupcakes to Daisy’s class. It’s her birthday today. Daisy’s my daughter,” she explained.
Trisha didn’t look older than twenty-four at the most. I couldn’t imagine how she had a child in school already.
Her smile grew, and she leaned on the table toward me. “I know what you’re thinking. Daisy is actually my youngest child,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “Brent is ten and Jimmy is thirteen. My Daisy May turned nine today.” She paused as I let the fact she had a thirteen-year-old sink in.
“Rock and I adopted them two years ago,” she said with a happy sigh. “You met Preston Drake at Live Bay the other night. The beautiful guy with the surfer hair. Remember him?”
I nodded. That had been the guy with his arm around Amanda. He was hard to miss.
“Jimmy, Brent, and Daisy are all his younger siblings. His mother was . . . She wasn’t mentally healthy. She had some addictions, and the only reason they
lasted with her as long as they did was because Preston sacrificed everything to take care of them. When his mother passed away, he was going to take them all in, but Rock and I had been trying to get pregnant, and the doctor had just recently told us it was impossible. I wanted those kids,” she said as tears welled up in her eyes. “Daisy May hadn’t even been able to talk plain back then. She had been neglected by her mother, and she clung to any attention she got from females. Now, don’t get me wrong, in her eyes Preston Drake walks on water. She loves Rock and even calls him Daddy, but he knows that Preston is her number one.” Trisha wiped at her eyes and laughed then shook her head. “Sorry. I get emotional sometimes talking about it. Especially when I realize how blessed I am to have them.”
I watched as the beautiful woman talked about these kids who had needed a mother, and I was amazed at how much she loved them. They weren’t her kids, but she loved them as if they were. I hadn’t known that was possible. I often told myself that Mrs. Williams hated me because I wasn’t hers. Because she hadn’t given birth to me. But seeing Trisha tear up talking about these kids who she obviously adored made my heart squeeze but also made me feel empty inside.
“Wow,” I managed to say. I knew I needed to say something. She had just told me a lot in the ten minutes I’d been sitting here. “That’s a really great story. Those kids are very lucky to have someone like you and your husband in their lives. Many kids don’t get that.” I stopped talking when I realized how much I was about to give away.
“Can I get y’all something to drink?” a waitress asked, interrupting my slipup. I had never been so thankful to be asked what I wanted to drink in my life. I knew that whatever I told Trisha was going to get back to Krit. As much as I wanted a female friendship, we didn’t have that yet. I wasn’t ready to trust her with my story.
“Diet Coke,” Trisha told her. “And some pickles, please. Extra ranch.”
“Sweet tea,” I replied.
The waitress turned and left, and Trisha looked back at me. “The fried pickles are amazing. You’ll love them. Anyway, enough about me. Tell me about you. All I know is you moved here for school, and my brother has taken a keen interest in you. Which never happens by the way, so you have me completely fascinated.”
