All We Were (Ex-Factor Duet Book 1)

by Elisabeth Grace

  “Let’s roll. The car will meet us out back,” I say.

  She grabs her purse off the counter and brushes by me to exit the bathroom.

  I lead her by her hand to the back door, where we sneak into the waiting car and drive off without incident.

  At least one thing goes as planned tonight.

  Chapter Six

  Lilah

  I wake up alone in Jimmy’s bed once again. I look under the covers and see that I’m still in my underwear, but I’m wearing one of his T-shirts.

  Regret drowns me as it usually does the morning after. Questions assault me about what I did, who I offended, and how pissed Jimmy is now.

  I stagger to the toilet, fall down on the seat, and lay my pounding head in my hands. After relieving myself, I slowly open my eyes in the mirror.

  Christ. I look like I belong on a street corner.

  I use Jimmy’s face wash to remove all the smeared makeup and use his comb to brush out my long hair. There sits the toothbrush, my toothbrush, that he leaves out for me after nights like last night. When I feel almost human again, I figure it’s time to leave the bedroom in search of a glass of water and to face the music for my behavior last night.

  I head straight to an empty kitchen. Opening the fridge, I find a supply of expensive glass bottles of water. Since when did he get so high and elite to not drink out of the tap? A bottle’s resting on my lips when I spot him out on the patio that overlooks the ocean. His back is to me and he’s on the phone, so I finish my drink while studying him to see how bad last night was.

  When he bought this place on the beach, I told him how funny it was that he’d swapped a mountainside for an ocean. Our lives here are worlds away from back home.

  He finishes up his phone call and rests his hands on the glass guards, gazing out over the rolling waves falling to shore.

  Sometimes I forget he’s not the poor boy with knobby knees and jeans hanging to mid-calf who sneaked into my bedroom at night. His muscles are defined now. He’s shirtless, wearing only a pair of low-slung athletic shorts. Jimmy was always good-looking, even when he was the poor boy living on the side of a mountain a thousand miles away from here. But now he’s set to become one of Hollywood’s bona fide heartthrobs, and as happy as I am for him, I have mixed feelings about it.

  Jimmy’s a dreamer. Always has been. Although I’m not, I can’t deny his dreams became reality. He’s worked hard to fulfill all the dreams we used to talk about. I’m not sure he ever doubted them, but Jimmy never shows me weakness. Sometimes I wish he would.

  And here he is, on the pinnacle of getting everything he’s always wanted. Only one thing stands to ruin it for him, and as hard as it is to admit, that’s me.

  He turns and sees me through the glass that runs the length of the open floor plan. Our eyes lock, and we stare at one another. His disappointment and my apology. The cycle of our relationship—or at least the last few years of it, since I got into modeling and was introduced to coke.

  I’m drained, physically and emotionally, and I don’t have one ounce of energy left to expend rehashing our fight. If only Jimmy could pretend it didn’t happen, as I’m apt to do with most things, but Jimmy doesn’t roll that way.

  After a minute, he steps toward the sliding doors and comes inside. I used to know what he was thinking from just looking at him, but now, since the drugs, it’s harder.

  “Hey,” I say when he joins me in the kitchen.

  “How are you feeling?” He reaches in the fridge and grabs his own fancy water bottle. He unscrews the top and downs a quarter of it in one gulp.

  I shrug. “Been better. Been worse.”

  He nods and presses his lips together. “I got a call from Elaine when she couldn’t reach you this morning. I guess you missed your call time on set.” There’s no judgment in his tone, just the disappointed eyes.

  Panic hits me swift and sure, spreading out from my gut as if someone punched me. “Shit!” I scramble to set down the bottle and race to the bedroom to change.

  “Hey.” He grips my forearm, and I still. “It’s too late. The client fired you.”

  My arms drop and his do too. “Seriously?”

  “I guess this isn’t the first time they’ve had a problem with you.”

  Again with the monotone voice, but I know he’s judging me. Telling me what a loser I am that I’m missing opportunities to fulfill our dreams. Why doesn’t he just put a “look at me” sign above his head? He’s not a fucking angel either.

  “Go have a shower and clean yourself up. I want to take you somewhere.”

  I shake my head. “I want to go home.”

  “You’re not going to go get fucking high. Get dressed.”

  He knows me way too well. I stand in front of him, hands on my hips. “I’m not going to. I just want to go home.”

  “I’ll take you there after a stop. Go get dressed.” He drinks more of his water, leaning back on the counter, eyebrows raised as he waits for me to do what he’s asking.

  “I am not wearing that dress from last night anywhere. I’ll look like I belong on the corner of Hollywood and Vine.”

  The corner of his mouth tips up. His reaction gives me hope that I haven’t fucked up too badly this time.

  “I’m pretty sure you have some clothes in the dresser in my guest room. Maria always washes clothes you leave here.”

  Maria. I do love her. Too bad she’s not here today. I could use one of her miraculous hangover concoction drinks.

  “Where are we going?”

  He grips my shoulder and turns me to face the hallway. “Go. You’ll find out soon enough.”

  I do as he says, knowing Jimmy’s not going to tell me no matter how much I try to get it out of him.

  An hour later, I’ve showered, downed another bottle of water, and eaten a grapefruit at Jimmy’s insistence that I have to get something in my stomach before we go. How very responsible of him.

  Halfway into our trip, I figure out he’s taking me to the pier. Roughly an hour later, we’re in Santa Monica. My heart strums gently, because it’s one of the first places we visited when we arrived in LA from rural Virginia.

  Jimmy’s silent on the ride down. I try to make some small talk, but he doesn’t seem into having a conversation, so I lean my head back on the headrest and take a quick nap. Guilt still drowns me, so I’m happy Jimmy doesn’t lecture me the whole ride down.

  The first time we came here, we flung open the doors of his Chevy truck and barreled down the pier. Today, Jimmy won’t get out until his ball cap and aviator glasses disguise him.

  “Here.” He hands me my own cap.

  I’m nowhere near as well-known as Jimmy is, but if I happen to catch someone’s eye, it’s possible they’ll look for Jimmy, since we’re always in the tabloids together, and that’s trouble. Being surrounded by hundreds of fan girls trying to grab a scrap of Jimmy is borderline dangerous. Once we had to have the cops called so that we could leave a store.

  “How do I look?” he says and looks at me and grins.

  “I’d never pick you out of a crowd.” I smile back, finding the calmness of Jimmy and me enjoying a day together.

  He waggles his eyebrows and opens the door. It’s my first glimpse of the guy I adore since I saw him this morning.

  I join him outside. After he sets the alarm on his car and pockets his keys, he takes my hand and entwines his fingers with mine. The feel of his palm against mine calms the ever-present anxiety in my chest, and I breathe a little easier.

  We weave through the parking lot, and we don’t need to speak because we know where we’re going. Our footsteps lead us to the other side of the pier. We stop and remove our sandals to walk barefoot in the sand. The warm sand wiggles between my toes, and the breeze blows my freshly washed hair as it wafts from the ocean. We walk away from the crowd near the pier until we find a more secluded spot.

  The both of us sit on the sand and face the ocean, watching in amazement as the waves fall to shore. Me
mories of our first time and many since play out in my mind. How spectacular the ocean felt the first time we came here.

  Jimmy stretches out his legs and holds himself up with his arms behind his back. “Do you remember how we used to talk about this all the time?” His voice sounds wistful, almost as if those days we were barely surviving were the good ol’ days.

  “I do.”

  My stomach hollow and gnawing from hunger. My heart pounding every time I heard the muffler of my dad’s truck. My eyes unable to close at night because the minute they did, I was awoken.

  I spot a small stick in the sand, probably left behind by someone’s dog. I dig it up and trace lines in the sand in front of me.

  “Did you ever think we’d really make it here? It felt like a desperate dream from a pair of kids who didn’t know any better, but somehow we made it.” Jimmy’s eyes never stray from the beautiful ocean, the sun beaming down on our necks.

  I’m quiet for a minute, dragging my stick absentmindedly through the sand. “We both know if it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be here.”

  I leave out the fact that maybe he should have left me behind. The words don’t have to be spoken for me to feel the weight of them bearing down on us.

  Jimmy takes my hand and squeezes it while he looks at the waves. “You know I’d do anything for you.”

  I squeeze his hand back as tears burn my eyes. “You’ve proven that more times than you should have to.”

  He drops my hand and turns in the sand to face me. “Lilah, I’m worried about you.”

  I drop the stick and shift to face him. “You don’t need to worry about me anymore. We’re free of that place. Look around.” I gesture to our surroundings. “We’re in paradise now. Like you said, our dreams came true.” I fail to mention they were Jimmy’s dreams. Sometimes I think I just came along for the ride.

  “True, but sometimes I think you’re still living in the past. You’re still that scared little girl—”

  “Stop.” I raise my hand. “You know I can’t talk about him.”

  “Maybe that’s part of the problem. You haven’t faced the demons. I know I wasn’t there, that what you endured—”

  “Christ.” I stand, wiping the sand off my ass, and head toward the road. There has to be a bus stop around here somewhere.

  Jimmy’s on my heels. “Stop.” He touches my arm to stop me.

  A couple of girls’ eyes stay on him as they walk by. I can’t be the reason he gets recognized.

  I lower my voice. “You make it sound like I’m on death’s doorstep. Give me a break. I’m young and I’m having fun. It’s not a big deal.”

  The girls are farther down, but one keeps looking back.

  “You were fired this morning. You finally have everything you wanted and you’re throwing it all away.” Cue his judgmental tone. He’s trying to disguise it, but I’m not stupid.

  He doesn’t understand why I can’t be like him. Forget where we came from or what we experienced for the majority of our lives. The itch surfaces again. The need to remove myself from this situation beats on me like a drum, but I owe Jimmy so much, and I force myself to sit back down next to him.

  “I’ll totally stop, okay?”

  He leans into me and cups my cheek, brushing his thumb lightly across my skin. “Maybe you should talk to someone?”

  That’s not going to happen. I’d rather stay clean than tell someone what my father did to me.

  He never holds out his pinkie, because we’re on the same page. We’ve had this conversation before. He tells me to slow down. I say I’ll stop. Deep down we both know it won’t happen. If we pinkie swear, that would put our friendship to the test.

  I nod, staring into his brown eyes. I desperately want to quit the drugs, but even I know I won’t. Once the anxiety inside me returns, I’ll find the lure of nothingness too hard to resist.

  He presses his lips to mine in a chaste kiss. I close my eyes and enjoy the sensation, wrapping my arms around his neck. When his tongue glides across the seam of my lips, I open for him and I’m met with his familiar taste. He moans when our tongues meet, and we languidly kiss while the sun warms our skin and the ocean air blows around us.

  This should be enough to bring me happiness. There’s no threat of my dad coming for me. Jimmy’s right; if I got my act together, I’d have a growing modeling career. Which makes the fact that all I can think of right now is where to score my next bag of coke sick and fucked up.

  We spend the rest of the day strolling the pier, going on a few rides, and playing some of the stupid games rigged so that you can’t win until you’ve dropped a few Benjamins. As night falls, we notice a few people giving us double-takes, their focus lingering a little too long. We’re out of time. If we don’t leave now, we risk being recognized, then we’ll have a mob—or worse, the paparazzi—surrounding us and we’ll never be able to leave.

  “I had fun today, thank you,” I say as Jimmy leads his car onto the onramp of the freeway.

  “You’re welcome. I thought we could both use the reminder of how far we’ve come.” He glances at me and smiles. He’s happy. I love seeing Jimmy happy.

  It’s no wonder he’s a movie star. Even if he wasn’t ridiculously beautiful, charisma oozes out of his pores. If James Crawford is in a room, it’s difficult, if not near impossible, not to be drawn to him.

  I return his smile and lean my head against the window.

  Sometime later, I wake up in Jimmy’s arms as he carries me into his house.

  “I fell asleep?” I yawn, shaking off the lingering tiredness from the night before.

  “Yeah. You’re always so peaceful when you’re sleeping.”

  That amazing true smile of his warms me, and I wish I could be who he wants me to be. “You can put me down now. I can walk.”

  “Let me?” He asks so nicely there’s no way I can argue.

  I relax my head into his chest while he brings us inside and deposits me on his couch.

  “Are you hungry?” The way he’s looking at me, I can tell that he has things other than food on his mind.

  I shake my head, smiling, and bite my bottom lip to test my theory. His nostrils flare and his Adam’s apple bobs. Thought so. Even so, I’ve been humiliated the last few times I initiated anything with him, so he’ll have to be the one to bridge the gap between us this time.

  “Are you hungry?” I tilt my head, giving him the same look I do the camera when a photographer asks for sexy with a side of innocence.

  Jimmy drops to his knees in front of the couch and threads a hand through my hair. “Yeah, I am.”

  My stomach flips.

  “I just want you. The same thing I’ve wanted since we were kids.”

  He kisses me softly, but as always, it’s like someone fired the starting shot at the races and we’re free to release all the wild emotions that run through us. His tongue thrusts into my mouth as if he’s doing with his tongue what he wishes he were doing with his cock. I wrap my arms around him and dig my fingernails into his soft cotton T-shirt.

  Why can’t this make me forget? Jimmy’s love and adoration for me shows as his hands explore my body as if he’s feeling my curves and contours for the first time. My nipples peak, wanting and needing more, when his thumbs brush over them. I trail my hands down his chest and press against the large bulge of his erection. He pivots his hips forward silently and groans into my mouth.

  This is where we are one. We’ve always been able to come together when we’re so starved for affection from the other, we can barely see straight. For the past few years, we’ve been fighting more than we’ve been happy, so I’m thankful I’ll remember this come morning.

  He pulls away and looks at me.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, afraid he’s going to reject me for the third time this week.

  Without warning, he bends at the waist and tips his shoulder down. Before I know it, I’m hanging upside down over his shoulder.

  “Jimmy!” I laugh and squirm
on his shoulder as the hardwood floor passes by my field of vision through my hair.

  “Complaints?” He smacks me lightly on the ass. My panties grow damp with the sensation of his hand coming down on me.

  When we reach his room, he drops me in the middle of the bed and wastes no time crawling over me. Through a series of heated kisses and tangled limbs, our clothes come free, stranded wherever we fling them. He sprinkles kisses on my forehead, my nose, and my mouth as he’s suspended over me, hands on either side of my head. Jimmy’s arm muscles are taut with the effort and his six-pack begs to be licked. We’re not touching, but like an addiction, his body calls to me.

  “We still good for bareback?” he asks.

  The wariness in his eyes almost has me saying no. Does he not trust me to tell him?

  Neither of us has ever been with anyone else without using protection. It’s something special we only share with one another. I may play fast and loose with my body and my life in general, but that’s one way I would never betray Jimmy.

  “Of course. Just had my Depo shot,” I say with a smile and pull him down to me, wrapping my legs around his waist.

  His smile before he kisses me is a mixture of relief and pride. Still, he needs that affirmation from me and that hurts. His hard length presses between us as our tongues meet. Unable to stand the wait any longer, I position him between my legs. He takes the hint and settles himself so that he’s lined up with my entrance.

  He says my name softly, and I lock gazes with him. Only then does he push inside me, and the rush of Jimmy claiming me propels like a rocket through my body. He brushes the hair off my face, and the intensity between us builds until I smash my lips to his.

  He thrusts in and out of me, and I tighten my legs around his waist as he grinds against me in a circular motion once he’s fully inside me. My heart hammers and my breathing shallows when he rolls us over, positioning me on top. I splay my hands on his chest and ride him while he plays with my nipples.

  “I love watching you above me,” he says. “You’re so beautiful.”