I follow Aspen’s lead, pulling my legs up to my chest. My chin rests on my knees while I stare at Maverick who clears his throat, his eyes looking over at me now. The look he gives me is intense. I wish I knew what the meaning behind it was, but it probably wouldn’t help things.
“I think a party sounds great,” I tell Aspen, breaking away from Maverick’s intense gaze.
Aspen looks over at me with a sly grin on his face. “Really?”
“Let’s do it,” I decide.
24
Maverick
I hate that I can’t get the image of my best friend in Veronica’s bed out of my head.
It’s been hours—a party now in full swing at our house—but I’m sitting in the basement in a corner where I can somehow still be alone, thinking of the way Veronica and Aspen had been cozy in her bed.
The logical part of me knows there’s absolutely nothing going on between them. But there’s another part of me that feels nothing but jealousy when I think back to the sight.
I’d originally gone downstairs to tell Veronica that Selma and I were over. The guilt from keeping that information a secret was just eating away at me.
I had zero expectations on how Veronica might react to the news. I didn’t want to tell her because I thought something would happen between the two of us. I wanted to tell her just so it would be out in the open. And so she heard it from me.
But instead, I found her and Aspen in deep conversation. Both of them underneath her blanket, their bodies only a few inches apart.
I didn’t know if I was more jealous of Aspen being in her bed or that she may have been telling things to him that she hadn’t told me.
My heart didn’t want her to tell secrets to anybody but me. I wanted to keep all her secrets like they were my own. I wanted to lock them deep inside my heart, to relish in the fact that she trusted them with me and no one else.
I hadn’t thought of how I might feel if her secrets were being told to another.
I’m still trying to work though my feelings when Veronica’s body appears and sits down next to mine.
“Aspen sure knows how to throw a party.” She looks around the crowded space while I look at her.
Her blue eyes are lined in black, making them even more striking. She has her long blonde hair perfectly curled. Currently, it falls down her back, reaching all the way down her spine. She’s wearing some kind of shirt that’s basically see-through, something I haven’t been able to miss as I’ve watched her drift around the party all night.
When she first walked out of her room in that outfit earlier, I was thankful there weren’t many people around to see my reaction. Or my lack thereof, rather, because the sight of her had pinned me to my spot. I’d been listening to Aspen rattle on about all the people he invited when her door opened.
She stepped out in a pair of black jeans that molded to every inch of those lean legs of hers. The sight of her made my stomach clench. It literally hurt to look at her because I was starting to come to terms with how much I wanted her.
The top of her was wrapped in some kind of mesh fabric that barely attempted to cover the skin underneath. Anybody who looked at her could see right through it, all her skin exposed except for the small amount hidden beneath her black bra.
She finished it off with a pair of pink combat boots. Veronica stomped around in that little bit of color in an otherwise all-black outfit. It was so like her.
A contradiction.
A contradiction I’m slowly becoming obsessed with.
Now, a pair of hot pink fingernails snaps in front of my face. “Earth to Maverick.” Veronica draws her hand back to her side, but she leans closer to me, trying to catch my attention.
“Sorry,” I respond, looking around at the party before looking back at her.
“Yeah, well, if one more person attempts to go into my room to hook up, I might cut them.” She stares across the basement at her bedroom door.
The party’s been going for hours now, and we’ve reached the point of the night where people have started to pair off, searching for an empty space to continue to get to know each other.
I can’t help but smirk when I envision a very pissed off Veronica chasing down a couple who were just trying to get it in.
She bumps me with her shoulder. “So, where’s Selma tonight?” Her voice is thoughtful, and when I look in her eyes there’s something there that makes my throat feel odd.
I want to tell her that Selma and I are done—over. But I don’t want to do it in front of a bunch of horny twenty-somethings. It feels like something that should be admitted in private. Even though Selma and I are no longer together, I’m not sure my heart is ready to jump into something new, especially with Veronica.
Because if my heart goes all in with her, and it doesn’t get reciprocated, I’m not sure I’d ever be able to recover from it.
I’m not sure I’m ready for her to hold something I now realize I’ve never actually given away. I don’t have it in me to watch her take those pink combat boots to my heart and stomp all over it.
Because even though I wish it wasn’t true, a small part of me knows if I allow myself to fall for her, there’s a large chance she won’t give a damn.
So, I keep those words in my head, responding another way to her. “She went back home to see her parents.” It’s not a lie—Selma should be back home with her parents by now, or at least close to it. It’s just not the full truth.
“Spin the bottle time!” Aspen cheers from across the basement while moving our coffee table from in front of the couch.
“Is he serious?” Veronica asks, her shoulder lightly brushing against mine.
We’re sitting on the other side of the basement, both of us perched on barstools placed against the wall. This was my private corner for most of the night—my place to wallow in my own thoughts—before Veronica had joined me.
“He’s probably serious,” I respond.
Her eyes are focused on Aspen as he hustles all the stragglers in the basement to join him in the juvenile game. People are humoring him, though, because they all start to sit in a circle in the open space in front of our couches.
Veronica watches him for an extended amount of time until she finally looks at me. We stay like that for a few moments as the party bustles around us. Aspen continues to pester people to play the game, but I barely hear him because I’m too busy peering into Veronica’s sad blue eyes.
I wish she would lower her walls a little more—let me into that beautiful mind of hers to see what she thinks when she looks at me like this—but she doesn’t.
And neither do I.
I try to hide the way my heart has picked up in my chest. The way I feel in this hollow pit in my stomach when I look at her and stop myself from touching her. I hide the fact that the way she rubs her lips together when she’s deep in thought—something she’s doing right now—makes blood pump all the way down to my dick.
I hide all of it.
I’m staring at her lips when she speaks. “Oh, fuck it,” she says, her gaze flicking to my lips—the lips she painted so vividly like she’d spent her life studying them—before she slides off the barstool and walks over to join Aspen’s circle.
I don’t register what she’s doing until she sits down next to Tristan, giving him a smile that makes me jealous all over again.
Is she really about to play spin the bottle?
She confirms my suspicions when she folds those legs underneath her, her knee bumping against his.
I’m busy staring at their contact when Aspen steps next to me. I think back to the other night, when I finally told my best friend what was going on. After Selma had been gone for a few days, he finally asked me if something happened.
I broke down and told him everything.
I wish I could say he was shocked to hear that Selma and I hadn’t ever really been in love, but he wasn’t. It appears that Selma and I were the only two people who’d ever fallen for the charade to begin w
ith.
And maybe Veronica.
Even Lily has called me out on it all.
“I know you love her, man,” Aspen had told me during the conversation, his hand running over his buzzed hair. He’d been a few beers in but was somehow still philosophical. “There’s no denying it, but I think you need to rethink your definition of being in love. Love isn’t about loving someone so much you let nothing break them, it’s about loving them even though something has already broken them. That’s what you need. That’s what Selma needs, too.” He said those words and then walked to his room, as if he hadn’t sent my head spinning.
I thought love was about protecting someone, so they didn’t ever have to break at all. But I’m continuously learning that I apparently know very little about love.
I do know one thing, however.
Veronica.
The girl who’s now perched next to another man, about to play a game where I could very well watch her make-out with another guy.
Will I be okay with it?
Probably not.
She hasn’t left my head. No matter how many times I’ve tried—and continue to try—to force her out.
I just got out of a relationship that took up years of my life—one I would’ve stayed in for the rest of it. I shouldn’t be thinking of a woman I have to rip truths out of.
Yet, in every spare moment, her haunted gaze finds a way to fill my brain.
The way she’d been vulnerable enough to cry in front of me, to completely fall apart.
How she shared her story with me.
The way she painted herself.
How she painted me, in such vivid detail it felt like I was looking in a mirror.
And I’ll be damned if I couldn’t forget the way her body felt against mine. The way her lips were no more than an inch away from my own, how the only thing that went through my head was the need to kiss her.
I felt the need to kiss her until she forgot how much she hated herself.
But our lips never touched.
They haven’t touched because I don’t think either one of us are ready for that.
Before I kiss her, I need to know I run rampant through her mind like she runs through mine. I need to know if, when she goes to bed at night, she’s wondering about me.
I need to tell her I no longer have a girlfriend, but it feels so cheap to announce that to her. To make it seem like Selma was just some barrier between the two of us, and now that she’s gone, we should be something.
I don’t even know what I want at this point—the breakup with Selma too fresh.
But I do know I’m too hyperaware of the space Veronica and I share. Even though we have classes together, I’ve barely said three words to her recently. We may live in the same house, but she’s also been avoiding me like the plague.
Aside from barely having any interactions together lately, I’m still too aware of her.
Her scent lingers in the kitchen after she’s been in it.
My mind wanders with thoughts that make my blood rush south when the basement shower runs for thirty minutes straight.
As we sat through the most recent and boring lectures from our professor, she doodled on her notepad, and all I wanted to do was snatch it away from her again and see what she was creating.
I wished it was me.
I hoped she couldn’t get me out of her head either and that it reflected in her art.
But there’s no way for me to know that or not, because she hasn’t allowed me close enough to her to find out.
The few words we’ve exchanged tonight are already more than all the ones we’ve exchanged since the night she confessed everything to me.
I’d told myself I’d give her the space that she needed—especially after she divulged so much of her fucked up past to me—but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t sucked staying true to my own promise.
When I had watched her hand roam wildly over the piece of paper during class, it made me think of the painting that was stashed under my bed.
The painting that, every night, I pull out and gaze at, as if it might tell me one of her secrets.
But no matter how long I’ve studied it, I haven’t been able to figure her out more.
A cough interrupts me now. And then, “How long are you going to stare at her before you go over there?”
I completely forgot that Aspen was next to me.
“Tristan isn’t all that bad,” he says. “Maybe he’ll be good for her.”
I turn my head to glare at Aspen, not missing the smug look on his face while he smirks at me. “Shut up,” I respond before I resume staring a hole into the back of Veronica’s head.
“She’s definitely fucked up,” Aspen says, “but aren’t we all? How could she not be after what she’s gone through?” He’s watching Veronica now, too.
It feels like someone has an iron fist around my heart when it registers there’s a possibility she also told Aspen about her past.
I’m too obsessed with her truths. It shouldn’t bother me if she’s telling them to Aspen too, but here I am, jealous at just the idea of it.
I’m wallowing as he continues with, “She’s a good person, though. I like her, even when she’s a brat. And I haven’t missed how you’re looking at her tonight. I’ve never seen you look at someone like this before, Mav. Just want to make you aware.” He stands next to me for a little bit longer before he plasters that panty-dropping smile on his face and walks over to the circle.
I’m about to retreat to my room for the night, my body now at the foot of the stairs. I’m so close to leaving. But when I look over my shoulder and find Tristan whispering something in Veronica’s ear, I change my mind.
I close the distance to the circle and sit in an empty space next to my sister. Lily’s too busy glaring at somebody opposite us to even notice me, which is fine because I’m also staring across the circle, undoubtedly wearing a matching glare on my own face.
25
Veronica
When I look up from my conversation with Tristan, I’m shocked to find Maverick sitting across the circle from me.
A circle for spin the bottle.
A circle for a game that involves kissing someone if the bottle lands on you.
A circle for a game that someone in a relationship shouldn’t be playing.
Even though he mentioned that Selma was out of town, I scan the circle to see if maybe she’s actually here and both of them are playing. Which, now that I think about it, might be a weird kink for the two of them.
Except I don’t see Selma anywhere.
It doesn’t make sense at all. Maverick’s never been anything but respectful, committed, loyal.
I leave Tristan mid-sentence. He’s explaining something about baseball and how to find the perfect glove when I vacate my spot. My legs take me the short amount of space around the circle before I crouch behind Maverick.
“What the hell are you doing?” I hiss, my lips close to Maverick’s ear so nobody can hear our conversation. I don’t know how Lily hasn’t already kicked her brother in the balls for playing this game when he’s dating her best friend.
Even though Lily seems distracted tonight, I know how protective she is over those she cares about. There’s no way she’d let Maverick play this game while in a relationship with Selma.
None of it makes sense.
“I’m sitting,” Maverick responds, angling his head toward me a bit. Even though it’s the smallest amount, it causes our lips to near.
“No shit, Sherlock. I mean what are you doing playing spin the bottle?” My calves start to burn from the crouching position, my hand finding the floor to help steady myself.
“Didn’t think you noticed. You were too deep in your conversation with Tristan.” Maverick looks at me from the corner of his eyes, his comment stunning me for a moment.
“That has nothing to do with this,” I say.
He laughs, the air from it brushing my cheek. The muscle on the side of his jaw tightens as
he grinds his teeth together. “Oh, if only you knew that it has everything to do with this.”
I try to make sense of his words before I remember to get back on topic. “What about Selma?”
Maverick turns his shoulders until he’s facing me. Our faces are only a few inches apart, the rest of the party disappearing as he looks at me with a serious gaze. “Selma and I broke up.”
The admission causes me to sit back on my knees. It’s the last thing I expected to hear from his mouth. It hits me everywhere in my body. It feels like a relief. “Wait, what the fuck?”
His ocean gaze flicks to my mouth before he meets my eyes again. “We broke up. I wanted to tell you, it just didn’t feel right. But we’re done. She and I will remain friends, as we always should have been.”
I can’t form words, my head is too busy spinning.
They were supposed to be this perfect couple. The perfect couple. They finished each other’s sentences, for fuck’s sake.
How could they break up?
And why am I happy about it?
Why does it feel like something has just been lifted off my chest to know someone else isn’t sharing his bed? Or more importantly, sharing his head.
He doesn’t say anything else.
It’s an odd feeling to know something that used to be unattainable is now within your reach.
Will I still want him now that I know he’s emotionally available?
I’m scared to find out the answer.
Somebody taps me on the shoulder, and I look over to find Lily leaning toward us.
“Hey, you two, I can feel the intensity of your conversation—like can really feel it—but the rest of us are trying to play a game.” Her hair cascades off her shoulder as she scolds us. There’s something written in her eyes that I can’t quite read, but just as soon as she looks at us, she’s back to glaring at someone across the circle.
My eyes follow in that same direction to find hers pinned on Aspen.
I feel the heat in my cheeks when I continue to look around the circle, realizing that the conversation between me and Maverick wasn’t as private as I thought. While I’m confident no one could hear what was being said, I do know some were watching it unfold.
The Consequence of Loving Me: An Enemies to Lovers Romance (Aftershock Series Book 1) Page 13
