“I know.” The words come out steady and strong because they are. “I’m not asking for promises. And I know how honest you are. Maybe in the beginning that’s what it was about, but I can see the change.”
In that moment, I could swear he’s stripped bare. That he’s proud. I want him to be that. Want him to be proud of who he is because he deserves it.
“Full of so many surprises.” His finger skates down the side of my face.
“It’s true… I owe you that. I owe you more truths than that one.”
“One at a time. That’s all we can do is take it one at a time.”
We’re quiet most of the way back to the hotel. During the short drive, I wonder what’s on his mind as guilt hammers down on me. Things have gone too far. It’s been too long for me to have any kind of real excuse for not telling him. The thought of hurting him makes an ache build inside me. One so strong and fast-moving that I feel like it’s breaking me apart. The words are there and I need to get them out and hope, hope there is some way to make him understand. Some way that this won’t hurt him.
We take the last corner on the way to our hotel. “Adrian. I—”
He’s not looking at me when he says, “Oh shit!”
From there everything happens so quickly it’s hard to follow. Adrian jerks the car into a nearby parking spot, jumps out while it’s still running. The door hits another car and he leaves it open. And runs. I look up ahead of us and see cop cars, an ambulance, someone on a stretcher, and people all over the sidewalk. My heart drops.
Turning the key, I jerk it out of the ignition and run. Run to find Adrian.
Chapter Nineteen
~Adrian~
I can hardly breathe as I push my way through the people. My breath doesn’t matter, though. I don’t know what happened or who’s hurt, but it’s not important. All I see is Ashton. I feel him. Red clouds my vision as I try to work my way through the crowd. I see the ambulance that came to our house. The people who tried to take him from me.
Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead.
I remember Colt and walking up to the house to find him on the ground. Knowing I was too late. That he would die like Ash. Ashton. Oh fuck, pain pierces my chest again. I’m shaking and people are crowding me and I can’t get through.
“Watch where you’re going!” someone says, but it doesn’t stop me. I have to save them. Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.
Please Ashton don’t die.
My vision blurs. My chest aches and my legs beg me to fucking stop. What can I do? Who the fuck am I? If I couldn’t save a helpless little boy who only wanted to be like me, who wanted me to protect him, what the hell do I think I’m going to do here?
I push through the front of the crowd and I see him. I see that little boy with the big eyes as they look up at me. He’s bloody and hurting, the light gone from those eyes that looked at me like I was something. Like I was somebody.
“Ash!”
The image morphs and it’s not Ashton anymore. It’s someone I don’t know, lying on a stretcher.
“Adrian?”
The sound of Delaney’s voice brings me back to the past. Ashton and blood and a broken little boy. Why couldn’t you save me? I rub my eyes. I’m fucking cracking up and I know it. Ashton hadn’t said anything, but I know it was there. I thought it as I held his bloody little body, memorizing the injuries as though that could make them mine instead of his. “I’m sorry.”
I’m so fucking sorry. When will it ever end? Do I deserve it to end? Why did I have to screw up so bad? He was perfect and innocent and I still see his blood on my hands. Fuck, I want to be clean of it, but I deserve to wear it. Deserve to see it every day because he’s in the ground and he would have loved me. He did love me and I killed him.
“It’s okay. You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”
She touches me and I shake it off. “He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead.”
Even to my own ears I sound insane. Maybe I am. Maybe I’ve always been. But he’s fucking dead because I should have been protecting him.
“He’s okay. Look. He’s talking to EMTs.”
Ash is gone again. The guy is probably my age. He’s on the stretcher just like I thought, but he is sitting up and he is talking. There’s a car and a bike and I know he must have been hit, but there’s no blood. No empty brown eyes, locked on me.
I’m fucking losing it. I hate that she sees me like this. Hate that I’m like this.
“Come on, Adrian. Let’s go. Come inside with me.”
“Adrian! Where’s Ashton? What happened to Ash?” Angel’s voice slams into my head now.
“Adrian?” Delaney.
“Adrian?” Angel.
I push my way through the crowd. I need to get the fuck out of here. Delaney’s on my heels, but I can’t make myself stop. Up the stairs, down the hall, unlock the room. It’s all on autopilot. She storms in right behind me as I’m grabbing my bag and shoving stuff inside.
“What are you doing?” she asks, out of breath. Christ, I’m being an asshole to her. She doesn’t deserve this.
“Leaving.”
“Why? Stay. Talk to me.”
Honesty finds its way out of my mouth. “Leaving is what I do. My feet itch to run and my hands itch to write and my mind is going and going and I can’t fucking shut it down.” Stopping, I turn to look at her, which is a huge mistake. It makes me want to stay. “Sometimes I feel like I’m taking so much in and I can’t stop it. It overloads my fucking head and I can’t forget. I just want to fucking forget.”
“If you go, let me go with you.” She steps closer. “If you need to write, I’ll be your paper. I have no idea what I’m doing here. I don’t know if this is the right thing, but whatever you need, if you need to try to forget, let me help you.”
What I want is to take a really big bong hit and get the hell out of here.
She takes off her jacket. Her scarf. And somehow the voices in my head are quieting. I don’t want the weed. Don’t want anything but her. “I have no idea what I’m doing,” she says again before pulling her shirt over her head. My little ghost drops her arms, and it slowly falls from her hand.
Her breasts heave up and down with her breathing. She’s biting her lip and I know she’s nervous and I know I’m a bastard for wanting to take her up on this.
“You’re too good for that, for me to use you.”
“Then don’t…” Her voice is so low, so soft, but it’s all I hear. “Don’t use me. Just make me feel good, Adrian. Let me try to make you feel good too.”
“You do.” And it’s probably the realest truth I’ve given her. She does. She makes me feel good. There is suddenly nothing that could make me leave this room. My jacket comes off, tossed to the chair.
“Come here,” but I don’t wait for her. I pull her to me. Her breasts press against my chest and her breath smells like apple cider and I let the scent comfort me the way she said it does her.
“I want you bare to me, my little ghost. I don’t know all your secrets and you know none of mine, but I don’t want to wear masks with you right now. I want to see all of you. Show me those ghosts in your eyes and I’ll try to kiss them away. Let me bare my scars to you and feel your lips on them.” Because fuck if I don’t need to tear down this façade. I know she sees how broken I am, but to admit it is different. To acknowledge the masks are there—regardless if she knows what they are or not—and to feel her try to comfort me. To give her that in return is a burning need inside me. An ache that can only be cured with her because no matter what, she doesn’t push me and that means something.
“I want that, Adrian. I would do anything to take your pain away.”
And I believe her. My hands travel over the landscape of her back. I let them slide down until they’re under her ass, and then I lift her. Easily she comes to me, trusts me, wrapping her legs around my waist. Her shoes dig into my thighs and I welcome it. Feel her jeans as they stretch across her ass and wish it was her naked skin under my hands.
My mouth trails down to her neck and she arches for me, giving me free rein to explore her. “Such a gift,” I tell her as I lick the soft skin there. Taste her, learn her, until she invades all of my senses. She’s what I hear, see, taste, and smell. I want all of it.
As if she’s just as hungry for me, her mouth finds mine. Her arms are so tight around my neck as though she’s afraid I’m going to let her go.
“I won’t let you go,” I say, though we both know eventually I will.
She shows me her eyes and I see the knowledge there. See her pain and excitement and everything I could want her to show me.
I turn and lay her on the bed. Push my stupid fucking bag to the floor because it’s not like I’m going anywhere tonight.
I slide the straps of her bra down. My fingers drift behind her back to the hooks. When it’s gone, I drink my fill with my eyes. Kiss each peak with my mouth. When I pull gently with my teeth, she cries out.
“Adrian… oh God…”
I can’t stop there, so I kiss my way down her torso. Unbutton her jeans, take off her shoes, her pants, before I start at her ankles and work my way back up with my mouth. Each place I kiss her, touch her, I pretend it wipes away one of her ghosts. Cures one of her aches and relieves some of her pain.
Her legs hang over the side of the bed as I kneel on the floor between them. She’s so beautiful. So fucking beautiful that when I look at her, it’s hard to remember there’s any bad in the world. “Tell me what you want. Tell me what you need.”
She doesn’t answer. Only cries out as I push a finger inside her.
“You… just you…”
“I’m here.” I move up her body, lean over her to take her mouth as I kiss her again. Pump my fingers and revel in the little gasps of pleasure she makes. When her body begins to stiffen under me, she says, “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” over and over. I kiss her again, deeper, until her words are lost and she’s coming apart beneath me.
I can’t help but smile. “You are so sexy.”
She doesn’t smile back. She’s still completely open to me like I ask and so serious when she says, “Let me kiss your scars, Adrian. Show them to me.”
There’s never been anyone I’ve wanted to show more. “Yes.”
I take my shirt off, kick out of my pants, and then lay on the bed, as bare as she is. Her eyes skate over my body, exploring me with all that innocence and curiosity in her that makes me smile.
“Don’t be scared,” I tell her, hoping to wipe away her fear.
When she straddles me, her warm, wet heat against me, it’s searing. A wildfire raging inside me. She kisses my stomach.
“I lied to you. When I said I wasn’t close with my sister. She was my best friend. The only person I used to have in my corner.”
I know her mouth can’t really take away these scars, but it feels so good to show them. To bare them in a way I’ve never done.
Her mouth moves up to my chest, kisses the right side.
“My father used to beat the shit out of us. Mom… Angel… and me. We all just fucking took it, but then Angel left and she came back for me.”
Her mouth stops moving, “Adrian—”
“No, baby. Don’t. Not right now.” If she talks, I won’t be able to and she deserves to know the things I can handle telling her.
Her mouth comes down again. This time on the little fist tattooed over my heart, the one that holds my heart in its tiny hand.
“There was only one responsibility I ever had. Only one person I should have taken care of… and I let him die.”