I was too tired to deal with her.
Too exhausted to attempt to figure out the mess I’d created for both of us. We were in that weird stage when you slept together, broke up, and still had the same friends, making it impossible to ignore each other.
“I’ve done nothing to earn this level of”—I waved my hands in the air—“crazy, even from you.”
Austin’s pretty head jerked to attention. “You insulted me. Embarrassed me. Humiliated me. Kissed another woman, and then dumped me. After cheating on me!” She yelled “cheating” so loud, I was sure people could hear her from space.
I refused to feel guilty. It was for the best. That’s the lie I told myself, and it was the lie I was going to stick with. “What the hell do you want, Austin?”
“Revenge.” She grinned. “But I thought it would only be fair if I warned you first . . . Gives you more of a fighting chance.” She rose up on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around my neck. “And I’m always fair.”
I kept my arms pinned at my side even though all I wanted to do was press my mouth to that sweet spot on her neck and wrap my arms around her waist.
She’d been an addiction.
One that nearly destroyed us both.
One that threw me off the path I’d sworn to stay on for years.
“Revenge, hmm?” I whispered, almost grazing her soft lips and trying to act calm when my brain was going a million miles a minute. “Sounds dirty, and if I remember correctly—you’re all vanilla.”
Her eyes widened with hurt.
“Plain,” I repeated, hating myself even more. “Young.” She jerked back. “Inexperienced.” She backed away as if I were firing actual shots at her. I pursued her, pinning her against the wall. That’s it, keep her angry. It’s the only way. “Immature . . . and without any sort of direction. Try your damnedest to get your revenge, Austin. Hell, what else would I expect from a girl who’s only twenty-two? Because that’s what you are, Austin, a girl.” I deserved to be slapped. “And here I thought I made myself so clear. I want a woman.”
Tears filled her eyes. “What happened to us?”
I refused to answer that loaded question. What happened to us, indeed? Every time I wanted something out of my reach, I had a sinking feeling I was going to get burned. And this time, I was right. But I wasn’t just burned, I was wrecked, completely destroyed. I just never expected the fire to be so hot—or the ramifications to be so life-altering. “Have fun with your little revenge plan, just leave my car alone next time.”
“I’ll try, but you know I love the soft leather seats.”
The memory of us kissing in my car slammed into me, her hungry lips as she pressed her body against mine, my obsessive need as I tasted her skin, stripping her clothes as fast as my hands would let me. It was always that way with her. The leather seats were nothing compared to the way she felt beneath my fingertips, and then she’d pressed her ass against the horn by accident, causing us to erupt in laughter just as someone shouted at us to get a room. I’d never experienced the type of relationship that held laughter, sex, and friendship—until Austin.
“We had fun,” I finally said in a detached voice.
“Tell me why we broke up, and I won’t do it,” she answered, crossing her arms.
She only thinks she wants to know.
It was on the tip of my tongue to say something.
To end her misery.
To make her smile at me again—not with the empty one reserved for banquets and ribbon cuttings, but the smile she used to give me when it was just us. God I hated the hurt in her eyes more than I hated the emptiness.
“The ‘why’ won’t make you feel better,” I said as the silence between us stretched for miles, making me feel older than my thirty-two years. Did she see the slight twitch of my hand? The intense need my body had to touch her? Did she know that my heart, stupid messed-up thing that it was, still beat for her?
No.
And she never would.
“Fine, your funeral.” She was back to being saucy and dangerously close to making me want to kiss her again.
I barked out a laugh. “Yeah, okay.” Austin wouldn’t hurt a fly, though a small part of me was slightly worried about just how drunk Lucas had gotten. It wasn’t like I had a lot of secrets. Another part of my brain alerted me that yes, she had in fact slit my tires, but she’d been pissed; this was different.
It’s not like Lucas got drunk and confessed anything worthwhile, right?
My hand twitched at my side.
She knew about the biking and the frogs.
Did that mean he told her about my . . . phobias?
No. Impossible.
With a sigh, she dug into her purse and tossed me a key. “Locker number six, bottom floor.”
“Bottom floor?”
“Your clothes.” She gave me another empty smile. “They might be wrinkled, though, and before I forget—” She launched herself at me, fusing her mouth to mine. “Congratulations on the award.”
I was too stunned to do anything but lick my lips like a masochistic bastard—and let out a moan at how good she still tasted—better than I remembered.
Like candy.
If she hated me? Wanted revenge? Then why the hell would she kiss me?
I only had to wonder for a few seconds.
Until I opened the door to head down to the bottom floor for my clothes and felt my mouth start to itch and my throat tighten.
Chapter Three
AUSTIN
I covered my face with my hands and peeked through the space between my fingers as I looked at a picture of Thatch scratching his face. “Avery, you said it was a minor allergy!”
We were sitting on a park bench in downtown Seattle, enjoying the best clam chowder I’d ever had while birds flew over us, begging for scraps.
I didn’t share food.
So I was really ready to wage war against those things if need be.
I clutched my soup closer and elbowed her. “Avery?”
“Hmm?” She was busy texting Lucas, probably explaining that she was going to be late for dinner because she almost killed his best friend.
That sucked. She got a fancy dinner date, and I was scarfing down soup and trying to keep animals from taking my sloppy seconds.
She stared at her screen with a dopey grin on her face.
I grabbed her phone and sat on it. “You aren’t even listening!”
“Sure I am, minor allergy, all true.” The problem with best friends? I could be sitting on her phone or peeing in front of her and it still wouldn’t faze her. She’d just fish the phone away from my naked ass and use that same hand to grab a Pringles.
“Avery!” Oh no, his skin was going into full rash mode, and angry red bumps started appearing around his mouth. If I were a horrible human being, I’d admit it looked like herpes. Instead, I said, “It looks like his face was lit on fire.”
“It probably was—that pesky soy allergy’s a bitch.”
I threw up my hands. “I don’t want to kill him!”