Nate takes me out of his arms at the bottom and guides me back to my seat. “You okay, babe?”
“Yeah, I just…” I sip my soda and will my mind to stop spinning. “This is my last slam before I leave for school. I’m going to miss it.”
Nate pulls me to his shoulder. “There’s no way you won’t be able to find a slam in East Bay. There’s got to be dozens of them.”
“I know, but these guys are my family.”
Gloria takes my hand and squeezes it. “Won’t be the same without you here, girlfriend.”
The last poet reads and the lights come up. There’s a line of people waiting to hug me or say goodbye, but I can’t help watching the door for Caiden. Nate is impatient and finally tugs me toward the door by my arm. I wave at the rest of the group as he pulls me outside.
“I was fucking roasting in there,” he says, towing me down the street to where he parked.
I look around, but I don’t see Caiden or his car. And I’m glad. It hacked a chunk out of my heart, seeing him standing in that room.
Nate drives me home, and when we get to my bedroom door, he takes my hand and pulls me through.
Caiden looked me right in the eye and walked away tonight. But Nate is here. Nate has always been here.
He kisses me as he backs me toward the bed. We strip without a word and he rolls a condom on. He turns off the light and I lay back on the bed. I close my eyes as he lays on top of me. He spreads my knees with his and something clamps hard in my stomach. I turn my head to the side so the pools in my eyes leak onto the pillow as he guides himself inside me.
“Just like coming home, babe,” he moans.
He fucks me slowly and kisses my wet face.
“Shh, baby,” he whispers when I whimper.
He comes with a groan a few minutes later and rolls off me.
I lay my head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat. I try to shut off my mind, but Caiden’s face is there, his blue eyes storming into mine. He’s got his own gravitational pull, and I’m his moon. I felt it the whole evening at Tino’s—an itchy restless feeling I couldn’t define—and when I saw him, I understood. My soul knew he was there the whole time. It was reaching for his. If I let myself slingshot alone through space, I will find my way back to him.
He made his choice. He walked away tonight. He doesn’t think I’m worth the risk.
So I wrap my arms around Nate and cling tightly to the only other planet that has any draw over me at all to keep the universe in balance.
Chapter 22
Caiden
If I get caught here, Hans and Franz are going to be very happy. Because three years is a long time to have to fight them off when I get my ass thrown back in jail for violating the restraining order.
I slip into Tino’s after the slam starts because I know it will be dark. I grab a stool in the back and order a double scotch, which I pound in a shot before ordering a second.
I recognize most of the people at the table up front with Blaire. Three of them are regular poets here. But the stalky brown-haired guy is new. He might have a few years on Blaire, but there’s no way he’s older than twenty. He’s about her height, so maybe five nine, but he’s built like a linebacker.
I watch them together: she, fidgeting with her hands in her lap, watching the stage and occasionally sipping her soda; he, always leaning toward her, always with a possessive hand on her leg, her back, in her hair. Whispering in her ear.
I want to know what he’s saying to her.
That Craig guy begins her intro and she stands and starts toward the stage, but the boyfriend yanks her back by the arm. I’m off the stool before I realize it, hating the way he’s manhandling her. But I rein myself back as he crushes her against him, laying his claim for everyone to see. They kiss, long and hard, and everything inside me seizes.
There is something seriously wrong with me. Maybe I really am the child molester everyone thinks I am, because I can’t stop obsessing over her. It’s been two months. Jail, probation, restraining orders—you’d think something would have been enough of a deterrent to cure me of my addiction. But no. I’ve been out of prison for three days, and here I am, already breaking my parole.
But Blaire is insidious, weaving herself into my DNA with unbreakable bonds. I put a tub of chocolate ice cream in my cart at the market yesterday and caught myself smiling. Some random girl in whatever mindless show I was watching last night twirled the ends of her hair around her finger and something warmed in my chest.
But she’s moved on.
She’s onstage, but suddenly being in this room with her is ripping out my soul. I toss back my third scotch and stand. I move to the door, but when I get there, I can’t help myself from glancing back—one last image of the girl who blew my mind to burn into my memory.
And her gaze levels me.
She steals my breath and freezes me in place with those sad whiskey eyes.