It was his version of an apology, but I still wasn’t satisfied. I only shrugged.
“How long have you been supporting your sister?” His eyes skimmed down my body. Regret swallowed the sarcasm and edge in his voice. He wasn’t used to being nice to people. To being civilized, really. Though, he seemed to be trying.
I licked my lips, refusing to make eye contact. “Too long,” I admitted. “Is Jaime still with…?” I trailed off when I realized it was none of my business.
Vicious’s best friend had dated our Lit teacher, Ms. Greene, while we were seniors. Their affair blew up shortly before we graduated, making waves in Todos Santos, and a tsunami in our high school. Then he took off with her after the school year ended.
Vicious huffed, and even though my eyes were still closed, I knew he nodded yes. “They’re married. They have a baby girl, Daria. Took after her mom, thank fuck.”
That made me smile. “How is he doing?” I asked, knowing it was territory Vicious would feel comfortable with.
“Jaime has assumed the role of the responsible adult out of the four us. When Trent, Dean, and I get out of line, he talks some sense into our asses.”
His candor made me turn my head toward him. “You were always good together, the four of you.”
A dark smirk found his lips, and he shrugged tiredly. “Until you came along.”
It didn’t sound like a jab. He said it more matter-of-factly. I wanted to ask him so many questions—Why me? What was the fixation with me to begin with? Why did you care that I dated Dean? Vicious was a god among men to the girls of All Saints High. Good looking, rich, and a jock. I should never have been on his radar. Dean was more easygoing, playful. I could see why he’d wanted to date someone like me. But Vicious…he’d hated me.
I let out a sigh of relief when they announced our flight was boarding. We got on the plane before everyone else. We were scheduled to land in San Diego, a short half-hour drive from Todos Santos, and would arrive by early evening with the time change. But after explaining everything to Rosie and packing up the apartment, exhaustion found me, lulling me into the kind of sleepiness you can’t fight. And anyway, staying awake and dealing with Vicious wasn’t an option that I found particularly appealing. The minute I landed in my first-class seat, I nuzzled into the headrest and closed my eyes.
Shortly after we took off, I peeked over at him for a few seconds. His gaze was on his laptop. His eyes remained there, but I knew he sensed me watching him.
“Thank you for giving Rosie a place to stay,” I whispered.
His jaw ticked, but he didn’t lift his gaze from the legal document he was working on.
“Go to sleep, Help.”
And so I did.
THERE WERE TWO THINGS I never told anyone about myself.
Number one: I had insomnia. Ever since I was about thirteen.
When I was twenty-two, I saw a shrink to try and fix it. He said past events were responsible for the fact I couldn’t sleep to save my fucking life and suggested we meet two times a week. That lasted one month.
Since then, lack of sleep had become a part of my everyday existence. I’d run on zero sleep for a few nights in a row, then pass out for a day or two to make up for it. I’d even learned to control the cycle of frustration. When I left the office late at night, instead of tossing and turning in bed like a junkie craving his fix, I went straight to a twenty-four-hour gym and worked out. Then I’d go back to my empty apartment and read the latest thriller—whatever bestseller crap everyone was talking about—or an autobiography of a public figure I didn’t completely hate.
Sometimes I’d invite a woman over. Sometimes we’d fuck. Hell, sometimes we’d even talk. I wasn’t against talking to the women I shared a bed with. But I never went out of my way to get them there in the first place.
I had rules, and I didn’t break them.
No dinners. No dates. No visiting them at their place. Absolutely no fucking pillow talk.
Things were my way or the highway.
If they wanted me, they knew where to find me. In the morning, I’d get dressed and show up to work, freshly shaved and looking rested. I knew that the pass-out stage would eventually arrive, but I’d become better at sensing when. It didn’t make my life easier, but it made the sleepless nights bearable.
Number two: contrary to popular assumptions, I was capable of love.
Sentimental, banal shit? Yeah. But deep down, I knew the truth. I wasn’t a monster or a psychopath, or a fucked-up sociopath like my stepmother. I loved. I loved all the fucking time. I loved my friends and I loved the Raiders. I loved practicing law and shaking hands on lucrative deals. I loved traveling and working out and fucking.
Fuck, I loved fucking.
I glanced over at Help. It wasn’t easy to ignore her sleeping beside me. So close. Her face stirred the kind of chaos in me I once had tried to tame by doing shit like Defy. Her lips begged me to take them in more ways than one. Her body too. But I couldn’t. Not unless it was on my fucking terms.
I tried to work on the pharmaceutical merger deal. I tried to work and saw her shivering in her seat while she slept, goose bumps dotting the delicate flesh of her neck and collarbone.
Tearing my gaze back to the screen, I tried to work again.
But I kept stealing glances.
And I kept trying to cool down the temperature my blood boiled to every time I was near her.
I ended up pulling a blanket over her body. I watched her sleep for forty minutes. Forty fucking minutes. This was bending the rules. What was worse—I wanted to break them all. With her.
I tried reasoning with my cock. There was no guarantee Help would get into bed with me. You could take the girl out of the church in Virginia, but you couldn’t take the church out of the girl. Despite her years in New York, I suspected she still wasn’t a heavy Tinder user who bed-hopped her way to her next broken heart.
Plus, she seemed to hate me just as much as I hated her.
And last but not least—I knew I was about to plunge headfirst into some dirty, nasty shit with my family.
I couldn’t afford a distraction. All I wanted was to get the help I needed from her, maybe screw her a few times, and cut her loose.
Make it stop.
We landed at sunset, slicing through sky the color of purple with a gold undertone, just like her hair. The bite of a promising new adventure filled my nostrils when I finally got out of the airport, armed with the girl I’d driven out of this place ten years ago.
Cliff, my family driver, was leaning against the black Limo, waiting for us at the curb of San Diego International’s baggage claim. He rushed to snatch her duffle—I’d overnighted my luggage straight to Todos Santos—and flung it into the trunk of the limo, firing off pleasantries I didn’t bother acknowledging. Emilia followed behind me, her eyes darting everywhere, drinking in the view she hadn’t seen in so long.