After Mayhem at the football house party, I’d been more and more aware of him. The pull to him was ridiculous, so when he made a move the night of the Halloween party, I had gone willingly into his embrace. I’d never been as forward or as free with any other partner as I had that night with him. I’d seen his need, and even though I didn’t know what exactly was going on between him and his friends, I knew he needed a release. I alsoknew that I needed to get him out of my head. He had taken up lodging in my brain from nothing more than a few heated looks and harmless caresses. My thought process that night had been to be another notch on his belt. He probably wouldn’t remember me anyway, and I would get the fascination I seemed to have with him, dealt with.
Because you wouldn’t look like he did and actually live up to the hype. But he did. Lordy, he more than did. One taste of him wasn’t enough; I needed more. Maybe I’d been drunk, and he wasn’t as good as my imagination said he was.
Roll on to another night, another party.
Ava and Jett were curled up in each other, while his scary-looking brother — the one who looked like he was ready to decapitate someone — spoke to Ash, but Ash had been watching me all night. He was subtle; the others never noticed, but I could feel his eyes on me the whole time. I watched girls approach him, I saw him flirt, and I knew exactly who he was when it came to women. The Devils were known for sleeping around. Okay, that wasn’t fair — Gray wasn’t. He was actually discreet . . . or celibate. He was hard to read. But Jett, before Ava, was a one-and-done. Ash was known to revisit his hookups, but on a strict no-relationship policy.
It hadn’t bothered me. I knew what he was like. I wasn’t known for one-night stands, but I was flirty in my own way. He was someone I wanted another night with. Despite his reputation for being a Casanova, I wanted another experience with him.
The party had been at a house on Orchard. I knew the girls who lived there, and I had permission to use the upper floors for the bathroom.
Pushing open one of the girls’ bedrooms, I wondered if he would follow me, and I left the bedroom door slightly open in the hopes that he would. A few minutes later, my question hadbeen answered when he pushed the door further open, saw me waiting, and simply closed the door behind him, flicking the lock.
We hadn’t even spoken. I don’t know who moved toward who, but we were on the bed and naked within minutes. It had been hard, fast, and everything I remembered. When we were done, he’d kissed me long and slow and then left me to get dressed. I hadn’t felt used or cheap or anything else like that. It had been good, and it had been what I wanted, and it seemed we both needed it.
Rejoining the party later, I had seen a girl cozy up to him, but Ash had merely left with his cousin. At the door before he left, he had looked over his shoulder as if he was looking for someone. When he saw me, he gave me a smile, and he and Gray left.
It should have been enough. Itwasn’t.
Saturday night, I hadn’t been in the mood to party. Ava had gone home to see her mom for a belated birthday visit. And she also wanted to tell her mom she was completely head over heels for the college quarterback, a fact Jill was going to hate. Before she even knew he was a Saint, she was going to give Ava a lecture about dating in college. But Ava was a good daughter, and she wanted to tell her mom face-to-face.
I had the apartment to myself and had made plans with Bea, Wade’s girlfriend, to go to a small party of one of her classmates. The last place the Devils would be.
Ash, Jett, and a few of the team gate-crashed in style. The admittedly dull party was suddenly the most popular place to be. Within an hour of them being there, the music changed and was louder, the number of people there was spilling into the street, and all I could focus on was the anger that seemed to be rolling off of him in waves. Jett was by his side, but watching them, I realized something wasn’t right. Their dynamic was off.
Jett got pulled to a game of beer pong, and I saw him reach for his cousin, but his cousin stepped back and raised his cup as if to say he was okay where he was. His vibe was all wrong; even the girls weren’t approaching him. He reminded me of a bear with a sore paw. I saw that Bea was now with Wade, and I knew I could leave as they would be doing couple things, and I wasn’t interested in the party anymore. Feeling confident, I made my way past him as I made my way to the door, making sure he saw that I was there. I was halfway down the block when he caught up with me. His hand tugged mine to change direction, and we had walked in silence to the football house.
Ash sneaked me in and led me upstairs to his room.
“Hey,” he said softly as his lips traced my jawline.
“Hey,” I answered him as my hands slipped under his shirt. It was the first words we’d spoken, and it didn’t feel wrong that it was. “You look. . .wrong.”
I felt a rumble of agreement as he kissed down my neck. “I need a few hours to forget,” he told me as he drew back to look at me. “Can you give me that? No questions?”
Somehow, I’d already known not to ask what he was forgetting. “We’ve got all night,” I said instead.
“Fuck yeah, we do.” Swiftly, my clothes were on the floor, and I was lying on his bed, flat on my back with his head buried between my thighs. He wasn’t gentle, but he didn’t hurt me, and I knew that if I let him, he would go harder, rougher, but I wasn’t sure I was able to open myself to him like that. There was already an aura of urgency when we were together. I was already drawn to him too much. I couldn’t let myself be vulnerable with this man; I couldn’t let him in.
What I gave him seemed to be enough. A night to forget whatever had upset him so much. The night spilled into morning and then the afternoon. No one was ever supposed to know about us. There had been no contingency plan in placewhen his cousin walked in on us, just as we were finishing. Then, as I hid naked in the bathroom, I hadn’t been ready to hear how I was nothing more than a distraction. I mean, I knew it; I just hadn’t been ready tohearit. Which is why I threw a mug at him. Which I hadn’t apologized for, although I did regret.
It was bad form to be ruled by your emotions. That only led to heartache.
“Whatcha reading?” Ava called out as she approached me.
My screen had locked while my mind had wandered, so thankfully, she couldn’t see that I had been reading up on football. “Looking at the gossip, see if Mama’s in the columns.”
Ava blinked in surprise. “Why would your mom be in the columns? Has something happened?”
“She said her check’s late, wants me to get a job. There has to be more to it.” I tried to keep my voice casual, but Ava knew me well.
“A job? But she promised you wouldn’t need one, that she’d saved for college.”
My mom savinganythingwas unheard of, but she’d shown me the account where the money for my tuition and books would come from. It had been a full account, and I remember so clearly her telling me I would have no worries while at school; she had it taken care of. We had a rocky relationship, but I’d truly believed her.
My mom was a mediocre actress at best. Even on my brattiest days, I knew she wasn’t bad . . . she just wasn’tgood. The TV show she’d been on in the late nineties to early noughties had been weird and quirky, and had an undyingly loyal fanbase. The show streamed on the major streaming services and was a worldwide hit, albeit not as huge as it was back in the day. It was still enough that Gloria Davis never needed to work again.But only if we were careful. Mama wasn’t always careful with her money.
She’d worked on another TV show when I was younger, but it wasn’t the main part, just a season regular. She did a lot of voiceover work for commercials that kept what she termedthe wolves from our door. The fact that I didn’t want to be an actress was a relief to her, not because she knew I recognized it was a hard life, but I think the awkward reality was that she was glad I wasn’t going to be competition.
