15
WAR
“You’re up for surfing tomorrow?”Jack asked, sipping his soda, his light eyes shifting between Max and me.
“Nah, I’m out,” Max answered, brushing back his overgrown hair. “Now that Ila’s done with this show, we’re spending the day together.”
I tuned my friends out, watching the access door Charli, Ray, then Ila had disappeared through.
Two more hours before I could get out of here. I was tired of the crowds, the noise, and I just wanted to get Charli and leave. She’d had a hunted look about her ever since we left her mother’s house earlier today.
She’d tried to apologize when we got back, which frustrated me. Why the hell would she, for something that wasn’t her doing? But with me running late and pissed off, it wasn’t the time for the serious conversation we needed to have.
My gaze lingered on a black and white canvas Charli had been looking at earlier, of an almost abstract beach scene with billows of fog smearing the tranquility of the sea in bold slashes of paint. I wanted to buy it for her. Hell, I’d buy her the moon if I could.
All night long, I watched her chat with her friends. She appeared serene, her smile perfectly in place, but I knew her, understood the fears and scars my vulnerable girl hid.
I had to make her believe that I didn’t give a fuck what her mother said or did.
Camile Dupont knew exactly how to reel her daughter in because a girl like Charli, no matter her tart mouth, in the end, her soft heart would always win. She’d run…or break up with me.
And that wasn’t fucking happening.I won’t let it.
I shoved my clenched hands into my pockets, my gaze skipping back to the large canvas on my right, a monochrome painting called the ‘Dissolution’ of a couple dissipating into vivid abstract slashes. The darkness of the depiction sure suited my shitty mood.
“Yo, Chaos?” Max called out, raising his bisected eyebrow. “You in there?” he drawled.
“Have some stuff on my mind,” I deflected, taking a sip of my club soda. “Why?”
Jack snorted. “Judging from the way you look, like you’re about to put your fist through this wall, yeah, we know that feeling well enough. We’ve been there, too, so what’s up, bro?”
Hell, they were my best buds, our friendship formed over a decade ago at school. I was new meat for the football guys to bust up, but both Max and Jack had jumped in, and we’d thrashed them, ending in detention soon after, but our bonds were formed for life. Later, Max had hauled us off for our first bro-ink—aka our demonic star signs.
Usually, we could talk about any damn thing. But I couldn’t talk aboutthis.
My gaze shifted back to the door leading out to a corridor and the restrooms.
“It’s obviously about Charli.” Max’s green eyes grew contemplative. “What happened? I thought you guys were good?”
My mouth tightened. People crowded around us to study the ‘Dissolution’ painting.
“War,” Jack said quietly, as we strolled over to the massive windows overlooking the busy street. “If you love her and she loves you, then do what Ray and I did. Elope. It puts an end to any obstacles in your path.”
If Charli loved me?
No, Charlilikedme. Big fucking difference.Likedidn’t an elope make.
I was falling for her, and she was doing her best to avoid it.
“Whatever you decide,” Max said. “We got your back.”
Again I glanced at the closed, access door Charli, Ray, and then Ila had vanished through. What was taking so damn long in the restroom?
And then it hit me. She was leaving me. It was why she wouldn’t let me speak earlier after the cab dropped us off.
A burst of pain splintered like glass, shredding me alive. I never had things easy or been given a chance to love someone and know they were mine, except for my mother. But she’d been gone a long time because of that bast—
I shut off the thought, couldn’t deal with it right now. Not even my best friends knew about that part of my vicious past.
