Ocean (Damage Control 5)

No. The only way to avoid having my heart broken by this beautiful boy is to know what I’m in for: sex. Groping his awesome body. Kissing his sinful mouth. Occasionally making sure he eats and breathes and doesn’t vanish into thin air.

That’s what friends do. And the sex, well…. That’s where the benefits come in. Some fooling around never hurt as long as one is careful. No need for talk of love and hearts and weddings and horse-drawn carriages.

Kay loves Ocean.

No. Nonono. Stop that. Kay shouldn’t. Kay has to keep her distance from this boy with the golden heart and the darkness writhing inside.

Kay has to stay free and untethered, free to look for happiness. Nobody can make you happy if you don’t make yourself, right? And I still don’t know what I need. Or why this boy seems to fill the hole in my life so perfectly I feel I should stop looking. I barely know him. We’re not together. This isn’t the answer.

The way he makes me feel… protected and wanted and cherished, that’s not happiness. It’s an illusion, the same one my parents walked into and got trapped. An illusion he’ll strip away tomorrow, when he leaves my bed and my side and becomes a stranger once more.

Even if I’ve let him inside me without a condom, something I’ve never done. Promised myself I’d never do.

Even worse, the way I felt when I thought he’d been hurt or worse… That blinding pain in my soul when I thought I might not see him again or hear his deep voice, that’s all the warning I should ever need. He has the power to tear me apart.

I can’t let him.

No wonder it takes me a long time to sleep, my mind whirring away with doubts and contradictions and need. A need I shouldn’t allow to grow.

Tumbling through dark tunnels of sleep, I lose my train of thought, lose the logic behind it. I see my family sitting tensely around the dining table, I see Allie crying in a corner, a shadow looming over, I see my brother Wyatt smirking at me. I’m very small, like Alice in Wonderland after she ate the magical cake, and everything is huge and terrifying.

Then the light turns blue, and Ocean comes to stand in front of me. He’s smiling. He kisses me, and he’s happy, because Blue loves Kay, and Kay loves Blue, and it’s all—

A shout, and shaking, and I’m scrambling upright before my eyes are even open. What’s happening? Danger, my mind screams, pain, something’s wrong, and as my vision begins to clear, I make out my bedroom in the gray light of dawn seeping through the window.

I make out the man lying beside me, twisted up in sleep, his head thrown back and tendons standing out in his neck as he grinds his jaw.

“Livvy,” he rasps, the word barely intelligible, and “why?” and I freeze mid-motion as I sit up.

Who is Livvy? Why is he whispering her name in his sleep, his voice laced with pain and anger? With emotion. So much emotion.

He loves this girl

, whoever she is.

And I shouldn’t want to find her and suckerpunch her. Because that would mean I’m jealous, and I’m totally not.

“Ocean.” I shake his shoulder, a lump in my throat. “Wake up. Wake up!”

Suddenly he’s sitting up—so fast he almost head-butts me. “Fuck, Livvy.”

Oh Christ. “Who is she?” I ask quietly. “This Livvy?”

He’s frozen, gripping his arm over the tattoo, his breathing shallow. All the color has drained from his face.

“No, that’s… I don’t wanna talk about it,” he whispers and closes his eyes. “About her. Not now.”

The pain flashing over his features is hard to watch. It matches the ache in my chest.

See? See? That’s why love is not even in the equation. Love hurts. Thank God I’m not in love with him.

Phew.

When he reaches for me, I don’t let him drag me down to his side. Instead, I help him lie back and prop myself on my elbows to look at his handsome face.

I’m pissed with him. So I honestly don’t know why I need to kiss him so badly, to run my fingers through his blue hair, to touch his long, dark lashes.

Lust, I remind myself, is also a powerful feeling. And he’s awfully pretty for such a tall, ripped guy.