Ocean (Damage Control 5)

His thumb trails up my cheek, brushes over my eyelids. His lips part. He smells of coffee and my shampoo and a light, male musk that draws me like an invisible hook in my senses.

“Did you burn yourself?” he asks, his voice a soft, sexy rasp, and I’m burning from the inside out. I want him to kiss me. I want to feel his mouth on mine again.

“I’m okay.” Breathless. Always breathless when he’s near me.

He’s holding my face, his callused hand cupping my cheek, and he’s still frowning. “I don’t know why I can’t fucking let you go like other girls I’ve been with,” he whispers, and I blink at him, stupid with lust. “I really like you, Kay. You’re the sassiest, and funniest, and kindest chick I know. But you wouldn’t want to keep me around.”

“How do you know?” I blurt, because although that’s what I’ve been telling myself all along, I also thought it was my choice. He stated it like a fact. “What if I decide I do want to keep you around?”

He gives a sad little smile. “I’m too messed up. I’ve got too many problems to be real fun, despite what everyone thinks of me.”

“It can’t be that bad,” I breathe.

“I screwed up people’s lives. Hell, my own father threw me out of our trailer when I was seventeen, and my own brother doesn’t wanna see me ever again. If I tell you everything about me, what I’ve done, what do you—?” His voice cracks, and I tighten my fists in the hoodie he’s wearing, but he’s already stepping away, his hand dropping from my face. “Christ, what was I thinking?”

“That you’re not a bad person?”

“Kay, I got a kid killed. What do you have to say to that?”

I’m kind of speechless, actually. My heart is booming. No. It can’t be true. I stare at his handsome face and try to reconcile the words with what I know about him. It doesn’t compute.

The silence stretches.

“That’s what I thought,” he whispers eventually, turning away. “Goodbye, Kay.”

Chapter Fourteen

Ocean

Jason isn’t at my apartment when I return. He’s left me a message on a piece of paper on the sofa.

It says, “Thank you for taking care of me. I’m much better now. If there’s anything I can do for you, let me know. Jason.”

The apartment is cold and too empty. Nothing I can do about the last part, but I crank up the heater.

Then I think I shouldn’t, because I should save money to pay for Mom’s medical bills.

I sink on the sofa, my mind spinning. Christ, the last thing I want right now is to be alone. My thoughts trip over one another, chasing around in circles.

It was kinda nice having Jason around. I never fully realized before—never let myself realize just how lonely I’ve been. Guys aren’t like chicks, hanging together all the time, painting each other’s nails or whatever it is they do. We meet for drinks sometimes, watch a game on TV, and that’s it.

Sure, we help each other if one of us is in trouble. But it’s not the same. I never thought I deserved anything more before. Anything better.

But she makes me feel like I do.

And that’s idiotic, because I don’t, and she’s not mine.

Mine. What a joke. Christ, she freaked out when I finally told her why Raine hates me. Why I hate me. Of course she did. That’s what any sane person would have done in her place.

I force myself to get busy and not think about how her face had paled and her silence. How that twisted me up inside. How it felt as if my veins filled up with ice, and I couldn’t say anything else, couldn’t deal.

Fuck.

Ignoring the pain in my ribs as much as I can, I root around in the kitchen for something edible. After munching on some stale bread and cheese, making a note to go shopping—but not spend, dammit—I take a shower, and by then my ribs are agony.

I pop in a couple painkillers and stretch out on my bed, the doctor’s business card in my hand and my cell phone in the other.

It’s Sunday, but they’re probably open. Whether the doctor is in is another matter, but I call anyway. I’m uncomfortable and tense. Might as well do something useful.