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I couldn’t hear over the pounding rain, but I’d imagined I did.
Not even the rain drops burning into my skin like acid could’ve torn me away.
And for however long she played, it was as if she was holding my hand again, and all the anger and pain disappeared. Comforting. Warm. And somehow protective. Like it was her keeping me from the being yanked into the darkness.
I slowly stroked the strings, and the chords vibrated beneath the pad of my thumb.
Not dusty. Not dull. Not worn. No. It was still a work of art.
I normally wouldn’t know shit about guitars, but I’d been around the famous rock band Tear Asunder. Deck was friends with the band, and we’d helped them out on a few occasions.
I picked it up out of the case and set it across my lap. I slid my fingers up the neck, then curled my hand around it to settle my fingertips on the strings. Had her fingers been here? Did she sit on the front porch in the rain and play?
I clamped my jaw shut and was about to place the guitar back in the case when I noticed the stack of napkins. The top one had writing scrawled on it, but the ink was smudged like it had gotten wet. Why would she write on napkins? I had the urge to flip through them to see if the others had been written on, but it felt too personal, as if I was reading her diary. I placed the guitar back in the case and flipped the lid closed. I fastened the latches and shoved it back into the closet.
I did a quick scan of the rest of her room, but there wasn’t much else. A few softcover books on the nightstand that looked as if they’d been read countless times, judging from the dog-eared pages and wrinkled covers. There were a couple pairs of shoes—black sandals and the muddy runners she’d been wearing on her jog.
I opened the top drawer of the dresser.
My eyes hit the blue lace panties first.
No. Not simply blue. They were the color of a robin’s egg. Colorful. And yet still soft—like her.
Silky red lace panties. Black ones. White ones.
My cock jerked, and I slammed the drawer shut so hard it went off its tracks. I fiddled around with it until it finally closed properly, then stalked from the bedroom.
I didn’t bother checking the bathroom. The last thing I wanted to see was her lace bra hanging from the shower rod.
What the hell was my problem? Women didn’t affect me like this. I didn’t think about the color of a woman’s panties, and I sure as hell didn’t imagine her in them.
Sex was hard. Fast. And detached.
No touching. No emotional connection.
Get the woman off, then look after myself. Nothing more.
But suddenly all I could think about was more.
I strode out of the cabin.
Seven days. Then I was having one hell of a bonfire.
Macayla
Three times. That’s how many times I rode the coaster down the mountain with Jackson. My stomach felt as if it was permanently lodged in my throat.
But I’d do it again in a second—because Jackson laughed. And it wasn’t a half-assed laugh. It was the kind that stemmed from deep in the guts. The kind that was real, and I don’t think he’d ever done that before, because he’d looked shocked when the sound emerged, and he abruptly cut it off the first time.
But he didn’t stop it the next time, and when the ride ended and I asked if he wanted to go again, he nodded with a huge, beaming grin that sent a lightning bolt of warmth through me. And I knew I’d ride the coaster all day if he wanted to.
Of course, I couldn’t because I had to work at the bar, so I’d dropped Jackson off at Hettie’s. It was an arrangement she’d insisted on and arguing with Hettie was futile. Besides, it saved me paying Mrs. Fisherton, who had a daycare and watched him when Hettie couldn’t.
Most importantly though, Jackson liked Hettie, but then there wasn’t anything not to like. I’d liked Hettie just from the stories Addie had told me at camp. Turning the house into a haunted mansion on Halloween for all the kids in the neighborhood. The theater extravaganzas where she’d take Jaeg and Addie to the cinema and they’d watch movies all day, eating unlimited buttery popcorn.
I drove into the parking lot and parked beside Brin’s Jeep and shut off the engine. Friday and Saturday nights were live music nights, which meant they were the busiest of the week. Good for tips. Not so good for my stomach that had been yo-yoed into a pretzel for the last three hours. Dealing with the smell of cologne, over-perfumed girls, and beer for the next six hours was going to suck.
Zero Crow was off the main road and a little out of town in an old building that had once been a winery. There’d been a fire a number of years ago and the vineyard had been destroyed. The owner decided to sell the property, and Callum James bought it and converted the winery into a bar.
