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I wake with a start, my heart thundering in my chest. Ripping my eyes open to focus on the clouds once again, I’m confronted by the sight of three sets of concerned eyes staring down at me, scaring me almost as much as the dream.
“Fucking hell,” I mutter, lifting the bottle back to my lips.
“I think you’ve had enough, don’t you?” Conner asks, reaching forward to take the bottle.
“Fuck you. You have no idea what it’s like.”
He lifts a brow. I know he’s still angry that we left him behind with the girls, but quite frankly, I don’t give a shit. I’m barely holding it together as it is, the last thing I need is the added image in my head of almost losing him too.
“This isn’t going to help,” Ace says, joining in with Conner. He walks around the lounger I’m slumped in and prises the bottle from my fingers before throwing it across the yard until the glass shatters against the wall of the pool house. “That isn’t how you deal with this.”
“No? Care to tell me how I should then, big brother?”
“I can’t. Only you know that. But hiding your head in the sand, running away from real life isn’t it.” He narrows his eyes, saying a million things to me without actually speaking the words.
“Fuck you, Ace. You have your girl to lose yourself in when shit gets hard.”
“So could you, if you pulled your head out of your ass. She’s in her dorm waiting for you. All you’ve got to do is talk to her.”
I look away from him, unwilling to hear the words let alone think about what they mean.
Hadley doesn’t want me. How could she, after everything I’ve put her through?
I know they say that people do crazy things for love, but I stick by what I said to her the other night. That isn’t what this is.
Is it?
I wouldn’t know love if it slapped me in the face. Everyone who was ever supposed to love me screwed me over.
I’m unworthy. Unlovable. I accepted that a long time ago.
I’m just a person—a body—that people use to forget. It’s the way it’s always been. Pleasure to bury the pain. It’s all I’ve ever known, all I ever saw as a child, and my relationship with Hadley isn’t anything different.
We’re both lost, both hurting, both trying to outrun pasts and nightmares that continue to haunt us no matter what we do.
That’s not love. It’s just another addiction.
I’m addicted to the release, to the way she makes me feel. The way she makes me crave her like no other.
Movement at my legs makes me look up, and I find that Remi has wedged herself on the edge of my lounger. Her eyes are soft, sympathetic. Whereas my brothers like to take the hard line with me, I feel that what’s about to come out of her mouth is going to be very different.
She reaches for my hand and squeezes gently. “She needs you, Cole.”
“Trust me, she really doesn't,” I spit. How can she possibly need me? Because of me she was kidnapped, almost burned alive. And even before that, the two of us were so wrong, so toxic that it never could have lasted. Our sex life involved my knife, for fuck’s sake. That shit isn’t normal.
“She does, more than you could possibly know. More than she understands. Please, Cole. You can’t have forgotten what I told you.” Her eyes bore into mine. I know exactly what she’s asking, but I refuse to even think about it.
Ripping my eyes from hers, I stare at the still water of the pool and try to forget about the person we’re talking about.
“What did you tell him?” Conner asks, trying to stick his nose in.
“Nothing,” I bark. “She told me nothing.”
“Please, don’t do this. You’re both falling apart in front of our eyes,” she begs, her grip on my fingers getting tighter as she says each word.
“It’s what I deserve. Excuse me.” Pushing from the lounger, I turn my back on the three of them and storm inside.
“What are we missing here?” Conner asks, but I don’t hang around to hear Remi’s answer.
