Crushed (23 page)

I shove his chest again, but he’s huge, and he doesn’t even so much as rock backward.

“There’s nothing to be done with,” he says. “Other than our sessions at the gym, but that’s my job.”

My throat hurts a little. Or maybe that’s my heart. I laugh. “Right. You’re right. Because you don’t have friends, and you don’t want me as a lover, and we’re certainly not anything more important, right?”

His nostrils flare. “I didn’t ask you to come here today, Chloe. I didn’t ask for any of this. I said I’d help you get in shape because that’s my
job,
and—”

“And you figured it couldn’t hurt to help me to get close to Kristin. It’s actually kind of genius. Use the fat, dumpy girl to get to the hot sister and get the inside scoop on your half brother, right?”

“Yes!” he explodes. “That’s right. Devon was right. I used you! That’s what I
do
!”

I narrow my eyes, and it’s my turn to lean in. “I don’t think so.”

“What?” It’s practically a snarl.

“I don’t think you’re the soulless devil you’re trying so hard to be. I don’t even think you know yourself.”

He lifts his eyebrows. “Yeah? You don’t think so? Let’s talk about
you,
Chloe. How about the fact that a few weeks ago you were hot and half-naked beneath me, all the while wanting your sister’s boyfriend? I may not be the devil I think I am, but you’re certainly not the angel you think you are.”

I gasp.

And because I’m not quite ready to face the truth in his statement, I lash back.

“What, so it’s okay for you and the rest of the male population to have casual sex to scratch an itch, but when a girl just wants someone to hold, she has to have sweet love words?” I ask, my chest heaving.

He frowns, but I continue on my rampage before he can speak, letting all the pent-up love and, yes, lust for this guy consume me.

I shove at his chest. “News flash, Beefcake: Nobody is telling me that they love me. Not Devon, not you, not
anyone
.”

His eyes flare with something I don’t understand, but I press on. “So don’t tell me I’m supposed to wait around for some true-love
bullshit.
A girl wants to be loved, sure, and I thought I wanted that. I thought I wanted that from Devon. And now . . . I don’t know about that. But I
do
know that I want to be wanted. I want to be wanted by
you
.”

My voice cracks a little at the end, but I don’t even
think
about crying as I brush past. “Sorry I ruined your solitude.”

“Chloe.”

I ignore him and move toward the door.

“Chloe.”

Still I don’t stop.

“Chloe!” He grabs my arm them, a little rough, and pulls me around.

“What? Michael.
What?
”

His eyes lock on mine, but he says nothing. And even worse, I see nothingness on his face. It’s like he’s dead inside.

“That’s what I thought,” I mutter in response to his silence, jerking my arm out of his grasp and opening the front door.

This time, he doesn’t call my name. And he definitely doesn’t come after me.

Chapter 25

Michael

A week after Chloe went blazing out of my apartment and never looked back, Kristin Bellamy returns, looking even hotter than when she left.

And halfway through her tennis lesson, I realize what I probably already knew: I don’t want her.

She’s not Olivia 2.0. She’s not even half the girl Olivia is.

And she’s not even a quarter of the girl her sister is.

“Oops!” Kristin calls as she takes a ridiculous excuse for a swing and sends the ball sinking weakly into the net.

“You’re out of practice,” I call back from the other side of the court, glancing at my watch as I pull another ball out of my pocket. Thirty more minutes of this hell.

“My swing feels off,” she says, putting a hand over her eyes to shade herself from the sun and cocking a hip. “Any theories?”

“None beyond you being a manipulative bitch,” I mutter under my breath.

“What?” she calls.

I stifle a sigh, heading over to her side of the net, not really caring if she notices my lack of enthusiasm.

My summer gig of country club boy toy has worn my patience completely thin.

Of course, the fact that I haven’t gotten laid since before the Fourth of July isn’t helping my mood, either.

“Finally,” Kristin says, smiling up at me. Her legs are even tanner than they were at the beginning of the summer, long and lean and toned. Her hair’s in the high ponytail she always wears when she plays, and her tennis whites show off her neat curves to perfection.

This girl has it going on, and she knows it.

I can’t remember ever feeling so bored.

“Your timing’s off,” I say curtly, bouncing a ball in her direction.

A tiny line appears between her brows before she snatches the ball. “Hey, I’ve been gone for, like, three weeks, and you’ve barely said hello.”

“What do you want to talk about, Kristin?”

She moves toward me. “Oh, I don’t know. How about the fact that I’m single now?”

I think her smile is meant to be shy, maybe even nervous, but it rings false. Like she’s scripted this entire encounter in her head.

“Yeah, I heard that.”

Her smile falters at my tone. “Chloe told you?”

“Yup.”

“So are you two still, like, besties?” She bounces the ball and catches it again as she watches my face.

“You live with her. Do you see me coming over to gossip and braid her hair?”

“
I’ve
barely even seen Chloe,” she snaps back. “For all I know she could be hanging out with you every night.”

“What do you mean you’ve barely seen her?” I ask before I can help myself.

She checks out her manicure. She couldn’t look more disinterested about her sister if she tried. Hell, maybe she is trying. “She joined this gym in Dallas and goes, like, every freaking day. I don’t know why. The gym here is just fine. Did you fire her as a client or something?”

“Other way around.”

She looks up. “You guys fought?”

“Why all this talk about Chloe?” I ask irritably.

“You’re right, it’s boring,” she says with a smile.

I nod, but my mind is still trying to work out the fact that Chloe would rather drive thirty minutes into Dallas for a gym instead of seeing me. I’d know that she never made good on her threat to transfer her personal training sessions to Carly, but I assumed that she’d gone back to her sedentary ways.

Or was busy hanging out with Devon.

I spin my racket in annoyance before nodding down at the ball in Kristin’s hand. “Hit it. Nice and easy, keep your wrists from going all floppy.”

She underhands the ball back to me. “Nah. I’m bored of tennis.”

“Great. We can wrap up early. I’ll see you next week.”

I head toward the bench and she trots to catch me, linking an arm in mine. “Want to grab a drink somewhere? I looked at your schedule. I’m your last lesson of the day.”

I turn my head to look at her, and her face is right there. Pretty, smiling, and welcoming.

She rises on her toes to bring our faces closer, and I lean back. “Why are you doing this?”

She lands back on her heels. “Doing what?”

“Going after me?”

Her cheeks turn pink. “Don’t make it sound like I’m the pursuer here. You’ve been wanting this all summer.”

I shrug. “At the beginning of the summer, maybe. But back then you were look don’t touch. Why the change?”

Her laugh is a little ragged. “Isn’t it obvious? I dumped Devon.”

I nod, looking her over. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s it.”

Her jaw drops.

“I mean yes, you’re single now. But you could have any guy. Why me?”

She licks her lips. “I don’t understand.”

“You do. You want me because you think Chloe wants me.”

She does this weird double-blink thing that makes her look guilty as hell, and I hold her stare.

“Look,” she says, glancing at the ground. “It’s not my fault Chloe’s got a bad habit of out-of-her-league crushes.”

Anger has me tightening my grip on my racket, and I run a tongue along my front teeth to stop myself from calling her out for being a conniving bitch.

“You should go,” I say, taking a step back. “I’ll see you next week.”

I doubt she’ll show up next week, given the rejection, and I couldn’t care less. I dig a towel out of my bag when I realize she hasn’t moved. I follow her gaze to see none other than Devon Patterson making his way toward us.

I groan. Fucking great. It’s like the worst kind of déjà vu from the day that I first met Chloe.

Only there’s no Chloe today, and it’s almost like I
feel
her absence.

I start to head in the opposite direction of the former couple so I don’t have to deal with their drama, when Devon’s voice stops me. “Hey, St. Claire. Hold up a sec.”

I turn to see him moving toward me. I lift an eyebrow when Kristin reaches out a hand to touch his arm, and he brushes her off.

Her laugh is too high. “Dev, come on. You can’t just ignore me.”

“I didn’t,” he says, turning to give her a disinterested look. “I said hello. I asked how you were.”

She spreads her hands to the side. “And . . . that’s it? You came all the way down to the courts to tell me hello?”

“No,” Devon says, with admirable patience. “I came all the way down to the courts to talk to St. Claire.”

Her gaze flicks between the two of us before comprehension dawns. Or, at least, what she thinks is comprehension. Her face goes all soft and sweet. “Dev, I don’t know what you saw, but St. Claire and I are just friends, and you and I aren’t—”

Devon grins and holds up a hand. “Save it. I don’t care. I didn’t even know you were down here.”

Her jaw drops. “But then what—”

Devon’s already turned away, moving in my direction. “See you around, Kristin.”

With a huff, she turns on her heel, her tennis skirt twirling behind her before she marches in the opposite direction.

He gives me a sheepish smile. “Is it bad that I enjoyed that?”

I don’t smile back. Last time I saw this guy he socked me in the jaw, and now he wants to talk about girls?

“What are you doing here?” I ask, using my racket to pull a ball against my shoe and hopping it into my hand. I move toward another ball in the corner, all but ignoring him.

“The bruise is fading nicely,” he says.

I continue to ignore him as I pick up another ball. I toss this one to him, to keep a hand free to retrieve the last one.

He catches it neatly with one hand and calls after me. “I came to ask you to dinner. Thursday night.”

I pick up the last ball, shoving it into my pocket before turning to face him. He moves closer so we don’t have to shout.

“Go to dinner where?” I ask.

“My house. My parents’ house,” he corrects.

“No.”

I move toward the bench. He follows. “I leave soon for Boston. It has to be this week.”

“What has to be this week?” I ask. “Round two of you punching my face?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I mean, I’m not, because it was a shit thing to say, about me and the Bellamy girls.”

“It was true.”

He lets out a long breath. “Kristin’s my ex, and Chloe’s my friend. That’s it.”

I unscrew the cap from my water bottle. “K.”

He shakes his head and then turns the tables. “Why do you care so much, anyway?”

I take a gulp of water. It’s a good question.

One that I don’t have the answer to.

We both remain silent, locked in a staring contest. And it occurs to me that we’re more alike than I first realized.

Quietly stubborn.

“Look,” he says, finally, glancing down at his navy boat shoes. “I didn’t . . . I didn’t handle things well the other night.”

“No?”

“Don’t be a dick,” he snaps. “You could have done things differently, too. What kind of moron springs that on a random Friday night at a bar?”

I take another drink of water.

“Anyway,” he mutters. “I’ve been thinking . . . if I were in your shoes . . . I’d want to see it through. I’d need to.”

“You think I should tell Tim,” I say.

He takes a deep breath and looks me in the eye. “Yeah. And my mom, too.”

“No.”

“Michael.”

I tense at the sound of him saying my name. I’ve only ever been
St. Claire
before.

“Please come to dinner,” he says. “Dad deserves to know. And although I’m not even sure I like you, you deserve closure. Whatever that may look like.”

I take a deep breath and look away, hating that I feel this vulnerable, but having to ask anyway. “How do you think he’ll respond?”

Devon opens his mouth and then shuts it. “Honestly? I don’t know. But I know that he’s a good guy.”

“Won’t it ruin your perfect little family?” I ask with a sneer.

“My parents are
good
together. Your existence has nothing to do with their relationship.”

“What about their relationship with you?”

“You mean am I afraid of them deciding they love my big, dark, grouchy brother more than their golden baby? Not a chance.”

I grin, in spite of myself. “You’re an ass.”

He gives me a half smile back. “Must run on my father’s side of the family. So you’ll come?”

“Yeah,” I say, my voice a little gruff. “I guess.”

“Cool. Seven good?” He pulls out his address. “What’s your number? I’ll text you my address.”

I give him my number, which he inputs into his phone with a nod before sliding the phone back into his pocket.

“See you Thursday.”

“Yeah.”

As far as brotherly bonding moments go, it’s not much.

But it’s something.

More than I expected.

More than I hoped for.

“Hey, Devon,” I call after him.

He turns.

“What made you change your mind?”

He smiles. “More like
who
made me change my mind.”

Chapter 26

Chloe

For as long as I can remember, my mom has tried to coax me to go back-to-school shopping with her.

Well, actually, for a long time, it wasn’t so much a coax as a demand.

And let me tell you, the only thing worse than being the largest size in the juniors section?