Dearest Series Boxed Set (71 page)

He slumps on me again, and I wrap all my limbs around him, loving how he keeps me warm, loving how sated I feel. We stay, tangled together until his breathing is slow and steady. Finally, I slap his naked but very firm ass.

“Okay, Sloan. You’re putting my extremities to sleep.”

He grunts and starts to lift off me. When he raises his arms above his head in a catlike stretch, I’m treated to six feet three inches of a very naked man of steel. Ripped shoulders lead to strong pecs. He’s built but not overly so. Not abnormally bulky like some athletes.

But he’s a big boy. With big boy parts. One part in particular gets my attention as my eyes drift down his washboard stomach. Wowzers.

He lets me look, a sly grin lighting his eyes. “I’m thinking we might need to put your laptop camera to good use when I’m gone.”

“Mm. So you want to have Skype sex? Is that what you’re saying?” I tear my eyes off his nakedness and look up.

“I think that’s a damn good idea. I bet you have some good moves for me. Especially since you’ve been watching all that porn lately.”

I gasp. “I have not been watching lots of porn.” Okay, maybe I’ve watched a little, but I've rationalized it as research for my assignment.

He laughs, loving that he can get a rise out of me. I enjoy the show as he turns and heads toward his room.

“Get in my bed, McDermott,” he calls out, not giving me an option to go home.

I grin, and yell back. “Are you going to behave tomorrow? You can’t grab my ass like you did last week.” Even though no one was around, we can’t take any chances. We can’t be so touchy-feely when I interview him.

His voice echoes down the hall. “But I like grabbing your ass. I consider it the highlight of my day.”

Me too, Clutch. Me too.

W
e were supposed
to go straight to bed, but forty-five minutes later, I feel like I just ran a marathon. “I think I’m going to skip my workout tomorrow.” My throat is hoarse. From screaming. My head rests on his shoulder, and we’re both sweaty and still panting.

“You just burned like two thousand calories. I think you’re good to go.” He rubs my back, and I let out a sigh, feeling deeply sated.

“You should teach a class on how to give a girl an orgasm. Or three.”

He laughs. “C’mon. I’m sure it’s not that difficult to do, though I’ll take the praise.”

Perhaps it’s the sex-induced coma talking, but I just come out and say it. “No, it’s actually quite an accomplishment. I’ve never come three times in a row before I met you. Jacob was lucky if he got me there once.”

Daren’s quiet. God, why did I say that? We never talk about our exes.

He clears his throat. “What happened between you two? Why didn’t it work out?”

I roll my lips, grateful it’s dark in here. “He had a penchant for sex with other girls, and I walked in on him getting a blow job from a cage girl.”

“Fuck.”

“What about you? What happened with Veronica?”

Daren blows out a breath, releasing me to run his hands through his hair. “It’s late. You sure you want that story now?”

He’s either trying to dodge or he’s exhausted. But the thought that he doesn’t want to answer makes me think he’s hiding something. Feeling suddenly vulnerable, I pluck myself off his chest. “No. It’s fine. You don’t have to tell me.”

Straining to look around the room, I spot my clothes on the floor and start to get up when his hand comes around my arm. “C’mere.”

I sit on the bed, debating what to do.

“Maddie, get your ass back here.”

I shake my head. “It’s cool. I’ll see you later.”

“Fuck, woman.” Two seconds later, I’m on my back again. “Stay. The. Night.” He tucks me to his chest and threads his fingers through my hair. “We didn’t love each other. That’s what happened.” When he sighs, his grip on me loosens, and his head dips back into his pillow. “It’s a long story, and when I tell you the whole thing, I’m pretty sure you’re going to think I’m an ass.”

“That’s possible.”

He laughs humorlessly. “Veronica and I got together in high school. But it’s not some childhood sweetheart story.”

His body is taut, and he’s radiating tension. I should let him out of his misery. “Look, I know it had something to do with Clementine. I read her book.”

Another tight laugh escapes him. “Awesome. Well, then. You know I’m a dick.” With that, he releases me and tucks his arms behind his head, like he’s resigned to whatever judgment I deem appropriate.

I roll my eyes and scoot over, dropping onto the pillow next to him before I turn to face him. “Tell me the story.” I run my palm over his cheek. “It was a long time ago. Whatever happened, I want to hear your side of things. It’s worse if you just let me wonder about it.”

Because if he doesn’t tell me, I know where this relationship, or whatever this is, is headed—nowhere.

I only need one thing from him. Honesty. And if we can’t do this now, I won’t delude myself into thinking we’ll figure it out later.

Steeling myself, I prepare to go home, prepare to let this thing between us go—anywhere but where I was secretly hoping it was headed.

Closing his eyes, he sighs. “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

T
his conversation has
every chance of ending with Maddie walking out the door and never coming back. Especially given how she caught her ex.

It figures I’d find myself in this position. And I can fully admit I deserve it. I find myself bracing for the worst because when karma fucks you up the ass, she’s not gentle.

Clearing my throat, I start at the beginning. “I can’t really tell you about Veronica without explaining my relationship with Clementine.”

I wonder if this will be weird, for me to talk about someone who has become Maddie’s friend too, but when I glance at Maddie, she nods.

Returning my attention to the ceiling, I stare at the long streak of light streaming in from the street. “Clem, Jax, and I grew up together. As I’m sure you gathered from reading Clem’s book, their parents are epic assholes, so they spent a lot of time at my house. We lived next door.”

Maddie’s quiet, and the pressure of what I need to say weighs on me like a concrete slab. “Clementine and I didn’t get together until our senior year in high school. We’d joke about dating, but I think we were both afraid it would change our dynamic. So, for the first three years of high school, we dated other people. But at the end of the night, we always ended up together, hanging out, goofing off. She and her brother would sneak into my room, and we’d stay up watching horror movies or playing video games.”

“Sounds like fun,” Maddie says softly.

“Yeah, we had a blast.” I blow out a breath, not wanting to continue, but knowing I need to. “So Clem’s best friend was this chick Veronica, and she and I did
not
get along. She seriously annoyed the shit out of me. Freshman year, we argued all the time, and it sucked because Clem and Veronica were often a package deal. As we got older, I’d end up having to drive Veronica home because she didn’t have a car. I didn’t want Clem to have to do it in the middle of the night, and Jax would never do it because he never fucking liked her. Anyway, after a few years of playing chauffeur, I guess Veronica and I got to know each other better. We stopped arguing as much. She stopped trying to get a rise out of me. By senior year, I suppose we had become friends.”

“Hmm.”

I don’t bother to look at Maddie because I’m positive she’s silently calling me an idiot. And she’d be right.

“I’m not sure if you know this about Clem because she’s pretty private now, but in high school, she was the ‘it’ girl. The party followed her. She was homecoming queen. Prom queen. Student Council president. I forget what else. Oh, she was like a state champion runner. The girl had more talents than she knew what to do with. All of this meant she was pretty fucking busy. Busier than me, which is saying something because football was all-consuming. On more than one night, Veronica would go to her house, find she wasn’t home yet, and come hang out with me. When you’re seventeen and stupid, this makes sense. In retrospect, I’m guessing she came early on purpose.”

Scrubbing my face, I take a deep breath. “This all meant Veronica and I ended up spending way more time together than we should have. Because I adored Clementine. Worshiped the ground she walked on. And I suppose I was just being an insecure jackass because one night while she was over waiting for Clem, Veronica told me it was all one-sided. That Clem didn’t feel the same about me that I did about her, but that she didn’t know how to break it to me. Veronica pointed to the fact that Clem committed to BU early action and never considered attending BC with me even though it has a great writing program, which is what she wanted to do. Now, you might say that our schools are only forty minutes away on the D-line, but Veronica seemed to think this meant something. That this was Clem’s way of letting me down easy because she didn’t know how to break up with me.”

I venture a glance at Maddie, half wondering if she’s asleep because she’s so quiet. But she’s wrapped around a pillow. Her large blue eyes, which look black, widen. “Sounds like Veronica was manipulating you.”

Shrugging, I sigh and roll onto my side to face Maddie. “Yeah. But it doesn’t matter. I was stupid. A smart person would have realized Clem had a lot on her plate and would have expressed what I was feeling to her, but I guess I just started shutting down too. Whatever the case, I suppose the bigger issue was the fact that Clem was not into public displays of affection. I mean, the girl would barely let me hold her hand. Knowing her family, none of this should have surprised me. Her mother is an ice queen, so I couldn’t blame Clem for not being affectionate. From reading her book, you know she was a virgin, too, and I didn’t want to be an ass and pressure her. She said she felt weird because she obviously knew a lot of the girls I had slept with before we dated, and she felt inexperienced. It kind of bugged her out. But I gotta say that after a while, after months of her growing more and more distant, it got me thinking about what Veronica told me.”

Memories flood back to me, stinging with a bittersweet ache. “Anyway, that spring everything went to shit.” Thinking about it makes me mildly nauseous. Clem and I may have worked through the past, but if I could visit my high school self and kick my own ass, I would.

Maddie brushes my hair out of my face. “What happened?” she whispers.

What happened?
I nearly ruined one of the best friendships I’ve ever had.

I blow out a breath. “It was a strange week. Every time I saw Clem, she was busy. She wasn’t calling me back. She seemed preoccupied when I did see her. Of course, Veronica
was
around, and she suggested that Clem liked some other guy because we saw them talking in the hall. It was all probably innocuous stuff, but our distance had been growing, and it was starting to get under my skin. I missed Clem, my best friend. I missed hanging out with her. Being around her. Not worrying about hugging her. That’s what’s so strange. Before we were dating, I hugged her all the time. We goofed around. I’d carry her on my back. We’d laugh at everything. But that all stopped senior year. It was like she was a different person when we were dating. I guess I was too. I was training really hard and talking to coaches at different colleges, but it sucked that our dynamic changed so dramatically.”

I’m quiet, letting the memories wash over me. Maddie threads her fingers through mine. “You don’t have to tell me any more if you don’t want to.”

“Nah, babe. You should probably hear this. You know Clem, and I don’t want shit to be weird between us. It’s just… I’ve never talked about it before.”

She stills. “Really? Not even with Jax?”

“Especially not with Jax.” He had a front row seat for most of it. I’m sure he doesn’t want a blow-by-blow.

I rub my chin, the scruff scraping my palm. Closing my eyes, I can see the whole thing in slow motion. “It was late spring. After school, I had to see a doctor to get the results of a physical so I could participate in a summer training camp. As I was going over the results with him, I noticed my blood type, which is B. And for some reason that caught my attention. Because I knew my parents were both type A.”

It was a moment that rocked my world off its axis, and I’m sure the man had no idea. “I mentioned that to the doctor, and he laughed and told me that was impossible. That I must be mistaken because there’s no way two type-A parents could have a type-B kid.”

“Oh, shit.” Maddie’s hand tightens in mine.

A weak laugh escapes me. “See, the reason I remember Clementine not being around at the time is because I was going out of my mind trying to figure out what that all meant. I mean, who the fuck were my parents? Did my mother cheat on my father? Was she even my mother? I tore through damn near every photo album in the house looking for similarities. Looking for some sign that I was who they claimed I was.”

I haven’t thought about this shit in so long, it feels foreign. Like I’ve come home to a closet full of clothes I haven’t worn in years that don’t quite fit anymore.

Maddie whispers, “Why didn’t you talk to Jax about what was going on with your parents?”

“Dating Clementine had changed the dynamic for all three of us. So Jax and I weren’t tight that spring. And Jax had some girl drama of his own at the time.”

“He never told you what that was?”

I shake my head. “Which made me think it was pretty bad because he went from dating one girl senior year to sleeping with everything in a fifty-mile radius. But he was pretty pissed at me for what went down with his sister that spring. We didn’t talk again for almost a year. If he and I hadn’t ended up at the same college, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t be friends now.”

I’m quiet, feeling sucked into the past, something I try not to think about.

A few minutes later, Maddie rolls closer until her lips press into my shoulder. She doesn’t say anything, and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t expect me to continue, except now I need to. Now, I want to get it off my chest.

I clear my throat. “That week, I asked my mom what her blood type was. I lied and told her it was for a project at school, a genetics assignment where we had to analyze our traits to see which parent was dominant genetically. I was trying to gauge her reaction. Well, she looked like I had just set our house on fire. She mumbled something about being late for an appointment and almost sprinted out the door.”

“Ugh. That’s rough.” Maddie scoots closer, and I lift my arm to tuck her against me.

“My dad runs a Fortune 500 company. This isn’t shit you can just go around talking about. I was a mess, trying to figure out which of my parents was the liar. Which one let me think I was theirs. I was so fucking pissed. My dad was always talking about me inheriting the hotel that he inherited from my grandfather. Who, it turns out, is not really my grandfather.”

“Jesus. Daren. I’m so sorry.”

While every part of me loathes this story, it’s strangely comforting to finally tell someone. I hold Maddie a little tighter, knowing what comes next.

“All I knew that day was that one of my parents had lied to me my whole life. I walked around in a daze. You know how you can space out when you’re driving familiar roads? End up at a certain spot with no recollection of getting there? My whole day was like that. I didn’t remember going to class, but I must have. I don’t remember getting in the car, but obviously I had. All I remember is sitting at a traffic light. It was raining, pouring. And for some reason, I glanced to the side and saw Veronica waiting at the bus stop. She had an umbrella, but it didn’t help much. She looked like a wet cat. So I rolled down my window and told her to get in.”

I press my lips together, wondering if shit would’ve turned out differently if I hadn’t given her that ride. “I should have just driven away, let the girl catch the bus. But I felt bad for her. And, really, deep down, I think I wanted to destroy shit. Burn everything down to the ground. You know Newton’s Law of Motion? For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction? I had always had a great life. Been on top of my shit. Been the star athlete, made my parents proud. This, this moment was the rubber band snapping back. Because it all felt like a fucking joke. So when I pulled up behind Veronica’s house, and she gave me those big puppy-dog eyes and told me how much she missed me, how she wouldn’t treat me the way Clementine did, I thought fuck it. Fuck it all. And I lit the match.”

* * *

M
aybe it’s been easier
to talk about this because we’re lying in bed in the dark. But now, I want to see Maddie’s face, to gauge how much I disgust her. So I loosen my grip on her shoulder and wait.

She sighs. So much can be said in a sigh.

I imagine the worst is going through her mind. But then she surprises me and tightens her arm on my chest.

“How long did this go on?” she asks quietly.

“Few weeks.” I blow out a breath. “I felt like shit every day I didn’t tell Clementine. And in those rare moments I forgot and then suddenly remembered what I was doing, it was like the air got sucked out of my lungs.” Groaning, I shake my head. “Veronica and I only slept together that one time, and then there were a couple of partial hookups that always began with me intending to do the right thing and break things off. I needed to come clean to Clem. I planned to tell her everything. When I told Veronica we had to stop, that I had to tell Clem, she freaked out. Threw a vase at my head and swore she’d tell her first. But it didn’t matter because Clem found out anyway.”

“I know. It’s in her book.”

“Yes, it is. So in case I want to think it wasn’t as bad as I imagined, I can flip that fucker open and confirm how big of an asshole I was.”

Maddie laughs softly, and I’m surprised she finds any humor in the situation. Because I feel nauseous walking down memory lane.

She rolls onto her stomach and leans up on my chest. “Yes, you were an asshole. But I can see you were going through a lot.” Silence lingers between us, and I take a strand of her silky black hair between my fingers. “Maybe you didn’t handle it well, but we all do dumb things in a crisis.” She’s quiet again, and I’m still reeling from the fact that she hasn’t run out the door yet. “So what happened with Veronica? You guys obviously stayed together.”