Fighting Ever After (Ever After #3) (8 page)

“Are you
going to kiss me?” She asked breathlessly. Her naivety made me smile. She
thought all I was going to do to her was kiss her. Maybe that would satisfy the
need I saw in her eyes, but it wouldn’t be enough for me. That was the difference
between us and that was why I couldn’t do any of those things to her. Not yet.
It was too late to treat her like every other girl, because every minute I
spent with her made it clearer that she wasn’t. It was also too late to just to
walk away.

“Believe me;
you’ll know when I’m going to kiss you.” I dropped my head until our lips were
damn near touching. I lowered my head even farther to skim my lips over her
jaw, never quite touching her skin. Then I took her chin in my hand and trailed
my thumb over her bottom lip before I leaned in to whisper in her ear. “You’re
not ready for me yet Princess, but when you are, I promise you won’t have to
ask whether or not I’m going to do it, but you need to know right now that I’m
not a prince and I never will be.” I released her chin and walked out of the
room, telling myself I did the right thing, and asking myself when doing the
right thing had started mattering to me.

“
You expecting
anyone else, Princess?” I hollered when a knock
sounded at the front door. Princess was in the kitchen, where she’d been hiding
out since she came back downstairs. I was just getting up to check out who had
knocked, when she came bolting out of the kitchen.

“Yes,” she
said, rushing toward the door, but I was already there. I wanted to see what
had her so excited and why she tried to beat me to the door. I pulled it open
and came face to face with a guy around my age, maybe slightly older, standing
on the porch. He was nearly as tall as I was, and a little stockier. It wasn’t
Connor or any of those guys from the bar. I hoped he was friendly, because even
though I was pretty confident I could take him, I didn’t relish the idea of
finding out.

“Who’s
this?” I asked her, not bothering to hide my irritation.

“This is
Shane,” she said, knowing damn well that I wanted more of an explanation than
that. If she had a boyfriend, why the fuck hadn’t anyone mentioned that, and
why the hell had she been about to let me kiss her twenty minutes ago? “My
brother,” she finished. She’d done that intentionally. “Shane, this is Kyden.”
He stuck out his hand and I gripped it tightly, he squeezed tighter and then I
did the same, making sure he knew I couldn’t be intimidated.

“Shane is
going to stay with me the rest of the night, so you’re officially off the
hook,” she explained.

I frowned.
That hadn’t been the deal. “Nobody said anything about that. Chris told me I’m
supposed to stay until he comes over in the morning.”

“Yeah, well,
that’s because nobody bothered to check with me before making those decisions,”
she retorted. “Thanks for being here, but you can go now,” she dismissed me and
I don’t know why it pissed me off so much, but it did. It was clear what she
was doing.

“Didn’t take you for a coward, Princess.”
I glared at her, leaning
in. “I’m not the big bad wolf,” I said quietly before walking past her brother
and taking the steps down off the porch. I should have been happy that my night
had just been freed up. It was ten o’clock on a Friday night in Boston. I could
have taken my pick of bars or clubs or I could have texted a few of my buddies.
I could have done a lot of things other than go home in a sour mood, but that’s
what I did.

I had the
house to myself when I got home, so I plugged my phone into the sound system
and cranked the volume up, filling the quiet house with music. I turned on the
X-Box and spent the next couple hours killing people and blowing shit up. When
that got old, I powered it off and went to take a shower, hoping that would
relax me. Afterward I settled into my bed with my composition book and worked
on some more material for the band. I wasn’t getting anywhere with it, and my
mind kept going back to Jaxyn. I knew from experience that if something was on
my mind, the best way to get it off was to get it down on paper. I didn’t know
where I was going with it, if it was even going anywhere, but I had a couple
lines, so I wrote them down.

Hey
little girl with the ribbons in your hair

Your head
full of fairytale dreams

Then I
slammed the notebook shut and tossed it on the floor. I wanted this girl out of
my head. I grabbed my phone and pulled up Kaylie’s contact ID.

She answered
on the second ring. “What the hell do you want?” She was still pissed about
last weekend.

“Want to
come over?”

“Are you
serious right now? It’s almost one in the morning and you were a dick last
weekend. You can’t treat me like that and then just call me up because you’re
horny. I’m not a whore you can just play with when you feel like it and then
treat like shit because some new little toy comes along and catches your eye.”

“I didn’t
call you to listen to you bitch, Kaylie. You know how this works. If you want a
boyfriend, then quit screwing me. What we’ve got is good, but that’s all it’s
going to be, so are you coming over or not?”

She cursed
and grumbled like she was so much better, but if she were she would have just
hung up on my ass. She should have. I would have respected her more if she did,
but she didn’t. Instead, she said she was on her way. Her apartment was about a
twenty minute drive from our place, so I checked a few emails on the band
account and responded to some invites to play shows.

I heard the
front door open and assumed Chris was home since Kaylie knew better than to
just let herself in. One was kind of early for him to be home from a date,
especially since he’d been seeing this girl for a few weeks. I walked out of my
room and heard the sink in the bathroom running. I leaned against the wall and
waited for him to come out.

“How was the
date?” I asked him.

“Shit,” he
startled. “What the hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be with Jaxyn.”
He was pissed, obviously thinking I’d left her alone.

“Calm the
fuck down. She didn’t need me to stay, her brother showed up and she said I
could take off.”

He frowned.
“Her brother?”

“Yeah, her brother.
Shane or something like that.”

“Fuck,” he
cursed and pulled his phone out of his pocket and I assumed he was trying to
call someone. “Come on, come on, Tink, answer your damn phone,” he muttered. He
hung up, frustrated. “Shit!” He started calling someone else, and when he
started talking, I knew it was Bas. What I didn’t know was why the hell he was
freaking out.

“Hey, I just
got home and Ky is here, he said Shane showed up at Jaxyn’s and she told him to
leave . . . Yeah I tried calling her, she didn’t answer . . . Okay, if you
can’t reach her let me know and I’ll meet you there.”

“What the
hell is going on?” I asked when he hung up.

“I’m not
sure, but if it really was Shane who showed up at her house, it’s not good.”

“Is he not
really her brother?” Now I was thinking he was some boyfriend and she had just
lied to get me to leave.

“He’s her
half brother, but he’s a fucking asshole who treated her like shit from the
moment she moved in to her father’s house. He’s also friends with Connor,” he
explained.

“What the
fuck?”

“I know, I
don’t understand why the hell she would let him in and tell you to leave.
Something isn’t right.” Just then his phone rang. It was Bas calling to tell
him he couldn’t reach her either and was heading over to her place to check on
her. Chris said he’d meet him there and then hung up.

“I’m coming
with you,” I said, following him out of the house. Kaylie was just getting out
of her car when we stepped out the door. “Sorry, gotta go.” I told her.

“Seriously!
What the hell?
You
called
me!
”

“Sorry, I
really don’t have time for this Kaylie,” I didn’t even stop as I hopped into
Chris’ SUV and left her standing on the sidewalk. Chris tried calling Jax one
more time before starting the car, but again he got no answer. He turned the
key and then peeled out onto the street, pushing the speed limits the whole way
there and I started to panic, thinking something might have happened to her
because I left her. I slid my phone out of my pocket and started calling her.
Finally, on the second try she picked up.

“Hello?” Her
voice was sleepy.

“Princess,
please fucking
tell
me you’re okay,” I practically
shouted. Chris looked over at me questioningly.

“What’s
going on?”

I held my
hand up to quiet him so I could hear her. “I’m fine, why wouldn’t I be?”

I breathed
out a heavy sigh of relief, and then covered the mouth speaker on the phone.
“She’s fine,” I told Chris and then put the phone back to my mouth. “We’ve been
calling and texting you for over half an hour and you haven’t responded.”

“You talked
to Bas?” She asked warily.

“Chris
called him after he got home from his date and I explained why I wasn’t with
you. What’s going on Princess?” I didn’t get an answer before she hung up, but
we were almost there. When Chris parked outside her house, we could see Bas’
car in the driveway already. We both jumped out and ran to the door. Chris
didn’t waste time knocking and we both rushed inside to find Bas standing in
the living room with Jaxyn and Shane sitting on the couch. Jaxyn looked at the
two of us and then scowled at Bas.

 “Jeez,
was it really necessary to bring the whole damn cavalry Bas?”

“I told you
Princess, you weren’t answering your phone.”

“We were
worried,” Chris added, “We were already on the way when you finally answered,
and then you hung up on
Ky
and we didn’t know what was
going on.”

“Well
everything is fine. I’m fine, he’s fine, so you can all go home,” she insisted,
but it did her little good. Bas and Chris were still glaring hard at her
brother, who didn’t seem the least bit troubled by what was going on.

“I’m still
waiting for you to tell me why my fist isn’t in his face, Jazz,” Bas said. She
didn’t answer him right away, but her eyes flicked toward me, and I got the
feeling she didn’t want to say too much in front of me.

“Like I
said, things are different. Shane is different. We’ve been talking lately and
we sorted through a lot. We’ve gotten to a place where I trust him Bas.”

“You trust
him?” Bas scoffed. “I’m sure that’s exactly what he wants, so he can set you up
for his buddy, just like before.”
Before?

Shane rose
from the couch angrily. “I didn’t fucking have anything to do with that.”

Bas moved
forward to square off with him. “Why should I believe you? How many times did
you let him near her?” He took another step closer, every word laced with
indignation. “How many times did you leave her alone with him? You practically
served her up on a platter.”

Jax tried to
put herself between the two of them, reaching out to touch Bas’ shoulder, but
he shook her off. Her eyes darted pleadingly to Chris, but he made no move to
stop his brother. Then her eyes found mine, and I could see how much she wished
I wasn’t there, how afraid she was of me finding whatever secrets she was
trying to keep hidden. Whatever they were, I had a feeling I really didn’t want
to know. If I did, I didn’t think I’d be able to keep myself from caring. I
couldn’t afford to care. Already the thought of her getting hurt left me with
the urge to shove Bas out of the way and hurt this guy myself. Shame flashed in
her eyes before she looked away from me.

“I don’t
care what you think,” Shane told him. “Yes, he was my friend, but I didn’t know
what he had planned, that he was going to . . . I knew he was an asshole, but I
just didn’t . . .” He couldn’t even finish and it made me sick to my stomach to
try and put together what he wasn’t saying. Had this guy beat her up? Hurt her
that bad?

“Your own
father -”

“STOP!”
Jax yelled hysterically. “Don’t do this here.”

Bas looked
over at me in understanding.
“Fine.
The three of us
will go upstairs. You two,” he was talking to me and Chris, “can wait down
here.”

Chris looked
about as happy as I was to be left out of the loop, but it wasn’t my place to argue
or say shit. I didn’t even know what the hell I was doing here other than I’d
needed to know Princess was okay.

They
disappeared upstairs and Chris threw himself on the couch. If I had driven my
own car, I would have walked out the door and left, but I just grabbed a seat
beside him. “What the fuck is that all about?”

“I don’t
know what’s going on any more than you do, but when Jaxyn left three years ago,
she was running from that douchebag as much as everything and everyone else she
was trying to get away from.” That answered my question about why she’d been
gone. She had run and the pieces I was putting together from the little bit of
information I had, made me think she’d had good reason to.

“Why did she
come back after three years?”

“This is her
home,” he said looking around. “She lost everything when her mom died. She
changed and then things just started getting worse for her. She took off as
soon as she graduated high school. Like literally, that day. She packed up her
car and left without telling anyone. None of us had heard from her until the
night she showed up at that bar last weekend. I didn’t get the full story from
Bas, he just said she thought it was time to come back and deal with shit, but
I just can’t shake the feeling that things are going to get bad again, like
they were before she left.”

“Any chance
you’re going to tell me what happened that caused her to leave?” I asked him.

“A lot of
shit happened, and it’s not my place to tell you, just like you wouldn’t want
me to tell her your shit.”

I let out a
humorless laugh. He had me there. I wasn’t one to talk about my past with
anyone. We’d all gotten drunk one night about six months ago though, and I’d
opened up to the guys for the first time and told them everything. It was the
first time I’d ever talked about what happened with Elaina. I trusted them to
keep that shit to themselves so I respected that he wasn’t going to violate her
trust.