Look After Me (5 page)

“Oh sweetheart, you’re just a person who is hurting and it’s absolutely understandable. You had your heart broken, and fixing a broken heart takes time. Give yourself a break. You only came out of rehab this morning. You can’t expect a miracle. I assume this is your first time seeing them together since you went into rehab?”

Unable to utter a word, I just give a curt nod before lowering my gaze back to my bottle, twisting the glass around with my fingers.

“Well, of course, you’re bound to feel overwhelmed but you’re a strong man, Sebastian. You’ve survived war God knows how many times, and you’ve overcome drug addiction. I’m confident you’ll be just fine.” She places her hands on either side of my face with a motherly touch, forcing my gaze on hers. “You may think this heartbreak will never end, but one day, my handsome boy, you will find love in the most unexpected place and the love you had for Ava will not compare to it.”

I can’t help but scoff at that notion. Her eyes narrow on mine with a sternness that, quite honestly, scares me. “Not to sound like a fortune teller, but I see love in your future and even though you don’t believe me, it will happen. But for now, you have to try and get over her. I know she hurt you, and I don’t condone the way she treated you, but she’s happy. And that’s what I want for you—happiness. So instead of drowning your sorrows . . .” She takes my empty beer bottle, throws it in the trash and grabs me a fresh bottle of water. “You need to focus on what you do have. Go and spend time with Lily on her birthday instead of battling with unnecessary demons that are only going to bring you down. She’s missed you.” She pushes me in the direction of the living room.

I turn and give Mrs. Summers a small smile before sitting on the floor beside my sister and daughter. Grace pats my leg affectionately as I take a sip of my bottled water and Lily shuffles towards me.

“Ada!”

Putting the bottle down on the floor, I pick Lily up and stand her between my legs as I blow raspberries in her face. An eruption of giggles escape from her. We happily play with some of her new toys until she tires herself out and falls asleep with her head against my shoulder.

I take this quiet time to gather my thoughts and think back to what Mrs. Summers said about finding love unexpectedly. Even though I have no idea what the future holds, the mere thought of falling in love with somebody else doesn’t appeal to me. What happens if I do eventually get over Ava, meet a girl and fall head over heels in love, only to have her hurt me the same way Ava did? I don’t think I could cope with it a second time. Plus, my heart is so badly damaged that it would take a fucking hammer and chisel to get past the walls I’ve built. I’ll never be so careless with my heart again.

I glance at Ava and Ashton sitting on the sofa, and I can’t keep the smug look off my face when Ashton glances between me and my daughter with a glowering look of envy.

He knows I’m always going to be her father and there isn’t a goddamn thing he can do about it. He may have taken Ava away from me, but he will never take my little girl away.
Ever.
His nostrils flare with anger as I hold my bottle of water up to him in greeting before taking a sip.

He knows it’s my way of marking my territory, and he hates it.

Of course, I’m in no way trying to antagonize him. I’m just silently stating a fact. Well . . . Maybe I
am
trying to antagonize him.

Just a little.

I WANDER ENDLESSLY, MY heart torn in two as I wonder where to go from here.

She picked him.

She picked Ashton over me.

She loved me when I left for Afghanistan, but now I’m back and she loves somebody else. I love her, yet she loves somebody else.

We had our life planned. We were going to grow old and gray together. But now . . . Now she no longer loves me.

She loves somebody else.

I spent nine months witnessing men, women and children dying around me, and watching my colleagues get killed in ruthless bomb attacks, but nothing compares to the moment when I felt my heart being ripped out. I could handle the pain and suffering out there. In the brutal surroundings of Afghanistan, it was my job to be prepared for the worst outcome possible, and having twelve years of practice made locking away my emotions easy. But locking away your emotions from an attack that you’re unprepared for . . .

Well, it’s impossible.

It took half my lifetime to find true love. But when I saw her in that club, the girl who I’d had a huge crush on back in high school . . . I mean, in what universe could we bump into each other years later in a city on the opposite side of the country? I knew it was fate; I knew I’d hit the jackpot. I fell hard and I fell quickly.

I turned from blissfully happy and in love to bone-crushingly broken-hearted in the exact amount of time it took me to fall in love with her. It feels like my heart has been impaled on a knife, and just for kicks, Ava twists the blade over and over again, watching me bleed until there’s nothing left. And it’s a pain that’s constant. A grueling, gouging through the flesh kind of pain.

It’s this very same pain that finds me heading straight for the bar for a much-needed alcoholic drink. Hell, after being on tour and finding out I’ve been cheated on, and that the love of my life picked him over me, I definitely fucking deserve one drink . . .

Or ten.

I chug my first beer. The second follows quickly, but when I’ve hit my fifth and the buzz I’m desperately seeking hasn’t happened, I start hitting the hard stuff. Eventually, my buzz comes but it does nothing to ease the emptiness that continues to suffocate and choke the life out of me. I continue to throw the Jack back, one after the other until I can no longer feel the burning liquid as it flows down my throat. But when I realize I can still see her face, her beautiful face that is no longer mine, the crack in my heart deepens. Not wanting to focus on my Ava—well, Ashton’s Ava now—my hazed eyes connect with the hot blonde bartender behind the bar. I focus all my energy on her, trying to replace the brunette beauty in my head with this blonde. I desperately try to lose myself in the blue of her eyes and the glow of her pale skin instead of the brown eyes and tanned skin of Ava that assaults my brain. Then I take in the perfect shape of blondie’s tits, the incredible curves of her ass, and her luscious toned legs. When I’m confident the murder raging through my chest has dissolved and I can finally breathe again, Ava’s face suddenly appears, causing the crippling effect to take hold and bury deep within me. As the pain spears through me like an electronic current, I realize I’m going to need something a little stronger.

“Everything okay?”

The pretty blonde leans over the bar, her breasts pushing against the wood. My gaze lingers on her cleavage.

“Eyes up here, gorgeous.” She smiles, her eyes sparkling with a look that screams sex. Wild and hot sex.

Leaning in a little closer, I hold my glass up between my fingertips. “I’m trying to forget . . . and this isn’t working, I need something stronger.”

“Stronger, huh?”

I watch her delicate fingers take the glass from my hand. She replaces the whisky glass with a line of shot glasses and grabs a bottle of tequila, pouring the liquid into the glasses in one fluid motion. She steps away for a moment before coming back with a plateful of limes and a salt shaker. My eyes grow wide when she grabs my hand and sucks the skin between my thumb and index finger, moistening the area with her saliva, then sprinkles a little salt against the wet spot. She slides one single shot glass in my direction. Without any hesitation, I take hold of a lime slice between my fingers, lick the salt from my hand with the tip of my tongue, then throw back the tequila down in one. I slam the glass down against the wood as the liquid slides easily down my throat, the whisky obviously numbing my taste buds. I squeeze the lime between my lips, feeling the sweetness on my tongue when I suck the juice out. The bartender follows suit. When she offers her hand to me, I oblige with my mouth and suckle against her sweet skin.

“Thanks.”

I sit back and watch with hazy eyes as she adds a little salt to her hand. She licks the salt away, then raises the shot glass to her lips and throws it back. Her face twists as she swallows the tequila before pressing the lime to her lips. My gaze drops to her lips, watching as she licks along her bottom lip, removing the sweet and sticky remnants of the lime. After two more rounds, the tequila begins to have the desired effect but still not enough for me to fully forget . . .

And I need to forget.

I plead for it.

I’m nearly there.

I just need something a little stronger.

When closing time comes around, and the last customer leaves, she locks the door behind them. She turns around with an animalistic glare.

“Do you want me to leave?”

Her hips sway side to side like a pendulum clock as she walks towards me, and through my drunken haze, I think it’s sexy as hell. Hypnotic. She slides her arms around my shoulders, her hands curling around my neck, her fingers threading through the strands of my hair.

“No . . . I have plans for you.”

Her words make my cock harden uncomfortably. She briefly presses her lips against mine, leaving a taste of salty lime along the edge of my lips when she pulls away.

“Have you forgotten what you’re so desperate to forget?” I shake my head when the image of Ava pops into my head. “I have just the thing to help you forget . . . And it will blow your fucking mind.”

I want it. Whatever she’s offering, I want it. I need it. I just want to forget. I have to focus my eyes on the item she holds in her hand. After a few seconds, I come face to face with a small baggy of white powder.

“You game?”

The blonde bartender—whose name I can’t remember and, quite frankly, don’t care to know—straddles my legs. She pushes her hips against mine so that her pussy is perfectly level with my cock. I stare at the bag of white powder. I know the power it holds. It will indeed make me forget. Worry nags at the back of my mind, screaming a red alert. But with the amount of alcohol swimming through my veins, it’s easy to push that thought away and focus on the coke in front of me.

Lowering my hands from her waist, I smooth them over her ass. Her tiny skirt rides up her hips with the movement and I claw my fingers, clumsily so, against the bare flesh of her skin. “Yeah . . . I just need to forget.”

I slam my lips to hers, kissing her with need. It’s probably sloppy as hell, but I don’t care. After a heated moment, she’s the first to pull away. I watch blurry-eyed as she opens the baggie of coke and sprinkles a small amount against the wood of the bar. Magically, a credit card and a twenty appear in her hands. She cuts the cocaine into tiny pieces with the credit card, my eyes unable to break away from the white dust as she continues to separate it into several lines. The sudden hunger courses through my veins, a feeling so foreign yet familiar. I’m itching for it, wanting to find the respite I know it will deliver.

My fingers squeeze against her ass greedily when she holds the rolled up twenty against her nostril, bending so her face is level with the bar, and snorts a generous line of coke up her nose. She shakily inhales, a breath of relief escaping her lips when she wipes her nose with her fingertips, then hands me the rolled up bill. Without any hesitation, I turn to my side, placing a finger against one nostril while holding the bill against the other. Closing my eyes, I snort the powder, feeling the pressure against my sinuses. Once I inhale through my nostrils, the sinus pain passes and I sit back, waiting for the hit I know will follow.

With the alcohol already circling my veins, it doesn’t take the coke long to soothe through my blood, numbing my mind of the haunted thoughts. My brain becomes a haze and it’s a welcoming feeling. I allow the cloud of nothingness to take over as the stranger pushes me down into a booth, freeing my cock from the constraints of my zipper. I feel the condom rolling down my hardness and then a pussy pounding against me. The only thing I have to worry about is not coming too soon. But after a few moments, that care flies out of the window when I come hard and fast, relishing in the climax as it rockets through my body. I don’t even know if I got her off, nor do I care.

I no longer have a care in the world.

“You okay, man?”

I startle as Caleb walks into the kitchen, breaking me from my thoughts. I straighten the newspaper that I have in my hands, feeling the paper crinkle through my fingers as I place it down on the table. Finding my coffee, I throw the rest back desperately wanting to rid myself of the sudden craving I have. “Um, yeah.”

Caleb walks past me and looks down at the newspaper, noticing the apartments for rent section I’m currently looking at. “Already looking for an apartment?”

I stand from my seat with my cup in my hand and walk over to the counter, pouring myself another strong cup of coffee. “Yes,” is all I manage to say when I lean against the counter, cradling my hands against the warmth of my mug. I’m still finding it hard to say words that are longer than a simple sentence. I can feel the words at the edge of my tongue but finding the urge to speak is impossible. The most I’ve spoken since I left rehab was two days ago, and that was with Caleb’s mom.