Scars and Songs (36 page)

“When do you think you’ll call me?” She asked seductively.

I smiled at her, standing there in my fucking bright orange prisoner jumper wondering what psycho fucked up daddy issues or sexual dysfunction this chick might possibly have to give
me, prisoner #122773,
her damn number.  “How about never?  Is never good for you?”

“How about a ride home then?  You’re going to need someone to get you off this island,
Rockstar
.  You don’t strike me as someone who waits for a bus in the middle of the night.”

“Nah, I’ll swim if I have to.  But thanks for the offer.”

“You’re not afraid of sharks, huh?  You’re that much of a
badass?
” She was slithering closer to me. 
Ooookay, I’m still a prisoner.  I still have the orange fucking jump suit on and all she sees is a badass rockstar
. 
Nut
.

“Lady, how long have you lived in New York City?  There’s no way that sharks live in the East River.  They all seem to work for the district attorney’s office.”

It took her a minute, but I think she understood my meaning.

I was handed back my personal effects in a sealed manila envelope and given my bloodied clothes back.  Nice.  My clothes covered in Grace’s dried blood.  I sat down heavily on the hard wooden benches they offer the wonderful prisoners and their visitors here for comfort, and clung to the bloodied clothing.  All I wanted to do was get the hell out of this prison, off this damn island and head straight for Grace’s hospital room. 
I wasn’t leaving her side until she woke up
.  But showing up with clothes stained with her blood would probably get me lots of attention from the authorities. 

As soon as the district attorney chick saw me hugging and breathing in my bloody clothes, she left in a hurry.  I winked at her on the way out just to creep her out more.

The person I least expected to walk in through the prison doors came to get me.

Tucker and his father came with a new set of clothes for me, signed some papers as my lawyers and offered to drive me home.  I nodded silently and followed them out to my freedom.

“I know it’s past midnight, but instead of home, can you take me right to the hospital so I can see Grace?” I asked Tucker as soon as I sat in the backseat of his father’s car.

Tucker spun his head around all exorcist style and popped his eyes open wide, “Are
you shitting me?  Grace woke up like a week and a half ago and she’s been home locked in her room not talking to anyone but Lea.  Nobody told you?  I thought Alex and Conner were coming here like every day to visit you.  What the hell, bro, shows you who your true friends are.”

“She’s okay?”  I suddenly felt lightheaded and ready to pass out. 
Why hadn’t anybody told me?  Why hadn’t anybody put me out of my damn misery?
  Tears stung my eyes and my heart felt a thousand times lighter; she was okay.

“Yeah, bro, she’s fine.  I haven’t seen her yet though.  Lea says she doesn’t want to talk to anyone yet.”

“Who do I thank for clearing me of the charges against me?” I whispered.

Tucker’s smile tightened.  “The detective’s finally showed up at Grace’s apartment earlier this afternoon to give her a formal interview and she told them it wasn’t you.  She said it was some stranger, an intruder who they happened to catch in the house.”

We drove the rest of the way back to our apartment in silence.  Everyone seemed to be sleeping when I got home so I just jumped in the shower to scrub the last five weeks of my life away, wondering the whole time what was going to happen when Grace and I laid eyes on each other again.

When I heard a familiar giggle at the end of the hallway my heart just about stopped and my feet felt nailed to the floor.  Sliding along the wall to help her stand, Grace,
my Grace
, was making her way out of Ethan’s bedroom.  She stumbled out, closing the door with a thud and fell, dropping the sexy as sin shoes she was holding in her drunk little hands.  She slapped her hands over her mouth to stifle her giggles and
my
hands instantly balled into tight fists.

Seeing her for the first time in almost six weeks, I breathed in what felt like my first breath since I had last laid eyes on her.  But as I inhaled, all I could smell was the bitterness of the whiskey and Ethan’s nasty-ass cologne pouring off her skin.  It didn’t take much for me to realize what she must have been doing in Ethan’s room with the way she was haphazardly dressed.   A pair of loose fitting ripped up jeans that barely stayed up over her lower hips and the tightest little damn shirt I had ever seen adorned her body.  The words
All I Need are Shoes, Booze and Bad boys with Tattoos
were spread tightly across those freaking gorgeous breasts I loved, and the shirt seriously ended just underneath them, showing off her entire tight creamy flat stomach.  Her hair was disheveled and I swear she had that freshly fucked look to her that I’d been aching for weeks to put on her face myself. 

Describing the feeling of my heart completely being torn to shreds in that moment, I don’t think I will ever correctly express the utter torment that ripped through my body.  There were no words for the despair.  No way to describe how lost and hurt I felt standing there, watching
my world
leave another man’s bedroom.  I couldn’t think a straight thought through the hurricane of human emotions that annihilated my heart.

When she saw me, she froze.

“What the hell?” I heard myself growl. 
And oh, yes it was a fucking animalistic growl
.  I couldn’t take it, I couldn’t take the way those beautiful silver eyes looked at me.  Wide-eyed and paled faced, Grace flinched away from the shock of me standing in the hallway catching her. 
Sur-fucking-prize
. Thoughts of Ethan’s arms wrapped around her, of his lips on her’s, made me want to punch my fist through the drywall.  Fucking pictures of them flashed in my mind as if I had caught them on a freaking Nikon instead of her just tiptoeing her drunk-ass walk of shame out of his room. 

“What. The. Hell?” I repeated louder. 

Then she had the damn audacity to bite that plump lower lip of hers and look at me like I was willing to take Ethan’s sloppy seconds. 
Oh hell, no
.

“Did you just
come out
of
Ethan’s fucking bedroom
?” I screamed.

Grace’s eyes widened even more and then she was gasping for air.  A deep burst of crimson spread across her cheeks, and I fucking hated myself right then because it instantly became my favorite color.  It killed me, it fucking killed me that this human could throw me away like I wasn’t once a god and I still
loved
her soul.  It.  Killed.  Me.

She shook her head and it wobbled her whole body.  “Yeah, but nothing...” she started to deny what I knew had probably happened.

My vision blurred, my stomach churned and I seriously starting planning to scratch my own eyeballs out if I began crying in front of this girl.  “Save it. It doesn’t matter.”  I walked past her and my bare arm grazed the softness of hers and I heard a low gasp, barely above a breath.  Disgusted with myself even more, because it was my lips it had slipped through.  The anger of what she had done to
me
, to
us
made my blood boil hot in my veins
.
God forgive me, I wanted her to hurt inside just as much as I did.  I stopped moving, our arms still just barely touching, and I leaned my head down leveling my eyes to hers.  “Don’t worry about locking the door behind you, we have easy ass like you coming in and out of here
all
the time.”

A tear trickled down her cheek and she leaned away from me, slumping heavily against the wall.  “We were talking...”

I laughed, “Right, was that before or after you fucked him? Save it, why the hell would I care? I don’t want to listen to the blow by blow of your night.”

Clenching her fists she tried to straighten up off the wall but failed.  “Fuck you, Shane!”

After all the hell I just went through, after everything I had given up for her,
fuck me?
  Uncontrollable rage pulsed through my body and I felt disgustingly human and weak with the power my emotions had over me.  How every human could fight against blowing their own damn brains out to stop these intense, insane emotions, was a complete mystery to me.  I wanted out.  I wanted out of this body.  Out of this world.  I wanted my wings back.

Fuck me?
  I lunged at her and swung her body over my shoulder, caveman style. 
I know, I’m a complete dick
but I swear every day being in this human body was making me more irrational. 
No, I wasn’t being irrational
, she slept with Ethan while I was getting out of jail, after giving up any chance I ever had to get back into heaven, all
for her!
  I swear I felt the testosterone spike through my balls and spread out across the hallway.  For a split second, I looked down to see if my skin was turning green and I’d be busting out of my shirt all Hulk-style.  No dice.  I seemed to be just temporarily fucking insane.  I grabbed hold of the back of her thighs and carried her through the hallway toward the
Bone Room
. She didn’t even scream.

Thrusting open the Bone Room door as hard as I could, it smashed up against the wall inside the room and echoed its crash like thunder through the apartment.  I plopped her down next to the door and stood over her, my body wracked with the tremors of my anguish.  “Fuck me?
Fuck me?
You want to go in the Bone Room with me?”  I dropped, crouched down to her level and slammed both my palms against the wall on either side of her face. The drywall cracked beneath my palms. 
Holy crap, rein it in, Shane, you’re being borderline abusive here.
Yeah, I couldn’t stop myself even if God stood before me, “Because I could really get off on some head right now, since I’ve been in
fucking jail
for over a month.” I slid my hands down the wall slowly, never breaking eye contact with her. “I usually don’t like my girls still wet from Ethan, but hey, if you’re game...but if not, get the
fuck
out of my hallway.”

Then Grace slapped me. 

Her hand hit me so hard that my whole face moved, and I deserved it, I know I did.  But I wanted her to hurt inside. I would never hit her, ever.  But I wanted her to feel
this
…
this
emptiness that she left me with.  Why the hell did she have to give herself to someone else?  She was
mine
.  Bile rose in the back of my throat as images of her legs wrapped around Ethan’s waist danced like sugarplums in my head.  I was losing it. 

She slid herself up along the wall, never taking her steely gaze away from me. “Don’t you ever lay your hands on me again, Shane.  Get the hell out of my way,” she whispered.  The way she looked at me then, I don’t know if I could ever handle seeing Grace look at me with that expression again; utter disgust.  It killed me.

I stood up slowly, eyes still locked on hers. 
God, let me walk the hell away from her, give me the strength because all I want to do is kiss her
.

She stormed past me slamming my shoulder with hers, and stalked down the hallway. I watched her pick up her shoes and head for the front door, and the way her outfit looked from behind caused a violent streak of heat to course through my insides. Grace’s shredded pants gave the world an intimate view of her perfect curvy bottom,  “
Sweet
fucking pants, I bet Ethan really enjoyed that hot little ass of yours. Sure you don’t want to change your mind about the Bone Room?” My voice trembled.

She flipped me the bird.  Then she left. 
Just left
.  No more fighting, no more denying any of it.  Nothing.  Not even a fucking
sorry
. 
It didn’t look like she remembered shit that happened when I rescued her from where Gabriel hid her while she was in a coma
.  She had no clue who I had been and she moved on.

Storming into my room, I slammed the door hard behind me and
sat on the floor clutching my chest, the ache was unbearable for any human and I wondered if the pain would actually kill me.  I couldn’t stand to breathe without her, so I stayed on the floor and waited to die.

I woke up swinging when an icy cold glass of something splashed across my face.  Five guilty-ass-mother-fuckers stood over me.  Conner, Lea, Alex, Brayden and Ethan.  Alex, of course, was holding the glass, smiling. 

“I’d start running, Alex, because as soon as I get up out of this bed…”  I looked around me…
okay, I was on the floor
… “As soon as I get off the floor I’m going to kick your ass.  Seriously?  Why the hell am I on the floor?” 
Oh, right that’s where my heart broke last night.

Alex’s face reddened and he gave me a serious expression, “Look, Shane.  We all came in here to say how sorry we were for not believing you and…”