Wildflower (Colors #4) (16 page)

“You’re ruining my life!” he yelled just as his bedroom door slammed shut.

I scoffed. “Oh please, like I haven’t pulled that melodramatic shit before. I’m better at it than you!” I called, but his music was already blaring so he didn’t hear me.

That really hadn’t gone well at all.

And there was one person in particular that I blamed.

Whether I was being rational or not.

I had no idea where Noah lived, but I was angry enough to brave the cold, jump into my grandmother’s piece of shit truck—I really needed to look into trading it in—and hunting his ass down.

If I had been in a reasonable frame of mind, I would have stopped long enough to realize that Noah wasn’t to blame. But, clearly, having just walked in on my little brother dry humping that little skank, I wasn’t feeling all that sane. And I desperately needed somewhere to deposit all my irrational fury.

Taking a chance that he was still living in his parents’ old house, even though I’d heard through the grapevine that they’d retired to Florida, I pointed the truck in that direction and floored it. Unfortunately, the truck refused to go over forty miles an hour, so by the time I made it to the Murphys’ house—luckily I’d been right, Noah’s SUV was parked in the driveway—I was steaming mad. I wanted to rip Noah a new asshole, then take a sledgehammer to that poor excuse of a motor vehicle.

My tires squealed as I skidded to an abrupt halt in the driveway, the truck barely in park before throwing the door open and stomping out.

The porch light clicked on, illuminating the entryway and part of the snow-covered yard just before the door slung open. “Harlow? What the hell? Is everything okay?”

Don’t look at his bare chest. Don’t look at his bare chest. Don’t look at his bare chest.

Damn it! I looked
!

“No, everything is
not
okay!” I exclaimed as I clomped up the front stairs, trying in vain not to notice just how sexy Noah looked standing there, wearing nothing but a pair of flannel sleep pants. “I’m pissed off and you aren’t wearing a shirt! Do you have any idea how hard it is to yell at you when you’re not wearing a shirt?”

If I hadn’t been so focused on his smooth, perfect skin that covered large mounds of muscle glowing in the light from the front porch, I wouldn’t have missed the shit-eating grin that spread across his face.

“Fair is fair, wildflower. You take yours off too and we’ll call it even.”

Ignoring his lighthearted demeanor, I pushed forward, taking the steps at a quick clip until I was in his face. “This is all your fault!”

I saw Noah’s expression shudder, the humor quickly fled as his entire body went on alert. “I’m all for taking blame when it’s due, Harlow,” he started as he crossed his arms over his thick chest. “But maybe you’d like to enlighten me on what it is that’s all my fault before I fall on that particular sword.”

“Ethan!” I shouted that one word like it was all the explanation he needed.

“Uh… gotta say, baby. I’m a little stumped here. What exactly did I do to Ethan?”

“I just caught him seconds away from screwing some sixteen year old skank!” I continued to shout. “He’s only fourteen, for Christ’s sake!”

I didn’t miss the twitch of Noah’s lips as he worked hard to suppress his grin. And it did nothing but fuel that angry fire burning deep in my belly.

“Sweetheart,” he started in a low, rumbling voice that usually would have my insides quivering. Not so much just then. “I think we should take this inside before you wake the whole neighborhood.”

“I don’t care about the damned neighborhood!” I screeched. “I care about the fact that I walked in on my little brother, half naked, alone with an older girl, and he didn’t see a goddamned thing wrong with it because it’s what
all the other guys on the team are doing
.” I finished with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

“Again, wildflower. Not seeing how this is something that’s my fault.”

“You’re turning him into
you
!” On that, I drilled my finger into the bare skin of his pec and continued on my rampage. “He’s just a fucking kid, but he lives, eats, breathes, and
sleeps
football! The only kids he hangs out with are the other guys on the team, the only thing he talks about is football, and if it weren’t for his stupid video games, there wouldn’t be anything else in his life that mattered more than that stupid fucking game.
Your
game! You’re shoving your own failed dreams down my little brother’s throat, so desperate to relive your glory days, you don’t give a shit about the fact that it’s bordering on an unhealthy obsession.”

I was on a roll, so dead-set on spewing out my fury that I’d barely stopped to take a breath. Fury I hadn’t even realized I was holding on so tightly to. Fury that I’d ignorantly convinced myself I’d let go of so as not to be stuck in the past. Obviously, I’d been wrong. It was still there, buried deep inside of me, but there nonetheless.

“Get in the house,” Noah hissed between clenched teeth. His face had gone thunderous and I was suddenly struck with the realization that there had only been a few times in my life that I’d seen that kind of anger from him. And each of those times I’d more than deserved his wrath.

I belatedly realized that I had made a huge mistake in letting my emotions get the better of me. I hadn’t stopped to think, that much was certain. And standing in front of a Noah that looked ready to breathe fire, I suddenly wished I’d never stormed out of my house, hell bent for leather.

In that very moment, he was utterly terrifying.

“Uh…” I mumbled, taking a cautious step back.

“House, Harlow,” he ground out.

“Maybe I should—” I started, only to end on a yelp as Noah’s hand shot out and wrapped around my forearm. His grip wasn’t painful, but strong enough for me to know he wasn’t playing around.

“Ass. In. The. House. You wanted to rush over here like a bat outta hell and lay into me for shit that has nothing to do with me, you did it. Now it’s my turn to speak my peace. But I won’t be doing it on the front porch for all my fucking neighbors’ entertainment. Get. Inside.
Now.
”

Making the very first wise decision of the evening, I followed his order and moved into the house.

Silently cursing myself with every step I took.

Son of a bitch.

There wasn’t much I didn’t remember about my time with Harlow, but it wasn’t until she’d shown up on my doorstep in the dark of night, throwing some serious fucking attitude, that I remembered just how dirty we fought.

It most definitely wasn’t something we did often. I could probably count on one hand the number of times we’d gotten into fights during our relationship. But when we did, we did it big. And we did it nasty. That fire in Harlow that burned bright and made me hard could also scorch the hell out of you on the rare occasion you got too close.

But I wasn’t one to ever back down.

So I didn’t.

She’d fight and I’d fight back.

She threw attitude, I gave just as good as I got.

It wasn’t the smartest way to fight—or, hell, even the healthiest—but it was how we did it. Back then, we’d been so passionate about each other and our relationship that sometimes that passion could turn a little ugly when we got carried away.

So when I released Harlow’s arm and slammed the front door behind us, I was battling my rage at the same time I was battling the massive hard-on tenting the front of my pants.

Some people might have thought it twisted, but there hadn’t been a woman since Harlow that made me feel even half as good as I felt when I was with her, whether we were fighting or not. So I took the good with the bad.

Because the good made the bad seem infinitesimal.

“Noah…” Harlow began, raising her hands in a placating gesture as she took two steps back into the living room.

“No,” I cut her off prowling toward her. I had no doubt, with the anger coursing through me, that I looked like a lion hunting his prey as I backed her farther and farther into the room, stopping less than a foot from her once her back hit the wall. “You had your say, now I’m having mine. You want to throw shit in my face, go for it. But you better make goddamned certain I deserve the shit you’re shoveling. And I’m telling you right now, Harlow, the bullshit you’re trying to put on me right now is just that—
bullshit
. I won’t stand here and let you accuse me of trying to do anything to Ethan other than coach him in a game
he
loves.”

“Noah… just listen—”

“Done listening, baby,” I growled, my blood still boiling in my veins. “Now it’s your turn. You wanna know why that boy lives and breathes football? Cause when his grandma started getting sick, that was the
only
fuckin’ thing he had to keep his mind off the fact that he was about to lose the woman who raised him. His sister was half a goddamned country away—living her own life—while he was stuck in a house watching the woman he loved like a mother wither away before his fuckin’ eyes. That’s not on
me
, sweetheart, that’s all on
you.
You want to point fingers, you better be willing to look in the mirror and take the blame you damn well earned.”

Those unique eyes of hers flashed and I could see that fire building inside her once again. “That’s not fair, Noah!”

“You wanna talk about fair?” I barked out a humorless laugh. “Fine, let’s do that. What’s
not
fair is you swaying your ass up
my
porch accusing me of trying to live vicariously through your brother. What’s
not
fair is you telling me you forgive me then throwing every goddamned thing I’ve done,
and
some I haven’t, in my face the first fuckin’ chance you get! What’s
not
fair is walking away from me damn near six years ago without letting me fight to get back what we lost! What’s
not fuckin’ fair
is that you took yourself away from me, and no matter what hoops I jump through, no matter how hard I try to prove to you I’m not the guy I was back then, you still won’t give yourself
back to me
!” I ended on a bellow.

It wasn’t until I was finished with my tirade that I realized I’d moved in so close we were practically nose-to-nose, both of our chests rising and falling like we’d just ran a marathon.

“I fucked up. I’ve said that over and over. I’ve apologized to you until I was blue in the face, but you refuse to move on from the past. You think you’re the only one that’s suffered all these years? My life’s been a goddamned joke since you walked away from me. I was such a fucking wreck once you were gone, I didn’t care about anything. Not college, not football,
nothing
. I spent my Freshman and Sophomore years drinking my way through every bottle I could get my hands on. My grades were in the toilet. I practiced with a hangover almost every damn day. I played like shit because I didn’t
care
. I lost you and I didn’t care about anything else. You wanna know what happened to my dreams of going pro? I fucked those up just like I did everything else! I drank myself blind one night, got behind the wheel of my car, and drove the son of a bitch into a tree. Jacked my knee to hell and tore my shoulder up in a way neither would ever heal right.”