All Good Things Exposed(8)

Jace's hands clasped my waist. He lifted me from his shoulder before setting me in the back seat of the car. He buckled me in as my hands fumbled to retract his stealthily quick movements with the suddenly complex seatbelt.

He slapped my hands away. "Enough."

"Get away from me." I hissed with as much venom as I could muster. It was a lot. I don't think I had ever been as angry as I was right now. I was pull out my hair, stomp my foot into the concrete, shout to the sky kind of angry.

"Grow up." Jace admonished. "You're not going anywhere tonight so get over it."

"You can't just kidnap me, Jace."

"Don't challenge me, Olivia. I have a mind to lock you in a fucking dungeon at the moment. I suggest, for your own wellbeing you shut that pretty mouth of yours. My patience has run thin."

"Fuck you."

His hand moved with lightning speed to grasp my jaw. He forced me to look up into his eyes as he leaned into the car. "I said to watch your mouth. When did you start using that language anyway?"

I ignored his question and dove right in for the kill. "And I thought I told you to leave me alone and never come back into my life. You fucking promised you would give me what I wanted!"

I was yelling with no regard to the people who were surely watching us. I was completely and utterly oblivious to Gabe in the front seat, the bouncer who was most certainly debating on calling for the police, and the people lined up the side of the building in hopes of getting smashed and finding a warm body to comfort their cold beds. The only thing I could focus on was Jace. And even more specifically his eyes. His bright blue eyes were burning me with their piercing gaze. I swallowed as he leaned down close to me. I could practically taste his breath and it was all I could do not to lean into him the way I really wanted and press my lips into his.

"I promised I would leave if it was better for you. But evidence proves otherwise. You haven't been okay since I left so stop acting like you don't need me. You need me, Olivia and I'm not making the same mistake twice. I will not walk away so get used to me."

With those cutting, sweet, infuriating, heart stopping words…Jace closed the car door. I watched with trembling hands and erratic emotions as he rounded the rear of the vehicle to sit beside me.

He was right. I needed him.





Chapter 3

Jace didn't say anything as he slid into the seat beside me. He ran a hand though disheveled hair and I heard him sigh deep in his chest. I wanted to comfort him. That's how utterly pathetic I was. I wanted to comfort him despite my anger.

Thankfully, I didn't. Instead, I forced my hands to remain tightly folded in my lap as I looked out the window. My eyes were tired. My lids heavy. I hadn't felt so at peace in weeks. Seven to be exact. I almost feared if I closed my eyes, I would sleep like the dead. There was a part of me that wanted to tell Jace just what he had done to me. Just how he'd destroyed me…how his presence now was surely going to be the death of me…but I didn't. I relented to the need that pulled at the fringes of my mind and let my eyes close. I wouldn't sleep. I would just relax my bruised lids. I would revel in the few minutes of peace I had been allotted because I was certain this was the calm before the tsunami of tears my eyes would cry when Jace walked away again. Because, I was near certain I would tell him to walk away. He wasn't good for me. But not having him wasn't any better. I decided this was not an internal conversation to be had while under the influence of alcohol and I felt my head loll against the headrest. Darkness flooded and my mind and for the first time in seven weeks, I succumbed to a quiet within sleep that was reserved only for those with peace of mind.

***

I knew Olivia had been handling my departure bad. Fuck, I'd been handling it worse then I had ever handled anything. But I hadn't thought she was this bad. Walking away from her had killed a part of me I feared I would never get back. For seven weeks I'd buried myself in work and liquor. I didn't see my family. I didn't return their calls and I barely spoke to Caleb. I was wasting myself away because I couldn't fathom living a life without Olivia. She was the center of my fucking universe. And then my phone rang and Trisha's name lit the screen. My heart nearly pounded itself from my chest as I answered. She'd told me she was calling because of Olivia. And by God I thought something had happened. I hadn't even been capable of words, and at my silence, she'd continued. She told me Olivia was falling into a depression that frightened her. She barely recognized her friend and now she was calling for help because she blamed Olivia's state of depression on my disappearance from her life.

I got myself to the club as fast as I possibly could. If I hadn't been at the office with Gabe, I would have been screwed. Because I had been drinking and there was no way in hell I could have driven. But I'm certain I would have tried.