He frowns slightly, the move casting dark shadows across his eyes and deepening those hollows in his cheeks.
“I don’t have to, you know.”
“Yeah, you do.”
The words come out harder than I meant them to, and I wrinkle my brow as he sighs, clearing the sleep from his face with his hands before pushing them through his hair.
“Right okay, are we back to that mode now then?”
“What mode?”
He gives me a wry smile. “You know what, princess? I can’t even fucking keep track of them.”
He sits up, the warmth of his body lost as he shakes his head and looks away.
“You’re one thing, then the other. You’re hot, you’re cold-”
“I’m confused, because I shouldn’t have let that-”
“Then why did you?”
His face is tight, lined in dark, moonlit room - his voice like rough leather.
“I-” I shake my head, almost embarrassed to use it as an excuse. “I was drunk.”
“Fuck off, I’ve seen you drunk.”
And he’s right. And I feel like an asshole. But it just can’t happen. This whole thing is business, that’s all - even if we keep forgetting that.
I don’t respond to him, I just pull the sheet up, holding it to my chest and looking away.
He blows air through his teeth, shaking his head. “Yeah, I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.”
“You don’t know what you were thinking?”
“Look, you want business? Fine.” Austin stands from the bed, his gorgeous body uncoiling from my sheets.
“You want to get your fun though too, and I think I’ve made it clear I’m good with that.” He slips his boxers back up his legs, snapping them on his waist before leaning over the bed towards me.
“But make up your fucking mind.”
He turns before I can say anything else, storming out of the room.
The last of the warmth and the last of the moment gone with him.
26
Austin
Why is it things always go from bad to worse?
I’m sitting by the pool, stewing over Natalie’s little freakout and sipping a beer. This would be the classic case of money not buying happiness, because here I am sitting by a pool outside my twenty million dollar home. I’ve got a cold beer in my hand, the southern California sun shining down, and if I turned on the television, there’s a very good chance that I’d be on it.
Am I happy?
Fuck no.
Goddamnit, why did I even go there with that girl? She’s clearly too uptight, too much of a stick up her ass for me to be involving myself with her.
And yet, she’s the only one I want to go there with - the only girl I want, period.
I’m one of the most wanted men in the fucking country, with my pick of damn near any girl I want. Cheerleaders, Hollywood actresses, models - you fuckin’ name it and I could probably make it happen right now.
Except I’m broken somehow, because my mind’s all twisted up with her.
Damnit.
I sip my beer and let my head drop back onto the sun chair. My eyes close, my mouth tight as I try and force my mind to clear, if even for one damn second.
“Little different from Texas, huh?”
I’m jumping out of the chair and whirling in a half second at the sound of his fucking voice, my hands clenched into fists and a snarl on my face.
“How the fuck did you get in here?”
My dad grins and I sneer at him. “Oh, right, I forget that you’ve had lots of practice breaking into places.”
He chuckles, holding his hands up palm forward. “Hey now! Easy there boy.” He winks. “Your front door was open, big-shot.”
“And the driveway gate?”
Dad’s mouth curls into a devil smile. “Well,” he shrugs. “Old habits, huh kid?”
Yeah, I know all about his “old habits.” Habits like meth, like stealing from my mom.
Like giving her black eyes, and then to me whenever I was dumb enough to try and stop him.
He plants his hands on his hips, looking around and whistling at the spacious, tree-filled backyard of my house.
“Nice place, boy. Can’t believe I’ve never seen it.”
“Shocking, isn’t it.”
He turns back to me, reaching up to scratch the back of his silvered head. “You know, you did good.”
“No thanks to you.”
He blows air loudly through his lips and reaches to his back pocket for what I swear is the same fucking flask of Rebel Yell whiskey that was there fifteen years ago.
“Hey, who’s the one that brought your ass to peewee football, huh?”
“Mom,” I say evenly.
“Aw, what?” Dad waves his hand at me dismissively. “I definitely took you.”