RECKLESS - Part 2 (The RECKLESS Series) Read online

  She gave me a quick wink and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I know.”

  The yellow bikini she wore brought out her naturally tanned skin, which was a little weird on an emo girl, but it made me jealous, nonetheless. She’d applied some kind of oil that made her skin shimmer, even in the florescent lighting of our hotel room. And, truth be told, I felt awfully inadequate standing next to her.

  “Hey, no hating,” she said, grabbing a beach towel from her suitcase. “You have two hotties chasing after you. I only have the drooling freshman that think they can fool me with their fake IDs. I need a sexy something swooning over me. And Corpus Christi is full of them.”

  I guess I couldn’t argue with that line of thinking.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Becca and I—or more accurately, Becca—found the perfect spot to scope out guys.

  “You want me to lay out here in the sand, next to a surf board stand?” I asked, the logic not quite computing. “Won’t we end up covered in sand from all the guys not really paying attention as they run with their new toys out to the water?”

  “That’s kind of the point,” she said, laying out her towel.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Duh, conversation opener?” she said, shaking her head at me before taking her spot on the sand.

  I rolled my eyes at her insane reasoning—but I also had to admit, it was kind of ingenious. I wouldn’t have known the first thing about starting up a conversation with a guy, not a real one, anyway. The last five years of my life had been dedicated to one man. Sure, I met other guys, talked to them at school, and even interviewed them for pieces on the paper... but when it came to romance and dating, I was about as stale as they came.

  But if that were the case, how had I ended up with Jace Richardson’s tongue down my throat?

  “You going to lay down and catch some sun, or block mine all day?” Becca asked, raising an eyebrow up at me from her spot on the ground.

  I shook my head to dispel the strange line of thinking going on inside my head. “Sorry,” I muttered, walking around her to grab the spot furthest from the board stand. She was the one looking for a guy; why should I be the one covered in sand?

  “What were you thinking about?” she asked once I got settled in next to her.

  I bit at the inside of my cheek, trying to decide how to put my thoughts into words. “I guess maybe that I don’t know the first thing about starting over with a new guy,” I finally answered.

  “Does this mean that you’re thinking about it?”

  “I guess so, but maybe I’m just having buyer’s remorse. You know, the guilt settling in?”

  “You mean kisser’s remorse?” she joked.

  I shot her a look, indicating that she wasn’t really all that funny, not in a crisis such as this.

  “Okay, okay. Fine,” she said, pulling her shades down over her eyes. “Just remember, there is a reason that you kissed Jace Richardson, and it’s not because you’re a skanky chick who can’t commit. There must have been some reason behind it. You need to get to the why of it before you can make a real decision.”

  “That’s just it,” I said, rolling onto my side and propping myself up on my elbow. “I don’t get it. I mean, yeah, Sean and I have been really distant lately... but that doesn’t really justify my actions. There are lots of couples that make long-distance relationships work. And we had a plan in place.”

  “Right, but you’d also started pulling back some,” she pointed out.

  My lips tightened into a scowl. Again, she was right. “Yeah, I know... But that still doesn’t justify my actions.”

  “Honey, attraction is normal, especially when you’re talking about sex on legs Jace Richardson. The point is that, even after you slapped him, you kissed him. And, from what I can tell, you don’t really regret doing it.”

  “I know,” I groaned. “And I have no idea what that even means.”

  She lifted her shades, deadpanning me. “It means your relationship was already in trouble.”

  I didn’t speak. She didn’t speak. We both just sat there as she waited for the wisdom and weight of her words to sink in. It must have registered on my face when they finally did because she only lifted her face to the sky and then slid her shades back over her eyes. I, on the other hand, sunk into the sand, staring up at the sun, hoping it would burn out my treacherous eyeballs.

  I’d been a fool to think that I could resist Jace Richardson’s charms. I should have known that, the second I laid eyes on him. But I’d underestimated him, and now I was paying for it.

  ***

  Becca left the beach with four sets of phone numbers. I walked away with a heavy heart and spinning head. And things weren’t going to get any better when we entered our hotel room.

  “What is it?” Becca asked as I scrolled through the scores of messages on my phone. I’d intentionally left it behind, just in case Sean tried to call. I was starting to wish I hadn’t.

  The tears were coming already, and I didn’t think I could speak without sobbing, so I simply handed my cell phone over and then flopped onto the bed, pulling the covers up around my body. Becca’s face fell the instant she caught sight of the screen.

  “What was he thinking?” she asked. “Last week’s fiasco wasn’t enough for him?”

  I just shook my head.

  “Okay, this is what I’m talking about, chick. You deserve better than this. You deserve someone who isn’t going to get a little insecure, the second he can’t reach you on a cell phone.”

  In all fairness, I had just gone through an entire ordeal where I clearly wasn’t safe. And I’d just kissed another guy. But Becca did have a point.

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into him lately,” I said, pulling the covers tighter around my chin as I choked back the tears. “It’s like, ever since this whole thing started, he’s been a different person. Clingy, insecure. I don’t remember him ever acting this way.”

  “It’s because he’s engaging in a pissing contest with a guy he clearly perceives as a threat.”

  “Rightly so,” I pointed out, still refusing to loosen the grip on my cocoon.

  Becca shook her head. “No, he doesn’t know that for sure. Right now, he’s just acting on insecurity.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right about that.”

  “So what are you going to do?” she asked, holding my phone out to me.

  I stared at my beloved phone, afraid to touch it. Like, somehow, Sean would know that I was intentionally avoiding his texts. He probably already thought I had been, which would explain why he had gone to campus, yet again, to check on me.

  Rather than push the phone on me any further, she set it on the bedside table next to my head. “Well, you’re going to have to do something. You can’t just not respond, not when he’s on campus searching for you.”

  “I know,” I said, pulling the covers up over my nose, hiding away from the problem just a little more. “I just don’t know what to say, how to explain how I ended up here in the first place, why I hadn’t told him about the trip.”

  “Tell him the truth, chick.”

  “I’m not ready.”

  Truth be told, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be ready. I just wanted to hide away, under the covers, and pretend that my issue didn’t exist, pretend the kiss never happened, but there was no way in hell that was happening. Not when I could still taste his minty breath on my tongue and the scratch of his stubble on my lips. Not when, somewhere dark and deep, I wanted nothing more than to experience that kiss again, a million times over.

  “Fine, I’ll text him,” Becca said, picking up my phone, interrupting my pity party.

  That got me moving. She was already pushing buttons by the time I flew out from underneath the covers. “What are you texting? Becca! Give it back.”

  A wrestling match ensued. She was writhing on the bed, still pushing buttons and I was stretching, reaching, jumping on top of the bed to try and wrangle the phone free from her grasp.
And then, as if it’d been no big deal, or as if we hadn’t just been in the most ridiculous fight ever, she handed over the phone with a grin.

  “What did you say?” I asked, knowing why she was suddenly giving my phone up so easily. I opened the messages and scrolled down. My mouth dropped open and my eyes grew as wide as duck eggs.

  Hanging out with Becca in Corpus Christi. Having a blast. Go home.

  “It’s not like I told him why we were here,” she said, raising her eyebrows at my angry, speechless state.

  “But he’s going to ask why.”

  “And you don’t have to answer that.”

  “Yes, I do, Becca,” I screeched. In all our years together, I had never raised my voice at her. But this? This was taking things a bit too far. “I can’t just drive off to the beach without telling him.”

  “You’re not married yet, chick. You can do whatever the hell you want.”

  “But we’re going to be! Shouldn’t I at least act like it?”

  “No.”

  “I—You—Aaaaaagh!” I flew off of the bed and stormed off to the bathroom. I would have left, but she had the keys and I wasn’t even sure if I had my debit card. I was stuck. Of course, truth be told, I was exactly where I wanted to be... I just didn’t want to admit it, not to her, and definitely not to myself.

  I finally emerged from the bathroom a half an hour later. Not once had Becca bothered me. Not once had she texted me or knocked on the door. She just let me wallow about in my pit of self-loathing. Sean was a completely different story, however.

  “How many?” she asked, raising a knowing eyebrow at me as I plopped down on my bed and tossed the phone onto the night stand.

  “Thirty-six.”

  “Jesus, woman. Did you respond?”

  I stared up at the ceiling, the tears warming my cheeks. Would I ever stop crying over my epic mistake? “No,” I said softly. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what I want, Becca. I—“ I paused, swallowing the drowning emotions. “How do I give up five years? How do I just start over? And what if the kiss with Jace was nothing more than just that?”

  “I’ll admit, I don’t know Jace Richardson as intimately as you do,” she paused, likely for effect. “But he doesn’t really come off to me as the type of guy to go around just kissing girls for the hell of it. And, as far as the whole what to do about the last five years... honey, marriages have ended after lasting longer than that. Wouldn’t you rather deal with whatever is going on now rather than having to deal with it when there are kids and taxes and paperwork to deal with?”

  “But I still love him.”

  “Of course you do, sweetie. No one ever said you didn’t love him anymore. But sometimes love changes. Sometimes, we can love someone and them not be the right person for us. Maybe that’s what this kiss is telling you.”

  “I thought you liked Sean,” I said, turning my head to look at her. “You said he was one of the good ones.”

  “I do. And he is... but that doesn’t mean he’s the right one for you.”

  The tears were coming hard and fast now, and I didn’t even try to contain them. But those tears quickly turned into ugly laughing tears when Becca threw a pillow at me and said, “Besides, if I can’t have rocker god to myself, the least you can do is let me live vicariously through you.”

  As much as I hated to admit it, even to myself, the idea of dating Jace Richardson did sound like a lot of fun. Unless, of course, you counted that he was a rock star, constantly followed by mindless sheep that hung on his every chorus. Or that he was a little on the dominating side and had a chauvinistic side that made my blood boil. Other than that...

  Oh, who was I kidding? I’d walk out before the first date was ever even over. And why in the world would he ever want to get involved with someone like me? Someone who planned out every aspect of her life? Someone who had dreams of white picket fences and kids in the suburbs of Seattle? Why would he when he had his whole rock career in front of him—a world where the men lived fast lives and the women were even faster?

  “What are you thinking?” Becca asked, interrupting my train of thought.

  Just then, my phone dinged, indicating an incoming text.

  “Alright, enough of this shit,” she said, swiping my phone before I could grab it.

  I didn’t have the energy for another wrestling match, so I just lay on my bed, hopeless and helpless, barely turning my head to look at her. “Please don’t be mean.”

  She gave me a sympathetic glance and then turned her eyes to my cell phone. Her eyes grew wide instantly. “Andy?”

  “What?”

  “I think you need to see this.”

  Something in her voice told me that this wasn’t just Sean being Sean. This was a lot bigger. Somehow, I found the energy to sit up and extend my hand. I had to read the message five times before it finally sunk in... When it finally did, my entire body went numb, and the only thing I could do was say, “It’s over,” the words coming out no more than a whisper.

  ***

  My entire night was spent tossing and turning, so much so that Becca finally climbed into bed next to me.

  “I’m okay,” I said, all the tears I’d shed making my voice raw.

  She wrapped her arm around me and squeezed. That was my answer.

  I wanted to be tough. I wanted to pretend that I could do this on my own, that it wasn’t bothering me that much. But the truth was... having Becca there made everything seem a little less heavy. And eventually, knowing she was right there, ready to wake me if I started having some wacked out dreams, helped me fall asleep, but not before I asked her if not wanting to try and fix things with Sean would make me a bad person.

  “Absolutely not,” she whispered.

  And with that, I nodded off into a world that I’d dreamed of but that would never be. An earthquake brought down the two-story rambler, burying me and my two-point-five children in it. My successful CEO husband was nowhere to be found. The white picket fence was weathered and falling apart, the boards looking more like rotted teeth than a thing of prestige. And all the while, tattoos swirled around me, like a vicious tornado, engulfing me and then carrying me away from the nightmarish scene that had once been everything I’d ever wanted.

  Only, in my dream the nightmare didn’t end.

  I went from the horrible earthquake and the inked tornado to a world where I didn’t fit in. A life of drugs, wild sex, drinking, and partying. But it wasn’t just the scene I was in that was unrecognizable; I didn’t look anything like myself. I clung to the arm of my tattooed god, wearing clothing that barely covered even my most intimate parts, my dreams of being a journalist all but forgotten. I existed only for him, for the next song, for the next gig.

  On the outside, I appeared happy and giddy, but on the inside, my soul had died. Everything that had ever mattered to me had been abandoned, but what was even more depressing was the fact that I didn’t even seem to care. I was content in my washed-up 40-something body, looking like a has-been. And then, when the ride was over, when I was no longer good for his image, I washed out with the tide, out to sea, silently screaming as I crashed against the rocky shores.

  Correction: it was Becca, shaking me, not my body smashing against the rocks.

  “Andy, wake up. Andy. Andy.”

  I woke, startled, eyes filled with tears.

  “Hey, that must have been some nightmare,” she said, soothing circles on my back. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

  “My life is over,” I whispered softly, the sob pushing at the back of my throat.

  “Oh, honey. Your life isn’t over.” She wrapped her arms around me again and hugged me. “You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be hurt for a while, but you’ll get through this. I promise.”

  But it wasn’t enough.

  Everything I’d worked for was gone, in the blink of an eye. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it except mourn the loss and pray that I could somehow put the shattered pieces back t
ogether. That, even if my life didn’t look like I’d imagined, that I could somehow construct something new, something I could at least live with... but it still wasn’t my dream.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Becca stormed into our dorm room, wearing her usual pub clothes. I was still in my pajamas. “That’s it, Andy.” She stomped over to my bed to yank the covers off of me. “You’re going to get out of this damn bed, put some clothes on, and go out with me or I’m calling your mother.”

  “Fine, call her,” I said, curling up into a ball, cold from the sudden absence of my cover cocoon.

  “Then I’ll call your dad.”

  “Fine.”

  “Damn it, Andy. It’s been two weeks. You go to class in yoga pants and t-shirts. You haven’t put on makeup in God knows how long. And over what? An ass that had some insecurity issues. I get that you guys were together for five years, but it’s time to get up and move on with your life. Because you’re going to fail your classes. You’re going to lose your position on the paper. Don’t throw your life away because of some insecure prick.”

  I rolled over and faced the wall, no longer caring that she’d stolen my covers.

  “Okay, if you won’t get out of bed for me..."

  I heard footsteps and then the door opening.

  “Andy?”

  Oh, dear, God. She didn’t. She didn’t. I was hallucinating that voice, the warmth creeping through my body, the marathon-paced beating of my heart. I had to be. Because, if I wasn’t that meant...

  “She’s been like this since we got back. I don’t know what to do with her anymore, Jace.”

  Oh, God, it really was him. Not a hallucination... unless I was dreaming. That had to be it, right?

  “I understand,” I heard him say, soft and low. “I’ve got this, Becca. Thanks for calling me.”

  She’d called him? Seriously?

  A moment later, I heard the door open and close again. No sooner than it did, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prick up. Because I was staring at the wall, I had no way of knowing for sure if it was simply the idea of being alone in my dorm with him that made my body tingle or if it was because he was watching me; both prospects were absolutely mortifying to think about.