He was nice, don’t get me wrong, but I really couldn’t have a relationship.  I didn’t want to. I told Fran exactly how I felt and was as honest as I could have been with him. Getting to know one another and becoming friends was fine, but more than that, I didn’t want to deal with, especially with someone who was so Fran.  I mean, come on, Fran had a five-year plan and at the end, I was his goal.  No one should ever have a goal of another person. You can't be someone else. Your goals should be to strive for better things in yourself, not depending on other people. Besides all that, I couldn't do another relationship; I couldn’t trust anyone, not after what happened to me this last year.  The only person I put my trust in was Bree, and I was just staying here for her, because I hadn’t seen her this happy since the day my brother asked her to marry him.

Chapter 4

It was getting closer to Dylan’s 30th birthday.

I sent him an eCard.  What?  That’s good enough.

He called and screamed at me.

He’s having a party.  Of course.  A small dinner party and he asked me to come.  And, to come with a date.  A date?  Grand.  Now the woman I have casual sex with will think we could date now.

Best part:  Dylan’s girlfriend is hosting it for him, along with her roommate.  In her trailer.  Trailer.  Trail...Errrr.  Great, tonight’s dining experience: Ramen fucking noodles.  I called Morgan, my casual friend, and she agreed; her husband won’t be in town, so she can make it.

Clutching a bottle of $500 wine, I climbed out of my Land Rover Range Rover and walked through the yard crunching over the cold hard dirt and gravel that led to the doublewide, cringing with every step.  I took inventory of the small wooden steps that led up to the front screened door to the dilapidated mess my brother’s girlfriend calls a home and find a few muddied pair of converse sneakers, an industrial size gallon of bleach, and a box of generic latex medical gloves.  A half burned out car from the 1950s was in the yard and a white picket fence that surrounded a dead tree. A small wooden crucifix was staked in the ground around its roots.  White-fucking-trash.  It was like a scene from one of my books. My skin crawled thinking about stepping a foot inside the trailer. I strategized on focusing solely on Morgan and the suction of her mouth on my cock after this dinner debacle.  I really didn’t understand how I was going to make it through the night.

I knocked on the screen door, which was ripped to fucking shreds, like an animal had tried to claw its way inside, or out, and the images of the massacre in my head left me a bit breathless.  It very well could be the beginning of a new book…the opening scene already writing itself in my subconscious.

Behind the screen, the scratched-to-shit wooden door opened before I could compose my thoughts back to reality.  Lainey was standing in the doorway, framed from the light within the tin trashcan impersonating a house.  I hadn’t seen her since I chased her out of the bar two weeks ago, when Dylan asked me to give her a ride home.  She looked out of place.  She looked awkward and suspicious.  Stunning me with her raw beauty, she looked like a fucking dark angel. And sexy as fucking sin.  Shit.

I had no clue she was going to be here.

She tucked a wavy lock of hair behind her ear and offered me a tight smile. “Mr. Grayson.” Her greeting was curt and short. I hated it.  I loved it.  I’m fucking insane.

She stepped to the side to allow me to walk in.  The smell of her soap or shampoo or whatever the hell it was that filled my nose left me hungry. No, not hungry.  Fucking hell, ravenous. I blinked my eyes rapidly, focused on the inside of the tin box, and swallowed a small gasp.  I had never seen the inside of a trailer before, other than the idiotic movies I watched, but I would have never assumed one could look so…homey.  The walls were a warm chocolate color and everything from the clean comfortable looking couches to the small yet elegantly decorated table and chairs were in earth tones and warm soft colors.  It made me want to lay down and surround myself with its calmness, take some away with me.  Steal it for myself.  Morgan was already there, sitting at a small counter that separated the kitchen area with the living room area, a blood-red goblet of wine held tightly in her hand and she smiled at me like I was the second coming of Christ on a platter, just for her.  She was dressed up like it was her fucking high school prom, make-up caked on her face and dark brown eyes weighed down heavily with mascara.  Flecks of red dotted the whites of her eyes, as if her capillaries were bursting from strangulation, making me think of someone wrapping their hands tightly around her neck and squeezing tight.

Then my eyes locked on Lainey as she stepped in front of me to the counter, and a tall lanky man moved up behind her, hesitantly placing a hand on her ass to ask her if she needed any help.  If I hadn’t been staring at her form, the curve of her hips and flatness of her belly, I would have missed the minute flinch that happened just as his hand made contact with her body.  She was uncomfortable under his fingers, and for some ungodly reason that made me feel ecstatic.  I scanned up the slope of her body to the swell of her chest, the smooth ivory of her neck and then to the wide smile she offered him with her lips. I wanted to fucking crush his heart.  A strange stab of jealousy coursed through me, and I could distinctly visualize in my head the blood splatters and the trajectory of the spray of brain matter after I slammed him with my $500 bottle of wine on the side of his head.  I placed the stupid pathetic bottle down on the counter in front of them a little too hard, just really itching for the chance to swing it at him.

“Would you like a glass of wine?” she asked me softly, tossing her hair over her shoulder, slicing the bloodstained scenes from my mind with the smell of motherfucking cinnamon apples.

“Yes.  Thank you,” I found myself saying.  Her eyes found mine.  Her lashes looked incredibly long against her ivory cheeks, and a small darkening of shadows graced her skin, as if she’d been having trouble sleeping. Those green irises were like gentle pools of brilliant meadows of sage and green-envy coneflowers swaying in a warm breeze.

HOLY fuck.  What the hell sort of poetry was that dribbling out of my twisted brain?

Her brows knitted together as she stood in front of me, handing me a full glass of the blood-red wine.  I tried to imagine it splattering across her face, trying to think of the words that I could twist onto a clean crisp white paper, words that would slice the life from those eyes, but I could think of none.  None.

This bitch was giving me writer’s block.

The man who pawed her ass held out his hand to me and smiled.  “So, you’re Dylan’s infamous brother?  Glad to finally meet you, I’m Fran,” he said, shaking my hand weakly.

The only thoughts in my mind were at that very moment were first, that hand was just touching Lainey’s ass, second, what the fuck kind of name was Fran?  And third, his fucking hand was just touching Lainey’s ass.  I squeezed his hand more than I should have.  He grimaced.

“Fran?” I asked, curious to the femininity of the name and why a parent would hate their child so heinously that they would name him that.

“Short for Francis,” Lainey uttered, a little above a whisper.

“Ah,” I chuckled darkly, “that makes it so much better.”