“I need a shower,” I said. My skin felt sticky from all the sweat. The sheets were just as bad.

“You smell perfectly good to me,” he said, nibbling on my shoulder. “You taste good, too.”

My phone vibrated on the floor, preventing my snappy retort.

“Seriously?” Hayden asked. “What is that? The tenth time this morning?”

I rolled to the edge of the bed and snatched my phone from the floor. “Hello?”

“So you’re not in an Ativan coma. That’s an improvement.”

My scalp prickled and goose bumps rose along my arms, spreading over my skin.

Hayden’s hand smoothed up my calf. “Tell whoever it is to fuck off. I’m in the middle of an experiment,” he said and bit my ankle.

“Is there someone with you?” Trey asked, suspicious.

I covered the receiver with one hand and jerked my leg out of Hayden’s grasp, shaking my head violently. He frowned.

“I need to take this,” I mouthed and turned away.

My knees trembled as I slipped off the bed and crossed the room, heading for the bathroom. I closed the door and sank to the floor.

“Answer me, Tenley. Whoever is with you sounds distinctly male.”

“The TV was on,” I lied. My hands were shaking, along with my voice.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t particularly care if you believe me or not.”

“Are you fucking someone?”

“Pardon me?”

“It’s a straightforward question. I don’t believe it requires repeating.”

“It also doesn’t require a response,” I bit back.

He laughed in that condescending way only he could. “I’ll take that as a no. Are you lonely out there, Tenley?”

“What do you want?” He couldn’t know about Hayden. My stomach turned at the thought. Trey was already hostile; he didn’t need any more ammunition.

“You’ve been avoiding my calls. I’ve left six messages, and all of them have gone unanswered. I expected that document signed and on my desk a month ago, and it’s still not here,” he said icily. “I’ve been more than patient. You’ve had plenty of time to review the paperwork with a lawyer out there.”

“I told you I’m not ready.”

“Frankly, Tenley, I don’t give a shit if you’re ready or not. It’s been ten months. If you hadn’t spent the first five after the accident drugged to the point of psychosis, maybe you’d be better prepared to handle this.”

“Well, I’m not prepared.” I marshaled all the false confidence I could. “I have no intention of signing over the house right now. When I’m ready, if I’m ready, I’ll let you know.”

“Not acceptable. I have no qualms about contesting Connor’s will. That property belongs to me, and you will sign those papers, even if it means I have to subpoena you to make it happen. We can go that route, but cases like these can drag out for months, sometimes years.” He sighed, like he was bored with the turn in the conversation. When he spoke again, his tone changed, soft and menacing. “I have my doubts about you handling the emotional strain of something like that. Imagine how detrimental it would be if you fell back into old habits? All that medication you were taking, you could hardly function.”

“I was in pain,” I whispered, submerged in the sudden rush of memories.

Trey had a way of twisting things around to make me out to be the villain. He had been the one to pick up the multitude of prescriptions for me. In the fog of physical and emotional agony it had seemed like he’d meant to help. But I’d learned long ago that Trey’s motives were always self-serving. By keeping me sedated, he’d been able to manipulate situations to his advantage and my disadvantage.

“How many times did I find you in my brother’s bedroom, crying so hard you couldn’t breathe? It became exceedingly tedious. Don’t make me call again—you won’t like what happens. Get your shit together and send me the paperwork.”

The line went dead.

I stared at the phone and tried to keep the panic from drowning me. I didn’t think Trey could take the house from me, but as a lawyer, he was good at finding loopholes, so I could never be sure whether his threats were empty or not. Every time I spoke to Trey I felt like I was back in Arden Hills, reliving the weeks and months of purgatory after the crash. I had been so alone, everything and everyone I cared about gone. Only Trey remained, a constant force of negative, destructive energy orbiting around me, pushing me further and further into a hole of anguish.

There had been no one to console me after the crash. Trey blamed me for their deaths just as I did, and for months I’d let the regret eat away at what little had been left of the person I’d been. If I hadn’t found the acceptance letters from Northwestern hidden in the trash, I would probably still have been there, or dead from an overdose.

I put my head in my hands, grief welling up, threatening to spill out and wash me away. I choked back a strangled sob, aware I wasn’t alone. Hayden was still here. Trey would never understand why I was with him. Hayden was the antithesis of Connor.

Under all the armor he wore, Hayden was in pieces like me. It made him safe. He understood what I’d been through. More than that, he could relate to me in ways Connor never could. I didn’t want to look too closely at the intensity of my feelings for Hayden; it incited more guilt. That I had already moved on seemed impossible . . . inexcusable. Disclosing Connor’s death to him wasn’t an option. Not now. It was too dangerous. I couldn’t lose Hayden; he had become integral to my survival.

“Tenley?” Hayden knocked on the bathroom door.

I swiped at the tears streaming down my face and took a deep breath. “Give me a minute,” I called out tremulously.

Pushing up off the floor, I crossed to the vanity and turned on the faucet to mask the squeak of the new medicine cabinet door.

The rows of bottles offered potential temporary respite. My hands quavered as I popped the cap off the anxiety meds and shook out a tiny green pill. I didn’t want to need it, but I would never make it through the rest of the morning without artificial serenity. The call from Trey had left me shaken. It felt like I was being torn apart, pulled back into the past as I struggled to stay in the present. The sweet-bitter taste of the pill under my tongue was almost a relief. In fifteen minutes I would be calmer. Everything would be easier to manage.

The doorknob turned just as I capped the bottle and returned it to its spot on the shelf. I jumped and shut the cabinet harder than intended, and the bottles rattled on the shelves. Hayden poked his head in, and his eyes swept over my body. I was still naked. Concern pulled the corner of his mouth down when he reached my blotchy, tear-streaked face.

“Kitten? Who was on the phone?” He took a cautious step toward me.

“It was my l-lawyer.” I stammered over the lie, unable to look at him.

“On a Saturday? This early? What happened?”

“There are some issues with the estate in Arden Hills.”

He cupped my face in his hands. His sympathy was more difficult to bear, considering the partial truths I fed him. I closed my eyes, letting the tears fall, allowing him to sweep them away.

Hayden wore only a pair of black boxer briefs, the road map to his life laid out for me. Under the scenes etched into his skin and the sculpted, beautiful body was a man I hardly knew but couldn’t stand the thought of being without. I ran my hand along his forearm, my palm resting on the anatomical heart.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

I stepped into him.

Hayden enclosed me in his protective embrace. “I’m sorry I can’t make the hurt go away.”

“You do, every time you touch me.” I rested my cheek on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart.

I wondered how much longer I had before it all fell apart. I couldn’t hide the truth about Connor from him forever.

26

TENLEY


Over the next couple of weeks I avoided Trey’s continued attempts at contact. His messages sat unanswered in my voice mail. Between Trey’s unreasonable demands and worries over my last meeting with Professor Calder, I needed a distraction from the stress because revising my thesis only added to it. I persuaded Hayden to work on my tattoo. It had become a talisman of catharsis. He scheduled three mini-sessions to fix the spots where the ink hadn’t taken. He refused to work on me for more than an hour at a time. As long as we were making progress, I wouldn’t complain. The upside to the frequent sessions was the amount of time I spent in the shop. The easy banter between the four of them gave me insight into just how close they were. They loved and fought like siblings.

I even got to know Lisa better. She was warmth personified, and I gravitated to her. Apart from her visits to Serendipity, we hadn’t spent much time together, because I’d always been with Hayden. It was nice to have a reason to hang out with her that didn’t include clamps and needles.

Hayden was busy cleaning up his station after our third session when Lisa approached me, eager to show off her newest jewelry acquisitions. She pulled out a tray of curved barbells. They looked so harmless, sitting against the black velvet backdrop. Lisa was highlighting the benefits of a hood piercing. My reluctance had more to do with healing time than pain. From the research I’d done, there would be no sex for two weeks. Hayden would implode. We’d barely been able to handle five days; fourteen would be insanity, but the positives might outweigh the cost.

Lisa was in the middle of explaining the difference between a vertical and horizontal hood piercing when I noticed a flash of red on her left ring finger.