Vodka On The Rocks (The Uncertain Saints Book 3) (8 page)

I moved like an old lady as I made my way to the door, pausing in the entranceway as I looked down the hall.

Casten’s house was actually kind of cool, the way it was set up.

The whole side of the house that we were in was made up of bedrooms. There were four of them in total, and I was in what he used as an office when he wasn’t at his actual office.

My room was right next to Rhea’s, and Rhea’s was right next to CeeCee’s.

Casten’s, though, was at the very end of the hall, and my door faced his door.

So I got to see as he shucked his pants and went for a different pair.

I watched as his muscles shifted and bunched, mouth going dry as he turned to start looping his belt into the belt loops, giving my first good look at his body without a t-shirt covering him.

He had amazing, rippled abs.

A well-defined chest.

And that beautiful V that led straight down to his crotch.

But what had my complete and total attention was his nipples.

They were pierced.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered.

He looked up and over at me, making me freeze like a deer in headlights.

He turned slightly, lifting his head to face me, then placing both hands on either side of his door.

“What are you looking at?” he rumbled.

I went momentarily blank at the picture he made.

God, he was sexy.

Standing there, leaning against the door frame, he looked like a man ready to pounce.

My nipples pebbled and my breathing sped.

And I wasn’t even going to get started on the things that were happening in my pants.

“Your nipples!” I blurted.

He looked taken aback by that.

“You’re lying,” he snapped.

I moved forward, only then becoming aware that my belly hurt.

But I kept moving, putting one foot in front of the other, until I stopped just inches from his face.

“You want to bet?” I challenged him.

“You were looking at my scars,” he hissed.

I laughed in his face.

“I don’t even know what ‘scars’ you are talking about. All I’m able to see,” I said, lifting my hand and placing it just under his nipple. “Are your fucking piercings. Wanna know why?” I asked.

He looked at me with raised brows, not answering.

He didn’t believe me.

And I smiled, crisscrossing my hands across my chest to each lower corner of my shirt, and I pulled it up and over my head.

I caught my bra along the way and bared my upper torso. I nearly laughed at the stunned look on his face.

“Now, do you see why I like your pierced nipples so much?” I asked.

He lifted his arm from the door frame, but I stepped back before he could touch.

“No touching,” I said. “These babies are only for people who like me.”

He looked up at me, his storm gray eyes clashing with my brown ones, and stared.

“What makes you think I don’t like you?” he asked.

I tossed him my shirt to hold while I maneuvered my sports bra back on, then held out my hand impatiently while I waited for him to give me my shirt.

He kept it.

“Casten,” I snapped.

“Answer me,” he ordered, pulling the t-shirt behind his back when I went to grab for it.

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“I’m only going off the vibe I get when you’re around me. You practically scream, ‘Don’t touch me!’ And I don’t want to even get into the fact that you had some woman hanging all over you the day you asked me to go to that wedding with you,” I crossed my arms, glaring really hard.

I was sure that’d make him give it back.

Because I’ve heard my glare could peel bark off a tree.

I was known as Coach Kickass to the students at the school, and I kind of liked it.

Casten, though, didn’t seem to be affected in the least.

I frowned. He must be immune because he was more of a badass than me.

“I’m not dating her…and I haven’t fucked her,” he chuckled.

I wanted to laugh.

“Out of all that I said, you got that I cared that you fucked her?” I tilted my head to study him.

He glared back.

And yep. His glare was better that mine, too.

Times ten.

Or maybe times two hundred and seventy.

“Are you feeding me, or should I go sit down? I’m tired,” I groaned, crossing my arms over my chest.

He handed me my t-shirt, albeit reluctantly.

I slipped it on, not missing the way his eyes lingered on my chest.

“Now, where are these scars you speak of?” I asked.

He turned around, and I managed to withhold the gasp that wanted to burst from my lungs.

His back was terrible.

It looked like a hunk of his left shoulder was just gone.

Like some shark had come and bit a chunk out of him.

He had other scars, too, but they weren’t anywhere near as bad as the one on his shoulder.

“Satisfied?” he asked, watching me in the mirror that I just realized was there.

I shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.”

He laughed humorlessly.

“You have not,” he challenged.

I shrugged.

“My best friend in the world, when I was sixteen, was burned in a house fire. He lived, but couldn’t live with his scars after it was all said and done. Killed himself when I was seventeen,” I blurted.

That painful memory ripped through me.

Jet Jones had been my best friend in the whole wide world.

He’d been my confidant. My first lover.
My everything.

I thought that Jet and I would be together forever.

Then the fire had happened. And the Jet that came out of that fire wasn’t the same man that went into it to save me.

He was scarred, and he couldn’t see past the way he looked.

He pushed me away. Pushed everyone away.

And suddenly I just wasn’t hungry anymore.

All I wanted to do was lay in bed, maybe take a couple of pain pills…and forget.

“I think I need to go lay down,” I whispered.

Casten had just reached up over his head to thread his hands through his t-shirt when I spoke.

Slowly, he stopped what he was doing, the t-shirt only hanging around his neck, and stared at me.

“You not feeling good?”

He sounded worried.

I shook my head. “No. I need to lay down.”

And with that, I left him, doing what I did best.

Retreating.

Painful memories clashed within me later that night, turning my usually bad dreams into terrifying nightmares.

I guess speaking Jet’s name out loud made my dreams even more vivid than they usually were.

My relationship with Jet was all giggles and rainbows at first…until it just…
wasn’t
.

They should put more Oreos in a package…that way there’s enough for two people.

-Tasha’s secret thoughts

Tasha

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Jet asked me as we laid on the blanket in our fort.

“I want to be an architect,” I said.

“Why that? You could be anything,” Jet said. “Like a nurse. Or a volleyball coach. Maybe a train conductor.”

I blinked, turning over onto my belly to look at him.

But before he could say anything else, the whole freaking wall behind us caved in.

We both scrambled, him going one way, and me the other.

Then a piece of the ceiling caved, and then I couldn’t see him anymore.

“Jet!” I screamed loudly. “Jet!”

I’d screwed up. Bad.

My mother and father had told me not to come here, but this was our place. Just Jet and I.

This was our place where I could hang out with him. Be with him. Talk to him without my parents thinking anything of our new relationship.

My parents were devout Catholics, and nowhere in their household would they allow my very best friend to have any sort of relationship with their sixteen-year-old daughter.

Jet was older than me, but only by a few months.

My dream morphed to the day he’d tried to kill himself.

Did kill himself.

I looked around the hospital room, wondering how long they’d allow me to stay before I was told to leave.

My eyes fell on the bed where Jet laid, tubes running out of him everywhere.

He had a breathing tube down his throat, and it was taped to his skin at the side of his mouth.

His eyes were closed, and his brown shaggy hair that I loved to run my fingers through fell limply against his head.

He didn’t look alive.

Not at all.

This wasn’t my Jet.

My Jet was always laughing about something.

It didn’t even have to be funny for him to be laughing.

He’d been doing well. Recovering. Then he’d relapsed. Something had happened, and all of a sudden I was left with this. This shell of the boy that I used to love.

He was only alive right now because his mother refused to take him off of life support since his father wasn’t back from his business trip out of the country.

I sat down heavily on the side of his bed, bringing his scarred hand up to my chest before dropping my head to press my lips against the knuckles of his hand.

“Why do you want to leave me…leave us? We would have loved you. It would’ve all been okay. I love you. Please,” I whispered, tears dripping down my face. “Please.”

His hand twitched, and I looked up just as he opened his eyes.

But they weren’t the usual chocolate brown.

They were a beautiful stormy gray.

A shade that I’d never seen in his face.

But the longer I looked at his eyes, the more I realized that those weren’t his eyes. Nor was it even his body.

It wasn’t Jet at all, but Casten.

“I’m here.”

“You’re here?” I asked in confusion.

“Yes, wake up.”

Wake up?

“Wake up!”

Casten

The screaming woke me so fast that I launched myself out of bed before I even realized I was moving.

My Glock was in my hand before I’d even consciously reached for it, and I was across the hallway before my sisters could get out of bed.

“Jet!” Tasha screamed. “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!”

I knew those agonizing screams.

They were mine, too.

Suicide wasn’t the answer, no matter what your problem.

Why?

Because there are people other than you that you have to think about. There are parents. Friends. Co-workers. Wives. Girlfriends. Husbands. Boyfriends. Hell, even the fucking dog will miss you.

So I knew those screams coming out of Tasha’s mouth, because I’d screamed them.

Lived them.

Been haunted by them.

I landed on my knees beside Tasha’s bed, barely recognizing the burn that accompanied the move.

“Tasha!” I pushed on her shoulder, then cupped her face. “Wake up.”

“Casten, don’t do it,” she whispered in an agonizing voice. “Please.”

“Tasha, I’m here. It’s me. Wake up.”

“Wake up?” she cried, breaking my heart.

The lights were turned on behind me, and I realized I was no longer alone with Tasha.

Both of my sisters likely filled the doorway behind me.

“Yes, wake up.”

Her eyelids fluttered open, and I was met with wide, terrified eyes.

“You didn’t kill yourself,” she whispered.

I shook my head. “No. I’d never do that.”

The certainty in my voice finally pushed through the fog of pain that surrounded her, and she relaxed, holding onto my hand like it was an anchor in the storm of emotions running through her right now.

“Don’t ever do it. Please,” she pleaded, her sobs broke through, and I leaned down until my forehead rested on hers.

“I won’t. I won’t,” I promised.

She threw her hands around my neck.

“That’s what he said, too. He said it. And he didn’t mean it,” she told me brokenly. “He lied to me. To my face. I saw the signs, called him on them, and he did it anyway. He knew it’d break me.”

I didn’t know what to say.

That wasn’t good. In fact, it was horrible.

“I’m sorry, T,” I told her. “But I’m not a boy. I’m a man with a ton of responsibilities. I have a family. I have a life. I have a club. I won’t do it.”

She finally relaxed completely, and her hands fell limply at her sides. I turned and motioned to my sisters that it was all right. I had this.

“I’m sorry,” she finally sounded halfway normal. “I’m so sorry.”

I pressed my lips against hers.

They were soft and salty from her tears.

And slowly it morphed into something more.

Something that wasn’t exactly the kind of kiss meant to soothe her frayed
emotions.

I pulled away, looking down into her eyes.

“You wanna talk to me about it?” I asked.

She stared up at the ceiling, and she began to talk.

“I met Jet when I was ten. We spent every waking moment we could together,” she whispered, staring at nothing and everything all at once. “I already told you about the fire. He was burned badly, over nearly seventy-five percent of his body.”

She bit her lip, then moved over until she was on the opposite side of the bed.

“Turn the light off and get up here. It’s easier to talk in the dark,” she ordered me.

I hid a smile and turned off the light, then settled down onto the bed beside her.

But I didn’t stop there.

I pulled her into my chest and wrapped my arms around her frame.

She laid her head down over my heart, and I worked my hand through the mass of wavy hair that cascaded down our sides.

“To prove to him that I didn’t care about his burns, I made love to him. It was good for a first time, too. But he couldn’t get past the fact that his ‘damaged’ skin rubbed on my ‘beautiful’ skin,” she whispered.

I didn’t actually see her make the air quotes, but I felt them, and it made me smile that, even though she was upset, she still was the same old Tasha that I was used to.

“He killed himself by popping about thirty pain pills at once,” she croaked.

My eyes closed as a wave of unease rolled through me.

“I was six weeks pregnant with our baby at the time.”