Bide (The Sun Valley Series Book 2)

Fuck.

I can’t stop staring at the door Luna just slammed shut. The one she ran out of with tears in her eyes and hurt heavy around her.

What the fuck did I just do?

My head drops back against the sofa as I let out a frustrated groan. If my dick could groan, it would. I’m fucking rock hard, and no amount of slow breathes or thinking of turn-offs is going to calm it down. Not when it knows it was a handful of pumps away from coming all over Luna’s stomach and tits. Or inside of her.

Fuck.

I half-shudder, half-wince as I tuck myself back in my jeans, purposely avoiding looking at the wet spot staining the front. God, I’m not even sure if it’s from me or her. Both, probably. Mostly her though, if the way she soaked my fingers is anything to go by.

Don’t fucking think about it.

I’m in the kitchen washing my hands and staring aimlessly at the food she brought like a fucking weirdo when I hear the front door open. Momentarily, I hope it’s Luna returning so I can explain myself but my hopes are dashed when Cass’ voice rings out, “Jackson?”

“In here,” I call back, angling myself behind the island so that fucking wet spot is hidden from the view of the three guys crowding the kitchen doorway. All three of them eye me with various degrees of suspicion and smugness.

“Do you have something to tell us?” Ben asks slowly.

They know.

I don’t know how but they so fucking know.

Instead of admitting it, I feign ignorance. “No.”

His eyes scan my bare chest and narrow. “You sure?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Then why is there a bra on the living room floor?”

Shit. Slumping against the counter, I cradle my head in my hands, an indistinguishable noise leaving me.

“Please tell me it’s Luna’s.”

I grunt, offering Ben half a nod.

“And the nail marks on your shoulders?”

Another curse escapes me as I glance at my arms. Shit, she got me good.

“Fucking finally,” Ben literally squeals, and I peek up to find him doing a unabashed happy dance. Cass is smiling too but Nick, he’s frowning, eyes too knowing for my liking.

“You don’t look very happy about it.”

Ben ceases his celebrations, fist reaching out to jab Nick’s bicep. “Why do you have to ruin everything?”

“What? Look at him.” He gestures towards me. “That’s not the face of a guy who just banged the love of his life.”

Squinting, Ben surveys me before reluctantly nodding his agreement. “What happened?”

“I fucked up.”

“What did you do?”

There’s a brief pause as the words get stuck in my throat. Scrunching my nose, I swallow hard. “We were,” I cough, “hooking up. She was about to… you know, and I stopped her. She freaked and left.”

Confusion mars my friends’ faces. “She freaked out because you stopped her?”

“I told her I didn’t wanna fuck her.” Yelled it, more accurately. So much harsher than I intended.

Silence.

For a solid minute, maybe two, there’s nothing but silence. I avoid looking at the guys but I can easily picture what I’m sure are horrified expressions.

“Please tell me you didn’t say it in those exact words.”

I wince, and when I finally look up, they’re wincing too. “Jesus fucking Christ, Jackson.”

“She’s naked in your lap with her hand around your dick and you yell ‘I don’t wanna fuck you’ in her face?” Cass blinks at me. “Is your dick still attached to your body?”

Groaning, I scrub my hands over my face. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Fucking obviously I didn’t mean it like that. I meant I didn’t want to just fuck her. I didn’t want to hook up and then have her run off in a panic immediately after. But I was frustrated and wound up and it just came out wrong, so fucking wrong.

“We know you didn’t,” Nick reassures me, shooting Cass a side-eyed glare. “Because we know you’re still in love with the girl. She doesn’t know that.”

I grunt. “When did you become the love expert?”

Nick grins. “Practice.”

I wanted to go after her but Nick wouldn’t let me.

“Let her calm down,” he’d said. “Go rushing after her when she’s not ready and it’ll only make it worse. Trust me.”

Because the guy is one of the only people I know in a solid, steady, healthy relationship, I took his advice. It was probably the right call, too. I know my girl. When she’s upset, she snaps. She pushes. So I stayed away.

I’m still staying away, a few days later, when I’m trudging out of class and a loud, extremely pissed-off voice hollers in my direction.

“Hey, shithead!”

I barely get the chance to turn around and check if I’m the shithead in question before something whacks me on the arm. Glancing down, I almost laugh when I see the weapon of choice is a sparkly purple spiral notebook with the words ‘it’s nice to be nice’ printed across the cover.

I definitely do not laugh when I look up and find an angry former-blonde-but-currently-redhead scowling at me. “Pen?”

The notebook attacks again. Another wallop stings my arm, but not quite as much as those accusing eyes do. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Hey, enough.” I snatch the offending stationary from her grip, holding it up and out of reach when she tries to grab it back. “What the hell is your problem?” Huffing, Pen crosses her arms like an indignant toddler, muttering something inaudible but definitely insulting under her breath. “Speak up, Pen.”

“I was rooting for you, you know,” she spits out, and I recoil at not only the venom in her tone, but the underlying quiver, the hint of sadness. Disappointment. “I thought you were a nice guy. But when my s-” She clears her throat. “When my roommate comes home crying her eyes out with half her clothes missing, I’m gonna assume it’s not because she spent the night with a nice guy.”

“Pen, I didn’t-”

“I don’t wanna fuck you? Are you kidding me?”

I wince. Yeah, I’m definitely not living that down anytime soon.

“Did you get off on it? Embarrassing her like that? What, was it payback for her breaking up with you? Do you know how long I’ve been trying to…” She doesn’t finish her sentence, letting out a groaning, shrieking kind of a noise and slapping my arm again. “I can’t fucking believe you!”

“Stop it!” I bat her hand away when she goes for me again. God, for such a slight little thing, she packs power behind her punch. “Can you let me talk?”

Pen narrows her eyes and pouts but nods stiffly.

Puffing out a breath, I shove my hands in my pockets. “I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.” Snorting interrupts me, blue-green eyes rolling, reminding me so much of the friend she’s currently defending. “God, you and her are way too alike.”

Pen stiffens. This weird look overcomes her for a moment, lips parting as if she’s about to say something before she shakes her head. Her hand lifts, gesturing impatiently for me to continue. “I don’t have all day, farmboy.”

Letting the sass slide, I tug Pen towards an alcove in the hall so we have some semblance of privacy. “I don’t wanna just hook up with her, Pen. I… That’s not what I want from her. That was never what I wanted from her. And I didn’t want to have sex with her when it would mean something different to her than it does to me.”

The indignance narrowing her eyes goes nowhere. “And how do you know what it means to her?”

My head cocks to the side as I give Pen a look. “She broke up with me, Pen.” She didn’t, doesn’t, I don’t know anymore, want me. Not the way I want her.

“Not because she-” Pen cuts herself off again, looking like she’s one word away from stamping her feet like a tantrum-throwing little kid. Sucking in a breath, her expression softens a little. She does this little anxious glance around before stepping closer, her voice no longer at a deafening decibel. “Look, something monumentally shit happened last summer and she didn’t take it well. Her breaking up with you had nothing to do with you.”

I find that hard to believe. I was there. It felt a whole lot like it was because of me.

Pen must recognise the skepticism on my face because she sighs. “She was a wreck, Jackson. Breaking up with you wrecked her. More than the shit thing that happened that I’m not gonna tell you about because it’s not my place, so don’t ask.”

She looks nervous as she tugs her bottom lip into her mouth and crosses her arms over her chest. “I shouldn’t even be telling you this but she cried for, like, a month straight. And she started drinking. Like, a lot. I thought her liver was gonna crap out at one point. I was genuinely terrified to leave her alone in case I came home and found her in a pool of her own vomit.”

A knot of worry forms in my chest as that horrific image flashes through my mind. Fuck. “I didn’t know that.”

She offers me a sad smile. “Of course you didn’t. She wouldn’t let you.”

I hate that. I hate that so fucking much. And I’m angry, so fucking angry that whatever happened, she felt the need to deal with it alone instead of letting me, letting anyone, just help her.

“It was bad, Jackson. And I’m not saying it was all because of you, because the thing-that-shall-not-be-named played a part, but more often than not, it was your name she was sobbing.” Pen pauses, a crease forming before her brows. “She loved the fuck outta you, Jackson, and it makes me sad that you seem to think she didn’t.”

I open my mouth to reply but nothing comes out. I don’t know what to say. It’s not that I don’t think she loved me. I know she did. It’s more that I don’t think she loved me quite as much as I love her. Whatever Pen might be telling me now, I saw Luna on campus looking completely unaffected while I constantly felt like shit. And, well, maybe that reaffirmed that belief a little.

And I’d take that, her not loving me as much, any day over everything Pen just told me being true.

“I know it was her choice but losing you fucking destroyed her, Jackson. And if you think for one second that you don’t mean anything to her…” Pen sighs and shrugs. “Well, then maybe you don’t know her as well as you think you do.”

With one final sad smile, she walks away, leaving me with a head full of words, none of them making a whole lot of sense.