Distraction (Club Destiny #8)(88)

“Fuck you,” she hissed. That wasn’t at all what she’d wanted to hear.

“But it’s what you want, right?” Dylan taunted her. “You want me to come crawling on my hands and knees, providing you the opportunity to fix me. Right, Sarah? It’s what you do best? You put everyone else before yourself so you can fix them?”

What the hell was Dylan talking about? He was delusional was what he was.

“Fuck you!” Sarah exclaimed, turning away from him and walking toward the kitchen. She tried to control her breathing. This conversation wasn’t going to go anywhere, so hashing it out was pointless.

“You fix people,” he continued. “Ashleigh told me how she’d reached out to you and you wanted to help fix me. Is that why you’re with me? To make sure I don’t relapse? Did my sister talk you into this?”

Sarah pivoted around to face him. “Are you serious? That was three fucking years ago, Dylan. And, yes, maybe the old Sarah had wanted to try and help you back then. That’s what friends do, right? They help each other. They listen. They talk.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Why didn’t I what?”

“That night I came over … when we fucked… I didn’t hear you trying to stop me from leaving. You didn’t reach out.”

“You’re pinning that on me?” The anger surged in her veins. “If I recall correctly, you called me that night. Not the other way around.”

Dylan exhaled sharply. “You didn’t try to get in touch. Why is that, Sarah?”

He knew damn well why she hadn’t. Because he’d fucked her and run. Not that she was going to mention that.

“Tell me, Sarah. Why now? Why are you willing to be with me now? I’m no different than I was then.”

Knowing she had to think before she spoke, Sarah turned and went into the kitchen.

He was wrong about not being different. The man she’d known had been beyond help at the time. Her help, anyway. He’d needed professional help to deal with the depression. She hadn’t known about the alcoholism, but he’d needed professional help for that, too. Until he’d decided to come out of his decade-long coma, there hadn’t been a single person on the face of the earth who could’ve helped him. Which was a complete shame because she’d known the real Dylan at one point.

Placing her hands on her hips, Sarah turned to face him and was stunned to see him standing with his palms planted against the wall, his head hanging between his arms, not moving.

“Dylan?” Sarah couldn’t help but feel the pain radiating from him, although moments before he’d been all but ready to rip her a new one for simply wanting to talk to him.

“I’m sorry, Sarah,” he whispered.

“For what?” God, she really shouldn’t do this. She knew she shouldn’t. “For walking in here and going all caveman on me? Or for inviting me into your life in the first place? Or for having some off-the-wall notion that you need to try and protect me from you?”

“All of the above.” Dylan turned to face her. Those dark brown eyes no longer held the heat she had seen in them earlier.

She was still pissed, though there was a ribbon of concern twined in there, too. “I’m a grown woman. I can make my own decisions, but you don’t have to worry—I’m not interested in doing this anymore.” Like hell.

Dylan’s head snapped toward her. “You’re lying.”

He stood up tall, an imposing figure in her house.

“You’re wrong about me wanting to fix you, Dylan. In fact, I grew tired of trying to fix everyone else a long damn time ago.” She gestured toward herself. “Why do you think I changed so much of myself? I didn’t want to be that girl anymore. It turned out that while I was so focused on helping everyone else, I forgot to think about myself. I don’t have that problem anymore.”

There was chemistry between them, Sarah felt it, but aside from some incredibly good sex, Dylan hadn’t promised her anything. It was her own fault for getting in over her head with this man. These past few weeks had been the best of her life. She hadn’t remembered feeling so free, so completely uninhibited. She liked that feeling. In fact, she liked who she was when she was with Dylan.

But she honestly didn’t think she was strong enough to compete with Meghan’s memory. She didn’t want to wonder every single day whether or not Dylan was hers or if he was going to fall back into the past, thinking of all that he’d missed out on. Would she wake one morning to find him gone from her life like everyone else? She couldn’t take that.

She was all for trying new things. But getting her heart broken definitely wasn’t in the plan. Been there, done that. The T-shirt no longer fit.



DYLAN HAD NO IDEA WHAT the fuck had come over him. He felt like a jackass, and that was probably exactly how he should feel. First of all, they’d just spent the last few hours together in the most intimate way possible. The woman had rocked his fucking world.

But the first time she tried to talk to him, he’d freaked the fuck out.

It was almost as though he was intentionally trying to push her, trying to hurt her so she could feel some of what he was feeling.

“Look, I really should go,” he finally said, though he didn’t need to. Sarah should’ve kicked him out on his ass long ago, told him to go to hell, because she certainly didn’t deserve the shit he was dishing out.