Tamed (Torn #5)(26)

Adam had said that Chloe loved Drake. If that was the case, love was the biggest motherf*cker of all. Love was supposed to be the one thing in this world that was completely pure. That was a lie. I’d thought that I loved Chad. Because of that, I’d ended up broken. No, love wasn’t pure. It was tainted with so much pain that it made me want to run away.

I thought about my complicated relationship with Adam. I cared for him. Of that, I was sure. But I didn’t love him. I wasn’t even sure I liked him some days when he acted like an ass. But I knew that with enough time, I could love him.

Seeing Logan in that much pain was a wake-up call for me. I would never let myself be torn to shreds like that. Never. I would put up an emotional wall so thick that whatever I thought I felt for Adam would never break through.

Fucking was all I’d let myself have, and I’d make sure that it was enough.





Weeks went by at a snail’s pace.

Logan had closed himself off from everyone, including me. I tried to talk to him a few times, but he pushed me away before I had a chance to say anything more than hello. That hurt, but I understood why he wanted to be alone. Logan had always been so contained, and now was no different.

I hadn’t spoken to Chloe at all. I saw her a couple of times, but I didn’t even acknowledge her existence. She deserved nothing less. I’d never been so angry with her as I was now. She’d royally screwed up, and she knew it. She could suffer alone. Maybe it would show her just how much her actions could hurt others.

Even though I was angry with her, I missed her. I could lie to everyone else, but I couldn’t lie to myself.

As weeks slowly passed, I would find myself grabbing my phone to call her. I forced myself to keep my distance though. No matter how much I missed her, she’d done Logan wrong, and she needed to suffer.

I would see Drake weekly when I went to their shows. Since I’d decided to keep my distance emotionally from Adam, I made myself go to the band’s shows. I needed to accept the fact that I wasn’t the only woman he wanted. I’d expected him to leave with other women, but he never did. If I was around, I was the one he took home. I tried not to think too hard on why.

Drake looked as bad as Chloe and Logan. All three of them looked as if they hadn’t slept in weeks. I wondered if they really hadn’t. I almost felt sorry for Chloe and Drake, but when I remembered how broken Logan had looked when he talked to me, I found it easy to push away any sympathetic feelings.

Since I wasn’t hanging out with Chloe or Logan, I would find myself spending more and more time with Adam. It seemed that we were constantly together. If I wasn’t at his apartment, I would be out with him. It wasn’t something that either of us had planned. It just kind of happened. But through it all, I kept my resolve to keep things strictly physical. I found myself liking Adam as a person, and I even went as far as to consider him a friend. It felt weird to think of him like that, but I started to get used to it. After all, we were supposed to be friends—with benefits.

Adam and I would talk about the situation with Chloe, Drake, and Logan occasionally. We didn’t agree—at all. He saw Drake’s side while all I could see was Logan’s.

“He’s so f*cked-up, Amber. I’ve never seen him like this,” Adam said as we stared up at the ceiling of his bedroom.

I pulled the blanket up tighter around my naked body. “He should be f*cked-up, Adam. He pushed his way into Chloe’s life and completely screwed up everything she had with Logan.”

“You don’t know him the way I do. He doesn’t mess around with chicks who are taken. He doesn’t need to. If he didn’t care about Chloe, he wouldn’t have gone after her.”

“Maybe, but it doesn’t change anything. He’s still the reason that things are the way they are.”

“It wasn’t just him. Chloe could’ve said no,” Adam pointed out.

“Oh, I know. Trust me, I know. Chloe is on my shit list until they get all of this straightened out. She’s just as much at fault as he is. Maybe more. The only one completely innocent in all of this is Logan, and he’s the one who has suffered the most.”

“She’s never looked at Logan the way she looks at Drake. I knew something was going on between them, but if you want the truth, I didn’t care enough to ask. You might get pissed, but I wish Drake would just man up and go talk some sense into Chloe. It’s obvious to everyone that they love each other. Logan didn’t stand a chance.”

I sighed. “It does piss me off to hear you say that. I don’t know Drake, nor do I care about him. I wanted Logan to be happy, but I don’t see that happening now, especially if what you say about Chloe is true. I don’t see her ever giving him another chance if she loves Drake.”

Adam rolled over and pinned me to the bed. I froze in surprise.

“If any good has come out of our friends’ f*cked-up choices, it’s the fact that they made me realize what an awesome thing we have going on here.”

“What do you mean?”

He grinned down at me. “The two of us get along perfectly. There’s no pesky emotions tied to what we’re doing. It keeps things simple, easy, clean. We f*ck whenever we want and go about our business. It’s kind of perfect.”

“Be still my heart. You’re such a charmer,” I mumbled.