Drive(60)

“You are so in for it,” I promised. We were that sickening new couple and we both knew it.

“Cut that shit out, now,” Ben said into his mic. “I’m fucking jealous.”

I pulled back with a laugh and resumed my seat on the couch as they collectively showed me what good was.





Stay

Hurts



“What the fuck, MOM!” I heard Reid bark from his empty bedroom. “Tell him to stop fucking drinking.” A short pause. “And I’m paying for it.” I jumped as I heard his bathroom door slam. Still, I heard every venomous word. “I’m not talking about the money! I knew this would happen.”

His voice boomed in the hollow space while I stuffed my duffle. Lexi was minutes away, and we were moving into our apartment. Ben watched me in the living room as I jumped with his next explosion. I heard a crack and looked over to Ben, who motioned to the open door he held. “Come on, you don’t need to hear this.”

Nerves firing off, I followed him to the porch. It was littered with cigarette butts. Reid had come home from his shift the night before utterly unapproachable. His dinner plate was still untouched. He spent our last night playing house chain-smoking and isolated. He refused to talk about anything that morning after our bodies aligned and he’d burned through me like one of his cigarettes. His eyes were empty and refused to meet mine as he filled me to the brink again and again, his face twisted. The only time he spoke was when he asked me for my phone minutes before Lexi was supposed to show up. I reluctantly gave it to him, knowing whatever conversation he had would only add fuel to his inner fire. He was pissed in a way that scared me. And I had never been afraid of Reid.

“Do you know what’s going on?” I asked Ben.

He shrugged. “What’s always going on. His parents are infants.”

“I hate them already. I don’t ever want to know them,” I said as I thought of his lyrics, the torment in the lines of his songs. I knew enough to know that they hadn’t been there for him. They were selfish and undeserving.

Nervous, sick to my stomach, I stood and heard another loud crash.

“He’s just letting the steam off. He’s calmed down a lot.”

“This is calm?” I said, afraid to look in the apartment.

“Extremely,” Ben said smoothly. “That’s why he plays with so much fucking heart.”

“Right.” I swallowed just as Lexi’s SUV came into view, a small U-Haul hooked to the back of it.

“That’s Lexi,” I said with relief. She looked around the buildings, completely confused until I called her name and met her at the bottom of the stairs. A wicked grin covered her face as she ran toward me and squeezed the life out me.

“Jesus, I thought I would never get here!”

“I’ve missed you so much,” I said, a shake in my voice.

She pulled back and frowned. “What’s wrong?”

Her budding concern was cut short when she spotted Ben over my shoulder at the top of the steps. I let out a breath of relief I didn’t know I’d been holding and demanded her attention as I clutched her to me. She felt like home and was a much-needed comfort at that moment.

She pulled back and gave me a wink. “Finally, right?”

“Hi,” she said as she gave Ben a quick once-over.

“Stranger. Welcome home,” he said with a nod. I looked between them and knew they were far more intimately acquainted than they were acting. They’d been talking or texting every day. Still, they played cool, and I couldn’t wait to see it unfold. A minute later, Reid burst through the front door and tapped Ben on the shoulder.

“A minute, man.”

I could see Ben’s apprehension as he followed him in and shut the door behind him.

“What’s going on?” Lexi asked as she looked me over.

“I don’t know.”

“You look scared,” she said as she stood back and surveyed me. She’d re-dyed the tips of her dark hair red and looked kissed by the sun. Beautiful in a light blue sundress and tied leather sandals. Suddenly, it seemed like I’d spent an eternity without her. It was amazing what could happen in a few months.

Everything. Everything could happen in a few months.

Half an hour later, with Lexi and I covered in the afternoon heat, both Reid and Ben came through the door. Ben looked pissed, and Reid avoided all eye contact.

“Let’s get you moved, ladies,” Ben said, as he carried my duffle down the stairs.

My eyes drifted up to Reid. “Reid?”

His jaw ticked. “I’ll catch up.” He walked back inside and slammed the door.

“Don’t,” Ben warned as he pulled at my wrist.

“He’s not coming?”

Still trying to get past, he gripped me tight. “Listen, babe, you don’t need to—”

I pushed past him and pounded up the stairs and into the apartment to see Reid gripping his hair in the middle of his living room, our mattress pushed up against the wall.

“Reid.”

His bite was instant. “Can never fucking follow directions, can you?”

I ignored him because he didn’t mean it. Even with his desperate and angry fucking, I felt him with me. “Please, just tell me what’s going on.”