When I'm with You (Hope Town #3)(35)

Shit.

Damn.

Well, this wasn’t exactly how I had pictured this going, but I might as well get it over with. Rip off the Band-Aid and finally make the long overdue move to end things between us.

“Nothing like that happened, Levi. I’m sure that Nate was just putting on a show because he knows the girls would think it was hilarious to embarrass me.”

His eyes flare at the mention of Nate’s name, and I feel my heart pick up speed and my skin flush cold with chills.

“Nate?” he bursts out, the sound like a deep rumble of thunder, making Bam bark. Levi’s head swivels toward where Bam is sitting, and I hear my poor baby whine, which is so unlike my sweet-natured pup. He loves everyone.

My mind goes back to the other morning when I found out he had been tied to the fence, and I know, somehow, deep in my gut, that Levi was responsible.

“Look, Lev. I had hoped that we would be able to go out to dinner tonight to have this talk, but clearly, this just needs to happen now. I’ve felt this way for a while now, but we’re just not working. I think it would be best if we broke things off.”

There. I said it and the world is still spinning away.

His head twists from Bam, and he studies me with his stoic and quite frankly terrifyingly calm mask still in place. I wait with bated breath as he continues his silence. The clock on the wall behind me ticks away. Bam’s panting echoes against the walls. My heart is in my stomach as trepidation climbs up my throat.

I watch as something dark dances across his face, briefly, before he gives me a nod and stands. I lean back in my seat at his sudden movement.

“If that’s what you want. I’m not going to stick around if you would rather whore yourself out around town and look like a fool.”

He stomps toward the door before stopping when his body is in front of the small entryway table I have next to it. His hand comes up from where he had been clenching his fist at his sides, and I watch as he picks up one of the many frames that decorate the surface. I try to visualize the order of my framed memories but can’t seem to recall what could have possibly drawn his attention.

The muscles in his back ripple with tension, pulsing through the tight fabric of his dark tee shirt, before he turns to lock his evil gaze on me. I don’t have time to comprehend his movement before the picture is sailing through the air and crashing into the wall, just barely missing my head.

“Family friend, my f*cking ass. Have a nice life, bitch,” he seethes before opening the door so hard that the doorknob sticks in the drywall.

My breaths come in rushed gasps as I stare in fear at the open doorway. Bam rushes to my side and lays his head in my lap with a gentle whine meant to soothe me. I hear the sound of Levi’s truck start up, but it isn’t until the sound of his engine had long since faded away that I rushed from my spot and muscled the door out of the wall before slamming it and throwing back the locks.

I scramble around my vacated seat and bend to grab the broken and shattered photo from the ground, gasping when I see which one it was.

I don’t even remember who took the picture, but I had never been able to take it down and put it away. It’s been one of my favorite images and cherished memories for so long that I should have realized it was the one Levi had seen.

It was a few months after Nate had started tutoring me. Everyone had been enjoying a long day at the Reid’s. My skin was pink from being out in the sun for hours, but I didn’t mind a second of that sunburn later that night.

I had been standing at the edge of the lake; you could see the out-of-focus people peppered in and out of the water, but at that moment, the camera caught me laughing at something Nate had said to me. My head was thrown back, hair down my back; my bikini had been a new purchase that I got in so much trouble with from my dad. I looked beyond happy and carefree.

And Nate … he was standing next to me, his board shorts low on his hips in the most delicious way. But I loved his face the most about this picture. He wasn’t laughing with me. Instead, he was looking at me as if I was the most precious thing he had ever seen.

That look helped to convince me months later to take a chance and tell him how I felt. I was desperate to see that look again with my own eyes, but it wasn’t until last night that he ever gave me a chance to see it once more.

There is no doubt in my mind that Levi saw the same thing I had built all my hopes on when he saw Nate’s face, and as twisted as it is to feel this way, the only thing his outburst has done is given me the verification needed to see the direction my heart wants me to follow.





NIGHT AFTER NIGHT FOR THE last week, Dirty has been insane.

A good insane. The kind that solidifies the fact I knew in my bones for a long time coming that this place would be a success.

But it’s also been somewhat of a double-edged sword.

The madness kept me there for the past seven days while I’ve had to fight with myself every second of that time not to say f*ck it and rush off to find Ember. I hadn’t even had time to jump over to CS until now to finish the cases I still had to close.

I spent the first day after my chat with my dad still struggling to get my cock under control. The day after that, I kept going over and over what he had said. Picturing my future without Ember in it. Visualizing her meeting someone, getting married, having his kids … and in the end, I felt like I would be sick. Hell, I almost was.