After Ever Happy (After #4) (3 page)

He glares at me. “She sounded
panicked
and she said she wanted to make sure her past was in the past before her wedding, and I’m a poster boy for terrible decisions.” He taps his fingers on the steering wheel, shame clear in his voice.

“So am I,” I mumble to myself, and reach for the door handle.

He reaches for my arm. “Hardin.”

“Don’t.”
I pull my arm away and get out of the car. I need time to process all of this shit. I’ve just been bombarded with too many answers to questions I never even knew to ask. I need to breathe, I need to calm down, I need to get away from him and get to my girl, my salvation.

“I need you to get away from me. We both know that,” I tell him when he doesn’t move his car. He stares at me momentarily, then nods, leaving me on the street.

I look around the street and notice a familiar storefront halfway down the block, meaning I’m only blocks from my mum’s house. My blood is pounding behind my ears as I reach into my pocket to call Tess. I need to hear her voice, I need her to bring me back to reality.

As I watch the building, waiting for her to answer, my demons battle inside me, pulling me into the comfortable darkness. The pull is stronger and deeper with each unanswered ring, and soon I find my feet carrying me across the street.

Pushing my phone back into my pocket, I open the door and walk into the familiar scenery of my past.

B
roken glass crunches under my feet as I shift side to side, waiting patiently. Or as close to patiently as I can manage.

At last, when Mike is done talking to the police, I go up to him. “Where
is
he?” I ask, and not nicely.

“He left with Christian Vance.” Mike’s eyes are void of all emotion. His look makes me calm down a bit, recognize that this isn’t his fault. This is his wedding day, and it’s been ruined.

I look around at the broken wood and ignore the whispers coming from the nosy onlookers. My stomach is in knots, and I try to hold myself together. “Where did they go?”

“I don’t know.” He buries his head in his hands.

Kimberly taps my shoulder. “Look, when the police are done with those guys, if we stick around, they might want to talk to you, too.”

I glance back and forth between the door and Mike. I nod, then follow Kimberly outside to prevent drawing any of the cops’ attention to me.

“Can you try Christian again? I’m sorry, I just need to talk to Hardin.” I shiver in the chill air.

“I’ll try again,” she promises, and we walk across the parking lot to her rental car.

A slow, sinking feeling sets in my stomach as I watch yet another police officer enter the swanky bar. I’m terrified for Hardin, not because of the police, but because I’m afraid of how he will handle all this when he’s alone with Christian.

I see Smith sitting quietly in the backseat of the car and lean my elbows onto the trunk and close my eyes.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Kimberly shouts, breaking me out of my thoughts. “
We’ll
find him!” she snaps and ends the call.

“What’s happening?” My heart is pounding so loud that I’m afraid I won’t hear her answer.

“Hardin got out of the car and Christian lost track of him.” She gathers her hair and pulls it into a ponytail. “It’s almost time for that damn wedding,” she says, looking toward the door of the bar where Mike stands, alone.

“This is a disaster,” I groan, sending a silent prayer that Hardin is on his way back here.

I grab my phone again, and some of the panic decreases when I see his name on the missed-call list. With shaking hands, I dial him back and wait. And wait. And get no answer. I call back again and again, only to get his voicemail each time.

J
ack and Coke,” I bark.

The bald bartender glares at me as he pulls an empty glass from the rack and fills it with ice. Too bad I didn’t think to invite Vance; we could have shared a father-son drink.

Fuck, this is all so fucked-up.
“Double, actually,” I modify the order.

“Got it,” the big man sarcastically responds. My eyes find the old television on the wall, and I read the captions on the bottom of the screen. The commercial is for an insurance company, and the screen is covered by a giggling baby. Why they choose to put babies in every damn commercial, I will never know.

The bartender wordlessly slides my drink across the wooden bar just as the baby makes a sound that’s presumably supposed to be even more “adorable” than giggling, and I bring the glass to my lips, allowing my mind to take me far away from here.

“WHY DID YOU BRING HOME
baby products?” I had asked.

She sat down on the edge of the bathtub and pulled her hair into a ponytail. I started to worry if she had an obsession with children—it sure as hell seemed like it.

“It’s not a baby product,” Tessa had said and laughed. “It just has a baby and a father printed on the package.”

“I really don’t understand the appeal there.” I lifted the box of shaving products Tessa had brought home for me, examining the chubby cheeks of a baby and wondering what the hell a baby has to do with a shaving kit.

She shrugged. “I don’t really get it either, but I’m sure putting a baby’s image on it will help with sales.”

“Maybe for women buying their boyfriend’s or husband’s shit,” I corrected her. No man in his right mind would’ve grabbed that thing off the shelf.

“No, I’m sure fathers would buy it, too.”

“Sure.” I had ripped open the box and laid the contents out in front of me, then made eye contact with her through the mirror. “A bowl?”

“Yes, it’s for the cream. You’ll get a better shave if you use the brush.”

“And how do you know that?” I raised a brow at her, hoping she didn’t know this from experience with Noah.

Her smile was wide. “I looked it up!”

“Of course you did.” My jealousy disappeared, and she playfully kicked her feet at me. “Since you seem to be an expert in the art of shaving, come help me.”

I had always just used a simple razor and cream, but since she had clearly put thought into this, I wouldn’t deny her. And, frankly, the blooming idea of her shaving my face was a major fucking turn-on. Tessa smiled and got to her feet, joining me in front of the sink. She picked up the tube of cream and filled the bowl before swirling the brush around to create a lather.

“Here.” She smiled, handing me the brush.

“No, you do it.” I placed the brush back into her hand and wrapped my hands around her waist. “Up you go.” I lifted her onto the sink. Once she was settled, I pushed her thighs apart and stood between them.

Her expression was cautious but concentrated as she dipped the brush into the lather and swiped it across my jaw.

“I don’t really want to go anywhere tonight,” I told her. “I have so much work to do. You’ve been distracting me.” Grabbing a handful of her tits, I squeezed gently.

Her hand jerked, flinging some of the shaving cream onto my neck.

“Good thing the razor wasn’t in your hand,” I joked.

“Good thing,” she mocked, and picked up the brand-new razor. Then she chewed at her full lips and asked, “Are you sure you want me to do it? I’m nervous that I’ll cut you by accident.”

“Stop worrying.” I smirked. “I’m sure you researched this part online, anyway,”

Her tongue peeked out in a childish way, and I leaned forward to kiss her before she began. She didn’t say anything, because I was right.

“But know that if you cut me, you should definitely run.” I laughed.

She scowled again. “Stay still, please.” Her hand was slightly shaky, but quickly grew steady as she gently dragged the razor across my jawline.

“You should just go without me,” I said and closed my eyes. Tessa’s shaving my face was somehow comforting and surprisingly calming. I didn’t feel like going to my father’s house for dinner, but Tessa was going stir-crazy being in the apartment all the time, so when Karen had called to invite us, she’d jumped at the request.

“If we stay in tonight, then I want to reschedule and go this weekend. Will you have your work done by then?”

“I guess so . . .” I complained.

“You can call and tell them, then. I’ll start dinner after this, and you can work.” She tapped my top lip with her finger, signaling for me to tuck my lips in, and she carefully shaved around my mouth.

When she was finished, I said, “You should drink the rest of that wine in the fridge, because the cork has been off for days now. It’s going to be vinegar soon.”

“I . . . I don’t know.” She hesitated. I knew why. I opened my eyes, and she reached behind her back to turn the faucet on and wet a towel.

“Tess”—I pressed my fingers under her chin—“you can drink in front of me. I’m not some struggling alcoholic.”

“I know, but I don’t want it to be weird for you. I don’t really need to be drinking so much wine anyway. If you aren’t drinking, I don’t need to.”

“My problem isn’t drinking. It’s only when I’m pissed-off and drink—that’s when there’s a problem.”

“I know.” She gulped.

She did know.

She dragged the warm towel across my face, wiping the excess shaving cream away.

“I’m only an asshole when I drink to try to solve shit, and lately there hasn’t been anything to solve, so I’m fine.” Even I knew that wasn’t an ironclad guarantee. “I don’t want to be one of those geezers like my father who drink themselves stupid and endanger the people around me. And since you happen to be about the only person I give a fuck about, I don’t want to drink around you anymore.”

“I love you,” she’d simply replied.

“And I love you.”

Breaking the oh-so-serious air of the moment, and because I didn’t want to go down this road any further, I stared down at her body perched on the sink. She was wearing one of my white T-shirts, with nothing but black panties underneath.

“I may have to keep you around now that you can properly shave my face. You cook, you clean . . .”

She swatted at me and rolled her eyes. “And what do I get out of this deal? You are messy; you only help me cook once a week, if that. You are grumpy in the morning—”

I cut her off by placing my hand between her legs and pushing her panties to the side.

“I guess you are good at something.” She’d grinned as I slid one finger inside her.

“Only one thing?” I added another, and she groaned, her head rolling back.

THE BARTENDER’S HAND
thumps against the counter in front of me. “I
said
, ‘Do you want another drink?’ ”

I blink a few times and look down at the bar, then up at him.

“Yeah.” I hand the glass over, the memory fading as I wait for my refill. “Another double.”

As the old, bald bastard heads down the bar, I hear a woman’s voice say with surprise, “Hardin? Hardin Scott?”

I turn my head to see the somewhat familiar face of Judy Welch, my mum’s old friend. Well, ex-friend. “Yeah.” I nod, noticing that age hasn’t been kind to her.

“Holy hell! It’s been, what . . . six years? Seven? Are you here alone?” She puts her hand on my shoulder and lifts herself onto the barstool next to me.

“Yeah, around that, and, yes, I’m here alone. My mum won’t be chasing after you.”

Judy has the unhappy face of a woman who’s drunk way too much in her lifetime. Her hair is the same white blond that it was when I was a teenager, and her implants look too large for her small frame. I remember the first time she touched me. I felt like a man—fucking my mum’s friend. And now, looking at her, I wouldn’t fuck her with the bald bartender’s dick.

She winks at me. “You have definitely grown up.”

My drink is placed in front of me, and I gulp it down within seconds.

“Talkative as ever.” She pats my shoulder again, calling out her drink order to the bartender. Then she turns to me. “Here to drown your sorrows? Love problems?”

“Neither.” I roll my glass between my fingers, listening to the ice clink against the glass.

“Well, I’m here to drown out a lot of both. So let’s you and I have a shot,” Judy says with a smile I remember from deep in the past and orders the two of us a round of cheap whiskey.

K
imberly curses Christian out so bad over the phone that afterward she has to stop and catch her breath. She reaches a hand out to my shoulder. “Hopefully Hardin’s just walking around to clear his head. Christian said he was giving him space.” She groans in disapproval.

But I know Hardin, and I know that he doesn’t just “clear his head” by walking around. I try to reach him again, but I’m immediately met with his voicemail. He has turned his phone off completely.

“Do you think he would go to the wedding?” Kim looks at me. “You know, to cause a scene?”

I want to tell her that he wouldn’t do that, but with the weight of all of this pressing on him, I can’t deny it’s a possibility.

“I can’t believe I’m even suggesting this,” Kimberly says delicately. “But maybe you should come to the wedding after all—at least to make sure he doesn’t interrupt? Plus, it’s likely that he’s trying to find you anyway, and if nobody’s on their phones, that’s probably where he will look first.”

The idea of Hardin’s showing up to the church and causing a scene makes me nauseous. But selfishly I hope that he does go there, otherwise I will have almost no chance of finding him. That he has turned his phone off makes me worry if he
wants
to be found.

“I guess so. Maybe I should go and just stay outside, out front?” I suggest.

Kimberly nods sympathetically, but her expression hardens when a sleek black BMW pulls into the lot, parking next to Kimberly’s rental.

Christian steps out, dressed in a suit. “Any word from him?” he asks as he approaches. He leans in to kiss Kimberly on her cheek—a gesture of habit, I suppose—but she pulls away before his lips can touch her skin.

“I’m sorry,” I hear him whisper to her.

She shakes her head and turns her attention to me. My heart aches for her; she doesn’t deserve such a betrayal. I guess that’s the thing about betrayal, though: it holds no prejudice and preys on those who neither see it coming nor deserve it.