Love to Hate Her, page 18
I shake my head, because she’s got it all wrong.
“I am happy.”
She cocks a dubious eyebrow that I turn away from. No one likes their miserable reflected back at them.
The truth is, prior to this tour, I didn’t have a whole lot to be happy about. My world vacillated between stagnant and awful. So, it’s not really my fault if I haven’t been happy for so long that I hardly understand what the word means. But I try. I do. I go into every day with a smile because every day is filled with limitless potential. I know better than anyone how quickly life and luck can change.
Besides, men aren’t the antidote to unhappiness.
If anything, they’re partners in crime with it.
“Gus screws every woman with a pulse, a heartbeat, and a pretty smile. Jasper treats me like I’m a plague he’s forced to endure. Keith and Henry view me as a little sister, and as for Spencer?” I shrug my shoulders helplessly. “I don’t know what to tell you on that. That’s just Spencer. He and I dated for like a hot second and ended ages ago. We’ve stayed friends, as you know. So enough about men, Jules. It’s not what you’re making it out to be.”
She throws her hands up in surrender, forcing a smile. “Fine. I’ll shut up. You’re a big girl and more than know how to handle yourself. I just think you’re ignoring something very obvious and potentially hot. Think of all the reverse harem situations you could get yourself into.”
I roll my eyes at her again, and she laughs. “I can’t even manage one dick.”
“But, God,” she sighs, fanning herself dramatically. “Could you imagine what a night that would be with all those dicks? I’d give my right tit to have those men in one sitting.”
That’s when the door to the hotel suite opens. That’s when Gus comes sauntering in, sweat coating his large, muscular form, making his white tee like a second skin. Keith, Henry, Spencer, and Jasper follow, all with dopey smiles on their faces, laughs lingering on their lips.
Jules smirks at me, arching a brow and tilting her head to the side. “See what I mean? Gives hot as fuck a new meaning.”
A laugh bursts from my chest.
“What?” Gus asks. “What did we miss?” He wraps his arms around me, pulling me snugly against him and nuzzling his face in my neck. I swat him away, and he chuckles when he sees me crinkling my nose. “You used to like me sweaty.”
“Only when you made her sweaty, which you don’t anymore because your dick is too interested in other pussy,” Jules snaps, and Gus steps back from me like she just zapped him with a cattle prod.
“Jesus, Jules. Way to make a guy feel like shit.”
Jules glowers. “It’s not my job to make you feel good. You hurt my friend. You cheated. And though it’s been seven years, I never got the chance to kick your ass for it.”
He stares at me as something sorrowful and despairing crosses his features. I frown in return because I get Jules on this, but it’s also been so long, and as I told her, nothing is going on between me and Gus. So, intentionally hurting him for past transgressions, really isn’t my game.
Even if he does deserve a little bit of a beating for it.
“Okay. That’s it.” Gus grabs me, picking me up and hauling me over his shoulder. He starts to march me toward the door of the suite as I squeal as quietly as I can so I don’t wake up Ady.
“Put me down.” I pinch his shoulder and back, and his only response is to spank my ass that’s hiked up high in the air.
I’m wearing a skirt. Marvelous. I can only imagine the view I’m giving everyone. I can’t even tell if it’s still covering my ass.
“No. You and I need to talk in private.”
“Gus,” Jasper barks in that way of his. “Put the nanny down.”
I raise my head from Gus’s back and flip off Jasper. He slays me with a cocky grin, a self-satisfied gleam to his eyes. He knows he’s pushing my buttons and loves the reaction it produces.
Unfortunately for me, it also makes him look sexy because his wavy reddish-brown hair is even darker and brushed off his face, slightly damp from his sweat. He’s wearing a different shirt than the one he left in. One that’s not covered in sweat like Gus’s but still sticking to his muscular arms and cut abs and fuck.
I hate how attracted to the devil I am.
He stares at me, and I stare back at him. He mouths the words ‘my nanny’ to me, that grin still doing wild things to my insides.
I mouth ‘sexy god’ back at him, and now that cocky grin is a full smile. He nods, his green eyes turning heated as he raises a challenging brow at me. One that says, wouldn’t you like to find out just how much?
Why can’t he be like this all the time with me? Why does he have to be so damn mercurial? So hot and cold? He’s giving me whiplash.
“She’s off duty, man. And mine. So fuck off.”
Jasper’s smile falls instantly.
I smack Gus repeatedly in the back. Hard. So hard my hands sting. “Knock it off, Gus.”
But of course, he doesn’t.
He’s Gus.
Gus has no concept of limits. Jasper glares at me, his gaze searching mine before it drags endlessly over Gus and how he’s holding me. All the delicious heat in his eyes is gone, replaced with pure, unfiltered enmity. He shakes his head, his jaw clenching as he lets out some kind of sardonic growl.
“Whatever. I’m taking a shower.” Jasper storms off in the direction of his bedroom, closing the door with a firm click behind him.
“Sorry, Vi. Looks like I started something here,” Jules winks at me, not sorry at all. “Maybe once you and Gus become Facebook official again, the entertainment shows will stop referring to you as the unknown woman touring with Wild Minds.”
“Huh?” I raise my head again to find Jules.
She shrugs. “That’s what I saw the other night.” She holds her fist up under her chin as if it’s a microphone. “There have been a lot of speculations as to the identity of the mysterious woman traveling with the band. Unfortunately, Wild Minds was not available for comment,” she says in a tone mocking a news reporter before she rolls her eyes.
“The hell? What do they care about who the nanny is?”
“Because you’re more than that, aren’t you?”
“Stop it, Jules,” Keith warns. “And shut up about it, okay? Jasper hates any and all press. Especially when it comes to Adalyn and the people around her. The press have been giving us a wide berth so far, and we’d like to keep it that way.”
I shake my head, dropping back down against Gus. “Can you put me down already?”
“No. Not until we’ve talked.”
“Gus. I don’t want to have a talk with you. At least not until you’ve showered.” I swat at him again, but he doesn’t put me down. He’s a man on a mission.
“Then come shower with me. We can talk in there.”
“My Viola, does it drive you crazy?” Jules asks. I groan, letting my head drop completely against Gus because I have a really good idea where this is going. “I mean, the girl walks into a room, and all men turn stupid and desperate. It’s pathetic, gentlemen. Vi, I’m like in awe of you and would love your secret, but these men are beneath you. You deserve better.”
“Sounds like jealousy to me,” Spencer drawls, dropping onto the seat beside Jules on the couch and tossing his arm over her shoulder.
She casts an annoyed scowl at him. “More like curiosity. I mean, yeah, she’s my girl, and she’s awesome, but you men drool in a puddle at her feet. She’s ten thousand miles above you. Get a life already.”
Gus spins around, nearly knocking my head into Keith, who is standing by the door, sipping from his bottle of Jack and grinning stupidly as he enjoys the show we’re all providing him.
“You wanna know why we fall to her feet?” Gus asks as Jules’s eyes tilt toward his. “Because she’s more than just beautiful or smart or sweet or fun or funny. She’s the package. The whole show. The one you’re dumb to let go of.”
I swallow down a lump in my throat. Jesus. I had no idea Gus actually thought that way about me. All this time, I assumed his comments were playful and far from serious. Especially since he regularly has a revolving door of women.
With that, Gus spins back around, pushes Keith out of the way, opens the door to the suite, and starts to march me down the long hallway. Marsellus and Thomas, the other security guy, are still there, hanging out in the hall and shooting the shit. They throw us a questioning brow, and I shrug at them helplessly, reaching out for them to help a girl out. They chuckle and go back to their conversation, no help at all.
“Gus, if you want to talk, we’ll talk, but put me down. You’re killing my stomach like this.”
Gus lets me slide down his chest, but I don’t get far as his arms encircle my waist. He stares down into me. “I fucked up, Vi. I fucked up so bad with you.”
“Aww, Gus. Stop it.” I cup his face in my hands. “That was a long time ago.”
He shakes his head, pulling out his keycard and leading me into his room.
Dropping down to the edge of the bed, I’m left standing before him with only the glow of the lamp on the bedside table to see by. Gus stares up at me, his expression conflicted and pained. I hate seeing Gus this way.
Maybe if I still loved him in that way, I’d be angry with him. More resentful of the way we ended and the distance that spawned between us. I know he checked up on me. Spencer was joking around about it all night when he and Jules first arrived, but it’s not the first time I’ve heard about it.
Even Jasper did a few times, though not as often as Gus did.
Gus caring about me was never the problem between us. I always knew how he felt. He never tried to hide it.
It was everything else that got in our way.
“The first time Jasper and I met you, we were eight. Just little kids, right?” I watch him rub his jaw with his fingers as he works this through. “Jasper met you first, and he came home and told me had met an angel. I thought he was kidding. I mean, Jasper was always a bit on the deeper, more dramatic side than I was. Way more poetic with his thoughts and words. But then, when I met you, I knew precisely what he was talking about.”
“Gus–”
He shakes his head, stopping me. “Just let me finish, okay?”
I reach out, running my fingers through his short sandy-brown hair. He leans into my touch, blowing out a heavy penetrating sigh.
“In my head, in that moment, I knew you were the girl for me. It was just a feeling I had, and even though I was only eight, it never dissipated. You were going to be mine, and I was going to be yours, and that was the end of it. Hell, I made sure that was the way it was going to go.” I furrow my brows at the way he says that, because it sounds like there’s something behind it. “I was a selfish bastard. I never let anyone get in my way when it came to you. No one. Until I got in my own way.”
I kneel down before him, setting my hands on his parted thighs. I hate seeing him hurting this way, but I think I also have to hear it from him. I feel like part of me still needs this closure on such a big chapter of my life. The Gus chapter. The one that consumed so many years of my life. That brought me so much joy.
The one that ended abruptly with tears and heartache.
“I never considered what the other girls would do to us. To you. In my head, they were just there. Meaningless. Stupid fun I wasn’t serious about, or even gave a second thought to, after it was over. I couldn’t tell you any of their names or what they looked like. I was drinking and smoking a ton and doing blow, and they were throwing themselves at me. In my head, you were so very separate from that life. From those women and the drugs and alcohol. You were my Vi. The one I held high on the pedestal while all that other bullshit was so far beneath you, I never considered it’d reach you.”
His fingers glide up my arms until they reach my face, his gaze tracking the movement as our eyes meet.
“God, Vi. You have no idea how brokenhearted I was when you ended things. Losing you,” he shakes his head, “especially like that, was never a factor in my head. I always assumed you’d go to college, and I’d do the rock star thing, and eventually, when that ride was done, we’d come back together. Get married and make babies. But we got famous so quickly, and you weren’t there, and then we were over, and I was a fucking wreck.”
A tear slides down my face, followed quickly by another. He wipes them away, leaning in and kissing my cheeks, erasing the moisture on my face along with the ache in my heart.
“I am so sorry I hurt you.” His thumbs glide up and down my face. “That I betrayed you like that. That I ruined us in that way.”
I raise myself up, my knees pressing into the stiff carpet as I wrap my arms around his neck, cradling him so close to me. God. Gus. This man.
“Thank you,” I whisper in his ear, sniffling lightly. “I needed to hear that, I think.”
“I love you, Vi.” He holds me back with equal ardor. “And I’ve been trying to fix things. Fix all my mistakes for you. To give you everything I ever promised you.” He chuckles humorlessly. “I’ve made you so many over the years. But no matter what I do or try, I feel like I’m making things a million times worse.”
“No.” I draw back and meet his eyes from inches away. “No, you’re not. You and I have always been straight. Even after things ended, I had a miserable time being mad at you. I knew what you were in the middle of, and I was so damn happy and proud. I just…,” I tilt my head back, staring up at the ceiling as I try to make sense of things before I find him again. “I just couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t want to do it anymore. The cheating hurt, and ultimately, that’s what ended us. But we were growing apart before that.” He looks like he’s about to argue, but I stop him. “You’re in my heart, Gus. You’re always going to be. It’s just different now than it was when we were kids.”
“I sometimes wish I could change that different.”
I smile softly, running my hands up and down the back of his head. Our foreheads press together, and Gus smiles back at me, like the weight that had been resting heavily on his shoulders is lighter.
I don’t know what to say to that.
Sometimes, our pasts have to be left where they are.
Sometimes, another’s actions change everything inside you.
Sometimes, words hold on so strong you can’t unhear them or pretend they didn’t reshape your core.
Because, while I love Gus, he’s not the one who owns my heart anymore. That’s the first sign that we fall in love without reason. That our hearts are blind to all that surround them.
One brother already broke my heart. The other is gearing up to destroy it for good.
Eighteen
Jasper
* * *
Stepping out of the shower, I towel myself off quickly, throw on some clean clothes and down another gulp of bourbon, finishing off my glass. It doesn’t burn the way I wish it did. The expensive stuff never does, and that’s all Marco gets me, unlike Keith’s Jack Daniels. Maybe I should steal that from him because this doesn’t hurt the way my insides do, and I seriously wish it did.
When will this stop?
How the fuck do I make it stop?
I pour myself another three fingers and then blow out a heavy breath before I twist the knob and exit my room. Keith and Spencer are sitting on either side of Jules, laughing and touching in what comes off as something intimate, all with half-empty drinks precariously held in their hands. Henry is in the chair, scrolling through his phone with singular focus.
Gus and Viola are nowhere to be seen.
I’ve tried to make the worst scenario better. Filled it up with every rationalization I could throw at it. But the simple truth is, she’s not here because she’s with him. And I can’t do a damn thing about it other than watch her go.
“We’re scouting clubs,” Henry announces without even bothering to glance up at me. I stare down at myself, my tee, jeans, and bare feet, and then my drink. I’m not going anywhere tonight, so instead, I spill my latest refill down the back of my throat and wipe my mouth with the back of my wrist before I set my glass down.
“Around here?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “There are some. You in?” He smirks, already knowing my answer.
“Oh yeah. Dancing and easy pussy, here I come.”
Jules snorts. “God, you’re so grumpy. Were you always this grumpy, or is having Viola fucking around with your brother throwing you off?”
I twist to her, and she’s smiling wickedly, a devil-may-care aura coupled with something else incredibly sinister.
I don’t think I’ve ever realized it before, probably because I never exactly gave Viola’s best friend, Jules, much consideration, but this girl has motives and plans, and right now, they all involve messing me up.
What the hell did Vi tell her about us?
Jules likes it. Whatever it is.
I narrow my eyes at her.
“What makes you think I give two flying shits where Gus or Viola are?”
That wicked smile grows an inch, like a lion toying with its prey.
“Because I saw the way you looked at her. Especially when Gus was all over her, staking his claim.”
“Knock it off,” Keith snaps, but Jules ignores him.
She rises off the couch, approaching me slowly, and thanks to the bourbon, my reflexes have slowed. Or maybe I’m just too caught off guard by this woman and her unexpectedness to react the way I likely should.
