After Ever Happy (After #4) (7 page)

Looking at her right now, I can see the lack of warmth in her cheeks, the loss of hope from her eyes, the missing happiness from her full lips. I took a beautiful girl who lives her life for others, a girl who always found the good in everything, even me, and turned her into a shell whose void eyes are staring back at me now.

“I’m going to be sick,” I choke out and yank the passenger door open. All of the whiskey, all of the rum, and all of my mistakes splatter against the concrete, and I repeatedly vomit until I’m left with nothing but my guilt.

T
essa’s voice comes through soft and raspy in the gaps between my harsh breathing: “Where should I go?”

“I don’t know.” Part of me wants to tell her to get on the next plane out of London, alone. But the selfish—and much stronger—part knows that if she did, I wouldn’t make it through the night without drinking myself sick. Again. My mouth tastes like vomit, and my throat burns from the brutal way my system expelled all that liquor.

Opening the center console between us, Tessa pulls out a napkin and begins to wipe the corners of my mouth with the rough paper. Her fingers barely touch my skin, and I flinch away at the icy cold.

“You’re freezing. Turn the car on.” But I don’t wait for her to oblige. Instead I lean across and turn the key myself, blasting the air from the vents. The air is cold at first, but this expensive-ass car has some trick to it, and warmth quickly spreads through the small space.

“We need to get gas. I don’t know how long I was driving, but the fuel light is on, and that screen says so, too.” She points to the lavish navigation screen on the dash.

The sound of her voice is killing me. “You’ve lost your voice,” I say, even though it’s incredibly obvious. She nods and turns her head away from me. My fingers wrap around her chin, and I turn her face back to me. “If you want to leave, I won’t blame you. I’ll take you to the airport right now.”

She gives me a puzzled look before opening her mouth. “You’re staying here? In London? Our flight is tonight, I thought—” The last word voice comes out as more of a squeak than anything else, and she breaks into a coughing fit.

I check the cup holders for some water or something, but they’re empty.

I rub her back until she stops coughing, then I change the subject. “Trade me places; I’ll drive over there.” I nod toward the filling station across the road. “You need water and something for your throat.”

I wait for her to move out of the driver’s seat, but she rakes her eyes over my face before shifting the car into drive and pulling out of the parking lot.

“You’re still over the legal limit,” she finally whispers, careful not to strain her nonexistent voice.

I can’t exactly argue with that. There is no way that a few hours of dozing in this car has sobered me completely. I drank enough liquor to black out most of the night, and the resulting headache is massive. I’ll probably be drunk for the entire fucking day, or half of it. I can’t tell. I can’t even remember how many drinks I had . . .

My jumbled counting is cut short when Tessa parks in front of a gas pump and reaches for the door handle.

“I’ll go in.” I climb out of the car before she can argue.

There aren’t many people inside at this early hour, only men dressed for work. My hands are filled with aspirin, water bottles, and bags of snacks when Tessa walks into the small store.

I watch as every head turns to look at the disheveled beauty in her dirty white dress. The men’s looks make me even more nauseated.

“Why didn’t you stay in the car?” I ask as she approaches.

She waves a hunk of black leather in front of my face. “Your wallet.”

“Oh.”

Handing it to me, she disappears for a moment, but takes her place next to me just as I reach the counter. In each hand is a large, steaming cup of coffee.

I drop my pile of things on the counter. “Can you check the location on your phone while I pay?” I ask, taking the oversize cups from her small hands.

“What?”

“The location on your phone, so we can see where we are.”

Grabbing the aspirin bottle and shaking it before he scans it, the portly man behind the counter remarks, “Allhallows. That’s where you are.” He nods at Tessa, who politely smiles back.

“Thank you.” She widens her grin, and the poor bastard flushes.

Yeah, I know she’s hot. Now look away before I rip your eyes from your head,
I want to tell him.
And next time you make a god-awful noise when I’m hungover, like you did with that aspirin bottle, it’s all over.
After last night, I could use the outlet, and I’m not in the mood for this mopey shit’s eyes to be raking across my girl’s chest at seven in the fucking morning.

If I weren’t immensely aware of the lack of emotion behind her eyes, I would probably have pulled him over the counter, but her fake smile, black-rimmed eyes, and dirt-stained dress stop me and yank me from my violent thoughts. She just looks so lost, so sad, so fucking lost.

What have I done to you?
I silently ask.

Her focus shifts to the door, where a young woman and child are entering, hand in hand. I watch her as she watches them, following their movements a little too closely, if you ask me; it’s borderline creepy. When the little girl stares up at her mum, Tessa’s bottom lip trembles.

What the hell is that about? Because I threw a fit over the new revelation in my family?

The clerk has packed up all of my stuff and holds the bag somewhat rudely in front of my face to get my attention. It seems that as soon as Tessa stopped looking at him, he decided he could be rude to me.

I snatch the plastic bag and lean toward Tessa. “Ready?” I ask, nudging her with my elbow.

“Yeah, sorry,” she mutters and grabs the coffees from the counter.

I fill the car up, all the while considering the consequences of driving Vance’s rental into the sea. If we’re in Allhallows, we’re right next to the shore; it wouldn’t be hard.

“How far are we from Gabriel’s bar?” Tessa asks when I join her in the car. “That’s where the car is.”

“Only about an hour and a half, traffic considering.”
The car slowly sinks in the ocean, costing Vance tens of thousands; we take a cab to Gabriel’s for a couple hundred. Fair trade.

Tessa twists the top off the small bottle of aspirin and shakes three of them into my hand, then frowns and stares down at her screen, which has started to light up. “Do you want to talk about last night? I just received a text from Kimberly.”

Questions begin pushing through the muddied images and voices from last night and into the surface of my mind . . . Vance locking me outside and walking back into the burning house . . . As Tessa continues to stare at her phone, I grow increasingly worried.

“He’s not . . .” I don’t know how to ask the question. It won’t seem to pass over the lump in my throat.

Tessa looks at me, and her eyes begin to fill with tears. “He’s alive, of course, but . . .”

“What? He’s what?”

“She says he was burned.”

A slight and unwelcome pain tries to seep through the cracks in my defenses. Cracks that she caused in the first place.

She wipes one eye with the back of her hand. “Only on one leg. Kim said one leg, and that he’s to be arrested as soon as he is released from the hospital, which should be soon, any minute, really.”

“Arrested for what?” I know the answer before she gives it.

“He told the police that he started the fire.” Tessa lifts her shitty phone in front of my face so I can read the long text message from Kimberly for myself.

I read it all, not learning anything new, but getting a good sense of Kimberly’s panic. I don’t say anything. I have nothing to say.

“Well?” Tessa asks softly.

“Well what?”

“Aren’t you even slightly concerned about your father?” Then, taking in my murderous glare, she adds, “I mean Christian.”

He’s hurt because of me.
“He shouldn’t have even showed up there.”

Tessa looks appalled by my nonchalance. “
Hardin
. That man came there to help me—to help you.”

Sensing the beginning of a rambling spell, I interrupt her. “Tessa, I know—”

But she surprises me by holding a hand up to silence me. “I wasn’t finished. Not to mention he took the blame for a house fire that you caused and was
injured
. I love you, and I know you hate him right now, but I know you—the real you—so don’t sit here and act like you don’t give a shit what happens to him, because I know damn well that you do.” Violent coughing punctuates her angry speech, and I push the water bottle to her mouth.

I take a moment to mull over her words as she settles her cough. She’s right—of course she is—but I’m not ready to face any of the things that she just mentioned. I’m not fucking ready to admit that he did something for me—not after all these years. I’m not ready for him to suddenly be a fucking father to me. Fuck no. I don’t want anyone, especially him, to think that this somehow evens the score, that I will somehow forget all of the shit he missed, all of the nights I spent listening to my parents screaming at one another, all of the times I rushed up the stairs at the sound of my father’s drunken voice—the way he
knew
and didn’t tell me all the while.

No, fuck that. It’s not fucking even, and it never will be. “You think because he gets a little burn on his leg and
chooses
to take the blame that I will forgive him?” I run my hands through my hair. “I’m supposed to just forgive him for lying to me for twenty-one fucking years?” I ask, my voice much louder than I intended it to be.

“No, of course not!” she says, raising her voice right back at me. I worry that she might blow out a vocal cord or something, but she goes right on. “But I refuse to allow you to brush this off as some small thing he did. He is going to jail for you, and you act as if you couldn’t be bothered to even ask how he is. Absent, lying, father or not, he loves you, and he saved your ass last night.”

This is bullshit
. “Whose side are you fucking on?”

“There aren’t any
sides
!” she shouts, her voice echoing in the small space and not helping my ringing headache one bit. “
Everyone
is on your side, Hardin. I know you feel like it’s you against the world, but look around you. You have me, your father—both of them—Karen, who loves you as her own, and Landon, who loves you much more than either of you will ever admit.” Tessa half smiles at the mention of her best friend, but continues her lecture. “Kimberly may challenge you, but she cares for you, too, and Smith, you are literally the only person that little boy likes.” She gathers my hands in her shaking ones and rubs her thumbs across my palms in gentle caresses.

“It’s ironic, really: the man who hates the world is most loved by it,” she whispers, her eyes glossy and full of tears. Tears for me, so many tears for me.

“Baby.” I pull her over to my seat, and she straddles my waist. Her arms lock around my neck. “You selfless girl.”

I bury my face in her neck, almost trying to hide in her messy hair.

“Let everyone in, Hardin. Life is much easier when you do.” She rubs my head like that of some pet . . . but I fucking love it.

I nuzzle farther into her. “It’s not that easy.” My throat burns, and I feel like the only breath I can catch is when I’m breathing in her scent. It’s clouded by the faint smell of smoke and fire that I’ve seemed to smother the car in, but still calming.

“I know.” She continues to run her hands over my hair, and I
want
to believe her.

Why is she always so understanding when I don’t deserve her to be?

The honking of a horn brings me out of my hiding place and reminds me we’re at the gas pumps. Apparently the man in the truck behind us doesn’t appreciate being held up one bit. Tessa climbs off my lap and buckles herself in the passenger seat.

I consider keeping the car parked here just to be a dick, but I hear Tessa’s stomach rumble, causing me to reconsider. When was the last time she ate? That I can’t remember tells me it’s been too long.

I pull away from the pumps and pull into the empty lot across the street, where we slept last night. “Eat something.” I push a breakfast bar into her hands. I pull to the back of the lot, close to a cluster of trees, and turn the heat on. It’s spring now, but the morning air is crisp and Tessa is shivering. I put an arm around her and gesture as if offering her the world. “We could go to Haworth, see Brontë country. I could show you the moors.”

She surprises me by laughing.

“What?” I raise my brow at her and bite into a banana muffin.

“After the night you ha-had”—she clears her throat—“you’re talking about taking me to the moors?” She shakes her head and reaches for her steaming coffee.

I shrug, chewing thoughtfully. “I don’t know . . .”

“How far is the drive?” she asks, a lot less enthusiastic than I thought she would be. Granted, if this weekend hadn’t turned into complete shit, she’d probably be more excited. I promised to take her to Chawton, too, but the moors seem much more fitting to my mood right now.

“Four hours or so to Haworth.”

“That’s a long drive,” she muses and sips at her coffee.

“I thought you would want to go.” My tone is harsh.

“I would . . .”

I can clearly tell that something about my suggestion is troubling her. Fuck, when am I not creating trouble behind those gray eyes?

“Why are you complaining about a drive, then?” I finish off the muffin and rip open another.

She looks slightly offended, but her voice remains soft and raspy. “I’m just wondering why you would want to drive all the way to Haworth to see the moors.” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and takes a deep breath. “Hardin, I know you enough to know when you’re brooding and withdrawing from me.” She unbuckles her seat belt and shifts her body to face me. “You wanting to take me to the moors that inspired
Wuthering Heights
, rather than some place from an Austen novel, has me on edge, more than I already am.”