Lie to Me (Sexual Misconduct Volume III) (7 page)

Avery

I woke with a start. The sun was coming up,
and a chill passed through me from the early morning breeze. I heard a clattering sound and sat up. I glanced through the glass door that led into Xander’s room, but he was still asleep. A light flicked on in another part of the house, and I heard more noise.

There were
two doors leading out onto the patio, and the other one led into the kitchen. I got up, crept around the corner, and peeked through the door. My breath caught when I saw Veronica in Xander’s kitchen.

Her back was to me and the doors were locked
, so I made my way back to Xander’s room, came inside through that door, and then went straight to the kitchen.

“
What are you doing here?” I demanded, a little too pushy for someone who wanted nothing to do with Xander anymore. But considering his hand had been in my panties hours ago, I presumed that gave me a right to answers. Or so I convinced myself.

She frowned and continued fixing herself a sandwich
. Then she shrugged. “I’ve been here for three days,” she said all matter-of-fact.

I watched her move around Xander
’s kitchen in her bra and panties as if she were at home. I was angry. I could admit that. Jealous? I wasn’t so eager to admit that, but the twinge was present. It didn’t mean I wanted my place back in Xander’s life; it just meant I wasn’t happy he could so easily replace me, then lure me back in last night with magic fingers and gut-wrenching words that spoke to my heart.

I shook my head and walked back toward Xander
’s room. I wasn’t going to spend energy arguing with Veronica when I could get answers from Xander.

“
Xander!” I stormed into his room.

“
Hmm,” he grumbled, grabbing a pillow and sandwiching his head between it. He was completely nude, curled up on his side with his abs taut and his huge, hard cock on display.

God
, I miss that cock.
I shook my head to clear the lust that was slowly building and cursed my body for being so weak.

And when the hell did he get naked?

“Xander!”

“
Hmmm… hurts…” He moaned. The hangover was hitting him full force.

“
Xander.” I crossed my arms, standing over him.
He peeked out from under the pillow and flinched.

“
So bright.” He squeezed his eyes shut, and I yanked away the pillow. He moaned again before looking at me through narrowed eyes.
“You look like an angel.”

“
You need to get up. We need to talk before I leave.”

He
turned onto his back, rubbing his palm over his face, and I had to turn around because really, there was no need to torment myself with his naked glory.

“
Can I shower first?” he grumbled.

I nodded and stood there with my back to him until he got up and went to the bathroom. Then I plopped onto his bed and waited.

Xander came out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and another towel in his hand, rubbing it against his wet hair.

“
Why is Veronica here?” I asked first. All the important things we needed to talk about, and I let my jealousy take the front seat.

He didn’t hesitate.
“She flew out here after her boyfriend roughed her up. I couldn’t just turn her away.”

“
Did you sleep with her?” I studied his face for a reaction.

“
Are you fucking kidding me?” He grimaced, then shook his head. “No.”

“
How long is she staying?”

“
I’m taking her to the airport today. She’s sucking me back into a place I don’t want to be. This place isn’t working out for her anyway.” He pulled off his towel, turned, and pulled out a pair of boxer briefs from his dresser.

I stood and turned my back to him.

“Look, Xander, you can’t pull something like this again, then call me and make me feel like shit,” I said, trying to focus on the wall instead of him parading around naked.

He
looked confused. “I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad.”

“
I know, but when you break your sobriety and I know it’s about us, I feel bad.” I sighed. “I mean, you called me and—”

“
It won’t happen again.” He stopped moving around and gave me a sincere look of sorrow. I was pretty sure I pushed him over the edge when I ended our phone call the first time, but he obviously didn’t want me to bring it up.

“
What are you going to do?”

He
sat on the edge of the bed, ran a hand through his wet hair, and hung his head. “I’m going to call my sponsor. It’s not like I can just walk into any random AA meeting without being outed to the press.”

I nodded.
“Just talk to someone.”

“
Can I talk to you?” he asked in a low tone.

“
No, Xander. That would be a horrible idea.”

“
Who am I supposed to talk to? Who can I trust with all this?” The desolation in his voice broke my heart all over again.

No one.

I covered my face with my hands and sighed. I knew I shouldn’t, but I was never good at turning away someone who needed me. I knew I was going to help him, but what’s worse, I knew I wanted to do more than just help him. I wanted to understand him. I wanted to know what made him this controlling, obsessive man. I couldn’t blame him for being controlling. I thought I had perfect control over my life before all this started. But with Xander, his extremes brought him to the edge, and in a way, maybe I wanted to know why. But I was afraid if I did know, I’d make excuses for his behavior just to convince myself I could have him again.

“
Please.” He pleaded with his eyes.

Fuck
, why am I always so weak with him?

“
If we do this, no talking about us getting back together.”

He nodded his accep
tance, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips.

“
You can come in Monday at our regularly scheduled time.” My lunch hour. We’d kept up that appointment, but I usually blocked out the session afterward because Xander tended to be needy in many ways… but not this time.

“
Thanks,” he said, slanting a glance up at me from his seat on the bed.

“
Don’t thank me. Maybe I’m doing this for me too… Maybe it will give us closure.”

“
Don’t say that.” This time his head snapped up and his green eyes bored into me.

I shrugged
, then walked out before Xander started stating all the reasons I shouldn’t give up on us. It was bad enough my heart was already making a list for that very same reason.

Avery

After my long Friday night with Xander and subsequent
ly enduring morning, I decided to go visit Susan. The visit was long overdue, because I wouldn’t feel better about what happened until I saw her improvement with my own eyes.

When I
walked into her room, she was up, moving around, packing her things. She froze and smiled nervously when she noticed me standing in the doorway. I wasn’t sure if coming was the right decision, but before I made an escape, she said, “Come in.”

I didn
’t know if I should sit or stand, but the uncomfortable feeling in the room was something that had never existed between Susan and me.

“
Okay, this is weird. This isn’t us.” Susan voiced exactly what I was thinking, and I smiled because we always got each other like that. She returned the smile, grabbed my hand, and led me to two chairs near the window.

We sat, all along Susan holding my hand.
“I know you think my heart attack was your fault, and that’s nonsense. I’ve had this condition for years, and nobody could’ve predicted when this would happen.”

I looked down at our hands. For some reason
, I couldn’t look her in the eyes. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I shouldn’t have worked you up.”

“
You didn’t. If anything, I was responsible because of my own guilt. You weren’t far off when you said we were trying to atone.”

“
Still, you’re like a mom to me, and I shouldn’t have talked to you that way,” I insisted.

“
Oh, dear, you had every right to talk to me any way you chose. I’m surprised you didn’t rip my head off. I deserved it.”

I finally looked up into her eyes
, and we smiled. “I’d never do that.”

“
I know.”

“
Where do we go from here?” I couldn’t continue hating Susan for trying to help her son and, in turn, becoming someone special in my life.

“
That’s completely up you. Just know I love you… and so does Xander.”

I pulled my hand away from her and looked away.
“I want you to be part of my life, but the whole Xander thing… That’s up in the air.”

“
I understand. You take your time and do whatever’s right for you. I’ll be here if you need me.”

I nodded as I stood up and looked around, my gaze falling on her bag.
“So you’re leaving today.”

“
Yeah, Xander will be here in an hour.”

And that
’s my cue to leave.
I reached out and grabbed her hand, squeezing it lightly. “I’ll come visit you again soon”

“
I’d like that.”

I dropped her hand and left before I had to deal with another confrontation with Xander.
On my way out, I sent Ellie a text message to meet me at my office on Monday. If I was going to tie up all the loose ends in my life, I needed to talk things out with everyone involved. And I missed Ellie like crazy.

~*~*~

By Monday morning, I was sitting in my office, facing Ellie, and that odd uncomfortable feeling filled the room again. She came to see me before her classes. She wore a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, her blonde hair in a long French braid down her back. I still remembered braiding her hair every night and teaching her to do it for herself before I left her. I didn’t think she wore them as a fashion statement. She braided her hair because it was nostalgic.

“
Are you still stripping?” I don’t know why that was my first question. I was nervous about her being out late at night and being stalked by a customer. I’d stayed up many nights thinking of the dangerous situations she could be getting herself into. Maybe I was overly paranoid, but Ellie had always set off my protective instinct.

She shook her head.

“Where are you staying?”

“
A friend of mine has an apartment off campus. I sleep on her couch.” Her eyes darted around the room. Since she’d walked in, she avoided direct eye contact with me.

“
I want you to come home.”

Her eyes widened
, and she looked at me like that was the last thing she expected to happen. “Are you sure?” she asked cautiously, but I saw her reining in her excitement.

“
Yeah, I miss you. I’m not saying I’m not still pissed at you, but I want you home.”

“
Okay.” She smiled shyly.

“
And I don’t know if I trust you.”

“
I understand.” She put her head down, staring at her folded hands. She was awfully quiet, only responding to my questions with no input.

“
Is there anything
you
want to say?” I didn’t want her to feel like she was here to be interrogated. I wanted us to have a two-way conversation.

She looked up and bit her lip.
“I know you don’t trust me, but the thing with Xander—”

I held up a hand and stopped her.
“I can’t handle your
thing
with Xander.”

“
I know you love him, and I’m sorry. I wish I could change how things happened, but I can’t. If it means anything to you, it meant nothing. He wasn’t even the same person as the man you were with.”

“
And I still don’t know which version of him is the real one.”

She bit her lip again
, then said, “I think you do.” She gathered her things and headed to the door. When she opened the door, Xander stood on the other side, taken aback to see Ellie. She nodded at him and he did the same, then stepped out of her way and let her out.

The uncomfortable vibe I
’d felt with Susan and Ellie turned into something entirely different when Xander entered the room and shut the door. Out of all the feelings I felt when in a closed room with Xander, uncomfortable was never one of them, and that worried me.

Xander

Seeing Ellie come out of Avery’s office actually gave me hope. I also knew Avery went to see my mother the day she was released. So if she was going around giving out second chances, maybe mine wasn’t far behind.

“
Xander,” she acknowledged me.

“
Avery.”

She stood fro
m her seat behind the desk and made her way to her chair, notably leaving behind her signature notepad.

I sat on the couch closest to her and said,
“How do we do this?”

“
You can start with why you’ve resorted to drinking again.”

I shrugged.
“Low point I guess.”

“
Did you take your first drink before or after the first call you made to me?”

I looked down, rubbing a hand behind my neck because the pressure of her gaze was a lot to deal with. I didn
’t want her to feel responsible.

“
Xander,” she prompted.

“
After.”

She squeezed her eyes shut
.

“
It wasn’t your fault. I’m liable for my actions, Avery. No matter what’s going on in life, I’m accountable for my actions and reactions.”

“
I’m surprised to hear that coming from you.” She raised a brow.

“
You probably don’t care what I have to say, but I know I let you down, and I never meant to. I’m never going to stop trying to make it up to you.”

“
I’m not sure you can.”

“
I never meant to start a war. I was trying to keep the peace by withholding things that would destroy us.” I motioned between us with my hand.

“
Your idea of peace was a ticking time bomb in my heart. I had no warning it was going to go off. Your secrets blindsided me.”

My emotions were scattered.
I knew this was the place to let it all out, and maybe she’d understand.

“
So what now? Who wins this war?” I held out my arms as though I were gesturing at the wreckage. There was so much of it between us it wasn’t so farfetched.

“
No one. Everyone dies on the battlefield.”

“
Don’t say that.” I crossed my arms and shook my head because I wasn’t accepting that as a conclusion.

“
It’s the truth,” she deadpanned.

“
You just don’t see it. You don’t get it.” I tried hard not to whine, but that was exactly what I wanted to do.

“
What do I need to see?” Her eyes widened, and she seemed frustrated.

“
That I always make mistakes. I warned you I take drastic measures in relationships. You knew that coming in. I was wrong, but I did it all to stay with you.”

She stared at me quietly. We were both at a los
s as to which direction to take, but I knew I only wanted to take the road that led me back to her. I reached out and caressed her face, and amazingly, she didn’t pull away. I ran my fingers into her hair and pulled her toward me. She braced a hand at my chest and another wrapped around my forearm. She tried to push away, but I willed her closer by looking into her eyes.

When my lips touched hers
, she half sighed, half sobbed. Then she moaned as my tongue slipped between her lips and tasted her. For few seconds, I was back in her heaven, and everything was perfect. When she broke the kiss, the look on her face told me we had a long way to go before anything was normal again. I leaned my forehead against hers and caressed her neck with my fingers.

“
Baby, how can I fix this? Because I can’t be without you,” I whispered against her lips.

“
I can’t answer that. I just don’t know the answer.” She stepped back, and my hand fell away. “You have to go. This wasn’t supposed to lead to this. Maybe we should just… not see each other for a while.”

I stepped forward and she stepped back, holding up both hands to ward me off. I stopped, deciding to give her the space she was
asking for, if…

“
I’ll agree to that after you answer one question.”

She
crossed her arms and waited.

“
Do you miss me?”

S
he flinched, then stared at me for several silent seconds before she turned and went back to her desk. “Your time is up.”

I knew she wouldn
’t be able to answer the question. Otherwise, I would’ve never risked the chance of not seeing her. I smiled as I turned and walked out. Everything wasn’t lost after all.