More Than Exes (4 page)

“The same one as before?” We’d spent so much time in that old Mercedes back in high school. Truth be told, I was kind of excited to see it again.

“No, that one died a year ago. I have a MINI now.”

“Too bad. We had some good memories in that car.”

“We did.” She gave me a sly smile. “Some
very
good memories in the backseat.”

I coughed and tried to steer the conversation back to something less dangerous, but all I could think about was when we’d been together. “Remember that time we got lost on our way home from a concert in Pomona? And we ran out of gas in a shady part of LA and had to wait for Jared to come get us?”

“I remember. I was scared we were going to get carjacked, so you helped…distract me.” She met my eyes. “You were so very good at distracting me.”

Suddenly, all I could think about was how I’d like to distract her now. First, I’d tangle my fingers in that long, thick hair, getting a good hold of it. Then I’d tilt her head back so I could press my lips to her neck, to that spot just below her ear. She’d moan my name, and I’d work my way down, lower and lower, dipping inside the V of her shirt to taste every inch of skin I’d seen earlier. She’d reach for the front of my jeans and—

Whoa there. None of those things could happen. I could not get involved with Alexis again, and the only way I’d get through the night was to banish those thoughts entirely. Why was she even bringing all of that up again? Earlier she’d mentioned wanting to catch up, and now she was flat-out hitting on me. Did she want to get back together or something?

We stopped at a black MINI Cooper with white racing stripes across the hood. Not a car I’d ever picture her driving. Hmm, maybe she
had
changed.

“Nice car,” I said. “Not much room in the backseat, though.” Wait, why had I said that? It’s like I couldn’t stop myself from flirting with her, either.

“I bet we could still fit.”

Her eyes swept over me again, and it took all my energy not to press her back against the side of the car and devour her. I was so, so tempted to make a move, even though it was a terrible idea. Being around Alexis was causing my brain to not function properly. I wanted to blame my growing hard-on for rendering me stupid, but that wasn’t the entire reason. All the memories of being with Alexis, combined with seeing her again, were turning me into a sentimental fool.

I cleared my throat and tore my gaze away. “Let’s just find Becca, okay?”

“Sure,” she said, but she sounded disappointed. Hell, I was, too. I wished I was more like Jared and could do random, meaningless hook-ups, but that wasn’t me. If I got a taste of Alexis, I would only want more and more. I had to stop this now before it went any further.

Once in the car, I pulled up the directions on my phone, and we drove out of the parking lot in silence, save for the perky, robotic voice of the GPS. I tried to picture the most disgusting things I could to calm my raging sex drive. Dead cockroaches. Moldy sandwiches. Old people in hospital gowns.

“So…how have you been?” she asked.

Did she actually care or was she making small talk to pass the time? When someone asked a question like that, they never wanted a real response. They just wanted to hear that you were fine. I didn’t know what to tell her.

She glanced at my face and laughed.

“What?” I asked.

“I know that look.”

“What look?”

“That one where you’re trying to figure me out. It’s just a simple question, Kyle.”

Simple. Sure. Let’s see, last time we’d spoken she’d broken up with me and moved across the country, taking my heart with her and turning me into a puzzle with pieces missing. Since then, I’d gone to UCLA, dated a couple girls I could barely remember, and drowned myself in the band with Jared and Hector. And somewhere along the way, I’d tried to find another girl to replace Alexis and failed over and over again.

But I just said, “I’ve been good. You?”

“Me too. I guess. Princeton wasn’t really my scene. Too stuffy and uptight. Too much like my parents.”

“Sounds familiar…”

“Yeah, yeah, you told me so and all that. I knew it would be like that, but I didn’t realize just how much I would hate it. Or how much I would miss LA.” She glanced at me, long and full of meaning, like I was a part of what she’d missed. “I’m still glad I went, though. It made me realize who I really was—and how much I wasn’t like those people.”

“That explains the new look.”

She dressed now like she had when she’d sneaked out with me on dates. She’d leave her house in her floral dresses and pink heels, giving her parents some lie about going to a friend’s house, and then would change into a tight black dress, fishnets, and combat boots in the car. I liked that she wasn’t hiding that side of her anymore.

“I was tired of pretending to be someone I wasn’t,” she said. “As soon as I got back to LA, I tried to make the outer-me match the inner-me.”

“It suits you. And the new ink, too.”

She lifted up the sleeve of her leather jacket, revealing the tattoo I’d glimpsed before—a black aperture symbol on her wrist. “I got this once I decided on my major.”

“What happened to psychology?”

She shrugged. “It wasn’t for me. I can barely understand my own head half the time. Who am I to try to get inside someone else’s? But one semester, I took a photography class and fell in love. I’m planning to go into photojournalism. What about you?”

“I’m a music major, mainly studying sound engineering and mixing.”

“That’s what you always said you wanted to do,” she said, smiling. “And you got some new ink, too. I like them.”

“Thanks.” When we’d been together, I’d had a few already, but after I’d turned eighteen, I’d gotten full sleeves—a phoenix on one arm and a water dragon on the other, surrounded by flames, waves, and stars. Recently, I’d gotten the words
LIVE LOUD
across my knuckles, too.

“What’s the story with the triangles?” she asked.

I had a triangle tattooed on each wrist, the left one all black and the right one hollow and inverted. “Jared and I got them not long after…” I was about to say,
not long after you left
, but that didn’t seem very nice. “After I started college.”

“You got matching tattoos?”

“Yeah. His are mirror images of mine. They symbolize brotherhood, duality, dark and light, inner and outer selves…” I shrugged. “That sort of thing.”

It sounded stupid when I said it all out loud, but they were my favorite tattoos. Once, Jared had been the golden boy, the one who could do no wrong, who’d gotten everything he wanted and made our parents proud. Growing up, I’d been the one who’d gotten tattoos and sneaked out to goth clubs, who’d been caught stealing booze from a liquor store and barely gotten away with a warning, who’d nearly been kicked out of school for smoking pot. And Jared had been there to rescue me time and time again. But over the last few years, we’d switched places. Or maybe we were both stumbling through the dark together, looking for the light to find our way again.

“I like them,” Alexis said. “Do you still have our tattoo?”

“Of course.”

“Me too.” We stopped at a red light, and she lifted the hem of her shirt, revealing the infinity symbol peeking out above her jeans. Damn, she was sexy, showing off that tiny glimpse of bare skin. Was she
trying
to make me crazy?

Two could play at that game. I raised the bottom of my shirt, flashing the matching tattoo on my hip. It must have worked because she reached across to brush the ink with her cool fingers. I held still as she traced the symbol slowly, like she couldn’t stop herself. Even the slightest touch from her awakened parts of me I’d thought long dead. I was frozen in place, wishing she would smooth that hand up across my chest. Or even better, dip those fingers inside the waist of my jeans and move lower…

The light changed, and she yanked her hand away. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” It was so not fine.

“No, I shouldn’t have done that. I just couldn’t resist.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I adjusted in the seat, trying to get comfortable again. It was unfair how easily she excited me. All she’d done was touch me, and I’d instantly turned into a horny, single-minded male. Pathetic. I wasn’t sixteen anymore. I needed to get control of myself before I did something I’d regret.

I stared out the window, willing my body to relax. I’d known this car ride would be a bad idea. We hadn’t arrived at Becca’s place yet, and I was already losing my damn mind. Not because of the lust—though that was definitely a problem—but because of all the memories that kept coming back to me. Like when we’d gotten the tattoos and how we’d held hands the entire time, helping each other be strong through the pain, believing we would be together forever. The infinity symbol had been a promise to each other, the kind only stupid kids in love for the first time would make. I’d thought about covering it up many times, but I’d never been able to go through with it. Maybe a part of me was still hoping for forever.

And Alexis still had the tattoo, too.

I
t took us a good ten minutes of circling the area before we found a parking space we could squeeze into near Becca’s place. The wind had gotten worse, and palm fronds were scattered across the sidewalk, forming an obstacle course on the way to her apartment building. We headed up stairs with peeling paint and a broken handrail. I checked the address on my phone again and rang the doorbell.

No one answered. What would we do if she wasn’t home? I had no backup plan. Going to her place was all I’d come up with. I rang the doorbell again. And again.

A girl with a nose ring finally opened the door, and with her came the strong smell of clove cigarettes. “Yeah?”

“Hey, I’m Kyle. I’m in a band with Becca. Is she here?” I tried to peek into the dark room behind her, but I didn’t see Becca’s blue hair anywhere.

“Nope,” the girl said, sounding bored.

“Do you know where she is?”

“Nope.”

Wow, could she be any less helpful? “Could you text her or something? Do you have
any
idea where she could be?”

The girl huffed. “How should I know? I’m not her babysitter.”

She started to close the door, but Alexis slammed her palm against it, holding it open. “We need to find Becca
now
, and we’re not leaving until you tell us where she is.”

The girl chewed on her lip while Alexis stared her down. She shrugged. “Becca won’t answer my texts, but she’s probably at the bar on the corner. That’s where she likes to hang out when she’s in one of these moods.”

“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Alexis asked. She released the door and stepped back, flashing me a triumphant grin. She’d never looked sexier.

“If you find Becca, tell her she owes me money for rent.” The girl mumbled something else under her breath and then shut the door in our faces.

“Thanks for the help,” I said to Alexis as we walked down the stairs. She’d always been confident, but she had never been this bold before. I liked it. I just prayed Becca was actually at this bar, or we’d be in big trouble.

“You were being too nice,” she said.

“Yes, that is a problem I have.”

She took my arm, turning me around. She stood a step above me, putting us at the same height. “Maybe it’s time to be not so nice for a change.”

“Oh, yeah?” I moved close enough to feel her breath on my cheek. I knew I was flirting with her again, but I couldn’t help myself. “And what would a not-so-nice guy do right now?”

“Hmm…try to kiss me?” she suggested, with that breathless, excited voice I knew so well.

Her parted lips were an invitation, and I trailed a finger down her cheek, unable to stop myself. It would be so easy to lean in and press my mouth to hers, to slide my arms around her waist and pull her against me, to feel her body along mine. Every inch of me strained to close the distance between us. 

I didn’t know if I could let her into my heart a second time, but that didn’t stop me from wanting her. If anything, I wanted her more because of the danger. Alexis was an open flame, and I was drawn to her deadly beauty. I wanted her to burn me all over again.

I traced my thumb along her bottom lip, but when her eyes fluttered shut, I dropped my hand and turned away. “Good thing I’m a nice guy then.”

She sighed but didn’t say another word as we walked down the block in search of the bar.

I had to stay focused. My goals were to get Becca, return to the club, and win the Battle. I repeated those three things in my head like a mantra, trying to distract myself from Alexis’s far-too-tempting body beside me.

I spotted Becca as soon as we turned the corner. She was leaning against the outside of the bar, smoking a cigarette like she had all the time in the world, like we weren’t all waiting for her or spending our entire night tracking her down.

“Hey, Kyle.” She took a long drag. “I heard you used to be able to smoke inside bars in LA. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Where the hell have you been?”

She shrugged. “Here and there.”

I wanted to yell at her, to shake her and ask her why she’d abandoned us tonight, but something in her face stopped me. I had a feeling yelling at her wouldn’t help. “How are you doing?”