Getting Rough (19 page)

I was an asshole.

As I stood there under the shower with the water beating down on top of my head, I realized it didn’t matter how far I turned the knob to the left because I could Bugs Bunny it and bathe in a pot over a blaze and it still wouldn’t be hot enough to wash my asshole-ishness away. Maybe I should just set myself on fire. Or better yet, tie myself to a stake at the heart of a pyre in the middle of town, with angry waving pitchforks all around me, and let the masses torch me to death while I am forced to look Mia in the eye.

I’d used her. Plain and simple. Mia. Sweet, innocent Mia.

She hadn’t deserved the way I’d treated her last night. She’d simply been caught in the cross fire of the great Casey and Cassidy tragedy. Or maybe it was the cease-fire. Because things between Cassidy and me had definitely come to an abrupt halt. Though that had happened a really long time ago, so maybe it wasn’t quite as abrupt as I’d liked to believe. I’d just been clinging to something that was no longer there.

I think maybe we both had. Me more than her.

I hadn’t ever been with anyone other than Cassidy, hadn’t even considered it, really. But Mia? Mia had come into town with the wind change, and she’d been like a breath of fresh air despite the near-constant breeze from the sea. All that innocence about her in the midst of a seemingly untainted environment. Those doe eyes, a natural beauty that needed no makeup to cover up who she really was, hair that flowed about her face like the waves that danced on the ocean’s top under calm weather, and the body of a mermaid. She was every seaman’s dream come true. And I’d ruined her.

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t had an inkling about her attraction to me. I’d known it was there, had seen it in the subtle hints. The way she leaned in ever so slightly to be closer. The way she looked at me like I’d hung the moon. The things she’d said; her choice of words were so intimate, familiar yet not, at the same time. She’d been unbelievably cool to talk to, and for the time I’d held Mia’s attention, I truthfully hadn’t thought about Cassidy. And hadn’t that been the nitty-gritty of why Cassidy had been upset with me?

Damn. Hadn’t seen that one coming, though I didn’t have to strain my brain trying to figure out why that was either.

So unlike any woman I’d ever known before, Mia had hung on my every word. I’d thought it was about nothing more than gathering the information she’d needed for her research, but more often than not, she’d put her pen and paper down, rested her chin in her hand, and just listened to me. She’d made me feel important, more than the other half of a whole. Not like I wasn’t complete unless I had Cassidy Whalen on my arm, but like I was a man with his own story to tell. I think it had surprised even me. I think it had changed the way I started to see myself.

But that hadn’t stopped me from trying to salvage what I could of my relationship with Cassidy. We’d been together our entire lives and I’d always believed we’d be together until our dying days. So when Cassidy had caught me with Mia in the crow’s nest, a place that had been ours, I’d felt the sudden guilt of having another woman there. And I could see the disappointment written all over Cassidy’s face. She was jealous. And that had confused me even more.

I’d seen her with that bastard on the playground, of all places. The playground we’d frequented as kids. My Cassidy was in the arms of another man. She was in the arms of a man she’d supposedly despised. Not only that, but she was riding him. Everything I’d thought I’d known had come crashing down around me in that moment.

It should have been me. Me, the man who’d been waiting for her to live her dreams and eventually come back into my arms, where she belonged. But it wasn’t. And she’d left me in that crow’s nest with a cock as hard as the devil’s and a very wicked seed looking to make a break from the fiery pits of hell. You’d think Cassidy breaking my fucking heart would’ve made my erection deflate like an anvil popping a balloon, but it hadn’t. And I’d needed to relieve the pressure.

Mia had been all too willing to play Cassidy’s understudy. But somewhere in the middle of the phenomenal sex we’d had, something had changed. I saw Mia. I saw Mia seeing
me
. She’d wanted it, wanted me. And that had been more than I could handle with a wound as fresh as the one left behind in my heart from Cassidy. What made matters worse was that being with Mia had felt right. How could that have been?

Stepping out of my guest room at the Whalen House, I heard the voices of our parents down below. For whatever reason, I really didn’t feel like facing them yet, so I went to the crow’s nest to look out and survey the damage left in the wake of Hurricane Ayla. She’d finally blown past sometime in the middle of the night, and as far as I knew, everyone in the house was okay. Though I’d really hated leaving Mia alone to ride it out, I knew I couldn’t be with her after what I’d done.

The hallway was dark, but there was a faint light coming from under the door of one room. Mia’s room. She was up. My conscience pushed and shoved at my morality, refusing to allow me to avoid the talk I needed to have with her. I owed her one hell of an apology, and though I knew I’d never be able to come up with the flowery words to give her the one she deserved, I supposed a half-assed one would be better than none at all. Stalling wouldn’t be right, and the longer I waited, the worse I would feel. Manning up, I decided to get it over with.

The floor outside her room creaked under my weight as I stepped forward to meet whatever awaited me on the other side. She’d be completely within her right to refuse my apology, even justified if she decided to throw a lamp at my head. And I’d stand there and take it like a man because whatever it took to make her feel better, she’d have it.

Not wanting to clue in the rest of the house on the massacre that was about to go down, though I’d deserve their admonishment as well, I rapped lightly on the door with one knuckle.

“Come in!” I heard her call from inside. Selfishly, I was glad she was soft-spoken by nature.

My hand shook as I lifted it and gave the doorknob a turn. Damn. I was nervous. That was a first for me. Then again, I’d only ever had to beg for forgiveness from Cassidy, and I’d always known she’d eventually give it after some groveling. With Mia, I couldn’t be so sure.

Other than the glow of the white light coming from the screen before Mia, the room was mostly dark when I went inside. Of course it would be when the electricity had been knocked out somewhere in the middle of Hurricane Ayla. There was just enough illumination to see that the sheets were still a crumpled mess on the bed, and I wondered if her tears had stained the pillows. Jesus, but that mental image was a punch to the chest. Yep, I was an asshole, all right.

But you couldn’t tell it by looking at Mia.

She was sitting cross-legged in the chair before the desk, looking for the entire world like a coed student trying desperately to finish up a term paper right before class. The oversized T-shirt, yoga pants, and messy bun didn’t do anything to distract from her beauty. That was Mia. She was fucking gorgeous without even having to try.

“Good morning.” Mia didn’t look at me, and I really couldn’t blame her. She just kept hammering away at the keyboard of the laptop in front of her. It was her tool of the trade, which was probably the only reason she hadn’t chucked it across the room at me.

“Mornin’. You’re up early,” I said. Because stating the obvious seemed like the best way to baby step it into the daunting conversation to come.

“You mean I’m up late,” she countered, obviously having been awake all night.

“You haven’t been to bed?” Fuck, that was because of me. I really was worse than an asshole. I was the whole ass.

“Well, when inspiration strikes, you have to go with it or risk losing it forever.”

The glow from the laptop was harsh on her normally angelic face and I could see the dark rings under her eyes. “You look tired.” Again, I was baby stepping it.

Her eyebrows lifted, but she still didn’t turn away from the screen. “Do I? Because I don’t feel tired.” She gave a halfhearted laugh. “Besides, it’s kind of hard to sleep with a hurricane in full force right outside the window.”

Well, didn’t that just make me feel like the biggest douchebag on the island? An ass and a douchebag, now that was one hell of a combination. “Shit. You were scared. I should’ve stayed here with you.”

Mia finally sat back in her chair and turned away from the screen to give me her undivided attention. “Casey, honestly… you’re just entirely too hard on yourself.” When she smiled, I swear the whole damn room lit up despite the boarded-up windows and powerless lamps. “I wasn’t scared. And before you go there, I wasn’t upset about what happened between us last night, either. I couldn’t sleep because Jayson was in the mood to talk, so I had to purge him from my mind.”

“Jayson?” Was he her boyfriend from back home? The little green monster inside me stuck his head out of the cave where I’d banished him after I’d nearly let a man drown to death all over a woman.

“Oh, I never told you,” Mia said, her eyes lighting up with excitement. Sitting forward, her whole body came to life as she explained further. “Jayson Bass is my protagonist’s name. I swear I’m not crazy. The voices I hear in my head are completely normal for an author and not a Sybil complex or whatever. Says my therapist,” she added with a wink. It was the cutest thing I’d ever seen.

Putting an index finger to the tiny dimple in her chin in thought, she continued, “Though we can’t rule that out completely when there are so many personalities bouncing around in there. Hmm…” She cocked her head to the side. “Maybe writers cover up a multiple personality disorder under the guise of artistry, and we’re just really good at fooling everyone else.”

She laughed, the sound fluttering toward me like a thousand butterfly wings. My flesh pebbled all over from its delicacy, which was weird as fuck because laughter was not a tangible thing that could be physically felt.

“So you’ve been up all night writing?” I asked because, of course, a douchebag of an ass would egotistically assume he had been the reason.

“Yep! That’s my happy place.” She put her hands on the desk and maneuvered herself back toward the laptop, getting busy with her fingers on the keyboard again. Man, but the woman typed at the speed of light.

“A happy place in the middle of a hurricane, huh?” Not just in the middle of a hurricane, but in the middle of my douchebaggery as well.

If Mia could only hear the assholes inside my head, she probably wouldn’t be as calm as she was. “My happy place is always there. The weather has no bearing on it. Writing is a way for me to escape. Do you know what I mean? Sort of like how I imagine fishing is for you.”

Well, damn. She’d pegged that one. But I was no doubt the reason she’d needed to escape in the first place. Though there was no way for me to take it all back, even the feel-good parts, I knew I had to find some way to fix the unfixable.

“I need to apologize for last night,” I blurted out before I lost my nerve.

She remained facing forward, her expression unchanged. “Need to or want to?”

“Both.”

Leaning in toward the screen to read over what she’d written, she still managed to answer me. “Don’t. Really. It was great inspiration.”

It was hard to tell by the inflection in her voice whether she’d meant that or not. “Can you look at me, please?”

“I
can
and I will,” she said with a sassy grin.

Note to self: Remember to use proper grammar when speaking to an author.
 

“Just let me save this real quick,” she said, moving the wireless mouse around. With a simple click, she closed the laptop and turned back toward me. “What’s up?”

I looked her in the eyes, not only so I could tell how she really felt about what I was saying, but because that was what a man was supposed to do when owning up to his fuckups. “I don’t want you to hate me.”

She linked her fingers together in front of her and casually propped her elbows on the armrests of the chair. “Why on earth would I hate you? Didn’t you hear me? It was great inspiration. I should be thanking you.”

Nope, didn’t see that one coming. “You were inspired?” Admittedly, I was confused. I hadn’t even put forth my best effort. The sex we’d had was good, but it wasn’t great. If given another chance, I was sure I could blow her mind. Because, yeah, I wanted to give it another go. Whether it ended up in her book or not.

“Oh, definitely.” She cocked her head to the side and studied me for a moment before continuing. “You’re obviously out of sorts about it, so I’ll make a deal with you. I’m willing to tell you all about what I wrote, if you promise you won’t get mad.”

Not that I had any right to get mad, but like I said before, whatever it took to make her feel better, she’d have it. Plus, I had to admit I was a little curious. “Deal.”

“No, you have to say you promise,” she said, pointing a finger at me, which we all knew was the international sign for
I mean business
.

Again, author, so I was sure that meant I literally had to say those words to satisfy her. My lips parted to do just that, but she interrupted before my vocal cords formed the first syllable.

“Before you do, just know that I take promises very seriously. So if you say the words, you have to mean them.”

I sighed, which made her brows lift in question.

“Okay,” I said, finally. Taking a seat on the bed across from her, I leaned forward to put my elbows on my knees and spoke the words she wanted to hear. Not only because she wanted to hear them, but also because I meant them. “I promise I won’t get mad.”

That spoiled grin that made its way across her gorgeous face made me want to promise her anything she’d ever wanted. “So Jayson has just found out that the woman he loves, Janell Kain, no longer loves him back. And it’s sort of a mess because Janell is in love with someone else.”

Wow, she really was writing my life. I’d been expecting her to tell me about some mind-blowing sex or about how the dude made a giant ass out of himself. I wasn’t sure how to feel about my broken heart serving as inspiration. Then again, Mia had always been pretty insightful where I was concerned, so I was curious as to how it had all played out in her “fictional” book. Because those sorts of stories always had a problem and a resolution, right?