Laughing, I cover my face with my hands and lay my head on the table while I try to pull myself together. I probably shouldn’t be laughing right now but it’s either laugh or cry.
“What do you find funny about this?” Officer Plymouth asks, and I lift my head to look at him.
“I paid for us to do things more than once. He even asked me for gas money a couple of times. I never, not once, took money from him, not even for a coffee,” I tell him, and his eyes go to Officer Mitchell, who mutters, “Fuck.”
“He cheated on me a month ago, and I haven’t talked to him since then,” I tell him, and he shakes his head.
“We have time stamps for phone calls between the two of you over the last month.”
“Did you ever look at how long those calls lasted?” I ask, knowing that if he did, he would know we didn’t actually talk. “He called. He called over and over. Finally, I had to pick up to tell him to stop calling me. I didn’t want anything to do with him a month ago, and I sure as hell don’t want anything to do with him now.”
“Another fucking road block,” Officer Plymouth grumbles, and my head swings to him.
“I’m sorry. I swear that if I knew anything, I would help you out, but I don’t. Lane never told me anything, and I sure as hell didn’t see anything. If I had, I would have talked to my uncle about it.”
“You’re sure you didn’t see anything, hear anything?”
“I’m sure,” I tell him, wishing I did know something, not because I’m a rat, but because I know what drugs can do to people. I know not everyone dies from using drugs, not everyone’s life goes to shit from using them, but my roommate during my freshman year of college overdosed and died, and that was after she turned into a completely different person. Someone I didn’t like much. Someone I couldn’t trust. So, there’s no way I would ever protect anyone who is responsible for supplying those drugs, no matter how much I cared about them.
“Would you be willing to get back in touch with Lane?” Officer Plymouth asks, bringing my attention to him. My heart flips in my chest at the thought, but I don’t get a chance to answer, because someone bangs on the glass mirror in front of me, causing my reflection to go funny.
Chapter 1
June
“You have got to be kidding me.” I turn around, slamming my front door behind me, and walk right back into my house. I stride past the stack of boxes near my front door, down the hall, across the living room—where the furniture is all piled in the middle of the room, because I haven’t had time to think about how I want it placed—and into the kitchen. Picking up my cell phone from the counter, I dial my cousin and listen as it rings while nausea and anger fill my stomach.
“Why is Evan parked outside of my house?” I ask on a growl as soon as Jax answers, and I don’t even give him a chance to reply before I continue on a hiss, “I want him gone, now.”
“June, you know that’s not going to happen. Your dad’s worried about you. I’m worried about you. Uncle Nico’s worried about you. Everyone’s worried about you right now.”
“He’s in jail. Nothing is going to happen to me,” I tell him, trying to sound calm, even though I feel as far from calm as someone can possibly be.
“Until he’s sentenced, you’re gonna have someone watching over you to make sure nothing happens to you,” he states, and I want to scream at him. I want to tell him to send someone—anyone—else, but I can’t, because he has no idea Evan is my ex. Worse, he’s my ex-husband. No one knows that, and I don’t want anyone to know.
“I appreciate you looking out for me. I really do. But this is totally unnecessary, Jax, and you know it.”
“Evan’s solid. You won’t even know he’s there—unless you feel like being nice and want to invite him in, so he doesn’t have to sit out in the heat.”
“I’m never inviting him in,” I whisper to myself, but Jax hears me anyway and chuckles, probably thinking I’m being dramatic.
“He’s not that bad. I’m sure he’d even help you set up your furniture if you’d ask him to.”
He laughs again, and my eyes squeeze closed as I whisper, “I gotta go,” and hang up, without even saying goodbye. Just the idea of Evan anywhere near me sets my teeth on edge. “He can roast for all I care,” I tell myself, even though I know it’s a lie. Love sucks. Love sucks, because sometimes even when you don’t want to love someone, you still do. No matter how many times I’ve tried to convince myself that what I shared with Evan is over, I still hurt. I hurt because I still love him, and I do not want to love him.
Not at all.
Pressing my fingers into my eye sockets, I let out a groan of frustration. I need to get to the store and pick up some groceries. That’s what I planned on doing when I went to leave and saw him standing outside next to his truck, looking more beautiful than ever, which doesn’t make sense. When we were together, I knew he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen, and it sucked big that he hasn’t changed in our time apart, that he hasn’t grown a third eye or turned into a slimy green alien with big bulging warts covering his body. He’s still the same beautiful Evan Barrister I fell in love with the moment our eyes locked.
His dark hair and warm brown eyes, that glittered when he smiled, were what caught my attention. But the first time he held me in his arms, the first time I sank myself between his broad shoulders, I knew he was it for me. I knew he was everything to me. It wasn’t about the way he looked, even though I knew he was the kind of man most women fantasized about. The kind of man you would see on the street and stop to stare at, because you knew you had never seen a man like him in real life and needed to remember every detail, since you would likely never see his kind of beauty up close again. It wasn’t about that at all. It was the fact that when I was with him, I knew it was where I belonged. Right down to my bones, I knew that, I was meant to be his and he was meant to be mine.
Pulling my fingers away from my eyes, I open them wide, not wanting to remember the feelings I felt for him, even knowing there’s not one damn thing I can do about it. He’s ingrained in me, a part of me I know is gone forever, but wake up everyday thinking will come back.
“You are not going there, June Mayson,” I scold myself as hot tears burn the backs of my eyes. Blinking rapidly, I pull in a breath through my nose, toss my cell to the counter, and head for the front door. There is no way in hell I will let him take over my life again…no way I will stop living.
Not again.
I did that when he went away. I did it when he had his mom deliver divorce papers to me, too. I died inside when I knew there was no longer an us, and I just fricking finally got myself back. So no way will I allow him to stop me from moving forward with my life.
Not a chance.
Swinging open the front door, I plow down the steps to the sidewalk, keeping my eyes to my feet as I go. Just because I may be over him, doesn’t mean he doesn’t affect me, and he can do that, but I don’t want him to ever see he does.
I don’t want him to have even one single piece of me.
Pressing the button on the remote in my hand, I hear my doors unlock at the same time I put my hand to the handle, swinging open the door to my platinum grey with chrome everything Beetle R-Line 2.OT SE and slide in. I love my car. It’s a chick car, but it’s the first real thing I ever bought for myself with money I earned. My dad shook his head when he saw it, but my mom, she was a whole different story. She hopped in, and we went cruising around town with the windows down and the music up to the perfect decibel—loud.