Because every day so far has been a fight toward a future that remains just out of my grasp. Every time I brush something better, it slips away. Leaves me a little more broken than before. But I keep getting up. Keep fighting on. Keep confronting the Danny Ps and coming home bloody and beaten and facing disappointment in the form of fucking Hadley Crawford.
“Julian?”
I shake my head, eyes clenched shut to stop the emotion. I will not cry. I will not break down. Not in front of her. But I’m a blackhole right now. A failed musician. A failed uncle. A failed human being. Just a walking, barely breathing monument to failure.
My shoulders shake with buried tears. I feel the pull of dried blood on my sleeve with each unwanted gasp.
No!
I push up from the counter and force my shredded body past the intruder and down the hall toward my room. Maybe she’ll leave. If I can just reach the safety of my room. Hide behind a closed door.
But she follows. I hear her, sense her movement down the hall, and in my battered state she’s faster than I am. She beats me to my destination, pushing through the door and cementing herself firmly inside. Her arms cross over her chest, her eyes both hot and imploring at the same time.
She thinks she wants to know? She doesn’t even know what she’s asking.
The sobs are far away now, successfully blocked by anger, a much more useful emotion. Survival depends on the red cloud of rage, the willingness and ability to fight. She wants the truth? Fine.
I fish Naomi’s phone out of my pocket and slam in the passcode. After opening the text stream with “Danny P,” I toss it to her with a dark look.
She recoils, catching the phone against her chest, but I don’t wait for her to read it. Instead, I use the distraction to stalk to the master bath and lock the door. She thinks she knows so much? She thinks she cares? Let’s see what she does with that bombshell.
I’m already regretting my impulsive move as I strip off my bloody clothing and start the shower. While the water warms, I stare at my abused reflection in the mirror. The skin around my left eye is red and puffy. By tomorrow it’s going to be a rainbow of purples and blues. My lower lip is split. And my torso… I stare in numb fascination at the patchwork of bruises and cuts, blood, both fresh and dried, creating a macabre mural to a life poorly lived.
Steam gathers on the mirror, obscuring my view after a while. I’m sure Hadley is gone by now, and definitely will be by the time I finish my shower and venture back into the darkness of my room. At this point, all I can hope for is that she doesn’t alert Viv and beg her to sever our relationship, even though I expect exactly that.
I gasp when I step into the water. The hot droplets pelt my skin with agonizing tenacity. Clenching my eyes shut, I brace against the wall, absorbing the assault in silence, knowing it will pass once my body adjusts to the pain. Soon the fresh sting subsides back to aching stasis, and I reach for the soap to start cleaning the wounds.
The cut on my ribs isn’t bad, but the one on my upper arm is deeper than I thought. It’s still oozing blood and probably should have stitches. I’ll have to wrap it tight and hope for the best. I glare at the wound through the steam, wondering how I’m going to do that on my own.
By the time I finish my shower and wrap a towel around my waist, I feel ready to collapse. The combination of the mental war, the physical trauma, and exhausting heat of the shower has left me weak and nauseous. Nothing seems as important as my bed. My sheets will do fine absorbing the blood until morning.
I stagger to the door, pull it open—and freeze.
CHAPTER 6
HADLEY
Strangely, I notice his eyes first.
He’s standing half-naked in front of me, pretty much as perfectly carved as I expected, and it’s the raw emotion spilling from his eyes that takes my breath away. The sheer shock to find someone waiting for him. They search my face, flashing with confusion, then a hint of relief before tilting down, and that’s when I figure it out. His allure is in the contrasts, the details he tries to hide that are so addicting when they’re uncovered. Eyes that tell a story the rest of him tries to deny. Hands that caress a guitar and just as easily form into fists to defend those he loves.
Who is Julian Campbell? All I know for sure is that he’s not the man I knew this morning.
But it doesn’t take long for my gaze to drift.
Heat swells through me as I study him in the harsh light from the bathroom. His vague silhouette transforms into sharp lines and angles that disappear beneath the towel hanging low on his hips. Bruises weave seamlessly with swaths of tattoos. His hair, wet and messy plays along in its own way, as if the descending water drops exist solely to draw my attention to their slow paths down his body, taunting me with a coveted brush over his skin.
Is this sudden fire erupting deep inside me, this hunger to touch, because he’s changed, or because I have? Probably both, because you can’t read the chilling story on Naomi’s phone and piece together the rest of this twisted narrative without suffering a jolt of awareness.
No, Julian Campbell is not the man I thought he was.
“You’re still here,” he says, his voice hoarse, scratching out words he wasn’t expecting to say. He cringes when his gaze lands on the first aid supplies I’d gathered and piled on the bed.
“You going to patch that mess up yourself?” I wave a hand over his battered torso, and the slightest smile ticks up the corner of his cracked lips.
“Was planning on it, yeah,” he says with an air of amusement.
“I see. Or you could just let me help.”
“I don’t think that’s in your job description.”
“Pretty sure none of this is in my job description, yet here we are.” His smile spreads into a grin that cuts through me. I swallow the effect and clear my throat. “You coming over here or what? Also, feel free to put some clothes on.”
He winces through a laugh as he crosses the room toward a dresser. “Gonna be hard to patch me up if I’m dressed.”
“You know what I mean,” I grunt, infusing an admirable amount of irritation into my voice. I don’t sound like I’m erupting inside, like I kind of hate myself for asking him not to be naked. But, seriously, anything would be better than trying to function with him standing there in that towel. The thought of touching him right now… I avert my gaze and pretend to do something with the bandages as he changes.
“Hopefully Danny P looks a lot worse,” I say, partly because I want assurance the guy’s had his throat sufficiently ripped from his body and partly because silence with a naked Julian Campbell is much more dangerous than I anticipated.
“He’ll be sore tomorrow, but he had friends. And a knife. In a fair fight, he’d probably be dead.”
“A knife?” I glance up in alarm, immediately regretting it. Whoa. I was so wrong. There are worse, more distracting images than Julian Campbell in a towel. Julian Campbell in dark boxer-briefs is a much bigger problem. I blink through the wildfire spreading over my skin, praying it’s not visible in the dim lighting.
“He’ll be leaving her alone, though. That’s the most important thing,” he says, tugging on a pair of gym shorts.
I nod, swallowing hard as he approaches. How did the world’s biggest asshole transform into a shirtless superhero within a span of minutes? Because hands that wanted to slap him most of the day are suddenly trembling at the thought of touching him. Eyes that have been narrowed in glares, suddenly can’t get enough.