Page 6 of Never His Girl
“Nope, don’t do it,” she warns. “Don’t youdare‘full-name’ me right now, West Xavier Golden! I’m not the one in hot water here!”
Dear, God. Deliver me from Joss. I don’t want the guilt of dumping her on the side of the road. So please, please, please let me find a safe, well-lit bus stop to ditch her before my patience runs out.
As if she just heard my thoughts, she rolls her eyes so dramatically I don’t have to look over to see it.
“Now,” she huffs, “if it wasn’t you, who was it?”
“Don’t ask me that.”
“Are you kidding me? Youhaveto tell someone! You can’t take the wrap for this.”
Staring at the road in the headlights, I zone out thinking of how this whole thing started from one careless decision made roughly a year and a halfago. That single incident gave the one responsible for the leak just enough leverage to keep me quiet.
“Why wouldn’t you want to clear your name? You have too much to lose if you don’t speak up, West.”
Joss is staring when I sigh and come to a grave realization, speaking it out loud. “I’ve got too much to lose if I do.”
The last human being on Earth I trust with my future has it right in the palm of her evil little hand, and there ain’t shit I can do about it.
I feel Joss staring again. “What aren’t you telling me?” she asks. “I mean, besides who’s behind this.”
My chest burns with rage, knowing I’m holding a secret for someone I hate. Not only aware of what it could cost me down the road, but … sure as shit of what it’s cost me already.
Whoit’s cost me already.
No matter how hard I fight it, no matter how I try convincing myself it doesn’t matter, all I see when I close my eyes is Southside on the back of Ricky’s bike. Thanks to Pandora’s cronies stalking everyone like undercover paparazzi, none of us miss much of what others are up to. And in my case, I’m hyper-focused on Southside’s whereabouts.
If anyone knows I don’t have the right to feel a damn thing about where she is or what her next move is, it’s me. But still, I think about it. It’s kind ofallI can think about.
Where’d he take her?
Did he touch her?
Would she fuck him to ease the pain I caused?
…Shit.
I can’t even remember how many times I’ve gone over the details of the other night. The argument that turned into the two of us naked, taking our frustration out on one another, desperate to see where we’d end up when the dust settled. But then, after my head clears and her lingering scent leaves me, after the feel of her skin wears off on my fingertips, I think of what I said when we were done.
I think of those words I wish I could take back.
What kind of fuck-up puts a girl out on her ass after she finally lets her guard down? Well, me on many occasions, but … never someone like her.
Never someone who matters.
This revelation—thatshe’ssomeone who matters to me—has me feeling sick to my stomach and raging with denial. All because it’s become clear why I shot myself in the damn foot when it was over. Mostly, it’s because I’m my father’s son and I’m cursed with a condition called asshole-ism. But it’s more than that.
While you’d think it would be Vin’s warning about her that had me screwed up in the head, it was actually myownwords that did me in. When Southside showed up that night, I made a bold statement. I told her the only way people like us find the truth is in bed. And … let’s just say I found it. In fact, the truth spoke so loud and clear as I peered up at her, the emptiness in the center of my chest began to fade. It was at this exact moment that I sabotaged any chance I had by pushing her away.
Because I’m a self-destructive ass, just like my father.
His claim about Southside using me to hurt him is never far from my mind, but after what I experienced with her, when the walls between us came down, I believe whatever hidden agenda she may have had is null and void.
That is, if it ever existed at all.
A heavy sigh leaves me. With it, an acknowledgement of how thoroughly I’ve screwed things up. Leave it to me to finally convince the girl to show me her heart … and then crush it.
“West,” Joss says a bit more calmly this time, reminding me I have yet to respond. “What aren’t you telling me?” she repeats.