Remember Me This Way Read online

  “No,” I cry out, on the edge of something far too good to lose.

  “Do you have something to ask your doctor?” he asks with the utmost constraint, a sassy-ass smirk lifting the corner of his mouth. My heart pounds in time with the now missing beat of his hips.

  “Don’t stop.” I dig my fingers into his backside.

  “No?” His lids fall to half-mast, and his voice goes with it, sexy as hell. No longer just commanding, but playful, and my skin tingles, as if he’s touched me everywhere. “My naughty patient, do you want your examination to conclude?”

  “Please, don’t play with me.”

  I can’t say any more, but if I could I’d tell him how good he feels in me, around me, rubbing all over me. My nipples spike into taut beads as they rise up and into his chest. “Please.”

  He smiles, a full-blown I-will-rock-your-world-and-you’ll-beg-for-more grin. “Don’t play with you? Isn’t that what had you so hot earlier? Playing?” Pushing in deeper, he dips to my ear and whispers, “Do you want me to keep going?” As if testing my resolve, he leans on his side, his face remaining hot as hell, and reaches with his other hand to lift my leg around his hip so I’m cradling him in a vice grip. Holding very still, he says, “I’m waiting.”

  I’m so distracted. “Huh? What?” I say, breathless, and not at all ashamed to admit how bad I need him to move.

  “How was your visit today? Your doctor’s satisfaction scores depend on your answer.” I try to smile and play along, but it disappears when he bites my neck. My body starts pulsing around him, uncaring he’s chosen not to move. He groans, all sass wiped away, and he rocks into me. Slow and sweet, the friction rubs in the most delicious way. I wrap myself around him, licking and sucking his neck and the dip above his collarbone as my fingers explore. I revel in the taut lines of his back and ass that flex as his strokes become more powerful. He is mine. Always and forever mine. With that thought, the pulse turns into a tremor, and the rhythm of an orgasm taps an ambient chill up my spine. It unfurls into a blinding light behind my eyes, and I give in, letting it roll through me and around him.

  “Jesse, I love you,” I groan, at first clamoring to crawl closer and then arching away when the waves of sensation threaten to break me in two. He feeds on my breasts, taking my nipple into his mouth and then clamping down as his breath punches around it. He cries out and slides into the hollow of my neck, where I take in the scream of his release as his thrusts become long and sharp a moment before he relaxes against me. I kiss him everywhere, tasting the two of us on his skin, his face, and neck.

  And then for some reason, the images hit me. Over and over they come at me, until I’m overwhelmed and not sure that I can escape them.

  Closing my eyes, I block it all out: The hotel room with Gentry’s present, my injury, the whirlwind of the last few months, Gentry and that fucking gun. I roll to my back and hide under my arms, caging myself beneath them.

  “Hey, what’s going on in there?” It’s a soft question, but I’m feeling hard, and for whatever reason, I’m ready to fight. To prevent that from happening, I remain silent. “Talk to me, Ari.”

  “Nothing is going on. I’m fine.”

  “You don’t sound fine.”

  “I am. I’m just tired, and I want to go to bed.”

  A long pause—no sound, no movement, no nothing. I’m shutting him out again, just as I have been for months. I know it, and he does too. It doesn’t feel good, and my skin prickles with unease and the itch to make it better. I’m mad, and I’m not sure why. That’s not true. If I think about it, the simple question has a great big answer—I’m fucking raging-at-the-world mad about everything. Take your pick: Being trapped in this house, Jensen and Tanner’s avoidance of me, Gentry and his gun, and that stupid fucking hotel room for bringing the past so close to the present. I’m a stranger in my own life.

  Everything is eating away at me, every day, every minute—the hole in my heart grows wider, and I see Gentry every time I close my eyes.

  Fear. Fear has woven into my heart and is slowly suffocating me. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep because when I try, Gentry’s eyes are staring at me and I’m afraid next time it will be the guys that get those bullets.

  6

  Then

  None of the guys are in school today. I check my phone for the millionth time, but there's no messages waiting for me. I haven't texted them, always afraid that they won’t want to hear from me after a lifetime of the people in my life constantly feeling that way.

  Finally, when none of them are there at the end of school, I can’t help but type out a quick text to Jesse.

  Everything okay? Missing you.

  I send it before I can change my mind. Jesse's response is almost immediate.

  Dealing with something.

  There’s a pause as I think about what to say, and suddenly, he’s calling me. "Hey," I say eagerly.

  "I hate to ask you to do this, but we need your help with Tanner," he says quietly.

  "What can I do?" I answer quickly.

  "Are you still at the school?"

  “Yes.”

  “Be there in five,” he responds before hanging up. My mind is racing about what could be wrong. What did they need my help with? What had Tanner done that they were dealing with? Was it drugs again?

  Jesse pulls up in his truck about fifteen minutes later. He quickly gets out of the car and opens the door for me.

  I can see the stress written across his face.

  "Tanner isn't in a good place. And he's not letting Jensen and I help him. We're hoping that he'll listen to you," Jesse says as we begin to drive, shooting a quick look at me to see my reaction.

  "What do you mean that he's not in a good place?" I ask.

  "It's something that Tanner will have to tell you when he's ready. But let's just say that his family makes Jensen's family look like the ‘Leave it to Beaver’ family compared to them."

  I feel a little ashamed in this moment. They’ve started opening up to me, but I haven't given them any details about what my life at home is like. For some reason, it's just really hard to share things like that. It’s a shame that I carry with me everywhere, and I don’t want this one good thing I’ve found to be tainted by it.

  "Do you think that we ever really recover from the damage that our families do to us?" I ask him, staring at the trees as we pass them by. Jesse is racing, so they’re just a blur. We pull up to the outside of the bar, a bar that I had ironically been in before to come collect my mother. If Tanner was in there, he definitely wasn't in a good place. I had no doubt in my mind that this place had no problem handing out alcohol to minors.

  "I'm really sorry about this," Jesse says as we sit there for a moment, looking at the dilapidated state of the bar. He reaches over and grabs my hand and squeezes it, bringing it to his lips to brush a kiss across it. Despite the situation, I can’t help but get tingles at his touch. I soak up any physical contact I can get from them, like I’m a plant that desperately needs water in the sun. Jesse gets caught up in my eyes as he’s kissing my hand, and it’s the strangest sensation to have someone looking at me so intently.

  He shakes his head suddenly, like he’s snapping himself out of whatever trance he had just been in. "Ready?" he asks, opening his door.

  I take a deep breath and nod. I was well versed in saving drunk people, unfortunately. It was the underlying cause of the drunkenness that I hadn't figured out a way to fix thus far.

  As soon as the door to the bar opened, I was hit by a wave of sweat, smelly heat. Greasy food mixed with the stench of beer wasn't the best smell. Combine that with the stench of body odor, and it could make you vomit. As we walk across the faded wood plank floor, my shoes keep getting stuck on sticky portions of the floor where alcohol had been spilled and never cleaned up.

  It was impossible to miss Tanner. He’s three sheets to the wind and has somehow ended up with a bottle of whiskey. He’s swaying on the far side of the room, dancing to the taciturn
beats of whatever old rock song is playing. Jensen is propped on a chair at a table nearby, looking annoyed as a couple of barflies try to talk to him. Tanner is surrounded by a few haggard looking cougars that have definitely seen better days, but he doesn’t seem to know that they exist. He’s so caught up in his own little world.

  "Um, how do you want to do this? What exactly am I supposed to be doing?" I whisper to Jessie.

  "I'll take care of the ladies," he grimaces. "You just see if you can get Tanner to leave with you. Wait here a second while I distract them,” he adds.

  I watch as Jesse transforms into his stage persona, putting on a sexy smirk and what I would call bedroom eyes as he approaches the two cougars, who look like they are about to devour Tanner whole. Jensen looks up hopefully when he sees Jesse, and then his attention flashes to me. He doesn’t look happy that I’m here, and I wonder what that’s about. Had Jesse come to get me without consulting Jensen? Was this going to create issues that I was here?

  Deciding to stop doubting myself, I begin to walk towards the still dancing Tanner. Jesse has successfully caught the ladies’ attentions, and now they are trying to paw at him. Tanner would owe him after this.

  I get to Tanner and stand there for a second, waiting for him to notice me. It takes a second before the chorus of the current song has him doing some kind of complicated spin move that puts me in his line of sight.

  "Princess," he slurs, surprising me when he grabs me right away and pulls me into a hug that is more of the dance, since he hasn't stopped moving. "I didn't snort anything," he says proudly, his eyes flickering over me affectionately.

  "Good boy," I say as I awkwardly pat him. I guess that is an improvement, if he hasn't immediately turned to white powder in order to help him forget.

  "I'm so glad you're here," he tells me as he pulls me against his chest. I dance with him for a couple more minutes, only wincing slightly when he steps on my feet as he weaves us around drunkenly. He’s acting carefree, but I can see the tiredness around his eyes. There’s a desperation in his actions, he just wants to forget. And I don’t blame him for that. If I wasn't constantly surrounded by two people who have made my life hell because of excess drinking and drugs, I would be right there with him.

  "We should get out of here," I tell him when the song we had been dancing to finally ends.

  My eyes widen as the hand on my back starts to trail down until he's squeezing my ass. I quickly yank his hand back up, not wanting him to have regrets whenever he sobers up. Not that I mind his hand on my ass. I just want him to actually be aware that he’s doing it to me when it happens.

  I mean, if it happens.

  I step away from him, holding on to one of his hands.

  "Don't you want to keep dancing?" he asks adorably, trying to show off some other kind of dance move that I recognize as one that he uses on stage. Somehow, even as drunken off balance as he is, he still manages to look sexy doing it.

  "I kind of want to get some food," I tell him, trying to think up excuses to leave.

  "My girl’s hungry?" he asks, suddenly flinging the hand I wasn't holding into the air. "Yo, Ron. Can you get my lady some nachos?" he yells out to a grizzled looking barkeeper that doesn’t look like he has bathed in quite some time. I definitely didn’t want him preparing any food that I ate.

  "That's okay," I call out, looking around to see if Jesse or Jensen can help me. Jesse looks alarmed as the two women he has been entertaining look to be getting more and more aggressive. I grimace when I see one of them reach out and try to grab his crotch. Looking to Jensen next, I see that he is just sitting there watching Tanner and I, continuing to ignore the women who are trying to talk to him.

  I wave at him, trying to give my best "help me out here" look. He shoots me a thumbs up and then turns his attention to his phone, apparently leaving me on my own to deal with Tanner. What was his problem?

  "Tanner, I need your help with something. Can you come with me outside?" I finally try. Astonishing me, he immediately snaps to attention and starts to stride towards the door, dragging me along. I shoot a look back at Jesse and Jensen to make sure they see that we are leaving. They’re both watching us leave, looking a mixture of relieved and flabbergasted.

  As soon as we are outside, Tanner stops walking and turns to look at me. "What do you need, Princess?" he slurs. "Who do I need to beat up?"

  The funny thing is that he actually looks like he means it. He's prepared to march off to be my knight in shining armor, even as he tries to beat his own demons.

  "Let's go somewhere else to talk. I don't have good memories of this place,” I tell him honestly, thinking about the last time that I pried my mother from this place. She’d been trying to service someone in the middle of the bar, and as bad as this place was, evidently, they didn't want the police called since she was also asking for payment for the services she was trying to perform.

  “Why are you staring at me like this?” I whisper, noticing him watching me intently. My voice sounds funny as the words leave my lips.

  “Princess, I always thought that I didn’t deserve anything good to happen to me. I’ve been told for so long that I’m nothing, that I’m unwanted, that I’m trash that my dad wished he could get rid of, that I’ve believed it for longer than I can remember.”

  Those silver eyes stay locked on mine, even as his trembling hand reaches out towards my face.

  “And now…now what do you believe?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper as I soak up his touch as he gently strokes my cheek.

  “And now I’m starting to doubt that I’m really that worthless, Princess. Because good things like you wouldn’t happen to someone worthless. You’re my good thing, Princess. As long as I have you, that can’t possibly be true.”

  I watch as a tear slides down his face. I somehow know that Tanner Crosby is not someone that cries easily, that the solitary tear he just wept is something that should be treasured, something that should be remembered.

  He’s my good thing too. They all are.

  “I’m really tired, Princess,” he says, his voice slurring once again as his brief moment of lucidity disappears.

  “Me too,” I whisper back to him, thinking of how worn down life can make you.

  Jesse and Jensen choose that moment to make an appearance.

  “Let’s get out of here,” says Jensen gruffly.

  “We can go to my house. My parents are out of town so they won’t notice this mess,” says Jesse, gesturing to Tanner. I nod, relieved that we have somewhere to go.

  For a long time, I didn’t have anywhere to go or anyone to go with. I’m glad that Tanner has had them, and that I have them now too.

  I’d go with them anywhere.

  7

  Now

  I’m caught between a burning desire to get out of the house, and a fear that I’ll have another panic attack and freak out again like I have been. Finally, I decide I need to see a therapist.

  “You’re getting better every day,” says Jensen when I broach the subject with him. I feel like we need to get someone that the band’s team trusts, just because I wouldn’t put it past someone to try and make a quick buck on what I’m dealing with, so I’ve asked the guys to get some recommendations for therapists. I can already see the headline now about “The Sound of Us’s crazy girlfriend losing it.” Evidently, the guys are not happy about me wanting to talk to someone.

  “I’m not getting better at all,” I tell him. “My body might be healing, but my head isn’t.”

  “Baby, it’s all going to be fine.”

  “I’m not fine.” I slam my empty glass on the counter in front of me. “I haven’t slept in weeks, I can barely eat. I fluctuate between wanting to stay locked in this house and wanting to run away. A fireworks display has me cowering. Not to mention that you and Tanner are hardly speaking to me, and Jesse is constantly sending me worried looks. I am not okay. We are not okay.”

  There’s a pause after that. “I haven’t been avoiding y
ou,” he says finally. I throw my hands in the air, well aware that I’m being unreasonable but not able to control myself.

  “Okay, maybe I have, but it hasn’t felt like that. I’m always thinking about you, wanting to be with you, watching you even when you aren’t paying attention. I’m just fucking messed up about what happened, Ari,” he says in a voice that sounds broken. “I watched him shoot you, and there was nothing I could do to save you. I sat in that hospital room and held your hand, and there was nothing I could do to wake you up. I’m scared to go back to our regular lives because I know now that I can’t protect you, I can’t save you when it comes down to it. And I don’t know how to handle that feeling.”

  I’ve been so wrapped up in my own pain that I haven’t seen how much they are still suffering. I knew that they weren’t doing well in the hospital, but I guess I thought that they had gotten better since being here. Obviously, I was wrong.

  “Is that what’s bothering Tanner too?” I ask quietly. Jensen just sighs and takes a pull of his beer. “Tanner has his own issues because of the fact that Gentry was getting information from Miranda because she was jealous of you and wanted Tanner. He’s all sorts of fucked up because of how guilty he feels.”

  They told me about Miranda in the hospital. I couldn’t believe that their own manager put us all in so much danger, just because she was interested in Tanner. I opened my mouth to say something and Jensen shakes his head. “He should have told us how much she was coming on to him, but I’ve told him a million times that it isn’t his fault. Gentry would have found a way to come after you, no matter what.”

  I nod, agreeing with that.

  “Baby, I can’t sleep either,” Jensen says, setting his beer down and pulling me into his embrace. “I lie awake at night, just thinking about the fact that Gentry is still out there, that they haven’t found him yet.”