Damaged Love - Jaxson Kidman Page 0,1

up in my room and fake sick.

Not that I needed to fake much of anything… everyone already thought I had no memory because of the accident Noah, Easton, and Xavier caused. The easy grab, it was my time of the month.

So I just stayed home.

Hid in my room.

Slept when I could.

Wake up from that dream and fight to fall back asleep.

At night I would go outside and get some air and watch the waves.

I acted as though I had been hiding for months.

It had been all of two days.

But it sure felt like two months.

I needed to figure out a plan.

I needed to talk to Talon.

That worried me.

If I told him about Gia, then what? Would he do something crazy? Or maybe it didn’t matter to him. Why would it? I was the one out for revenge. I was the one up against some very powerful guys and their families…

All the while Dad was still away and my mother was going out like she was my age.

Everything was backward.

I groaned and fell back down to my pillow. I pulled the blankets up over my head and shut my eyes.

I just wanted sleep.

Good sleep.

The kind where I would wake up and it would be, I don’t know, days later. I’d wake up, feel great, and everything that had happened was just a dream.

Tank would be fine. I’d be back in the castle, in my gigantic room.

But that would mean being friends with Evie and Darcy.

And ignoring Gia.

I had lived such a different life before the accident.

It was like being two people at once, torn in half, and just thrown on the floor.

Worse than that, I was dancing the line between Trocs and Bumps, which was kind of unheard of.

I had no business being near Talon. Trocs were bad news.

I was in too deep with Talon.

I was in too deep with everything.

My heart started to race.

My toes curled and I kicked at the sheets.

“No,” I said.

I’m not doing this tonight…

I threw the covers off my body and got out of bed.

I looked around the room and saw Xavier’s hoodie balled up on my dresser.

“No,” I said.

There was another hoodie on the floor.

I put that one on and felt defiant. Like I was somehow getting back at Xavier. Which was so stupid to think. The guy wanted me to die in an accident and I felt badass for not wearing his hoodie?

I walked through the dark beach house and went outside for some fresh air.

At the top step of the deck, I stood there and took a few deep breaths.

My breathing relaxed.

The ocean was peaceful.

I looked in the direction of Gia’s beach house.

I shook my head.

Inside my heart I wanted to go get my phone. Send her a text. Tell her to come outside and talk to me. We owed each other all of the truth. I mean, I had given her the truth. Just way too late to not be a bitch. And she dropped her bombshell on me… which she could have done much earlier.

Xavier is your brother? Are you kidding me? How…

I shut my eyes and took another breath.

A faint smell touched my nose.

My eyes popped open and I turned my head.

I couldn’t see Easton, but I could see the glow of his cigarette in the distance.

I slowly sat down on the second step and pulled my hoodie over my knees.

I had no phone.

No escape really.

I could have darted back inside, but that would give off the wrong image of things.

Unless, of course, Gia told Xavier the truth…

I looked left to right and then behind me.

Parts of my dream teased my memory, making me think Noah and Xavier were going to show up too and box me in.

When Easton was close enough, I waved my hand.

“Do you mind?” I asked.

He pointed to his cigarette. “Oh. Right. Do you want one?”

“That’s funny,” I said. “Do you hear me laughing?”

“Someone’s in a bad mood,” Easton said.

“I was out here alone.”

“In the middle of the night.”

“What are you doing out here?” I asked.

Easton dropped his cigarette and squished it into the sand.

“I like to walk in the middle of the night.”

“Do you have a beach house around here?”

Easton laughed. “It still amazes me that you don’t remember anything.”

“Why?” I asked. “I was in an accident and should have died.”

I watched as Easton’s jaw tightened.

We were in a bit of a showdown. Who was lying and who wasn’t.

Easton crouched in front of me and touched the bottom of my hoodie.

His fingertips flirted and then