The Marked Men Series Books 1–6: Rule, Jet, Rome, Nash, Rowdy, Asa. Jay Crownover
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understand half of what he was singing, it was still pretty powerful. He had that entire bar eating out of the palm of his hand; that kind of draw is impressive.”
“Yeah, Jet was born to be a rock star. He just has a problem with the spotlight and recognition. He always has.”
“You’ve known him a long time?”
“We used to go see him play when we were kids, back when he was into punk. Nash, Jet, and Rowdy have been my inner circle for a long time. Rowdy we met later, when he started working at the shop, but we all kick it like we are brothers from other mothers.”
She settled in the leather seat and I adjusted the heat when I noticed she was rubbing goose bumps on her arms. “It must be nice to have a lot of good friends. I was never like that.”
I looked out of the corner of my eye at her. “What do you mean?”
“I’m shy and awkward. I never know how to just make friends like that. I was picked on a lot in high school. Remy was my only real friend and now only Ayden really. I have a hard time letting people in. I guess because I’ve seen how painful it is when the people who are the closest to you are the ones constantly disappointing you.”
“What about me and Rome?”
“What about you?”
Nash groaned from the back and I looked over my shoulder apprehensively. He didn’t sound good. “What about us? We were there, too. Weren’t we your friends?”
She made a little humming noise that immediately made vital parts of my anatomy take notice.
“Rome has always been like a big brother. He looks out for me, he picks on me, he tries to keep things that hurt me and cause pain at bay. You, well, you were always something else, not a friend, not a brother, just something else.”
“Is that bad, the something else?”
I felt rather than saw her shrug. “It has been, and then sometimes it’s not.” I didn’t know what to make of that so I let the subject drop. I drove the rest of the way, keeping one eye on the road and one eye on Nash, who was making increasingly loud noises of distress in the back. When we got to the apartment I looked across the cab at Shaw but she was bent over the back of the seat rubbing Nash’s bald head and uttering soothing words to him.
“Hey, I don’t know how long it’ll take to get him squared away, so you can just hang out and if you want me to run you home or whatever I will.”
She looked at me over her shoulder and raised a pale brow. “Rule, it’s fine. It’s not like I don’t know how you end up in the state you’re normally in on Sunday morning. Like I told you, I just have to be at work on Sunday around ten. As long as you make that happen, we’re good.”
At a loss for words I just stared at her for a moment before Nash’s gurgling made me move. “Have you always been this awesome?”
She shut all the doors behind us and helped me haul Nash up the steps. I noticed she didn’t answer my question, but she did get Nash a huge glass of water and fished around in my bathroom until she found some painkillers. She left both on the bathroom sink in the hall that Nash used and gave me a pointed look. “Come find me when you’re done.”
I swore in a long litany under my breath as I helped Nash battle his thermal and jeans off. I was contemplating shoving his ass in a cold shower when the tequila started to take its revenge. His tattooed head disappeared inside the toilet and I spent the next hour making sure he didn’t pass out and alternately cramming liquids down his throat and jumping out of the way as they came back up. When I was finally sure he wasn’t going to get sick anymore I hauled him to his bed and made sure he was facedown before I did a quick cleanup of the bathroom and myself and then went to find Shaw.
The door to my room was cracked open and she had my TV on. I wasn’t sure what I was going to find, the dirtier part of my imagination had all kinds of interesting scenarios laid out, but what awaited me wasn’t one of them. She had my California king stripped to the mattress pad and was making short work of changing all the bedding. Her crazy blue shoes were in the center of the floor looking totally out of place next to my discarded T-shirts and jeans, and as I propped myself up in the doorway all I could do was watch her. She seemed to be having some kind of conversation with herself but she was muttering too low for me to hear what she was saying. I waited a full five minutes for her to look up at me and notice me watching her but she never did, so I asked, “What are you doing?” which made her jump about a foot in the air.
She put a hand on her chest and had the good grace to look a little bit guilty.
“Changing your sheets.”
“Why?”
“Uh … Why?”
“Yes, Shaw, why are you changing my sheets at nearly three o’clock in the morning?”
She was saved from answering when a Garth Brooks song rang from her pocket. I was starting to see she liked to pick songs for ringtones that fit the person calling. She had a brief conversation with someone I assumed was Ayden and left the phone on the nightstand next to the bed. She picked up the edge of my comforter and started to smooth it back over the big bed.
“Ayden got a ride home. I guess your friend in the band remembered her from the Goal Line and offered to take her.”
“That’s cool, though Jet isn’t exactly known for being a one-girl kinda guy, so I hope she isn’t reading anything into it.”
“Like I said, she can take care of herself and honestly you aren’t really known for that, either”—she waved a hand over the bed—“so I’ll be damned if I’m going to sleep, let alone do anything else in a bed that has had more visitors than DIA without changing the sheets first.” Her bottom lip stuck out and she sounded slightly defiant.
“Shaw.” I moved out of the doorway, making sure to shut it and turn the lock on my way to her. “No one has been in that bed since you. I told you I knew on that Saturday that something was happening between us that was different.”
She shivered a little as I got close and I could see raw vulnerability in her eyes. It was scary to know how easily I could hurt this girl and how desperately I didn’t want that to happen.
“I don’t know how to do this with you, Rule. I drunkenly threw myself at you and was lucky you were willing to catch me, but sober it’s hard to look at that bed and not see every single other girl who was there before me—sometimes more than one at a time.”
She tried to make light of it but I could hear the genuine melancholy coloring her tone. I put both my hands on her face and tilted her head back so that we were eye to eye.
“I can’t change the past, Casper, not any of it. I can’t make any of those girls or the fact you walked in on them on Sunday mornings time and time again disappear. I can’t bring Remy back or go back in time and not call him for a ride that night. There are probably a million and one regrets I have, and if they are going to be between us here or in bed, then let’s just stop it now, because I’m not going to do combat over my past when my future is finally starting to be something I want to invest in.”
She lifted her hands up and grasped my wrists; at first I thought she was going to push me away but she didn’t. She leaned forward and let her forehead hit the center of my chest. “Rule, if this goes bad it’s gonna be so, so bad.” Her voice was just a husky whisper against my chest.
“True, but if it’s good, it’s going to be so very, very good.” I tunneled my fingers through her hair and she let her hands fall to my shoulders. We weren’t a perfect match; she was a lot shorter than me, and I had to admit that I knew logically we made an odd pair physically, but there was just something about her. Something about the way she curved into me, the way she sighed my name like a prayer, the way she smelled like sunshine and sweetness and everything yummy all wrapped into one bite that made none of that matter. It made her the only girl I could ever remember wanting to hold on to for more than a fleeting