Page 19 of Flames and Flowers
That meant a reciprocal thing. Commitment. Certainty that I was with the person or persons I’d spend the rest of my life with. For that kind of love, and only for that kind of love, I’d risk anything.
The more I thought about it, the more I resented Ash for even suggesting that I take that kind of risk for him, when he didn’t love me. Danica loved me; that was what he said. But maybe I’d misinterpreted that anyway. She loved me like a friend; that was what he meant. He didn’t want her getting any deeper than she was, so he cut it off before it could take root for her, like it already had for me.
Smart man.
I already wished I’d been smarter about the whole thing myself.
I was in love with them, yes. But at the end of the day, if they didn’t love me back… what did it even matter?
As I lay in my apartment that night, alone, the lyrics of “Real Real Gone” playing in my head, I couldn’t even hear the actual music I was listening to. And I wondered what my dad would do right now, if he were me. I wondered if he’d ever loved anyone, including himself.
I wondered if the fire Ashley Player had set in me the day we met would ever burn out.
I wondered if I could drown it with enough music, sex and alcohol.
I’d tried.
But so far, it hadn’t worked.
ChapterFive
Matt
We were drinking down at the Back Door on a Saturday night when things got worse—for me.
It was me, Ash and Xander, Summer and Ronan were on their way to meet us, and it was shaping up to be a good night. Except for Danica not being there. Ash said she was out with the girls, but I wished she would’ve come with us.
Fucking sue me, I still wanted her, whether she really loved me or not.
Everything was always better, brighter when she was around.
So when I started to get drunk, I texted her to tell her so. I sent her sunshine emojis, like a tween with a crush.
When she texted me back, I kept texting her, chatting, joking and trying not to flirt with her while I got drunker, and she got drunk at a bar mere blocks away.
I’d just knocked back another shot with the guys, and in the sudden lucidity that hit as it sometimes did after a shot of pure alcohol, I was telling myself to get over it, to stop pining away for two people who had no space for me in their lives. Two people whose lives were pretty fucking perfect without me.
Even if I loved them.
Hell, especially if I loved them.
But then another text came in from Danica. It was a photo.
I had to stare at it for a good long string of seconds before my drunken brain would believe what my eyes told me I was seeing.
It was a picture of her bare, pink pussy, her fingers spreading herself open.
I looked up at her husband, sitting across the table from me.
Ash caught me staring, like he so often did. He tipped his beer to me in cheers. And when I kept staring, his eyebrows drew together in wordless question. He wrapped his lips around his beer bottle and took a swig. Then I tore my eyes away.
I looked down at my phone again. I had it tucked under the table.
It wasn’t a hallucination. Or wishful thinking. Or a random pic from someone else. It was real. It was sent to me from her number. And there it was on my phone. Framed by her pretty fingers, and that antique wedding ring I’d know anywhere.
Danica’s pussy… spread open like an invitation to paradise.
Minutes after she sent it, my phone started ringing. It was Danica’s number. I took off down the hall backstage to answer it.
