the inside—jealous, angry, and insecure. She never looked at me like that. I never made her laugh like that. Her face never glowed the way it was glowing now.
My feet took me forwards, and that’s when Three caught sight of me and released Estella. She followed his gaze, a question on her lips, and frowned when she saw that I’d come back.
I wanted so badly to wipe that frown off her mouth. I hated that her face didn’t light up when she was with me. How could Three affect her so deeply, but I did nothing?
I’d been the one to see her first all those weeks ago, standing on the street looking cold and miserable. I’d been the one to speak to her. I’d been the one who’d lost myself in the depths of her whiskey eyes all those weeks ago. Not Three. Not Riley. Not anyone else.
They couldn’t come in here and claim what was already mine.
“Vin-” Estella started to say, but my name died on her lips at the look I shot her.
“Turn that crap off,” I barked to Dylan as I pulled my phone out of my pocket.
Dylan switched the radio off, and I turned back to the guys who’d crowded into the kitchen, anticipating a fight. “Get the fuck out,” I growled. “All of you.”
They glanced around at each other uneasily, but didn’t contradict me. Everyone left except for Dylan and Estella.
Scrolling through my playlist, I put on
“This is the kind of music you should be dancing to. Not that shit you were listening to before.”
She briefly recovered and gave me a reprimanding look, her brow creasing. “Swear ja-”
“Stop talking, Stelle,” I ordered, taking her in my arms.
Estella’s body fitted against mine like we were two pieces of the same puzzle. She was breathing heavily against me, and I could feel how fast her pulse was. Or maybe that was my pulse; it was hard to tell where she began and where I ended.
My eyes were locked onto her, rooting her to one spot. Even if she had wanted to run away, she couldn’t. Our eyes were fusing us together; our bodies were betraying the distance that we’d always kept between us.
Being with Estella felt right. It felt like home.
As the music got to the chorus, I started to sway to it. Okay, so I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. I’d never danced in my life. I probably looked like a goddamn idiot, but I was doing this to show her something. I couldn’t figure out exactly what that ‘something’ was, but she needed to know.
Estella’s brow had relaxed, and the surprise that’d filled her face before was gone. Now she just looked confused. Her lips were parted and I wanted so badly to kiss that mouth of hers. Those lips were begging to be kissed.
And, fuck, I wanted her so much. I was hard against her, and I knew that she could tell because she started to move away, but I held onto her. I wanted her to stay.
“I’ll go wherever you go,” I whispered, and I didn’t really know what I meant by it, but her eyes widened at my words.
Then I bowed my head towards her because I had to have a taste of her mouth. Nothing else existed but her. I had to know what it was like to have her.
“Vincent.” The voice was cold; it was so cold that it felt like my body had been submerged in ice cold water.
I jerked away from Estella and looked over towards the doorway to find Ryder standing at the entrance of the kitchen. There was a look of disgust on his face as he stared at me and Estella like we were pieces of shit.
“I need to talk to you. Now.” He wasn’t fucking around. I was in serious shit.
Without another look at Estella, I stalked after him out onto the porch. He stood straight against the wooden railing that wrapped around the porch, and even though I was taller than him, I suddenly felt a hell of a lot smaller from the way he looked at me.
He didn’t wait for me to prepare myself; he just started ripping into me like an animal in mid-attack. “What the fuck is going on with you, Vincent?” His voice was low, but each word sounded dangerous coming out of his mouth. “What the fuck are you doing with that girl? Have you lost your fucking mind?”
He might as well have punched me in the gut, that’s how winded I felt in the aftermath of his words. There was a buzzing in my brain; I had absolutely no response to his questions. My mouth felt dry, and when I swallowed, my throat was sore.
When I didn’t say anything, he let out a snarl and punched the wooden post behind him. “Dammit, Vincent! You’re the one I rely on! You’re the one I can count on to think like I do. But I don’t know what the fuck happened to you. First, I have Tyson acting like a complete pussy when Ruby shows up, and now this girl has a hold on your fucking balls. What the fuck is going on with you? Tell me.”
This time I knew I had to give him an answer. He wasn’t going to take silence from me, and I didn’t want to make him wait. “There’s nothing up with me,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Don’t fucking lie to me.” He stepped forward, and for a minute I wasn’t his brother anymore; I was a threat. I was someone he didn’t trust. “You were
He didn’t wait for an answer; he just kept going. “Women are manipulative and they fuck up our lives. And, that girl, do you really think she’ll ever be with a guy like you? She looks down on people like us, Vin. She judges us; fucking good girl with her perfect life. She’ll never see you as anything but a failure.”
As Ryder said each word, I realized he was right. Estella was a fucking saint; she didn’t fit in with us, no matter how well she’d gotten along with the boys today. It’d probably been an act, anyway. She’d probably been too scared to do anything else.
I knew she’d gotten pissed at me when I’d accused her of having a perfect life, but there was no way her life could be worse than ours. What was the worst thing that’d happened to her? Probably nothing. Nothing that even came close to the life that we had.
I’d been so stupid. I’d been weak. I’d let her get to me. I’d let her smile, and her laughter, and those eyes get to me. I’d deluded myself into thinking that she belonged to me when, really, we didn’t know a fucking thing about each other.
“She makes you weak,” Ryder said, as if he’d glimpsed my thoughts. “And you’re not a weak person; I’ve taught you to get rid of weaknesses, but this girl, she, gets under your skin. I saw the way you looked at her. You ain’t ever looked at a girl like that before. She got to you, but you can’t let her. You can’t let a girl be your weakness, Vin. You’re a fighter; you’re not weak like Ruby.”
He was right. Everything he said was the truth. Estella was my weakness; I’d let her get under my skin. Somehow, she’d crept inside my brain, but I had to get rid of the effect she had on me.
I had to forget every single moment that had passed between us. I had to forget those whiskey eyes.
Chapter Seventeen
Estella
When Vincent pulled up outside my house later that night, my head felt like it was going through a blender.
So much had happened between us in the span of a few hours that I didn’t know what to think or how to act around him. First, he’d danced with me. Then he’d said that he’d go wherever I would go, although he could’ve just been quoting the lyrics of the song we’d danced to. And, finally, I swear he’d been about to kiss me before Ryder interrupted us.
At least that’s what it had seemed like. Maybe I had wanted so desperately for him to kiss me that I’d imagined the entire thing, because as soon as he’d gone outside with Ryder and come back in a few minutes later, he’d started acting strange.
