Goode to Be Bad

her. “You really want to know about weird shit, you know that?” Especially for someone reticent to share her own past. “Her name was Helen. It was when Crow was in prison and I was doing the dive bar grind on my own. I ran out of money in a little shithole town in Oklahoma and had to spend a week there till I could play another weekend of gigs so I could afford gas to keep going. There was this waitress at the bar I played at—Helen. A little older than me, I was, shit, nineteen? A kid. She was thirty-something. Single, just sort of stuck in a dead-end job in a dead-end town. Hooked on drugs, I think, but was in a sober spell when I was with her. I couldn’t afford a motel and there wasn’t one in town anyway, so I was staying in my van. She caught me napping there, and invited me over. I stayed the week with her, and if anyone I ever slept with really actually taught me anything, it was Helen. And good god, did she teach me. That was a wild-ass week, man. She worked at night, so she was a night owl like me. I’d hang at her apartment while she worked, writing music and wishing I had booze, playing, practicing. She’d come home from work and we’d just fuck like crazy till dawn. And yeah, she wasn’t shy about showing me how she liked it, you know? I’ve always been a quick learner and there’s nothing I like more than appreciation and approval, so I’d use what she showed me to get her going. I never forgot what she taught me, and I guess what she liked is pretty universal.”

Lexie was still lying back on the couch, legs across mine, spread apart, skirt up around her hips. “Lucky me that she taught you so well.”

“What about you?” I asked. “Anyone stand out as having taught you things?”

She sat up, then. Tugged her skirt down, stood up. “I have to pee.”

And she was gone.

What a shock. I share, ask the same question in return, and get ignored. It was getting annoying, honestly.

When she came back, we were taxiing toward the runway for takeoff, so I made a visit to the bathroom to get cleaned up.

I let the question go, but filed it away as another oddity, another example of how she avoided sharing personal information at all costs.

She, for sure, had something major in her past that she never, ever talked about. It was becoming more obvious, every time she avoided an encounter, that it was something big, something buried deep. It hurt, and it irked me, because there was nothing I’d kept from her. I’d been totally open about my short-lived coke addiction, my exes and my sex numbers, and that one time I thought I had an STD. All of it was weird and embarrassing, and a bit painful, but there was nothing I wouldn’t share with her, if she asked.

I wanted the same in return.

If I pressed her, though, I had a feeling I would face a major explosion, and a pissed-off Lexie Goode was something I knew I really, really didn’t want to encounter. But how long could I allow her to avoid this issue, whatever it was? Was it worth it to me to press the issue? Was I willing to risk what we already had? She’d bolt, if I pushed too hard—I knew that for a fact. It was almost as if she was just waiting for me to give her an excuse to run, no matter how good the sex was.

Even I knew, deep down, that even the best sex possible between two people wasn’t enough to build a relationship on if you wanted more than just sex.

And I did.

I knew I did.

It scared me stupid, but I knew I wanted more than just sex with Lexie. A lot more.

I just wasn’t sure how to make that happen, or if it was even possible, given how cagey she was about so many things.

Lexie

I knew he was irritated with me. I chewed on that little problem as we landed in Ketchikan and headed for the ferry—it was a dark, overcast, cool day, but it was still breathtakingly beautiful.

Too bad I was too deep in thought to really appreciate the beauty.

Myles was no dummy. He was definitely aware that I avoided certain questions. He never pushed, but I could tell it was hard for him not to.

I hoped he wouldn’t push, because I couldn’t guarantee our…thing—whatever it was—would survive him pushing me to talk about certain things.

The trouble was, I wanted our thing to survive. I liked being a thing with him. I’d never been in a thing like this or for this long with anyone. I’d had sex more times with him than with any other one person. Well, except…gah, no, fuck, fuck no. Not going there. That didn’t count.

And that was why I had so many topics to avoid.

We reached the other side of the channel, and Myles consulted an email on his phone. After we collected our bags, we set out on foot.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

He laughed. “To your mom’s.”

“You have my mom’s address?”

I’d intentionally not acquired that piece of information, because I really didn’t want to be here, doing this. Chicken, coward, call me what you want, but the story I had to tell my mom and Cassie was one I was not looking forward to. Primarily because I could already feel Mom’s disappointment in me. Oh, she’d cover it with love, because that’s just how Mom is. But she’d be disappointed in me. Shit, I was disappointed in myself.

“Yes, I do.” He smirked at me. “I knew you’d try to be like, oh I don’t have her address. So I got it from Charlie via Crow.” He winked. “We’re staying with your mom and her boyfriend, Luke, I think it is.”

“Lucas,” I corrected. “Cassie raves