Page 4 of Ever After Between the Lines (Montgomery Ink Legacy)

Chapter Four

SARINA

My feet hurt again, but this time I still had a slight bounce to my step.

I couldn’t help it. It had been a week since I had seen Stone at the job site, since I had told myself that I wasn’t making a mistake.

And I wasn’t making a mistake. Because I had already made one before, by pushing him away. He had been hurting, had been in pain, and I had pushed him away to protect myself.

I shouldn’t have done that. Yes, I was scared. Yes, seeing Stone had brought back memories of pain, agony, and shame.

He had always treated me well. He had always treated me like I was cherished.

He hadn’t forced me to stay behind for him. He had watched me go, had stood back to make sure I was safe.

That’s what I had to remind myself.

Yes, he had stayed, no, he hadn’t come after me until I felt like it was too late, but he hadn’t blocked me in.

“You feeling okay?” Rebel asked me from the other side of the bar, and I smiled at him, this time knowing it reached my eyes.

“I am, ready for the night to be over though, no offense.”

He just grinned at me. “Oh, no, because your honey bun is coming to stay with you for the evening. I wouldn’t want to stay either.”

“Rebel,” I said as I blushed.

“Honeybun?” Jeremiah, one of my regulars, asked as I handed him his beer.

“It’s nothing,” I grumbled, glaring at Rebel. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

Rebel beamed and leaned forward towards Jeremiah. The two had been having a serious flirt for the past couple of months, and I wish they would just ask each other out already. However, fate was a tricky mistress, and they were taking more time.

“Her old boyfriend is back in town.”

“Well, if you broke up with him, it must have been for a reason,” Jeremiah said. “We don’t want you hurt.”

My heart swelled, and I could see it did for Rebel too from the look in his eyes. “He didn’t hurt me. I had to leave a situation, and he couldn’t come with me.”

It wasn’t exactly true because he had hurt me because he stayed away for so long. Only that hurt was also on me.

It wasn’t all his fault, nor was it all mine. Sometimes I had to remember that it was the King’s fault, the Kingdom, and the Ruin.

Those who had sent us to a life that we couldn’t escape. They were who had hurt us both.

I wasn’t afraid of Stone. I never had been. I was afraid of what he had represented, what had almost swallowed us both.

That wasn’t the case anymore. I wasn’t that person anymore. I had to hope that Stone wasn’t that person either.

“Anyway, her ex is back in town, and he makes her smile like that, so I’m calling it a good thing.”

I blinked and looked over at Rebel. “Really?”

“Of course. I’d say he’s your lobster, but we know that lobsters don’t mate for life,” Rebel joked.

I rolled my eyes. “Please stop telling me random crustacean facts.”

“I’d like to know random crustacean facts,” Jeremiah said, his gaze only for Rebel. I looked between the two of them and held back a smile. If crustacean facts and trivia were what was going to bring these two together, I wasn’t going to stand in their way.

I cleared my throat. “I’m going to go clean up on the other end, and then I’m heading out. Are you two okay?”

“I think we’re just fine,” Jeremiah answered, and Rebel rolled his eyes.

“You think that line is going to work?”

“I think I have a few more,” Jeremiah drawled when I rolled my eyes. I grabbed my bag from underneath the bar, and headed towards the other end.

I’d have to wear my cross-body bag for the rest of the evening, but that was fine. I didn’t want to interrupt them again accidentally. Not when things might be working out.

“Hey,” Stone whispered from my side, and I let out a breath, my stomach tightening. I had known he was there, of course. The hairs on the back of my neck had stood on end, and I always knew he was there.

There was something about him. Something that hurt and ached and made me want to give in.

That was Stone. That was always Stone.

“Hi,” I said as I looked up at him, at his deep green eyes, the way his dark hair fell over his face.

He needed to shave, and I liked it. That slight stubble that I knew would scrape rough against the inside of my thighs.

I blushed, wondering where the hell that thought had come from, and from the way that Stone’s eyes darkened, he must’ve guessed where my thoughts had gone.

“When are you through tonight?” he asked, his voice a low growl.

“She’s done now,” Rebel said, not tearing his gaze from Jeremiah’s.

I swallowed hard. “Apparently, I’m done now.”

“Good, I’ll walk you home?”

“Oh. Sure.” Disappointment slid through me. In the week since we had reintroduced ourselves to one another, pretending the past hadn’t existed even while it wrapped its claws around our throats, we had gone for coffee, for food, but we hadn’t kissed. Hadn’t done anything.

Had he wanted to start over completely by just being friends? Or was it something more? Was he just taking it slow?

I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t read him, and it killed me.

Because I wanted to know, I needed to know.

I was just afraid if I asked, the answer would hurt.

Just like always, everything hurt when it came to Stone and the Kingdom.

“I have my bag, so I’m ready to go.”

“Good. Come on, let’s take you home.”

I walked out from the side of the bar, waved at Rebel and Jeremiah, who weren’t even looking at me, and found myself holding Stone’s hand. His palms were rough, calloused, as if he worked hard with his hands, and I couldn’t help but imagine his hands on me.

Why the hell did I feel so freaking horny? I had had sex before, mostly with myself, but it counted.

Why was it that every time I was around Stone I swooned and couldn’t focus? Why was I always wet when he was around?

There was something wrong with me.

“Where are your thoughts going?” he asked as we walked down the street towards the small set of apartments where I lived.

It was ridiculously priced in downtown Denver.

However, I was subletting from a woman who wasn’t charging too much.

I wasn’t sure why, and I wasn’t going to ask questions, but everything was legal according to Rebel, so I would focus on that.

“What?” I asked.

Stone met my gaze, shook his head. “You’re in your head, and I don’t know why.”

“I think you can guess why,” I muttered as we walked up the stairs towards my fourth-floor apartment.

“Okay, so you’re working two jobs then?” he asked as I let him inside, feeling as if the space was far too small with him around.

He was wide, all muscle, and he filled any room he was in.

But right then, it felt like it was more as if I couldn’t breathe when he was around.

Or maybe I could never breathe when he was around.

“Yes, between both jobs, seven days a week and far too many hours, but they’re good to me, and I’m saving up.”

“This apartment can’t be cheap,” he said as he looked around the fully furnished sublet apartment.

There were light colors, a modern kitchen, and a small sofa.

My bed was in the corner, as it was a studio and not much square footage, but it was enough for me—more than I ever had growing up.

Oh, my father had had a decent home before the Kingdom had enveloped us, but then we had moved into the compound, and I had only been given what they allowed me to have, what the King had bestowed upon us.

Because I wouldn’t give him what he wanted, it wasn’t enough.

“The price isn’t that much. It’s a sublet. And I think just good luck.”

“It’s great. I’m renting a hole in the wall in Aurora, and I’m pretty sure that the rats are bigger than I am, but it works.”

I frowned. “I’m sorry. Did you sign a lease? We can find you something better.”

“It’s week-to-week, which is why it’s such a shitty place. I was just afraid at first that I’d have to leave quickly, and I didn’t want to sign anything. You know?”

“I do, because you’re under the radar, just like I am.”

“I hate that we are. I hate that he probably knows exactly where I am.”

“I know he knows where I am,” I said as I shrugged, setting my bag down. “He always knows. We can pretend and change our names, get a fake Social Security card, and go about all the normal ways to hide, but he’d always find us.”

“That’s why you never changed your name.”

“I changed my last name, but there wasn’t a point. He always knows where we are because if he can’t find us, he has connections with the Ruin, and they can find anybody.”

“There’s no hiding unless you’re dead.”

I hadn’t meant to say that, and with the storms in Stone’s eyes, he didn’t like to hear it. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” I said, shaking my head. “You didn’t do anything wrong.

“Then why do I feel like I did something wrong?”

“Now that I think about it, you stayed to protect your brother. You survived because that was the situation we were in. I only got out because you found a way for me. And I think I hated myself more than you for you not being able to come with me.”

“Sarina,” he whispered as he moved forward, his hands cupped my face, and I let out a breath, the warmth of his skin on mine almost too much.

“I hated myself for leaving you behind. For not being strong enough to stay to fight for us. I know you had to stay. I know there wasn’t another choice. I think, though, I hated you more than I wanted to when you couldn’t come with me later. When your brother was gone, and there was nothing else.”

“He chained me in the basement,” he muttered, and I froze.

“What?”

He let me go then and began to pace, and I felt the coolness of lack of his touch.