Page 21 of Last Chorus (A Perfect Song Duet #2)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

evangeline

“ D on’t bother trying to explain, Wilder. Just leave me alone.”

I load the condiment bowls onto my plate, then grab my mug and carry everything to the sink.

Wilder, being fucking Wilder , ignores my demand, following and leaning a hip against the counter a few feet away. Refusing to look at him, I turn on the hot water, then grab a sponge and squirt too much soap on it.

I hate that he doesn’t tell me not to wash the dishes.

I hate that the last two years have proven to me, over and over again, that he and Clay could not be more different.

Yes, Wilder hurt me when we were younger.

Both with his words and actions. In the months before I left Night Theory, he was a total dick, and his behavior afterward was atrocious.

Then, after ignoring me for three years, he seduced me on a false premise of honesty.

Overwhelmed me with mind-blowing sex, intimacy, and promises of forever.

All while he lied about his drug use, a fracture of trust that shattered my heart and tainted every second of our time together.

But in spite of being an asshole intermittently from nineteen to twenty-five, Wilder has never, not fucking once, made me feel as small, empty, and worthless as Clay.

“Will you look at me?” he asks softly.

I shake my head and keep scrubbing. The dishes are clean, but I can’t make myself stop.

“I’m sure this won’t be a surprise to you, but I’ve always felt different, even as a little kid.”

His voice is just loud enough to be heard over the faucet. I pour more soap on the sponge and keep scrubbing.

“In some ways, it was probably natural for me to compare myself to others. To look for a place I fit. But my units of measurement were wrong. I was comparing my insides to everyone else’s outsides. They never matched, so I invariably felt less than.”

I still don’t look at him, but my hands stop moving. Against my will, every part of me is listening .

“I have so many memories of watching you, Rye, and the other kids playing, laughing… I wanted to be a part of your joy, but my own conviction that I wasn’t good enough held me back.

It happened in school. With Night Theory, too.

In focusing on how different, how alone I was, I suffocated myself with shadows of jealousy, self-loathing, and fear. ”

I didn’t notice him move, but he’s suddenly so close his chest brushes my shoulder.

Heat spreads from the contact, radiating down my right side.

I suck in a breath on reflex, inadvertently saturating myself with his scent.

A hint of coffee beneath mint. A whisper of soap over his natural scent, that improbable fusion of dark forest, rain, and lightning.

A muscled, tattooed arm reaches into the sink. His fingers close around mine, squeezing them and the sponge I’m still holding. Suds explode, thick and silky.

His lips graze my temple. “I think it’s easy to forget we’re all just human. Inherently fallible. We think admitting weakness makes us weak, but it’s the opposite. Only the strong admit their failings and confront the deeply uncomfortable work of growing.”

A thumb wedges itself against my palm, rubbing slow circles. Gasoline hits the fires inside me, detonating in my chest, my face. Between my legs. My head empties, overwhelmed by the sensation .

I stop breathing as he shifts to stand behind me, then gasp as his other arm slips beneath mine to cage me between his body and the sink.

His second hand joins the first, both of them now spreading slick bubbles over my hands and up my wrists.

Strong thumbs knead tiny pressure points.

Calloused fingertips enclose and twist around mine.

My breaths are staccato, my heart galloping, my pussy throbbing.

“Wilder?”

“Yes, Evangeline?” His teasing tone is so unexpected that it takes me a few seconds to answer.

“W-what are you doing?”

“Am I not being obvious enough? Here, let me fix that.”

He erases the space between our bodies. The counter digs into my stomach, but I don’t notice.

All I feel is his hands, still moving over mine, and the heat of his chest down my spine.

Ninety-nine percent of my awareness, though, is now on my lower half.

Specifically my ass, against which presses undeniable evidence that he’s still attracted to me. Thick, rock-hard, searing evidence.

Deep inside me, behind a rattling door, is relief so sudden and potent that if I dared to feel it, I’d probably sob for hours .

He murmurs, “The second part of my answer to your question is that I’m turning off the noise in your head so you actually hear me. Ready for the hard part?”

My mind blank, I nod.

“First and foremost, have you even met me? No one can make me do anything. Yes, your parents showed up at my house a few days after Christmas. Completely blindsided me. First your dad apologized for being a jerk to me years ago. I told him I’d deserved it. We had a bromance moment—it was great.”

My lips twitch, then compress as he continues, “Then they dropped a bomb on me. They told me you were in trouble and asked me to try to help you.”

When I immediately stiffen, he pulses his hips. Caught on the rougher fabric of his jeans, my leggings drag upward, pulling the seam tighter between my legs. A small, choked whimper leaves me.

“Listening ears back on?”

Annoyance pierces my sensory overwhelm. “Asshole,” I hiss.

My back vibrates with his low chuckle, but there’s more threat than humor in it. “You’re right. I’m such an asshole. Only an asshole would be sick with worry for a woman who told him he might as well have overdosed because he was as good as dead to her.”

A hammer hits my heart. “I didn’t mean that. ”

He counters calmly, “I never held it against you. Honestly, I felt like I deserved worse for what I did.” A sigh ruffles my hair.

“Regardless, you’re not wrong. I’m still an asshole.

I’ve decided to disregard your request to leave you alone.

It’s been almost seven years. I’m done playing dead.

Done pretending my heart will ever stop belonging to you. ”

A different hammer hits my chest, this one spiked.

Catastrophic .

“No. You can’t say that. You don’t mean that. Let me go.”

Water and soap fly over the counter and backsplash as I struggle against him. But he only holds me closer, tighter, as he speaks in a voice of gravel and iron.

“Right now you have two choices. One, you shut your beautiful mouth and listen because I haven’t finished. Or two, I take you to the nearest bed and fuck the stubbornness out of you.”

My whole body shudders, my clit pulsing so incessantly I know a purposeful touch would send me over the edge. A moan rockets up my throat. I manage to catch it before it escapes, but I’m powerless to stop my hips from searching for friction.

Wilder muffles a groan on my shoulder. “Stop that. This is hard enough without coming in my pants.” He pauses, then chuckles. “Punny. ”

With a breathless note of hysteria, I sag against the counter. Wilder nuzzles my neck, inhaling deeply and humming when I tremble.

“Option one it is.”

I stare into the sink, musing that my sanity is draining away with the last of the soap. At the thought, guilt pricks me for wasting so much water.

He slaps the faucet off.

My mouth drops open. “What, are you psychic now?”

“Runs in the family,” he replies lightly, like he didn’t just threaten to fuck me, laugh at his own pun, then read my mind.

“Suffice to say, when your parents left my house, I was pretty freaked out. They were vague about why you needed help. Lily and Rye didn’t have answers, either, at least not ones that were good enough.

“I needed to see you in person, to draw my own conclusions. So I found out where you’d be on New Year’s Eve and yes, I ambushed you.

But you ambushed me, too. Because instead of finding the indomitable Evangeline-fucking-Sullivan, I found one of those wooden dolls that hide a bunch of smaller dolls inside it. ”

“A Matryoshka doll,” I say in spite of myself.

“Exactly. You’d covered yourself with a dozen protective layers, thinking no one would notice.” His voice lowers to a rasp. “Did you think for one fucking second I wouldn’t see all the way to the center of you?”

Closing my eyes, I shake my head helplessly. “Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?”

“You know what I want.”

The undisguised need in his voice sends a wave of blistering heat beneath my skin. I’m seized by longing so intense it scalds, so bright it spears into the deepest shadows of my psyche.

For a single moment, I imagine it. Us. Then what lives in those shadows—complex knots of memory and pain—rears up in defense of itself.

“I can’t.” My voice is reedy, naked with fear. My heart whispers the rest: I won’t survive you twice.

Wilder tenses, his exhale harsh on my neck, then straightens and steps back. My body immediately protests the loss. Locking my knees, I transfer my pruned hands to the lip of the sink.

I don’t have the courage to face him, a weakness I’m grateful for when he says the same thing, in the same empty tone, that he did when I told him I wished he were dead.

“I hear you.”

I flinch. “I-I’m sorry.”

“Evangeline, no.” Dry amusement and self-deprecation tangle in the soft words.

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re exempt from apologizing to me for anything, for all time.

I shouldn’t have said that. And it doesn’t matter, anyway.

It doesn’t change anything. I’m not going anywhere.

” After a moment, he adds, “As your friend.”

“What if I hit you with a car? Should I apologize then?”

There’s a beat of silence, then his smiling reply, “Just say ‘oops’ or something.”

I bite my cheek to keep from laughing, knowing the sound won’t resemble anything sane.

There’s also a chance I’ll sob, risking the delicate boundary just restored by inviting his physical comfort.

And while my skin hums at the prospect, muscles deep within me clenching in agreement, I breathe through the sensations.

What I feel now merely confirms what I’ve always known. Nothing will ever diminish my desire for Wilder. Not pain, time, or distance. My ears will always long for his voice, my eyes for his face, my body for his.

He’s like the eczema on the back of my knees—even when it’s dormant for long periods, it’s still there, just waiting for the right conditions to flare up.

I reach for a nearby hand towel and start wiping up the small puddles around the sink.

“Is the hard part over?” I ask, attempting levity.

There’s a pause, then I hear the familiar, whispery swish of his fingers dragging through his hair. And I know what he’s going to say before he says it.

“Not quite.”

“Then just say what you want to say. I have to get going soon.”

The water is gone, the sink clean. But I keep wiping, my movements rote but necessary, providing a tiny buffer between my body and mind.

“Your parents came to me as a last resort, probably because they knew I had nothing left to lose. What was the worst thing that could happen? You tell me you hate me, to fuck off? Been there, done that.”

His amused tone lessens the sting of his words, but I still stiffen.

“If it makes you more comfortable to believe I’m here because your parents guilted me, go right ahead.

But it was only a matter of time before I showed up.

You think I didn’t notice your light dimming over the last two years?

You think I didn’t know why ? I wish I’d come sooner.

I should have. I should have let go of my stupid attachment to the idea that staying away from you was the only way I could make amends. ”

I turn before I can stop myself. “This hero-complex shit is getting old. I don’t need you or anyone else to save me.”

His jaw works. “I’m not trying to save you,” he grinds out. “I’m trying to give you a weapon that will help you save yourself.”

I toss the towel down and cross my arms. “And what’s that?”

The forest of his eyes turns dark. “Clay has a history of preying on young, vulnerable women. Once they’re seduced, he begins slowly undermining their self-worth.

Forcing them into smaller and smaller versions of themselves.

Gaslighting them until eventually they start thinking they’re the crazy ones. Sound familiar?”

I swallow thickly.

“Ask me how I know, Evangeline.”