Chelsea Fine - Best Kind of Broken

Probably smoking-ass hot.

But wrong, wrong, wrong.

I force my eyes to stay on the scar, the only thing powerful enough to put distance between us, and with a deep inhale, I close my eyes and lift away from Pixie’s bed. My body is in agony as I back away from her hot, open body.

She stays in the sinful position for a beat, then pulls herself up until she’s sitting cross-legged. She takes a deep breath, and the light from her window shines blue on her chest as it rises with air.

I clear my throat and overenunciate my words. “Can I please use your phone?”

She slowly stands up and straightens her shirt before looking up at me. “No.”

“Ugh.” I pull at my hair. “Why are you such a pain in the ass?”

She makes a face. “Why don’t you ever let me take a hot shower?”

I lean in. “If you want a hot shower, then shower at night.”

“I can’t shower at night. If I shower at night, then I’ll have to dry my hair at night, and if I dry my hair at night, then I’ll have to straighten my hair at night, and then I’ll have to sleep on my straightened hair, and when I sleep on my straightened hair, it gets all poofy.”

I blink at her.

“I don’t like it when my hair gets poofy!” She thrusts her hands out like I’m supposed to know poofy hair is a nighttime-shower-related problem. “Why don’t you shower at night?”

“Because I like pissing you off!” I raise my voice.

She raises her voice to match mine. “Why?”

“Because fighting doesn’t hurt!”

It’s the most honest thing either one of us has said to each other in nearly a year and it just hangs there, in the silence, like a gaping black hole.

Her lips part, and I see the fight drain from her expression.

No.

No, no.

Fight, dammit.

Lavender-scented body heat starts circling around me, tucking me into something lost and safe, making me feel wanted and worthy and all the other things I shouldn’t feel.

She’s all big eyes and fragile bones, with her pretty mouth tilted up as she scans my face and softly asks, “Does it hurt you to be around me?”

It hurts and it heals.

It aches and it comforts.

I swallow and quietly say, “Does it hurt you to be around me?”

Neither of us responds as we gaze at each other in the moonlight.

I step back from the sweet, warm haze Pixie just wrapped around me with her goddamn goodness and shake my head. Not saying anything, just shaking my head like an idiot, I leave her room.

This morning the electricity has been magically turned back on, and I don’t care about my cold shower as water runs over my shoulders. I stare at the simple white wall in front of me, thinking about last night.

The anger. The hurt. The cruel wanting we can’t entertain against the backdrop of the thing we don’t talk about.

Just thinking.

I rinse the conditioner from my hair and turn off the shower.

When Charity died, it was like the friendship Levi and I had died too. Our bond just sort of disappeared.

At her funeral, every instinct in my soul wanted to run after him and find comfort in the arms of the boy who was my hero, but I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t face the shame I’d feel in his presence.

I had been reckless with Charity. I’d been reckless with me. And because of my poor judgment, Levi had lost his sister.

I didn’t know how to face him, so I never did.

And now here I am, living next door to him and trying to ignore pretty much everything that comes up between us.

My scar. The ghost of Charity’s memory.

The magnetic heat that just magically appears whenever we’re near each other…

Yeah. Lots of ignoring going on.

I wrap a towel around my body and step into the hallway just as Levi steps out of his room. Our eyes meet, and at first it’s really uncomfortable.

Like, Oh crap. I was hoping to avoid you until the end of time.

And then it’s normal.

Like, Hello, old friend whom I grew up with and trust with my life.

And then it’s dangerous.

Like, Can I help you out of your towel and slip you into something more comfortable? Like my bed, perhaps?

The tension in the hallway is hot and foreboding as his gaze strays from my face to every other part of my tiny-toweled body. And I’m checking him out in all his white-T-shirt-worn-jeans hotness, and my thoughts are going no place pure.

I feel the heat in my cheeks as I stare at the way his shirt pulls tight across his chest and molds to his muscles and, just when my body’s getting too hot for a towel, his eyes snap to mine.

It’s uncomfortable again. He goes back into his room and shuts the door behind him.

I stand confused for a second, barefoot and damp in the hallway, trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with us. It’s like we can’t get our chemistry right. It’s either rude and mean, or sad and heavy, or hot and naughty.

Where’s the happy medium?

God damn.

Pixie needs to start wearing a muumuu wherever she goes. I can’t do this seeing-her-half-naked-all-the-time shit. With her long legs and flushed skin and her warm, wet body…

God damn.

I shake my head like that’s going to clear up all the guilt and lust I have warring inside me and exit my bedroom for the second time this morning. I have work to do. I have stuff to fix.

Douche bag Daren is loitering at the bottom of the stairs, making my morning just fucking perfect as I head to the front desk.

“ ’Sup, Andrews?” he says.

’Sup?

He’s a white boy in a polo shirt. ’Sup is he’s a poser.

I don’t respond.

“Is Sarah upstairs?” He scratches his neck.

“She’s busy.” Apparently, I just spew shit sometimes.

“With what?”

Not with me, that’s for sure. Though I could certainly keep her busy and—god damn, Pixie in her towel!

I sigh. “What do you want, Ackwood?”

He narrows his eyes. “Are you two… like… together?”

And now my head is swimming with all the possibilities of “together,” and most of them—hell, all of them—involve no clothes and tangled body parts.

“Why?”

He shrugs, all confident and douchey. “You seem pretty possessive of her; that’s all.”

“Whatever, man,” I say and move past him.

Pixie’s not mine. I don’t care.

I’m not sure where Daren goes after that because I force myself not to turn around. But damn if I don’t want to track him down and put a leash on him.

“Morning.” Ellen smiles at me from behind the front desk.

Haley’s nowhere to be found, so I assume she’s late.

“Morning. I called the alarm company this morning. Here’s the estimate,” I say, handing her a price sheet. “They can come out as early as next week to do the install. You just need to call them back to set up a time.”

“Perfect.” She smiles. “Your To Do list is on my desk. You’re awesome, Levi.”

I purse my lips and nod before heading to her office. I’m not awesome. I’m a loser who calls Pixie names.

But for some reason, Ellen doesn’t hate me.

When my parents split, I didn’t take their separation well. I knew they blamed me for Charity’s death. Hell, I blamed me. But after they left town, things just went even more downhill.

I no longer cared about my grades or school in general. Football wasn’t a problem for me because I got to step onto the field and do my job—and do it well—and step off the field without incident. It was the only thing I didn’t hate about my existence.

But at one of our last games of the season this past winter, I absently looked up in the stands for Pixie and Charity, temporarily forgetting how drastically different my life had become. I searched the stands for my personal cheerleading section, and when reality hit and I realized that I would never see Charity—or Pixie—cheering me on ever again, I just choked.

I couldn’t play. I didn’t want to play.

Not then. Not ever.

I was failing my classes. I was failing as quarterback. I was spiraling down a winding staircase of guilt and grief. And then I got the academic probation notice from Dean Maxwell.

Needless to say, I had no desire to try at anything in life, let alone my studies, so I lost my football scholarship and, therefore, lost my room in the dorms. The day I packed up my things and drove away from ASU in my truck, I was a homeless college dropout without a job or a future.

I was halfway to Copper Springs when I realized I didn’t have a home to go back to. Why I didn’t call one of my buddies to see if I could crash at his place, I’m not sure. Shame maybe? I probably didn’t want to explain how my parents bailed on me because, you know, I killed my sister.