It didn’t matter, though. It was my room, and I didn’t need to explain anything.
I crossed my arms over my chest and watched him clip his wallet chain to his pants and tuck his wallet into his pocket. I glanced over, seeing his duffel on the bed, a few clothes—all black, gray, or white—strewn about.
“Make sure you take everything with you when you leave,” I ordered, sliding off my socks and tossing them into the hamper by the door. “This is my room now.”
“Absolutely,” he said smoothly, and then finished in a hard voice, “Tatum.”
I straightened, suddenly feeling the first spark of excitement under my skin—outside of racing, anyway—in a long time. I hated being called “Tatum,” and he knew it.
We were back there again.
I looked over at him, tilting my mouth into a smile. “Tatum?” I repeated. “Those are tactics you come home armed with?” I asked.
He turned his head, eyeing me over his shoulder with a stern expression.
I laughed. “The players might be the same, Jared,” I said, untying my scrub pants and letting them fall down my leg, “but the game has changed,” I warned.
His deep brown eyes flared just slightly as his gaze swept down the long legs that he used to love and back up to my lacy, white underwear.
I turned to step into the bathroom, but I stopped to regard him over my shoulder. “This isn’t high school,” I said, eyeing him playfully. “You’re way out of your depth.”
And then I slammed the bathroom door, cutting off his view.
Chapter 4
Jared
I’d been played.
Of course, my mother’s pregnancy had forced me back home, but I should’ve been warned instead of lied to.
Tate wasn’t in fucking Italy.
She was staying with Madoc and Fallon, which Jax should’ve told me when I’d insisted on coming here first.
But no, he’d let me trail my ass upstairs to shower and clean up while we waited for Madoc to get home, and as soon I opened the damn door to that room, her smell hit me like a ten-ton tranquilizer. I was almost dizzy.
But then I remembered . . .
No. She wasn’t here. She was out of the country. The bed was made. The room was spotless. There was no one staying in here.
I’d put my bag down and started to strip as I walked into the shower, but then I noticed that someone was very much staying here.
The same products that Tate used to use for her hair and face hugged the back edge of the sink counter, and then I saw her brush, clogged with her blond hair.
And that’s when I knew.
My eyes fell closed, and I froze.
Tate was home.
She was home, and she was staying with Madoc and Fallon, and I immediately wanted to see her.
Was she okay? Was she happy? What would her face look like when she saw me again?
After so long, I just wanted to see her.
Until I noticed the condoms.
She had a small box sitting in her makeup bag, and they damn well weren’t ours. After she’d gotten on birth control in high school, we’d stopped using them.
I pushed away from the sink and nearly ripped off the rest of my clothes, diving into the shower before I broke anything and everything in the bathroom.
I hated her. I wanted to hate her. Why did I still want her?
Fuck!
I kept my head under the hot water for a long time, the loud cascade of heat drowning out my thoughts as I slowly brought myself back down.
The condoms were a trigger—a reminder—that she was having sex with someone else.
I knew that, and she was free to do it. We weren’t together, and I shouldn’t be upset. She’d never judged me for all the ass I took before we were dating, and her life was none of my business. I shouldn’t be mad.
But that didn’t stop me. Reason never stopped me from trying to keep her in my orbit. After I got out of the shower, I emptied the box into the toilet and flushed, and whomever she was screwing could go fuck himself.
And that was even truer the second I heard her voice drift in from the bedroom when she’d arrived. I could tell by the one-sided conversation that she was on the phone, and I leaned down, bracing myself on the countertop, knowing she was about to walk in at any second. And then I lifted my head, she opened the door, and . . .
And I held her.
Everything flooded back. Every breath, every kiss, every smile, every tear, everything about her was mine.
Her stormy blue eyes, which have held me captivated since she was ten years old; the heavy rise and fall of her chest, which I’d held flush with mine so many times; and the ten different emotions that crossed her face, each of which had been directed at me at some time or another during high school. They all hit me at once.
I still loved her.
My pulse raced and I could feel it all through my body.
But then she’d stunned me. My natural inclination was to challenge her as I always had, and the words left my mouth without thinking. But she didn’t engage. She didn’t react.
I was used to Tate’s bite. She was a wildcat who pushed when you pushed, but this Tate was on a different level. She was condescending and almost cold. I didn’t know this game.
I left the room and charged down the stairs and out the front door, trying to push her out of my mind. She wasn’t the reason I was home after all.
My mother. My unborn sister. My friends.
I headed for the garages, having seen Madoc’s GTO finally sitting in the driveway.
The house featured four two-car garages, so I went for the open one and stopped at the entrance, crossing my arms over my chest as I glared at my best friend.
“You don’t even look for me when you get home?” I challenged, seeing him pause as he pushed a box onto a shelf.