Your Fault (Culpable Book 2)

I locked eyes with the girl who had just come from the bar.

Briar Palvin.

I couldn’t believe it.

The guy she was hanging off let her go and walked over to his friend. I was pissed enough to take on four guys if I had to. But seeing Briar there threw me off. I saw surprise in her face just as I looked away to concentrate on the other two assholes.

“What? You’re going to do something, dumbass?”

I clenched my fist, ready to shut his mouth for him. They thought I’d back down because there were two of them… Big mistake. The only thing that kept me from leaving them both on the ground bleeding was the girl who was squeezing my arm just then.

“Nicholas, please,” Noah insisted.

The blond guy stepped forward, right into my personal space.

“If you’re smart, you’ll back off,” I said, controlling my tone.

“Or else what?” The other one came up beside him. I could easily have flattened them both, but that wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t the time nor the place, especially not with Noah around.

I looked over at Briar and saw she had walked away and was coming back with the gorilla who watched over the door. The big guy sneered at us as he came to a stop.

“Get out of here if you don’t want me to call the cops. I’m talking to all three of you.”

I guess the guys got scared because they backed down, so I escaped the need to bruise my knuckles and get into an even worse fight with Noah.

But I had a bigger problem now. I knew it when I saw Briar walk over to Noah and wrap an arm around her. I tried as hard as I could to come up with something to say to that girl with the fire-red hair. Her eyes were utterly indifferent to me.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us, Morgan?” she asked in that angelic voice that she used whenever it was convenient for her.

Nervous, Noah looked at me and bit her lip. I’d have liked to tell her to stop, not to hurt herself, but then she said something, and every single alarm in my body went off.

“Nick, this is my new roommate, Briar. Briar, this is my boyfriend, Nicholas.”

I stood there for a few seconds before I managed to reach out and shake the hand she presented to me.

I couldn’t believe this was happening. Briar Palvin was the last girl I’d ever have chosen to live with Noah. She had known the very worst parts of me. And when I said the worst, I meant the worst.

“It’s a pleasure. Nicholas…?” she said, waiting for a response.

“Leister,” I grunted through pursed lips.

As if she didn’t know… I couldn’t understand why she was pretending not to recognize me, but it was too late for explanations. Anyway, the last thing I wanted was to give Noah more reasons to doubt our relationship. Briar Pelvin was a part of my past, and that’s where she was going to stay.

“We’re on our way,” I said, pulling Noah off toward my car.

“Wait,” Noah said, wriggling away. “Are you okay to drive, Briar?” she asked, worried.

I wanted to pick Noah up and stuff her in the trunk. She was always worried about things that weren’t her business. Briar knew perfectly well whether she was in any condition to drive, and if she wasn’t, she could figure out a way to get home safe and sound on her own. I knew her games.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. Go patch things up with your boyfriend,” she said, pretending to whisper, though I could hear her perfectly.

Noah smiled at her, as if they’d been friends all their lives, and I got in and hit the ignition, trying not to listen.

As Noah turned around to get in the passenger seat, I met Briar’s gaze. Her feline green eyes revealed more than I had expected, and I knew when I saw her smile that I had to get Noah away from her as soon as possible.

It was silent as a grave while I drove. It had been a long time since Noah had seen me angry, looking for a fight. I’d promised her that was over, but it was hard to leave behind that part of myself. I’d never been a good little boy, and when I saw that idiot getting close to her…

I cut the motor and turned to look at her. She was shifting nervously in her seat.

I pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. She didn’t move, but her skin got goose bumps as my fingers paused on her earlobe. She looked at me, first at my eyes, then at my wrist. There was something strange in her expression. I took a deep breath.

“I got the tattoo because I wanted to, Noah. I like those words, and I like them even more coming from you. Plus, you’re the one who wrote them there.”

“Can I see?” she asked.

I stretched out my arm, and she carefully grabbed my wrist and turned it over, exposing it. Then she traced the words she had written with her fingertip.

I shivered.

“I like it,” she said finally, looking back at me.

Why was it so complicated to love her? If she would just let go, we would be perfect for each other. If she weren’t so scared, I’d love her without any ifs, ands, or buts.

I pulled her toward me, but she pressed a hand against my chest, stopping me. She looked down and froze.

“Nicholas, no. We always do the same thing,” she said.

“What same thing?” I asked.

She looked away from my eyes and toward the streetlights in front of us.

“You can’t act the way you did over the phone and then come here like nothing’s happened and give me three or four kisses and then it’s all forgotten… I’m going to a psychologist for you, I’m doing therapy, I’m telling my entire life to a perfect stranger for you, and what is it you’re worried about? That he’s young, and that, according to you, I’m too fucked up for him to be able to help me… The fact is you’re jealous.”

“It’s not jealousy, Noah. I want you to be okay. I want the best psychologist for you, not just the first one who comes along.”

“You want to control everything, Nicholas, but there are things you can’t control. It’s my decision who I want to tell everything to and who I choose to trust. All you seem to be able to think about is how my psychologist is a man. But there are men everywhere! You can’t just keep me trapped in a bubble! You wouldn’t be acting like this if it were a woman treating me.”

“I just want the best for you! For you to fucking get better for once!”

Her eyes opened wide, surprised and incredulous. Then I saw the pain in them a second later.

Shit.

“To fucking get better,” she repeated, her voice cracking on this last syllable. I didn’t even have time to stop her from getting out of the car and slamming the door.

Getting out as quickly as I could, I caught her as she dialed a number on her phone.

“Who are you calling?” I asked.

When she turned and looked at me with tears in her eyes, I said, “Noah, I wasn’t saying there’s something wrong with you,” trying to assuage her.

“Get away from me,” she said, holding an arm out to fend me off as she brought the phone to her ear. “I’m not sick, Nicholas. I can’t believe you said that to me.”

Goddammit!

She stepped back, I stepped forward, and she repeated the words, “I said, get away from me!”

I cursed between clenched teeth as I heard her tell someone where we were.

“Noah, listen,” I pleaded as she put her phone away.

With fire in her eyes, she said, “Nicholas, this isn’t easy for me! I’m doing everything I can to try to be normal, to get our relationship to work, but you aren’t trying to understand me. All you do is throw stuff in my face; you don’t trust me, and I’m over it!”

Those words were like stakes being driven into my heart one by one.

“Noah, that’s not what I intended,” I replied, trying to get her to calm down. “I don’t think you’re sick. I never thought that. All I want is for you to get better, not to be afraid, to stop running from me—that’s it.”

“No, Nick, what you want is for me to get better according to your definition of what that means,” she said, hugging her bare arms. “This is nuts… You’re the one who needs help! You’re seeing threats where there aren’t any!”

I charged over, not caring that she was backing up or that her eyes were telling me to stay where I was. I grabbed her arms and crouched to look closely at her.

“You’re doing it again… You’re looking for any excuse you can find to distance yourself from me. Why?”

She shook her head. “I think we need some time,” she said, looking at the ground.

“You can’t be serious.”

A tear balanced on the edge of one of her eyelids, as though unwilling to fall.

“I think we both need time to look at things with a different perspective. We need to miss each other, Nick…because right now I don’t even recognize you. We don’t recognize each other. All I see is jealousy everywhere, and that’s not good.”

“Don’t do this. Don’t pull away from me.” I grabbed the sides of her face, came close, tried to touch her lips with mine.

“It’s just a few days, Nick. Give me time to assimilate everything that’s happened. I didn’t just leave home; I left my second home—your home—too… I’ve started talking about my past. I’m stirring up old memories. It hurts, and I’m worried there’s not enough of me for you.”

I pulled her in, hugging her tightly.

“You’re all I need, my love. Please don’t pull away from me.” I pushed her head back and kissed her as gently as I could, full of tenderness, but also full of passion. She quivered and pulled away.

“We’ve both got problems we need to take care of, Nicholas. Screaming in each other’s faces isn’t doing anything. You need to learn to trust me, and I need to stop running from the things I feel. I love you too much, Nick. I love you so much, it hurts.”

I couldn’t breathe, but I couldn’t turn around and leave, not without her, not as I watched her swallowing her own tears.

“That’s exactly why there’s no point in us being apart. We’re not made for that, you and I, remember?” I said, wiping away a tear that had escaped from her beautiful eyes.

“I need to think… I need to know what it is I want, what I’m missing, because right now, all I ever do is think about you, and even if a part of me knows that I need you, there’s another part of me that’s disappearing. Nicholas, without you, there is no Noah, and that’s not right. I can’t depend on you in that way because I’ll wind up losing myself… Don’t you see that?”

What I saw was a gorgeous girl destroyed, and it was my fault because I didn’t know how to make her happy. Why not, though? What was I doing wrong? What had happened to those days when Noah had smiled at me a hundred times a day? Where was that shimmer that used to overtake her as soon as we locked eyes?

Was she right? Was I changing her?

A sudden glare lit her up from behind. Noah looked back, and as I saw her face, I could tell she was about to fall apart.

I took a deep breath and tried to set my feelings aside.

“I’ll give you a week, Noah,” I said, looking straight at her to try to convince her of the seriousness of my words. “I’ll give you a week to miss me through your every pore, seven days for you to realize where you belong is with me and no one else.”

She stood still, and I bent over to kiss those sensual lips, that precious mouth, that mouth that belonged to me, and I hugged her close, sharing my warmth with her, my desire, my pain at letting her go.

We were panting when I pulled away.

“Seven days, Noah.”

I watched her get into the car. When I saw a flash of red behind the windshield, I realized it was Briar who had come to get her.

The fear of them talking made me instantly repent about letting her go.