I’m okay with hurt.
It’s losing I can’t handle.
CHAPTER 28
DIFFERENT PERFECT
The pool house in Lex’s backyard is bigger than Marco’s entire apartment. Her mom spared no expense outfitting it with an L-shaped sofa and a flat-screen TV, a pool table and air hockey, and a stocked kitchen and full-size bathroom.
In middle school, Lex and I spent hours planning the parties we’d throw here and which boys we’d kiss when we played Spin the Bottle. We only ended up playing once, with Abel and his cousin who was visiting for the summer. After a six-pack of beer and a dozen do-overs, Lex’s spin landed on Abel, and she freaked out and puked in the bathroom before she kissed him.
Right now, I’m the one who feels like puking. I don’t know if Marco will go for my plan.
Perched on the window seat, I hug my knees in the dark, watching for signs of movement near the driveway. The rain plays tricks on my eyes. It feels like forever before I spot Marco’s familiar gait. Strong and lean, hands shoved in his pockets as if nothing can touch him.
I crack the door open, and he speeds up when he sees me. God, he’s beautiful—even with a T-shirt plastered to his chest and rain running down his face.
He stops at the door, and the hunger in his eyes makes my knees weak. I grab his wet shirt and pull him inside. “You’re soaked. How far away did you park?”
“Far enough to keep Lex from getting in trouble.” Marco touches my hips and tugs me toward him, careful to leave just enough distance between us to keep me dry. His fingers graze the skin above the waistband of my jeans, sending shivers up my spine. He shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut, as if he’s in physical pain.
I push the wet hair away from his eyes and press my hand against his cheek. “Are you all right? Did something happen?” I search his face for bruises or signs of a fight.
“I didn’t think you’d call.”
“I told you how I felt about you.” My hand slides behind his neck.
“I know. But I figured after you had some time to let it all sink in, you’d change your mind.” He raises his head, and our eyes lock. “You deserve a lot better than a car thief, Frankie.”
I hook both arms around his neck and press closer. The water from his wet shirt and jeans seeps into mine. “That isn’t who you are.”
Marco’s eyes flicker to my mouth, and he leans closer. I lick my lips and he watches, his breath coming faster. His lips crush mine, and our mouths fall into perfect rhythm. He wraps an arm around my waist and picks me up. I lean against the wall behind me and drag his hips closer.
Marco moans against my lips. “What are you doing to me, Angel?”
The sound of his voice ignites a need in me that I never knew existed. With our bodies pressed together like this, it’s impossible not to feel Marco’s need, too. His lips brush mine and he pulls back, leaving his arms draped over my shoulders.
I search his face for a clue that will tell me why he stopped.
“What’s wrong?”
“Would it sound crazy if I said this was too right?” His voice is raw and deep.
“Yes.”
He goes silent for what feels like minutes when he’s looking me in the eye like this. “Kissing you isn’t like kissing other girls.” I cringe, and he curses under his breath. “That came out wrong. I meant it’s different with you.”
Not helping. “Different good or different bad?”
He moves one of his hands away from the wall and traces a line with his fingertip from the bridge of my nose down the center of my lips to the hollow at the bottom of my throat. “Different perfect. The kind of perfect that tells me I’ll never be able to forget kissing you.”
No one has ever said anything like that to me. I repeat the words in my head so I can remember exactly the way Marco said them.
“Do you want to forget?”
“Your dad is investigating me, Frankie. And he’s not wrong.” He shivers, and I touch his arm. He’s freezing.
“I have an idea. But you need to get out of these wet clothes.” I tug on the hem of his shirt.
He smiles—that sexy-sweet bad-boy smile I think about way too often. “Are you asking me to strip?”
“Go in the bathroom and find something dry.” I give him a little shove. “There’s a changing room.”
“I bet.” Marco looks around for the first time. He’s probably comparing it to his modest apartment, and I’m embarrassed by the excess. He kicks off his high-tops and crosses the dark room.
When Marco returns, he’s shirtless and barefoot, still wearing his wet jeans.
“You didn’t change.” Not that I’m complaining. The moonlight skims every gorgeous muscle from his shoulders to his abs.
He tosses the towel into the bathroom. “Whoever wears all those checkered golf shorts in there isn’t exactly my size. This is as close to dry as I could get.” Marco sits next to me on the sofa.
I’ve never seen his tattoos all at once, and I can’t look away.
Black bands encircle one arm, and the sleeve of tattoos covers the outside of the other. I touch the pile of skulls that curves around his wrist and trace the tree growing up from the center, along the outside of his arm. The tree branches out, curving into what looks like a cliff at Marco’s elbow. But it’s another skull, less detailed than the ones near his wrist. I drag my finger over the branch that moves up his arm and morphs into the stem of a black rose. The petals open over Marco’s bicep.
What comes next takes my breath away.
The bottom of a lion’s mane curves up from the center of the rose and spreads over Marco’s shoulder. It’s drawn in a tribal style that’s different from the rest of the tattoo.
“So what’s your idea?” he asks.
“My dad and his partner aren’t really interested in you. They want the person at the top of the food chain—whoever is selling the cars. Catching the people who steal the cars is just a way to follow the chain.”
Marco frowns and clasps his hands together. “Okay…?”
“Is the guy your father owes at the top?”
“As far as I know. He’s the one who moves the cars and has them delivered to the clients. We just drop them at the docks.” Marco frowns. “Wait. I don’t like where this is going.”
“Hear me out.” I touch his knee, and he covers my hand with his.
“If you tell my dad who he is, you can make a deal. The guy who is blackmailing you will go to prison, where he belongs.”
Marco bolts off the sofa and stands across from me, his bare chest heaving like he just ran a mile. “I’m not talking to the cops, Frankie.”
“I’ll talk to my dad ahead of time and make sure you won’t get in any trouble.” The conversation isn’t going the way I hoped. “Trust me, please.”
He rakes his hands through his damp hair. “I’ll find another way out of this.”
“If you had another option, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Marco folds his arms across his chest. “The answer is still no.”
“Why?” A knot forms in my throat.
He moves toward me, arms open. “Come here.”
I want nothing more than to fall into his arms and ignore my fears and forget the pain. But I can’t ignore things anymore. I spent the summer trying, and it didn’t change anything.
I stand and hold out my hand, signaling him to stop. “No. I want an answer. Why won’t you talk to my dad if he guarantees there won’t be any fallout for you and Sofia?”
“What about Deacon? Will your father let him walk away, too? He’s in deeper than me, Frankie. When he was expelled, stealing cars became his full-time job. If we’re under investigation, your dad and his partner have probably figured that out by now.” Marco’s eyes plead for understanding. “I can’t give your dad the kind of information he’ll want without selling out Deacon. And I won’t do that.”
“Is the guy you work for threatening Deacon, too?”
 
; He shakes his head. “No. Deacon wanted in.”
“Then he belongs in jail. Are you willing to throw away your future for him?”
Marco moves toward me again, but I turn my back on him. I sense it the moment he’s behind me, even before he touches me. My body is so aware of him now. He brushes the hair over my shoulder, his fingers grazing my neck.
“Don’t.”
He steps closer, and his breath tickles the back of my neck. Strong arms reach over my shoulders and hug my back against his bare skin. “I can’t help it,” he murmurs against my neck. “Every time I see you, I want to hold you.”
“You won’t be able to if you’re in jail.”
Marco kisses my neck and slides around so he’s in front of me. “Look at me.”
If I do, I’ll break.
I keep my lashes down. “I can’t.”
He cups my face in his hands and gently raises my chin. “Before you kissed me at the party, I imagined what it would feel like. How it would feel to hold you. But I never thought…” He releases me and presses the heels of his hands against his forehead. I hate the confusion and pain in Marco’s eyes. I hate that I’m causing any part of it.
My fingers find his again, tethering us. “You never thought what?”
“I’d get the chance.”
I’m not brave enough to tell him how often he crossed my mind. “I doubt you have trouble finding girls who want to kiss you.” I nudge him with my shoulder, trying to sound playful instead of jealous.
“You’re the only girl I want to kiss.” Marco raises our intertwined hands and holds them against his heart. Our hands fit together perfectly. Not all hands fit. Or all people. “I plan on doing a lot more of it if you’ll let me. But I can’t turn on Deacon. We’re brothers, whether we share the same blood or not. He saved Sofia’s life, and he’s had my back whenever I needed him.”
The jagged scars on Deacon’s neck flash through my mind—proof of the sacrifice he made. Even if I’m not crazy about Deacon, he must have some good inside.
“My dad and his partner are really good at their jobs. It’s only a matter of time before someone screws up or they find the evidence they need to make an arrest.” And it scares me to death.
Marco rubs his nose against mine. Mom used to do the same thing, back when she was still my mom and not King Richard’s robotic queen.
“I don’t have the right to ask, but if you stick with me, all this will be over soon. Except the part about your dad hating my guts.” He nuzzles my neck, sending waves of heat through every inch of my body. “If you don’t want to decide now, I’ll give you space.” His fingers tighten around mine, his heart beating fast beneath our joined hands.
With my free hand I trace a path from the hollow of his neck and down his chest until I reach his waistband. I freeze, my hand on his stomach. “I don’t want space. I want…”
If you say it out loud, it’s real.
“What?” The anticipation in his voice makes me bold.
“I want you.” I untangle my fingers from his and loop my arms around his neck, my damp T-shirt pressing against his warm skin.
Marco stares at me, his eyes searching mine. “There’s something I need to tell you. But I’m scared it will come out wrong.”
I swallow hard. I’m afraid to ask, but I’m just as afraid not to ask. “Tell me anyway.”
He pulls me closer. “I love you, Frankie. And it’s the always kind.”
He loves me.
I forget to breathe. Or maybe I can’t.
I’ve never felt like this about anyone. I love Marco’s strength and his kindness, the way he protects the people he loves and makes me feel safe.
I love him.
But I didn’t think he could feel that way about me.
Marco’s lips brush across mine slowly … so slow that it creates sensations I’ve never experienced before. I bite my bottom lip, fighting the urge to press my mouth against his. Whatever he’s doing—the slow and deliberate contact—creates a sweet push and pull inside me.
When the tension feels unbearable, I kiss my way up his neck, and he moans. “You’re killing me.” His hands slide under my shirt, pulling it up as they reach the edge of my lacy bra. I sigh, and it unleashes the hunger between us like a dam breaking.
Marco picks me up, and I hook my legs around him. He carries me to the sofa like I weigh nothing. When my back hits the soft cushions, I tug on his bottom lip because it drives him crazy. He lowers himself over me, somehow managing to press his body against mine without crushing me with his weight.
Marco pushes my shirt up again, and I love the way his skin feels against my stomach. “Can I take this off? I want to look at you.”
I try to slip my arms out, but the damp cotton clings to me. Marco does a sweeping move with his hand, gathering the hem and slipping it up my arms and over my head.
He sits back on his heels and stares at me. The room doesn’t seem half as dark now that a gorgeous guy is checking me out in my bra. Thank you, pushy old lady in the lingerie department, for talking me into buying a decent-looking bra—one that makes what little I have appear bigger.
I cross my arms over my chest, which is one small piece of lace away from being completely exposed.
“Don’t do that.” He runs his index finger down the center of my neck, gently nudging my arms away from my chest as he continues the path to my belly button. “You’re beautiful.”
“Stop.” I try to pull him down. When he won’t budge, I prop myself up on my elbows.
He stares into my eyes with an intensity that makes me feel naked. “I want to remember this.”
Tiny flashes of light catch in my peripheral vision.
A cell phone hovering above me.
“Ready?” Noah asks. “I’ll take the picture on three. I want to remember this.”
Another flash and the memory disappears in a split second.
“Frankie?” Marco touches my cheek. “What happened?”
“I just want to remember, too.”
CHAPTER 29
FRACTURED MEMORIES
Rain pelts my skin like bullets as I stand in front of the pool house and watch Marco leave. He’s walking backward, smiling at me, clothes soaked and hair plastered against his skin. I love his smile. And him.
He blows me a kiss just before he’s out of sight.
Not knowing when we’ll have a chance to be alone again—to kiss, share secrets, and all the other things you do with someone at the beginning of a relationship—leaves me feeling lost. Worrying about whether my dad will arrest the guy I’ve fallen for makes it even worse.
The odds are against Marco, and us. We agreed to meet in the basement by the Shop classroom before school in the mornings so we can see each other.
I go back to the main house, where Lex puts my clothes in the dryer while I copy the chemistry homework Marco completed into my own handwriting. It’s the first thing Dad will ask to see when I get home.
Lex drives, and I stare out the window, listening to the thump of the windshield wipers.
“Did you guys figure things out?” she asks eventually, without taking her eyes off the road.
Did we? I don’t even know.
“Some of it. But the situation is so complicated. I’m not sure if we can figure it all out.” I tilt my head to the side and lean against the passenger-side window.
“But he makes you happy?”
I look over at Lex and nod. “Happier than anyone or anything has ever made me. What about Abel?”
“Over the summer, things between us felt right. Like magic. And I let myself care … so much more than I ever have before.” Lex takes a deep breath. “He promised not to hurt me. Instead, he’s hurting himself. He doesn’t understand that it’s the same thing.”
“He’s lost. I know how that feels, Lex. He just has to find his way back.”
“What if he can’t?”
I take her hand. “Then we’ll find him ourselves.”
“A
re you in love with Marco?”
I don’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“Does he know that?” Lex never lets me off easy.
“Does Abel know you’re in love with him?”
“I can’t afford to take that kind of chance with him. He’ll break my heart.” She sounds so sad and scared.
I tuck one of my legs underneath me. “Abel has been in love with you forever, Lex. He would never hurt you.”
“Not intentionally,” she says. “But people hurt each other all the time without meaning to. It doesn’t make it any easier when you’re the one who gets hurt.”
“You can’t hide from pain. I’ve tried.”
She turns onto the street that leads into Dad’s development. “At least it buys me some time.”
Dad’s Tahoe is parked out front.
Lex kills the engine, and rain bangs against the roof of the car. She leans over and hugs me. “Just take care of yourself, Frankie. I need my best friend.”
“Me too.”
I pull up the hood of my borrowed sweatshirt. The living room light glows in the apartment, and the drapes in front of the balcony doors slide open. I can’t see Dad through the rain, but I sense him watching me. “Wish me luck.”
“Luck,” Lex says as I jump out and run through the downpour.
By the time I make it to the stairs, I’m drenched. The second my key slides into the lock, Dad opens the door. I slip past him without a word and peel off the wet hoodie that weighs a ton now, along with my sneakers and socks.
“How did chemistry go?” he asks.
“Fine.” That’s all he’s getting from me.
“Can I see what you worked on?”
He’s so predictable.
“Why? Don’t you trust me, Dad?” I ask sarcastically.
He holds out his hand and I drop the binder on the table in front of him.
“I’ll be in my room. Just leave it on the kitchen table when you’re done.”
“Can you take a break from hating me for a few minutes? I’d like to talk.” He gestures at the chair across from him.
I take a seat. If he wants to talk, he can go first. He raps on the table a few times, then runs his hands over the stubble along his jawline. This is the Dad I’m used to—awkward and nervous around the daughter he barely knows.