Beautiful Oblivion (Maddox Brothers #1)(45)
Author: Jamie McGuire

Beginning with a wry smile, the guy began to say something more, but Trenton didn’t give him the chance. He lunged, grabbing the guy by the collar. They fell to the floor, and I lost sight of them. A crowd quickly formed a tight circle around the spot where they went down, and after a few seconds, Trenton’s audience flinched, covered their mouths, and shouted “Oh!” in unison.

Within seconds, Kody and Gruber descended upon them. Suddenly Trenton was standing and looking as if he’d never been in a fight. He wasn’t even breathing hard. He walked back to his beer and took a drink. His T-shirt was ripped a few inches at the collar, and his neck and cheek were spattered with blood.

Gruber wrestled Trenton’s victim out the side entrance, and Kody stood next to Trenton, out of breath.

“Sorry, Trent. You know the rules. I gotta ask you to leave.”

Trenton nodded once, took one last swig, and then walked away. Kody followed him out. I opened my mouth to call to him but wasn’t sure what else to say.

Raegan stood beside me. “Whoa.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

MY HANDS WERE SHAKING, AND WITHOUT ANY GOOD reason or excuse, I steered the Smurf into Jim Maddox’s driveway. The roads were thick with sleet and ice, and I had no business driving, but every turn I took brought me closer to Trenton. I switched off the lights before they hit the front windows of the house, and then killed the engine, letting the Jeep cruise to a stop.

My phone chimed. It was Trenton, wondering if it was my Jeep in the drive . . . as if it could be anyone else’s. When I confirmed his suspicion, the screen door opened, and Trenton walked down the steps. He was wearing fuzzy slippers and royal-blue basketball shorts, his arms crossed over his bare torso. Inch-thick, black tribal tattoos crawled over his shoulders and across his chest, and colorful, various tattoos overlapped one another as they traveled down both of his arms, cutting off abruptly at his wrists.

Trenton stopped next to my window, waiting for me to crank the window down. He readjusted his white ball cap and sat his hands on his hips, waiting for me to speak.

My eyes ran over the definition of his pec muscles, and then traveled down to appreciate all six of his beautifully protruding abdominals.

“Did I wake you?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Just got out of the tub.”

I bit my lip, trying to think of something to say.

“What are you doing here, Cami?”

Looking forward, I shook my head and pressed my lips into a hard line. “I have no idea.”

He crossed his arms over the edge of my door and leaned in. “Would you mind figuring it out? It’s cold as f**k out here.”

“Oh! God! I’m sorry,” I said, turning on the Smurf. I turned up the heater. “Get in.”

“Move over,” Trenton said.

I crawled over the gearshift and console, and bounced when I hit the passenger seat. Trenton hopped in, shut the door, and rolled the window up until there was just a crack.

“You got cigarettes?” he asked. I handed him my pack and he pulled out two. He lit them both, and then handed one to me.

I took a drag and blew it out, watching him do the same. The tension was thicker than the smoke swirling between us. Tiny bits of ice began tapping at the windows and the metal frame of the Smurf, then the sky opened up and the sound of ice tapping against the car intensified.

“You’re right. I did go home with girls,” Trenton said, raising his voice over the noise of the sleet. “More than just the ones you saw at the Red.”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“I needed to get my mind off of you.” When I didn’t respond, he turned to me. “I would let a girl rescue me from that torture every night of the week, but even when I was with someone else, all I thought about was you.”

“That’s not really . . . a compliment,” I said.

Trenton hit the steering wheel with the heel of his hand, and then blew out another puff of smoke. “I’m not trying to compliment you! I thought I was going to go out of my damn mind thinking about you being in California. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t call you, and when you got back, I was going to accept your choice. But you drove to my house. You’re here. I don’t know what to do with that.”

“I just didn’t want to miss you anymore,” I said, not knowing what else to say. “It’s so selfish, I know. I shouldn’t be here.” I breathed out all the air from my lungs and sank back into the ratty passenger seat as far as I could. Being that truthful made me feel so vulnerable. It was the first time I’d even admitted it to myself.

“What the f**k does that mean?”

“I don’t know!” I yelled. “Have you ever wanted something that you knew you shouldn’t have? That it was wrong on every level, but you knew you needed it? I liked where we were, Trent! And then you . . . we can’t get that back.”

“C’mon, Cami. I couldn’t keep going like that.”

“I know that it wasn’t fair to you. To no one else but me, really. But I still miss it, because it was preferable to the alternatives: to be with you under false pretenses, or to lose you altogether,” I said, wiping my nose. I opened the door, put my cigarette out on the runner, and then tossed the butt on the floorboard. “I’m sorry. This was such a shitty thing to do. I’ll go.” I began to step out, but Trenton grabbed my arm.

“Cami, stop. You’re not making any sense. You came here. Now you’re leaving. If there wasn’t . . . the thing, whatever it is . . . what would you do?”

I laughed once, but it sounded more like a cry. “I walked away from you in the airport. And then I spent the next two days wishing I’d stayed.”

A spark of happiness lit his eyes. “Then let’s—”

“But there is more to it than that, Trenton. I wish I could tell you so it’s out there, but I can’t.”

“You don’t have to tell me. If you need me to say that I’m okay with whatever I don’t know, I’m okay with it. I don’t give a single f**k,” he said, shaking his head.

“You can’t say that. You wouldn’t if you knew . . .”

“I know there’s something you want to tell me but can’t. If it comes out later, no matter what it is, I made the choice to move forward without knowing. That’s on me.”

“For anything else, that would be enough.”

Trenton flicked his cigarette out the window. “That makes zero f**king sense. None.”