Chaos series by Kristen Ashley

* * *

“Sugar, you awake?”

I opened my eyes and blinked at the blank TV.

I didn’t know what time it was but it felt late. What I did know was that I’d fallen asleep with my head on Shy’s chest, my legs curled behind me on the couch, my arm resting over his abs, his arm around me.

The last thing I remembered was being sucked into a marathon of American Chopper.

I tipped my head back and looked up at him.

“Hey, is it late?” I asked.

“Yeah, you gotta work tomorrow?” he asked back.

“Yeah,” I answered.

He nodded, gave me a squeeze and shifted to move but my arm around him tightened and he stilled.

“Why?” I asked.

“Why what?” he returned.

“Why did you ask if I have to work tomorrow?”

“Goin’ for a ride, thought, you didn’t have to work, you might want to come with me.”

He was going for a ride.

I wanted to go with him.

I wanted to go with him because I liked to ride. I wanted to go with him because he was Shy and I was me and that was what we did. It wasn’t rare, it wasn’t frequent, but he liked to be on his bike and he didn’t hesitate to offer to take me with him. I didn’t hesitate to say yes.

This, too, I was denying. How much I liked it that he asked. How much I liked to be behind him on the back of his bike.

I shifted, saying, “I’ll get some shoes.”

He gave me a squeeze and his fist came under my chin, gently tipping my head up to look at him again. “Tabby, baby, you gotta work. It’s cool. Another time.”

I held his eyes and replied quietly, “I’m alive. You’re alive. I gotta work to live so I do that and I’ll have to do that for a long time. But when I’m not workin’, I’m livin’. So let’s ride.”

His eyes moved over my face and then a slow, lazy, sexy as all hell, beautiful smile spread on his face about a millisecond before he pulled himself off the couch, taking me with him and setting me on my feet.

Then, looking down at me still smiling that unbelievable smile, he whispered, “Let’s ride.”

I smiled back, took off, grabbed my shoes. Shy held my hand all the way to his bike and we rode.

For a long time.

It.

Was.

Paradise.

Chapter Five

Apocalyptic

Two and a half months later…

“Are you insane?”

That came from my best friend Natalie, who not only asked the question but was also staring at me like I was insane.

I was back. Totally back.

I was me.

What I was not was insane.

Life had settled, grown into a pattern I liked with work and family, friends, and Shy.

I was going out again with Tyra, shopping, meeting friends for lunch, hanging with the boys, acting crazy, just like I used to.

I’d even found the time to reach out to Jason’s family, see if there were relationships there to salvage.

I couldn’t say I was tight with his mom and sisters, but I liked them in a way that I knew if we had the future we were supposed to have, I would have gotten tight with them. Though I didn’t like his dad too much. He was too straightlaced for me, and I didn’t like the way he sometimes barked at Jason, making Jason’s mouth go tight, and then later Jason would take that crap out on me. But his mom and sisters were cool.

We’d clung together after we lost Jason then naturally drifted apart, shrouded in our individual fogs of grief. But when we sat down, it was clear they didn’t want the tie to Jason that was me to be cut and I felt the same.

It was all good.

My life with Shy hadn’t changed. We saw each other all the time, I ruined dinner, he took me out on his bike, we called each other frequently, and I laughed and smiled even more.

And it had been weeks since I’d had a time where he needed to treat me as fragile and I no longer felt empty inside.

That didn’t mean the sucker punches didn’t keep coming. I’d drive by a restaurant where Jason and I went, I’d remember, and my breath would leave me. Or I’d be blow-drying my hair, looking in the mirror and remembering how Jason used to come in, dip down, and kiss my shoulder. And going to bed and waking up alone day in and day out, I still wasn’t used to that.

But I was no longer going through the motions. I was getting back to life, living it and not pretending.

Thus I was out to lunch with Natalie and sharing with her my scheme.

I looked into her pretty gray eyes framed by flawless peaches-and-cream skin and halo of fabulous ash-blonde hair with kick-ass highlights, and I narrowed my eyes.

“You are,” she stated. “You are insane.”

I leaned forward. “I’m not insane.”

“Wrong,” she declared.

“I didn’t say I was gonna go out and hunt down the man who killed Shy’s parents.”

This was the reason Natalie thought I was insane.

Although most of the time Shy and I were together I was blathering, there were some times when he talked. He shared. He laid it out. He was as comfortable giving it to me as I was giving it to him.

He talked about his parents and brother a lot, which meant they were on his mind a lot. He did it often grinning, chuckling, natural, comfortable, but as time wore on, I saw this was all an act.

Their loss bothered him.

No, it didn’t bother him. It was coming clear it was eating at him.

All his talk was understandable about his brother. He was in the Army and deployed in Afghanistan now, and I knew, even though Shy didn’t say it flat out, Shy was worried about him. I didn’t even know him but, for Shy, I was worried about him too.

It was more than that, though. It was clear they had a good family, but it was a family interrupted, and the fact that the guy who murdered his parents was never caught and Shy was still talking about it meant he didn’t have any closure. He didn’t have a way to put it behind him, and I wanted to help him heal and move on like he’d done for me.

So I figured finding the guy, bringing him to justice, if that could happen, would help Shy to heal. Or, at least, it wouldn’t hurt.

“No,” Natalie cut into my thoughts, “you’re not goin’ to find the guy yourself, but that doesn’t mean you’re not insane.”

“Why is finding that bastard insane?” I snapped.

“How many reasons do you want?” she snapped back.

“Five,” I retorted.

She sat back in her chair, lifted her hand with one finger extended and launched in. “One, you’re hiring Lee Nightingale and, girl, you know, that dude has had books written about him. They were fictionalized, but he’s also in the paper all the time, so we both know whoever wrote that shit did not tone it down. He’s the badass to end all badasses. He’s such a badass, he’s the freakin’ definition of badass, and his team of badasses only exist to define alternate nuances of the same thing.” Her chin jerked out. “Badass.”