Page 45 of Cruel Lies

I reached up and grabbed his ears like I used to do when we were younger, jerking his head around with a grunt at how strong he’d become. These boys really had grown up while I wasn’t looking. Now, they were men, all broken in their own ways, just like me.

I forced him nose to nose with me and waited until he met my gaze before I spoke. I needed him to see the truth in my eyes so he would believe it.

"Nashville fucking Blackwood, you stop that right now. Whatever happened here, these scars aren’t who you are. And anyone with half a lick of sense wouldn’t care about the outside. The real you is in here—" I shoved my finger pointedly into his chest, "—and these scars can’t change that."

He stopped fighting me, but I could see the conversation was over, so I released his ears and turned away first, reaching for the first aid kit instead. His eyes followed me, and he offered his arm wordlessly, back to looking anywhere but at me.

I could work with a broody and silent Nash. But what Irefused to do was watch him treat himself like a monster to justify others’ reactions. I wouldn’t let him bury himself in self-hatred.

Nash had never been as vain as Angel about his looks, but he’d been a chick magnet nonetheless, with his pretty curls that danced around his head when he took off his football helmet, those eyes the color of warm earth, with the faint gold ring around the outside that reflected the sunlight when he tilted his head just right, and those long, nimble fingers he used to strum the strings of his guitar at bonfires. Back when he was a carefree, cocksure Nash, he’d never wanted for attention.

To see it all fall away after—well, after whatever happened to give him those scars—would wreck any man. Let alone one as high on life as Nashville Blackwood.

He didn’t wince when I washed his wound with alcohol. Didn’t flinch when I took out the sewing kit and put two stitches in the edges of his skin to seal the wound. He didn’t even roll his eyes when I covered it with gauze and patted it like a proud parent. But when I moved to slide off the counter, he stopped me, his hands caging me in on either side as he leaned in and forced me to look at him.

His gaze flickered from eye to eye, searching my gaze for something he couldn’t speak out loud. Whatever he found there must have satisfied him, and he shoved off the counter, offering his good arm as leverage as I hopped down and put solid ground beneath my feet again.

"You stripped my bed," he muttered as he cleaned up the broken glass on the counter, the towel sinking lower on his hips as he moved. "Why did you bother?"

I could hear a hint of the old Nash in there, slipping out around his hardened outer shell. It made me smile despite the amount of pain I felt at the way he saw himself, the way he hurt because of the ignorance and judgment of others. "Well, when a girl puts her hand in a pile of mingled bodily fluids, I’d say it’stime to do some laundry. I didn’t see a washer and dryer in the apartment, or whatever you guys call this place, so I assume there’s some facilities on site somewhere that you can use to clean it." I quirked a brow at him as his lips twitched in an involuntary smirk. "I assume you know how to use a washing machine by now. And I couldn’t find replacement sheets, so I couldn’t make the bed again."

"I don’t have any," he admitted, "but I’m sure Angel or Rowan do. You could ask them, if you want."

My grin widened despite myself. There he was, the Nash I remembered, trying to con me into doing his dirty work. "You can ask them yourself. I’m not your maid, Nashville Blackwood."

"Why do you call me that?" he asked, cocking his head with those brows of his scrunched up in the middle of his forehead. "Nobody else does."

"It’s your name, isn’t it?"

He shrugged. "More or less."

"Then I don’t see why I can’t call you that. Unless you don’t like it. Then I’ll only use it when you’re in trouble."

He rolled his eyes at me, sighing like it was a chore to put up with me. "Now you sound like my mother."

"She’s a smart woman. I could think of worse people to be like." I moved to walk away but stopped at the door to the bathroom, my hand on the doorframe as I tossed him a parting glance over one shoulder. "You know, you don’t have to hide who you are from me. I’ve seen a lot in the last seven years. I’m not the pampered little princess I used to be. People change."

His parting words cut me to the bone.

"Yeah, they do. But not always for the better."

TWENTY-ONE

ROWAN

Harper calledin sick to her job for the next few days, then coasted through the weekend without so much as a peep. The three of us tried to go on about our business like she wasn’t there, but that turned out to be the hardest thing we’d ever done, considering there was now a whole ass female living right under our noses. Somehow, there was no way to really ignore that, especially when you shared living space with one.

I put her up in the office and swapped out the loveseat for a bigger futon so she would have something more substantial to sleep on. She might be short, but cramming yourself into an S-shape to fit on a two-seater sofa was unhealthy for anyone. When Nash and I hefted it up the stairs and into the rooms, Angel huffed at us, rolled his eyes, and pointedly ignored us for the rest of the day. I could tell he wasn’t into the idea of keeping her here. Everything we did felt like another nail in his coffin, another piece of proof that she wasn’t going to go anywhere anytime soon.

Nash didn’t go out of his way to interact with her after theincident,but he didn’t avoid her, either, the result being some very intense, silent standoffs when the two of them were both awake.

I started to lose sleep. Pretending she wasn’t just a room away, wearing any manner of skimpy pajamas as she stretched out on my couch, her soft whimpers and occasional night terrors keeping me on edge as I waited for her to need me, it was all so difficult, almost unbearable. I’d drift off leaning against the wall with my door cracked, just in case.

She never once called out for me or came looking for a shoulder to cry on.

One night, after I managed to sleep through one of her night terror episodes out of sheer exhaustion and sleep deprivation, I found her in the kitchen with Angel, mocking him playfully as he smeared peanut butter on an apple slice, his go-to midnightsnack.

The idea of her turning to Angel before she’d turn to me felt like a betrayal. We’d burned so hot in the hallway that I thought for sure she’d come looking for me later. Instead, she was putting more space between us with every day. I had to do something to distract myself, so I turned all my attention to my father. He wasn’t the kind to hide in the shadows and have others do the dirty work for him. Everything about this felt off, but what other possible scenario was there? Harper hadn’t been making hitman-level enemies in her seven years in hiding. And there was really no one else who might benefit from her death.

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