Page 42 of Further To Fall

“Dude, what’s wrong?” Liam asked. Both he and Ford wore looks of startled concern.

“I’m just over this. Can we get out of here?”

“Sure,” Ford answered.

Some of my life may have gone to shit, but I had some of the best friends in the world. We exited the club, John along with Liam’s security guard clearing a path. “Let’s get some food,” Liam suggested. “I’m starving.”

“Sounds good,” I said, cracking my neck.

Soon, we had found a twenty-four-hour diner and were spread out in a booth with more food than a small army would need laid out in front of us. “So, you want to tell us what’s going on?” Liam asked.

I swallowed my bite of fried chicken and studied him. He was my in. If anyone could get Carter to let me back into her life, it was Liam. “I just thought this would all feel differently. Make me happier or something. But it just all feels kind of…” I let my words trail off, not wanting to seem like a total ungrateful pansy-ass.

“Empty?” Liam chimed in.

“Yeah.”

“I know what you mean, man. The things you thought would mean everything to you can turn out to mean shockingly little.”

I guess he would know better than most. Liam’s career had only reached even higher heights over the past couple of years, but he still hadn’t found that one person to share it with.

Ford cleared his throat. “Are you finally going to pull your head out of your ass and realize you let go of the one person who would have made this all fun?”

“I didn’t let her go, she walked away.”

“And you let her,” Ford shot back.

“Liam told me not to call her!” I said, shooting a scowl in his direction.

Ford let out a scoffing laugh. “You’re going to use that as an excuse? When have you everletsomeone stop you from going after something you wanted?”

He made a damn good point. I had bowed out of the most important fight of my life because I was afraid. That stopped today. I wanted Carter back in every possible way. I wanted her in ways I’d only dreamt about. Her skin against mine, her hair raining down around me as she took all of me. My cock jerked to life in a way it hadn’t in months. I had been without my girl for way too fucking long. I was finally ready to fight for her, even if I had to defeat her and my own demons in the process.

Liam must have recognized the look of determination in my eyes because he said, “You’re going to have one hell of a battle on your hands. You ready for that?”

I jerked my head in a nod. “I will be.”

“Good, now get to work.”

23

Carter

The sound of a sliding glass door had me turning away from the view of downtown LA and towards Kyle’s questioning face. “Who were you talking to?”

I forced a smile. “Just Liam.”

Kyle’s eyes went just a little stormy. “He’s at Austin’s fight, isn’t he?”

My stomach sank. I did not want to get into yet another argument with Kyle about a person who was no longer in my life. To be fair, Kyle probably sensed that my heart just wasn’t into this relationship. After I had finally said yes to a date with Kyle three months ago, I just kept saying yes to the dates that followed.

Our relationship was comfortable, easy, with no real drama or heartache, but there were no real sparks either. Kyle was kind and thoughtful; never made me second-guess his feelings for me. However, lately, Kyle had begun to press. Press for more of my time. Press for a more serious relationship. Press for more of my body than I was ready to give. I was starting to think that Liam was right, maybe it was time to end things. But I just wasn’t prepared to throw in the towel quite yet.

“Yeah, but he’s back tomorrow.”

Kyle nodded his head jerkily and then reached for my hand. “Come inside, let’s watch a movie.”

“Okay.” Curling up on Kyle’s couch while he searched for a movie he wanted me to watch, my eyes traveled over the space. Everything was utilitarian with no real heart or warmth. Granted, he was a guy, so I didn’t know what I really expected.

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