Page 5 of Heart of Stone
“Sorry, Street, I didn't meant to use such a harsh tone, but my head is splitting with pain and I, no doubt, will be spending the next few hours in the emergency room with some shaky handed intern sewing up my scalp. And I need to know where the fuck you’ve been.” Sometimes the jealousy I felt when it came to Amy nearly gnarled me up inside. It was another reason I’d always kept myself at a distance. I was afraid of what I might do if I actually allowed myself to have her.
“I was on the boat, and, of course, there were three guyswith me and we fucked like a goddamn carnival act, trapezes, trampolines, the whole fucking big top show. You should have seen the sword swallowing act.” She pushed past me but then stopped and turned back. “And just to let you know, you don’t get to ask me that anymore. I can do whatever the hell I like.”
I gazed down at her. The image got a little blurry. My head spun and I swayed on my feet. She reached forward and pushed her hands against my chest to keep me from falling on my face.
“What the hell happened to you?” she asked. The rage had faded.
“I was trying to get in your room, and your mom thought I was an alien intruder. She slammed a vase on the back of my head.”
She circled around and gasped as she saw the back of my head. “Holy hell, we’ve got to get you to the emergency room.”
“Might as well. I mean, it’s been a great fucking day so far.”
“Let’s go inside so I can get something to put pressure on that cut. Then I’ll grab my keys.” We walked across the connecting yards to my house.
“You’d better watch it when you go back to your house. Your mom is taking crazy to a whole new level. You seriously need to have her put away.” I was pissed, and when I was pissed, stupid shit came out of my mouth.
Amy stopped halfway up the porch steps. “Have her put away?”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. My head isready to fucking explode. You’re twisting my words.”
She stepped onto the porch landing and faced me. “I’m not twisting them. That’s exactly what you said. But why stop there? Maybe I can just have her put down like some rabid animal.” Her words sounded choked as if she might cry. Amy rarely cried or at least she went out of her way not to when she was around me.
“Fuck, Street, now you’re sounding just as crazy as her.” The stupid shit was flowing like the blood pooling on my collar.
“May I remind you that you are a menacing fucking giant, and you were breaking into the house. Most people would have grabbed something to hit you with.”
The head blow was causing my stomach and this morning’s cereal to churn, and I was close to puking. “Your mom has known me since I was born. She called me an alien, Amy. She’s lost her last hold on reality. You can’t take care of her on your own.”
She reached for the door, but Slade opened it first. “What the hell is going on out here?” He looked at me. “Fucking hell, bro, I think your brain is seeping out onto your shirt.”
That suggested image was all I needed. I spun around and puked off the side of the porch.
I braced my hands on the railing until the porch stopping moving beneath my feet.
I heard the front door open and shut. Seconds later, Amy was pressing a cloth against the back of my head.
I took hold of it. “I’m good. Slade can drive me to the hospital.” I lifted my fuzzy gaze to hers. The pain in her face was more intense than the pain in my head. Amy wasthe last person I ever wanted to hurt, and yet, I managed to do just that every fucking day of my life and I had no idea how to stop. Stopping meant letting down my guard and letting down my guard was impossible. “Go back to your house and make sure your mom’s okay.” I’d eased up on my sharp tone, but it didn’t erase the sadness in her face.
She spun around, flew off the porch steps and ran home.
“What the hell is going on between you two?” Slade asked. “I mean, I figured one day this whole weird thing between you two would just go haywire but from the look of it?—”
“Are you going to keep talking while I bleed to death, or are you going to drive me to the fucking ER?”
THREE
AMY
My tires chirped and I flew off the seat for a second as my car jumped from the asphalt onto the gravel road leading to Colt’s house. Jade’s car was in the driveway next to Colt’s truck. I hadn’t taken the time to text her and let her know I was coming. The scene with Hunter, a second traumatic blow in less than a day, had nearly made me sick. I was worried about his head, but at the same time, I was so pissed about his usual string of careless words, that I couldn’t bear driving along with him to the hospital.
I got out of the car. The house was quiet. Jade had worked at Lazy Daze until closing and was probably still in bed, which meant that Colt was probably still there too. They were inseparable. Their relationship was one of the reasons I’d really started to hate the one-sided relationship I was having with Hunter. In fact, I was pretty sure I was the only one even calling it a relationship. And now that I thought of that word, it sounded completely stupid in my head. God, I really was as delusional as my mom, but instead of aliens, I imagined myself being an important part of Hunter’s life. No green men involved but still just as irrational.
I knocked a couple of times and was just about to send a text to Jade when I heard heavy footsteps plodding across the wood floor. Colt had pulled on his jeans but hadn’t bothered to button them. I looked pointedly down at the his wide open fly. “Nice look. What if I had been your grandmother or something?” I pushed past him.
“Then that would be pretty fucking creepy because she’s been dead for about thirty years,” he called to me. “Jade’s still in bed,” he continued, but I ignored him.
I pushed open their bedroom door. Jade was just stretching. Her shiny blonde hair was splayed out over the pillow, and her cheeks were extra pink. I heard Colt walk in behind me, but I continued to ignore him. He was a Stone, and at the moment, I didn’t want to talk to anyone with that notorious last name.
