I scowled at him.
“Didn’t think so.” He grabbed my arm again and towed me through the crowd, shooting death stares at any male who looked in my direction. He clearly had their respect because they all stepped out of the way.
The two bouncers nodded at Nash, and then we were outside once more. Nash stopped in front of my car and stared at it like it was an alien spacecraft.
“Oh, fuck me. This is yours, I suppose?”
“What?” I snapped, pulling my hand away from his sharply. “You don’t like BMWs?”
He didn’t answer my question. “Go home, Bliss. Just…go home. Don’t worry about your brother. I’ve had his back all these years. Today ain’t no different.”
With that, he left me at my car and strode to a beat-up black Jeep.
Anger coursed through me at the insinuation I hadn’t had Axel’s back. Like it was my fault we hadn’t seen each other in years.
Nash’s engine roared to life, and his headlights came on, shining directly into my eyes. “I go by Bethany-Melissa now, asshole!” I yelled as he drove past.
He didn’t answer.
“I like Bliss better,” one of the security guards spoke up.
I whirled around and glared at him.
The two of them burst into laughter.
I slid inside the car, well reminded why Saint View, and everyone in it, was the worst.
3
NASH
“Goddammit, Axel. Pick up your motherfucking phone.”
The phone rang through the speakers of my car, each time hitting Axel’s goofy voicemail greeting, until I was ready to throw my phone out of the open roof and watch it disintegrate on the road beneath my tires.
His place was ten minutes from the bar, on the other side of an annoying number of red lights. I tapped my finger on the steering wheel while I waited for one to turn green.
Headlights flashed in my rearview mirror as a car pulled up, idling behind me. I turned left when the light went green and then took a right at the next intersection.
The car stayed with me through each turn.
“Shit,” I uttered, glancing in my mirrors. But the headlights were too bright and blinded the details of the car. “Axel, if you’ve got yourself into something bad, and now that something bad is following me, I swear to God, I’m going to destroy your limited-edition baseball card collection.”
Any other best friends probably would have thrown punches, but I wasn’t a fighter. I mean, I would if it was a life-or-death situation, but Axel and I were brothers. I wasn’t about to take up brawling with him over just anything.
His stupid baseball card collection was totally on the table though.
I took a wrong turn, not wanting to lead whoever was behind me straight to Axel’s place, but I eyed the mirror as I did it. The side angle eliminated the blinding glare so I could make out the car’s details.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Bliss.” While I was relieved it wasn’t someone Axel had gotten himself messed up with, I didn’t want it to be her either. What the hell was she thinking, driving that expensive car all over Saint View while wearing a goddamn ball gown? She was just asking for trouble.
That old protective instinct I’d had when she was a little girl reared its head once more, as fast and hard as it had slammed into me in the bar. She’d been such a tiny, skinny, runty kid. Always underfed. Always itching with bugs. But sweet. So stupidly sweet with her big eyes and complete and utter gratitude for everything Axel and I did. I’d always wanted to protect her from the world, and that feeling had come crashing right back tonight when she’d walked into my bar, a fully grown-ass woman.
Fuck.
I’d taken one look at her, and my dick had gotten hard.
There was nothing little girl about the swell of her tits spilling out of that dress. Or the curve of her hips, shown off perfectly by the fitted satin covering. Her face had rounded, and her long hair was glossy.
Like she had enough food.
Like she had somewhere safe to sleep.
Like she’d had a good life.
That was all I’d ever wanted for her. Me and Axel both. The one good thing we’d ever done, besides Axel buying Psychos, was getting Bliss away from her deadbeat mom, her rapey stepdad, and getting her biological father to take her in before she ended up on the streets.
She didn’t belong in this world. She never had. Axel and I were different.
There’d been no saving us.
But Bliss had needed sheltering back then, and she clearly needed sheltering now. Which was what I’d tried to do back at the club by sending her home.