Filed To Story: Pretty Poisoned Novel by Elle Mitchell
After showering, I dry off, wrap myself in a towel, and walk back into the room. Luca is still there, sitting on the small couch in the corner.
“You’re still here.”
“Yep,” he says. “I arranged for movers to pack up your things and take it all to a storage facility in Buena Park; that’s not too far, is it?”
“What? No no, that’s not too far.”
“I don’t know how much money you owe your sister, but I sent her 5K to fuck offis that enough?”
“Um, yeah. That’s a lot more than I owe her.”
“Good,” he says. “I’ll tell her it’s an engagement gift and I’ll see her at the wedding.”
“You’d go to the wedding?” I ask, confused. “You did all of that for me? How did you do all of that?”
“Of course,” he says. “Why are you so surprised? Do you think I’m stupid or something?”
“What? No, I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“I’m not just a pretty face, baby,” he says, smiling. He gets up and kisses me on the lips. “I can take care of you. We’ll go down there together after this tour is over, and you can get whatever you want and bring it up to the house. Okay?”
“Okay ”
“I’ll see you later, Teag.”
“Bye ”
After watching him leave, I get dressed and dry my hair.
Then, I do something stupidI put on his fucking deodorant and cologne just so that I can smell like him again. Realizing I don’t want to do anything except wait for him to come back, I curl up on the sofa and stare at the wall.
This isn’t good.
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“You smell like my brother,” Declan says when I sit beside him on the couch. “More than usual, I mean.”
“Yeah, I know,” I tell him, but I don’t explain. I’m just glad Luca hadn’t noticed today. I enjoyed it all afternoon while I laid around the suite alone, bringing my t-shirt to my nose and breathing it in. I was a little embarrassed when he came back from the gym, and the first thing he did was wrap his arms around me, bury his head in my neck, and inhale.
“Who are these people?” I ask Declan, sliding under his arm as I scan the room for Luca.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Declan says. “That one by the door talking to Luca” I follow where he’s pointing and spot him next to the door, speaking to a blonde woman in a leather jacket. She runs her hands over his chest and hooks her finger into his belt loop. “She’s important.”
I feel like someone is sitting on my ribcage. “Why is she touching him?”
“She’s probably going to fuck him,” Declan says.
“What?”
“She fucked him last time we were here,” he says. “What? You don’t own him, Teagan. You need to calm down. And we need hershe talked about getting us on a tour with well, I can’t tell you who right now. But it’ll be huge. It’ll be stadiums and amphitheaters, not nightclub venues.”
She leans in and whispers something in his ear, but I can’t watch anymore. “I’m tired,” I tell him. “I’m going to go to bedin River and Hazel’s room.”
He laughs. “Would you stop? I’m sorry, didn’t you finger River at a club in Salt Lake City and suck my dick on the bus last night? Aren’t you cuddled up next to me right now?”
“That’s different,” I say sadly.
“How?” he asks. “How is that different?”
“Because we’re a family.”
He hugs me closer to his side and kisses the side of my head. “Yeah, you’re right, baby. That is different.”
When I look toward the door again, Luca and the woman are both gone. I blink back tears.
“Holy shit,” Brady says. “Look at you.”
“Me?” I ask.
“Yeah, you. You know what it feels like now, don’t you?”
“What?”
“You know what I’m talking about. ‘Did you tell him you don’t like it’?” he mocks.
Yeah I do. And I hadn’t even thought about it.
I lean into Declan’s shoulder to hide my tears.
“I thought you didn’t cry, Teagan,” Declan says. “You’re turning into a big baby.”
“Please don’t make fun of me,” I tell him.
I’m doing fine with that on my own. Because I’m wearing his fucking deodorant, and my chest physically aches.
Someone sits at my other side, but I don’t look up. “What’s wrong with Teagan? Is she high?”
Declan and Brady laugh, and I look over and see Luca beside me.
“She’s being a big fucking baby for no reason,” Declan tells him.
“I thought you left.”
He shrugs. “No. Why would I leave?”
“I love you,” I tell him.
And this time, I did say it aloud, not just in my head. It almost feels like a foreign language, and after it comes out, I’m sure I’ve done something wrong.
I think I might throw up.
But he smiles. “You do?”
I nod. “Uh-huh.”
He leans in and brushes my hair behind my ears. “Say it again.”
“I love you. And I know that I haven’t known you very long, but we live together like you said, so that makes our days like three times everyone else’s normal day, right?”
He laughs. “If you say so.”
“And I know you’re fucking insane, and I don’t fucking care. That probably means I’m fucking crazy, too, and I don’t care about that, either. You make me happy and I didn’t think I’d ever be any better than just okay. I want to carve my initial into your chest; I want to handcuff you to me every night so that you can’t leave. I want to crawl inside of your body and live there. I love you.”
He shakes his head. “Teagan Townsend I’m going to write a song about you.”
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.