Author: L A Cotton
Category: Contemporary
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/l-a-cotton/page,16,592781-tragic_lies_a_forbidden_age-gap_romance_rixon_high.html
Cameron and Hailee had raised him. What a huge responsibility for them when they were so young themselves. But there was also something so beautiful about two brothers who stuck together when their worlds imploded. From the little snippets I knew about their relationship now though, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. I’d been to enough Ford and Chase family gatherings to know Xander didn’t always show, and when he did, he often kept to himself.
The vibration of my cell phone pulled me from my thoughts, and I dug it out of my pocket.
Lily: You skipped class?
Peyton: I just needed some air. I’m okay. I’ll be home later.
Lily: Where are you? I’m worried...
Thick, sludgy guilt slithered through me.
Peyton: I’m okay, I promise. A couple of Sean’s groupies cornered me in the girls bathroom.
He’d spread a bunch of lies about me. I guess rejection was an excuse to be a cruel asshole because the things he’d told them…
Inhaling a ragged breath, I wiped my eyes and texted Lily back before she could reply.
Peyton: I’ll be fine. I just couldn’t stay there for another second. Please, don’t worry about me.
Lily: Not possible. You’re my best friend. It’s what we do.
I texted her back a heart emoji and silenced my phone, shoving it back in my pocket. The truth was, when I’d fled from school, I hadn’t been thinking about anything other than getting out of the bathroom. The walls had begun closing in around me while Layla and her friends taunted me about Sean.
Before I knew it, I’d burst out of the main entrance to school and spilled into the cold winter air… and I’d kept walking. I’d just kept going until I was out of the gates.
Cocktease.
Trailer trash.
Whore.
Their words had washed over me like an unrelenting storm. I knew my classmates thought I was a notorious flirt. Before… everything, it had been true to an extent.
I’d enjoyed the attention. It filled that gaping hole inside of me. The part of me that craved to feel normal. To be a normal teenage girl. But I wasn’t reckless with my body. I didn’t sleep with guy after guy. That wasn’t who I was.
I’d watched my mom’s revolving door of guys. Men who would use her and hurt her and make her cry out in pain. I had no desire to become that… none. But flirting, kissing, getting hot and heavy with a guy made me feel good. I never promised more than I could give, and I was always, always safe.
“Peyton?”
Xander stood before me, his eyes crinkled with concern. I hadn’t even heard him approach, too lost in my thoughts.
“You’re crying.”
“I’m not—” I touched my frozen fingers to my cheeks. “I didn’t realize. Did everything go… okay?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He joined me on the bench again. “It never gets any easier, even after all this time.”
“You miss them.”
“Every second of every day,” he admitted. “I never got over it, losing her. It changed me. Therapists tried to label it, to help my dad and brother understand it, to help me understand it. But I always knew what the problem was… something inside me broke the day I had to say goodbye to her. Maybe it was my heart or my sense of reason or some part of my brain. I don’t know… but I wasn’t the same after that.”
“Xander…” My breath caught, his pain like a living thing in the air around us. I wanted to reach for him, to comfort him, but I was so scared of being rejected again.
I couldn’t stop myself though. Because he was hurting, and I needed to show him he wasn’t alone.
Lacing my arm through his, I tangled our hands together. Xander dropped his gaze to where our fingers twined, and I held my breath, waiting for him to pull away.
He didn’t.
“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” I whispered, laying my head on his shoulder as we stared out at the cemetery.
“It does,” he replied after a beat. “It means… a lot.”
My heart stuttered, and I was desperate to know what he was thinking. But now wasn’t the time to push for answers.
“I found it impossible to make friends,” he said quietly. “I had attachment issues, trust issues, anxiety, depression. You name it, I had it. By the time high school rolled around, I’d gotten really good at pretending. I was good at football, really good, and it became a way for me to communicate. People didn’t want to know how I was. They wanted to know about my stats and my performance on the field. It was easier to play along than have them look too closely.”
“I get that. You hid behind it.”
“I did. But by senior year the pressure was unbearable. I felt like I couldn’t breathe… Slowly, game by game, practice by practice, I cracked. And because I’d gotten so good at pretending, nobody noticed… until it was too late.”
Xander drew in a sharp breath as if saying the words physically hurt him. Or maybe it was the truth behind them. Or the vulnerability of telling me.
Whatever it was, I knew then, that I was right. Xander and I were the same. Our stories weren’t identical, but who we were, who we’d become was.
“Does Cameron know?”
“He knows… bits. But he never understood why I threw it all away.”
“Maybe one day you should tell him.” I peeked up at Xander, surprised to find him watching.
“God, you’re beautiful.”
“I…” Heat flooded my cheeks as I tried to dip my eyes and give myself a second to catch my breath. But Xander’s finger slid under my jaw, forcing me to look at him. “You’re brave and beautiful and you deserve so much more than…”
“Than?”
Him.
He was going to say him.
But he let out a steady breath and said, “The hand you’ve been dealt.”
My heart cinched. He was determined to keep things between us innocent when I wanted nothing more than to climb into his lap, take his rugged face into my hands, and kiss him until we were breathing for each other.
“Thank you,” I said, forcing down the urge to kiss him, “for telling me.”
“I don’t know why but it comes easy with you.” His fingers moved to my cheek, pushing a loose curl back inside my hat. A shiver ran through me at the intimate touch, the suggestion in his words.
But I knew what he meant. For the first time, I found myself wanting to open up too.
His eyes dropped to my mouth again, and I could practically imagine his lips ghosting over mine.
“Xander…”
“Fuck,” he breathed, the air crackling between us. “I know better. I should know better…”
He wasn’t talking to me; he was at war with himself.
“It’s okay,” I whispered.
“No, it isn’t.” He pulled me into his arms, burying my face in his chest. My hands slid over his shoulders as he dropped his chin to my head, holding me. “Nothing about this is okay.”
Xander was holding me like he never wanted to let go. And despite how much I wanted him to kiss me, this was somehow so much more.
“Come to the game Saturday.”
“I have to work,” I said, my words muffled by all the layers between us.
“Change your shift. You should be there… I want you there.”
“You do?” I pulled away, peeking up at him.
His eyes glittered with possessiveness. “I didn’t like looking for you in the crowd last weekend, knowing you weren’t there.”
“Oh.” My stomach coiled tightly at his gruff words.
He closed the distance between us, leaning in to brush his nose along mine. It was a whisper of the kiss I wanted so badly my body ached for it. But still, he didn’t give it to me, his mouth hovering just out of reach.
Butterflies fluttered wildly in my stomach. “What are we doing, Xander?”
“Nothing… we’re doing nothing.” His words were tight, tense. Almost as tense as his body beneath my touch.
“Okay,” I said soft
ly.
If it made him feel better to pretend we were doing nothing, to pretend this meant nothing, I could play along.
So long as he didn’t shut me out again.
“Are you hungry?” he asked me, and it was such a one-eighty on the intense moment we’d just shared, laughter bubbled out of me. “What?” He smiled.
“Yes, I could eat.” Anticipation trickled through me. He wasn’t going to take me back to the Ford’s like this was a mistake. He was going to feed me.
“Come on. I’m freezing my ass off.” Xander stood, taking my hand and gently yanking me to my feet. I expected him to pull away, but he surprised me again, by keeping a hold of me all the way to his truck.
“Careful,” I said as he held the door open and waited for me to slip inside. “A girl could get used to this.” A smile played on my lips.
Xander shook his head, giving me a disapproving look, but I saw the twinkle in his eye.
He liked this: the banter, the tension, and intensity. Even if he didn’t entirely accept it.
I liked it too.
I liked it a lot.
“This isn’t the drive thru,” I said minutes later when we pulled up outside a building on a quiet block downtown.
“This is my place.”
His place?
“Oh.”
“We don’t have to… I just thought that we could eat in comfort.”
“Comfort, sure.” I shot him an amused smile.
Xander’s brows crossed. “Let’s get one thing straight, Peyton. This isn’t some attempt to get you—”
“I know, I’m messing with you. It’s just food.”
“Right.”
“In your apartment.”
He cussed under his breath. “This was a bad idea. I’ll take you—”
“Wait.” I snagged his arm. “I’m just joking. I do that sometimes… when I’m nervous.”
Understanding filtered into his eyes as he leaned in. “Do I make you nervous, Peyton?”
This was dangerous territory.
So freaking dangerous.
Like a forbidden dance of push and pull, but it was impossible not to be swept away in the moment.
“You said something about feeding me?” My brow arched, trying to lighten the moment. Because when he looked at me like that, all sultry and serious, my heart beat so hard in my chest, I couldn’t breathe.
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth and he laughed. Xander laughed and it was a sound I wanted to bottle and keep with me always.
Jesus. Less than a couple of hours with him, and I wanted to bottle his laugh and memorize his smile.
“So demanding,” he muttered, before climbing out of his truck, and coming around to open my door.
I could get used to this.
To Xander doting on me, opening doors, and insisting on feeding me. But I knew real life didn’t work like that. Whatever this was, I would enjoy every second.
And only hope I survived the fallout.
Chapter Eighteen
Xander
Peyton looked at home curled up on my small couch, tucking into her lo mein. I’d thought it would be awkward, bringing her here, letting her see where I lived. In fact, the second I opened the door and let her inside, I thought it was a huge fucking mistake. But in true Peyton fashion, she’d taken one look around my small apartment, declared her love for it, kicked off her shoes and gotten comfy on my couch.
I stood in my small kitchenette watching her. I’d never met anyone like her. Before the accident, I would have said she was just like every other seventeen-year-old kid, but Peyton had layers. Layers she didn’t show the world. And I knew if I peeled them back, one by one, I’d find a girl beyond her years, but with a vulnerability she didn’t often let people see.
She’d had it tough; I’d gleaned that much from Jase and Ashleigh. Peyton had filled in some of the gaps, but I still didn’t know her whole story. And for the first time in my life, I wanted to.
I wanted to know her.
I knew I wasn’t supposed to. It was wrong, on so many levels. But I couldn’t seem to stop myself. Peyton pulled me in, she made me smile. She made me laugh, and that hadn’t happened in a really long time.
“I know you’re watching me.” She glanced over at me and smiled. “Come, eat. I’ll never manage all of this.”
I’d ordered from my favorite takeout and watched Peyton eat her body weight in lo mein and sesame chicken.
“It’s good, huh?” I said, joining her on the couch.
“So good.” She licked her lips and I imagined kissing her, again.
I couldn’t think about anything else, and she knew it. It lingered in the air around us. Taunting me. Tempting me. But if we crossed that line there would be no going back, and it wasn’t only my life I stood to ruin.
“Open,” she ordered, shuffling closer to me. With impressive skill, Peyton scooped up a piece of chicken with her chopsticks and lifted it to my mouth.
Her eyes lit up, watching as I savored the aromatic flavors. “I don’t think anyone’s ever fed me sesame chicken before,” I said.
“Well, I guess there’s a first time for everything.” Her cheeks pinked as she helped herself to some more noodles. “So a little birdie told me you’re coming to the Ford’s house for Christmas dinner?”
“I said I’d drop by.”
“Don’t sound too excited.”
“I’m not a fan of the holidays.” I shrugged.
Peyton put the nearly empty container on the table and tucked her legs back under her body. “Why does that not surprise me.”
“When I was younger my brother and Hailee always tried to make a big deal, but I preferred when it was just the three of us.”
“What was it like growing up with them?”
“I idolized Cameron back then. All I ever wanted was to live with him and Hailee. I remember him being away at college and I hated it. I was in second grade and it just felt… wrong being apart from him. It wasn’t a good time for me.”
“And now?”
“Now what?”
She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“We grew up.” I let out a long breath. “I grew up, and I don’t know… things changed.”
“I always liked the holidays. It was the one time of year my mom usually managed to pull herself together.” Her hands twisted in her lap and I could sense her discomfort.
“You don’t have to tell me…”
“No, I want to. It’s just… it’s not easy remembering how bad things were.”
“It was always just you and your mom?”
Peyton nodded. “I don’t ever remember my dad being around. She told me he lived across the river in Halston. He never bothered to show up and I never bothered to look him up. We lived out on the trailer park until I was eleven, then we moved to the other side of town. I was so excited to finally live in a real house. But I quickly realized we’d only traded one nightmare for another.
“My mom had a love/hate relationship with crack.”
Fuck. What she’d endured… I knew it had been bad, but I didn’t know how bad.
“She turned tricks to feed her habit, so I was used to a stream of men coming and going. I got really good at hiding or staying away. We had this neighbor, Mrs. Harrison. She’d let me stay over sometimes if my mom was messed up. She used to bake me cookies and let me watch cartoons to my heart’s content.”
“Peyton…” My voice cracked.
No child should ever have to endure that.
But Peyton hadn’t only endured it, she’d come out the other side stronger. Brave and beautiful and confident.
“When I met Lily, I was so excited to have a friend, a real honest-to-God friend. She didn’t look at me and see the girl with the junkie mom and thrift store clothes. She saw me. I’ll never forget that.”
“She’s a good kid.”
Peyton winced and I immediately regretted saying it. But it came naturally to refer to them as kids. Bec
ause that’s what they were—my friends’ kids. High schoolers. Teenagers.
Kids.
Jesus, what the fuck was I doing?
“Oh no, I know that look.” Peyton’s hand drifted to her throat. “You’re about to tell me this was a mistake and that you should take me back to the Ford’s.”
“You mistake me for a good guy,” I said quietly.
“You saved me.”
“I also broke about a hundred moral boundaries with you.”
“I know one moral boundary you didn’t break with me.” A faint smirk played on Peyton’s lips.
“Would it scare you if I said I wanted that? That I wanted you?”
Dangerous territory… I was letting conversation slip into dangerous territory again.
“Why would it scare me?”
“Because I’m not some cocky little shit who doesn’t know his way around a woman’s body.”
Her breath caught, her eyes big and bright and brimming with curiosity. “Don’t say things like that to me unless you mean them,” her eyelashes fluttered, “it isn’t fair.”
“Nothing about this is fair,” I whispered, my arm sliding along the back of the couch to gently tug the ends of her hair. She’d pulled off her hat earlier and woven her golden waves into a braid over one shoulder.
I wasn’t sure if she was even aware of it, but Peyton leaned into my touch, a soft whimper spilling from her lips.
Jesus. It was a serious test of restraint to not go to her, to pull her into my arms and kiss her the way I’d wanted to ever since that day down by the lake at Jase’s house.
I wasn’t even sure how we’d gotten here, to a place where I was seriously considering breaking every rule I had for her.