AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Jer!” I move to step closer to him for the hug I know he’ll gladly accept, only to pause before I let myself out of the line I’ve been waiting in for over an hour.
“What the fuck are you doing?” It takes a minute for the hard set of Jeremy’s gaze to sink in, his harsh tone causing scoffs to echo around me.
“I was trying to get you something.” I shake off the weird mood he seems to be in and flash him a smile I know he likes since he’s told me as much.
“I told you I couldn’t come, and you did it anyway.” Jeremy shakes his head, his long blond hair falling around his slim shoulders as he bites me with his words.
“What do you mean?” My smile falters, my brows furrowing.
“I told you!” He pushes aggressively closer to me with raised words, gaining himself a few mean-mugs from the people whose toes he stomps on as he closes the distance and wraps a hand around my bicep. “I sold the ticket to fix the broke-ass car you had to fucking have.” His grip on me tightens, and it’s almost as if the room does the exact opposite of all the novels I’ve read—y’know, where the couple touches and the room fades away?
No. I feel all of the eyes swing on us. Judge us.
I didn’t want the car. He did. I have the bike my dad and I are rebuilding—albeit slowly, with each paycheck that has a few extra dollars—stored in the garage, just waiting for me to graduate so I can afford the more expensive pieces to get Frankenstein up and running.
Jeremy’s a good guy.
At least, that’s what I tell people when they ask about him and why a twenty-year-old is into a seventeen-year-old.
He’s not like that,I tell my friends when he calls and gets angry with me for the things that I’ve done. Because I did do those things.
Like forget about the car because I was so excited to see my favorite band play tonight.
Or forget to put the tattoo gun away after trying to dry ink myself as practice because my hand isn’t as heavy as his when he inks me and leaves me aching.
“Yo, you good?” The deep graveled voice rings around in my brain, breaking the trance Jeremy’s molten gaze has put me in and has my attention swinging from my angry boyfriend to the man with the waves and the talented fingers.
My stomach drops.
“Oh, um—” I tug gently at my arm and meet Fin’s hardened eyes, but Jeremy’s grip is tighter than normal, his boney fingertips digging into my skin and refusing my release.
“Yeah, bro,” Jeremy sneers, interrupting me for the thousandth time. “We’re great.” He yanks on me, effectively pulling me out of the line and away from the autograph I was desperate to get for him with shuffling feet and heated words. “I’m taking you home.”
“Hey, wait,” Fin calls out as Jeremy rushes us into the crowd and farther away from the table with the band I’ve been following since they hit the underground scene a year ago.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Cedar?” Jeremy shakes me as he pushes me into people, pulling me in front of him to lead us through a sea of people packed like sardines where shoulders land on my chest and elbows bruise my arms.
“I was just trying to—”
“Get him to fuck you?” he hisses into my ear and releases my bicep, only to plant a hand on my lower back and pushme into the crowd. “Makefuck meeyes with the guitarist?” I land in a throng of people as he spits the words at me, some of whom grab at my arms to catch me and help keep me upright.
“S-s-sorry,” I mutter to the ones that right me, one particular set of haunted eyes landing on mine in a way that makes my skin crawl and my stomach twirl in knowing.
“You okay, miss?”
I don’t get to answer the older woman with crow’s feet and a Harley tee, though.
Because that same bruising grip is back on my upper arm and swinging me into a face contorted with such rage that I don’t recognize the boyfriend I thought I had.
“I asked you agoddamn question!” Anger splits open my gut and when Jeremy’s grip encases both arms and yanks me closer, so close that he screams spittle on my jaw, that red hot feeling splinters off into a deep-seated fear for the first time in my life. “You want him to fuck you?”
My wide eyes water. And my mind goes blank.
Because while I wasn’t aiming for Fin to sleep with me, I did think he was cute. And I’d told Jeremy as much.
Which made me guilty … right?
“You think he’d give it to you better than me? Huh, Cedar?”
