“Shit.” Groaning, I leaned over when my eyes opened on their own. I snatched my phone from the nightstand to check the time.
It was only nine thirty.
Why the fuck was I awake?
Tossing my phone back, I relaxed and tried to sleep again, but my mind wouldn’t stop sounding the alarm. I must have tried for ten minutes before giving up and rising out of bed. Thankfully, I’d worn pants to bed because I was on a mission when I stormed from my room.
I fully intended to ensure whichever of my friends chose to die at this ungodly hour went painfully. I didn’t slow my stride until I passed Rich’s room and saw him shuffling out with one eye open and his hair sticking up everywhere.
Houston then.
Tougher to maim, but I’d manage.
I heard Rich following me, only for us both to stop when we reached the stairs. Houston was walking down the short hallway that led to his bedroom, looking just as bewildered when he spotted us.
So…what the fuck?
I didn’t have an internal alarm for anyone else. There was no one I gave a shit about that much. No one else except—
I turned away from the stairs and started back the way I had come, back toward Braxton’s room, before my mind could even finish that thought. I felt Houston and Rich behind me as I knocked on her door for a minute straight with no answer. The entire time I was rationalizing that Braxton wasn’t a morning person either.
She’s probably sleeping.
I didn’t realize Houston had grown impatient and twisted the knob until my fist connected with air when the door swung open. The three of us stepped inside with matching frowns as we looked around. The bedding was rumpled but still made, which told me she hadn’t slept in it last night. The biggest clue that something was wrong, however, was all her missing shit.
Rich was the first to break free of the stupor Braxton had put us in, and I watched him walk over like a skittish kitten to the nightstand on the right side of the bed that Braxton preferred when we weren’t making her sleep in the middle.
I hadn’t even noticed one of our chef’s knives sticking out of the wooden surface handle up.
When Rich just stood there staring at the knife instead of telling us why Braxton murdered our furniture, I walked over with Houston on my heels.
“What’s up?” I asked him when I came to stand next to him. Rich was already pale as fuck, but right now, he looked like he’d either seen a ghost or was a ghost.
When he still didn’t say shit, I looked at the knife. And then I glanced at the papers pinned underneath, but it was my medallion she’d left as well and the words carved into the wood that held my attention.
Happy Anniversary.
“Happy anniversary?” I mused out loud. Reluctantly, I lifted my medallion from the table and slipped it inside my pocket rather than around my neck. I was annoyed at Braxton’s audacity to give it back like we were over, but I wasn’t entirely upset. The medallion wasn’t what I had in mind for her to wear for me anyway. Braxton deserved something that had meaning and she was going to get it.
“It’s September third,” Rich mumbled. They were his first words since waking up.
Why did that date sound so familiar?
He looked up, saw the question in my eyes, and said, “My wedding date.”
Shit.
My gaze was drawn back to the papers Braxton had skewered directly in the center with Rich’s signature in the top right corner for some reason. This time I paid attention long enough to notice what they were.
PETITION FOR DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE
In the Matter of the Marriage or Registered Domestic Partnership of:
Jericho Noble (Petitioner)
and
Emily Noble (Respondent)
Date of marriage/domestic partnership: September 3, 2013
Place of marriage/domestic partnership: Multnomah County, Oregon
Date of petition for dissolution:
April 9, 2018
Irreconcilable differences between the parties have caused the irremediable breakdown of their marriage/domestic partnership.
I skipped over the rest of the legal jargon until I reached the part that painted a vivid picture of how thoroughly Rich had fucked us. It wasn’t enough for him to stick the knife into Braxton’s back, which she had categorically left behind to make her feelings clear.
No.
I blew out a breath.
He had to drive it to the fucking hilt.
He had to make sure we didn’t stand a chance of getting her back.
Because Jericho Noble was as much a sadist as he was a masochist.
He buried himself in angst and pain, and when that wasn’t enough, he inflicted more.
I shook my head in frustration as I read over the part again, even as I felt the guilt seep into my bones, reminding me that this had been my doing.
Children of the Marriage/Domestic Partnership:
Name: ____________________
Gender: ___________________
Date of Birth: ______________
Age: Three years
“Why the fuck would you include this bullshit?” I exploded anyway. “You don’t even know if that’s your kid, dipshit! Name, unknown. Gender, unknown. Date of birth, un-fucking-known. Did it ever occur to you that Emily could have been lying? There might not even be a kid.”
“She wasn’t lying,” he assured me, and it made me sick to my stomach to hear him defend that lying, cheating bitch.
“So you’ve seen her in the last four years? Did she happen to have a kid on her hip?” I yanked the knife from the nightstand and snatched the papers up to study them closer. I just had to know what other dumb shit Jericho’s self-flagellating ass had used to screw us over. As soon as I was sure there were no other skeletons in his fucked-up closet, I’d go get my girl.
I wasn’t so sure I could do this three-amigos shit anymore.
Jericho had been right about one thing, at least.
If one of us lost her, we all did, which meant the chances of us fucking up were greater with three. I wasn’t sure if I could go through losing Braxton a fourth or fifth time. I guess it depended on who was counting.
When I read the same line six times, I gave up and tossed the papers neither Jericho nor Emily had signed, making it crystal clear to Braxton that they were still married.
I couldn’t think straight. Each breath felt like it cost me a little more. I wanted to hit something, namely Jericho.
Seeing that wild look in his eyes that mirrored my own, I knew he’d fuck me up just as bad if I tried. In my peripheral, I noticed Houston sink onto the edge of Braxton’s bed with his forearms on his thighs as he stared dejectedly at the floor.
“Now would be a good time for you to tell us what to do,” I spat.
He ignored me.
I shoved my fingers through my hair before looking around, trying to convince myself that she was really gone. Braxton had taken everything and left nothing behind. Nothing to confirm that she’d ever really been here at all. I wouldn’t be struggling to accept it if I hadn’t fallen for her.
Braxton couldn’t just settle for being an amazing lay and guitarist. She had to go and fuck with my feelings too.
I was out of the bedroom and back in the hall before I even realized my feet were moving. I heard Rich asking me where I was going, but I ignored him. I couldn’t put all of the blame on his shoulders even though I wished I could. I went along with the lie. I kept Braxton in the dark. Now she was gone, and I—
I sent my fist through the wall once I got inside my room and barked a curse when I pulled it away. My hand throbbed and hurt like hell, but the pain wasn’t the worst I was feeling at the moment.
Finding my phone and ignoring my hand, I immediately dialed Braxton. Even though I’d hoped, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine she’d answer.
“Yes, Loren?”
My lips parted, but no words came. None that would make it right. When I heard her sigh, however, I knew the small window I’d been given was quickly closing.
“Come back.”
“Now, why would I do that?” I pictured her studying her nails and wished she’d stayed to use them on me—to inflict pain rather than give me indifference. I could handle one, but she’d destroy me with the other.
“Because I love you,” I told her even though it wasn’t even close to what I had planned to say. I could feel her surprise on the other end, but she masked it well with frigid silence. I gulped. “I hate that I waited until now to tell you. I hate that I can’t see your face because as much as you want to hate me, you wouldn’t be able to hide the truth.”
“What’s the truth?”
“You love me too.” I waited for her to confirm or deny it, but Braxton had returned to giving no reaction at all. I used her silence as the chance to listen to her background and pinpoint her location so I could go fucking get her. It pissed me off that I had zero clue how long ago she’d left because, while she’d been thinking and feeling the worst, I’d been sleeping like a baby. “Please come back,” I begged once more. “We’ll tell you everything. It’s not what you think.”
I heard her quiet chuckle, and my head dropped from the weight of holding it up. I knew before she spoke. I knew that I’d lost her.
“It’s exactly what I think, Loren. I don’t negotiate with liars.”
I was still holding the phone to my ear long after she hung up. It was how Houston and Rich found me when they walked into my room. I was still hoping this was all a bad dream, and I’d wake up soon.
“Get out.” I didn’t look at them after I issued the order. I just pressed my back to the mattress and stared up at the black ceiling.
“We will, but you’re coming with us. Tim’s on his way,” Rich announced, referring to our pilot.
“For what?”
“Braxton was spotted at the airport. It’s all over the blogs.”
I found myself snorting even though I didn’t find a damn thing funny. Our rebel still thought she was a little fish in a big pond, and no one would recognize her. Or maybe she was just that desperate to get away from us. I scrubbed my hands down my face.
“She’s going back to Los Angeles.” I was so exhausted emotionally and physically that I could barely form the words.
“We can cut her off if you’d get the fuck up,” Jericho snapped.
“And then what?” I muttered, still staring at the ceiling.
“I’ll explain,” he naïvely offered. You’d think we would have learned our lesson about how tightly Braxton held her grudges.
“Tried that.”
“We know. We heard,” the eavesdropping shits confirmed. I knew if we weren’t all secretly losing our shit over Braxton, they’d be snickering like little girls right now.
“So you want me to race a thousand miles across two states to strike out a second time in one day? Pass.” Flipping them both off, I rolled onto my stomach, hoping the ache would go away.
“What the hell did you expect, Lo? You wait until your back is against the wall to tell her how you feel, and then you do it over the phone? It was weak.”
I was off the bed and in Rich’s face, slamming his back against the wall before either of them could blink. He could easily shove me off, but he didn’t because he knew this shit was on him.
“Say that again?” I had two inches on him, but at the moment, it felt like two feet.
Apparently feeling the same, Jericho shoved me off, and I cracked my fist across his nose, returning the favor and making him bleed.
Houston stood a couple of feet away, texting as if we weren’t two seconds from tearing this house apart. It wouldn’t be anything new, so I understood the indifference. Jericho was the only one who acted like the world’s fate depended on us getting along every second of the day.
“It’s my fault,” Rich said as he used his hand to staunch the bleeding. “Now let me make it right.”
“She’s not going to make it easy,” I mumbled, defeated as I stared at the ground. Just getting her to listen, we’d have to wage war—not a battle, war.
Houston’s head shot up from his phone as if remembering only now that we were here. The look he gave me was a perplexed one as he slipped his phone into his pocket. I guess he’d struck out too.
“Since when has Braxton ever?”
“This is bullshit,” I muttered, keeping my voice low in case Braxton heard me. Next to me, Rich continued to bang on the door that looked like it would fall off the hinges at any moment.
That would just make my fucking day, to be honest.
We knew she was here. We watched the cab driver help her carry her luggage inside twenty minutes ago. Houston had suggested hanging back so she wouldn’t turn us away on the street, and now here we were. One of her neighbors had already opened the door to openly display his irritation at the noise we were causing like we gave a damn.
Some people.
“If you don’t leave now, I’m calling the cops!” the neighbor yelled from down the hall in his ratty, plaid bathrobe.
They must have been the magic words. Braxton’s apartment door swung open abruptly, and I could have run to hug and kiss the man whose apartment smelled like fermented cheese and dirty gym socks.
When I saw it was just the insanely hot blonde with green eyes that Braxton had brought to our first two shows, my excitement died a quick but still brutally painful death.
“Hey,” I forced myself to greet. “Grendel, right?”
“Griffin.”
Whatever. “Nice to see you again,” I lied. “Can you get Braxton?” I wasn’t about to pretend I didn’t know she was here.
Gryffindor crossed her arms as she leaned her shoulder against the jamb. “If she wanted to talk, I wouldn’t be answering the door, would I?”
“You would if you were practicing to be a doorman, but I don’t know your life. Braxton?”
“Unavailable.”
“Can you please just give her a message?” Rich inquired politely.
The way Greta skewered him with her gaze despite his pleasant tone, I knew Braxton had given her friend at least the gist of what he—we’d done. “Sure. The approved words for your message are—piece, shit, married, lying, a, of, I’m.” Giving Rich an accommodating smile, she cocked her head to the side, making her blonde hair fall in waves over her shoulder. “Feel free to use them in any order you’d like.”
Stepping back, Groot promptly slammed the door in our faces.
“She’s so not invited to the wedding,” I grumbled as I stared at the blue door with paint chipping off…everywhere. “What do we do now?” I looked to Rich, who now had his back against the wall next to the door and his head tilted back with his eyes closed. Houston was still leaning against the wall across from the door.
“We don’t leave L.A. until she talks,” Houston said loud enough for Braxton as well as her neighbors eavesdropping from their apartments to overhear. He approached the door as he continued speaking, making sure she heard him loud and clear. “We come back, and we keep coming back. There’s no sleep for the wicked, there’s no saving the damned, and there’s no prayer to be had. We’re already ensnared, my little lamb,” he said, quoting her song. The same piece that showed us what she was made of and made us want more.
This was her fault, really.
She’d put this monkey on our backs, and there was no knocking it off.
I could hear whispering, mostly Greer talking shit on the other side of the door. When I smiled at the confirmation that Braxton had heard, it wasn’t arrogance that drove me to do so. Just utter relief that she had and that she’d been listening all along.
We left Braxton’s shitty apartment building and jumped into our rental. Rich drove us to a hotel that erupted in pandemonium the moment we were recognized. We hadn’t even considered bringing security, and even if we had, we wouldn’t have wasted the precious moments getting to Braxton—even if it had mostly been for nothing.
“How the hell did she find out?” I’d finally asked the question forefront in my mind when we made it inside our suite.
“She obviously found the papers,” Houston answered dryly.
“But how?”
“I think I had another episode.”
Rich was staring at his divorce papers that Braxton had all but destroyed when I turned to him. He knew what she was telling him. He knew they meant absolutely nothing without both signatures and too many secrets attached. Rich pointlessly carried them around still because, as I said before, he liked to punish himself.
“I only remember fragments from last night, but I think Braxton saw me. I remember going to the tower and signing my name, but that’s it. She must have followed me and found them after I’d gone back to bed.”
“Shit,” I muttered.
I wasn’t thinking of how badly we fucked up, though. I imagined Braxton and how freaked out she must have been since none of us had bothered to inform her that Rich sleepwalked. He hadn’t had an episode in sometime. With everything else, it had been easy to forget. Now, this shit had popped out like ‘surprise, motherfucker!’ and kicked us in the ass. I should have told her when I found him wandering around in his sleep three nights ago.
There was a lot I should have said.
“So tomorrow then,” I decided out loud. If I let my mind linger on things I couldn’t change, who knew what would happen. Nothing good. “Operation Stalk the Fuck out of Braxton until She Files a Restraining Order begins.”
“What if she doesn’t forgive us?” Rich proposed like an ass. He could be so goddamn pessimistic. “We’re supposed to be in Europe in three weeks.”
“Fuck the tour.” There would always be another one, but there was only one of her. If I’d listened when Braxton warned me, we wouldn’t be standing here.
“If Carl—”
“Fuck Carl Cole.” He could take that three-sixty deal and shove it up his ass. He’d already taken everything that mattered and didn’t matter. I wasn’t letting him take Braxton too. Moving over to the couch, I dropped down onto it and let my head rest against the back as I stared at the ceiling. “We were going to take her to meet Mom today,” I reminded them.
My head fell to the side so that I could meet Houston’s somber gaze. His grandmother would have loved Braxton, and he knew it.
Rich gave us his back.
The only sign that he’d lost the composure he’d held until now was his shoulders as he walked away.
Jericho’s desolation would be a slow descent. His heart breaking wouldn’t just sneak up. No, he’d make us feel every splinter. He’d make us watch the pieces wither to dust. The only difference was the girl he’d given his heart to this time had given hers too.
Braxton had offered him everything his lonely soul had been hunting.
And then she took it away.
We kept our word, but Braxton stuck to her guns.
Every day for five days, we tried and failed to get Braxton to let us see her so we could explain. It wasn’t until her friends screwed up by getting Braxton to leave their apartment that we got our chance.
We were waiting inside their apartment—it had been way too easy to break in—when the three of them stumbled in after two in the morning. I shook my head. Even in the dark, they should have noticed us occupying their living room by now.
“Oh, shit,” one of them drunkenly slurred. Maeko, I think. “I left my bone—I mean phone.”
The three of them erupted into laughter that made my ears ring. I think it was Houston that groaned like he was being tortured by nails on a chalkboard. Even though he’d tried to conceal his voice, the apartment fell quiet.
I guess they’d heard him too.
There were more stumbled footsteps, hurried this time, and a moment later, light flooded the room. My gaze caught Braxton’s, who was standing by the door with her hand still holding the switch and her full lips slightly parted. I stared at them, lost in the memory of how they felt against mine, until they started moving.
“Are you kidding me right now?”
I smiled at her greeting to silence the roaring in my head. “Hey, baby. Missed you.”
“Get out.”
Ignoring her request, I turned to Rich, who was slumped in their armchair with the hood of his black sweatshirt pulled so low over his head that I couldn’t see his eyes.
I imagined he was staring at Braxton like she was heaven’s gate, and he held a one-way ticket to hell.
I was going to fuck him up, though, if he didn’t start pleading his case soon.
Sitting up slowly, he pulled his hood back and…yup.
Just as pitiful as I imagined.
He cleared his throat, but his voice was still hoarse when he spoke because he hadn’t said a word. Not one goddamn thing since she’d left us. “Can we talk?”
“What is there left to say?”
The moment she asked the question, her friends quietly made themselves scarce, and I thanked God for small favors. It was right there in her tone—the first crack in her armor. Chin in my hand, I kept my focus on Rich because if I looked at Braxton…I’d start pleading my case too.
I would.
Just not now.
Because I knew who she needed to hear from, which meant I had to wait my turn. It was just proving harder than I thought to be patient.
And hope that Rich didn’t fuck this up.
“Everything,” he said as he stood up. “Starting with the fact that I lied, and there’s no excuse for it. I should have told you about Emily. I could tell you that I didn’t know what would happen between us, but it would just be another lie. You’re the reason those papers existed for you to find.”
“So I’m responsible for you wanting to leave your wife?” She rolled her eyes and looked away just as the first tear fell. “That’s just great, Rich. Thanks.”
I’m sure he could feel my glare, but he paid me no mind as he inched closer to Braxton, who still held up their front door. Houston stood by the window overlooking the street while I sat on their ratty sofa.
“I should have left her a long time ago, but I didn’t care about any of that until you. Emily stopped being my wife the moment she fucked Calvin.” I saw Braxton’s surprise as her shocked gaze darted from Rich to Houston and then me for confirmation. All my fault. “If that’s not enough to convince you,” he continued, “it’s been over four years since I’ve seen or heard from her. I owe her nothing.”
“No?” Braxton challenged, suddenly pushing away from the door. She was in his face now, all fire and no mercy, while Rich gazed down at her, pleading for some. “Then what about me? If not the truth, what did I deserve?” Her tears ran freely down her face as she stared up at him. Rich couldn’t look away, and neither could I. “You promised you were mine, but you were only pretending.”
She broke his restraint, and I tensed when he grabbed her hips and yanked her into him. I relaxed only when he simply pressed their foreheads together.
“If nothing else, Braxton, please believe that I wasn’t,” he pleaded with his eyes closed. “I haven’t always been truthful, but I’ve been honest about that.”
“Why did you lie?” She didn’t pull away from him, but her tone made it clear that her guard was still up. I think it was the first time Braxton’s ever had it up this high with Jericho. The wall she’d built in seven mere days towered higher than the one she’d been building for seven months. She had only started to let us in.
“I—”
“Don’t tell me,” she cut in when he tried to speak. “Tell them.” My brows dipped when she nodded toward Houston and me. “Tell them the reason why you still hesitated to leave your estranged wife even after you drew up the papers and decided to be with me.”
Rich let her go, and her dead gaze followed him as she watched him back away with no emotion. His legs seemed to give out, so he sank onto the arm of the couch with his gaze fixed on the floor. The four of us waited in the heavy silence that followed, and I wondered if they could hear my heart beating out of control.
“I wasn’t going to leave her,” he eventually whispered so low I almost didn’t catch it.
As I sat up, my confused gaze flew to Houston, who gave no obvious reaction. He was pissed, but he didn’t seem surprised.
What the hell had I missed?
“Come again?”
Rich looked at me, and I was surprised to see the same plea in his eyes that he’d given Braxton moments ago. “Emily. If her baby was mine, I wasn’t going to go through with it. I wasn’t going to divorce her.”
I can’t explain why I suddenly smiled when nothing was funny about what he said. Houston moved away from the window as soon as I stood because he knew what was on my mind. Jericho knew it too, but he didn’t move to try to defend himself if it came to that.
He’d let me beat him.
Jericho deserved every broken bone and ounce of blood lost after what he just admitted to, so he’d allow me the pound of flesh.
“Let me make sure I heard you correctly. While Houston and I were risking everything, you were plotting behind our backs to leave us and ride off into the sunset with Emily?”
“Yes.”
I stood there in the wake of his confession, waiting to hear him explain or make excuses.
He didn’t.
He simply sat there. He let me see his shame. I couldn’t hide my hatred or the betrayal I felt, so he welcomed it so that I wouldn’t succumb to it.
I was as furious with myself as I was with Jericho. I chose to trust my best friend instead of this very suspicion that had been prickling my mind for months. I’d underestimated him again, but not in the way I could ever respect.
Or forgive.
The truth had been there the entire time. I refused to believe it because I trusted him. Jericho had built enough evidence a long time ago to get a court-ordered dissolution without Emily. She’d run for no fucking reason other than to keep Jericho in her claws. She knew he’d never divorce her without confronting her first. And without knowing if the kid she may or may not have had even belonged to him.
After Braxton, I assumed only the former still held.
I believed he hesitated for the reason his surname implied.
He had to be so goddamn noble.
He had to give Emily the honor of telling her to her face that he should never have married her, that he wasn’t in love with her anymore, and that Braxton was the woman he should have fucking waited for but didn’t.
Jericho hadn’t just been playing Braxton.
He’d been playing us all.
“Fuck you.”
I didn’t allow myself to say more. I didn’t allow myself to look at Braxton, Houston, or even Rich.
When I stormed through the door, I didn’t just walk out on our fight. I knew in my heart that I’d just walked out on us.
On Bound.
