Jay Crownover - Better When He's Bad

I climbed out of the shower and sat on the toilet to struggle with my boots. I’d just got one off when she came back in, wrapped in a towel, and handed me one. I ran it over my head and looked up at her.

“Gus left me the garage.”

She leaned a shoulder on the doorframe and lifted a rust-colored eyebrow at me. “That’s sad, but kind of fitting. What are you going to do with it?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Whatever you decide, I’m behind you.”

I got the other boot off and tossed it with a thud onto the floor. I had to do a little wiggle and shake to get the damp denim down my legs, and by the time I was done, her eyes were glowing bright green at me again.

“What if what I do isn’t exactly on the up-and-up?”

She came back into the bathroom and took the towel from my hands. She wrapped it around my waist and used the tip of one of her fingernails to trace the top of one of my flags.

“Three months apart was a really long time, Bax. I just want you to consider that when you make whatever choices you make. I love you and I’m not going to tell you what’s the right or wrong thing to do, but you need to remember now that what you do ultimately affects me too.”

I closed my eyes briefly and pulled her against my chest. “All right, Copper-Top.”

She smoothed her hands along my sides and grasped my hand. “What do you think of the house?”

“It looks like home. It looks like you, and I love the bedroom.”

She giggled a little and I followed her to the big bed. It just took a little nudge and she was sprawled on her back, the terry cloth between us long gone. I braced above her and grinned down at her.

“I want to spend every night in here with you.”

“That was the plan.”

“I don’t know how this happened, Dovie, but I will always be grateful Race put you directly in my path.”

Her mouth hooked up on one side and I bent down to trace the puckered skin of her scar with my tongue.

“Things have a way of working out, Bax. You just need a little faith.”

I lifted my head up and stared down at her. She was just so lovely, so optimistic and full of goodness, and kindness. She was the only way I was ever going to find some sense of rightness in this ultimately backward and wrong place we existed.

“I don’t need faith, Dovie. I have you.”

And I did have her, over and over again, because I was making up for lost time, and because she was beautiful, and mostly because I felt like another person was truly mine, and that she was choosing to be here with me. No matter how bad it got, or what kind of road I might end up taking us down, she was in it with me for the long haul. I had never done anything right or righteous to deserve her, but now that I had her, I wasn’t letting her go and I was going to make a conscious effort to live a better life, knowing she was my reward and she deserved to have some good, even if she could handle all the bad.

6 months later . . .

IHAD A BUNCH of schoolwork spread out on the table in front of me, Brysen was sitting on the couch next to me, and we were gossiping about Ramon’s new boyfriend. I had cut back on my class schedule a little, so getting my associate’s degree was gonna take a little bit longer than I planned, but I had picked up an extra shift at the restaurant in order to squirrel money away for when I had to transfer to the actual university in order to finish my degree. Bax told me repeatedly he would fund the rest of my schooling, he had money left over from his real-life game of Grand Theft Auto and the garage was doing really well. But starting school and getting my degree was something that I had always planned for myself and wanted to achieve on my own, so eventually he quit offering. He paid all the house bills and gave me money on the regular anyway, so I figured it wouldn’t kill him to let me have this one thing for myself.

I still worked at the group home. In fact, after Reeve’s quick exit, they had offered me a promotion. I was tempted to take it, but every other weekend away from Bax was already pushing it, so I had turned it down. It hurt a little to say no, but every time I came home after not seeing him for a few days in a row, he was sporting a new bruise or busted-up knuckles, meaning he was out getting into trouble while I was away. He didn’t come right out and say he was still letting Nassir set up fights for him, just like he didn’t openly admit all the cars he had coming in and out of the shop weren’t there by their owners’ request, but for the most part he was keeping his nose clean. Well, as clean as a guy like Bax could.

Titus was keeping an eagle eye on him and he was pretty invested in making sure he stayed out of jail for my sake, so I didn’t pry, and I wasn’t really too worried about those kinds of speed bumps.

Speaking of the devil, he came wandering out of the backroom pulling his shirt on over his head as he went. He wasn’t as bulked up as he had been when I first met him. He was leaner now, less intimidating in sheer size, but that didn’t mean he had lost any of his badass swagger. I didn’t miss the little sigh of appreciation that left Brysen’s parted lips as Bax bent over the back of the couch and placed a stinging, hard kiss on my mouth.

“Gotta finish the rear end on the Hemi ’Cuda. The garage is empty tonight and Race has plans. I’ll be back in a bit.”

I ran my thumb across the star on his temple and gave him a softer kiss. “See ya later.”

He ran a hand over my hair and pulled one of his thousand hoodies on as he headed out the door.

“Is it okay to tell you that he is equal parts terrifying and hot?” Brysen asked.

I snickered and tossed the pen I was holding onto one of my books. “Yeah, because it’s true.”

“I don’t know how you do it. He’s so . . . dark. It’s like it just oozes out of him.”

He wasn’t always dark, in fact lately he was the one having to pull me into the light. I didn’t feel bad for shooting Novak, he was an awful man and what he put Bax and my brother through made me glad he was gone, but being the one to pull the trigger had changed something in me, made me have a touch of the dark, and without Bax around, there was a good chance I might have just slipped into it.

“He’s a lot to handle. Good thing most of the time he makes it worth my while.”

“Is he still pretty close with your brother?”

She still wasn’t the biggest fan of Race’s. I wasn’t sure what that was all about considering they hardly spent any time around one another, but it didn’t matter enough for me to really investigate. Race was stirring up enough trouble on the back end that worrying about who liked him and who didn’t would make a full-time job.

“There are some serious trust issues working between the two of them. Race doesn’t love us together and Bax doesn’t love that Race isn’t living clean. Ultimately they are best friends and have each other’s backs, but Race sent Bax to jail, and Bax is screwing Race’s little sister, so it can be tense.”

Race had taken his knack for numbers and his newfound understanding of the underworld and picked up where Novak had left off. My brother was running numbers like clockwork. Considering Lord Hartman no longer had an in with the criminal underworld, and there was no longer a threat to my well-being, he had cut Race off . . . no money whatsoever was coming in from the Hill, and Race was too resourceful to let that stop him. If he was going to be a bookie and a loan shark, he was going to be the best, most affluent one the Point had ever seen.

If Bax was still operating outside the law, he was being far more hush-hush about it than my brother was. I tried not to worry about him, but Race was taking big chances, making a name for himself, and not in any kind of good way. Something had happened to him; he was being bold and brazen and trying his best to take up the mantle that had just been shaken off of Novak.