Tamed Read online

  “She goes home on the weekends. Why?”

  “I just wanted to make sure we were alone. I know you’re going to blow up when I tell you what happened tonight.”

  “What? Was it something bad?” I closed the door and walked over to my bed. I dropped down onto the edge and expectantly stared up at him.

  “Yeah, it was bad.”

  “Okay…” I said when he hadn’t elaborated further. “Are you going to explain? Or are you going to stand there all night, watching me?”

  He grinned, but it was a tiny one. “I’m debating.”

  “On what?”

  “Whether or not to fuck you first. Once I tell you, I doubt you’ll be in the mood.”

  My stomach dropped. “What did you do?”

  He shook his head. “It wasn’t me. It was…Chloe.”

  “What did she do?”

  He sat down on the bed next to me. “She fucked up, Amber. She fucked up so hard. Logan came into the bar tonight while we were playing. He jumped up onto the stage and started fighting with Drake.”

  “Oh my God! Why? Logan wouldn’t do something like that.”

  “Because Drake and Chloe have been fucking behind his back.”

  I froze as I tried to process what he had said. “No, she wouldn’t do that to Logan.”

  He looked grim. “She did. Drake admitted that it happened. I guess Chloe finally told Logan, and he went after Drake. Both of the dumb fuckers care about her. If Eric and I hadn’t been there, they would have killed each other. We had a hell of a time pulling them apart.”

  I wanted to scream. “How could she be so fucking stupid? Logan loves her so much. He has for years!”

  “She loves Drake. I know it doesn’t make it better, but she does. Even I could see it.” He cursed. “This is why friends shouldn’t get involved. Drake and Logan both pretended to be her friend. Look at how that turned out.”

  “I need to find Logan,” I said as I stood. “I need to make sure that he’s okay.”

  Adam grabbed my arm. “Leave him alone tonight. He is going to have to deal with this on his own.”

  “I need to make sure he’s okay!” I said again as I tried to pull free.

  “He was fine when I left them, but I know he’s not going to want to be around anyone tonight, especially you.”

  “What? Why? I haven’t done anything to him!”

  “No, but you’re friends with Chloe, too.”

  “Not anymore,” I said, my body shaking with fury as I thought about what Chloe had done. “I’m not friends with someone who could do that to a person she loves.”

  He pulled me down onto his lap and wrapped his arms around me. “You don’t know the whole story, Amber. Don’t judge her until you find out what really happened.”

  “Bullshit. I’ll judge her all I want. I knew Drake was going to be a problem. I told her before to stay away from him. But did she listen? Of course not!”

  He pushed up the back of my tank top and started rubbing circles across my spine. I hated myself for it, but I started to relax instantly. His touch was so calming to me.

  “Sometimes, we can’t stay away even though we should,” he said quietly. “Sometimes, we have no choice.”

  I wondered if we were still talking about Chloe. “We always have a choice.”

  “No, we don’t. Look at the two of us, Amber. I can’t seem to stay away from you for long, and we’re not even together. We’re just having fun. The thought of leaving you alone makes me want to break shit.”

  “Keep talking like that, and I’ll start to wonder if you actually care about me,” I said in a teasing tone.

  “Friends care about each other.” He leaned forward and kissed my shoulder. “I care about fucking you right now. I think it’d be a good distraction from your friends.”

  I shook my head. “Not tonight.”

  He paused, his lips still against my shoulder. “I knew I should have fucked you first.”

  He picked me up and sat me down next to him.

  I glanced over to see him watching me. “What?”

  “You going to be okay? Can I leave? Or will you go storming up to Chloe’s or Logan’s rooms?”

  “I won’t go tonight, but I am going to talk to Logan in the morning. I want to know exactly what happened. I can’t believe Chloe would do something like this.”

  Adam stood. “Sometimes, we all do stupid shit, things we can never take back, no matter how much we wish we could.”

  “You sound as if you’re speaking from experience.”

  “I am.” He looked away. “I need to go. Call me tomorrow, okay?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. See ya.”

  As soon as the door closed behind him, I wished that I’d asked him to stay.

  Logan didn’t answer his door the next day. I wasn’t sure if it was because he wanted to be alone or if he just wasn’t home.

  He didn’t answer the next day either.

  On Monday, I finally caught him as he was walking into our dorm.

  “Logan! Wait!” I yelled as I ran to catch up with him.

  He stopped and turned toward me. Once I caught up, he started walking again.

  “Logan—”

  “Whatever you have to say, it can wait until we get to my room,” he said without turning around again.

  I stayed silent as we climbed the stairs to the third floor. When we entered his dorm room, he dropped his books on the bed and turned to me. It took everything in me not to run and jump into his arms. He looked like absolute hell. His normally tan skin looked pale, but it was his eyes that did me in. Logan had the most beautiful blue eyes I’d ever seen. One look at them could pull you in. Right now, his eyes looked dead, and the dark circles under them said he hadn’t slept in a while.

  “Oh, Logan,” I whispered as I crossed the room and hugged him tightly, unable to stop myself.

  He tensed in my arms. “I take it she told you.”

  “No, but Adam did. I’m so sorry, Logan. I never thought she’d hurt you like this.” I dropped my arms and took a step back.

  “Neither did I,” he said as he sat down on the bed. “I love her more than anything in this world, Amber, and she completely destroyed me.”

  “I know. I’ll never forgive her for this.” I sat down next to him.

  He shook his head. “This shouldn’t affect your relationship with her. This is between her and me.”

  “Bullshit. You’re my friend, and she hurt you. It’s officially my business.”

  “No,” he said sharply, “you’re not picking sides. Chloe is going to need you to help her deal with this.”

  I stared at him, unable to believe he’d just said that. “You can’t be serious. She cheated on you, and you want me to help her deal? She. Cheated. On. You.”

  He winced. “I know she did. But I talked to her on Saturday, and what she did is tearing her apart. No matter how bad I want to be there for her, I can’t right now, so that leaves you to deal with her.”

  I shook my head. He was being so…Logan. Chloe had wronged him, yet he was still worried about her.

  “You’re ridiculous. How can you even care about how she feels after what she did to you?” I asked.

  He looked away. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Then, explain it to me, Logan!”

  “Because I still love her. I fucking love her so much it hurts. I want to hate her, but I can’t. I just can’t!” he shouted. His chest heaved as he fought for control.

  I reached for him, but he pushed my hand away. I dropped it back into my lap.

  “Logan, I don’t know what you want me to say. I want to make this better for you, but I don’t know how.”

  “Just take care of her. That’s all I ask.”

  “Okay,” I whispered even though I knew I was lying to him.

  “Can you go? I just…I don’t feel like talking about this anymore.” He turned away from me.

  “Yeah, I’ll go. If you need me, you’ll call?”


  “I’ll call.”

  I hated to leave him, but I didn’t want to make things worse, so I left. Once I shut his door, I leaned against it and closed my eyes. I hated how much he was hurting right now, and it was all because of Chloe. I loved her, but I couldn’t even stomach the thought of her at the moment. There was no way I would comfort her like he wanted me to. I didn’t even want to look at her.

  Adam had said that Chloe loved Drake. If that was the case, love was the biggest motherfucker of all. Love was supposed to be the one thing in this world that was completely pure. That was a lie. I’d thought that I loved Chad. Because of that, I’d ended up broken. No, love wasn’t pure. It was tainted with so much pain that it made me want to run away.

  I thought about my complicated relationship with Adam. I cared for him. Of that, I was sure. But I didn’t love him. I wasn’t even sure I liked him some days when he acted like an ass. But I knew that with enough time, I could love him.

  Seeing Logan in that much pain was a wake-up call for me. I would never let myself be torn to shreds like that. Never. I would put up an emotional wall so thick that whatever I thought I felt for Adam would never break through.

  Fucking was all I’d let myself have, and I’d make sure that it was enough.

  Weeks went by at a snail’s pace.

  Logan had closed himself off from everyone, including me. I tried to talk to him a few times, but he pushed me away before I had a chance to say anything more than hello. That hurt, but I understood why he wanted to be alone. Logan had always been so contained, and now was no different.

  I hadn’t spoken to Chloe at all. I saw her a couple of times, but I didn’t even acknowledge her existence. She deserved nothing less. I’d never been so angry with her as I was now. She’d royally screwed up, and she knew it. She could suffer alone. Maybe it would show her just how much her actions could hurt others.

  Even though I was angry with her, I missed her. I could lie to everyone else, but I couldn’t lie to myself.

  As weeks slowly passed, I would find myself grabbing my phone to call her. I forced myself to keep my distance though. No matter how much I missed her, she’d done Logan wrong, and she needed to suffer.

  I would see Drake weekly when I went to their shows. Since I’d decided to keep my distance emotionally from Adam, I made myself go to the band’s shows. I needed to accept the fact that I wasn’t the only woman he wanted. I’d expected him to leave with other women, but he never did. If I was around, I was the one he took home. I tried not to think too hard on why.

  Drake looked as bad as Chloe and Logan. All three of them looked as if they hadn’t slept in weeks. I wondered if they really hadn’t. I almost felt sorry for Chloe and Drake, but when I remembered how broken Logan had looked when he talked to me, I found it easy to push away any sympathetic feelings.

  Since I wasn’t hanging out with Chloe or Logan, I would find myself spending more and more time with Adam. It seemed that we were constantly together. If I wasn’t at his apartment, I would be out with him. It wasn’t something that either of us had planned. It just kind of happened. But through it all, I kept my resolve to keep things strictly physical. I found myself liking Adam as a person, and I even went as far as to consider him a friend. It felt weird to think of him like that, but I started to get used to it. After all, we were supposed to be friends—with benefits.

  Adam and I would talk about the situation with Chloe, Drake, and Logan occasionally. We didn’t agree—at all. He saw Drake’s side while all I could see was Logan’s.

  “He’s so fucked-up, Amber. I’ve never seen him like this,” Adam said as we stared up at the ceiling of his bedroom.

  I pulled the blanket up tighter around my naked body. “He should be fucked-up, Adam. He pushed his way into Chloe’s life and completely screwed up everything she had with Logan.”

  “You don’t know him the way I do. He doesn’t mess around with chicks who are taken. He doesn’t need to. If he didn’t care about Chloe, he wouldn’t have gone after her.”

  “Maybe, but it doesn’t change anything. He’s still the reason that things are the way they are.”

  “It wasn’t just him. Chloe could’ve said no,” Adam pointed out.

  “Oh, I know. Trust me, I know. Chloe is on my shit list until they get all of this straightened out. She’s just as much at fault as he is. Maybe more. The only one completely innocent in all of this is Logan, and he’s the one who has suffered the most.”

  “She’s never looked at Logan the way she looks at Drake. I knew something was going on between them, but if you want the truth, I didn’t care enough to ask. You might get pissed, but I wish Drake would just man up and go talk some sense into Chloe. It’s obvious to everyone that they love each other. Logan didn’t stand a chance.”

  I sighed. “It does piss me off to hear you say that. I don’t know Drake, nor do I care about him. I wanted Logan to be happy, but I don’t see that happening now, especially if what you say about Chloe is true. I don’t see her ever giving him another chance if she loves Drake.”

  Adam rolled over and pinned me to the bed. I froze in surprise.

  “If any good has come out of our friends’ fucked-up choices, it’s the fact that they made me realize what an awesome thing we have going on here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He grinned down at me. “The two of us get along perfectly. There’s no pesky emotions tied to what we’re doing. It keeps things simple, easy, clean. We fuck whenever we want and go about our business. It’s kind of perfect.”

  “Be still my heart. You’re such a charmer,” I mumbled.

  He leaned down and kissed me. “What can I say? I like to fuck you. Your pussy—it calls to me.”

  “And here I thought you kept me around for my charming personality.”

  He nuzzled my neck. “That, too. But mainly because you ride my dick better than anyone else I’ve messed around with.”

  His head dipped lower, his lips closing around one of my nipples. I sighed in contentment.

  Simple. Easy. Clean. No pesky feelings to ruin this moment. I could handle that.

  A few days later, Logan knocked on my door. I was surprised to see him, but I was glad that he was finally ready to talk to me.

  “Hey. Can I come in?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said as I let him in.

  As soon as I closed the door, he spoke, “I talked to Chloe last night.”

  I tensed. “And?”

  “She said you haven’t talked to her since everything happened.”

  “Nope, I haven’t.”

  He ran his hand across his face in irritation. “I told you, I didn’t want you in the middle of this, Amber. You weren’t supposed to shun her.”

  “I heard what you said, but it wasn’t your choice to make. I’m allowed to be angry with her if I want.”

  “I had a really long talk with her, and we cleared the air. I want you to do the same,” Logan said, completely ignoring what I’d just said.

  “You can’t be serious! You’re friends again after what she did?”

  “I can’t stand not to have her in my life. I’d rather have her as a friend than not at all.”

  I shook my head. “You might find it easy to forgive, but I don’t.”

  “This isn’t about you!” he shouted. “I want things to go back to the way they were. That’s impossible if you continue to hold a grudge against her!”

  “What do you expect me to do? Run up to her room and tell her everything is forgiven?” I shouted right back at him.

  “That’s exactly what I expect you to do. If not for her, then for me. She loves him. Nothing you or I do will change that. It’s time to get our lives back to the way they were. If that means she ends up with him, then that’s what will happen. Stop acting like a child, and let it go.”

  “It’s not that simple,” I said.

  “It is that simple.” He walked to the door. “Fix this shit, Amber. I don’t care if you have to
lie about how you feel. Just fix it—for me.”

  Then, he was gone.

  I found myself knocking on Chloe’s door two days later. It had taken me that long to accept what Logan had said. I hadn’t wanted to forgive her so easily, but I wasn’t doing him any favors by staying away. It would only make things worse for him. And I did miss Chloe. She was my best friend. She had been for years.

  Logan was right. I needed to grow up and move on.

  When Chloe opened her door, I started crying at the sight of her. I hated how much I’d missed her.

  Pushing away any ill feelings toward her, I threw myself into her arms and hugged her tightly. “I…I missed you so damn much, Chloe! This has been killing me inside.”

  She hugged me back and laughed, but it was hollow. “I missed you, too, Amber, but I got what I deserved. What I did was wrong, and I needed to pay for it.”

  “I’m sorry I was such a bitch to you. I was so mad at you for what you did and for not telling me. I had to find out from Adam after the fact. I thought you trusted me more than that!” I said, unable to hide my anger.

  “I did trust you. I just couldn’t put you in the middle of all this. Logan is your friend, too, and if I had told you, it would have torn you guys apart. I didn’t want to do that to you.” She said as she walked to her bed and sat down.

  I nodded as I wiped under my eyes to get rid of any smudged mascara. “I guess I understand why, but it doesn’t make me feel any better about the whole thing.”

  Chloe stood up and looked out her window at the campus below. “I know it’s a crappy excuse, but it’s all I’ve got. I was so confused, and I made some really bad choices, but I paid for it in the end. I nearly lost Logan, and I did lose Drake.”

  I hadn’t expected her to be so…broken. She knew that she’d fucked up, and she knew that there was no way to repair the damage she’d caused. I couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit sorry for her when I’d heard the way she said Drake’s name. It was killing her to be away from him.

  “Have you talked to Drake since all this happened? I’ve been to some of the band’s shows. He seems as depressed as you are.”

  She turned back toward me. Her shoulders were slumped in defeat. “No, I haven’t. I thought it was best to cut ties with both of them. We all need time to heal from this. I want him, but I don’t even know how he feels about me now. Besides, I don’t think it would be fair to Logan if I caused this and then skipped merrily off into the sunset to live my happily ever after.”