Free Roxy (Pandemic Sorrow #3) by Stevie J. Cole Page A

times he’d uttered it to me. This was different. It was endearing, and I liked it.
    “I’m sorry,” I said, and boldly laced my fingers in his.
    He glanced down at our hands and sort of, kind of smiled. “Sorry for what?”
    “That you had a shitty past.”
    He shrugged. “Life’s not fair. Nothing to be sorry about. It’s in the past. My life is great now, couldn’t ask for a better one.”
    It was obvious that was rehearsed. That line meant nothing to him; it was something he tossed out during an interview. That shitty past still caused him pain, and I could tell.
    “Really? Must be nice,” I muttered.
    We sat silently for a minute and when he released my hand, his fingers once again went crazy picking at the label on his beer bottle.
    He sighed and it was painful.
    “Okay, I’m lying. It sucks. I can’t handle it.” Laughing, he glanced back up at me. “There’s a lot I can’t handle. My past, words I’ve chosen to use as weapons, sometimes the fame gets to be too much. I’m not a well-adjusted individual. If you can’t tell.”
    I nodded. In that moment, there wasn’t much else I could do. “Yeah. You know what the hardest thing for me to swallow is?”
    He shook his head.
    “That the past is what shapes you. I hate that. I hate that I was shaped by utter shit, by poverty, by drugs and crackheads and CPS visits. But the worst thing is that I feel like death was what really molded me. My mom, my brother…friends.”
    Jag’s mouth had now formed a hard line. Straight, almost angry, but soft enough for me to tell it was a grimace of pity.
    Reaching up, he tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “I like the pink…” He smiled and my heart fluttered, stopped, really; it fell into my stomach and sat for a moment.
    “The past shaped parts of us, yeah, sure, but people change constantly.” He took a swig of his drink. “You gotta let the present take over, make it overshadow your past. You can determine who you are.” He sucked in a breath. “Find something that numbs that part of you up so you can focus on the present.”
    Damn. He’s got depth? He’s…not what I expected.
    I shifted on the stool, slightly uncomfortable with how deep we were going with each other. “Is that what music does for you?” I swallowed. Nervous.
    He laughed. “Does music make me numb?” Shaking his head, he continued, “No, music makes me feel alive. Honestly, it makes me feel a little like a god, immortal.”
    And then there is who I figured he was.
    He ran his hand over his neck. “The drugs make me numb. They take the pain away.”
    “Oh,” I choked out. I wanted to tell him how stupid that was, that it would kill him, but I couldn’t. He already looked wounded, and it wasn’t my place to tell him how to live his life.
    “Do you have a boyfriend?” He quickly changed the topic.
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “Well, really, they’re too much of a hassle. I don’t need one.”
    A smirk brightened his face. “Oh, really? If they’re a hassle that just means you haven’t had a good one yet, and everyone needs love, don’t they?”
    I wanted to shake my head and shout that to me, love equated to pain. I wanted to tell him I was cursed and that anyone I really let myself love either hurt me or died, but I refrained, pulling my glass to my lips and gulping the rest of it down.
    “Yeah, I guess.” I twisted the empty glass on the bar, faking a smile when I managed to glance back up at him. “Sure.”
    The longer we talked, the more human he became, and I realized there wasn’t too much that made us different from one another, which terrified me.

Chapter 9
    Two hours later, I found myself crammed in his I-have-more-money-than-I-know-what-to-do-with sports car, barreling down the dark interstate. What in the fucking hell am I doing—in his car…alone—with him? I’m anti-social. I’m… I’m… The situation made me stumble over my own internal dialogue. I look like an idiot. Like a fucking