I finally risked a look at Shaw and some of the bitter edge had faded from her green gaze, but her mouth was still pressed in a tight line that didn’t look at all forgiving.

“I started messing around with drugs to make it more tolerable, to make it seem less like I was exactly what everyone was saying I was. Half the time I was doing what I was doing to keep Asa out of trouble or because I thought it would help a situation he had created, which made me feel awful time and time again. To this day I never asked if he knew what it cost me to help him in any way I could. He’s never said because I don’t think either of us could look the other in the eye if the truth was out there.”

Shaw’s mouth go flat concern, but she waited silently for me to continue. I wasn’t sure the concern was for the old me or the new me, but either way I just needed her to understand why I was making the decisions the way I was.

“I had a science teacher in high school, Mr. Kelly, who was keeping an eye on me. I always managed to get pretty good grades, even though I missed more classes than I ever attended. I guess he saw the wasted potential, the girl trapped by circumstance, and I think he had dealt with Asa a few years earlier, so he knew what my brother was capable of. He threatened to call the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services and get the state involved if my mama didn’t get her act together, and I guess it was enough to get her motivated to have Asa back off. Mr. Kelly forced me to fill out scholarship application after scholarship application, and hounded me until I practically got a perfect sixteen-hundred on the SAT. I guess I knew it was my one shot to get out of Woodward and if I didn’t do it, I was going to end up strung out and paying rent on my back, just like my mama.”

I shifted uncomfortably in the seat and shot a look around to make sure no one was listening in on our conversation. I was embarrassed to have all my dirty laundry out there. Not that I didn’t trust Shaw; it was just a wound that had never healed completely, and having someone else look at it made it open and bleed all over again.

“I got a partial scholarship to DU. Not enough to cover everything, but room and board were included and Mr. Kelly was so desperate for me to get away from Woodward and Asa’s influence that he pulled money out of his retirement account to make up the difference. Once I qualified for student loans, I paid him back as soon as I could. I got the Jeep at a junkyard and some of the guys who took auto shop fixed it up for some weed I stole from Asa. I hit the road and never looked back. When we moved into that dorm together, and I saw you all proper and elegant, I told myself that was what I was going to be from now on. No one was going to make me do anything I didn’t want to do, no one was going to question my worth or my value as a woman, no one was ever going to doubt that I was intelligent and driven. I was going to be all the things no one had ever given my mama a chance to be, and I wasn’t ever going back to Woodward. Asa was effectively dead to me. I had to get out from under the cloud of what I had let myself become.”

I blew out a breath and saw Shaw raise an eyebrow at me. This is where the favor I asked for came in.

“Only Asa isn’t dead or in jail. He’s here in Denver and he brought all the crap from Woodward here with him. There’s a guy named Silas in town who does really awful things for really terrible people back home. He’s the one who tried to break into the house when Cora was home. Apparently, Asa took something—some important book—from a biker gang and they want it back, bad. Silas will do whatever it takes to get the gang’s book, and I know Asa well enough to know he’ll do whatever he has to in order to keep it, if he thinks he can make money off of it. Asa has always counted on me to fix all his problems and I have no doubt my mom sent him out here for me to take care of him.”

Shaw clicked her fingernails on the table and tilted her head to one side.

“All right, Ayd. That sucks, really sucks, and I’m glad you finally told me all of it. I could kill the people who’ve hurt you. But I just don’t understand what any of this terrible story has to do with you breaking up with Jet, when you are clearly head over heels for him? When he would never treat you badly.”

I cringed, because there wasn’t anything in this world that was ever going to erase the look on his face when I dropped him off at the studio. The light that circled the outside of those midnight eyes had dimmed to the point of being black.

“We weren’t together, so I didn’t really break up with him.” That was as much as I could minimize the damage even if it was a blatant lie. I hadn’t just walked away from him and whatever it was we were building together, I had done what I do best—run.

I was startled because even though Shaw was tiny, when she wanted to, she had enough attitude to seem much bigger. I wasn’t expecting her to push away from the table and I wasn’t expecting her to glare down at me like I had just kicked her puppy across the room.

“We agreed on the truth, Ayd. If you can’t do that, then I’m not sitting here listening to this anymore. I’m already pretty pissed that you think any of that stuff in your past would have mattered to me. You know for a fact Rule was a manwhore, probably more of a slut than anyone really knows, and I loved him anyway. I would like to think that after our friendship took root, you would have known that I would have looked past anything to see all the wonderful things that make you, you.”

She was going to leave. She was actually walking away from me in a huff when I reached out a hand and clamped onto her arm. My brain was having a hard time getting around the fact she was angry about Jet, about how I had treated him, and not the fact I was asking to borrow twenty grand and the fact my past was so ugly and that I had kept it from her for so long.

“Shaw.” I was trying to find the words but she was on a roll.

“No, Ayd, you listen to me. I saw you with him the other night. Hell, I’ve seen the way you’ve watched him for over a year. No, he isn’t a guy who’s going to work in a cubicle and push paper around for a set salary. He is the guy who will turn you inside out, and make you forget about all those stupid boundaries you’ve set for yourself because you’re scared. Jet isn’t going to care about your past; he has one of his own that isn’t pretty. But, like a coward, instead of talking to him about it, you ran away from him when he needed you. You dropped him when he’s getting ready to go on tour for three months, and practically dared him to stick his dick in every European groupie who looks his way, just to get you off his mind.”

I pulled her back into the seat across from me, and waited until the curious stares her outburst had garnered died down. My heart already felt like a heavy stone in the center of my chest. When Jet hadn’t come home last night, every worst-case scenario I could come up with played through my head on an endless loop for hours. For the first time in forever, I cried myself to sleep while I was still wearing his shirt and wishing he were there to make it better.

“Look, I had to break things off. You don’t know my brother, but robbing Jet’s studio, taking everything that’s important to him, is right up Asa’s alley. I refuse to let someone I care about be my brother’s victim, because of me. Jet deserves to go on this tour, to have something just for him, finally. I did what I did to protect him.”

She sighed heavily and squeezed my hand. Some of the heat had faded out of her jade gaze.

“I think Jet is a big boy. I think if you were honest with him, he would not only be able to protect himself, but you as well.”

I shook my head vehemently. No.

“Asa is trouble and he just needs to go away.”

“So what? You think if he burglarized the studio, you can offer him the money and get the stuff back? I don’t understand.”