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  This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Kelly Elliott. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Wanted remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Kelly Elliott, or their affiliates or licensors.

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  Blurred Lines

  by Nazarea Andrews

  Contents

  BLURRED LINES

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  About the Author

  Books in the Wanted World

  Chapter 1

  THE BAR IS THE KIND of shithole most people don’t stumble into unless they’re at the very end of their rope. It’s shoved between two storefronts that have seen far better days, with a battered sign proclaiming that this worn-down place is indeed the Wolfden.

  By all appearances, it’s indeed a shithole, but if you push into interior, you’re met with warm shades of wood and bright neon, deep booths and a well-worn dance floor. The pool tables are scuffed and the stage in the corner is small. The bar top shines from too many years and the whole place has a dingy feel that I can’t quite shake, but there’s a warmth and comfort to the place that encourages people to return.

  Here, the drinks are cheap, local student IDs aren’t looked too closely at, and, sometimes, it’s quiet enough for friends to sit over drinks and confide in each other about the disaster that is college life. The Wolfden looks like a shithole, a quiet dirty hovel for bikers to get day-drunk in—but it’s one of the best kept secrets of Puget Sound College. I rub the bar down and gave the room a self-satisfied smile. It’s not the best decision I ever made, and god knows I still get shit for it from my family, but it pays the bills pretty consistently and gives me the freedom to do what I really want.

  “Who’s coming in to cover your shift on Saturday?” Cat asks, glancing up from the computer she’s working on. She’s dressed down, in a Pure Slate tank top and a pair of tight jeans, but her hair is tugged back into an almost severe ponytail, and her makeup is light, subtle, not the vampy pinup girl look she favors for stage.

  I straighten, wiping my hands on my jeans as I glance at the schedule Cat is cobbling together. “Peter’s coming in for the night,” I say. We’d hired two-part time managers a year ago, when Spence started booking weekend gigs for our band, and I don’t regret it, really. The exposure helps and it’s what we all want to do, but there’s always a hint of hesitation in me—and Cat—when they call in Peter or Sunny.

  Car has been with me since my senior year at PSC, almost from the exact day I bought Wolfden, so her possessiveness makes sense, but both of us are aware we need these gigs, that we need to keep pushing our boundaries. Her phone vibrates on the bar and I peer at it from where I’m crouched, whipping down bottles of liquor.

  “Get that?” I nudge, and Cat makes a low, pleased noise as she scoops up the phone.

  “Violet!” she chirps happily. I can hear my sister almost purring a greeting across the line and I straighten so fast, I clip my head on the bar. I grit out a curse as Cat smirks at me, lips a wicked twist of amusement. I huff and snatch the phone away, peering at it to see my sister in miniature.

  She’s grinning at me, but it’s not the usual sharp edged glee of my youngest sibling—it’s distracted, like she’s keeping something inside that she’s dying to share. I’ve seen that look on her face so many times over the years. I recognize it immediately and I go tense, pushing away from the bar and Cat to give the conversation the illusion of privacy.

  “Vi? Why aren’t you in class? What’s going on?”

  She smiles nervously, and takes a deep breath. “Don’t get mad, ok?”

  The last time Violet told me not to get mad, I’d picked her up after she’d crashed our older sister’s Mustang. My stomach churns a little and I swallows down the spike of unease.

  “Tell me.”

  It bursts out of her so fast, a blinding smile cutting across her features and utter glee in her tone. “I’m getting married!” She’s so excited, her eyes large and hopeful as they gaze at me through the tiny screen, and it’s the only thing that cuts through the haze of fury rushing through me at her words.

  “I didn’t think you were dating,” I say instead of the curses and questions I want to spit at her.

  Cat gives me a curious look, but I disregard it, listening as Violet rattles out a story of a semester long romance that started as friendship and morphed sharply into romance when they got stranded in Aspen for a weekend in late February—

  “Oh my god, Violet, do not tell me about your weekend sexapedes,” I groan, scrubbing a hand over my face.

  She laughs and the nerves are gone now, leaving just my bratty baby sister in their wake. “You gonna come home, right? For my wedding.”

  My mouth snaps shut, jaw clenching.

  It’s been almost ten years since I went back to Mason. I didn’t intend on changing that. I’m happier in Seattle, with the shitty bar and the local college students, with Cat and Spencer.

  “Ethan, please,” she whispers.

  But I can’t deny her, not this. I nod, reluctantly giving in. “Yeah, Violet. Of course I’ll be there.”

  The conversation stalls after that. She promises to send me the details, and I nod again, woodenly, trying to sort through the fact that my sister is getting married—that I’m going home.

  The weight of what going home means hits when she says, grin wide, “Mom has a couple nice girls lined up for you to bring as your date.”

  It slams into me like a ton of bricks and (later, I’ll blame the sudden panic for this), I blurt, “No, no need! I’m dating—I’ll bring my boyfriend!”

  There’s a long, heavy moment of silence, and then she says, “You . . . You have a boyfriend.”

  I nod, a little frantic, even as I wonder what the hell I’m doing.

  “Well, that,” Violet drawls, the smile on her face so wide it’s obscene, “is fantastic. I cannot wait to meet him.”

  I catch Cat’s attention and wave, eyes wide in alarm, and she purposefully drops a glass, the shattering sound barely making me flinch.

  “Violet,” I say, hoping she caught the noise over the speaker, trying to hint with my tone that I need to get back to the bar.

  She laughs. “I’ll get you go. See you soon, bub.”

  And then she’s gone and Cat is laughing as she sweeps up the glass. “What the fuck, Ethan? You don’t have a boyfriend.”

  My shoulders slump in defeat. “I know.”

  She scrutinizes me for a long moment, then reaches for the phone and a bottle of vodka. “Ok, you get started on this,” she says, sliding it toward me with two shot glasses, “I’m gonna call Luc and get him to cover for you today. You’ve got enough to deal with right now.”

  I think about protesting—reminding her that I’m actually the boss in this situation—but I don’t, just nod and pour us both a shot, wondering what the actual fuck I’m supposed to do.

  I listen to Cat coaxing Luc, and I try to process everything that just happened—when the hell did my baby sister get old enough that marriage was even on the radar?—while I stare at the clear liquid swirling in the shot glass. I’m glad that Cat is handling the bar, because I’m no
t sure I could even handle making change at the moment, much less pull off a six hour shift on the tail end of finals week.

  The problem isn’t that Violet is getting married. I can handle that, even if it set my head and heart spinning. It’s that I panicked, that I’m still panicking.

  “Hey, you ok?” Cat says, and I shake my head and retreat a few steps. She watches from her perch on the bar and I should tell her to get down, but I don’t and she doesn’t press.

  “What do you need?” she asks quietly.

  I know what I need, what I want, but that’s just gonna complicate things further. “I need to find a damn boyfriend,” I whine.

  Cas winces, though she tries to hide it. “How exactly are you planning on handling that?”

  My laugh sounds hysterical even to me. I have no fucking clue.

  Chapter 2

  I LEFT MASON TEN YEARS ago. It was early spring, daytime, when the sun was shining and my sisters were at school. I climbed into my dad’s Jeep and drove until I couldn’t see straight, then slept in the backseat, curled up on the bench. I kept going until I finally hit the ocean, then turned north and didn’t stop all the way to Seattle.

  I haven’t been back since. My mom had called, tried to get me to come home, and my sisters had cried and cursed. I’d ignored all of it. When it got to be too much guilt, I’d stopped answering the calls. Then one stormy night, Ruby showed up on my doorstep, rain-soaked and furious.

  I’d had a hard time explaining that to Spencer.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go home. It’s that I had no idea how to go back to the life I’d left shattered, how to pick up the pieces of everything I’d broken.

  “Ethan,” Cat says, breaking me out of my thoughts. Her tone is worried, and then my phone is in my hand and I can hear Spencer’s voice through the speaker, warm and bright.

  “Hey, big guy. What’s wrong? Cat seems a little upset.”

  I make a noise, low and indistinct, and I can feel all of Spencer’s genius focusing on me. “Hey. You don’t sound so good. What’s goin’ on?”

  “Uh. I have to go back to Mason.”

  There’s a long beat of silence, and then Spencer breathes out softly, “Fuck, Ethan. Ok. I need like, ten minutes to get out of here. Meet me at home?”

  “No, you’ve got that thing with Cara—.”

  “I’ll reschedule,” he interrupts, “You good to drive? Cat said you got into the vodka.”

  I snort.

  Spencer chuckles over the line. “Ok, see you at home. I’ll grab dinner.”

  He hangs up before I can protest, and I know Spencer has turned his attention to finishing his projects so he can leave. I glare at Cat, who doesn’t even bother to look apologetic.

  “You know he has a date tonight, right?”

  “I know you’re about five minutes from a panic attack, and since you don’t want admit to me that you even have feelings, I can’t help you. He can. And he’d be pissed if I didn’t tell him.”

  My eyes narrow and she gives me a bland, unimpressed look.

  “I can’t—“ I wave at the bar. “I can’t just leave this.”

  “You can take a personal day, boss. It’s not gonna come crashing down. And if you need to go back to Texas and be with your family—we’ll hold things together until then. Now go home. Talk to Spence about whatever’s got you spooked, and then start thinking about what color you want your date to coordinate with. I’ll find someone for you to take home.” She grins at that, and my panic spikes.

  I shove it down and focus on the task at hand. Spence will be home soon and I don’t intend to keep him waiting. Cat extends my keys and I take them, reaching out to grab my phone with my other hand. I slip it into my pocket, then shrug into my dark leather jacket. “Call if you need anything. I can come back.”

  She smiles and goes on tiptoes to kiss my cheek. “I’ve got this, Ethan. But I will call if I need you.”

  I grimace and she pushes me gently toward the door, so I leave, but I’m under no illusions about the chances of her actually calling.

  I crank up the music in the Jeep. It’s a playlist Spencer made for me under the claim that listening to the same three albums on repeat is no way for a musician to learn anything. It’s familiar now, a comfort, and I let my mind go blank as I drive back to mine and Spencer’s shared rental house.

  Cat isn’t wrong. Spencer is the only one who knows even close to enough about my past—about Mason—to make the panic clawing at me settle into something bearable. And there is the undeniable fact that it’s Spencer, and he’s always been better at getting me to calm down than I’m truly comfortable admitting.

  I trust Spencer. It wasn’t something I ever intended—it just happened, the necessity of our situation forcing us together, and Spencer’s relentless personality worming under my defenses, sneaking in when I never expected.

  He showed up during a time when I didn’t want anyone, and he refused to leave. It was annoying, until it became the only thing I could count on. Then it was a lifeline, and I found myself leaning on Spencer too much, depending on the younger man when I shouldn’t.

  I’m doing the same thing now, running from the panic and my own fucking bar, expecting Spencer to drop everything to be there.

  It would be better, I think, if Spencer didn’t make it so easy—if he wasn’t there to help me the second I faltered, if he put himself before me even once.

  That’s not who Spencer is though, and after years of friendship, leaning on each other, turning to him when my world starts spinning is almost instinctive.

  I pull into the driveway outside our house, put the Jeep in park, and sit for a moment, starting up at our living room window.

  The problem with Spencer is that it’s too easy to forget where the lines are drawn. We’re friends, and he’s in love with a really amazing girl that I actually like, who’s as smart as she is beautiful and who makes Spencer almost deliriously happy.

  When I look at my texts and see a joke from Spencer, or glance at the app we share for the grocery store, or our joint calendar—I forget that this is just roommates and friendship, that it’s not more.

  It’s why I’m still single, to be honest. That, and—I grimace at the thought—people usually expect conversation and wit, and I’m not really good at either. Fucking hell, why did I tell Violet I’m dating? I’m not going to find a guy willing to put up with my shit for four days, especially with everything going back home will stir up.

  I push out of the Jeep and stomp up to the house, stopping only to give Mrs. Henderson next door a grumpy wave. She giggles and calls out, “Make sure Spencer shares those brownies I sent over!”

  I nod as I unlock the door, grunting an affirmative that earns me another laugh before I’m inside and away from the neighbors who insist on trying to be friendly, who want to talk and get to know me.

  It’s easier when Spencer is here, when we work outside and around the house together. I hide in the manual labor of it, keeping busy while Spencer bosses me around and gossips with the PTA moms. They get the Good Neighbor check, I get a good workout, and everyone goes home happy—them to their little families and me to a cold beer and a lazy night in front of Netflix with Spencer, arguing about music and who’s turn it is to clean the bathroom, and all sorts of other stuff that doesn’t mean anything, but means the world to me.

  I shuffle into the kitchen, shoving the two packs of beer I picked up on the drive into the fridge, then I busy myself with the dishes Spence left in the sink this morning. It doesn’t take long to wash them, and soon I’m settling into the living room sofa. I’ve just started half-heartedly reading a book when the front door swings open and Spence spills into the house, awash of papers and falling laptop case. I see a flash of limbs, pale skin, and dark hair, then I catch his eyes for a split second, wide and startled, before he topples into the back of the chair, jolting to a halt and just barely catching our dinner by one finger.

  “Spencer,” I drawl, amused.
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  “Hey, buddy. Uh. Tripping over my feet. Again.” Spencer gives me a bright, slightly red smile and waves the bag of Thai at me. “Wanna get forks and pretend you didn’t see that?”

  I stand and relive the younger man of our dinner, waving him off. “Get changed, dude.”

  Spencer flashes a grateful smile. He’s already coming apart, tie loose around his neck, his button down half undone and the sleeves rolled up around his forearms, but I know he won’t truly relax until he’s shed the business casual and replaced it with sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt.

  By the time Spencer reappears, hair a spiky mess and feet bare, I’ve got dinner sitting paper-plated on the coffee table, complete with forks and two cold beers. He sprawls on the couch next to me, offering up a soft thanks as he takes the first pull from his beer. I dip my head in return, small smile on my lips. For a time, we eat, quiet and comfortable in our small home, and I let my mind wander, feeling the warm weight of Spencer at my side as he unwinds after a long day.

  Spencer leans back against the couch, eating slow and sloppy, passively scanning through channels until he finds an old episode of How It Was Made. I flick pieces of shrimp on his plate, stealing the occasional mushroom from him, and he stabs at me lazily with his fork when I go for the chicken.

  “Back off, you thieving bastard,” he says, nudging me with one shoulder.

  “Was Cara upset?” I ask, glancing at him and away again.

  “Nah. I told her it was an emergency of sorts.” He yawns and snags my discarded plate, carrying it to the kitchen before he returns with fresh beers for both of us. He crosses his legs under him and gives me a serious expression. “Ok. Tell me what happened.”

  I stare at him for a second, this boy who’s made himself the centerpiece of my life, who’s looking at me like whatever I have to say is more pressing than the girlfriend he’s blown off, like whatever I’m panicking about is the most important thing in the world. His big whiskey colored eyes are intent and sweet, and I know that whoever the fuck Cat finds for me to drag home for a few days—it won’t work.