"Baby, I think we need to get out. You're freezing and shaking." Ezra's voice broke my calm silence.

"Mmmhmmm..." I said, lazily running my hands down his the muscles in his back. His dick twitched against my stomach. Ezra was already semi-hard again and ready to go—and so was I.

"I'm serious. You're going to get sick if we stay in here much longer."

I stuck my bottom lip out and pouted. He laughed and shook his head, refusing to give me what I wanted.

"That's not going to work this time. Get your ass out of the shower." He slid his hand down to my backside. He brought his hand back, smacking me hard on my butt and squeezed. I yelped in surprise. My eyes widened, pulling me out of my stupor.

"Now be a good girl and get out of the shower or I'll turn you over my knee." His mouth pulled up again and he laughed.

I swallowed.

I was equal parts worried he might actually do it and partly ashamed that I might enjoy it. He looked at my reaction and smiled.

"Don't worry. I'll probably do it even if you do behave."

I pushed him away from me and climbed out of the shower. Ezra was right; I was freezing. When I looked in the mirror, my lips were trembling and turning blue. He wrapped me in a towel and rubbed my shoulders, using his large hands to try to warm me. I leaned back into him, feeling his chest raise and lower against my back. In this moment, I almost forgot how messed up and wrong everything was around us—almost.

When I finally got dressed, I opted for full-body sweats since I was freezing. Ezra said I looked like I was dressing for an arctic expedition before he walked back out to the kitchen. I slipped on striped fuzzy socks and pulled on a headband that covered my ears. This cold girl needed to warm up fast.

Ezra was in the kitchen, prepping another pot of coffee when I came out of the room. Brynn still was not home and I was getting really worried about her. She usually sent me a text if she was going to be gone for an extended period. This is the longest we had not talked in months. I missed my wild best friend.

Ezra was singing softly as I peeped around the corner, watching him like a stalker.  I had only heard him hum before when he was working on his music. His voice was sweet yet sultry. He was really good, which didn't surprise me at all. I sat listening to him for a long time before he turned around and realized he was caught. His cheeks blushed and he looked down at the floor.

"Don't stop." I said, smiling at him. "You never told me you could sing."

"I don't really like to sing in front of anyone." He said, trying not to smile.

"You should. You have nothing to hide." I stood behind him and pressed my chest into his back. I wrapped myself around him and buried my head into his shirt. 

"I would much rather play my guitar. Singing feels too personal to me." Ezra reached up and pulled out a mug for me and poured the steaming liquid in while I stayed glued to him, greedily stealing his body heat to get warm.

I thought over his statement. I never really took Ezra for a shy person. He was never shy when it came to me anyway. There were a lot of things I guess I didn't really know about him. We had jumped in and out of whatever we were so fast; there had never been much time to get to really know each other. There was always some sort of insane drama going on between us. I was stunned when I realized how little we actually have shared with each other.  When it did happen, it was mostly me doing all the sharing.

No one could deny that we had unexplainable chemistry. If we weren't arguing, we were in bed, unable to keep our hands off each other. We were always one spark away from igniting and sending everything around us up in flames.

"Are you still playing?" I asked when I finally let him go and went for the coffee.  I warmed my hands on my mug and leaned back against the counter, hoping he would feel like letting me in.

"Honestly, no." He thought through his answer. "I hadn't been able to pick it up since..."

"He didn't have to finish what he was going to say. I knew exactly when he stopped playing.

He looked a little shaky when he went to take a sip of his coffee. He closed his eyes, trying to breathe through the tremors that were threatening to overtake him.

"Are you feeling ok?" I asked, concerned.

"I feel really weak like I have the flu. It will pass, but it is pretty exhausting. I am really fighting to keep myself from trying to go find something to take the edge off. It's a constant struggle not to give in. My mood is all over the place right now. I'm sorry if I do or say something wrong today. I don't mean it. I just don't have a lot of control over myself.  Not saying I did even when I was sober."

"I'm sorry to keep asking. I just have never been through anything like this before. I don't know what to expect." I took a sip of my coffee and let it burn down to my stomach.  I was feeling flushed as the heat began to return to my body.

"I have and I'm really sorry I am dragging you into this." He said, staring into my eyes. I had not heard much about him before I met him. I was curious and wanted him to keep telling me about his life before me. He was still a mystery to me. I wish I understood what made him tick.

"Can you tell me what happened?" I asked.  I wanted him to confide in me about everything he had been through, even the darkest parts that kept him awake at night.

"I don't like to talk about it." He said as his eyes darkened a little.

"Oh, ok."  I said, feeling a little dejected. Even though my feelings were hurt, I didn't want to push him into something he didn't want to do.

"I said I don't like to talk about it. I didn't say that I wouldn't tell you." He rolled his eyes, reading my mood all over my face.  "You remember I told you my Dad left when I was little?" He asked me.

"Yeah, you said that's how you started playing because he left his guitar behind."  I said, remembering the conversation we had with my Mom and Dad a long time ago.

"My Dad was not a good man.  He was an addict too and he tried to get clean a few times when I was younger. I remember watching him on the floor in his own vomit, screaming while my Mom held onto him. Things would be fine for a couple of weeks when he got through the withdrawal and then it would start all over again. He would come home so messed up sometimes that I didn't even recognize him. He would go after my Mom when he was using and tear her down until she was a bloody mess. When I got old enough, I would try to stop him and he would beat me until I couldn't even move."

"Ezra, I had no idea." I said in shock.  I wanted to reach out and hold him in my arms to comfort the scared little boy inside him.

"I was nine the last time I saw him.  He came home high and ranting, calling my Mom awful names.  I called my Uncle Charlie because I was scared. They were yelling so loud. I heard a loud thud and then she screamed.  I ran out to help her and saw her running up the stairs towards me with blood gushing down her face. He grabbed her by the hair and threw her down the steps. She was completely still by the time she hit the bottom. I thought he killed her. I wanted to hurt him and tried to hit him as hard as I could. He grabbed my arm and twisted it back until it snapped. When my Uncle Charlie got there, my Dad was standing over me with his hands around my throat.  Uncle Charlie pulled him off me and threatened to kill him if he ever set foot in the house again.  My Dad didn't come back after that night."

"I love my Mom a lot, Riley. She has always been a really good Mom. Even though I love her and wouldn't want anyone else to take her place, I still don't understand why she wasn't strong enough to leave him. I know she would have taken him back if he walked in the door again even after he broke my arm and tried to kill me." Ezra sipped his coffee like none of it even mattered. I saw the look in his eyes and knew how broken he was. He had spent a lot of time trying to pretend like everything was fine.

Tears filled my eyes for the broken little boy who had to live that way. He had never told me this before. I didn't know what his Dad did to him and I didn't realize all of this was so deeply rooted in his DNA. He had to overcome so much to survive when he was younger and was still fighting it every day.

"Riley, I swore I would never do the things he did and put the people I loved through that. As I got older, I was still so mad at my parents that I couldn't cope. I started drinking and smoking pot at twelve when my cousin took me to my first party. I realized I liked the feeling of being someone else when I was messed up. I moved onto pills like Oxy and anything else I could swallow. I started fucking different girls at fifteen and telling them what they wanted to hear just so I could feel something again. At sixteen, when the sex and pills weren't enough, I shot myself up for the first time. I watched someone I cared about OD at a party one night and almost died in front of me. That is when I had enough and needed to change. I tried for a long time, but I kept slipping back in."

"I was twenty one when enough was enough. I got through the withdrawal for the first time ever; it was a hard one. My Mom sat holding me in the same spot she had to hold my Dad when he was coming down. I got clean and decided I needed to get away from everything that triggered me. I made up my mind that I never was going to have a family of my own because I didn't want to pass down my messed up genes to someone who didn't deserve it.  I would hurt them the same way my Dad hurt me because I didn't know how to be any better. I decided to get out of that town and try for a fresh start. That was when I moved here and met JD and the guys. They took me in. They only drank, so I thought I would be safe from relapsing. Things were a little better for a while, until..."

"Until you met me." I answered for him with tears running down my face.

"Riley, no." He moved to cup my face with his hands. "It's not you, baby. I'm the messed up one here. I'm always one gust of wind away from falling back down. This was never your fault. I remembered what life was like with an addict for a Dad and it consumed me. I didn't want that life for you and the baby. I didn't want to ruin you the way my Dad ruined my Mom."

"I wish you could have talked to me about all this. I could have helped you." It made a lot more sense why he was so upset when I told him I was pregnant. I wish I would have known this back then. Things might have ended up differently if I knew what I know now.

"I was scared and the addict in me took over. It's not something I can ever escape. He's always in there taunting me. He told me over and over again that you would be better off without me. I believed him. It was easier to pretend you meant nothing to me and try to push you away than admit I am wired wrong.  My head is not right. I should have never made you get in the car with me that night and I should have never walked away from you. You shouldn't have had to deal with this alone. I understand why you turned to Aiden. He was there when I wasn't." Ezra's eyes were tearing up.

"I never wanted Aiden, Ezra. I only wanted you. I wanted to be with you the moment I first saw you playing in the basement at that stupid house. Even when you wouldn't look at me." I smiled between my tears.

"Baby, I looked. You just didn't see. I thought through every way I could dream up to try to get you alone that night. You were so sexy in that little white dress." He put his arm around my waist and we walked to the couch to go sit down. He pulled me onto his lap and held me.

"You really thought I was sexy?" I asked, leaning in to gently kiss him.   His lip ring was cool against my skin and I was getting used to the familiar metallic taste of it.

"You were even sexier when you were covered in pizza sauce and smelled like onions." He laughed against my mouth.

I groaned and pulled my head back. "You noticed that?"

"It's a good thing I like onions." He smiled and started tickling me. I squirmed against him until we were both out of breath. He leaned into me and kissed me gently on the lips before pulling my head to his chest. I sat and listened to him breathe against me. Everything felt so perfect in this moment. We still had a lot to talk about, but it could wait.

This was the new us and we were good.