Struggle: Beautiful Series, book one

by Anderson, Lilliana

  “I don’t know why he can’t cook for you if he’s such a culinary genius,” I muttered as we all moved towards the kitchen.

  “What was that?” Trina asked, looking over her shoulder as she set the cake on the counter then moved to the fridge.

  “I said I wouldn’t mind a sweet pad like this,” I lied, watching the way she served Christopher with a beer before offering me one. The little woman.

  “Do you want the tour?” she asked as she handed the bottle to me. “I’m still getting the meat together, but maybe Christopher can show you around?”

  “Sure,” he said, and I wondered if she noticed the grate to his tone. She was being overly enthusiastic, while Christopher struggled to hide his contempt. “There’s not much to see though. This is the lounge and dining room.” He pointed around the room we were standing in. “Obviously there’s a kitchen, and that’s the patio.” He pointed to the big square balcony that was accessible by a large glass sliding door off the lounge.

  “Don’t just point,” Trina said. “Walk. Talk. Bond.”

  With a tight nod, he took me past the closed doors saying, “Spare room—there’s nothing in there but boxes—bathroom if you need to take a piss, and main bedroom.” He pushed that door open to reveal the large, neatly made bed, a dressing table and a chest of drawers. “That’s Katrina’s shit, that’s my shit.” He pointed at the dressers, making me think he brought me inside their room to drive home the point that she was his. I hated seeing that bed.

  “Nice,” I said.

  “And you can get to the balcony from here too.” He pulled open the sliding door, and I stepped through to find myself overlooking Jamison Road.

  “Doesn’t it get noisy here at night?” I asked, looking down at the busy street.

  “You don’t notice it once you’re asleep.”

  I nodded.

  “Seen enough?” he asked with a sniff.

  “It’s great. You should be proud.”

  He looked me dead in the eye, thumb hooked in the pocket of his jeans. “Of course, I’m proud. I got the girl.”

  With a smile, I ran my thumb across my bottom lip, trying to stop myself from laughing at this guy’s obvious insecurities. “I wasn’t aware there was a competition.”

  “Then why did you come alone?” He sniffed again then walked inside. I looked at a pot plant and briefly wondered if he’d be knocked unconscious if I threw it at the back of his head. Then I followed him inside.

  “Did you start the barbeque?” Trina asked as she held out the prepared tray of meat.

  “I’m doing it now,” Christopher said, grabbing her around the waist and kissing her with an inappropriate amount of tongue.

  I got the girl.

  “I’ll be back soon. Keep the beers coming,” he said when he released her, flushed and smiling.

  She giggled and slapped him against the chest. “You’re such a brute.”

  He laughed as he picked up the tray and sauntered outside, not sparing me even a sideways glance. I think I hate him.

  “What did you think?” she asked.

  “You have great taste in furniture,” I said, moving to stand opposite her, the bench between us.

  “Seriously David, do you like it?”

  “Of course. It's a nice place. You don’t need me to like it though. You have to like it.”

  “I do like it. I love it,” she said smiling. Although, something about her tone and the overly broad grin made me wonder which one of us she was trying to convince more.

  Dinner went by…OK. Trina worked overtime trying to keep the conversation flowing. I did my best to join in, but the awkward silences following Christopher’s monosyllable responses made it painfully obvious he didn’t want me there.

  When we were through, I helped Trina clear the table while Christopher went and sat in the lounge room like the gentleman he was. Vomit.

  “I’m going to head off,” I said, thumbing over my shoulder once we’d filled the sink.

  Trina’s face fell. “But what about dessert?”

  “I’m full from dinner,” I said, patting my stomach for emphasis. “I couldn’t eat another bite. So you can have it later or something.”

  “What about coffee? You can stay a little longer, can’t you?”

  Without thinking, I reached for her hands and held them between us. “Thank you for inviting me, but it’s time for me to go.”

  Disappointment darkened her eyes as her shoulders drooped. “I’ll walk you down.”

  “OK,” I said, releasing her hands then turning to find Christopher glaring at us. “See you around, Chris. Thanks for the meal.” I didn’t even feel guilty about shortening his name. I knew I shouldn’t have been goading the guy. But he couldn’t even make an effort for the sake of the woman he claimed to love. That was some grade A bullshit in my opinion.

  Once outside, Trina linked an arm through mine while we walked to my car, the silence of unspoken truth between us. Both of us knew that dinner was an epic fail. We also knew that Christopher was never going to be accepting of me. And now she was living with him. Where was I going to fit in?

  “Come here,” I said, drawing her into a hug once we stopped next to the driver’s door.

  She tucked her head into the groove of my neck and sighed. “He’s not always like that.”

  “I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be with him if he was.”

  She lifted her head and met my eyes. “He’s just…possessive. It’s why I wanted you to bring Monica. He would have been more relaxed…”

  “Don’t worry about it, baby girl.” I leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I’ll see you at Uni. OK?”

  “Sure,” she said, standing back as I got in my car, her hands folded across her middle. “You don’t like him. Do you?”

  Dragging my teeth over my bottom lip, I nodded towards the apartment building instead of answering. “Why don’t you get back to him? I’ll wait until you’re through the door.”

  “I’ll take that as a no.”

  “Good night, Trina,” I said softly.

  “I wish things were different,” she whispered before heading back inside. I waited until the door closed behind her before I started my car. When I glanced up at their balcony, the dark figure of Christopher loomed, watching until I drove away.

  * * *

  The thing about guys like Christopher was that they thought their size and strength could intimidate people. I was sure it worked a lot of the time, but with me it had the opposite effect. It made me hold on tighter. I wasn’t going to let him cut Trina off from her friends and family. She wasn’t a thing to be owned. She had a life before him, and that life didn’t stop just because he wanted her to fit into a mould of his making.

  He couldn’t make me go away.

  Trina made excuses for him: he was scared of losing her; he had a rough upbringing; he loved her so much he couldn’t handle the thought of her with another guy. The list went on. I felt she was quite naïve in her defence of his overbearing behaviour, but she was in love with the guy. If I spoke out against him, it would only drive a wedge between us. So I kept my mouth shut.

  “Why don’t we study at my place today?” Trina asked when we exited the lecture hall. “It’s raining so the library will be packed.”

  “The library’s fine. We can sit on the floor if we have to.”

  She wrapped her hand around my elbow and pulled me to a stop. “Christopher won’t be home until almost seven. He won’t even know you were there.”

  “I don’t care what he knows. I care that we have to sneak around so he doesn’t give you a hard time about it.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Then how is it? Because that’s how it feels to me. I feel like your secret friend.”

  She straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. “Well, you’re wrong. You’re not a secret. He knows we study together.”

  “Then why mention he won’t be home?”

  “Because I know you don’t
like him.”

  “OK. Then we’ll study at your place.”

  Her eyes lit up. “Excellent. Because I’ve been practising my cooking, and I made this really great cheesecake that you’re gonna love.”

  “How can I say no to that?”

  I had planned to leave before Christopher got home. Despite Trina’s insistence that everything would be fine, I knew better. I set an alarm for five-thirty then we got to work.

  Discussing the cases for our torts assignment, we became so engrossed in the particulars that we didn’t even hear the door open. “Thought I saw your car outside,” Christopher said as he closed the door.

  “Oh, hey,” I said, glancing up from my papers. “We’re just about done for the day.” With a quick glance at my phone, I noted the time. After seven. What the hell happened to my alarm?

  Trina jumped up and rushed over, greeting him like a puppy would greet his master. She always seemed to be trying so hard to please him. He glared at me over her shoulder. So I gave him a wink then kept working until I’d finished typing out my paragraph.

  He pulled out a chair and leafed through the printouts on the table. “What’s all this?”

  Trina returned to her seat, placing a bottle of beer in front of him before pulling the pages into neat piles. “Our torts assignment. We have to summarise these cases and discuss the similarities.”

  “And you couldn’t do this at the library?”

  “What’s wrong with studying here?” Trina asked.

  He shrugged. “It’s not a library.”

  Feeling the tension rise, I stood up and gathered my things. “I’ll go,” I said, trying to keep my calm as I stuffed everything into my backpack.

  “No, David. This is my place too. Christopher, why are you being so rude?”

  “I don’t want him here,” he stated, finally admitting it openly for all of us to hear. See the kind of man you chose, Trina?

  I clenched my teeth. “Listen, mate. I don’t know what your problem is with me. But you’re going to have to get over it. Trina and I have been friends since primary school, I’m not going away just because you say so.”

  Pressing his fingertips into the tabletop, he rose from his seat so he was towering above me. I rolled my eyes at the tactic.

  “My problem lies with you going around, fucking a different girl every week then sniffing around mine.”

  I glanced at Trina. Did she tell him that? Her eyes dropped, and I looked back to Christopher. Why talk about me like that?

  “Don’t think that I don’t know what you’re doing,” he continued. “You’re just lying in wait for the moment she has a lapse in judgment and fucks you. Then you’ll have won and you’ll dump her too. She’s not yours, David. She’s mine.” What?

  “Dude, you are seven kinds of fucked up right now.”

  “I don’t hear you denying it.”

  “There’s nothing to deny. I’ve been nothing but a friend to Trina. She’s my best friend. My family. I have nothing but respect and love for her. I’ve never treated her like she was some kind of prize to be won. But if that’s how you think then I’d hate to know the real truth behind your intentions.”

  “Don’t question my intentions,” he spat.

  “I don’t need to. I already know. I see the way you talk to her. The way you order her around. She’s not going to just roll over and let you take over her life. She’s too smart for that.”

  “Get the fuck out of my house.”

  “You can’t kick me out when I was already fucking leaving.”

  “Maybe not, but I can tell you to never come back. I don’t want you in my house, and I don’t want you around my woman.”

  “That’s enough!” Katrina yelled. “Stop talking about me like I’m not even in the room. David is my friend, Christopher, and this is my house too. If I want him here, he can be here.”

  “He doesn’t come back, and that’s final!” Christopher boomed.

  I met Trina’s eyes. “Nice guy you’ve got there.”

  “Just go, David. I can handle it,” she said. “I’ll call you later.”

  “No. She won’t.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Christopher. You’re not the boss of me.”

  “Fuck this shit,” I muttered under my breath as I stormed out of the room. I could hear yelling going on behind me as I took off down the stairs, seriously annoyed that someone who claimed to love Katrina could disregard her friends so easily.

  Needing the distraction, I put in a call to Monica and drove straight over to her house, hoping to lose myself between her legs for the night.

  “Your fuck buddy’s here!” her housemate called over her shoulder the moment she saw me at the door.

  “Well, hello to you too, Erica.” I smiled, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

  “You know I love you, Dave. I just like to tell it how it is.” She laughed as she flicked her dark hair over her should then waddled down the hall.

  “Yes, you do.” I stepped inside just as Monica came bounding down the stairs and jumped into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist.

  “Needed a bit of a pick me up?” she asked, grinning at me.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” I said, walking us into her room and kicking the door closed behind us.

  The moment we were on our own, she crashed her mouth into mine with the same hunger she always displayed. Dropping her on the bed, I pulled my shirt over my head and dropped it on the floor. “Get naked.”

  “Hmm. I think I want to make you squirm first,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed and reaching for me.

  I threaded my fingers into her hair. “No teeth.”

  Licking her lips, she undid the button of my jeans, pulling down the zip just as my phone jumped to life in my back pocket.

  “Ignore it,” Monica purred. “You need to relax.” She slid her hand inside my jeans, causing my eyes to roll back in my head.

  “What if it’s important?”

  “Then they’ll call back.” The phone stopped singing. Seconds later, it started again.

  “It’s important,” I said, stepping out of her reach and grabbing my phone. Trina’s name lit up the screen. “Trina needs me.”

  Monica rolled her eyes and scoffed. “What about my needs? I need you inside me. Why can’t she wait for a change?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, hitting accept as I left the room. “What happened?”

  “Come and get me, David. I need to get out of here. Please come and get me.” Trina’s frantic words had me rushing for the front door.

  “Are you OK?” Shit. I shouldn’t have left her with him.

  “I’m OK. Just come and get me.”

  “I’m on my way.” I pulled my car door open as we disconnected.

  “Are you seriously taking off on me?” Monica called after me.

  I froze with one foot in my car. “I’m sorry, Mon. This is how it is.”

  “You’re fucked up, Dave. You’ve still got a fucking hard on from my hand, and you're running to another girl.”

  “What do you want me to say here? You knew the stakes.”

  “Yeah. And I thought I could do it, but I can’t. I thought I was OK being the girl you screwed while you loved someone else. But I want more from you.”

  “I don’t have anything more to give you,” I told her, genuinely feeling sorry we’d reached this point. I liked her. It was just never going anywhere.

  “Then don’t come back, David. Find yourself another girl. I’m not doing this anymore.”

  I nodded once. “OK.”

  When it was obvious I wasn’t saying more than that, she burst into tears and ran back in the house, her shoulders shaking from her sobs. I felt like shit seeing her cry and not doing anything about it, but I needed to go to Trina. I needed to make sure she was OK.

  She was my number one.

  I pulled up outside her units ten minutes after her phone call and found her waiting for me on the side of the road.

  �
�Are you hurt,” I said straight away, getting out of the car to check her for damage. It was dark, but she seemed fine.

  “I’m not hurt.”

  “Then get in the car. Where’s your bag? Actually, forget your bag. We’ll get you new stuff. Come on.” I pulled the passenger door open then placed my hand on her back to guide her. But she didn’t move.

  “I overreacted,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I’m not leaving. I got crazy angry, packed my things and stormed out. But we’ve both calmed down now, and I’m going to stay. I’m sorry I made you come here. I was being dramatic.”

  “Seriously? The guy insinuated I was only trying to get inside your pants and banned me from your house, was a complete arsehole and you’re being dramatic?”

  “I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’ll smooth it over. He’s just stressed at work. It’s making him all angry about stupid stuff lately.”

  “Trina,” I sighed. “I don’t like the sound of this. Why don’t you just come and spend the night at my place? Talk to him in the morning when he’s calm.”

  “No, it’s fine. I’m going back inside, OK? I’m sorry I worried you.” She kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “If you ever try to tell me you fell and hit your head on a door, I’ll beat the fuck out of him myself.”

  She laughed at that. “He’d never hurt me. He loves me.”

  Sixteen

  Trina swore that everything was perfect after that night, blaming the fight on jealousy and teething problems after moving in together so soon. “You and I have always known how unusual it is for a straight guy and girl to be best friends without sex becoming involved. You have to give him time to understand that friendship is all there is between us.”

  “So tell him I’m gay. I don’t care. I’m not letting him chase me out of your life.”

  “You’re not gay, David. He knows you aren’t.”

  “Tell him I was in denial and I’m gay now.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Lying won’t fix this. Time will. He understands what you mean to me. We’ve been best friends since we were nine years old, if I want to hang out with you in a house I help pay rent for, I’m going to do that.”