“I know. I’m sorry. I really am. I want to see you, but I can’t handle him like that. I had hoped he’d be a little better by now. But if anything, he seems worse.” Elena drew in a breath, holding it while she debated speaking her real thoughts. “I won’t pretend it’s okay for him to treat me that way like I did over the summer. I can’t do it anymore. It’s not okay. So I have to go.”
She hugged her mom, a few tears escaping her closed eyes when her mom held her tightly and didn’t let go for a long time.
“I’m sorry too, mija,” her mom whispered into her hair. “I wish things were different. I really do.”
“Me too.” She held her mom just as tightly, her arms under her mother’s, hands clasping her shoulder blades, her eyes squeezed shut. “Does he treat you this way too?”
Drawing in a shuddery breath, her mom nodded, but didn’t speak.
“Why do you stay?”
With another deep breath, her mom broke the hug, pulling back to look at Elena, tears gathering in her dark brown eyes. She gave a tiny shrug. “He’s my husband. And he’s hurt. What am I supposed to do?”
Elena examined her mom, her mouth open to respond, but she couldn’t come up with anything to say. She shook her head. “I don’t know, mamá. I don’t know.”
A watery smile came to her mother’s face, serving to highlight her sadness. “Me either. So I just keep going until I figure it out. I’ll let you know when I do.” Squeezing her hands, her mom let her go. “Have you looked any more into going to a support group for families of TBI survivors?”
And just like that her sadness for her mom and herself morphed into frustration. “No. It’s been a busy semester. I have a full class load plus all the work for dad’s clients still.” She leveled a look at her mom. “Which is something we need to talk about soon. I can’t keep doing that forever.”
Her mom nodded, turning back to the apple on the counter. “Can you last until Thanksgiving at least?”
Elena studied her mom’s profile before giving in, like she usually did. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“Gracias.”
“De nada, mamá.” She waited, but her mom wouldn’t look at her again. “I’ll let you know I’ve made it back safely.”
Her mom nodded. “Okay.”
“I love you, mami.”
“I love you too, mija.” She was whispering again, like she couldn’t manage to speak louder than that, and the guilt hit Elena then. Even so, she pushed it away. She couldn’t handle an hour of her dad. How would she manage two days? She couldn’t. She needed to leave to protect herself. Her mom would have to take care of herself as well.
“Bye.”
Her mom’s whispered, “Bye,” followed Elena out of the kitchen. She had to cover her mouth with her hand to hold back the sob that wanted to escape and pull out every trick she knew to keep her tears from falling. But she managed to get her things and get back in her car without breaking down in tears, and driving back to Spokane provided enough of a distraction that she didn’t feel the need once she decided to hit a drive-thru for lunch and a caffeine fix.
Now the big question was what should she do once she got back to Spokane? She’d promised Hannah and Matt a weekend to themselves in the house. It was a relatively trivial concern. They’d understand—at least Hannah would, and Matt always took his cue on how to treat Elena from his girlfriend, so she wasn’t worried about that. But she felt bad interrupting. And she really didn’t want to walk in on her friend getting spanked or fucked in the living room.
So that meant she needed to come up with some kind of plan.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Daniel’s eyes widened in surprise when he answered the door to find Elena standing outside of his apartment.
She gave him a hopeful smile. “Hey. Um, sorry to show up like this without calling or texting first. I, uh, well, it’s been a shitty day, and I didn’t know where else to go.”
He stood there staring at her for a second, unsure what to say. Her rambly explanation didn’t actually tell him anything about why she was here.
“Can I come in?”
Part of him wanted to tell her no, still angry that she’d broken up with him the day he’d gotten a concussion. Not that he wouldn’t have been angry even if he hadn’t had a concussion. But that wasn’t the point.
No, the point was that he missed her more than he was mad at her, and her showing up like this made him curious.
“Sure,” he said, his voice gruff, opening the door wider and stepping back to let her in. She kept her arms crossed over her chest, her backpack hanging from her hunched shoulders, like she was trying to protect herself from some unknown attack.
After closing the door, he studied her for a long moment, waiting for more of an explanation, but she refused to meet his eyes. “Do you want some water or anything?” he offered at last, his mom’s training on how to treat a guest overriding his curiosity.
She shook her head. “No, but if I could use the bathroom that would be great. I’ve had a ton of coffee and drove to Richland and back today.”
“Of course.”
Dropping her backpack on the floor by the couch, she left him alone in the living room again. He sat on the couch, not sure what to do with himself. Not sure what to do with the fact that Elena was here again, almost like nothing had happened, like she hadn’t dropped him last weekend and refused to answer his calls or texts this week.
When she came back out, she was rubbing her palms up and down her denim-covered thighs, the sleeves of her purple shirt pushed up to her elbows. She looked around the living room like she hadn’t been there a billion times already this semester before finally settling her gaze on him. “Is Coop around?”
He shook his head. “He went out with some of the guys from the team.”
“Oh. Okay. Cool.” She crossed her arms again, her shoulders coming up by her ears once more.
He wanted to touch her like he used to when she was all keyed up like this, soothe whatever was making her edgy. But she’d made it clear that she didn’t want him anymore. She wasn’t his. So he stayed put, his hands clenching into fists to keep them to himself. And he waited to see what she wanted.
She shook her head, her eyes cast down so he couldn’t see them. “I’m sorry. Really, I don’t—” She swallowed. “I know I have no right to come here like this and expect anything from you. But, well, I was supposed to go home this weekend. I mean, I did go home this weekend. But my dad—” She shook her head again, and when he saw a tear tracking down her cheek, he couldn’t hold back his concern anymore.
Elena didn’t cry. Not more than a tear or two that he’d ever seen. She hated to cry for some reason, and refused to let it out. Like always, she mastered it, looking up at the ceiling and blinking until the urge to cry passed. “I couldn’t stay with my dad the way he is.”
“What happened?” he asked in a quiet voice. What could’ve happened that had not only made her feel like she had to leave, but sent her running to him, and now crying?
Her eyes flicked to him, and she shook her head, looking back at the coffee table again. Apparently that coffee table was fucking fascinating. “I don’t really want to talk about it, but it was more of the same from this summer, and I just couldn’t take it. So I came back. But I’d already promised Hannah that I’d be gone for two nights so they could have kinky, spanky sex.”
He widened his eyes and coughed a little, not sure if he should laugh. “I don’t think I needed to know that.”
A wry smile twisted Elena’s lips, and she lifted her face to his. “I know, right? I could do without that little piece of information too, but since I live with both of them it’s hard not to know.”
She held his gaze for a moment before dropping it back to the coffee table. He waited, but she didn’t say anything more, just stood with her arms wrapped around herself and stared at the damn coffee table.
“Elena.” He kept his voice soft, but firm enough to command her attention.
<
br /> Her eyes lifted. “Hmm?”
“What are you doing here?” She’d explained why she wasn’t home, either the house she shared with her roommates or her childhood home. But none of that explained why she was here. Or what she wanted with him. His head still hurt most of the time and his normally logical thought process was still scattered. He needed her to spell this out for him.
“Oh, well …” She looked at a spot on the wall behind his head. “I couldn’t go home, and I just, I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I’m sorry. I can leave if you want. I’ll just go hang out at the mall for a while and text Hannah that they need to finish up so I can come home.” She swallowed, blinking hard a few times. “I’m sorry.” Her voice rasped, thick with tears. “You’re right. I’ll go.”
He stood, his hands gripping her arms before she could reach for her backpack, turning her to face him. “I didn’t say any of that.” She nodded, keeping her eyes on his chest, and when two more tears fell, it made his chest hurt. “What do you need? Do you want to talk?”
She shook her head, another tear escaping, and she reached up and wiped it away, the motion fierce and jerky.
Letting out a heavy sigh, he pulled her into his chest, unable to keep himself from offering her some form of comfort when she so clearly needed it. “What do you need?” he asked again.
She didn’t answer for a few minutes. “I’m so tired. Could I just sleep for a while?” She paused, and then whispered, “And if you could hold me some more, that would be really great too.”
He nodded, smoothing his hands down her back. “I can do that.” Even though it would be a form of self-torture, he couldn’t deny her when she was crying. Pulling away, he led her to his bedroom. “I thought you said you had a bunch of coffee.”
She let out a low chuckle. “Yeah. But I’m so exhausted that there’s not enough coffee in the world to keep me awake right now.”
And she wasn’t lying. As soon as they slipped into bed, she snuggled back against him, pulled his arm around her waist, and fell asleep in minutes. He held himself still, not wanting to give in to the temptation of curling around her but finding it hard to stay separate. Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply, inhaling her scent, the fruity smell of her shampoo mixed with the unique smell of her skin. That sent blood flowing south, his cock lengthening against his thigh, which was the last thing he wanted right now. She didn’t want him. Not really. He needed to remember that. He wished he could flip a switch and turn off her effect on him.
Since he couldn’t do that, he waited a few more minutes to be sure she was deeply asleep, then extricated himself and went out to the living room. He sat there as the twilight faded and the room grew dark, contemplating what Elena’s sudden appearance after a week of silence meant. Did he want it to mean anything? If she wanted to get back together, would he do that?
Maybe.
Puzzling through what-ifs and maybes was exhausting and useless, and only made his lingering headache worse. The floaty, head-too-big-for-his-skull feeling had faded after a few days, but the dull ache still lingered, and he got tired faster than normal.
Flicking on a light, he pulled out some homework that he needed to catch up on. He was supposed to be resting still, but he needed the distraction from his swirling thoughts. Plus, he couldn’t afford to get too behind in his classes. He’d missed Monday and Tuesday, but had gone the rest of the week. The one good thing was that this was the week they didn’t have a game, so he wasn’t missing anything there.
It didn’t take long for the tiredness to start dragging at him, blurring the numbers on his homework and making it difficult to do any more. He squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing them, and closed his math book over his notebook and pencil. He’d finish later.
Lying back on the couch, he kept his eyes closed. It felt good to close his eyes, so he’d sit like that for a while, listening for any sounds from Elena in his bedroom. She’d been asleep for a while. Would she wake up soon?
Someone hit his foot, bringing him out of his unplanned nap. He blinked his eyes open and found Coop standing at the end of the couch by his feet.
“Hey, man. Why are you sleeping on the couch?”
Daniel sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Elena’s here. She fell asleep in my bed.”
Coop snorted, opened his mouth, closed it, and shook his head.
“Shut up, man. It’s not like that.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
Daniel glared at him. “I know what you didn’t say.”
Shaking his head, Coop laughed quietly, keeping his voice down. “Whatever, man. Why’s she here? I thought she dumped your sorry ass.”
“Thanks so much for your sympathy, dude,” Daniel deadpanned. “What would I do without you?” Climbing to his feet, he sauntered into the kitchen, stretching his arms overhead as he went.
Coop followed him, waiting as he got a glass of water and drank it. “Seriously. Why did she come over? Is she trying to get back together with you or something?”
Daniel shrugged. “I don’t know. She went home today for the break, but I guess it didn’t go well, and she came back. She said she’d promised Hannah and Matt a weekend to themselves and didn’t feel like she could go there. She said she couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.”
“And then she fell asleep in your bed?” Coop had crossed his arms, disbelief coloring his voice.
“Pretty much. She said she was really tired and asked if she could take a nap. I came out to the couch after she went to sleep and did some homework. My head started hurting, though, and I closed my eyes for a minute and fell asleep. What time is it, anyway?” He swiveled his head around to find the time on the microwave—7:56.
“Shit, man. She’s been asleep for over three hours.”
“You gonna wake her up?”
Daniel shook his head. “Nah. Why would I do that?”
Coop shrugged. “Dunno. Figure out why she’s really here? What she wants from you? See if she’s hungry?”
He considered that. “No. Not yet. She said she was exhausted, and she looked it. Man, she was crying. That woman never cries. She holds it back and pushes it down and doesn’t let it out.”
“That doesn’t sound healthy, dude.”
Daniel shrugged. “Maybe not. I dunno. I’m a math major and a football player. We’ve all been told to suck it up and walk it off since we were kids. If that’s what she wants to do, who am I to judge? But for her to let tears out …” He shook his head. “Man, whatever’s going on with her is bad, and I couldn’t just kick her out.”
Coop considered that, then sighed. “Yeah, okay. I get that. But don’t let her keep stringing you along. You deserve better than that. You’ve been miserable this week, and not just because you got kicked in the head. You don’t need her to come back and fuck you over again.”
“I know. I’m not doing what we were doing anymore. I’ll find out what she wants from me after she wakes up. And we’ll go from there.”
Coop studied him for a minute. “Okay. I was going to hang with you and watch a movie or something, but since you’ve got company, I’m gonna go hit a party that Wilkins was talking about.”
“Cool. Have fun, dude.”
“See ya.” Coop grabbed a sweatshirt and picked up his keys before heading back out, leaving Daniel alone with his thoughts again.
But that didn’t last long. Shortly after he settled back onto the couch with his homework, the door to his bedroom opened, and Elena stood in the doorway, wearing his jersey.
And nothing else.
She leaned against the doorframe, one hip cocked, all curves and seduction. “Why don’t you come back to bed?”
He licked his lips at the sight of her, unable to help it. Just like he couldn’t stop the blood rushing to his cock. He let out an involuntary groan, her invitation so tempting. It would be so easy to fall back into their old pattern.
But he didn’t want that. Knew he couldn’t take it. He wasn’t the kind of guy who did well
with casual relationships. He liked the stability of being with someone, not chasing pussy and trying to get laid all the time. When he was a freshman, he’d done that for a while. Hanging out with the guys on the team, it was hard not to get caught up in that, since it seemed to be the dominant culture. But he’d never liked it, it reminded him too much of how his dad operated. And he’d never wanted to be like his dad. By the time he was a sophomore, he’d started dating a girl. The guys had given him shit for a while, but it had been good-natured, and now no one even noticed when he didn’t hook up at parties between girlfriends.
Elena had been an exception. One he’d convinced himself wouldn’t hurt. But he’d grown attached, and when he’d tried moving them into the realm of committed relationship, she’d broken up with him at the first opportunity. That was reality. She didn’t want to be in a relationship with him, and he wasn’t willing to accept less than that from her.
He tossed his pencil on his notebook. “Elena.” His voice came out low and gravelly, sounding like he was giving into her.
One corner of her mouth curved up in the sexy smile that always appeared right before they got naked. “Daniel.”
He let out a harsh breath and shook his head. “You said you wanted a place to crash.”
“Yeah. That doesn’t mean we can’t make each other feel good while I’m here.”
He closed his eyes to gather himself. “Elena, you broke up with me last week. Remember? Or were you hoping the concussion would make it so I’d forget? And hopefully not notice the fact that you haven’t talked to me all week?”
She crossed her arms, standing up straight, her seductive smile gone. “That’s not fair, Daniel.”
He let out a short laugh. “I’m not being fair? Please. If anyone has room to complain of unfair treatment here, it’s me. I got hurt, and you dropped me like I’m damaged goods.” He pointed a finger at her. “That’s not fair. And for you to show up here after a week of no contact and expect me to have sex with you? Completely unfair. Why did you come here, Elena?”
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