After a few more hours of laundry and grading papers, she came across a gray sweatshirt that didn’t belong to her. She thought back to the night she’d acquired that sweatshirt. That had been the Tuesday before Thanksgiving—near the end. That was when she’d begun suspecting things were going into dangerous territory.
After putting in hours on her final project for Professor Ming, she’d needed a break. Dante had been gone for Thanksgiving break already—which was good as he didn’t seem to much care for her. Marci let herself in with the key Owen had told her on the phone that she’d find under the mat.
After letting herself in, she’d gone over and knocked on the door to Owen’s room. No light appeared to be coming from the cracks under or around the door, so she wouldn’t have thought he was in there if she hadn’t talked to him a little while ago. He’d called out for her to come in.
“Hey you,” he’d said as she walked into the room.
She kicked off her booties and started to ditch her jacket before saying, “It’s freezing in here.”
“Come over here. I’ll keep you warm.” He lifted up his blanket for her to crawl under. She ditched her jacket and climbed into bed with him. He was wearing a threadbare T-shirt and sweats. He pulled her close and ran his hand up and down the sleeve of her sweater. “That better?” he murmured.
She shivered and tried to tell herself that the tingling she felt was just from being warmed up now that she was under the covers. Something about being close to him felt different, though. Familiar in a scary but not altogether unpleasant way.
“What are you watching?” she asked.
“Movie.” He kissed the back of her neck.
“Are you?” She turned in his arms and put one of her legs between his.
“It’s funny. You’ll like it.” He nudged her over onto her back so she could see the television screen across the room. “Let’s watch this first.”
She’d turned on her side, and he’d curled up behind her. Even though she felt like this was too much like relationship shit, she went along with it. And the movie really was funny. Something about being in that dark room, curled up with him made her feel warm and happy in a way she had no plans of admitting to him. That gushy feeling that gave even the harshest things in life soft edges drifted over her. It was that dangerous sort of feeling she hadn’t had to deal with in ages. The feeling of being a little bit drunk off the person with their arms wrapped around you.
They laughed together, and he occasionally planted little kisses on her neck or her cheek. His hand crept under her sweater but went no lower than her stomach. His little touches, while much more innocent than most of the things they’d done, turned her on in ways that didn’t make sense. Those touches were so much more intimate than she’d expected or wanted them to be. She remembered wishing she could tell him to stop, but she didn’t want him to. She remembered thinking, he better not make me fall for him.
After the movie, what they did wasn’t like before. If there was a difference between sex and making love, and she believed there was and tried to stay away from the latter at all costs, they made love that night.
His hips moving slowly, lovingly over hers. His tender kisses. Her whispered name on his lips. There was no way she could escape that. And while the sex was always good with him, that night was the best she’d ever had in her life. She’d given her whole self over to him. She hadn’t been able to stop it. She’d had no control whatsoever, had been helpless in his arms. And she’d loved it. So much so that it scared her.
The next morning, Marci had gone out to his kitchen in search of coffee, shivering. He’d come out of his room and gone back in without saying a word. When he came out again, he was carrying a gray sweatshirt, which he slipped over her head and pulled down over her T-shirt. He hooked a hand inside the sweats of his that she was wearing and gave her a soft kiss. Then he pulled away and set about making coffee. Once the coffee was brewing, he’d pulled a pizza box out of the fridge. He started to turn on the oven, but Marci stopped him and shook her head. She took a slice out of the box and bit into it. So good.
“Cold, huh?” he asked.
“I like it better this way,” she said, realizing those were the first words they’d spoken to each other all morning. The first words they’d needed. “So good. Especially when you’ve worked up a real good appetite.”
He grinned and put his arms around her waist. She offered the pizza, and he took a huge bite and chewed obnoxiously in her face. She laughed and tried to push him away, but he wouldn’t let her. Yeah, she tried to push him away, but he wouldn’t let her. That had been when she’d started to realize. Things were going to a place beyond just sex whether she liked it or not.
She kicked the sweatshirt under her bed.
One thing she couldn’t deny, though. She missed him like hell. Seeing him the other day had really brought that home. And finding his stupid sweatshirt only made it worse. Confirmed it as something impossible to ignore or deny. She didn’t want him with Kristin not only because Kristin wasn’t right for him from what she’d been able to glean. She didn’t want him with Brynn even though Brynn was perfect in every way from what she could glean.
She didn’t want him with anybody else but her. Not that she wanted anything more than what they’d been doing. All she wanted was for things to go back to what they had been. Only thing was, she knew that was impossible. And really, he deserved better than all she was willing to offer—all she was able to offer.
That didn’t change the fact that she wanted him back with her.
#
Owen spent Valentine’s Day stuck in a fancy restaurant with Kristin. While she talked about the wedding, he found that his mind kept drifting to Marci. He tried to convince himself that he was making the right choice. That it would never work out with Marci, and Kristin was the next best thing. Still, he’d felt something with Marci that refused to be ignored. Something soul-deep. And she’d been on his mind even more than usual since he’d run into her the other day in the student union.
“Owen? Are you listening?” Kristin snapped her fingers in front of his face.
“I’m sorry, Kris. What did you say?”
“Where have you been tonight? I get the feeling that your mind is far away from me and this table.”
“I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep lately. I have a big test coming up,” Owen said. Mostly that was true. He hadn’t been able to sleep well for the past few nights, so he’d stayed up late studying for his test. Dante had really gotten under his skin the other day with what he’d said. Sure, most of it had been said in an uncalled for, jerk way, but there’d been some hurtful truth to Dante’s words as well.
“So. My bachelorette party will be insane,” she said. “I told you we’re going to Majorca, right?”
Who hadn’t she told? “Yeah. Right” Owen sat up in his chair and tried to do a better job of pretending to listen. Inside, however, something felt missing. Something was off. It was that disturbing, unsettling feeling you got when you had an idea you’d misplaced something but you couldn’t think of what it was or where you’d left it.
All the annoying things Kristin did that he’d been able to simply brush off in the past pissed him off now. He kept having to bite back snide remarks to avoid fights. That had never been much of an issue before. Had she always been so materialistic? Whenever he did catch a snatch of conversation tonight, it seemed to be about how much something cost or V.I.P. status or designer name brand something or other. He really didn’t get half the references she was making, and he really couldn’t have cared less.
What had they talked about in the past? It was hard to believe that all their conversations had been so one-sided and repetitive, but he couldn’t remember anything that would prove him wrong at the moment. Had they ever had one really good conversation? Had they ever had anything real at all?
“Owen,” Kristin said impatiently. “Have I lost you again?”
“I was just wondering what Jere
my’s up to.” That was a part of the thoughts that’d been running through his head recently that he could actually share with her. “I haven’t heard from him in a while,” Owen said.
Kristin gave him a do-you-expect-me-to-care look. He thought of how Marci, who would have never agreed to a Valentine’s Day dinner of any sort, seemed to be concerned whenever Owen talked about Jeremy. And Marci hadn’t been the biggest fan of Jeremy, either. Then he thought of the question his mother had asked that he’d had so much trouble with and had gotten so defensive when answering: what are you doing with her again?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Ugh. Do you have to be so OCD?” Tyler asked. “We really have to come all the way back to make sure you turned off the stove?” Tyler made a face. “I wanted to grab drinks.” His tone of voice was the definition of the word petulant. “It’s one of my last nights in town.” Tyler had been sulking since they left the restaurant. It was a couple days after Valentine’s Day, and Tyler would be leaving for Cali soon.
“It’ll just take a minute.” Marci opened the door to the apartment and pushed Tyler inside. When she flipped on the light, a room full of people shouted, “Surprise!”
Tyler screamed and clapped a hand over his mouth. “Oh my God!” Then he turned to Marci and hugged her. “You’re such a good liar!” he exclaimed as he jumped up and down with her. Everyone laughed.
“I know you didn’t think we’d let you go without a party,” Marci said.
“I was beginning to wonder,” Tyler said, crossing his arms and tapping his foot.
Marci laughed. “Just go enjoy your party, please.”
Tyler, who loved being the center of attention, didn’t give it another moment’s pause. Marci watched him mingle, and she talked to Sadie and Ronnie and Tyler’s friends throughout the night, but her heart wasn’t in partying that night. When Tyler pulled her aside near the end of the night and asked her what was wrong, she told him as much.
“Oh honey.” Tyler hugged her to him. “You better go after that man. Don’t be stubborn and lose out.”
“I’m going to miss you when you go away.”
“Of course you are. And you know I’ll miss you, too, but don’t go changing the subject on me.”
“Tonight’s your night,” Marci said. “Let’s be happy and celebrate. I don’t even know when I’ll see you next after you leave.”
Tyler rolled his eyes. “Please. Knowing my luck, this thing’ll get canceled and you’ll see me in no time.”
“That’s not true. Even if the show would otherwise be a total flop, you’ll be the saving grace. And you’ll have more seasons than Friends and E.R. put together.”
He smiled. “You’re sweet. Too sweet to die old and alone and bitter. So you better listen to my good advice.”
“I won’t be bitter.”
Tyler shook his head. “Heavens. What am I going to do with this one?”
Marci laughed. “You know you love me.”
Tyler put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Of course. That’s why I want to see you happy.”
“I am. With my friends. School. With the direction in which everything’s headed in my life right now.” And that nagging feeling like something was missing would go away eventually if she ignored it long enough.
#
Marci answered the phone to a bunch of sobs a few days after she dropped Tyler off at the airport.
“Ronnie,” she said. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying. Breathe. Take some deep breaths.” Marci got up from the couch and walked over to the glass doors that led out to the balcony as she waited for Ronnie to calm herself enough to speak. The rain pelted the glass and fragmented the view of the city lights of downtown Richmond.
She heard shuddering gasps on the other end of the line.
“There you go. Good, good.”
After a moment, Ronnie was finally able to say, “He’s in the hospital.”
“Who? Is it your uncle?”
“No. Jeremy.”
Oh shit.
“What’s wrong with him?” Marci asked.
“They won’t let me see him.”
“What happened, Ronnie?”
“Accident. Bad accident. Really bad one.”
“Oh God. Were you with him?”
“I’m fine. Just a few scratches.”
“Which hospital?” Marci grabbed her keys from her desk and bunched her jacket into the same hand before reaching for her umbrella. Ronnie rattled off a name as Marci left the apartment.
When Marci got to the hospital, she felt better when she saw with her own eyes that Ronnie looked mostly okay. She had a few bruises, and there was a butterfly bandage on her cheek beneath her left eye. She walked with a limp and explained that her left hip was bruised. Other than that, she swore she was fine.
Marci tracked down some coffee and then they sat down in the waiting room with a cup each. Ronnie’s hands shook so badly that she could barely take a sip without spilling coffee all over herself.
“Ronnie.” Marci put a hand over Ronnie’s hands, which were wrapped around her coffee cup. “It must have been pretty scary, huh?” Ronnie looked pretty rattled. And Ronnie didn’t rattle easily.
Ronnie leaned forward in her chair but didn’t move her hands away from Marci’s hand. “Jeremy borrowed his friend’s car. An old Honda Civic Si he’s been helping the guy fix up. So of course he wants to go fast, right. I kept telling him to slow down.” Ronnie shook her head. Marci felt Ronnie’s fingers tighten around the coffee cup under her hand.
Marci squeezed her fingers. “It’s okay now.”
Ronnie shook her head hard, her hair swinging from side to side with the force of the movement. “Not for Jeremy, it isn’t.” Ronnie moved her hands away from Marci’s hand and managed to keep her grip steady enough to take a sip from her coffee cup. “He took a curb all wild. You know it’s raining like crazy out there. Car skidded out—landed in a ditch. Driver’s side.” She put down the cup and ran a hand over her face. “I’m tired of investing so much into people who seem hell bent on self-destruction. My uncle. Jeremy.”
Marci hugged Ronnie to her with one arm. “There’s something to be said about believing in people everyone else is ready to throw away. You have faith in them. Faith has incredible power. You love them. To love someone without passing judgment, to love them even when they can’t love themselves, that’s a lot of work. And it’ll pay off one day. They know that no matter what, there’s at least one person out there who won’t give up on them. That’ll sink in one day. They’ll be ready to change.”
Ronnie looked up at her. “I don’t know if that sounds very much like you, but it sure sounds nice. If only it were true.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“I’m not.” Ronnie sighed.
Marci put her coffee cup down and gave Ronnie a full, two-armed hug. They stayed like that until Ronnie pulled back a little.
“Owen,” Ronnie said, wiping tears out of her eyes.
Marci froze. She didn’t want to turn around. She couldn’t.
“You can go back now,” said a very familiar voice quietly. Too familiar. “He’s asking for you.”
“He’s conscious?” Ronnie asked, her voice quavering.
“Yes.”
Ronnie stood and reached for Marci’s hand. Marci swallowed a nuisance of a lump in her throat and finally turned to face him. His hair, wet with rain, was darker than usual and plastered to his head. His North Face fleece was unzipped, and he wore a black shirt beneath it. Finally, she met his gray eyes. They were solemn and worried. No doubt his mind was on his brother where it would be. She was relieved not to see Kristin standing there. Kristin probably wasn’t far away if she was any sort of fiancé at all, but at least Marci wasn’t getting hit with two bombs at once. She got to take in and maybe get over the shock of seeing Owen a little before she had to meet his fiancé.
Owen led the way to Jeremy’s room with his head down, obviously not in the mood
for conversation. And likely especially not with her. Once they were inside the room, Marci spotted her right away even though she’d never seen her in real life before. Standing near Jeremy’s bed, next to where Owen and Jeremy’s mom sat in a chair holding Jeremy’s hand, was a petite blonde. Platinum blonde. White hair on young people had always disconcerted Marci. She narrowed her ice blue eyes at Marci, but the rest of her face remained expressionless. Lord, that girl needed a good meal. She probably had to buy size 000 clothes and have them taken in. Was she allergic to food or something? She was pretty in a waif model—with the exception of the height—ice queen sort of way, Marci guessed.
Ronnie rushed over to Jeremy’s side. Owen stood between Kristin and Marci, looking like he didn’t quite know what to say or do for a moment.
Finally, he said, “Kristin, this is Marci. Marci, I’d like you to meet Kristin, my fiancé.”
“Nice to meet you,” Kristin said coolly, barely giving Marci her fingertips in the handshake.
“You, too. Congratulations on your engagement,” Marci said woodenly.
“Sham,” Jeremy muttered from the bed.
Kristin gave Marci an icy little smile, nodded, and then retreated to Owen’s side where she latched on to his arm.
Glad that went so well, Marci thought as she made her way over to say hello to Jeremy. Marci then slowly backed away a few steps at a time until she was hovering near the door that led into the hallway. She barely realized what she was doing until her back bumped against the door.
Owen’s mom hunched over in a chair by the bed, one hand over her mouth, one hand never leaving Jeremy’s. Ronnie stood on the other side of the bed, peppering Jeremy with questions. Marci glanced at Owen sideways, not wanting to turn her head in his direction as she could feel his fiancé’s death glare. Owen’s focus was on his mom and brother. His lips were pulled into a tight, grim line. With his hands on his mother’s shoulders, he looked over at his brother with an expression she couldn’t fully read from her limited view. Occasionally, he would bend down to say something quietly to his mom. Kristin was right there next to him like a guard dog.
Soft Shock Page 22