by Harley Stone
“In your spare bedroom?” I asked for clarification.
“Absolutely. No funny business at all. Unless, of course, you can’t keep your hands to yourself. Then that’s on you, but I wouldn’t necessarily kick you out of my bed. Unless you snore.”
He was trying to lighten the mood, but I couldn’t get past the implications of him wanting us in his space. But hadn’t I wanted the same thing when I’d invited him up here? Then again when I’d opened my bedroom door to him?
“Come on. It’ll be fun.”
Oh, I was sure it would be all sorts of fun, and that’s what I was afraid of.
Wasp
CARLY AND TRENT were in my house.
Of course they were, I’d invited them. Hell, I’d practically begged them. When Carly said no, I’d even met her in the break room on her lunch again, and kissed her into submission until she agreed to stay.
“Why is this so important to you?” she’d asked me again.
“I don’t know, but it is.” I needed to see what it felt like to have her and Trent in my space. To see where they fit in, if they fit in, or if I’d come to my senses and realize I was making a huge mistake.
Carly finally relented, so I picked them up after work, and we hit a bowling alley not far from my house. Trent was a first-time bowler, and Carly hadn’t bowled in years, so we put the bumper pads in and made a go of it. Carly managed to somehow swing gutter balls (despite the bumpers), and Trent bounced his ball from side to side until it ran out of steam and died inches in front of the pins. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in my life.
More important than my enjoyment, were the sounds I heard coming from Carly and Trent. We’re talking crazy amounts of belly laughter. Every time one of them doubled over, I felt lighter and more significant than I’d felt in years. Making them laugh had become my new goal in life.
Now, the three of us were sitting on my sofa snickering at campy old-school cartoons. They were in my space, and instead of coming to my senses, I never wanted them to leave. Having them here felt so damn right and comfortable, I was starting to see the appeal of doing the family thing.
“All right, time to brush your teeth and get ready for bed,” Carly said, nudging Trent.
“But I’m not sleepy,” he complained between yawns.
“You have school tomorrow. You promised that if we stayed at Wasp’s you’d go to bed on time, remember?”
Trent’s shoulders dropped. He looked as though he was carrying the weight of the world (or at least the weight of a bed time) on them. His gaze met mine. “I have to go to bed.”
“It’s getting late,” I said by way of confirmation.
“But I’m having fun. And mom says tomorrow we have to go back to our place.”
He sounded so miserable, I stood and took pity on him. After all, I wasn’t too thrilled about them leaving, either. “Come on, buddy, I’ll help you brush your teeth.”
After we finished, Carly took him into my spare bedroom and wrangled him into pajamas. Then I came in, stretched out beside him, and read the book he’d brought along. By the time I finished, he was fast asleep, probably worn out from all the fun we’d had at the bowling alley. Setting his book on the nightstand, I went out to the living room to find Carly curled up on my sofa looking at her phone.
“He’s out?” she asked, setting the phone aside.
“Of course, he is. Dove, I’ve got mad skills with kids. I used to babysit my cousins a lot.”
“Well, it shows. You’re great with him.”
Chewing on her compliment, I went to the fridge and grabbed us each a beer before sitting beside her. “He makes it easy by being such a fun kid, but you know who else I’m good with?”
“Who?”
“You.”
She took a sip of her beer, eyeballing me. “That’s a pretty cheesy line there, Mr. Marshall.”
“Ouch, so formal.” My body caved inward, like she’d socked me in the chest. “It’s like that now, huh?”
She continued to stare at me for a few minutes before shaking her head.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m still processing everything your parents said about you. Did you really prank a tampon company?”
“Yes, and it was the best thing ever. I’d get these customer service reps who were used to normal every day questions—nobody had prepared them for me—and I’d use this high-pitched nasally girl voice and would be like...” changing my voice, I continued, “Hi, my name is Betty Nickers and I’m so scared, I don’t know what to do. The string on my tampon broke and it’s stuck inside me. I keep trying to pull it out, but it’s pushing it deeper inside, and I… I like it. It feels good. I’m not… I’m not masturbating, am I?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, God, you didn’t.”
“Oh, I assure you, I did. Then I’d moan and tell them it just touched my g-spot.”
She laughed. “Scandalous. Those poor customer service reps.”
“Oh, don’t feel bad for them. That’s probably the most excitement they got all day. How boring would working at a tampon call center be? Well, I brightened their motherfuckin’ days, because by the time I hung up, they were laughing their asses off. Except for the rare humorless hardass who yelled at me and asked to speak to my parents. Fuckin’ killjoys.”
“Ohmigod, I’m so terrified of Trent’s teen years. I’m already gonna have the bill for the car door of that asshole in the grocery store parking lot. I can’t handle two-hundred-dollar prank call phone bills as well.”
“Do you have the asshole’s number?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s on my copy of the police report. Why?”
“Text it to me when you get home tomorrow and I’ll call him and see if we can’t set him up in our shop.”
She eyed me. “That’s sweet, and I appreciate the offer, but this is my mess. I need to pay for it.”
“Says who?” I asked.
She studied me for a minute before shrugging. “I have no idea, but I’m sure there’s some legalistic type loser out there making sure people pay for their own mistakes. Karma will probably bite me in the ass if I don’t handle it.”
“It was an accident, not a mistake.” I took a long drink, then set my beer on the coffee table and scooted up against her. “I want you to let me handle this. Leave this son-of-a-bitch to me. You shouldn’t have to deal with some irrational asshat cussing you out over an accident.”
“Drew…”
God, my name dripping from her lips was so fucking sexy. Her gaze kept sweeping over my body, making me so damn hard I could barely contain myself. I’d gotten her in my space, but now I wanted her in my bed. “This is what I do. I got this. And don’t worry, I can bite you on the ass if it makes you feel better.”
Smiling, she shook her head. “Always angling.”
“Yep, well, I can’t help myself around you. Don’t worry about this guy, and don’t worry about Trent, either. He’s got a good mom. He’s gonna grow up to be just fine.” I tucked a long, dark curl behind her ear before drawing my thumb across her bottom lip. “You’re both gonna be fine.”
There was gratitude and hunger in her eyes. “What makes you so sure?”
“You’re smart and cautious. And you have people like me who want to help you. You’re damn hard on yourself, and I don’t know all the shit you’ve been through, but I respect the hell out of the way you’re handling it.”
“Thank you.” She looked away.
I hooked my finger under her chin and turned her head back around to face me. “I had fun tonight, and I like having you guys here. A lot.”
Her gaze darted down to my lips, and I knew what she wanted. I wanted it too. Slowly leaning forward, my lips landed on hers. She opened up immediately, giving me access to her mouth. My tongue swept past her lips, tasting, savoring her unique sweet flavor. We’d only kissed a few times, but I felt like I’d know the feel of her soft lips anywhere. Before Carly, kisses had been strictly physical, a prelude to sex, but w
hen our lips locked, it was so beyond physical it made every other kiss seem shallow and fake.
It wasn’t about sex; it was a fucking connection. A conversation. She wasn’t beside me, she was the goddamn air in my lungs.
Carly pulled away. “Wasp,” she breathed.
“What, sweetheart?” My hand eased up her thigh. “What do you need?”
“We can’t do this. If it doesn’t work out…” she looked toward the door to the bedroom where Trent was sleeping.
“But what if it does? We’re so fuckin’ awesome together. So comfortable. You can’t tell me you don’t feel the same.”
She didn’t deny it. “You’d be willing to do the family thing? Are you sure you’re that kind of guy? That you’d even want this?”
“I never thought I wanted it, but with you and Trent… This shit just works. I should be freaking out that you’re in my house right now, wondering how to get you into my bed and out the door again before you start getting ideas about us. But instead, I want you here, whether or not we have sex, and I don’t know what the fuck to do with that.”
She took a deep breath. “Before we go any further, there’s something I need to warn you about. You could be in danger, just being with me.”
I had just bared my goddamn soul to her and it sounded like she was trying to brush me off. “What the fuck does that mean?” I asked.
Her gaze dropped. “I need to tell you what happened to Robbie and Becca, but it’s gonna sound crazy. Hell, it is crazy. I keep wondering if it’s all in my head… if I’m mistaken or got it all wrong. But they’re dead and that’s real, and I…” When she looked up at me, her eyes were blazing with emotion. “I care about you and don’t want you messed up in this.”
“You’re not crazy, but you aren’t making a whole hell of a lot of sense. Why don’t you start from the beginning and maybe I can help you sort it out?”
She sipped her beer before taking another deep breath. “I told you about my pothead foster parents and how they pretty much let me do what I wanted.”
I nodded.
“Well, once they started messing with meth, everything changed between us. They were tweaking, not sleeping, paranoid, it was difficult to be around them. So, I lived out of my backpack and slept on whichever sofa was available. It wasn’t a big deal because I worked after school, then I’d go to the library and do my homework before crashing at Robbie’s or Becca’s. For the most part, their parents were cool with it, but sometimes they got sick of me coming around so much, so I had to find somewhere else to stay.”
The desire to smack around her foster parents made me open and close my fists a couple of times, but Carly didn’t seem to notice. She picked at her beer label and continued.
“There was this kid, Nate, who was a few years older than me and had his own place. He was the sheriff’s son, and everyone in town knew not to piss him off because his temper was off the charts. He wouldn’t fight or anything, but bad shit would happen to anyone who did him wrong, you know?”
I shook my head. “What do you mean, ‘bad shit’?”
“Uh… one time this guy, Noah, got the job Nate was trying for, and the next day all four of Noah’s tires were slashed. When he was still in school, Nate asked this girl Jenny to homecoming, and she turned him down. The week after the dance, her parents received a package in the mail with pictures of Jenny and her date going at it in his car.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah. It was never stuff people could pin on him, because nobody ever caught him, but the whole town knows Nate’s not stable. One of the science teachers tried to talk to his dad about it once, but ended up with a yard full of boric acid for his trouble. Apparently, Nate had been paying close enough attention in class to know what could kill the teacher’s yard.”
“Unstable? Nate sounds like a goddamn maniac,” I said.
“Yeah, if he did all of it. But the same people accusing him of this stuff, had made my life hell with their whispers and lies, so I didn’t believe them. Nate, on the other hand, has never been anything but nice to me. I’ve known him since we were in daycare together. For some reason, when everyone else was teasing me, he took me under his wing. He was protective and nice, and he didn’t allow people to talk shit about me. Nate was the first person who ever actually stood up for me, and when I needed a place to stay, he let me crash on his couch. He never tried to make a move on me, never made me feel uncomfortable.”
I couldn’t see where her story was going, but had a feeling things were about to get really fucked up. “I think I’m gonna need another beer. You want one?”
She chugged the last of her drink, then handed me her empty bottle with most of the label peeled off. “Please.”
“Keep talking, I’m listening,” I said, walking the short distance to the kitchen.
“My sofa-surfing days ended after Robbie and I got drunk one night and fooled around. About a month later, I found out I was pregnant. I couldn’t wrap my mind around getting an abortion, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to drop the baby off at a fire station. Robbie and I were halfway through our senior year and both working part-time, so we pooled our money and got a little place together. We tried to be a couple, but it didn’t work out, so we lived as roommates. Robbie wasn’t really dad material, but he helped with the bills. We graduated and got better jobs, moved into a bigger house. After I turned twenty-one, I started bartending and making decent tips. Our life wasn’t normal, but it worked. Then, about five months ago, Nate cornered me at the bar and asked me out.”
I’d opened both beers and returned to sit beside her again, handing her a bottle. “What did you do?”
“I was so shocked I panicked and lied. Told him Robbie and I had gotten back together. He seemed fine with it at the time, but a few days later, he cornered me again and he was pissed. He said he’d seen Robbie and Becca making out in Robbie’s truck. After years of flirting, my two best friends had finally gotten together and I was happy for them. I should have come clean and told Nate the truth, but I didn’t. I just told him I knew about them and it was okay. Like it was part of our relationship.”
“He didn’t let it go, did he?”
“Three days later the cops found Robbie in his truck, just outside the city limits. They said he’d used his rifle to kill himself.”
“Jesus,” I swore.
“It doesn’t make sense. Robbie’s parents had beat him down his whole life, and he’d always struggled with depression, but since he’d been seeing Becca, he’d been better. Happier than I’d ever seen him. They were good together. Besides, he had a pistol hidden under his seat. Why would he use his rifle? It seems so much harder. He’d have to reach up the barrel to pull the trigger. He’d have to have it propped against something. I asked to see his body, to see how the bullet had been angled, but the sheriff told me the damage of the short-range thirty-ot-six shot was too gruesome, and that his dad had already ID’d him.”
I could tell she’d thought about this a lot. “You’re right, it is weird that he used a rifle when he had a pistol available.”
“Most people didn’t know about the pistol, but the rifle was always hanging in his back window. The cops wouldn’t let me see his truck, either. Said it was evidence. Then they cleaned it out and gave it to Robbie’s parents who hated me for ruining his life by getting pregnant. So, I don’t even know if the pistol was still in there.”
She wasn’t playing when she said she had no family. Even Trent’s dad’s family had abandoned them.
“Then, Becca died.” Carly’s eyes watered. She blinked and took another drink.
“What happened to her?”
“Robbie’s death messed her up. She blamed herself for not making him happy enough, for not seeing that his depression was flaring again. I suspected Nate and tried to talk to her about it, but she wouldn’t listen. She was too hurt and angry. She pushed me away and started screwin’ with meth. One night, she was stoned out of her mind and lit a bunch of candles before c
limbing into her bathtub and passing out.”
“Meth doesn’t make you pass out,” I said.
“Exactly. I could always tell when my pothead foster parents were using meth because the house was clean. Nobody passes out on meth.”
“But the authorities said she died in the fire?”
“Yep. By the time the firemen arrived, there was nothing they could do.”
My mind couldn’t even process the shit she’d been through. It was amazing she was still going, still putting one foot in front of the other, and not locked away in some psych ward. “You think it was Nate?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but yes. He’d always been protective of me, but you should have seen how pissed he was at the idea of Robbie cheating on me. He was scary, Wasp. After Becca’s funeral, Nate said something about her getting what she deserved, and I just knew… I know he did it.” A tear slid down Carly’s cheek, but she angrily brushed it away. “Robbie and Becca didn’t do anything wrong and I couldn’t even defend them, because I feared what would happen if Nate found out I’d lied to him. Their bodies weren’t even cold yet when he asked me out on another date. Like I could just forget about my two best friends’ deaths and have a good time. I told him I wasn’t ready… that I needed to grieve, then I went home, packed all the clothes and toys I could fit in my car, emptied my bank account, and got the hell out of there.”
“Smart.”
“Or crazy. What if Nate’s not responsible for their deaths? What if Robbie did commit suicide? What if Becca did light all those candles and was too stoned to save herself from burning? Then I uprooted Trent and took him away from everyone and everything he’s ever known. And now, he can’t even put pumpkins on his father’s grave.” More tears spilled from her eyes.
“Pumpkins on his grave?”
She waved me off. “Something he saw on a cartoon. That’s why I called you on Father’s Day. He wanted to see his dad’s grave and I couldn’t handle it.”