Stronger

by Blue Ashcroft

  “You ready?” He says, turning to me, a casual smile back on his face. I almost expect him to give me a high five as I get to the door. He just holds it for me, and then follows behind. He grabs my bag and slings it over his shoulder without asking.

  I exhale angrily, but throw up my hands and walk out.

  “Hey, come on. It’s just part of the service,” he says cheerily.

  When we get to the car, I turn and put out my hand for my bag, but he doesn’t hand it over. Just runs a hand under the strap, looks up at the sky for a moment, makes a little “hmm” noise, and turns to me with a frank, serious expression. It catches me off guard. Once again, I find myself wondering who he is.

  “I’ll tell you about Camille if you tell me about Mike,” he says.

  I’m tempted, for a moment. I like knowing about other people’s problems. I like to try and help them and fix the problems and sometimes the people. But I can’t fix this.

  And maybe I’m not ready to hear about Camille yet. Not ready to deal with it. I need to go home and rest. “Not today,” I say.

  His jaw tightens, and he nods and pulls the bag off his shoulder and hands it over. “Have a good night Amy.” He turns and heads back across the parking lot, to the spot where his bike is parked. He climbs over it in once swift motion, puts his helmet on, and waits for me to leave.

  I pull out, weirdly aware of him watching me, and drive off. It’s odd how different it feels to be watched by him compared to Mike.

  Chapter 4

  I dress slowly in the restroom. Geoff wasn’t on shift today. Maybe Knight forgot to get someone to walk me out. I’ve been working mostly mornings lately so it hasn’t been a problem.

  Not that I shouldn’t be able to walk outside in the dark alone, but it did feel less creepy with Geoff. He can be oddly gentlemanly at times. I walk outside the guard room and look around. A couple guards walk by, saying hi, but no one seems to be the one walking me out.

  I wait a moment more, till they are gone, and then I realize they were the last of the guards. I want to kick myself for waiting rather than just following them out. I could go to the sup office, but what would I say? I’m not that type of person, asking for something like that. I didn’t want that escort anyway.

  And what are the chances Mike could actually be out there waiting for me? Slim. I haven’t seen him since the night Geoff threw him out. Usually once he shows up he shows up pretty quickly thereafter, before taking a break and not coming for a while. I pull back my shoulders and walk out, bag in hand.

  Still it was nice knowing that even if he was there, that there was nothing he could do to me. Geoff may be Neanderthal at times, but I can’t forget how easily he dragged Mike out of my house.

  I open the back door and look out across the parking lot. It’s dark, but I can still see clearly around and between the cars because of the lights all around casting yellow circles over the pavement. No one there.

  Releasing a breath, I step out into the night, and then nearly jump out of my skin when someone comes out of the shadows to my left.

  Geoff grabs me around the arms, keeping me from falling. “Whoa there, it’s just me. I thought I’d wait out here, since I didn’t work today.”

  “I didn’t think you’d be here.”

  He quirks a dark eyebrow at me, then smiles. “I can be reliable sometimes, Amy.”

  “You said my name.”

  “Yeah. I like it. Pretty name.” He grabs my bag and throws the strap across his shoulders. It settles between his pecs and I gulp. He puts his hands behind his head and strides forward, leading the way to my car. “Let’s get you home safe.”

  “What happened to Dollface?” I ask.

  “Do you like being called Dollface?” he asks.

  Why is he suddenly being intelligent? Making sense. “No. Of course not.”

  “You sure?” He gets to my car and pushes my bag further over his shoulder. It adjusts his arms and makes the muscles bunch. I gulp again. He leans against the car, smiling lazily. “You’re kind of a repressed little thing, aren’t you?”

  I tense up, bristling like a cat. “Excuse me?”

  “Can’t admit when you want to be kissed, can’t say what you want to about Mike, can’t admit you like it when I call you Dollface.”

  I scowl and try to fight the redness creeping towards my face. I’m grateful for my natural tan at times like this. “I don’t.”

  He raises an eyebrow, and his smile deepens. “I think you actually do. Dollface it is.”

  Okay, maybe it does sort of make me feel like the hottie in an old gangster movie, but it’s cheesy as hell. “I’m not repressed, I’m just ambivalent.” I smirk when his eyebrows raise, hoping I’ll have to define the word for him.

  “What does that mean?” he asks.

  Bingo. “It’s means I feel two conflicting things at once.”

  He shakes his head with a laugh. “No, I know what ambivalent means, I meant what do you mean that you’re ambivalent.”

  “I…I think it’s obvious.”

  “You hate and love me, huh?” he says, smirking again. I want to wipe it right off his face.

  I stomp closer, push him in the chest. “You wish.”

  He smiles. “I’d rather have both than neither. But be honest Dollface, it’s basically all—”

  I grab his collar and jerk him forward. He’s tall, and weighs probably two of me, but he’s shocked and his hands are still on the strap of my bag, so he stumbles forward, and I take his lips with mine. How’s that for ambivalent?

  He makes a shocked noise but I hold his collar tight and press my lips into his. They’re soft, but there’s stubble around them, a roughness that makes a pleasant kind of texture against my skin. He’s warm. He smells good, kind of spicy.

  I pull him one more time, and his lips just continue to press into mine. Why won’t he do anything? I push him away.

  “Why?” I say, huffing.

  “Why what?” He looks infuriatingly calm.

  “Why don’t you do anything? You talk a huge game, act like you—” I throw up my hands in frustration just as he closes the space between us, taking my face in his huge, rough hands. He supports my head as he comes down to take my lips.

  And take them he does. Before I know it, I’m opening up my lips and he’s sliding in, caressing me with his tongue, biting my lip gently, holding me firmly against him while he sets me on fire.

  He may be a doofus. We may have been fighting or yelling at each other for over a year.

  But damn, I do like when he kisses me.

  He pulls back and I exhale, out of breath.

  “You just had to let me know, Dollface,” he says, coming in close to say it against my neck. The warmth of his breath moves the tiny hairs along my neck and shoulders and I shudder. Then I push him away.

  “You wish,” I say, folding my arms. I breathe in and out a few times, letting myself calm. I’m about to tell him off again when he pulls me back in for another kiss. I sink against him, hands against his chest. Love the feel of his pecs.

  “Geoff,” I say, as he kisses my neck. “We’re in a parking lot.”

  “No one’s here.”

  “What if he is?” I say, a chill running up my spine.

  He pulls back and runs both hands over my shoulders, reassuring and warming me. “All the better for him to see it. Then he’ll know he really can’t mess with you.”

  “I don’t get it,” I say breathily, as he turns his attention to my ear. “Why?”

  “‘Cause he can see there’s a guy involved now, someone who’ll protect you.”

  It doesn’t register for a moment, because what he’s doing to my ear feels so good. But then it does register and I pull back and push him away, this time, hard. He scratches his head as he regains balance.

  “What was that for?”

  “So it’s all fine because there’s a guy involved? Sounds skeevy to me.” I reach for my loose ponytail holder so I can put my hair back in it
s normally tight knot. “And I don’t need you to protect me.”

  “Yeah? You sure ‘bout that?”

  “Yes. Besides, I barely know you.”

  “Nonsense. You know me pretty well I’d say.”

  “And then there’s that. Sometimes you sound like the guy I’ve been fighting with, sometimes you sound like a completely different person. I don’t know what to do with you!” I turn away from him, but there’s no point, so I turn back.

  He still looks satisfied with himself as he stands by my car.

  “Why are you doing all of this Geoff? Am I just a replacement for Camille? Do I look like her to you? Do you feel sorry for me?”

  His eyebrows fall, and he frowns and shoves his hands in his pockets. “I like you Amy. Just you for you. But maybe I should explain about Camille, if that would help you understand it.”

  “Knight told me. Plus, she was in my year. It broke my heart when it happened. It broke all of our hearts.”

  “Then you would know she didn’t look like you. She had sparkly green eyes that lit up whenever she saw me. She had a mischievous smile, but she was always honest. She had dark, straight brown hair. Not half as much as you do. She was thin.” He smirks at me and my curves, and I lift my chin.

  “Rude.”

  “I like not thin.” He grins.

  “Anyway…” I don’t want to hear about my body, not right now. Maybe not at anytime, but definitely not while talking about Camille.

  “You’re not like her. Not at all. And yeah, maybe I’m overprotective. She used to say that as well. Maybe I’m possessive, when I find something I like. Maybe I think there’s something good here,” he gestures between us, “and I don’t want that to slip away.”

  I nod.

  “I can’t save Camille anymore,” he says, looking up at the sky again. “I know that. And saving you, that’s something different. I think she’d like that, but that’s not why I’m like this. It’s not why I tease you, and it’s not why I want to kiss you.”

  “Why then?”

  “Oh come on,” he says, coming forward, brushing my neck where it meets my shoulder. “You can feel it too, right? We got chemistry, baby.”

  I scowl and swat his hand away.

  “Plus you make life fun,” he says, stepping back. “You make me forget.” He meets my eyes as he says it, and I can feel how much he means it, how much it means to him.

  I nod.

  “Don’t I make your life a little more interesting?”

  “That’s an understatement,” I mumble.

  “Well, just let me stay around then. At the worst, I’ll keep things interesting. At the best, you might see there’s more to this after all.”

  I shrug. “It’s nothing against you, Geoff. You just aren’t my type.”

  His eyes narrow slightly. “You don’t know your type. You sighed in my arms. You pulled me right into your mouth. I bet you’d pull me right into—”

  Smack. I slap him across the face and he steps back, rubbing his cheek. “How dare you? This is exactly why I don’t like you. Rude, unrefined, uncouth, I could go on.”

  “Why don’t you then?” he asks, a scowl on his dark face.

  “I. I don’t have time.”

  “Tell me about Mike,” he says. “And I’ll tell you about Camille.”

  “I don’t want to know about Camille,” I say harshly. “And you don’t need to know about Mike.”

  He takes a deep breath. “Alright, I was rude. I shouldn’t have said those things. I get it. You don’t want me. Fine.” He puts his hands up. “But at least let me help with Mike, as a friend. I won’t do it as a dude, just as a friend.”

  “A friend?”

  “A really buff friend who can kick anyone’s ass for you.”

  I look around the parking lot. I do feel better with him here, even if he incites me to violence. “Promise? You’re not just doing it to get in my pants?”

  He sighs. “No.”

  “Okay,” I say, taking my bag from him. “You can meet me at my place. We can talk for a bit.”

  “Great.”

  “And I’m sorry I hit you.” I reach for his cheek and his eyes soften. “Does it hurt?”

  He grins. “Nope. Someone needs to teach you how to hit.”

  “You’re impossible.” I throw up my hands and then yank my door open. He turns to walk to his bike as I get in, and right before I close the door, I hear him yell one last thing.

  “Hey Dollface, just so you know, I may be protecting you as a friend. But I do want to get in your pants.”

  Bastard.

  Chapter 5

  I hit the kickstand on my bike and take off, pulling out of the parking lot ahead of Amy, wind in my hair, cool Cali night air brushing the day off my back.

  I get to talk to her. I wonder if I’ll have the guts to ask what I’ve been wanting to ask all along.

  Sure, I’m attracted to Amy. I have been since I moved here. But there’s a reason I came to the water park, and it’s not to chum around with Knight. She wants to keep this all business and that reminds me that I have business too.

  I still have to find Camille’s rapist. And I think Amy can help me do it.

  And now that Amy has made it clear that she’s interested in Camille, it’s time to let her in on it.

  I’ll find out who raped Camille. I’ll find out and I’ll kill him. And I know he was at that party. And I know Amy was hosting it.

  Well, Amy was either at or hosting every big party in high school. Unlike Camille, she was invited to most of them. Poor Camille, probably so excited to go hang out with the rich types. Neither Knight nor I wanted to go.

  And look what happened.

  I stop at a red light, heart pounding. I can’t take it back. But I can find him.

  I’ll do whatever it takes to find him.

  For a while, flirting with Amy was so fun I forgot my purpose. I forgot that I still owe Camille. I’ve owed her for years.

  I know she’s watching me, angry at me, wishing I’ll avenge her. I’ll do it.

  I need to figure out who was at that party. I’ll do it while I figure out how to keep Amy safe from Mike.

  I hate red lights. When it turns green I hit the gas hard and peel out and around a corner, down another street, and another, until I realize I’m in Amy’s neighborhood.

  She’s so protected and sheltered, the opposite of Camille, so it makes sense that she’s going to help me help her. Camille should have had everything Amy has.

  I pull up and marvel at how quiet the street is. I share a house with one of my best friends from school, from before my mom married up and moved us to richer places. The second I was eighteen I came back to my roots. I’m not comfortable anywhere else.

  We share a small house in the more run down part of town, a place where cars rest on lawns and it’s never quiet at night, between cars, motorcycles, and cops.

  The grass in front of Amy’s house is perfectly green and well kept. I bend to pick a piece because I can’t believe how perfect it is. Not fake. I throw it away and take the front stairs in a couple steps.

  I hit the door, and wince because I hit it a little harder than I meant to.

  A petite blonde woman opens the door. “Can I help you?”

  Her hair is perfectly poofed, and she’s wearing a soft, white sweater. The kind of stuff my mom wears now. Since she’s forgotten where we came from.

  “I’m here for Amy.”

  Her perfectly waxed brows lower a fraction as she gives me the once over. Not what she wants for her daughter. So what?

  “Mom, it’s for me,” Amy says, before appearing at the door to push her mom gently aside. “Can you go back upstairs?”

  Her mom gives me one last look, then hesitantly smiles and disappears out of view.

  “Tough crowd,” I say, pushing my way inside as Amy opens the door slowly. “What gives?”

  “She just doesn’t…” Amy trails off, avoiding my eyes as she leads the way into the living
room. “You’re not really the type she wants around.”

  “I see…” I say, narrowing my eyes.

  “No,” she says, eyes widening as she waves a hand at me to dismiss whatever she thinks I’m thinking. “Not like that. She just, well, she likes when I bring girls home.”

  At that, my eyes pop open. “Why?”

  “Well, you know, she likes that I want to be like them.”

  “Why should she care?”

  “I…I don’t know.” Amy goes into the kitchen, presumably to get drinks, and I follow her.

  “Don’t you think it’s probably more likely that she doesn’t like that I drove up on a motorcycle and don’t look upper class and shit like you are?”

  Amy frowns and shakes her head as she pulls a pitcher of something out of the fridge. I take advantage of the moment to check out her ass. Love that nice, round…

  “Want something to drink?”

  “Sure,” I say, pulling my eyes up to an appropriate level. “What do you have?”

  “Lemonade?”

  “Hard lemonade?” I ask, winking.

  She frowns. “No.”

  “Fine then.” I lean on a stool and look around the kitchen. Pristine steel appliances, beautiful granite counters and cherry fixtures. Wonder what she’d like of my kitchen? Heh.

  She hands me a glass and leaves the kitchen, waving at me to follow her.

  I do, watching her hourglass-shaped body sway in front of me as she leads the way outside. There’s a nice wood deck, and it looks out on a really nice back lawn.

  She has everything, so why does she need to throw parties all the time?

  “Why are you always throwing parties?” I ask, slumping in a lawn chair that’s too soft for comfort, and putting my legs up over the arm.

  “Why not?”

  “It just seems like parties are something people do because they have nothing else to do.”

  “What makes you think that?” Her pretty brown eyes sparkle as she glares at me over her lemonade.