Loch (The Powers That Be Book 3)

by Harper Bentley

  I shook my head as I chewed, the pastry in my mouth now tasting like cardboard.

  “Sim! What the hell? How’s this gonna work?”

  I winced because I was as clueless as she was. “I don’t know.” I heard her scoff then I quickly continued. “But I planned on calling it all off tonight.”

  “You’re ending it tonight? Would that be before or after you sleep with him? Because you will sleep with him if he’s anything like Anthony.”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered with a frown, not liking how muddled my thinking was.

  “Wait. Are you even gonna tell him who you are before you leave?”

  I guess the look on my face answered her question.

  She threw up her hands. “You’ve got to be kidding. You tell me you really like him but instead of coming clean, you’re gonna sleep with the guy then tell him you can’t see him anymore without his ever knowing who you are.”

  I kept looking at her.

  “I’ve always thought you’re pretty smart but this plan is pure idiocy, Sim. You don’t think he’s eventually gonna find out who you are?”

  Crap. I hadn’t thought of that. “Crap.”

  “Yeah, crap. Who the hell are you right now?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered again.

  She shook her head as she got up to rinse her bowl out and put it in the dishwasher. “Look, thinking about it, I know Triple C was kinda messed up.” She turned and looked at me as she leaned back against the counter crossing her arms. “But it was short term and would’ve gotten the message across to him last night. He would’ve known he’d been a douche in the past and you would’ve walked away without having gotten involved. This plan you have going now? Totally messed up!”

  I pushed my Pop-Tarts away having lost my appetite.

  “I mean, think about it, Simone.” She huffed out a humorless laugh and shook her head. “You think you can go to his house, get all cozy with him maybe even do the deed, then walk out of there like nothing happened? Never see him again? This is Hallervan we’re talking about not UDub where you might get away with that. Are you freaking delusional?”

  “Crap! You’re right,” I replied, my brain finally fricking clearing. “What was I thinking?” I stood up quickly, grabbing up my breakfast and going to the trashcan to toss it out. And, oh, joy, here came the panic. “I can’t go out with him tonight or… or ever!” Now I started pacing. “What did I think would happen? We’d fuck then just move on? I couldn’t do that because I’m a one-night-stand rookie! I couldn’t handle not talking to him again! Or just seeing him on campus! Or anywhere! And even if I tried having a one-night stand with… with… with… anyone, I know I’d bomb at it because the two guys I’ve been with, I swear I became emotionally attached to them, like, the moment their dick was inside me! I’d be a mess if I tried walking away from Loch because I wasn’t nearly as attracted to the other two like I am to him! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!”

  When she didn’t reply, I stopped pacing and looked at her and saw she was trying to hold in a laugh.

  “What?” I hissed.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use so many bad words in one sentence before.” She let out a snort.

  “This isn’t the time to be joking!” I spit out and scowled at her.

  Her face sobered. “You’re right. And let me just say I’m glad you finally woke up.”

  “I can’t go tonight and I’ve got to tell him why.” I looked at her. “I do have to tell him why, right?”

  She chuckled. “Technically, I guess you don’t have to tell him anything.”

  “Really?” That perked me up. Man, I really was a chickenshit.

  She pushed off the counter with her bottom and walked past me, patting my arm on the way. “If you think it’s over with him, you can do whatever you want.”

  She was right. All I had to do was call him and tell him I couldn’t go tonight nor could I see him anymore. That sounded easy.

  The hard part was acknowledging the fact that it was all a big lie.

  Confession Number Seven

  I showered and got ready for my one-to-nine shift at Game Traders, putting on black jeans then my chartreuse (yuck) t-shirt that had, in hot pink bold font, the store name above my left boob and “You abuse them, we re-use them” on the back. I put my hair in a high ponytail then pulled on my white Cons and was out the door by a quarter to one.

  I’d talked to Marcy about Adam before showering, having forgotten that there was another person in the house besides myself who had a life, and found out that she was pretty much in love.

  “He’s great, Sim! He’s so sweet and considerate. And so hot! He knows what he’s doing in bed for sure. I came twice before we had actual penetration! His tongue is fucking amazing not to mention those strong fingers of his. And the size of his—”

  “Okay, okay. I get it.” I clapped a hand over her mouth then rolled my eyes. “Overshare,” I warned as I removed my hand from her mouth only to see her smirk. I mean, I guessed if I wasn’t having sex at least she could indulge. I just didn’t need to hear all the lurid details.

  “Let’s just say I’m definitely sore down there today.” At my look of disgust she cracked up.

  “Well, I’m happy for you and your, um, sore lady bits,” I offered which made her laugh more.

  “I’ve been thinking. Maybe you should tell Loch who you are. I’ll bet he’d understand.”

  Then I told her about his The Little Prince tattoo.

  “Oh. Maybe not. Well, I’d be willing to bet he was talking about you and not Samantha.” I cut my eyes to her. “I’m serious! You weren’t ugly back then. You were just… aesthetically challenged,” she declared.

  Now I laughed. “Ugly works too.” I waved my hand at her. “Okay, enough. Stop talking about me and my severe appearance deficit. I’ve gotta get ready for work. I’ll call him on my break and tell him we’re done. Not telling him who I am. Just making a clean break of it.”

  “Still think you should ‘fess up. I think you two sound cute together.”

  I mumbled something about in another lifetime as I headed to the bathroom because, really, if he knew I’d played him all along he’d be pissed and I couldn’t blame him. So better to nip things in the bud and move along.

  “Sim-ulator! What’s up?” Thorne Verbeck called as I walked into Game Traders. He was the owner and had hired me telling me they needed a girl in the mix, whatever that meant. He had to be at least thirty but dressed like a skater dude, shaggy blond hair, saggy shorts or depending on the day, skinny jeans that sagged, Vans, and he’d appeared to be stoned out of his mind every time I’d seen him. He was tall and thin and actually kind of reminded me of Shaggy from Scooby Doo with his laidback attitude which was actually kind of cool. He’d been open in telling everyone he was a trust-fund baby, and from what the guys who worked there told me he’d inherited so much money that he didn’t need to work for the rest of his life and had opened the store because he’d gotten bored. They said he had so much money that even his grandkids would never have to work a day in their lives. But from what I’d witnessed, he was a nice guy who donated regularly to charities that mostly had something to do with kids, giving them not only money but skateboards, having skate parks built and the like. He also paid his employees two dollars over minimum wage which was awesome.

  “Hey, Thorne. Not much,” I replied with a smile, going behind the counter where he sat on a stool.

  “Classes going okay?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be the next Bill Gates before you know it.”

  He grinned as he nodded. “Righteous.”

  “Yeah, righteous,” I agreed as I opened the register and did a money count.

  Griffin walked to the counter. “Hey, Simone. We’ve sold twenty-seven games today, traded four with a discount and bought ten.” He nodded at the register. “Should be even Steven in there at one twenty
-five and some change.”

  Griffin was the assistant manager and attended UDub where he was a math major and part-time genius who, like Thorne, was high more often than not. He was short and thickly muscled and had to be in his late twenties. He had a girlfriend around the same age who came in frequently, they both had dreadlocks in their brown hair, Griffin also wore a goatee, and even though they were white, they said they were Rastafarian. They regularly wore t-shirts sporting pictures of Haile Selassie, Bob Marley, Marcus Garvey or marijuana paraphernalia as a testament to their faith, the latter “just because we can” as Griff had once explained, and since I wasn’t one to judge and knew little about the religion, to each his own.

  “To the penny,” I responded closing the register. “You’re good, Griff.”

  “Don’t I know it,” he said, holding his fist out to me to bump, which I did, but I didn’t do the exploding thing after with the sound effects like he did.

  “What time you get off today, Griff?” I asked.

  “Off now, baby girl.”

  “Then you won’t mind if I change the music?”

  He laughed. “Go right ahead, woman. Although I’m gonna convert you to love my tunes soon.”

  I laughed and rolled my eyes as I headed back to the office. I highly doubted that would happen because ska or reggae or dancehall music, any of what he listened to, wasn’t my thing and he knew this. I was a rock and alternative rock girl and although I did like that one 311 song he’d made me listen to that’s as far as it went.

  I pulled up my playlist on the laptop on Thorne’s desk and right off the bat, my beloved Theory of a Deadman started singing “Angel” and all was right with my world for the time being. When I went back out to the floor I saw that both Thorne and Griffin had gone.

  “I guess it’s just us for now.”

  Crap. Dakota, who was my coworker, nineteen and the biggest horn dog I knew, was standing behind the counter checking a kid out but his eyes were on me. To date, I had to guesstimate that he’d asked me out three thousand, nine hundred and twenty-one times all of which I’d answered in the negative. Yeesh.

  “Hey, Dakota,” I mumbled as I headed to the shelves to sort and straighten the games. A few minutes later, he was there. Yippee.

  “So, there’s this party later…” I rolled my eyes as I continued working on the shelves. “And if you’re not busy, I thought we could go together.”

  I turned to look at him. He really was a cute guy, around six-feet tall, fairly muscular, big blue eyes that had lashes out “to there” and longish brown hair that curled around his neck. But the many times he’d come in telling us about his sexual conquests had put the kibosh on my going out with him. Ever. I didn’t doubt his stories because several of the girls had shown up at the store, and they were gorgeous. Or he’d come in to work with fifty hickies on his neck (hinting that they were other places on his body too) and I wasn’t too keen on being a notch in the kid’s bedpost. I emphasize “kid” because even though he was just over a year younger than I was, he was at that age where he was between being a goofy teenager and a man leaning more toward the goofy teenager side.

  “Oh, sorry. I’m busy tonight,” I remarked.

  I felt bad when I saw his face fall but knew he’d find someone to take my place, he always did, so my sadness was short-lived. He started helping me straighten. “What, you got a date?”

  My eyes cut to him for a second before I stated, “Yeah, I do.”

  “Really? With who?”

  “Whom,” I corrected then frowned because that was rude of me. “Just a guy,” I went on.

  “What’s his name?”

  I stopped and looked at him. “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Just thought maybe I knew him.”

  “I doubt it. He’s my age and goes to Hallervan too.”

  “My older sister goes there so I might know him. Maybe they went out.”

  I knew he was jealous and trying to make me feel the same, so point proven because there was that teenage boy side of him.

  “Maybe they did. Who knows?”

  When he realized he couldn’t rile me, he sighed and went over to the game system that was set up at the front and displayed on a (no lie) ninety-freaking-inch TV, plopped down onto a beanbag and started playing. I smiled when a probably twelve-year-old kid who’d ridden his bike to the store went over and started playing with him. When I finished with the shelves, I went to the office and found a couple of packages, opened them, saw they were games kids had ordered then called to let them know they were in.

  At six, Vegas came in. He was eighteen but acted more mature than Dakota. I’d liked him from the start. He was a smart guy and was kind of like a little brother to me, asking for advice about girls which I thought was completely awesome, and was, of course, from Las Vegas. I’d seen on the timecards in the back that his real name was Vernon but we all felt Vegas fit him better.

  “’Sup’, Chun-Li?” he asked as he came in the door.

  “Charlie Nash. Good to see you,” I answered with a smile.

  We’d played some video game against each other a few weeks before, each winning twice and we’d stopped after that. I honestly hadn’t known what I’d been doing but I’d gained respect from him and the other guys so I was just going to let it lie and not push my “cool meter” back to zero.

  “You too,” he said as he came behind the counter where I sat on the stool. He was around my height, five-foot-nine, and was as muscle-bound as they come. I’d once seen him haul two kids who he’d suspected of shoplifting and who were much bigger than he was out of the store on his own. Tonight he was in his typical work wear: a Metallica t-shirt, jeans, a Pantera ball cap that he wore backwards on his shaved blond head, and white Air Force Ones. He leaned a hip against the counter. “So it worked. What you told me.”

  My face lit up. “Yeah?”

  He nodded, smiling shyly.

  He’d had a crush on a girl over the summer and had wanted to ask her out but didn’t know how. He’d come to me asking how he should go about it and now he was telling me it worked. Good for him.

  “Midnight movies tonight.”

  “Very cool. What’s playing?”

  “From Here to Eternity. Think she’ll like it?”

  “Oh, yeah. You will too. Lots of macho man stuff in it.” I smiled.

  He smiled back. “Cool.”

  “Okay, I’m gonna grab dinner. Shelves are sorted, money’s good. Oh. Dakota’s been playing all day.” I glanced over at Dakota. “Against the same kid, too. Kid’s parents are probably wondering where the heck he is. Good luck getting him to do anything,” I said, nodding toward Dakota.

  “Truck’s coming at eight. Not a lot to do until then,” Vegas pointed out.

  “True,” I agreed. “Okay, gonna run to the burger place down the road. What do you want?”

  “The usual,” he remarked as he read the back of a game box.

  “Gotcha. Dakota?” I called.

  “Yeah?”

  “You want something?” I knew he’d heard us because he was nosy that way.

  “Number two with onion rings and a chocolate shake!”

  “Please?” I prompted.

  “Please and thank you, sweetheart!” he fired back.

  I rolled my eyes at Vegas who laughed because he’d been witness to Dakota’s asking me out several times then I opened the register and grabbed a couple twenties. Thorne always told us he’d pay for our meals, which was okay by me. “I’ll be back in a bit,” I said and headed outside to get in my Jeep.

  I’d decided to use this time to call Loch but as I started my vehicle, I changed my mind thinking I’d call after I got back. Yeah, that worked better.

  When I returned to the store, I thought I’d wait until I was finished eating to make the call. Boy, was I the queen of chickenshit or what?

  I brought the guys their food
and put the change back in the register. Dakota was now sitting behind the counter with Vegas, his game partner gone, probably having been called home to eat. Since there were no customers in the store, we all ate at the counter, me standing on the outside, the guys sitting behind it.

  “Sim’s gotta hot date tonight,” Dakota contributed between bites of his burger.

  Vegas’s surprised eyes met mine. “Yeah?”

  I nodded then stupidly added, “Yeah, but I’m gonna call and cancel.”

  “Why?” Vegas asked around a bite of his bacon cheeseburger.

  I bit my lip for a second but when I saw they were both staring at me waiting for an explanation, I decided to fill them in since I’d told them I was cancelling.

  “Damn,” Dakota muttered after I told them about Loch and the plan Marcy and I had come up with.

  When Vegas stayed quiet, I looked at him to see he was staring back at me. “What?” I asked.

  “Jesus, Sim. That’s a long-ass time to hold a grudge,” he declared.

  “I know. That’s why I decided to call the whole thing off,” I explained yet again.

  “I understand he was a prick but he was twelve.”

  I frowned at him. “I feel bad enough as it is, V. I don’t need you rubbing it in.”

  “But you like this guy?” he questioned.

  I looked at the ceiling and blew out a breath. “I said I do. But I’ve screwed everything up with him, giving him the wrong name, planning on hurting him. How can I move forward with him knowing what I was gonna do to him? It’s best if I just make a clean break.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Seriously? You were all up in my shit this summer telling me to ask Annica out, wouldn’t lay off until I did. And now you’re gonna bail because you’re scared? Not cool, Sim.” How the hell did he know I was scared? I was about to protest when he kept going. “See, if a girl told me what was going on, confessing she was priming me to call my shit out from something I’d done to her years before, I think I’d get that. Might be mad for a bit, but I’d respect the fact that she owned up to it. Then if she apologized, maybe told me she liked me, that’s even better and my mad would probably go away. I don’t know but I think you’re fuckin’ up.”