Playing with Fire_Shen

by Shen, L. J.

  During the days, we’d be in college, acting like we did not exist to each other. So much so that people had stopped wondering if I were under his protection, and judging by our scene the night I showed up at the fight club, started talking about how we were archenemies. This made me even less popular—I was now officially the idiot who got on West St. Claire’s bad side—but now no one could accuse West for drawing attention to me.

  I knew it was exactly what I’d asked him for, and yet, I couldn’t help but hate it when we passed by each other, training our faces to be cool and blank. Then again, the alternative of people knowing about us, and judging and whispering and talking about just how much I didn’t deserve the greatness that was West St. Claire, wasn’t really an option. I didn’t need a reminder to the fact most people didn’t think I deserved him.

  On the days when we had shifts together, we’d work, laugh, talk, then head over to my place. He’d entertain Grams while I showered, reapplied my makeup, did the laundry, and made dinner. Then the three of us would eat together before I put Grams to bed.

  Grandma Savvy adored West. He was charming, polite, and rolled with whatever mindset she was in. If she talked to him like he was Grandpa Freddie, he played along. If she recognized he was West, Gracie-Mae’s friend from the food truck, he’d be himself. One day he even pretended to be Sheriff Jones. Though I wasn’t impressed when he tried to carry on his charade as sheriff when we slipped into bed and he began ordering me around.

  After dinner and putting Grams to bed, West and I would lock ourselves in my room and explore each other. Sometimes we were slow and leisurely. Sometimes fast and desperate. But we always clung to each other a moment too long, and every time we said goodbye, I watched his back from my window, knowing he was taking a part of me with him.

  West made no effort to conceal where he stood about Grams. He wanted me to put her in a nursing home but recognized he wasn’t going to succeed where Karlie and Marla had failed.

  That didn’t stop him from trying, though.

  He would drop leaflets and brochures for nursing homes in Austin and its surrounding areas in my mailbox and on my desk. Twice, he had asked to use my laptop and left the window open on a website for places that came highly recommended for people in Grams’ condition. Whenever I talked to Marla and West was in the kitchen, and she told me how Grams wouldn’t want to leave the house or visit a doctor, he’d flash me a look.

  I knew he was trying to help. I was running out of time to find a replacement for Marla.

  Fridays were the worst.

  I never went to his fights. Doubted they would let me in after he’d lost his temper on me the last time—plus, one time was quite enough. Seeing him bleed wasn’t my jam. I hated it, even though I understood why he did it.

  Friday was the only night we spent apart. We made up for it every Saturday after work. I’d make sure I kissed away every bruise and welt, spent extra time licking his wounds and worshipping every inch of his aching body.

  I was falling for this warrior of a man, who fought to get his family back on its feet. Literally.

  There were only two things that took away from my sheer glee at having him to myself.

  One—I still didn’t know what we were. Where we stood.

  And two—I started to wonder whether he ignored me on campus because I asked him to or because he was embarrassed. It was one thing to play, suck, and bite on my marred skin in private when we were in my room, running his fingers over my bumpy flesh as he pounded into me, beads of his sweat dripping down my imperfect flesh, and another to publicly endorse me as his girl.

  I tried to tell myself that West wasn’t the give-a-crap type of guy. He couldn’t care less about his own popularity and what people thought of him. But that didn’t always work.

  Even though it drove me nuts, not knowing what we were, I refused to ask him. I didn’t want to be one of those chicks. The needy, submissive types that flocked to him so often. One of the reasons West was attracted to me in the first place was because I refused to throw myself at him like everyone else in this college town.

  As for him ignoring me at school? As much as I hated it, I didn’t want it to change. I still didn’t want people talking about us. I was still scared of the uproar it could cause.

  The first hint that we were more than just friends with benefits came on a Tuesday night, of all days. I was on the phone with our electric company over an unsettled bill I knew I’d already paid. I was cooped up in the kitchen, going over the bill with the customer service representative. Grams kept tapping my shoulder, saying that she wanted me to help her get in the shower.

  “Some daughter you are, Court. Your momma’s asking you for help.”

  “Give me a sec … ah, Momma.” I patted her hand distractedly. West was leaning against the fridge, watching us with his arms folded over his chest nonchalantly. He hated when I pretended to be my mother, even though he pretended to be whomever Grams thought he was at any given moment. He explained that it was different. That he hadn’t been raised by her, didn’t care if she remembered him or not.

  “What? No, I don’t … this is not true. I have the reference number for the transaction. Of course I paid.”

  “Lord, Courtney! I stink!” Grams boomed over the representative’s words on the line. “Help me.”

  I was getting flustered. I couldn’t afford to pay the bill twice. Grams kept moping around me, getting in my face. I dropped my forehead to the kitchen counter, closing my eyes and drawing a breath.

  “Hold on a moment … Momma,” I murmured, more to myself than to Grams. “Please.”

  “Come on, Savannah, let me help.” West stepped in, and I turned around, my phone still pinned between my shoulder and ear, glaring at him hard, as if to ask, are you out of your mind?

  Grams, however, seemed content with his idea, linking her arm in his.

  “You don’t mind helpin’ an old gal, do ya’, West?”

  She remembered him and not me today? Fun.

  “Ma’am, it’d be my pleasure.”

  “No peekin’.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, Mrs. Shaw.”

  They tromped out of the kitchen before I had the chance to object. Grams could manage a shower most days—I’d put a wooden chair under the water spray and all she needed was to reach for the shampoo and soap—but it was vital she had someone in the bathroom with her in case she fell.

  West would have to see her naked. To help her in and out of the shower. Lord.

  Ten minutes later, I had settled the bill with the electric company and taken the stairs to the second floor, two at a time. I peeped into the bathroom through the cracked door, not making myself known.

  West was leaning against the sink, his back to the shower, telling Grams about one time when he gave his mother’s blind cat a shower when he was four. Behind him, Gram cackled in the shower breathlessly, sitting on her wooden chair, enjoying the stingy stream of water on her back, running a sponge over her arm.

  “Lordy! You couldn’t have. Christ, I would’ve whooped your butt good if I was your momma.”

  “She wanted to, Mrs. S. Trust me. The only thing standing between her and whooping my ass was my speed.”

  That made her nearly topple over with laughter. I smiled, my chest tightening, something warm rushing through every blood vessel in my body.

  As if sensing my presence, West’s eyes shot up and met mine.

  He smiled, but didn’t comment on my snooping.

  “All right, I’m ready. Hand me my towel, young man!” Grams swiveled in the chair, turning off the water. West plucked the towel from the hook and handed it to her, his eyes still on mine.

  She patted herself dry, and when she had secured her bath towel around herself, he helped her to her room while I slipped back into mine, letting them have their moment.

  Half an hour later, I tucked Grams into bed and made my way back to my room.

  I found West plopped down on my bed, tossing one of my old
pompoms like a ball in the air, catching it every time. I sat at my study, powering up my laptop and logging into Sheridan University’s website to see if Professor McGraw had answered my latest email. My guess was that she hadn’t. She’d been ignoring my pleas ever since she’d made up her mind about not letting me pass without taking part in the play. But I never could send that text message to Cruz Finlay. Standing onstage was just something the phoenix in me wasn’t capable of. Not yet.

  “Tex?” West grumbled behind my back.

  The whooshing of the pompom flying up and down in the air soothed me. It was something Tucker might have done. Back when I was still normal.

  We all remember how that ended, right, Grace? So don’t get your hopes high.

  “Yeah?”

  “You ever gonna take off your makeup in front of me?”

  I blinked at my screen, forcing my pulse to keep beating at a normal pace.

  “Why are you asking?”

  “I’ve seen every inch of your body up close, and I’m still here. I’ve never seen your face bare, though. Don’t you think that’s weird?”

  “Nope.” I typed away on my keyboard. “I don’t feel comfortable showin’ my face to people.”

  “Karlie has seen it. Marla too.”

  I said nothing. He wasn’t Karlie. He wasn’t Marla either. He was the boy I loved—really loved, wasn’t just infatuated with—and I didn’t want him seeing me at my ugliest.

  The realization that I loved him didn’t shock me, nor did it freak me out. In the back of my mind, I’d known it to be the truth for a while.

  I was in love with West St. Claire.

  Madly. Wholly. Obsessively, even.

  He was the most complex man I’d ever met—sweet, caring, kind, responsible. But also violent, aggressive, offhanded, and cruel.

  And I couldn’t get enough of him. I shook with fear from the thought that we were going to end at some point. He was going to graduate and move on, and I was going to stay here and mourn his loss.

  “All I’m saying is, I want to kiss your face without it tasting like a wall.”

  “Speakin’ of …” I swiveled in my chair, feeling my walls building up. “Don’t you think it’s unfair you know what happened to me, but you never told me what happened to you?”

  I had no doubt West wasn’t about to share his darkest secret with me. Nothing had changed on that front. He still wouldn’t pick up the phone whenever his parents called—which was often—and became cagey whenever I brought up his old life in Maine.

  “Life isn’t fair,” he clipped.

  “Ah-huh. That’s what I thought.”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Why?” I asked, turning back to my laptop, pretending to type on my keyboard in an effort to appear casual. In reality, I was fully invested in the conversation. Of course I wanted to know. I was hungry for whatever information I could have from him. The only thing stopping me from asking Easton about what made West the way he was, was my loyalty to the man on my bed.

  “Because you won’t be able to look me in the eye after you hear what I’ve done. Topic closed.”

  The whooshing of the pompom stopped. My chest was knotted with anxiety. I’d already figured whatever happened to West was vastly different from what happened to me.

  My battle scars were external, on the surface.

  His were internal, but cut deep.

  He was disfigured inside, perfect outside. A lethal combination.

  “Reign is throwing a party this Saturday. You’re going.”

  I spun my head around, spearing him with a deadly glare. “Reign’s an asshole.”

  “Reign is harmless. And you’re going to have to face people at some point. You’re going,” he said again, calmly.

  “Why would I go there?”

  “Drink. Dance. Be a normal college chick.”

  “I’m not a normal college chick,” I pointed out. “And the only friend I have would never go with me. Karlie has three study groups over the weekend. Are you crazy?”

  “Not that I know of, but I wouldn’t rule it out completely. I’ve been known to do some pretty fucked-up shit. I’ll pick you up at eight.”

  “Wait, you want to go together?” I slanted my head sideways, feeling my eyes widening. We never did anything together outside of my house. Outside of my bed. Unless I included the food truck, which I really couldn’t, because we were both paid to be physically present there at the same time.

  West helped me with Grams, but I always thought of it as a kind of barter. Him looking out for me the way I looked out for him.

  He sat up. “Yeah, together. Are you unfamiliar with the concept?”

  “I … I didn’t think we were …” I tried to articulate the part that confused me, although in truth, it was all of it. “Together-together.”

  So eloquent, Grace.

  “You didn’t think we were together-together?” he repeated, dumbfounded.

  “Why would I? You keep telling me it’s casual.”

  “Casual shit still counts for something.”

  I smiled bitterly. “Then consider me bad at math, because I don’t think it does.”

  “Wait, am I your fluffer?” A cocky gleam zinged in his eyes.

  “Fluffer?” I spluttered.

  “You know, the person who jacks off porn stars or gives them half a blowie so they’ll get hard before the shoot. Someone who fucks the issues out of you, so that by the time Prince Charming rides into town, you’ll be ready for him?”

  He said that with a smile, but I could tell he wasn’t joking. I was surprised he’d even suggest that, considering he was the one who went on and on about his no-strings-attached rule.

  I reared my body back, narrowing my eyes at him. “No, you’re not my fluffer. But you said you only do one-night stands.”

  “Yet here you are, dozens of nights in, still thoroughly fucked,” he deadpanned, like I was stupid.

  “You ignore me at school.”

  “You mean, like you explicitly asked me to?”

  Were we arguing or declaring our feelings toward each other? I was confused.

  “I know. But it still makes me feel weird,” I admitted. “Maybe you should stop ignoring me.”

  “Maybe I should. Let’s start with me taking your ass to Reign’s party this Saturday.”

  “Fine. But I refuse to socialize.”

  “Ditto.” He leaned over, fist-bumping me. “That’s why I’m bringing you along. At least I’ll get a hookup out of it. East’s been riding me hard about showing my face in public.”

  So that was why he was going to a party. Easton was nagging him to get himself out there. West had the reputation as someone who was usually above social gatherings.

  He picked up the pompom he’d discarded on my bed, tossing it up to the ceiling again, one hand tucked behind his head, smirking.

  “Shit, Texas. Looks like you and I are going on a date.”

  Grace

  “It’s not a date,” I insisted to Karlie the following day as we both walked out from the lecture hall, heading toward my pickup. “Easton forces him to go out. We’re probably goin’ to stand in the corner and sulk together.”

  But even as I said it, I didn’t really believe it. I didn’t want to make my best friend feel left out. West St. Claire and Karlie Contreras didn’t hang out with the same crowd, and the last thing I wanted was for her to think I was ditching her for the cool kids, even though, in all probability, she was studying or working on Saturday and wouldn’t be able to make it anyway.

  Karlie examined me skeptically. She knew West and I were having sex. On the one hand, I could tell she was excited about me finally coming out of my shell. On the other, I could also see why she was worried I’d get hurt. West didn’t scream steady boyfriend material. Heck, he didn’t even whisper it.

  Karlie stopped by my pickup, balancing her laptop case against her waist.

  “Don’t drink anything unless you pour it yourself and keep y
our phone with you at all times. Just stay safe, okay?” It sounded like a warning more than a request.

  “How do you mean?” I eyed her.

  She shifted her gaze sideways, like her eyes would reveal something she didn’t want me to know.

  “Remember the day you went on a fake date with Easton Braun and I told West where you were?”

  I remembered. I knew Easton had only taken me out to put West in his place. I’d played along, because I didn’t want to lose West as a friend. If that was what he needed to snap back into place—a reminder that I wasn’t disposable—I was ready to prove it to him.

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, West said he’d hook me up with Miles Covington if I spilled the beans about your whereabouts. It wasn’t why I told him, of course; I knew you wanted him to know. I just wanted to see him sweat. I forgot all about West’s agreement with me. But then Miles actually asked me out.”

  “Isn’t that awesome?” I blinked at her, not following. “Miles is a great guy, and you seemed to be into him when we were at the Plaza.”

  Karlie’s eyebrows furrowed. She looked at me like my phone was off the hook.

  “You know I stand no chance with the guy. He just asked me out because West told him to. Miles said he didn’t want to get on West’s bad side. Your precious boyfriend is the campus bully we always stayed away from when we were kids. He’s playin’ everyone like a puppet master. I don’t know, Shaw. He seems to have too much power ’round here.”

  “Karlie, he just wanted you to meet a nice bo—”

  “It’s not just about Miles. I heard West has been messing with the wrong crowd. Taking fights with dodgy people, mixin’ up with criminals. Stuff like that. There’s plenty of rumors going around, and I don’t want to say anything that’s not true, but I don’t think I realized what kind of trouble he was when I hired him.”

  The roles were now officially reversed. I was all for West, and Karlie thought we should be wary of him.

  “Don’t go cagey on me, Karl. What do you know?” I asked.

  She gnawed on the side of her fingernail, torn between wanting to tell me and avoiding a fight. “I heard he arranged a second fight with Kade Appleton. Know the guy? He’s a local. Allegedly beat his pregnant girlfriend to a pulp and got kicked out of an MMA league for it. It was all over the news.”