Delinquents (Dusty #2)

by Mary Elizabeth Sarah Elizabeth

  While I was admiring all the ways love changed me, he was spreading his slut and getting off right outside the door.

  I allow this, too.

  Showered clean but dope-dirty, the only boy I know for a hundred miles stands tall in yesterday’s jeans and a new tee, and I might as well thank him.

  I should get down on my shaky knees and show my gratitude for giving me the exact thing I asked for when I knew without a doubt that nothing was going to change, and I surrendered anyway.

  “Hey,” he says, smirking and devastating.

  “Hey,” I say back, looking around the room for my dress.

  Blown-black eyes follow me as Thomas pushes a hand through clean dark blond hair.

  “Your parents think you stayed with my sister, right?”

  Glancing up, I can practically see cocaine all over his posture, arrogant and taunting, and I want to break his fucking nose.

  “Yeah,” I say, spotting my dress. Draped over the back of the chair in the corner, it’s the one thing in the room that isn’t where it fell yesterday.

  My legs burn as I walk. My thighs throb and resent every step, but I hide my pain from the one who gave it, and he tosses my phone into the chair I’m approaching.

  “Tell them you’ll be home this afternoon,” he says.

  Resisting the urge to pick it up and throw it back at him, I grab my dress.

  “It’s ripped,” love says behind my back. I don’t have to look to know he’s grinning smugly. “The strap’s torn.”

  Of course it is, I think. You tore it. Just like you tear everything.

  “So buy me a new one,” I snip, turning to the sound of flicker and flame.

  Dusty’s smile grows as he blows smoke toward the ceiling and when he looks at me, the bitch in his eyes glints. I drop white eyelet cotton back onto the chair and take a few careful steps to my left, refusing to let my aching show. I’m not giving him the satisfaction.

  But as I crouch down to grab my underwear and pull them up under the towel, I can’t contain the sting. I wince and hiss and bite down cursing, and across the room, filthy love exhales smoke with a proud sound as I stand up. Cracking open dresser drawers, I find the perks of a sinner with money he couldn’t care less about. I pull on basketball shorts and a tee that swallow me and gather my wedges and purse.

  I leave my dress and Thomas grabs only his notebook and Ben’s hoodie.

  We don’t speak on our way downstairs, but hardhearted measures his stride to match my hindered little steps. He opens the door for me, and when he offers his hand outside, I take it.

  PORTLAND’S FULL of stores, but the one we’re in is fairly empty. There are a few shoppers and two sales ladies and too-loud pop music playing, but I’m focused on one thing as I look through the racks of dresses.

  Dusty’s eyes lie heavy on me from a few feet away. They’re hidden behind pitch-dark RayBans, but his regard is palpable. I’ve felt longing-love in his look for years, but there’s newness in this focus. Instinct and possessiveness have grown so strong that when I look toward the dressing rooms, he looks in the same direction.

  I glance to the exit and his eyes follow.

  Love’s attention is shameless.

  I could step in any direction and this boy would follow.

  I literally have sway.

  Making my way to the next rack, I feel my pulse in my palms and fingers. It flows down both arms and fills my chest. My boy’s boldness gives me confidence and his close-keeping footsteps make my heart soar. Grabbing the first dress I find in my size, I head toward the fitting rooms with trouble perfectly in tow.

  The attendant holds her hand out for the dress as I approach, and I pass it to her with a courteous smile.

  “How are you today?” she asks, something sort of like unease or hesitance in her tone. She glances over her shoulder as she leads the way to a hall of small rooms.

  “Well, thank you.” I nod politely and wait a few steps back as she unlocks a door. Thomas and I aren’t touching, but I feel him just a few inches behind me.

  “Okay,” she says, eyeing us. “My name is Helen. If you need a different size or anything, just let me know.”

  As she opens the door and steps aside, I tuck air-dried, loosely-curled hair behind my ear and step forward.

  My monster follows me right in.

  “What are you doing?” I ask with a laugh.

  Dusty shoots Helen a smile and closes the door.

  “What?” he asks, feigning innocence.

  “This is a girl’s dressing room, you know.”

  I look up and my heart flutters as his lips part and he smiles higher, showing his teeth.

  “Go ahead,” he says, nodding behind me to where Helen hung my dress.

  As Thomas leans against the wall, I turn to face a sundress printed with tiny rosettes, but there are mirrors on two sides of us and all I see is him watching me.

  “What?” I ask, tugging the drawstring of his shorts from my hips.

  Tall, dark, and derelict covers me with his look as I let them fall, and when I pull his shirt from my shoulders and stand in nothing but pink cotton bottoms, he grins like I just told him the best secret.

  Stepping forward in the small space, he reaches behind me and tugs the dress free, letting the hanger fall loudly to the floor. Smiling as I lift my arms, I let him bring the dress over my head and as he guides it down my sides, he brushes his fingers less than gently over my tender hips and turns me around.

  “You think everyone doesn’t know?” His voice is quiet and his words are warm along the top of my ear as he brings me back against him so we both face the mirror. His lips are hot and his strength surrounds me.

  “You think everyone doesn’t see how you’re smiling, Bliss?” He slides both hands down my sides and over my stomach, pressing his touch into me through thin fabric. His arms flex control as he rests his palms low, low, low, right over a thousand tightly-tingling little knots.

  I lean my head back and bask in possession.

  “The way you move …” he whispers. “You think you can hide what your body knows now?”

  With my lip between my teeth and my pulse between my legs, I peek up at our reflection. Thomas’ face is turned against my cheek, half-hidden by my hair, but I can see the sharp corner of his smile.

  “You can shower,” he tells me, kissing the shell of my ear. “You can put on new clothes. You can take the smallest little steps, baby, but I see you.”

  I grip addicted hands and lean into tried and true muscle.

  “My sex is all over you, girl.”

  My legs and lips and breaths all shake, but I push at love’s touch, asking for more. He slides one hand up over my wild-beating heart and drags his other down between my legs. Under the dress and under thin cotton, he slides his fingers along sore, so-needy softness, not inside but all over. It’s too good, and not enough, and he knows it.

  Sure of himself, Dusty chuckles against my neck. It’s all breath and it makes me feel like melting as he holds me to himself by my strongest muscle and my most delicate place.

  “Is there anywhere you can’t feel me?” he asks, dauntless and provocative and so fucking certain.

  It makes me bold, too.

  Shifting, I turn in his arms and step onto his feet to make me taller. Gripping his shoulder for balance, I lift his sunglasses to his head so I can see his eyes when I say it.

  “Is there anywhere you can’t feel me?” I ask, watching him blink a few times, adjusting to the light. It looks like it hurts, but dope-devoured black softens slowly around the edges, and I love that I can do that. I love that I can see him go mellow and sweet for me, so warm with trust and adoration that onyx almost glows.

  “No,” he whispers.

  Bending to kiss me, open and falling, Thomas picks me up. Mirror glass is cool on my back and when I gasp he kisses me deeper, and just like that we’re shifting again.

  “You’d let me, wouldn’t you?” he asks, stepping into me, pressi
ng me into the glass and covering every inch of my body with his. “You’d let me fuck you right here, just like this.”

  Wrapping my legs around his waist, I answer by pressing my hips up into his, knowing he’ll push against me for it.

  He does, and I grip his hair, making him groan and push harder.

  “You’d let me,” I tell him, circling up. “You’d let me fuck you right here, just like this.”

  Beaming darkness, Dusty rolls his hips so hard I cry out. His hand covers my mouth quickly, and he laughs so low I feel it between us. It sounds like gravel and light, rolling around together in the bottom of his throat.

  “Excuse me—” Helen’s knocking impatiently on the other side of the door. “Is everything okay?”

  “No.” Hard between my legs and looking right at me, mischief smiles wide with his hand still over my mouth. “Bliss is about to fuck me and you’re interrupting.”

  When rushing out before the cops get called kills my legs, love carries me on his back.

  The laughter in our lungs is high enough to float on.

  IT’S HALF past three when we merge onto I-5. The windows are down and the sun is high. I’m in stolen dress. Trouble’s lighting a joint, and we’re heading south.

  Back to Newport.

  Taking a deep breath, I brace myself. We still have a summer to finish, and my senior year, and then what?

  I flip the radio on as Thomas switches lanes. Most of the stations are static and the few that aren't are all sports and news. Popping the glove box, I search for CDs since I destroyed his iPod. There’s only one, and I slip Attack and Release into the stereo to fill the void of questions I don’t want answers to.

  Slow guitars and a single, laden-heavy drum beat start around us.

  “Ain’t it just like dyin'?” The Black Keys ask. “Except you can still feel the same?”

  Looking over, I find my boy smiling. Driving with his left hand loose on the wheel, he drapes his right along the back of the bench seat, opening and inviting. I slide across and sit in the middle spot, and each time he smokes, his arm curves around my shoulders smooshing me to his chest and making me giggle. I take a couple hits he holds to my lips as the miles pass and he kisses the top of my head.

  Love’s closeness comforts me long after the CD ends and the joint is out, but the unsmooth vibrations of the road under us wear on my sore thighs. Seeking a different position, I uncross my legs without thinking and it makes me wince out loud.

  “Baby,” Thomas murmurs, shifting in his seat. Turning slightly toward me, he places his hand on the inside of my thigh and carefully soothes sore muscles.

  I close my eyes and lean back, measuring in a slow breath.

  Love’s touch works the ache out. He switches to my other leg, and when that burning hurt is gone too, he shifts again.

  “Come here,” he says gently. Back behind his shades, his eyes stay on the road as he guides me toward him. “Come up here.”

  Glancing at the highway, I hesitate for half a second before rising to my knees. I duck my head as I climb up, and he wraps his right arm around me, helping me settle onto his lap. I hide my face in his neck and am unburdened by the feel of Dusty’s heart and lungs working so close to my own. I yawn and when I breathe in, we smell the same, like hotel soap and the joint he just finished, new clothes and vintage love. July sunlight warms my back while summer wind blankets us both, and the sound of the running engine and passing cars relaxes me.

  My boy tilts his face toward mine every now and then, not to whisper or kiss, but just to brush his cheek against the top of my head, and I feel high on him. While he’s spun on more than one illicit substance, I’m soaring on my own drug of choice—the same one I’ve always chosen—us.

  When I looked out my window yesterday and saw irredemption, too thin and so pale leaning against his Lincoln, I didn’t know what to expect. His posture was contrite under the willow, but his words were anything but, and his eyes were fit for a funeral. I had no idea what to expect when I got in the car, and now—

  I brush my fingers back and forth over the double-stitched collar of his tee shirt. While he drives us back to secrets and lies and sneaking and not touching, the sun shines in and I look up at him.

  Peaceful in this moment, Thomas is beautiful. His eyes are relaxed and his nose doesn’t remind me of his selfishness. It’s just a perfectly shaped bit of cartilage that takes air to lungs I treasure and keeps him breathing, alive and here with me. What draws my attention most though is the scruffy stubble across his chin and jaw, and I’m smiling, but I can feel tears gathering behind my eyes.

  Somewhere, at some point in the middle of everything, this boy started shaving.

  And I missed it.

  And now it looks like he’s gone weeks without caring to.

  Since he’s cared about anything but Her.

  Swallowing my broken heart, I pick at his collar.

  “What would you have done if I hadn’t come with you?” I ask, close enough that I see all the tiny little muscles around his eyes tense.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “Make you regret it.”

  Letting the words sink in, I rub my fingertip along white cotton stitching and under it, over more-prominent-than-when-he-left collarbones.

  “Did you miss me?” I ask, hating how small and self-conscious this hurt makes me feel.

  My weary soul doesn’t miss a beat.

  “Every minute,” he whispers, gathering me more near.

  Pressing my nose to his neck, I let my eyelids fall as he turns his head to kiss mine. He rests his cheek on my crown and some seconds pass.

  We breathe.

  We touch softly and bend closer.

  We whole-heartbeat and as seconds stretch into minutes, I know with every mile that we’re closing the distance between who we are and who we have to be for me.

  Guilt constricts spitefully around my heart, tightening my chest. Sadness stings the backs of my eyes. Stress-anxiety drops my temperature and knots my stomach, and knowing I won’t survive him leaving again sends panic coursing through me.

  “Will you come over tonight?” I ask. “Will you stay with me?”

  Thomas’ legs shift underneath me, and he nods.

  “I will,” he says. His voice is just above a whisper, but there’s perseverance and purpose there. “We’ll make it work.”

  It helps, but I’m slipping fast.

  Helpless and hopeless in love, I kiss his neck. I use both hands to pull his collar out of the way and I kiss over his pulse. He grips my hips to still me, but I can’t. There’s nothing else in the world for me but getting closer, knowing we’re supposed to be closer than this.

  Cursing, Dusty sniffs as he shifts, turning the wheel and killing the engine. He grabs me and turns us, but nothing happens fast enough.

  Wind blows through our rolled-down windows and the Lincoln rocks as cars rush past us while fated and fucked-up love lays me down on the bench seat. He pulls cotton away from me hastily as I tug at his belt and buttons. I push at his clothes as he comes down on top of me, but nothing clears or calms until I feel him press where he should, and nose to nose, parted-beautiful pout right over my open mouth, he pushes inside.

  I cry out as love stretches and brands and makes himself fit. Inundating my heart and overwhelming all my senses, he completes every painfully deficient part of me and consumes like fire.

  Dragging the top of my dress down, he reopens new bite marks and covers the source of my life with his teeth and groans. He digs deep and unflinchingly, pulling us both all the way into to the place in me only he can reach.

  I linger in the shower for almost an hour. When I get out, I want to crawl into bed, but not as badly as I want to avoid the third degree.

  Plus, I'm starving.

  Fresh faced, I put on my comfiest sweats and most oversized sweater, and head downstairs. Dad's sitting at the kitchen table with paint in his hair, on the phone with his father. He smiles when I walk in, but I don't miss
his nosy eyes questioning my middle-of-the-afternoon pajamas.

  Hiding hurt with every step, I smile back and grab some leftovers from the fridge. I take them with a bottle of water and my phone, and flip on the television in the living room. With a glance over my shoulder to be sure I'm unseen, I sit down as slowly and carefully as I've taught myself to breathe.

  Even after the longest shower, every part of me aches. Teeth-cuts on my chest and bruises on my hips throb with every beat of my pulse. The muscles in my thighs pang heat in dull hums and between them, inside, I miss love sorely.

  Flipping channels with the remote, I pop open a Styrofoam lid and have never been so happy to see cold pizza. I'm two bites in when my phone vibrates.

  One new message from Becka.

  I hate him.

  Thomas and I got back a while ago. Either he just walked in or she's just now texting me, and I resent how disavowed the second option makes me feel. I start to type back a message to ask what's going on, but another from her comes through.

  He's high as fuck.

  I stare at the words and don't know what to say. My stomach churns between hunger and guilt.

  Want me to come over? I ask.

  But her next text takes a few minutes.

  I'm not the one my girl wants, and I'm kind of doing the same thing to her, but it's different.

  It's whatever, she says.

  “WHAT HAPPENED?” Mom asks, sitting down next to me and brushing my hair back.

  Lying to her is ten times easier than misleading love's little sister. I tell her about a night at the roller rink that never happened while she adjusts my blanket.

  “Becka and I bumped into each other.” I laugh as I say it. “I fell right on my ass.”

  “Leighlee!”

  It works. She's too caught off guard by my word choice to even consider doubting what I actually said.

  Ignoring aches and burns, I unbend my legs and rest my feet in her lap. I cuddle-bury my sock-covered toes in her warmth, and it secures my story.