Delinquents (Dusty #2)

by Mary Elizabeth Sarah Elizabeth

  “She’s not worth it,” Smitty spits, turning away from me. “She’s just a slut, Oliver.”

  Moving Katie and Kelly out of my way, I get closer to his fallen majesty.

  “Let him up,” I say.

  “Get her the fuck out of here,” Petey shouts, keeping his grip on Dusty’s wrists.

  Kicking up sand, I pull on Petey’s shirt until he falls, and when he tries to move back toward Thomas, I climb onto my boy and hold my hands out to keep him away.

  “Stop, Pete,” I cry. “Just stop.”

  Leaning against Thomas’ kicking legs, with my arms extended and my eyes brimming tears, my heart beats harder than it ever has.

  I feel it.

  Every lie was merited. Every secret meant something. Every stolen moment and hidden kiss and scarf covered wound came down to this. Fuck their looks and fuck their questions. Fuck Becka, and Smitty, and Oliver. Fuck my parents, and Thomas’ parents. Fuck college. Fuck cocaine. Fuck the whole wide world, because he’s mine.

  I choose him.

  I choose Thomas.

  He stands up, and so do I, and I expect him to see me, but he looks past me with hollow and forever-black eyes.

  “You want to kiss someone?” Thomas says to Oliver, stepping forward.

  He shrugs his shoulders, circles his neck, spits, and squares up. I hold out my hands against his chest and ask him to stop, but he walks right through me.

  “Kiss me, motherfucker.” Love smirks, reaching for Oliver. “Come on, kiss me!”

  As Thomas steps by me, I grab onto what’s left of his shirt and close my eyes, expecting to be pulled.

  I’m not.

  Thomas stops and forces my fingers from ripped cotton. He holds my arm up, glaring at me. Rather than cowering like anyone else would, I stand tall.

  “I want to go,” I whisper.

  My boy cracks a sarcastic smile as his fingers tighten impossibly more. “Now?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  My heart pounds

  “Yes.”

  His lips curve. “Look around, sunny side.”

  I don’t.

  “There’s strength in numbers, girl.”

  My eyes shift away from love for a half second. Becka’s strung-out blues are wide and watering. Oliver stares right at me, pleading silently. Smitty won’t face any of us, and even Ben runs his hand through his hair, looking up at the stars.

  “I’m ready,” I say with my heart in my throat, returning my eyes to my choice.

  Thomas straightens out his shirt and rubs his face in his hands, and when he drops them, his hopeless expression gives me a head rush. I thought love was lost in all our bullshit, but it’s here. He’s right in front of me, all fucked-up and weak.

  I’ll take the bad, because there is so much good. For every busted headlight, there’s history that cannot be duplicated by a person who draws me birthday cards, or a friend who kissed me so she would be my first.

  Dusty would die for me, and I totally fucked him.

  He spits more blood on the concrete. He turns to Oliver and says, “Go near my girl again, and I’ll fucking kill you.”

  With the music from the house and ocean waves as our backdrop, love turns and laces his fingers behind his head and walks. I follow.

  As I pass Rebecka, she grabs onto my wrist and jerks me back. I pull my arm, trying to get free, but she doesn’t let me go. Her eyes scream accusations, and her defensive stance confirms her suspicions.

  She knows her best friend was never only her best friend.

  “Rebecka, let me go,” I say.

  Like my touch is poison, she does.

  I run after love, through the side gate, out to the front of the house. I spot my boy right away, walking to his car at the end of the street.

  “Thomas,” I call out.

  I run across the lawn and hurry under orange street lights and trip over a crack in the sidewalk. I wipe my eyes on my forearm and shout again. “Dusty!”

  Beside his Lincoln, he finally turns. I stop running, struggling to breathe between gasps and sobs. He pats his pockets, pulls out his cigarettes, and lights up a smoke.

  The closer I step, the better I can see how swollen and wounded, black-and-blue, and cut he is. His knuckles are raw and bleeding red, and his eyes are bleak.

  There’s no trace of Thomas in them at all.

  “You can’t leave me,” I say, approaching his body space.

  Thomas blows smoke into the sea-salty air and flicks his cigarette onto the neighbor’s yard. Love leaves me on the sidewalk and walks around to his car and unlocks the driver’s side door, scrutinizing me with cocaine-blacks, taunting me with a smug smirk and a condescending wink.

  My boy starts the engine and presses on the gas, shattering silence. He flips on the lights and leans over to open the passenger door.

  “Get the fuck in the car, Leighlee,” he demands, righting his position.

  Cream-colored leather is cool on my bare legs, and my spot in his car feels foreign to me. Breathing in vanilla and the lingering smell of pot, I tug on my seat belt, but it’s locked. I pull and pull, but give up as I’m blinded by tears.

  I cry in my hands.

  “What are you crying for?” Thomas asks.

  “I can’t get my seat belt on,” I say, filling my palms with sadness.

  “Put it on, Leigh,” Thomas says sternly, but all I can do is cry. “Put your fucking seat belt on, Bliss!”

  I don’t jump. I don’t flinch. I don’t do anything but scream into my hands.

  Thomas reaches over and pulls on the belt. Plastic cracks as he forces the nylon loose.

  After he locks me in, he drives, not bothering with his own.

  Thomas’s cell phone rings as we pull onto the highway. He ignores it, driving with both hands on the steering wheel. The Lincoln’s headlights fill the route in front of us, shining bright on the trees. I watch the dashed yellow lines between the lanes, counting them as we get closer to home.

  Thomas doesn’t talk, and I don’t expect him to.

  Unable to keep them open any longer, I let my eyes close.

  I don’t open them again until the car stops.

  When I do, I get one moment’s peace. I’m with my boy, and he’s looking at me with his hand on my knee. His touch is gentle, soothing, and even though his eyes are blueless, they’re consoling.

  “You have to go,” he says lowly, sitting back in his seat, looking straight ahead.

  “Why are we at my house?” I ask, tipping hysterical.

  I look over at my wrecking ball, but he won’t look at me. I clutch onto his flannel and claw at the neck of his torn white tee.

  He’s crying. Slowly, quietly …

  “Thomas?” I question, ripping his shirt further.

  He takes control of my wrists and holds them in his hands up to his split lips. He kisses each and every one of my knuckles and closes his eyes. Love’s long eyelashes are wet, and he sniffs.

  “No.” I fight against his hold. I sit up on my knees and move closer to love. “Thomas, no.”

  My kneecaps press against his thighs, and my tears drip onto his denim. His almost swollen shut eye looks pitiful as he cries. He bites nervously on his bottom lip, reopening his cut.

  “Don’t make me stay here,” I beg.

  “Leighlee …” His chin quivers.

  As blood circulation slows in my hands, they lose sensation, but it doesn’t matter. None of it matters unless I have him.

  “I’ll go with you,” I say, twisting my wrists so I can dig my fingers into him. “Don’t leave me. Not again.”

  “Bliss, stop,” he chokes. More tears stream down his cheeks. “I can’t—we can’t …”

  I cry out, hiding my face in his neck, forcing myself closer. “Please.”

  Desperation moves me on his lap, and I kiss the side of his crying face while he keeps his grip on my wrists. Thomas’ eyes are closed and his lip bleeds, but it doesn’t stop me from biting it until his grip loosens.
When I have my arms free, I circle them around his neck with no intention of letting go.

  His body molds to mine, eliminating space, connecting us completely. His lips press into the side of my neck, and his voice whispers in my ear, “I’m sorry.”

  I clutch while Thomas takes us somewhere other than here, and I cry until the car stops in front of his parents’ house.

  The Castor home is lit only by the silver light from the moon. My boy opens the car door, and the wind chime from their porch sings us a slow, sad song.

  I touch my wedges to rocky pavement, listening to tiny rocks grind under my shoes. Love gets out of the Lincoln behind me and shuts the door, sending an echo through the forest surrounding the house.

  “Do you think she’s here?” I ask, following him past his sister’s Jeep.

  “I don’t know,” he answers quietly, unlocking the front door and stepping aside for me to enter before him.

  He steps past me to the kitchen and flips the lights on. Squinting against the sudden illumination, I notice Tommy’s redecorated since the last time I was here. Winter colors have been replaced with summer, and there’s a larger glass coffee table where the old wooden one used to be in the living room. New throw pillows sit on the couch, and a rug I’ve never seen lays on the floor.

  Dusty opens the freezer and pulls out an ice pack. As he holds it against his eye, I join him in the kitchen and lead him to the table so I can get a better look at his wounds. He tilts his head back without argument, and lets me press the cool compress to his injury.

  Love starts to cry again.

  Between his knees, with his hands on my hips, love does nothing to hide his hurt. He cries openly and loudly. He pulls me closer, until my knees buckle and press into the edge of the chair. Holding on with one hand, I run my other through his hair, breaking up blood and knots.

  “Tell me, boy,” I say, kissing his forehead.

  Straddling his thighs, I curve to suit him and hide us behind a curtain of my strawberry-blond hair. The tips of my wedges brush the kitchen floor. The ice pack drops.

  He kisses the side of my throat.

  Under my chin.

  The corner of my mouth.

  “You and cocaine make me crazy,” he whispers over my lips.

  His shredded fingers touch my face while he kisses each freckle and each tear track. Thomas slides one hand behind my neck and moves my hair out of our faces with the other. Love forces my head back so he can kiss across my collar bones.

  It feels like goodbye.

  Salty liquid stings already-sore eyes, and already-tender fingers grip at the front of his shirt. With his mouth near my ear, I press my wedges into the floor and push myself up my hoodlum’s legs until where he hasn’t been in so long feels what needs him so badly.

  “Stay,” I whisper through teardrops.

  I circle my hips.

  “Stay with me,” I cry again, clutching onto cotton.

  My boy’s mouth doesn’t move, and his hands hold my arms. He breathes uneven breaths right below my ear, and I feel it when his sadness drips onto my bare shoulder. But no matter how hurt he is, he can’t keep his body from reacting to mine.

  Love knows.

  Plagued with years of abuse and misuse, my heart jumps as our mouths make the best kind of love.

  Nothing tastes better than Thomas’ mouth, bloodied and slashed, defending what we are. I savor the battle through his split lips, like justification. The swelling feels like protection. Each bruise looks like declaration.

  It’s messy and hard, and it hurts, but we open our mouths wide and our tongues reach so far back. Our teeth collide and his lips bleed against mine. I brush my fingers through his hair instead of pulling, and Thomas circles my hips instead of holding.

  I bring my head back and stare up at the ceiling, gasping for breath.

  “Not here,” he says, pressing his face over red cotton, between my breasts. His hand slips under my dress. His fingernails scratch up my thighs. His palm slips inside my underwear.

  Without warning, my purse that was on the couch in the living room hits the leg of the chair Dusty and I are on together. When I look over my shoulder, I see my betrayal in the eyeliner running down Rebecka’s face.

  When she walks away, I’ve absolutely lost my best friend. I feel her void as her Jeep speeds out of the driveway.

  Slipping my fingers from Thomas’s hair, I cover my mouth and close my eyes. I try to breathe, but I can’t inhale.

  “You knew,” Thomas says lowly, pushing my hair over my shoulder. “We always knew, Bliss.”

  Grief rocks through me in waves—immense rises and rolls.

  Love’s whole stance shifts from easy to firm, and his touch changes from comforting to controlling. He sits up straight and moves me down his lap. He wipes wet eyes in the bend of his elbow and clears his throat, and his already-so-open pupils stretch even more, swallowing up any vulnerability he was showing just a moment ago.

  “I should take you home,” he says.

  My boy crosses his arms and stares over my shoulder, purposely avoiding my eyes. His cocaine-blacks are so fucking taunting, teasing me.

  Drugs are killing him.

  “Where will you go?” I plead.

  Thomas gets up, but I sit back in the chair and refuse to move. I’ll climb the walls. I’ll burn this motherfucker down. He can’t make me go without him.

  “Isn’t this enough?” he pleads. “What more do you want, Leigh?”

  “You’re not leaving without me,” I yell, standing up and kicking the chair we were just sitting in.

  “Kick it again, princess kid,” he provokes.

  I do.

  Thomas laughs.

  His knees bend.

  He holds his hands over his stomach, and he tilts his head back.

  His teeth show.

  Outraged, I pick up an orange from the fruit basket on the table and throw it. My boy dodges my effort easily, so instead of throwing the basket of produce one at a time, I pick the entire thing up and launch it.

  I toss the cookbook next, the garage door opener, and a half-full water bottle.

  When I’ve thrown everything but my purse and my cellphone, I reach for both, but he gets to me first. With my back against his chest, Thomas holds my arms down and forces me out of the kitchen. I trip over apples and glass and his legs, and thrash, fight, and pierce my nails into his arm.

  I bite his wrist.

  “Stop!” he yells. “Calm the fuck down!”

  My boy shoves me from his grip toward the steps.

  “Get upstairs,” he demands, turning me around and pushing me forward.

  Lightheaded and desperate, I place my hand on the banister and take a slow step up. Impatience steps around me and walks into his room before I’ve even made it upstairs. Upon entering our safe spot, I can tell he hasn’t been here in a while. The room smells closed off and closed up. Everything is too tidy—too long untouched.

  Guided by the moonlight he lets in through the window, Thomas walks back and forth, shirtless. He’s thin, and his skin is pale. His shoulders are scraped up and his ribs are bruised, and he has punctures from my fingernails in his hands.

  “Are you going to stand there all night?” he asks.

  I close the door with a soft click and force oncoming tears away. Carefully reaching under his ivory lampshade, I pull on the cool metal chain and light the room with a dull yellow

  “I need to change, and then I’m taking you home,” my heartbreaker says, opening his closet door.

  I go to him and press my lips between his shoulder blades. Love’s skin rises, and whether or not he realizes it, he leans into me. The unbeating half of my heart turns in my grip, and my hands slip from his sides to his belt.

  Dusty’s eyelids close over chemical black irises, and he covers my hands with his, but I still tug black leather from its brass buckle and hook my fingers in his belt loops. Carefully stepping back toward the bed, I bring Thomas with me.

  Wh
en the back of my legs hit the mattress, I fall back and lift my dress up, opening my knees to bare it all.

  “Bliss,” he says like a breath, looking at me under wet lashes.

  “Please,” I cry, about to give up. I close my legs and lower my dress.

  Love inhales a shaky breath and leans on the bed.

  Thomas turns me on my stomach and kisses the back of my neck softly. Holding me like I’m a bubble and not the girl he’s been with since he was thirteen years old, he’s unhurried and gentle, like I might break.

  He pushes my dress up and kisses my lower back as he pulls down my underwear, leaving my delicates at my knees. He palms my thighs, opening me up enough to see, and then sinks his teeth into my bottom, just before I feel his mouth on my center.

  His lower lip touches my clit, and he licks between my folds and pushes his tongue inside me. I feel his teeth and his chin and nose. I feel his breath, and I feel his voice when he pulls back and moans “Fuck” against part of me that has only ever been his.

  Then he opens me wider and kisses me deeper … firmer.

  My boy trades his tongue for his fingers, sliding them in and out of me slowly while he kisses my inner thighs.

  Teardrops fall onto the tops of my hands. Elbows I refuse to let slip ache in hurtful protest. My hair sticks to my cheeks as I trap desperate cries behind clenched teeth.

  Unzipping his pants, Thomas climbs onto his bed behind me, hard between my thighs. He sinks into me, burying his face in the side of my neck. It’s slow going and more painful than it should ever be.

  It feels like the last time.

  “I love you,” he whispers, breathless as he fills me. “I love you, girl. I love you.”

  Letting my head fall forward and to the side, I give him more of the skin he adores, but I can't stop looking at our hands. With none of the usual selfish regard for his own need, he moves his hips slowly, making sure I feel all of him. Smooth and sensual, his lips brush across the back of my neck, and his fingers lace with mine.

  My boy is making love.

  With my hands still pressed into the mattress, I push my hips back, forcing him to fuck me.

  Thomas groans into my neck. I feel his entire body tense up.

  “Do it,” I say, muffled by his comforter. “Do it, you fucking—”

  “Stop,” my soul taker begs helplessly. “Let me.”