Getting Played

by Mia Storm

  I shake my gaze loose from Addie’s. “I just wanted to check that everything was okay.” I look at Addie. “Vicky said you quit.”

  Bruce stands from his chair and steps in front of Addie. “My daughter is none of your business.”

  “Why did you quit?” I ask Addie.

  She steps out from behind her father and holds my gaze for what feels like forever, those gray eyes storming into mine. “Dad and I are leaving.”

  “When?” I ask moving toward her.

  “In the morning.” When my eyes fully focus on her face, I realize she looks pale. And scared.

  I shift my gaze on her father. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Why do you care?” Bruce says.

  “Is it to get her away from me?” I push, not even caring that I’m putting everything out there. I can’t let Addie walk out of my life.

  “That’s part of it,” he answers, his eyes flicking to Becky and back.

  “I don’t see the rush here,” Becky says, stepping in between Bruce and me like a referee at a prize fight. “Why don’t you just wait for a week or two, then decide what the right move is.”

  “I don’t see any point in waiting,” Bruce says.

  Becky’s eyes move between me and Marcus, and something in them softens. “She’s developed relation-ships here.”

  Bruce spins on Becky. “With her teacher.”

  “He’s not her teacher, Bruce,” Becky chides.

  “Same difference.” His eyes stay locked on Becky’s. “This isn’t your decision. You’re not her mother.”

  “You don’t think I know that? Please, Bruce,” she says lower. “Don’t do this.”

  Her voice is pure anguish and it suddenly occurs to me there’s more going on here than I know. This isn’t about me. Or even Addie.

  “We can’t stay here.” His gaze cuts to me and hardens. “For a lot of reasons.”

  My fists bunch at my sides and my knuckles pop. “You can’t take her.”

  “Marcus, stop!” Addie’s voice is a raw wound. When my eyes find hers, they’re wide and pleading. “I’m going with Dad,” she says, softer. “We’re leaving.”

  I glare at Bruce, but before I can say anything else, Becky has my arm and is towing me toward the door. “You need to go, Marcus,” she says softly. “This isn’t helping.”

  I want to fight her, but I know ultimately, she’s right.

  Addie’s eyes connect with mine as Becky manhandles me through the door onto the porch and I send her a look that says I’m not giving up. I hope she gets the message.

  I wake up on the park bench, shivering and damp with dew. The horizon is pink with a new day. The day I’m going to lose Addie if I can’t find some way to stop it.

  I have to stop it.

  I rub the crust out of my eyes and peel myself off the bench, then sit here, thinking. My mind spins, the same as it did last night, without getting anywhere. If I fight this, Becky and Bruce have enough to send me to jail. I’d be useless to Addie there. But if I don’t fight this, she moves away.

  As much as it kills me, our best chance is if I let her go.

  I wait for the sun to fully rise before I stumble down the hill to my truck. I drive past Addie’s on my way home. When I see Bruce’s car is already gone, a cold fist of panic grips my heart and squeezes. But I shake it off and keep driving.

  Because I am going to find her.

  Chapter 24

  Addie

  It’s only been five months since I was at this school, but it feels like everything has changed. Not so much with the school—the teachers, the classroom, the students are all the same—but with me. I’m a different person than I was when I left here at the end of junior year. I was just starting to pull out of my depression then, just about the time we got evicted from our home by the police.

  Invisibility is harder here, because this is where it all happened. All of my classmates and teachers know what I did to Mom. But I still adhere to the keys. I got away from them in Oak Crest and ruined lives in the process.

  Now, we’re at a pay-by-the-month hotel about a half-mile from school while Dad’s looking for a job. He thought Levi would take him back, but I guess he burned a bridge or two on his way out. It’s been two weeks and so far, no luck. His mood has gotten more foul with every rejection. Every day, I come home from school afraid to find him passed out with an empty bottle in his hand.

  He’s asleep when I leave this morning for school. It’s a quiet walk and I use most of it to talk myself out of using a school phone to call Marcus. I’m determined to stay out of his life until I no longer have the potential to ruin it.

  During lunch each day, I go to the library and I scour the internet for any news about a high school coach being arrested. When I find nothing, I breathe a huge sigh of relief. So far Dad isn’t drinking and Marcus isn’t in jail. It’s a delicate balance and one false move could capsize the boat.

  But there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t ache for him.

  At the thought of Marcus, my heart shrinks to a hard lump in my chest. I miss him so much I can’t even think straight. I get to the end of class most periods and realize I’ve been sitting there, staring out the window, imagining some fantasy where Marcus sweeps into the classroom and carries me off into the sunset.

  So, when I turn the corner and start toward the front steps of the school, the bottom drops out of my stomach.

  Marcus’s deep cinnamon gaze levels me from where he stands at the base of the stairs.

  I feel my knees start to give and it’s a minute before I can move. He takes a few tentative steps toward me, as if he thinks I might bolt, like a wild animal.

  My head is telling me to back away, pretend I didn’t see him and just walk into the school. But the rest of me isn’t on board with that. My feet move me toward him; my arms reach for him; my heart beats for him. And then I’m in his arms.

  “Oh my God. What are you doing here?” It comes out choked by tears.

  He grins down at me. “Getting lucky. I wasn’t sure I was going to find you.” He scoops me up by the waist and turns us back the way I came. “You’re playing hooky today.”

  I wipe the moisture off my face. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

  His truck is parked at the curb. If I’d been paying attention instead of being lost in trying to forget him, I would have seen it.

  “Marcus,” I say, pushing him back as he tries to load me into the passenger seat. “Seriously what are you doing here?”

  He pulls me against his hard body and all my wires cross. “I understand why you needed to come with your father. And I appreciate you trying to protect both him and me from our stupid selves, but I need you for today, Addie. Just give me one day, no questions asked, and everything that happens after is up to you. If you want me to go away, as much as it would kill me, I will go away. But I still think we can work this out.” He kisses me oh so softly on the mouth. “Just one day, Addie. Please.”

  I stare into those darkening eyes and there’s no way I can say no. I climb into his truck and he closes my door before moving to the driver’s side. Once we’re in, he cranks the engine and starts to drive.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  He loops his arm around me and pulls me to his side. “You know I’m big on surprises.”

  For the next few minutes, I let myself just live in the feeling of being in his arms again as his GPS directs him through city streets toward our mystery destination.

  “I have something for you,” he says, pulling an envelope out of the door pocket and handing it to me.

  I open it and find my Sam Hill paycheck inside.

  “Why did you make those payments on my hospital bill?” I ask.

  He sends me an unsure squint as he rolls to a stop at a signal. “You weren’t supposed to know about that.”

  “Dad figured it out.”

  He takes a deep breath as he starts the truck moving again. “When you were in the hospital, I
heard your dad say you didn’t have insurance. I wanted to help. And selfishly, I was hoping you wouldn’t quit water polo for some lame job,” he says, flicking the check in my hand.

  “Dad still hasn’t found anything, and we’re totally broke. I don’t know where he found the money for the hotel we’re in.”

  “But…he’s okay?” he asks as we turn left.

  I know what he’s asking, and I don’t blame him. “For now.”

  “And you?” He doesn’t take his eyes off the road, but I hear the trepidation in the question.

  “I’m fine.”

  He gives a pensive nod. “Good.”

  “How did you find me?” I ask.

  “You didn’t make it easy.”

  “That was on purpose. You were supposed to stay away from me.”

  He barks out a laugh as we pull into a parking lot at Coyote Point Marina. “Like that was going to happen.”

  He slows to a crawl as he dials his phone and presses it to his ear. “Hey, it’s Marcus Leon. We’re here. Where should we meet you?” He waits while the person on the other end responds, then says, “Great. We’ll see you in a few.” He looks out at the wooden dock we’re passing. “We’re looking for dock eighteen.”

  “There,” I say, pointing at the next one up on our right.

  He pulls into a spot near the end of the dock and we hop out of the truck.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I say as he ushers me over a bridge toward the boats in slips on the dock.

  “You told me you went to Roosevelt. Vicky said you were going back where you came from. I took a chance.”

  “What if I’d gone in the back door?”

  He fixes me in his heated gaze and steals my breath. “If you were on that campus, I was going to find you, Addie. I’m not the type to give up easily.”

  About halfway down the long dock, a man steps off a boat and waves a hand over his head. Marcus lays a hand on my back and directs me toward him.

  “What are we doing here?” I ask.

  “Ticking one more thing off our bucket list.”

  “Sailing,” I say as it dawns. “Please tell me we’re not going around the world today, because I didn’t pack for that,” I say tugging the sleeve of my blue checked flannel shirt.

  “Baby steps,” Marcus says. “We’ve got to learn how first.”

  We spend the next two hours on an eighteen-foot Clipper with Roy, an older guy with a scruffy beard who looks like he walked off the Pirates of the Caribbean set. I wait for Marcus to break into full-on pirate-eze again. He doesn’t, but he does wink at me as he says “Aye, aye, captain,” and I know he’s thinking the same thing I am. We sit and listen to Roy tell us what all the vital parts of the boat are, then he sails us into the bay.

  “It’s perfect weather for this,” he tells us. “The winds are at seven knots, so enough to keep us moving, but not enough to yank the riggings out of your hands.”

  I hear him, sort of, but the whole time Roy is teaching us how to hoist the sails, work the rudder, and tack with the wind, all I can do is stare at Marcus. I watch the grin nearly splitting his face grow larger by the second, and by the time he works us back to the docks and Roy maneuvers us into the slip, I know this has been the perfect day.

  My heart is heavy as we say our goodbyes and climb into Marcus’s truck. I don’t want today to end, but I can’t hope for anything else. I left Oak Crest to protect him, and we’ve already risked too much.

  I don’t say anything as we pull out of the lot and head back toward school.

  But then he takes the right onto the highway ramp.

  “School is that way,” I say, pointing to the road we just veered off.

  “I know.” He flicks a glance my direction. “You promised me one day. The day’s not over yet.”

  I settle back in my seat, my nerves cracking like downed power lines under my skin. Even though I desperately what to know where we’re going, I don’t ask. He’s not going to tell me anyway.

  He pulls off the highway at an Oakland exit ramp and weaves us through the city streets to a questionable neighborhood. Several of the stores have security gates up in the middle of the day, including the deli he shepherds me toward. He pulls a key from his pocket and unlocks a door to the right of the storefront that leads to a flight of stairs. He lets me pass and the door locks behind us.

  Finally I can’t stand it anymore. “What is this place?”

  “My sister’s apartment,” he says, guiding me up the stairs. He stops me at the top and reaches for my face, cupping my cheek in his hand, and slowly draws me to him. He kisses me so gently, but I’ve never felt anything more intense. “Okay?” he asks when he draws away.

  The burning need to feel his heart beating against mine does battle with my better judgment and loses. I step into his arms.

  He kisses me, just a brush of his lips over mine, then slides the key into the lock of the second story door at the top of the stairs. We’re barely through the door before I’m climbing right into him. I rip his shirt over his head, then press him back against the door.

  “I like it when you drive,” he says with a smug smile.

  I kiss it off his mouth and he moans as I trickle my fingertips down his chest. The sound lights me on fire. I tug my shirt over my head, then unhook my bra and toss it. He stares at me for a long minute before unfastening his jeans and shucking them to the floor.

  And then he comes after mine.

  He unbuttons my jeans and works them slowly over my hips and I kick them off. All that’s left are two thin layers of cotton between me and what I need. He leans over and lifts me off the ground. I hook my legs over his hips as his mouth finds my breasts, setting off the granddaddy of all fireworks in my chest. He walks us through a small living room to a door to the right and my skin tingles as he licks and teases my nipples to tight peaks.

  The door leads to a bedroom and he literally throws me down onto the bed.

  When he climbs on next to me, I roll him onto his back. “I’m driving, remember?’

  He grins as I tug at the waistband of his boxer briefs, and when his erection springs free, an electric thrill courses through me and settles in my groin. I kiss his hard abs, his belly button, and then lower. The taste of his sweat, the way his muscles tighten under my touch, makes me ravenous for him. He’s watching me with hooded eyes, and when I reach the prize and slick my tongue over the head of his hard on, his eyes flutter closed and a groan vibrates his chest.

  I close my mouth over his tip and feel him pulse and thicken in my mouth, and when I suck him deeper, I realize he’s holding his breath. I move over him slowly and his eyes find mine again. I watch them darken and grow hungrier with every stroke. His hands fist in my hair and he growls as he drops his head back again, then he’s pulling me up his body.

  “You are driving me fucking insane.”

  He crushes his mouth to mine as he rolls me on my back, and then his mouth starts a ravenous exploration of my body. I’m on fire, my whole body a live nerve ending. I ache all over and I can barely breathe.

  My fingers trace the lines of his defined biceps and pecs, down his abs, and through the tuft of dark hair to his erection. He moans my name when I squeeze hard and rub. His hand trails slowly across my hip to the inside of my thigh. I gasp and all the muscles in my groin tighten around his fingers as they slip inside me. He withdraws a wet fingertip and strokes my clit, and when he presses, fireworks explode inside and I moan. His finger flicks, and I let out another gasp and arch up as he takes my left breast into his mouth. He rolls his tongue over my nipple, and goose bumps skitter over my entire body. His hot breath scorches my skin as his mouth and tongue explore, turning me into one throbbing nerve ending.

  His tongue finds my belly button on his way lower, and he brushes his fingertips up the inside of my thigh. They slide inside me as he trails his lips and tongue along the sensitive skin there, then his mouth is on me. His tongue swirls over my clit and sends a series of pulsin
g shock waves through me. I hear my moan as it escalates into a mewl, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it. When he twists his fingers deep inside me and sucks my clit, my head spins, and I think for sure that I must be dying.

  “Oh, God,” I gasp when he sucks again, harder. All I can feel is Marcus and the magic he works with his fingers and mouth. The sounds rolling out of the deepest part of me don’t even sound human anymore as I hit the peak of this excruciating ecstasy somewhere around Saturn. I’m panting for breath, and stars flash in my eyes from lack of oxygen. He gives one last suck, and I scream as I’m plummeted off the precipice and free-fall back to Earth.

  He reaches for his jeans and pulls a condom out as he kisses his way back to my mouth.

  Heat pulses through me with the rhythm of the throbbing ache between my legs. When he’s ready, he rolls on top of me and looks down at me with a question in his eyes. I feel his firmness pressing against the inside of my thigh and align my hips with his. His moan when my fingers sweep down his back and pull him tighter against me sends fire through my veins. The very tip of his thickness enters me, and I’m so ready for the rest of him that I let out a whimper when he stops.

  He thrusts himself into me, filling me completely, stretching me in a way that heightens every sensation. I rock against him as he pumps, at first excruciatingly slowly, but then harder and faster. His muscles ripple under smooth skin with the motion, and my hands glide over them, memorizing every detail. Pressure in my groin builds like a brewing volcano with each thrust until I feel sure I’m going to erupt.

  And then I do. Everything in me goes liquid heat as I cry out again. Marcus pulls my face to his chest as he rolls us to our sides, and we lie here for a long time as we catch our collective breath.

  And that’s when I hear his phone buzzing from the floor.

  He ignores it, but a few minutes later, it starts buzzing again. He blows out a frustrated sigh, then reaches for it with one arm, keeping his other firmly around me.

  He looks at the screen, then answers. “This better be earth shattering.”