by Brooke Moss
The only thing that mattered was that when I’d wrestled my way out of my dad’s grip and run for the door, I instinctively ran right to where Posey was.
That mattered. A lot.
She turned as I ran towards her, her black hair whipping in the wind, and my heart leapt to my throat. Damn, she was beautiful. How hadn’t I seen it before?
“Drew?” she called, her voice cracking.
As I got closer, I realized Posey was crying. Or… close to crying. My throat clenched. Shit, had Mr. Kingston called the Coulters to rat us out for skipping? It was my fault. My idea. I’d made him and Coach swear not to get Posey in trouble.
She wiped at her eyes with the ends of her coat sleeves. “What are you doing here?”
Slowing my pace to a walk, I forged through the thick, wet sand. I’d run out of the house without tying my shoes, and I’d stumbled five times on the trail. “I needed some air.”
“Me, too.” Posey smiled, but it didn’t hold. Her lip started to tremble, and redness stained her cheeks and nose. She covered her face. “Sorry.”
I strode towards her. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
My stomach was in knots. The adrenaline from my run-in with my dad had started to wear off. The hell with my problems. Now I only wanted to know who’d hurt Posey. It made me want to punch something. Break something. Where was the old man when I needed him?
Oh yeah. Back at my house, washing my blood off his knuckles.
“Nothing. I… I’m fine.” The wind picked up, opening her coat, and I noticed she wore pajamas. The tight black thermal shirt and grey sweats hugged her body like nothing I’d ever seen Posey wear before.
And dang, she had a figure. A good one. The muscles in my abdomen—and elsewhere—tightened.
Her skin paled when she saw my face. “Oh no, what happened?”
I grimaced. I’d seen my reflection in the stupid gilded mirror in our front hallway my mother spent about a bazillion bucks on. I knew what I looked like. A split in the middle of my eyebrow dripped blood down the side of my face. By morning, I would look like I’d gotten into a fight with a mouthy freshman. I’d probably tell all the guys on the swim team that just to shut them up.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, my voice thick as I closed the space between us.
Without pause, without thinking about what I was doing, without considering whether Posey even wanted me to do it… I wrapped my arms around her. Anchoring her body underneath her coat against mine, I leaned down and brushed my nose against hers.
I couldn’t hear the wind anymore. Hell, I couldn’t hear anything except the pounding of my heart in my ears as Posey gasped. Her eyes, icy and blue, widened for a second before slowly sliding closed. Her frame melted against mine, contouring against me. Posey felt amazing. She felt perfect.
I kissed her. Hard. So hard, explosions of light popped behind my closed eyelids, and the ground underneath my feet swayed. It was incredible. Like every girl I’d kissed up to that point was just a prelude to this moment.
Man, I was becoming a sap. But I couldn’t help it.
When we pulled apart, her eyes were heavy lidded and foggy. We were both breathless, our shoulders rising and falling in unison as we panted.
“I didn’t think…” She swallowed and licked her lips. “I wasn’t sure if you… wanted that, or not.”
I cupped her face. “I’ve wanted that for a while.”
“Me, too.” Posey grinned, her eyes dancing. Then they focused on my eyebrow, and her smile dropped. “You’re hurt.”
“I don’t care.” Bringing her close again, I touched her lips with mine. Softer, this time. Letting the images of my dad’s fist bleed into the background.
“Drew,” she whispered after a minute or two. Pressing her palms against my chest, Posey pushed me back a few inches. “Drew, you’re hurt.”
Reluctantly dragging one of my hands from her face up to my eyebrow, I winced. It hurt like hell, and the blood went clear down past my jaw now. The jerk off had hit me with his left hand. Glad my mom went with the wedding band that had diamonds in it. Awesome.
“I’ll be fine,” I told her, not sure if I meant it. I mean, sure. Physically I would be fine by the next day. If anything, I’d look like a bad ass. But on the inside? On the inside I was splitting apart. I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. My dad lost his temper every other day, going way beyond the usual threats and shoving matches. Now he knocked me around like a punching bag, and I swear, if I didn’t know any better, I would think he liked it.
My father’s face—narrowed eyes and triumphant smirk—as he socked me flashed through my mind. There was no remorse, no regret. This is for your own good, Andrew. This is how my own dad taught me a lesson, and look how I turned out. There’s nothing wrong with a father teaching his son how to respect his elders. Getting my ass kicked once in a while made me the man I am today.
Running my shaking hands through my hair, I sat down on a rock. “He was pissed, Posey. Way more ticked off than I’ve ever seen him get before.”
She sat down next to me, pulling my head against her chest and pressing a kiss against my hair. “I’m so sorry. It’s my fault.”
“How do you figure?” I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself not to choke up like some sort of loser.
“I shouldn’t have gotten in your car.” She trembled in my arms. “I should have walked home. Going to Langley was a mistake.”
I raised my head and looked in her eyes. “No, it wasn’t.”
“You got in trouble,” she said softly. “Mr. Kingston and the coach. Your dad. They’re all mad at us.”
Shaking my head I used the end of my sleeve to wipe off some of the blood. “I promised Mr. Kingston and coach it was an isolated incident.” Using my fingers, I made invisible quotation marks, making Posey smile. “I told them that Maddie flipped you crap at lunch, and we had to get out of there for a mental health break. They’re not going to punish us, so long as we meet in the library every day until the end of the quarter, without fail.”
“Okay, good.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and blinked at me. “What about your dad?”
Sucking in a sharp breath, I shook my head. “Didn’t get off so easy with him.”
“Clearly.” She touched the tender skin around my eyebrow. “So he found out about the tutoring.”
“Not exactly,” I said, flinching when her fingers pressed against my head. “I don’t know what I did to get on their good side, but they didn’t tell him. He showed up for practice around four and flipped his lid when I wasn’t there. Coach told him that I’d been excused from practice because I didn’t feel good.”
“Coach lied for you?”
I played with a piece of her hair. “Coach has seen my dad in action. He doesn’t like him anymore than you or I do.”
Posey’s full red lips pulled into a line. “Which is not very much.”
“I know.” I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her nose. “The problem happened when my dad and coach walked outside, talking. Mr. Kingston was out there, going to his car. Well, Mr. Kingston asked coach where you and I were, and then we drove up in my car, and my dad saw I was with you, and… and the shit hit the fan.”
“I’m sorry.” Leaning forward, Posey rested her forehead on my chest. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t say that.” I tangled my hands in her hair and closed my eyes. “It’s not your fault. Hell, it’s not even my fault. It’s my dad. He’s… he was raised by alcoholics. They used to knock him around when he was a kid, rough him up to teach him lessons, and garbage like that.”
“I didn’t realize rich families had problems like that.”
I laughed, the sound dry and bitter. “Posey, rich people have the same problems as poor people, they’re just better at talking their way out of trouble. Coach and Mr. Kingston tried to intervene last year, but I didn’t admit what was happening. I let my dad get off scot free.” She sighed into my chest, and the front of
my sweatshirt warmed. “My dad hasn’t always been this bad. When I was a kid, he scared me. Yelling, swearing, and stuff like that. He would shove my mom around, and they would get into screaming matches. It sucked. But the older I got, the more he directed it towards me. He wanted me to be the best in everything. Sports, school, the social hierarchy. I had to be the top of the list in everything. And when I wasn’t, he would yell and knock me around.”
A burst of wind kicked up from the water, and Posey shuddered. Unzipping my hoodie, I pulled her onto my lap and wrapped the coat around the two of us.
“Thanks,” she whispered. “Is this the first time he’s gone this far?”
“No.” I shook my head. “The older I got, the worse it got. When I blew a meet, he would go into a rage. When he thought I was focusing on girls or friends too much, he would flip out. If he thinks my eye isn’t on the prize, he loses his mind. He’s only actually hit me five times, though.” I sighed. “Tonight was lucky number five.”
Posey pressed her face into my neck, sending a pang of heat straight to my core. “I wish we could sit out here together all night. I don’t want to go home.”
“I don’t, either,” I said quietly. I don’t think I’d ever felt something so good in my life. Nothing compared to holding Posey in my arms. Nothing. “I suppose we’ll have to face what’s coming to us eventually.”
“Right.” She grimaced. “I was mean to them.”
“To who?”
“To Paula and John. To all of the Coulters.”
I ran my hands up and down Posey’s arms to warm her up. “What happened? Did they find out we skipped school?”
“No.”
Putting my finger under her chin, I made her look at me. Her eyes were filled with tears. “What happened, Po?”
Something in her face changed. Relaxed the tiniest bit. “My mom—my real mom—messaged me. She… she hasn’t spoken to me in seven and a half years.”
“Holy crap.” I pulled her close.
Her voice cracked, and she covered her face. “I didn’t know how to process it. I yelled at everyone. I cussed at them, and told them to leave me alone. And my iPod…” She reached into her pocket and pulled out her cracked, broken device, and sniffled. “It’s completely annihilated.”
My chest tightened. Posey’s music meant everything to her. “Oh, man. It’s demolished.”
She dropped her hands and forced a wobbly smile. “Looks like we’re both having a bad night.”
“You could say that.” I lifted her off my lap and set her back on her feet. “But we can’t hide from it forever.”
I didn’t want to go home. Good Lord, I didn’t want to leave Posey. If I had my way, I would have hunkered down between the rocks and held her all night. Having her in my arms made me feel like everything was going to be okay, even when it was all going to pot. With Posey near, I was calm.
It would’ve been so easy to stay out with her all night. If I had thought we could get away with it, I would’ve been all over it. But my dad was at home and he needed to be dealt with. Hopefully I’d given him enough time to calm down, and all I had coming to me when I returned was an ass chewing of epic proportions.
And as for Posey, the Coulters were probably worried sick. It didn’t matter that she’d yelled and sworn at them. They loved her. I would’ve killed to have that.
I touched her cheek. “You’ve got to go home.”
She looked over her shoulder at the trail. “I know.” When she brought her eyes back to mine, my breath caught. “Will you be all right?” she asked.
Nodding, I pulled her coat tight around her body. Even if I wouldn’t be, I didn’t want to worry Posey. She had enough on her mind. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I told her.
She laced her fingers with mine. “Okay.”
In a blur, I pulled her close again and touched my palm to her cheek. Her mouth opened, surprised, and I looked at her lips for a beat. “Goodnight, Posey.” We kissed again, and the frigid night air around us disappeared.
When we pulled apart, she touched her palm to my chest before whispering, “Goodnight, Drew.”
Chapter Fourteen
Her.
Just go up to him and stop being such a wuss. I took a step in Drew’s direction and halted. What if the spell was broken, and he looked at me like I was covered in puss-filled warts? What if Maddie was in that giant clump of people standing around the water fountains, and she tried to scratch my eyes out? What if… what if…
“Oh, please,” I muttered to myself, hiking my backpack higher on my shoulder. “Grow a pair already.”
I’d slept like the dead last night. After coming home and apologizing to Paula and John—a first for me, and a shock for them, I’m sure—I’d slid under my covers and replayed Drew’s kisses a thousand times in my head.
I’d been kissed before. Hell, I’d had some make out sessions that made those vampire movies look like preschool videos. But never had I been kissed in a way that made every nerve ending in my body stand up and sing the National Anthem. Never had I been kissed in a way that didn’t just feel good physically, but also cut through all of my onion layers of defensiveness, moodiness, and combativeness. When Drew pressed his lips to mine, it touched my heart. For a while there, I wasn’t sure I even had one. But now I knew for sure. I had one… and it belonged to him.
Oh no. Now I actually sounded like I belonged in the vampire books. Kill me now.
The group of kids—mostly jocks, with the predictable pretty girl on their arm—burst into laughter when Drew’s friend, Mac, said something funny. I hesitated a few steps away. Classes would start in ten minutes and I’d beat feet to school that morning so I could spend some time with Drew first.
“…So I told him that I didn’t want coffee. I wanted fuel!” Mac grinned at the group, his punch line hanging in the air for a split second before everyone busted up again. He smiled triumphantly, then noticed me standing a few feet away. “Dude,” he said, nudging Drew. “Hope you did your homework. The tutor’s here.”
Drew turned around, and his eyebrows rose high on his forehead. For a split second, his expression registered joy—his green eyes lit up and his mouth quirked up in the corners—but as quickly as it happened, it ended. The tips of Drew’s ears grew red and he pressed his lips in tensely. “Posey. Um… hey.”
Swallowing my anxiety, which churned in my gut like a cement truck of acid, I dropped my backpack onto the floor and stepped close to him. “Hi,” I said softly, ignoring everyone in the group, and the way they gaped at me. “How’s your eye?”
He touched his brow absently, grimacing. “It’s okay.”
It didn’t look okay. It looked painful. The cut had scabbed over in dark red, and the skin around his whole eye was purplish and puffy. “You sure? You look like hell.”
Mac’s little pet, Alexis, snickered, and the redness on Drew’s ears spread to his cheeks. “Yeah. Well.” He looked over his shoulder at his friends and shrugged. “Thanks a lot.”
I bit my lip. “Sorry.”
“No, I just—” Drew stopped talking shook his head. “Listen, do we have a session today?”
“Of course you do.” Maddie strutted up to the crowd, her four inch heels—seriously, who wore those to school?—clacking on the tile floor. She stopped a few feet away from Drew and me, taking her position next to Alexis, who immediately started fawning over her like some sort of pathetic lady-in-waiting. Her eyes narrowed at me. “Rumor has it Mr. Kingston is going to make you keep this up all quarter. And Posey the loser is loving every second of it.”
I clenched my fists at my side. I didn’t have the energy to argue with Small Town Slut Barbie today. It wasn’t worth the trouble I would get into. Not even to have the satisfaction of ramming her face into a locker.
I waited for Drew to tell Maddie to shut up. Surely, he would.
Instead he just looked at the floor, prompting Maddie and Alexis to start giggling. My stomach hardened into cement and landed with a thud
low in my trunk. This was humiliating.
“Yes. We have a session this afternoon.” I shifted so I couldn’t see Maddie’s face while we talked anymore. I didn’t have to be a brainiac to figure out I was not welcome in this crowd. Reaching out, I touched Drew’s hand. “What’s wrong with you?”
Mac popped up between us, his breath reeking of Mountain Dew and chewing tobacco. “Yeah, Baxter. What’s wrong with you?”
I frowned up at him. “Can you give us a minute?”
“I want to,” Mac said, sniggering at his own obnoxiousness. “But my good buddy here needs a break from your constant nagging. So I’m gonna take him to the pop machine so he can loan me a dollar for another Dew, and then you can have him after school today. All right?”
“No, she can’t,” called Maddie. Everyone laughed at her snarkiness, and I cringed.
Drew’s eyes rose and he looked at me with a frown. I wanted him to say he was sorry, or to send Mac packing, but he did none of the above. “I’ve gotta… I should go, Posey. Sorry.”
A chill ran over my body, setting my hair on end. This was a joke, and I was the damn punch line. “Whatever,” I mumbled, turning on my heel and scooping up my backpack.
“Wait,” Drew said. “Po…”
Mac clapped his hand down on Drew’s back. “Dude. Leave her. And spot me a buck, would ya?”
I shot Drew my most venomous of glares over my shoulder. His eyes were wide, sorry. “Don’t call me Po,” I growled at him.
***
I blinked up at my ceiling. The rain had been pelting the side of our house for hours now, and I was about to climb the walls without the escape of my music. Every time I closed my eyes and tried to sleep thoughts about what had happened at school ran through my mind..
Drew had acted so weird. A complete 180 from the night before. What a tool. What a jerk. Why hadn’t I seen that coming? Guess I was the only jerk in this scenario.
Tears pricked at the backs of my eyes, and I wiped at them viciously. The last thing I wanted to do was shed a tear for the sake of Drew-freaking-Baxter. Talk about not worth it. He was up there on my Not Worth It List with my mother, who’d emailed me on Facebook again today. As if I didn’t have enough to stress myself into a meltdown.