I chuckled and caressed my hand over her skin to lie between her breasts and I bent down to drop a light kiss on her mouth. “I know the feeling.” I pulled back and leaned over the side of the bed, grabbing my discarded shirt. When I reached between her legs she clamped them shut.
“What are you doing?”
“Cleaning you up.”
“You can’t use your shirt, that’s gross.”
I laughed. “Babe, I can wash it, come on.” I patted her thigh but she wouldn’t open up. I bent my head and nipped at her ear. “It’s not gross. Nothing about what we just did is gross. Now let me take care of you.”
She sighed and her legs relaxed, falling open. I used the shirt and then tossed it back down on the ground. I lay back and drew her in to my side. She came willingly and hitched her naked thigh over my leg, laying her arm across my stomach and resting her head on my chest. I blew her hair away from my mouth and curled an arm around her.
So this is what it felt like to be completely contented. There wasn’t a thing in the world I was wishing for. I had everything I wanted in my arms.
And I had her beneath me again before the night was over, and woke to her climbing on top of me. She was as insatiable as I was it seemed and even though I apologized over and over, knowing she was going to be sore, I couldn’t help myself. In between we cuddled and talked and slept until eventually the sun made its climb into the sky and our perfect night was over, but her claim on me was further cemented.
I was completely, irrevocably ruined.
I could feel it in the deepest part of me that no one else would ever be able to touch those places. It both electrified and terrified me. I didn’t know what was going to happen. There was something in the pit of my stomach that told me this couldn’t last, that nothing this good could be mine for very long.
Thirty-Two
Shae
May 9
Present …
Trinity was right. Keeping secrets is what caused so much so much hurt and devastation. Hopefully the truth would lead to understanding, and not just more pain, but I knew better.
Kellen was not going to understand.
He was going to be pissed.
All this talk of it’s not over would be over.
My chest constricted and I let out a bitter laugh. Guess I hadn’t really wanted it to be over. Who was I kidding? Of course I didn’t. My anger and hate had never been anything but a camouflage for the truth. When heartbreak and misery strike, we look for someone to blame, and it was so easy for me to blame him, easier than admitting to myself I’d never, not for a single second, stopped wishing he’d come after me. Even all the times I told myself I’d run him over if I saw him again, I wouldn’t have. Even when I was staring down a bottle of painkillers, ready to end it, I allowed my mind to go somewhere that was usually off limits. I let myself imagine that future that I’d gotten a taste of. The one where he didn’t let me go. My last thoughts before everything went black were of him, and I could almost feel him holding me as my world faded out.
Hate is a funny, fickle thing. It’s not the opposite of love. It’s not uncaring. That would be indifference. Hate is caring too much; caring so much that you just can’t let go, even when hanging on breaks you and turns you into someone you never wanted to be. The kind of person who no longer sees all the beauty and goodness, but only the ugly and dark. Hate is easy. Hate is weak. Hate is a lie we use to cover up something deeper inside of us. And I’d been lying for so damn long. I didn’t know if I knew how to tell the truth anymore.
But I had to try. Kellen deserved the truth, and so did I. It was time to admit some things to myself and get free of all the lies. I just didn’t know when. If there was any hope of coming out of this without him hating me, I had to do it right.
Of course, once again I was kidding myself. There really isn’t a right time for a talk like that. Well, actually seven years ago would have been the right time. And tomorrow morning it was all going to blow up in my face. I just didn’t know it yet.
Walking out of the shop and seeing Cammie leaving Bulletproof Ink should have been a sign that a higher power wasn’t done dicking with me just yet. I bristled when I turned the key in the lock and started toward the street. Kellen’s bike was nowhere to be seen, but there she was. Strutting out of his shop like she hadn’t a care in the world. All that about hate being camouflage for something deeper … well in Cammie’s case that something deeper I had been feeling all these years, was the sting of betrayal. Now that I knew the truth about her and Kellen, it didn’t lessen her betrayal any. If anything, it hurt worse, but seeing her standing on the sidewalk where she’d come up short the second she spotted me, in her too high heels, too short skirt and too snug slash low-cut shirt to be respectable and her bleached out hair, I realized just how pathetic she truly was.
The hot flush of anger that had worked its way up my neck and face receded. If there was one person who wasn’t worth the spike in my blood pressure, it was her. She’d caused enough damage. For too long I’d let myself be as spiteful as she was. I was just … done. Done giving any thought to Cammie Peterson, and if after all this time Kellen couldn’t see what she was, it was officially his problem.
With that thought, my scowl relaxed and I felt the corners of my mouth quirk just so. Ninety-nine problems at the moment, but that bitch was not one of them. Or so my inner Jay-Z told me. I didn’t spare Cammie another glance and went straight to my car, which chirped and lit up when I hit unlock on my key fob.
“Still think you’re so much better than me,” her shrill voice rang out.
I froze, hand on the door handle. All I had to do was pull and then slide behind the wheel. I drew in a deep breath and then tugged. But if there was one thing I still knew about my former best friend, it was that she could not stand to be ignored or dismissed.
“But I know at least one person who didn’t think you were better. Well actually I know two. A guy might like the challenge of nailing a virgin, but in the end, both Jeremy and Kellen knew what they wanted. And it wasn’t you.”
Even as I told myself not to engage, my body had already spun on auto-pilot. “Did you ever leave high school?”
She was standing ten feet away now, in the middle of freaking Fourth Ave, just off Main Street, arms folded across her chest, weight shifted to one leg, her hip jutted out in her classic bitch stance. “Of the two of us, which one was actually at graduation? That’s right Princess, it wasn’t you.”
I let out an amused snort, “If you really want to go there, I wasn’t the one who gave Mr. Hendricks a blow job just to pass his class.”
Her eyebrows pinched and she pursed her lips, which dripped with sarcasm. “And you were Miss Goody Two-Shoes. So fucking perfect. More like so fucking fake. It’s not my fault they got sick of you.”
I shook my head, “Just give it up Cammie. You always owned being a bitch before, so honestly nothing should have surprised me, and it doesn’t suit you now to try and make excuses and blame me for you being a wretched human being. Oh, and by the way, he told me the truth about seven years ago. So tell me again who he preferred. Did you bleach your hair because you thought it would be easier for him to pretend you were me, or so he’d stop pretending you were me?” I swear I could actually see the tendrils of smoke billowing from her ears and nose, but I was done playing.
I gave her my back and yanked my door open, but before I could slide in, my head was wrenched back by my hair and I let out a little screech as I stumbled backward.
“You’re the bitch!” Cammie shrieked like a wild banshee. Her grip on my hair was so tight, all I could do was flail my arm back. I caught her across the face and with a grunt of pain she let go of my hair. I jerked out of her reach and spun around.
“You’re crazy!”
She came at me again, swinging her purse and reaching for my hair or anything she could grab. “You stupid fucking bitch! You can’t have everything!”
I smacked her hand away and tore the
purse from her grasp, tossing it to the ground, but that still didn’t deter her assault. I shoved her backward, hard. “I’m not doing this with you. Back the hell off!” But she’d lost her damn mind and whatever had snapped in her, she wasn’t capable of reason at the moment.
“He doesn’t want you! You’re nothing! You were always nothing!”
The door to the tattoo shop swung open and I darted my eyes to see Derek and the girls pour out onto the sidewalk. Cammie wasn’t worried about an audience though. She tried to wrap her manicured claws around my arms, but I pushed her off and then caught her across the face with a well placed jab that knocked her on her ass. I shook my fist out, ignoring her shrill wails as she held her face and tears filled her eyes. Derek’s feet thudded against cement as he rushed over.
I stared down at her. “Don’t come near me again. This is over between you and me. I’m done with you. You get to live with what a shitty person you are, but I’m over it. You … knew. You fucking knew, Cammie. Remember that, and get the hell out of here.”
I spared one glance at Derek who was standing there looking like he wasn’t sure which one of us to rescue, and then I climbed in my car and had to try really, really hard to keep the steering wheel from swerving and accidentally running over her foot. Okay, so this whole letting go of the anger thing was going to take some work. And a bottle of wine.
Once home, I spent the rest of the night hunched over my laptop, nailing down the ending that had been eluding me, in between glasses of a sweet moscato. Liz came home, found me in the zone as she liked to say and bypassed me, going straight to her room. It was a while later that I typed out the last words, bringing the story to a close and then saved. I dumped my glass in the sink, and practically crawled my way into bed.
My alarm sounded much too soon and I would have snoozed it a third time if my phone hadn’t started ringing as well. I groaned and dragged myself out from under the covers, but not in time to catch the call before it went to voicemail. I picked it up groggily and checked the missed call. It was Trin. I set the phone back down with a sigh. I’d call her back once I was fully awake. In about three cups of coffee.
I didn’t know what time her class started, I was guessing around eight. That gave me enough time to at least get dressed and get started on the first cup. I could hear the shower running in the guest bath, so I shuffled to the kitchen, taking my phone with me and started a pot brewing.
I was midway through my first sip when my phone buzzed and started singing again. I prolonged and savored that first drink right up to the point of sending her to voicemail again. I slid my thumb across the screen to answer at the last second.
“Morning, Trin.”
“Shae, are you at home?”
“Uh, yeah. I haven’t left for the shop yet.”
“I’m really sorry, but he knows.”
The phone almost slipped through my fingers. “What do you mean, he knows?” I dragged out slowly.
“I swear I didn’t tell him, but Derek … when I first started reading the book, I might have mentioned it to him and that I was pretty sure it was about you and Kell. Last night Derek must have said something to him. I didn’t notice that he came into my apartment and took it, but he was beating on my door this morning. He’s … I’ve never seen him like this Shae. He took off about thirty minutes ago. My guess is he’s headed to you.”
“Fuck,” the whispered curse fluttered across my lips.
“I’m sorry. I know you wanted to find the right time to tell him, and I swear I didn’t mean for him to find out like this.”
“It’s okay,” I choked out. It was anything but okay. “Thanks for the heads up.” I swiped my finger across the screen, ending the call and then grasped the edge of the counter for support.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuuuck!
It was bad enough that Trin found out that way, but Kellen shouldn’t have had to read it. Why the hell did I write that book? Oh yeah, because it was cathartic.
The rumble of a motorcycle turning onto my street was anything but.
Thirty-Three
Kellen
June 6
Senior year …
Senior night.
Was this really fucking necessary?
According to Shae it was. It was like a pre-graduation graduation. But whatever. She wanted to come and she wanted me here. So here I was. In a button down and friggin khakis no less. Damn the things I would do for that girl. Something felt tight in my throat. I loosened the collar, unbuttoning the top button, but it didn’t help, and I didn’t see Shae anywhere in this damn gym. We’d arrived together, but I lost her immediately when Principal Miller snatched her away. As class president and valedictorian she had to make speeches and address the class every other day it seemed. I was proud as shit of her. But all this graduation stuff felt a little … suffocating, like there was a noose around my neck.
Five days.
All my classmates were counting down the minutes. They couldn’t wait to get out of here. I was definitely looking forward to saying goodbye to high school, but there were other things I was not ready to say goodbye to, but the tightness in my chest and throat told me that’s exactly what I would have to do. It fucking sucked.
For more than a month I’d been putting Shae off whenever she wanted to talk about our plans after graduation, hoping I would think of a way to make it work out like I kept promising her it would. I just didn’t know how. Whatever magic answer, if one existed, was eluding me. In less than three months time, Shae would be off to New York City and Columbia University, and I … well I would still be right here in Conway.
I’d already looked it up and done the math. It was six-hundred-sixty-four miles from my front door to the university. That was a ten hour drive or a two hour plane ride. One-hundred-fifty bucks in gas or two-hundred bucks on a ticket. That was if we even gave the long distance thing a shot. Fuck I wanted to, but I was realistic enough to know that at some point I’d still probably have to let her go for good. College was a big deal. Columbia was an even bigger deal. She would be so wrapped up in her new classes. New people. New guys. Guys like Jeremy Fucking Black who had the impressive backgrounds and were going to make something of their lives.
Fuck, is it hot in here or is it just me?
I tugged at my collar again. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, but I knew it didn’t really have anything to do with the temperature in this stuffy gym.
I needed to find Shae. She would make this feeling go away. Her presence had a way of calming me and convincing me that somehow we could do this. There were still ten minutes ‘til this show got on the road and we all had to be in our seats. I just wanted to see her smile and look into those eyes, the ones that believed in us, that believed in me.
Instead, I found a much cooler pair narrowed on me. Her mouth was pinched in a distasteful frown.
“Mrs. Bradford,” I acknowledged her as politely as I could and then started around her.
“You need to stop this charade.”
“Excuse me?”
“You and my daughter. It’s gone on long enough.”
“I think that’s for me and Shae to decide, not you,” I pointed out sourly.
“You’re only going to make it harder on the both of you. It’s better to just get it over with now, rather than prolong the inevitable,” she declared as if it was as certain as the passing of the day.
“You don’t know a damn thing about your daughter or me.”
“I know that she has goals and aspirations. I know that if she quits these dalliances, she has a bright and successful future ahead of herself. The only thing you’ll do for her is drag her down.”
“I would never hold Shae back,” I ground out through a clenched jaw.
“Oh, no? Because the way I see it, you’re a dead weight attached to my daughter, and as long as she’s trying to drag you along with her, she’ll never make it very far. Columbia University is a serious school. Shae does not need any distractions. Her prior
ities at the moment are split. How well do you think she’ll do if her mind is back here on you, because I doubt very much that you got into Columbia with her? Tell me, what school did you get into?”
I didn’t say a damn word, because we both knew the answer to that. I hadn’t even applied, against Shae’s objections.
“Precisely what I thought. So while she’s off receiving a first rate education, ensuring her future, you’ll be what exactly? Waiting tables and washing dishes? And then what? She moves back here and settles for whatever second rate job she can find in this town and you two will be married and have children and live happily ever after struggling to make ends meet? Or will you follow her when she lands the career of her dreams and let her support you while you take some menial, blue collar job that can barely put food on the table. Yes, I can tell you have my daughter’s best interests at heart,” she scoffed and then turned on her heels to go take a seat in the bleachers with the rest of the parents. I was left standing there with a knife in my chest.
She’s right.
You’re a dead weight.
Shae shouldn’t ever have to settle for anything, least of all whatever mediocre life I could offer her here.
I finally spotted her, standing up front with the principal and the school counselors and administrators. She was beaming with excitement and pride. Me being here was a joke. There were no honors that would come after my name, no awards to be handed out, no college acceptance. I thought about just bailing, but I couldn’t do that to Shae. I couldn’t ruin her night, even though mine was only getting worse.
“I see you and Mrs. Bradford are like two peas in a pod,” Cammie smirked as she walked up to me. “From the look on your face, I’d say she sank her claws in deep.”
“Yeah, she’s not my biggest fan.” I was still watching Shae.
“She’s not anybody’s, but since when do you give a shit? And while we’re at it, since when are virgins your thing?”
I turned my head to look at her with a raised brow. “What do you want Cammie?”
She pressed in closer and dropped her voice to a husky whisper. “A better question would be, what do you want, Nash? Because I doubt you’re getting it from Miss Priss.”
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