Pretty Young Thing: a new adult romance box set

by Coleman, Eileen Cruz

  “Really? Because I’m happy to get you sugar and cream or milk or whatever.”

  “How do you like yours?” she asks.

  “Black.”

  “Me too,” she says.

  “So, we have something in common.”

  No, they don’t. She prefers lots of sugar and lots of milk in her coffee, but Jacob used to tell her she was going to get fat with all that sugar and that if she got fat, he wouldn’t like it at all. Not. At. All. And he would say this to her in his most stern and authoritative voice. And she’d smile and say, okay.

  She can feel Jacob and hear his voice and if she doesn’t shake him off right now, she may jump up from the table and make a run for it. She’s terrified of him finding her and dragging her back to New York and then…she can’t let him find her. If he does, he’ll kill her, but before he does, he’ll make sure she endures pain for leaving him.

  Jacob is twenty years older than she is. He’s powerful and rich and has lots of connections, lots of people who protect him and his sins. She is a nineteen-year-old nobody. And he knows what she did. He used to threaten to turn her into the police if she ever left him. For a while, his threats worked, but then she decided she’d rather live on the run than continue living with him.

  “I…” she says and then stops herself. She feels as if Jacob has grabbed her throat and is suffocating her.

  “What were you going to say?” Dustin asks.

  “Nothing, sorry. Thank you for this.”

  “Are you okay?”

  She wishes people would stop asking her that. It seems everyone goes around asking people if they are okay all the time. But, does anyone really care whether or not someone is okay? Maggie thinks people ask out of politeness and nosiness.

  He’s looking at the bruise on her face, she’s sure of it.

  “Yes.”

  “How did you get that bruise?”

  “Oh, I ran right into a wall. I’m clumsy, always falling and bumping into things. I once ran right into a screen door and tore it off the hinges.” That part is true, but he doesn’t need to know that she was only running because her father was chasing her with a belt when she was seven years old. She fell through the screen door and banged her head on the cement patio. He didn’t care that she was in pain and crying. He brought down the belt on her back all the same.

  That night, as her mom tucked her into bed, she said, “I’m sorry he did that to you.”

  Maggie responded, “It’s okay, mommy.”

  When her mom left, Maggie slowly reached under her bed and took out a yellow tin box. Her back hurt from where her father had hit her with his belt and she bit her lip and suppressed her tears because no matter how much pain she was in, she was not going to shed one more tear that night. Very quietly, she opened the box. Inside, rested one folded note. It read, Magi, I love you lots and lots. Matt.

  Matt was only four years old when he wrote that note and gave it to her on her seventh birthday. He was smart and learned to read when he was three years old. Maggie misses her brother every day.

  “What were you going to say before?” Dustin asks.

  She takes a sip of her coffee and bites into her muffin. It’s the most delicious thing she’s had in since a long time. She swallows fast and takes another bite and then another, and then she realizes he’s staring at her and probably wondering what in the world is wrong with her. Quite embarrassed, she picks up her napkin and wipes her mouth.

  “Told you she makes amazing blueberry muffins,” he says, grinning.

  “I was going to say I actually like my coffee with milk and sugar.”

  “Oh, why didn’t you say so?” he stands and darts to the counter and comes back with sugar packets and a small container of milk. “Let me know if you need more!”

  “Thank you.”

  They sip coffee and eat muffins and talk. He tells her he was born and raised in Solomon’s Island and that his family has lived here for over a hundred years and that he saved enough money to buy a bike repair shop because he thinks it’s important for kids to still ride bikes and that that was his favorite thing to do when he was a kid and he doesn’t want it to get lost in exchange for video games and social media. She asks him how old he is because he sounds as if he’s eighty and he says he’s only twenty-one, but that he has considered the possibility he was born in the wrong time period.

  People come and go. Dustin gets more coffee and more muffins and the two of them continue talking. She laughs a lot at the things he says like how once when he was nine he set up a lemonade stand in front of his house and when no one stopped to buy from him, he chased people down the street and begged them to try his homemade lemonade and when they gave in and followed him to his stand, a puppy had knocked over the pitcher of lemonade and was licking lemonade right off the ground.

  He looks down at the dog and says, “I’ve never forgiven you for that.” The dog pays him no attention.

  She asks to whom the dog belongs and he answers he’s Holly’s dog and she’s had him since he was a puppy and his name is Jack and his favorite thing in the world is lemonade.

  They talk some more and then Maggie remembers she needs to go or she’ll miss her bus.

  “How long have we been here?” she asks.

  “I don’t know, not that long, though.”

  “I need to go right now. Thank you for the coffee and the muffins.”

  She darts to the door and starts running down the sidewalk. She doesn’t see any busses. This can’t be happening. They must have all pulled up a little further to make room for more busses. Or maybe they pulled into a parking lot behind one of the shops. She’s running faster and she thinks she may throw up because she knows they didn’t move up or park behind anywhere. She knows her bus left without her.

  Panting and in near tears, she makes it to where her bus should have been. Defeated, she sits on a bench, tears streaming down her face. What now? What the hell is she supposed to do now?

  “Did you miss your bus?”

  It’s Dustin. He’s standing in front of her.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry, it’s my fault,” he says.

  “It’s not your fault,” she says. And it isn’t his fault. She went with him willingly. She sat there laughing and talking and smiling all by her own will. She thought she could be free. She was wrong.

  “Can you call someone?” he asks.

  “No.”

  “I feel horrible for this. I’m sorry.”

  “Stop apologizing.”

  “There’s a hotel a couple of miles down the road. I’m happy to drive you there. Again, I’m so sorry.”

  “I can’t afford it.”

  “I’ll pay for it. It’s the least I can do.”

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  “I want to.”

  “Just leave me alone. I’ll figure it out.”

  “If you won’t let me pay for the hotel, you’re welcome to stay at my place. I can sleep on the couch. You can have my bed.”

  At this, Maggie buries her face in her hands. Once again, she’s a damsel in distress. Alone. Desperate. Frightened. BROKE.

  After the fire, policemen asked her if she had anywhere to go. She didn’t. No other relatives to speak of. No friends.

  She watched firemen put out the remaining flames and she wondered if maybe she should have run back into the house after the firemen discovered that there were two people and not one like she had told them. She should have sprinted into the flames when she still had a chance. She’d be dead now. She’d be free.

  As she stood there contemplating how she should kill herself, Jacob appeared and put his arm around her. “I’ll take care of you. You will never be alone, again.”

  She backed away from him. This man who had developed a fascination for her and who always seemed to be wherever she went. If she was at the library, he was there. If she went to the grocery store, he was there. If she went for a walk, he wasn’t too far behind her.

&
nbsp; Their farm was up for sale because her father had lost all of their money gambling, drinking and on prostitutes.

  Jacob had made an offer on the farm, an insult of an offer, a slap in the face, her father would say during dinner when he was drunk or high on who knows what. He’s not even a farmer. He only wants it so he can build those repulsing cookie cutter houses. I’ll be dead before I let him have our farm. I’ll let the bank take it before I sell it to him, he’d say.

  And to that, her mother would calmly clear the table, bring him another beer and say, if the bank takes it, he might get it anyway and for a much cheaper price. And we won’t get a cent.

  Her father would growl and throw dishes at her and tell her she was a stupid, useless woman who couldn’t cook a decent meal, let alone know anything about real estate and how it worked.

  Maggie didn’t really care what happened to the farm. She was more concerned with her plan to kill her father. So she let her guard down and ignored Jacob, thinking he was just a creepy pervert who liked to stalk her, but would never get too close. She was sort of right and sort of wrong because while he was stalking her, he never did get too close, but the night of the fire, he got very, very close.

  He whispered in her ear, “I know you started the fire.”

  At this, she nearly fainted.

  He gently embraced her and held her close to his chest, caressing her hair and breathing into her ear, “From this day on, you are mine, okay?”

  She trembled and tears fell down her face. Her father was dead. Her mother was also dead, although not from the fire.

  Days earlier, Maggie had gone into her mother’s room to ask if she wanted a cup of tea. It was four in the afternoon and her mother always liked to have a cup of tea at that time. But, that day, she didn’t come out of her room and Maggie thought maybe she was trying to hide a bruise from her and her brother. Maybe her father had given her a fresh one right on the face after she and her brother had fallen asleep, though Maggie didn’t remember any hollering or ruckus of any kind.

  Her mother was lying on her bed. Maggie approached her and tried to wake her. She shook her and even slapped her. Two days later, they buried her behind the house because they had no money for a proper burial. Her mother had died of an aneurism, but Maggie knew the truth. And the truth was that her mother had simply given up. She had abandoned her and her brother.

  Days after her mother died, her father slithered into Maggie’s bed at night to cuddle with her because he missed her mother terribly and from now on would need Maggie to comfort him the same way her mother used to comfort him.

  He’d only get as far as trying to kiss her and touch her because he was always too drunk or high to stay awake. Though, Maggie knew that there would come a night when he’d try to do more to her.

  And so it was that Maggie carried out her plan to burn the house down with her father in it. She could have moved away and gotten her own place, but she couldn’t afford it. A cashier at a grocery store simply doesn’t make the kind of money necessary to live on her own. Maggie hoped that maybe her father had a life insurance plan, but she later discovered he didn’t. He didn’t have a dime to his name. And besides, even if Maggie could have afforded to move away and escape her father, he still had to die.

  Maggie lifted her eyes to meet Jacob’s and said, “Okay.”

  And now, she’s going to utter the same word to Dustin because she has nowhere to go and no one to call and she won’t let Dustin pay for a hotel room for her.

  “Okay,” she says to him.

  They are standing in front of his apartment. He puts the key into the keyhole and says, “It’s small, and a little messy.”

  Stepping aside, he lets her enter first. She sees a couch, a round beat-up coffee table, a huge TV anchored on a wall, and a tiny old kitchen. There is a hall, which she assumes leads to the bedroom and maybe a bathroom.

  “Once the bike shop takes off, I’m hoping to be able to buy a condo. Until then, this is my palace.”

  She walks to the window. He has a view of the river and the Riverwalk. It all looks so peaceful like a haven on the Riverwalk.

  “I’m going to fix the bed for you and straighten up my room a bit. The bathroom is down the hall on the left. Be right back.”

  She goes to the bathroom to freshen up, splashes water on her face, takes off her hat and runs her fingers through her hair. She also opens his medicine cabinet. Shaving cream, razors, soap, deodorant, and a bottle of lotion, nothing weird that may suggest he’s a psycho killer. The bathroom is also reasonable clean. She’s tempted to take a shower and can almost feel the warm water on her skin.

  He knocks on the door. “Feel free to take a shower, if you want. I’ll bring you some clean towels.”

  “Thank you!” she says, a bit overly enthusiastic.

  In a flash, she’s undressed and in the shower. The water feels heavenly. She hopes he doesn’t mind that she is using his shampoo. The small bag she had with her is on its way to Raleigh. She only has the clothes she was wearing, one baseball hat and two hundred dollars. Jacob had three hundred dollars in his wallet, one hundred of which she used for the bus ticket. Her stealing from him is only going to add to his rage.

  She hears the bathroom door open.

  “I’m not looking. I’m just going to put towels on the towel bar,” Dustin says.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He closes the door. Maggie shuts her eyes and lets the water hit her face.

  She stays there until she’s been there so long the water goes cold.

  Once she’s dried herself off, she realizes she has to put on the same dirty clothes she was wearing. At this, she frowns and sighs. Then she notices folded clothes on the sink counter, a pair of sweatpants, a t-shirt and some socks.

  She puts on the clothes. When she comes out of the bathroom, he’s in the living room on the couch. The TV is on some black and white show. He really was born in the wrong time period.

  “Thank you for the clothes,” she says to the back of his head.

  He turns to look at her. “I figured you weren’t going to want to get into the same clothes.” He grins. “They’re too big for you, but, you look really cute wearing my clothes.”

  “What are you watching?” she asks.

  “Alfred Hitchcock Presents. It’s kind of like the Twilight Zone, but not as good.”

  “I’ve never seen either of them.” Maggie doesn’t want to admit she’s never heard of these shows.

  “What? You can’t be serious? Well, you’re in for a treat.”

  She joins him on the couch. “I’m not a hundred years old like you are.”

  He laughs. “I’m an old twenty-one-year-old and proud of it.”

  They binge watch Alfred Hitchcock on Netflix and she accidently rests her head on his shoulder. She’s exhausted both mentally and physically, and her head simply falls onto his shoulder. And then she drifts off to sleep.

  When she awakens, she doesn’t remember where she is and she thinks she hears Jacob in the kitchen calling her or maybe it’s her father. There is a blanket on her and a pillow under her head and she listens very carefully to the noise coming from the kitchen because if it is Jacob, she’ll need to be ready to fight him, scratch, bite, kick, do whatever it takes to get away from him. And if it’s her father, she’s in real trouble because that means he came back from the dead and she won’t have the necessary strength to fight a pissed off ghost.

  Quickly, she orients herself and before she needs to put her fists up, she remembers where she is and why she’s here. She wipes her mouth, in case she drooled in the middle of the night and has dried saliva pasted on her face. She also brushes her hair with her fingers. She wishes she had a mirror.

  Removing the blanket from her body, she stands up.

  Dustin is at the kitchen sink rinsing a pan. “Good morning. How did you sleep?”

  “Good, thank you.”

  “I tried to move you to my bed, b
ut you weren’t having it. So, I gave you a pillow and put a blanket on you. You can have the bed tonight, if you want. That is, unless you’re leaving today. There should be more busses coming in today. You can check the schedule at the bus station.”

  She can’t afford another bus ticket, and when she bought her original ticket, she was very sternly informed that there would be no refunds and no getting on another bus free of charge if she missed her bus at any of the stops.

  “I can’t afford another ticket.”

  She swears she sees him smile at this news.

  “Okay, well, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you want. Are you hungry? I made some eggs. Do you like eggs?”

  “You don’t mind me staying here?”

  “No. It’s my fault you missed the bus and my fault one of my tiny customers hit you with his bike. This is the least I can do.”

  “I told you it’s not your fault, well the part about me missing the bus, anyway. That tiny beast hitting me? That might actually be your fault.”

  He laughs. “Bobby can be a beast, but he’s mostly a good little boy. I should know. I’m his uncle. His mom is married to my older brother.

  “How many siblings do you have?”

  “Two brothers and one sister. All of them older than me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me Bobby was your nephew?”

  “Because he was acting like the Devil and I didn’t want to scare you. Oh, and Holly, she’s my sister.”

  “So that’s why she had no problems kicking Bobby out.”

  “Exactly. And since she had a handle on the matter, I decided it was best for me not to get involved. Besides, Bobby wasn’t interested in me at all. He was dead set on getting chocolate milk. That boy loves chocolate milk. Whenever I babysit him, I need to make sure I’m stocked up on it.”

  They sit at the kitchen table eating eggs and sipping coffee and Maggie decides she likes him. He’s nice and funny and kind and Maggie hasn’t been shown kindness in a very long time.

  When they finish eating, he says, “If you want to, I can show you around Solomon’s today. There isn’t a lot to see, but we do have a light house and a marine museum.”

  “You don’t have to open your bike shop?”