In Ruins

by Danielle Pearl

  We park behind Tucker’s mom’s car. I see her in the distance, standing with her sister’s family—the only other people who were invited today. She runs her fingers over the large marble stone, tracing the top of its elegant shape.

  Even from here, I can see the heartache staining her face. There are some losses you never get over.

  We make our way over to them, but thirty yards to my right, I see the pond Tucker once told me about, and I tell Billy to go along with our friends, and make a detour. The water glitters in the glow of the afternoon light, and I can’t help but think that Tucker was right—it is incredibly peaceful.

  I spend too much time just staring at the ripples in the water made by the light breeze, and then suddenly that same breeze carries a familiar scent. I close my eyes and breathe it in.

  I don’t turn, though I know he’s there, right behind me.

  “It’s nice, right?” his deep voice rumbles.

  “You were right,” I murmur. “He would be happy to know you made sure he got to be near the pond.”

  Tucker’s arms come around my waist. “And now he finally gets the headstone he deserves, too.”

  I turn in his arms, and stare up into his beautiful army green eyes, wistful and adoring. “Hi,” I breathe.

  His leans down and skims his lips over mine. “Hi, Princess.”

  He takes my hand and wordlessly leads me over to where his family and friends stand around admiring his father’s new headstone. It is a stunning pink marble, engraved with his name and his roles as a loving husband and father, the dates of his birth and death, and a beautiful etching of the symbol of his religion.

  I can’t help but think of how close Tuck came to be lying beside his father. My hand comes up to his biceps, my fingers absently tracing the spot on his suit jacket that lies above the scar the bullet left behind. You don’t think of an arm wound as potentially fatal. But when it decimates a major artery, your body loses too much blood. Even the EMTs had a tough time staunching it, and by the time Tucker got to the hospital, he needed two transfusions before the doctors deemed him likely to survive. It reminded me so much of Billy’s accident, and I doubted I had the luck to be granted a miracle again so soon. Still, I prayed and prayed, begging God not to punish the man I loved for saving my life.

  He awoke a day later cracking jokes and flirting in true Tucker form. But just hours later he was begging my forgiveness for our breakup—for his assumptions about what I knew, and his rash reaction. But I never blamed him for it in the first place, and we were back together before he was even discharged.

  The fallout from Zayne’s actions and his subsequent death had far-reaching effects. I was still in the hospital, refusing to leave Tucker’s side, when I got a call from my father’s lawyer, asking me to go see him. By then, Tucker had told me everything. About how my mother was the one who forced my father to accept the plea deal, threatening to take us from him if he gave the money back. It was an explanation that made more sense than the last decade of my life.

  It wasn’t until Tucker was released that I finally made it upstate to visit my father, and by then he’d already made quite a few arrangements. The federal prosecutor, it turned out, was still immensely interested in recovering the rest of the funds, and agreed to negotiate a new plea deal in exchange. While he wasn’t willing to offer the original six-year deal, he agreed to eight. My father had already served nine.

  His release hearing was scheduled a couple of months later, and while he waited, he had divorce papers drawn and filed.

  We were due for a lifestyle change, but it didn’t exactly leave us destitute. The house was all we were left with, and after it was listed and sold we had its eight-million dollar value to hold us over.

  The funds my father returned were divided between his victims, and about a month and a half later Tucker and his mom got the call alerting them that they were due restitution.

  He’d been joking about how he would spend all of his newfound wealth when I suggested he start by replacing his father’s headstone. He agreed that he couldn’t think of a better idea, and when he brought it up to his mother, she agreed as well.

  So here we are.

  Tucker’s mom shares the story of how she and his father first met, and it’s decidedly sweet and swoon-worthy. I never knew that they were high school sweethearts, and I can’t imagine her pain at losing him. I grip Tucker’s hand a little more tightly.

  * * *

  Later that night I drop Billy off at the apartment my father has rented for us, and then go meet Tucker at his house. It’s still uncomfortable for him to be around my dad, and I can’t blame him for it. I’ve spent most nights over at Tucker’s anyway.

  It’s late, and it’s been a long day, and as I stare at my Kindle and read the same line from my romance novel for the third time over, I decide to call it a night, and hit the power button.

  “How about this one, Princess? Two bedrooms and two full baths, so Billy has his own room when he stays over. It even has an eat-in kitchen.”

  I sigh noncommittally. Tucker has been trying to convince me that we should get an apartment together. He doesn’t want to live in the lacrosse house next year, and with summer just beginning, he doesn’t want to spend it like we did in high school. Sure, his mom is fine with me staying over, but he has no interest in spending time at my dad’s place, and I’m not exactly speaking to my mom currently. The truth is I think Tucker still feels guilt over our breakup, and he’s been working hard to make up for lost time.

  But that doesn’t mean we have to rush things by moving in together.

  “We just got back together six months ago, Tuck.” It’s bullshit. We may as well be cohabitating for all the time we spend together. But even after these happy months, a part of me is still so terrified to trust it. What if things blow up again? What if signing our names on a lease puts too much pressure on our fledgling relationship?

  Tucker takes the tablet from my hand and sets it on his night table, out of my reach. I roll onto my side to face him. “So fucking what, Princess? You’ve been my girl for as long as I can remember, even if we took a while to get our shit together.”

  “Tuck, you know I love you…”

  He scowls. He knows I’m going to say we shouldn’t rush, and all the other practical, reasonable things I’ve been saying for weeks that my heart doesn’t actually agree with.

  Tuck’s features soften as he leans over me, his mouth covering mine softly, sweetly. “You say six months, I say a lifetime. We’ve been through this. I’m not letting you go, not for anything. We both already know I couldn’t if I tried. I’ve proven that.” Army green eyes shine with sincerity and hope, and I just don’t have it in me to deny him anymore.

  And, of course, I don’t actually want to. “Okay,” I breathe.

  Tuck’s eyes widen in surprise. “Okay?”

  I nod, and he smiles triumphantly before bringing his lips back down to mine.

  Please see the next page for a preview of In Pieces, the next book in the Something More series!

  Chapter One

  Beth

  Present Day

  I take my seat in the enormous lecture hall, settling in for an hour of tedium. If you thought Psych 101 would be interesting, you’d be wrong. Or, at least, the lectures aren’t especially interesting, but I suppose that’s more the fault of Professor Fawning than the actual subject matter.

  The class itself is a mixed bag. Freshman and sophomore psych majors, like me, sit in the first few rows, intent on succeeding in a course that will be the foundation of our studies here at Rill Rock University. But there are also plenty of upperclassmen just looking to get an elective out of the way—something they’d hoped would offer easy credits. Which it probably will. It’s only the third class of the semester, but so far it doesn’t seem especially difficult, just, like I said, tedious.

  My eyelids droop, threatening to lead me into an inconvenient nap, so I straighten my spine, abandoning the comfort of m
y seat-back.

  I was up late. Not partying, like most of the other students half-asleep right now, but manically trying to finish the first assignment for my Shakespeare class in a manner that would earn me at least a B.

  I’ll need to get an espresso or something before Abnormal Psych this afternoon. That one actually requires brainpower. It’s mostly for upperclassmen, and I was only able to take it as a freshman because of how many college credits I earned while still in high school. Well, my version of high school, which after ninth grade consisted of the best in-home private tutors money could buy, and when you don’t have a social life, it isn’t hard to overachieve academically.

  I peek at my watch. Professor Fawning will cut off his droning any minute now, and it couldn’t come soon enough. I need to get my legs moving to ward off this late-morning lethargy.

  “There he is, like fucking clockwork,” my roommate, Elana, murmurs from beside me, never one to miss an opportunity for a well-placed expletive. “Your sexy-as-fuck bodyguard.”

  But I already knew he was there. I’ve always had an inexplicable kind of sixth sense for his proximity, and I glance over to the doorway, where his six plus foot, looming form casts a towering shadow into the room.

  I can’t help but roll my eyes. Because David isn’t here out of his own interest, or even concern. He cares about me, sure, in his own big-brotherly way, but that isn’t the reason he’s here. My brother’s oldest friend is outside my psych class, waiting for me like he did on Tuesday and last Thursday before that, because he promised Sammy he’d look out for me, and it would appear he’s taken that to mean babysitting. But I don’t need a damned babysitter. Or bodyguard, as Lani put it.

  Fawning dismisses us, and I dutifully march over to my de facto on-campus big brother, Lani keeping step beside me. I barely meet David’s eyes as he hands me a coffee. They’re too disarming, and they affect me ways no big-brother type should. They always have.

  “You don’t have to keep checking up on me,” I grumble.

  I don’t know if Sammy actually asked him to look after me outright—though I suspect he did—or if David just took it upon himself as his implied duty. But I’ve survived freshman orientation and the first week of classes intact, so I’m hoping he’ll back off soon. There’s nothing like having the guy you’ve crushed on since childhood seek you out out of obligation and not desire.

  “You can check up on me, anytime,” Lani suggests, her lashes batting dramatically.

  That’s her. No poise, no guile. She thinks David is hot, and she wants him to know it. Not that he could miss it.

  “No sweat, kid,” he replies, ignoring Lani’s comment as he slings a friendly arm around my shoulders, and we fall into step toward the building’s exit, sipping our coffees as we head in the direction of the student union.

  “You know, I like coffee,” Lani interjects, refusing to be ignored. “I like toned and inked-up arms around me, too.”

  I can’t help my laugh. David does have fantastic arms. The tattoos are mostly new, having amassed over the past two or so years, an array of religious symbols, admired figures, and quotes.

  “Don’t you have your own friends, gnat?” David murmurs absently to Lani.

  I wince inwardly. I don’t like that he’s given her a pet name. Even one that implies she’s annoying and unwanted. Because she’s not the kind of girl who goes unwanted. She’s freaking beautiful. All deep red waves and chocolate eyes, curvy in all the right places. Yeah, she knows what guys see when they look at her, which is why she takes David’s teasing in stride.

  “Friends, yes. My own personal bodyguard? Not since I ditched my last mistake, but I’m in the market for my next one,” she says cheekily.

  I let out another laugh. She really is something else. Fortunately for me, David ignores her.

  I probably should have said something to her about him earlier, when I first noticed her interest. Or maybe I should have anticipated it. David is the kind of guy who attracts crushes—he always was. But now he’s something different. Something more.

  Back when we were kids he seemed content to hang in the shadows of his friends, goofing around, playing girls, living like the future was a lifetime away. And I suppose it was. But it’s closer now, and he exudes his awareness of the fact with a kind of maturity most people in his life had probably never expected of him.

  I saw David less frequently over the two years since he finished high school, and while he did still come around on school breaks and summer vacations, between my brother’s new apartment in Manhattan and his committed relationship, his friends didn’t come around our house as much. Still, over that time, just as surely as I watched him fill out from a leanly built teen, gradually amassing muscle and ruggedness and artfully decorated skin, I noticed him slowly embrace his newfound maturity as he left the stage of in-between. He wears it all now in an impossible mixture of confidence and aloofness, and it is pure aphrodisia to the women around him, something I’m more aware of than I care to admit, even to myself.

  I did not follow David to school here, and I’m glad no one has ever noticed my crush enough to presume otherwise. RRU is a state school here on Long Island, where we all grew up, and though it isn’t big, it is renowned for its School of Arts and Sciences, which includes the psychology and social work program that brought me here. After everything I’ve endured in my short lifetime, I know what saved me, and I want to be that—to do that—for other kids someday.

  David, on the other hand, is here for the creative writing program. Words have always been his thing, though he kept his passion mostly to himself up until it was time to disclose college plans. In fact, I doubt even his closest friends—my brother included—knew all that much about his interest or talent before he won that national short story competition their senior year.

  But I knew. I knew a long time ago. Because he told me, and I can’t help but wonder if he even remembers. I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t. It feels like a lifetime ago. Back before the world got so complicated—when the worst kind of heartache was a schoolyard crush, the angsty sting of unrequited love. Turns out, love gets far more dangerous when it’s actually returned. It doesn’t sting—it cuts. It makes you feel unfathomably whole, before shredding you into pieces.

  I’m not even looking to date. I got started in relationships way too young, in one far too serious, and all it did was slice me right open. I know all of the psych behind it now—my seeking out an older man, my extreme reaction when he left me…Talk about fucking abandonment issues. But it didn’t just cut me, it gutted me and left me to bleed out on the floor, with no way to staunch the flood of life from my body. I survived by sheer luck, but only barely, and though I’ve come a long way in my recovery, the invisible scar is enough of a reminder to put me off dating indefinitely.

  Not that David would ever want to date me.

  But just because I can’t date him, doesn’t mean I want my friend to. I’ve grown tougher these past few years, but I’m still human, my heart still beats, and even after a lifetime of trying to train it away, it still echoes the first name that ever sent it racing. Da-vid, Da-vid, Da-vid.

  I try not to be so affected by his arm around me, reminding myself of my place with him—which is his best friend’s kid sister at least, and a friend at best—but when you’ve carried a torch as long as I have, it doesn’t take much to spark its flame.

  Random people greet him as we pass, guys lifting their chins in the way they do when a wave would take too much effort, and girls smiling or blushing—or both.

  It took about an hour of being on campus with David to see that he has come into his own here. He stopped by my dorm on the first day of classes, offering to take me to the student union for coffee, and Lani tagged along. We couldn’t walk ten feet without someone stopping to talk to him.

  “So, kid, no morning classes tomorrow, right?” he asks.

  I narrow my eyes, wondering where he’s going with this. David always has some kind of rebelli
ous plan or motive. “Not until noon,” I confirm warily.

  “Perfect. B. E. G.’s hosting its first party of the year, and you’re my guest of honor.”

  “What in the actual fuck are you talking about, David?” Looks like a week of living with Lani has started to rub off on me.

  The corrupter of my language herself doesn’t tamper down her eagerness at the word party.

  David startles vaguely at my colorful response, but recovers his breezy composure almost instantly, and I barely catch the amused smirk that tugs at his mouth. Before he can answer me, however, Lani’s enthusiasm bubbles over.

  “Uh, yes. Yes, yes, yes! We accept your generous invitation to be your guests of honor!” She emphasizes the plural, and again, I laugh. This time David also cracks a smile, and deep in my belly the vicious snake of jealousy lifts its ugly head.

  I urge it back to sleep. “A frat party? Really, David?” I arch a skeptical brow. David’s in Beta Epsilon Gamma, a fraternity notoriously filled with athletes—and decidedly different kinds of players. But he doesn’t live in the house—not his style, he told me.

  He hooks his arm further around me so he can turn me to face him, and we all stop walking. “Bea…Come.” His eyes—a green-and-honey hazel that have fascinated me since I was a little girl—grab hold of me, disarming and imploring.

  “Why?” I breathe.

  David sighs. “You need a fun night out, where you don’t have to worry about anything, or anyone.”

  “And you think a frat house is the place to do that?” My skepticism returns. I’m not naïve. I know what goes on in places like that. And David knows me well enough to know my social anxiety gives me more than the usual reasons to be leery of a frat party.

  “My frat house, kid. With my brothers. And more importantly, me.” He looks at me meaningfully.

  I look away, my eyes inadvertently landing on his defined biceps, and I notice ink I haven’t seen before peeking out from beneath the hem of his short sleeve. My fingers reach out to stroke it before I can help myself. A quote in beautiful black script, matching the others.