Wrecked (Love Edy Book Three)

by Shewanda Pugh

  She looked up, bone in her hands, sauce all over, and stared at him horrified. “Why?”

  He shrugged. Studied the table, the floor. “Cause I think it would be good for you. You still think about him, don’t you?”

  Edy sat the bone down and wiped her face with a napkin. Then she wiped her hands, trying and failing during all that to come up with an adequate response.

  “So, yes. You do,” Silas said dryly.

  He had a way of reading her that she didn’t understand. Rarely did she give him a straight answer. Rarely did he need one.

  “Where would we go?” she said softly, trying to imagine herself out with someone other than Hassan. She sighed at that absolutely pathetic thought, then looked Silas in the eye.

  He was trying to help her get over this hurdle. He was being a good friend. Maybe going out was what she needed. He seemed to understand her so well; maybe he understood that.

  Silas shrugged. “We’ll figure something out.”

  And suddenly, she was looking forward to it.

  On Edy’s first free Saturday since arriving in Louisiana, she spent a good part of it frowning at her closet, at a loss for what to wear. How could she possibly dress appropriately when she had no idea where Silas was taking her?

  “Well, it will have to be jeans or pants or whatever because he rides a bike, right?” Naomi said helpfully.

  “Yeah.” That helped a little.

  “And a cute shirt. Make sure it’s tight,” Cassie said from her place on Edy’s bed. “That’s always sexy.”

  “Who says I’m going for sexy?” Edy said.

  “What else could you possibly be going for?” Cassie asked and looked at Naomi as if she could help.

  “I think it’s nice that you’re going out again. Getting back up on the horse, so to speak,” said Willow.

  Edy closed her closet door with a sigh. “It’s not a date, for the umpteenth time. We’re just two friends hanging out.”

  “When you hang out with us you don’t obsess over your clothes,” Cassie pointed out.

  “I do when we go to parties,” Edy tried, afraid to admit that she saw the logic in the argument.

  “Maybe because Silas is at all of them,” Cassie said.

  “And Hassan,” Willow said.

  “Wow, Edy, do you think they’ll fight over you eventually?” Cassie asked. She seemed thrilled by the notion.

  “Shut up, Cassie. Please. This isn’t a date and Hassan hasn’t spoken to me since he dumped me. Does that sound like two guys willing to fight over me?”

  “Maybe,” Willow said softly.

  Edy murdered her with a look.

  “But he did ask you to go out with him,” Naomi said finally. “Those were his exact words, weren’t they?”

  Edy sighed. Naomi was always the last bastion of sanity. If she had hopped up to join the chorus, then the whole conversation had gone off the cliff already.

  “Yes,” Edy said. “But it wasn’t like that. Trust me, I was there.”

  Several hours later, Edy donned a blouse that revealed more skin than she would have preferred and black leather tights. She’d ditched the high pumps for a lower pair.

  Silas had the wild and stylish hair, a white V-neck tee underneath an open blazer and a pair of rich, blue jeans that hung awfully well. When Edy met him in the parking lot, his gaze swept over her discreetly before he touched her cheek with a stray finger. Then she climbed onto the back of his bike.

  “Ready, rabbit?” he said.

  Her hands slipped around him low on the waist. She leaned forward so her chest pressed against the heat and hardness of his back. Instinctively, her thighs squeezed his. In the days since she’d begun riding with him—more and more often it seemed—she’d learned how to lean into turns with him and how to tamp down on her fright when he was accelerating at break neck speeds.

  That night, he wouldn’t tell her where they were going. It turned out to be dinner, where he promised her the best Cajun of her life. Second to him, of course.

  “I didn’t know you were Cajun,” was what she chose to say.

  “Hell yeah, I’m Cajun,” he said and slipped an arm around her as the hostess led them to a table.

  Since Edy didn’t know what to try, they settled on a greedy array of dishes: smoked boudin, spicy jambalaya, three kinds of thick gumbo, and crawfish, which she had never had. At this obscene declaration, he’d dragged his chair closer to her, went to work cracking shells, and explained to her how to suck the head. When she demonstrated, he watched her with gray eyes that darkened and absolutely smoldered.

  “Do another,” he said and made his eyebrows dance.

  Edy swatted him. But the crawfish were good, so she ate another.

  Their conversation flowed easy as they continued to eat, with talk turning to her parents, and eventually… his. Both his mom and dad had been dancers, with his father being a tap dancer and his mother a ballerina, both of regional renown. There had been no question of whether he’d study dance, only of how good he’d become. He only hoped that he managed to live up to his parents’ expectations, whatever they were.

  She told him about how her parents had the absolute opposite dream for her, how lowly they looked at dance, and how art was a noble expression for other people.

  “And yet you’re doing it anyway,” Silas said with a quiet note of admiration.

  When she looked up at him in surprise, he fed her a lopsided smile.

  After dinner, they hit the bike again for a dash across town to what looked like an alley-side courtyard attached to a coffeehouse. Except the courtyard had a full-fledged band complete with fiddle, playing a wildly vibrant, up-tempo tune.

  Edy looked at Silas in wonder.

  “It’s zydeco, Boston. Now let’s see how fast you learn.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Once again, Wyatt realized, Lottie’s plan had gone to shit. He wasn’t spending more time with Edy. He wasn’t spending any time with Edy. He’d thrown the parties and eventually she came, only to be scared off by the sight of him. He continued throwing the parties in the hopes that she’d return, and she hadn’t. They’d made sure that anyone who would listen knew about Edy being at his house, knew about Edy being in his room, and knew about Edy dancing on his coffee table. She and Hassan had broken up, rumor had it, but afterwards she’d taken to spending time with another guy.

  Wyatt was tired of the noise and tired of the crowds; he was tired of never having a stray moment to himself. The parties were worthless and Lottie was spending too much of his cash. Not only did Wyatt absolutely support her, but he had Matteo and Lincoln and sometimes Kennedy too. Everyone lived on Wyatt Green’s dollar but, for his trouble, Edy was no closer. For his trouble, she had taken up with some tall, dark biker who could two-step.

  “He was very pretty though,” Lottie said. She and Lincoln and Matteo had seen Edy and the new guy while out to dinner one night. “You really can’t blame her for that.”

  Wyatt rolled his eyes. “So, what now?”

  Matteo and Lincoln exchanged a familiar look. They had long ago told him to give up on the Edy conquest. There were plenty of hot girls, they’d told him. As if that was all Edy was.

  Lottie had her head in Matteo’s lap and her feet in Lincoln’s. Lincoln massaged between her toes as Matteo rubbed her scalp. She could only purr and flutter her lashes.

  “You can’t give up on love, Wyatt,” she finally said. “And at the very least you should get to screw her once for all the trouble you’ve gone to.”

  It was an attractive principle, but one he couldn’t put any stock in. After all, he wanted—needed—Edy to see him as worth the trouble, too. While having Hassan out of the way was a definite step in the right direction, Wyatt figured that he would have conquered Edy by the time he reached old age. Oh well, maybe all the competition would have died out by then.

  Lottie closed her eyes. “Kennedy wants to come over. I told her you weren’t having a party or anything, but st
ill, she wants to see you.”

  Wyatt sighed.

  “Really, Wyatt, why don’t you just bang her?” Lottie said. “She’s into you. She might even make you forget Edy.”

  They had had this conversation a million times, and a million times after that too.

  “We came here for Edy,” Wyatt said. “If we’re giving up on that then I’m going back to Boston.”

  Like always, that killed all Lottie’s talk of giving up the goal.

  “What do you want to do then?” Lottie said. “Send her expensive gifts?”

  Wyatt shook his head. “She’d never accept them from me. We’ve had that fight before.”

  “Then send them anonymously,” Matteo suggested.

  “For what?” Lottie said. “So the other guy can get all the credit? Or Hassan?”

  It would likely be Hassan. Everything worked to the benefit of Hassan. Always.

  “Why don’t you go see her and be completely honest,” Matteo said. “Tell her you beat your meat to her every night.”

  Lincoln burst out laughing. “True love,” he sang sweetly.

  Heat shot through Wyatt as he realized they were making fun of him again. He was about to ask what Matteo beat his meat to—Lottie or Lincoln—since the three of them kept the same bed most nights. Then he realized that he didn’t give a shit.

  Sandra had taken up calling Wyatt and texting and leaving voicemail messages for him to call her back. He never did. All she did was worry and fuss over him and tell him that she didn’t like him all the way off in Louisiana in pursuit of a girl. She also didn’t like him down there with Lottie. She didn’t trust Lottie.

  She never had.

  “At this point, all you can do is throw your hat in the ring,” Lincoln said. “Go up to her and ask her on a date.”

  “Tell her you love her,” Lottie said.

  “Hell no,” Matteo said. “Play things cool. The most you can say is that you want to be with her. A girl can take that a whole lot of ways.”

  Lottie slapped his arm. “Ass. That’s what you said to me.”

  Matteo nodded. “I rest my case.”

  Okay. So, it was Matteo who was with Lottie.

  “I wouldn’t even tell her that much,” Lincoln said. “You’re loaded, man. You’ve got girls at your house all the time. In your face, grinning. Tell her to give you one night for you to try and make her happy. She’ll say, hey, what’s one night? I bet you’ll get to fuck.”

  Lottie kicked him.

  “Let me guess,” Matteo said blandly. “He said something like that to you.”

  Wyatt got up and went to the fridge. He found it empty.

  “I’m ordering pizza. What do you guys want?”

  Lottie jumped up. “We’ll pick up food and get Kennedy. You wait here. Take a shower or something.”

  Yeah. Sure. Whatever.

  Wyatt flipped through Lady Tiger photos online while he waited for them to return. He’d been to every home game, sometimes ponying over a grand for him, Lottie, Matteo, Lincoln, Tristan, Kennedy and whoever else they hoisted on him. He never cared, so long as he saw Edy sashaying in those tight, skimpy outfits, working hard to inspire plenty of his chubs. He always had good seats, as close to the front section where the Lady Tigers stood as possible. He’d pay any amount for that view.

  Once, Kennedy had grown sullen watching Wyatt gawk at Edy. He’d only known because Lottie had nudged him, warning him that he was being a little too obvious and had to at least pretend to watch the football game. But why? They were in his seats paid for with his money and he wasn’t even the one who had invited Kennedy. Who had invited her anyway?

  Wyatt hadn’t heard from her for a week after that. During that time, Lottie made it her business to guilt him into something resembling an apology. It hadn’t taken much to get back in Kennedy’s good graces: a text message saying that he hadn’t meant to be rude. Even when he’d been thumbing in half ass messages to Kennedy, he’d been thinking of Edy and wondering if he’d ever get up the nerve to text her.

  He could do it now, he realized. What were the odds that Edy had changed her number? He could think of no reason why she would.

  Wyatt went through his phone until he found her name, complete with the updated photo of her in Tiger uniform, cropped from a website picture. Man, those legs inspired wet dreams. To have them wrapped around his waist just once? To hear her say his name, to whisper it as if Wyatt was the only thing she wanted? He’d give anything for that.

  Anything at all.

  Wyatt went into his bedroom, locked the door, and put some thought into the message he would send Edy. After all, he was the only one who truly knew her. He knew how she thought. He knew her worth. Of course, Lottie would encourage him to sleep with somebody else, anybody else. She wasn’t the most discriminating girl herself.

  But this was about Edy. He needed a message that would make her want to respond, a message that wouldn’t be easy to ignore.

  Then he remembered what Matteo said about telling her the truth.

  EDY, IT FEELS LIKE EVERYONE IN MY LIFE HAS ABANDONED ME. MY MOTHER, FATHER, FAMILY, AND NOW YOU TOO. IT HURTS WHAT YOU DO TO ME.

  He never expected her response to come so fast.

  I’M ON MY WAY.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “So,” Lawrence said from his place on the bed. “You’ve been leading Mala on all this time because you’re mad with Edy and now you want my opinion?”

  Hassan tamped down on the fury and failed. It seeped into his pores and through his bloodstream, strengthening with every pump of his heart.

  “I’m not leading Mala on,” he said quietly.

  Lawrence sniffed.

  Hassan whirled on him, the folding of his clean laundry forgotten. “I’m not. But you’ve obviously got a lot to say. Speak up.” He balled and flexed his hands until they cracked.

  Lawrence looked him over, then slid an abandoned biology textbook into his lap. “Forget it. Just… don’t ask my opinion and get pissed when it isn’t what you like.”

  And he had asked his opinion. Only Edy had been the topic, not Mala.

  “Were you even listening?” Hassan demanded. Edy was with another guy already. She’d forgotten him… already. How could she do that?

  “My hearing’s fine,” Lawrence said absently and flipped a few pages.

  Hassan could fucking pound this guy some days. No matter what was happening, no matter how dire, he kept the same offhand tone.

  Lawrence glanced up at him as if he’d read his thoughts. “You’re being an ass,” he said.

  Maybe he was. But Edy was with another guy. Hassan had even seen her whip past the practice field on his bike. Everyone had.

  “She’s forgotten about me.” Hassan slumped to his bed, suddenly weak. “All these years and…” He shrugged, unable to say the words again.

  Seeing her with that other guy had dislodged something in him, rendering him weak, shaky, ineffective at practice. Maybe he had never really given credence to the notion of them broken up. Maybe he had been too sure of them even within his doubts and thought himself in the midst of the world’s worst tantrum. Edy had always been a fixture in his life, and Hassan one in hers. There was no way to undo that sort of bond, no way to break it with mere words. But break it he had. It took a pretty boy on a bike to show Hassan that. He’d nearly thrown up as he dropped to his knees. His stomach had cramped viciously and the cry of rage building within him had been so potent, so savage and horrified and exposed, aimed so much at himself as at them. He had done this to them. She had done this to them. And how could she? How could she?

  Mala put Edy out of his mind. He knew that. It wouldn’t have been fair to Mala if she didn’t know about Edy, but she did. Everyone did. Mala and her father had only been relieved when Hassan told them that things were over in his old relationship. Mala and her dad had visited him a second time since that first dinner. The three of them saw a movie and Hassan spent most of the time convincing himself that
he wasn’t on a chaperoned date. After that, her father had returned to India, but Mala and a few of her friends had visited a couple more times: attending Hassan’s games and even hanging out once, awkwardly, with Lawrence and some of the guys. She called him to talk and mostly he held the phone in silence. Either way, Hassan’s mother was thrilled with his abrupt pivot away from Edy. She called him regularly now.

  “Edy hasn’t forgotten about you,” Lawrence said, “anymore than you’ve forgotten about her.”

  The anger returned, magnified tenfold. Had the bastard been paying attention to the last few months? Edy was dating someone else. When Hassan said so, Lawrence laughed.

  “And so are you,” he said.

  He wasn’t.

  Hassan thought back to the last time Mala visited. She was with two girls from Tulane’s India Association club, Prisha and Divit. Both had blushed on meeting him. Divit was at least a football fan and had hurriedly gone on about Hassan’s Heisman prospects and how unusual it was for a freshman to be considered. He’d told her that he had absolutely zero chance, because he was a freshman, because several other really good guys were being considered, and because one of those guys was his own teammate, Cash.

  They’d blushed more when his idiotic teammates had shown up: Cash with his bullshit charm meant to lure the panties off any girl, Freight with his gleeful jesting and over-the-top flattery, and both Xavier and Tennessee, who were promptly escorted away by Lawrence when they began to come on too strong. Mala, for her part, had barely glanced at the other guys, so complete was her attention on Hassan. At the time, he had credited her with being able to see through the bullshit, but now, he wondered if her eyes had only been for him. She did still refer to them as engaged.

  And then it occurred to him. God, he was a dick. They were engaged, just like Edy’d said. Never once had he flat out told Mala that they weren’t, that he refused to acknowledge it. He’d only tried to wriggle away from the agreement, but even in doing so there was a tacit acknowledgement, a legitimacy to their relationship. Now he’d begun seeing her—every week. They were getting to know each other. Maybe because he’d told her father that he could never marry a girl without knowing and liking her. So, he was spending time with her.