Ren and Della: Boxed Set (Ribbon Duet Book 3)

by Pepper Winters

  I backed up, hearing the truth beneath her shaky promises.

  This was all my fault.

  “I’m sorry, Della.” I wanted to use her nickname, to prove to her that things hadn’t changed so much that I could no longer say it. But my skin felt foreign, my heart a stranger, and I needed to fix myself before it was too late.

  Stalking to the front door, I grabbed my keys and my phone.

  Tonight, I’d reached my limit.

  I needed companionship that would hopefully clear my head. I needed to be away from Della in order to do that.

  Not looking back, I said, “Don’t…don’t wait up for me.”

  I slammed the door before I could fall before her and beg her to forgive me.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  DELLA

  * * * * * *

  Present Day

  THAT WAS THE beginning of the end.

  If I could, I’d rewind time and never get that ridiculous tattoo. I couldn’t explain what came over me as the artist bent over my foot and dug his needles into my virgin skin. Ren had paced the front of the shop, studying blown-up pieces on the wall, flicking through books with tattoo designs.

  I’d thought I would be happy with the simple design, but the longer the tattooist dragged his needles, the more it felt like only half of the puzzle. The ribbon had been a part of my life since the day I could remember…just like Ren.

  It wouldn’t be right to draw myself without him there to weave into the tale, too.

  With Ren’s back to us, I’d whispered to the tattooist to flow the ribbon into a capital R. He’d given me a strange look, glanced at Ren who’d signed the paperwork with his matching last name to mine, and shrugged as if it wasn’t his business.

  He’d finished the piece quickly, and my heart swelled as the formation of the first letter of the word I loved most in the world came into being on my foot.

  Only, I hadn’t thought ahead.

  I didn’t guess how rattled Ren would be or understand how much he was cracking beneath the constant mixed messages I sent him.

  He was right to doubt me.

  I promised myself I kept my secrets about loving him hidden. I lay in bed congratulating myself on being able to lie to his face and laugh about something silly when all I wanted to do was climb into his lap and pull his lips to mine.

  But…I wasn’t as good an actress as I believed.

  I couldn’t have been because if I had, Ren would never have suspected any other meaning than sweet connection thanks to the freshly finished tattoo.

  It was my fault he demanded to know what I meant.

  It was my fault I couldn’t answer him truthfully.

  It was my fault he went out that night.

  And it was my fault he stayed out until dawn and when he came back, lipstick stained his t-shirt and his hair was mused from another’s fingers.

  I didn’t know if he’d slept with someone, but he’d definitely made out, and it ripped me apart.

  I’d been hiding for years and I’d finally reached my limit.

  I stayed away from him the next day and the day after that.

  I made sure to wear socks long enough to cover my new artwork and even wondered if there would be a way to laser it off so I could pretend I’d never been so stupid.

  For a week, our conversations consisted of stiff hellos, goodbyes, and how were your days, but it all came to a head on a Friday evening when his phone chirped on the coffee table.

  He was in the shower after a long shift at the milk farm.

  Normally, a Friday meant pizza or takeaway and a chilled evening in front of the TV, recharging after a long week.

  Not this Friday.

  This Friday, I picked up his phone and brought up the notification.

  Ren Wild, the boy from the forest and avoider of company, had joined a hook-up site.

  He’d been matched with three women in the area and had obviously messaged one because her reply was a simple: I’m interested for no strings. I don’t want commitment, either. I’ll meet you at Paddington’s at ten p.m. Bring a condom.

  * * * * *

  Can you understand why I did what I did next?

  Can you put aside your judgment just for a little while and give me some slack for being a bratty, stupid teenager who didn’t grow up fast enough? Who chased away the one person she’d ever loved? Who ruined everything when it had all been so good?

  If you can’t, then I don’t want you reading anymore—not that you will as I’m burning this in a few short days, anyway.

  But if you can, then keep torturing yourself because it only gets messy from here.

  Super messy.

  End of the world, Ren leaving me, kind of messy.

  Let’s see…first there was Tom.

  Then there was Larry.

  After that…some boy I didn’t get his name but tasted like blueberries from the lollipop he’d been sucking on.

  The nights that Ren left and didn’t come back till late, hopping in the shower almost the second he walked in the door, and unable to meet my eyes the next morning, were the nights I stopped wishing.

  I stopped hoping that one day…Ren and me…well, I stopped being so young.

  I finally accepted what he was telling me. There would never be a Ren and me, and it was time I stopped killing myself over it.

  The best way to do that was to find a replacement.

  I only kissed the boys.

  Or at least, I did at the start. By the time Blueberry came around, I was itching for more, if only to erase the blistering emptiness inside me.

  I let him touch me.

  I let him kiss my breasts and press his fingers inside me.

  And I felt nothing.

  I think that destroyed me the most.

  Here I was doing my best to move on, but my body was just as broken as my mind. The things Tina told me should happen like the tensing and the quickening and the sparkling orgasms never happened.

  All I felt was the probing of unskilled fingers and the swirl of tentative tongue.

  Some nights, when Ren stayed out super late, I’d feel so rotten, so sick, so twisted, that the next evening—regardless if it was a school night or not—I’d find a party somewhere and crash. I’d dance like a slut and encourage like a whore, and when a boy finally kissed me, I’d want to vomit with tearful disgust.

  For almost a year, we co-existed in shame.

  Him doing whatever it was he was doing, and me doing my best to move on.

  I didn’t want to be this doormat. I didn’t want to be this weak. When I hooked up with a guy, I pinned all my hopes and dreams on him and truly listened to what he had to say. I laughed at his jokes, even if they weren’t funny. I answered his questions, even if they were hard, and I truly did my best to make a connection so I could find some self-worth after so many years of self-hate.

  But it never worked.

  No matter how much I tried to release myself from Ren, returning to him every night, living with him, loving him…it tied me up into knots I could never be free from.

  I often thought about leaving.

  Of running away so I could stop being so weak.

  But every time I thought about waking up without him, of living in a world without him, I couldn’t do it. I’d unpack the bag I’d hastily stuffed in the darkness and accept that this was my punishment for every sin I’d committed.

  The one saving grace was Ren never saw a woman twice.

  Believe me, I knew.

  I became a master of reading his phone when he was in the shower, skimming over past messages and investigating new ones.

  For some reason, even knowing he was running to these women to fuck, I still felt better than them because he returned to me afterward. They might borrow his body, but I ruled his heart, and he was still mine.

  Until…one day, that assurance and kingdom that I’d always treasured was threatened to be invaded by infidels.

  A second date.

  A woman wh
o went by the name Rachel989.

  Her message carved out my heart with an ice-cream scooper: I had fun last night. I know we agreed it was a one-time thing, but there’s something about you. I’d love to see you again.

  I would’ve deleted it and hoped Ren never saw it.

  If it wasn’t for his reply: Okay. Tonight. Same place.

  I’d rushed to the sink and thrown up.

  Dramatic right?

  Yep, I said so to my body. I schooled it for the long minutes that Ren was in the bathroom, and I plastered on a fake smile when he came out dressed in a black button-down and faded jeans that hugged him like a second skin. His sable hair was tussled from rough towel-drying. His lips pouty and almost sad. His eyes dark with unshared things.

  He was drop-dead gorgeous, and he didn’t even know it.

  Of course, this Rachel989 would want a second date. She would want him for a third and a fourth and marriage, too. And I’d finally been slapped in the face with my reality.

  Ren was twenty-seven, almost twenty-eight. He was at the age when people settled down and started families of their own. He would eventually replace me with his own sons and daughters…and wife.

  And as he kissed my cheek and asked what I had planned for the evening, I marvelled at how steady my voice was. How I could fib so effortlessly when every piece of me was breaking. How I could stand there with my bones shattered and organs splattered on the kitchen floor.

  That was my true performance because he never knew how much I sobbed the moment he closed the door, promising to be home soon.

  I sobbed so much I couldn’t breathe, and my tears were no longer tears, but great heaving, ugly convulsions where hugging myself didn’t work, where lying to myself didn’t work, where promises that it would get better definitely didn’t work.

  I’m sure you can probably guess what I did next?

  If you can’t, then you’ve never been in love with someone who was off making a future with someone else.

  Wiping away my grief, I crawled to my phone and went on the Facebook group listing campus parties in my area. There was one that a student at the local university that I’d considered applying at for their creative writing course was hosting.

  It was late.

  The party was probably winding down by now, but I stripped and climbed into the shower. I shaved every part of me. I styled and painted and slipped into the little black dress I’d worn on the night of my seventeenth birthday.

  Unlike that night, when I wore new red lingerie that I hoped peeked out beneath the black straps, tormenting Ren at dinner, this time, I wore nothing.

  I wasn’t playing games anymore.

  I was done, and this was war.

  I caught an Uber to the party as my killer heels would break my ribbon embroidered foot before I could arrive, and I sashayed my way into the tipsy crowd, looking for a particular kind of prey.

  A boy of pretty origins, slightly drunk, single, and up for fun.

  And when I found him, I pulled him to the side and told him the truth. I hid my cracked voice behind a sultry beg and said, “I’m in love with someone else who doesn’t want me. I’m a virgin who doesn’t want to be innocent anymore. I want to forget…about all of it.”

  I’d pulled away, expecting him to run but needing him to understand that I wasn’t going to be an easy lay. I would be skittish and jumpy and most likely cry at some point, but I’d chosen him and all I expected him to do was relieve me of the one thing that I’d started to hate.

  I didn’t want to be a virgin anymore because Ren most definitely wasn’t.

  He’d waited until he was nineteen but on the cusp of my eighteenth, he’d well and truly ensured I had a fair number to sleep with before I caught up to him.

  Any idiotic concepts I’d had of saving myself for him—of him waking up one day and climbing into my bed with words like how stupid he’d been and how much he loved me and wanted me and needed me and then he’d kiss me and touch me and fill me and…

  I sighed, blinking with my freshly painted eyelashes and waited for this pretty stranger to save me.

  To make his life easier, I opened my beaded bag and pulled out a condom.

  The first condom from the box of twelve that Ren had bought for me. Inside my bag, all I had was some cash, my phone, and two more condoms. Because who knew if once would be enough to ease the agony in my soul?

  “What’s your name?” the pretty stranger asked.

  I paused, wanting to use a fake one to protect me from any future pain but determined to ruin myself as much as I could, to prove I was brave enough to survive anything. “Ribbon. Della Ribbon.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck, disrupting his dark blonde hair, blinking with baby blue eyes, looking the exact opposite of Ren.

  I was glad.

  I wanted to look into this stranger’s face when he was inside me and have no doubt that he wasn’t Ren.

  “And his name?” he murmured as he stepped closer, cupping my chin and studying me. “The guy who’s just thrown you away?”

  My eyes burned, but I kept the sobs away. “Wild. Ren Wild.”

  It was the first time no one believed we were related. Two different last names. Two different futures.

  “Well, Della Ribbon,” the stranger said. “He just made the biggest mistake of his life.” Drawing me close with his fingers on my chin, he kissed me sweetly.

  I suppose I should stop there.

  I should fade to black and let your imagination fill in the blanks, but I’m feeling extra martyr-ish today, so I’m going to tell you what happened.

  It was nice, really. Exactly what I’d asked for.

  First, I kissed him back.

  I willed my mind to blank and gave everything had into his control. The kiss was innocent to start with, warm lips and soft touches, but then he took my hand and guided me through the stragglers still lolling on couches and drinking against walls and led me upstairs.

  My legs shook and the draft from not wearing underwear reminded me exactly what I was about to do.

  Part of me screamed not to do this, that I wasn’t ready, while the other stabbed her pitchfork into the dirt of my soul and screeched that it was.

  I was ready to be an adult.

  I’d been ready for so, so long.

  “Don’t you want to know my name?” the pretty stranger asked as he guided me into a room with a queen bed, white bedding, and a mountain of pillows.

  It was a girl’s bedroom.

  I didn’t know whose house this was or where this room’s owner was, but I didn’t care as the stranger spun me around and pressed me against the wall.

  “Do you?” he asked again, his eyes blazing blue, his lips wet and waiting.

  “Is it wrong if I say no?” I dropped my gaze, expecting him to leave. I didn’t know why I didn’t want to know his name. After all, I needed something to remember him by. He would forever be part of my life—taking my virginity would tie him to me regardless if I wanted it to or not.

  But he smiled softly, nodding as if he understood. “Are you going to pretend I’m him?” He kissed me gently, waiting for me to reply.

  Against his lips, I murmured, “I don’t want to, but I can’t promise anything.”

  How lucky was I? How incredibly lucky to be honest and not have to pretend to be brave and sexy. I didn’t have to hide my shakes. I didn’t have to fake my fear.

  He kissed me again, and I opened my mouth, licking him. When he pulled away for a breath, I moaned, “I don’t want to think about him. That’s the point.”

  “Well, think about me then. Think about where I touch you…” His fingers trailed down my face to my breast, cupping me with a pressure that wasn’t enough. “Think about where I kiss you…” He pressed his mouth to my neck, sending coils of desire through my belly. “Think about where I’m going to fill you…” His fingers drifted down my thigh and hooked under the hem of my dress. With locked eyes, he shoved aside the material and skated his touch, up a
nd up.

  I bit my lip, breathing fast as he touched me between the legs and found I wore no underwear.

  A firework of surprise showed in his blue gaze as his fingers feathered over my newly shaved mound. “You truly came here to do this…didn’t you?”

  I nodded as he pressed a finger inside me.

  The condom in my hand fluttered to the floor as his mouth found mine again and kissed me deep.

  I sighed, clutching at his shoulders and letting my bag drop to where the condom landed.

  The stranger could kiss.

  His fingers felt better than other boys who’d touched me.

  And it didn’t take long for my body to shed its sadness and welcome any other feeling but heartache.

  I spread my legs, pressing my spine against the wall and hooking my fingers into his belt.

  He groaned as I cupped his erection, tracing the hardness, learning that his length and girth were impressive and would most likely hurt me.

  I shivered harder, a mix of terror and lust making me jumpy. My mind was nothing but fog—a mist where no thought could find me apart from touch.

  Kiss.

  Finger.

  Sex.

  No Ren.

  No breaking hearts.

  No Rachel989s.