After dinner, Violet drops me off at home and opts out of coming inside to watch a movie. By the way she diligently keeps checking the screen on her phone every five seconds, it’s obvious that she has other plans for the night. I don’t mind. She deserves to go out and have fun. Plus I only want to crawl into my bed, turn out my lights, and read a book until I fall asleep without thinking about a certain baseball player.
And I did exactly that.
At least I was until my phone started to buzz on my night stand. I’m woken from a deep slumber that I was thoroughly enjoying. I reach over in a confused haze rubbing the sleep from my eyes. My breath leaves my lungs as I spark my phone to life. The moment I see the text I instantly regret not ignoring it. There’s no going back now. I can’t pretend it didn’t happen.
Chapter Twenty-Four
-Graham-
Tonight is even worse than Monday. My father is at it again, destroying every last inch of this family. They must be in the kitchen. The sound of his voice echoes down the hall through our front entryway. I attempt to escape upstairs before he even knows I’m home. He catches me before I can finish the climb of the first set of stairs. He takes long strides towards me until he’s standing inches away from my face. I can smell the whiskey on his breath, his drink of choice. Just the smell alone makes my stomach churn.
“Did you get your curveball down at practice? The last time I saw you pitching you looked like an amateur. You won’t gain the attention from scouts that way, son,” he yells slurring most of his words. Slur is becoming his first language. I manage to hold back a laugh when he calls me son. Must be a joke because the man in front of me is not my father. He hasn’t been for a long time. An even bigger joke is him criticizing my pitching. The last time he was actually at a game was probably last year. Alcohol makes him delusional.
“I’m not really in the mood right now,” I snap back in annoyance. I know my attitude will only set him off. After this week I don’t care. I purposefully look straight into his eyes challenging him.
“Not in the mood? Not in the fucking mood? You know what I’m not in the mood for…your piss poor attitude.” When he speaks he spits a little in my face. I tighten the grip on my baseball bag to stop myself from knocking him out like I always dream of doing.
My mom comes down the hallway with the usual fearful look on her face. That look of fear seems to be plastered on her face more and more lately. She grabs ahold of my father’s arm with a determination to stop his assault. He shoves her against the hallway closet slamming her back into the bronze door knob. The sound that the connection makes thickens the air. I reach down to help her from the ground where she is now cowering in the corner. A look crosses her face. She’s only afraid of what kind of marking his assault will leave this time. Luckily it’s on her back which will be easier to hide compared to the other ones.
I anticipate the hit before I actually feel his fist connect with my ribs. A shooting pain spreads across the plane of my ribcage causing me to barrel over onto the cold tiled floor. There’s no controlling the verbal wince I express. It only means that I deserve one more good blow. He’s fucked up in the head like that.
When the abuse first started I can remember him saying that if I cried, shed any tears, then I would receive an extra blow. I was eleven. I was a large eleven year old who couldn’t fight back when everything in me was screaming at me to do just that. My mother used to always clean me up explain to me that he didn’t mean it, that it was her fault for him being the way he is. I believed her. As I got older she warned me that if I retaliated then she would get the brunt of the punishment. I never did understand why she just couldn’t leave him or at least tell someone what was happening to us behind locked doors. It could have saved a lot of hurt, a lot of destruction.
Most people would argue that I should give him what he deserves but when I look down at my mother leaning against the door I know why that was never an option for me. I’m strong, much stronger physically than she could ever hope to be. Taking a hit is worth saving my mother from that type of pain that he is inflicting on me now.
After a handful more of kicks my father ripped me away from my mother’s side. Once I was out of the way he grabbed her by the arm. Her face contorts into a grimace from his strong hold. She’ll need to wear long sleeves for a week from the pressure. She follows him up the stairs and into their bedroom without a single word to her son. I try straightening my back as best as I could. The pain only got worse, but I forced myself up from the ground. Standing in the hallway I listened to my Mom trying to calm my father down. He’d pass out into his usual drunken slumber soon. He couldn’t cause any more harm tonight. I’d never leave her if I knew he would be awake to wreak havoc on her.
The pain from his assault reminded me why I needed to see her. She knows me. She sees me.
I sent her a text as I pull out of the driveway.
I need u, Ken. Unlock ur window. C U in 15.
I drove to her house on auto pilot. All I could see was the look on my father’s face as he threw my mom on the floor as if she was a simple piece of trash that needed discarding. That’s why I’ve stayed away from relationships all this time. I never want to be the type of man that my father is. That’s the type of man that doesn’t deserve the devotion of someone like my mother.
I park down the road from her house walking up to her bedroom window like a true stalker to attempt to right all of my wrongs. There are a lot of them. I stand in front of her window seeing only a small amount of light coming from her bedside lamp. I tap lightly on her window seeing her shadow as she sits up in bed. Slowly, she turns towards the window. Kennedy wobbles over to open it for me. All I can see is her silhouette.
“Hey,” I whisper through the opening of the window. There’s a look on her face. She’s confused as to why I’m standing outside her bedroom window this late at night. There’s a hollow look in her eyes that scares me most of all. Maybe it’s too late. I’m too late.
“Hi,” Kennedy whispers under her breath. She walks away leaving the window open. I take it as an invitation to follow her into her room. She gets back on her bed as I’m closing the window. “What do you want Graham?” She demands with a harshness covering herself up with her blanket. The scowl on her face makes me want to crawl back out the window the way I came in.
“I just need to talk to you. I just needed to see you.” I confess in a whisper standing as far away from her as possible.
“Why are you whispering?” The smirk on her face reaches her eyes. She tries hard not to laugh, even having to go as far as putting her hand over her perfect mouth.
“You’re parents…aren’t here are they?” I shake my head in embarrassment.
“No. They won’t be back until Sunday now,” she explains. I sit on the bed next to her pulling my hands through my hair and as I do I let out a low agonizing moan. “What’s wrong?” Kennedy’s voice is full of worry as she jerks her body around to look at me.
Instinctively, I grab my ribs to try to suppress some of the pain that radiates through my body. Kennedy leans closer. I can smell the subtlety of her perfume. She grabs at the bottom of my t-shirt ripping it up exposing my bruised ribs running her hand over the spot where he had punched. My breath caught. “I’m fine…really.” Just her touching me causes my breath to slow and my heart to race. Her skin feels hot against mine. I don’t think I’d ever get used to that feeling.
“Graham Black, you are not okay. Have you even gotten a chance to look at this? What happened to you?”
I need to be honest with her. She deserves my honesty. “After baseball practice I went to Craig’s to play poker until pretty late. When I got home he was beyond the point of being drunk. He started yelling at me about baseball, and I kind of got mouthy with him. I guess my mom overheard the confrontation and tried to come to my rescue, but he pushed her down. He didn’t hit me until I went to help her up,” I explain everything without thinking twice about it. The look on Kennedy’s face says
it all. She pity’s me, for what my father has done to me. I don’t want pity from her. I don’t know what I want from her, but whatever she is willing to give I know now that I’d take it without question. I’d gladly take something that I knew I never could deserve.
“Okay,” she smiles pulling back the covers on her bed. I know what she means by the small gesture. I’m beginning to think that Kennedy doesn’t care about all my faults. When she looks at me she sees someone different than everyone else as if none of the bullshit matters.
“I haven’t had a chance to shower and I doubt you want me lying down on your adorable pink sheets,” I tease her trying to lighten the mood. Uncomfortable laughter fills the room. This will be the second time I sleep in her bed. Also the second time, I sleep in a girls bed without a preconceived idea that I’m going to get laid.
“You can take a shower. I put your toothbrush in the drawer and there are towels in the closet in there,” Kennedy explains leaning back against her pillow. I hate to admit it, much like everything pertaining to Kennedy, but I find some sort of sick joy in having something to call mine in her personal space as if I belong near her.
I don’t say anything, but as I get up from her bed I see a hint of her sweet smile. I start the shower and gather a towel and my toothbrush. I pull my sweatpants down and attempt to pull my t-shirt up, but can’t lift my arms without having shooting pain running up and down my side.
“Kennedy, can you come in here?” I yell loud enough to break the sound of the shower running. She walks in to find me wearing nothing but my boxer briefs and my t-shirt.
“What are you doing?” she asks trying not to laugh too hard when she saw how contorted my arm was wrapped up into my t-shirt. The song of her laughter abruptly stops when her eyes finally rake over my near naked form. She bites down on her bottom lip forcing herself to look anywhere other than at me. Her attempt is lost as her eyes linger below my waist. Having her sweet eyes bulge out of their sockets gives me some sort of sick thrill.
“Umm…can you help get my shirt off?” I can’t stop the grin that spreads across my face. A soft blush creeps up her neck and onto her cheeks.
“Yeah, okay.” Kennedy’s voice is at a whisper.
Kennedy walks over to where I’m standing stopping once we are chest to chest like she had on Monday morning. This time her eyes are different. They burn with an intensity that causes both of our breaths to shallow. Her lips part as she looks up to me through her long eyelashes. I don’t know what it is about this girl. I’m in a constant state of panic when she’s around. No girl has ever made me nervous but whenever Kennedy looks at me I forget my own name.
Kennedy isn’t oozing with sex and low inhibition, but the way she’s looking at me now is as if she’s asking me to love her in the only way I know how to. Her eyes are darkening by the second and in this moment I know that I would do anything she asked of me. Nothing could go back to normal for us after this.
Kennedy reaches for the bottom hem of my t-shirt. Her fingers skim across the top of my boxers without losing eye contact with me. She lifts up my shirt guiding both of my arms out of the holes carefully until it’s pulled over my head. I manage to hold back the wince. She drops the shirt behind my back trailing her hands back to my chest, but doesn’t drop them away as I assume she will. Instead she moves her head to the side to get a better look at my bruises in the light.
“How bad does it hurt, Graham?” her voice is raspy and damn sexy the way it rumbled from her throat. “And don’t you dare lie to me because I saw your face turn up when you moved just then.” She looks up at me with concern still running her fingers around my bruised ribcage.
“It doesn’t matter. That’s not why I came here,” I explain.
“Then why are you here?”
I clear my throat. “I’m not a nice guy, but when you’re around I keep finding myself trying to be that person that you described me to be. I want to be someone that’s worthy of being in your life.” I reach up to brush a strand of hair behind her ear. That was the most honest thing I’ve ever said to anyone.
“I thought we were just going to be friends,” she argues. There’s apprehension in her voice. I know that’s not at all what she wants from me just like that’s not all I want from her.
“I lied to you. I can’t be your friend. I don’t know how to be your friend.”
“I…I don’t…” she tries to utter something, but I cut her off before I can convince myself that I am making a colossal mistake. I grab her by her waist placing her up onto her bathroom vanity fighting the pain that crosses through my ribs from the movement. Never losing eye contact with her I weasel in between her legs to get as close to her as possible. My nose grazes against hers. I’m delaying kissing her, not being positive if she will want me to close the small gap separating us. Pushing strands of her hair behind her ear that always seem to fall loose, she leans into my touch.
Kennedy’s eyes twinkle when she reaches her hand up to brush against my face where a bruise has nearly healed. “Are you going to kiss me or not, Graham?” she breathes out with such confidence. God damn, this girl is beautiful.
“I’m going to kiss you. You just need to tell me when to stop because I’m pretty sure that I could kiss a girl like you forever,” I whisper. I take my time leaning down. My lips hover perfectly over hers with a gentleness that I wasn’t aware I possessed.
What starts out as sweet and innocent quickly escalates into strong and passionate. Kennedy kisses me as if it’s her only chance. I run my hand down her back until it hits the bottom of her shirt right above where her shorts are lying on her pale skin. Knowing Kennedy’s inexperienced I know I’d have to stop this before it went much further. My dick is telling me to push on though. I hear a low soft moan release between our kiss causing me to grow harder.
Kennedy moves her hand down my back until it reaches the base of my boxers. This only makes me more aware to how little of fabric is between us. I don’t even think Kennedy knows what she’s doing when she playfully runs her finger on the inside of the elastic band. I need to be closer to her, so I push what little room is between us connecting all of us. She gasps once she realizes what she has done.
How embarrassing---for her, not so much for me.
“Ohh…” she gasps feeling my arousal up against her middle.
“Don’t get me wrong Kennedy because right about now I’m resisting the urge to rip off every last piece of your clothing, but don’t feel like anything has to happen tonight,” I explain as softly as possible.
Kennedy seems to be thinking about what I am saying. It didn’t stop her from running her soft fingers along my back and up my chest tracing every dip of my stomach and chest. A smile broke across her face before she speaks up. “There’s that sweet guy again I keep telling you about.” I can’t stop the smile that forms on my lips.
“Kennedy, I would never want you to feel pressured.” I didn’t think much before sleeping with a girl, I never took into consideration how she could feel about it the next morning or if she was just doing it because of my name. None of that ever mattered until now.
Her eyes are burning with fire again. As I watch her chest rise and fall with every breath I know that she wants me just as badly as I want her. Words didn’t need to be exchanged to understand that.
“Are you on birth control?” I ask kissing along her jawline and back to her lips in one fluid movement.
“Yes,” she utters between breaths as she tries to regulate them, but quickly gives up as she reaches down and grabs the bottom of her shirt pulling it over her head leaving her in only a black bra. I can’t stop my admiration of the way the black satin material contours her perfect skin. I want to be that close to her. You’re fucking losing it. You’re jealous of an article of clothing.
“Kennedy…” I run my hands along her rib cage running a fingertip along the underside of her breasts. “Are you sure?” I have to ask once more to be positive.
“Yes,” Kennedy speaks
before pulling me to her wrapping her legs around my waist. I know that she meant the ‘yes’, but more importantly I understand that I don’t deserve to receive what she is willing to give me. Kennedy would argue to the death that I do.
Chapter Twenty-Five
-Kennedy-
What the hell has gotten into me? I don’t do this sort of thing, but when I walked in on Graham standing there in the middle of my bathroom half naked, all I could think about was the way his abs were visible through his tight shirt and the way his slow grin seemed to relax me into some sort of submission. He’s what a guy is supposed to look like, who everyone wishes they had the chance to be with.
He’s kissing me and touching me in places no one ever has. My heads telling me to stop this before it goes too far, but my body is most definitely gravitating towards where ever Graham’s hands are going. The whole thing is out of my control at this point. I’m putty in his hands.
I anticipate every touch. Soft moans escape my lips as his mouth moves down my neck onto my exposed collarbone. He moves his lips back up to meet mine with an eagerness that only makes me want him more. Graham’s fingers grasped onto my hair holding me to him.
I can still feel his erection pushing up against my thigh as he leans his entire body towards mine. He still doesn’t feel close enough. Instinctively, I move my body closer to the edge of the counter top closing in the space that’s between us. Through our kiss I can feel Graham’s smile. I’d do anything to make him smile like that again.
When Our Worlds Collide Page 15