I stab my pork chop harder.
“Oh, Harley,” Mom whispers under her breath for only me to hear. She smiles kindly. “That’s sweet. I always regretted that Harley didn’t get to have that kind of friendship because of how often we moved. She’s always been a bit of a loner because of it. I was so happy when she found Dylan.”
“She did all right on her own,” he answers, forcing his gravy around on his plate.
“What do your parents do?”
I think about stabbing myself. Impaling myself with my steak knife to end Bach’s and my suffering.
Without missing a beat he answers, “My dad’s in prison and me and my mom don’t speak.”
“Happy now?” I whisper under my own breath.
“Oh,” Mom says, deflated. Now that her prying has revealed her treasure, she doesn’t want it anymore. “That’s unfortunate.”
“In prison for what?” Carolyn wonders, grinning from face lifted ear to face lifted ear.
“Drugs. He was a drug dealer.”
I’m so sorry, Bach.
She gives him a fake, sad look.
“What’s a drug dealer?” Stacey asks innocently.
Bach looks at her. This horrible sick look passes over him. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t.
I push away from the table. “Let’s go, Bach.”
“Sit down, Harley,” he orders. His hand trembles around his fork. He moves it under the table. “It’s fine.” He doesn’t look at me. He keeps looking at Stacey’s adorably naive face. “You know how the Cookie Monster only wants to eat cookies?” She nods, sensing something’s wrong but going along with it anyway. “Well someone has to bake them right?” She smiles, nodding again. “That’s all it is.”
“Oh.” She giggles. “I want a cookie now.”
“Me too, kid. Me too.”
“I have some. You want one?” She whispers as if everyone else is gone and it’s just her and Bach talking about cookies.
His sad smile makes parts of Dylan leave my heart for good and Bach takes their place.
“Maybe after lunch,” he says.
“Did you guys hear about the contract I just signed? I might be opening a new dealership in Miami,” Froy supplies. Carolyn doesn’t deserve him.
The conversation immediately leaves Bach and fades away. Carolyn catches my eyes and smiles. She loves the fact that I’m burning. I ignore her and wait for Bach to look at me. He doesn’t. For the rest of lunch he eats, not supplying anything to the conversation. I brought him here to be slaughtered. I glare at my mother, who is suspiciously avoiding eye contact now that she got her wish. Grandpa touches my knee under the table again. When I look at him he looks so much like my father I almost can’t take it.
“We’re going to go have a cigar.”
“Don’t let him leave,” I beg so quietly he has to lean in. “He’ll do it. Please?”
“I won’t.” He pats my cheek and then rises slowly to his feet. I watch as he taps Bach on the shoulder and motions for him to follow.
I feel dread as Bach gets up and leaves me. He doesn’t look at me and then he’s gone.
I push away from the table, too. I can’t sit here anymore.
Bach’s answers follow me around the house. I dip into each room, growing more and more agitated as I leave them behind. In the sitting room I sit in the one chair Mom forbids anyone’s butt in farting distance, let alone sitting in it. It’s hard and uncomfortable. The floral print is hand-woven and I remember Dad cringing when she bought it at an estate sell.
She always does this to me. No one’s good enough for me, no one can compete with her love for me. But she calls me every day. No matter what I’ve done or didn’t do, she would never stop speaking to me. Even if I showed up at her house with six of Bach’s kids, she’d build onto the house so they’d each have a room. Why doesn’t Bach talk to his mom? And for how long has he been on his own? Does he feel alone or was it his choice? Although I doubt either option would make the pain any less manageable. I know Dylan’s relationship with his parents is rocky. It was his description. Not mine. I thought rocky was a copout now, but at least he talked to them occasionally. I couldn’t imagine not having a relationship with the person who made me and loved me through my teenage years, through losing Dad.
“Harley.”
I look up at my mom standing in the doorway. “This chair is so uncomfortable.”
She makes a face but doesn’t tell me to get off. “I’m sorry, honey. You know how I am.”
I do. And now Bach does too. “You embarrassed Daddy today.”
She hangs his head. “Brad wouldn’t want you around him. Maybe he wouldn’t agree with my methods, he never did, but he’d agree with my feelings.”
I don’t believe that. “Dad was an open guy. He gave everyone a shot. You remember that one time he let that ex-con cut the lawn. We had the best damn lawn for as long as we were in that city. That guy ended up starting his own lawn care business. I bet he’s rich now and supporting his family because of the chance Dad gave him.”
“Or he’s back in prison.” She leans against the wall and crosses her arms over her chest. “Where is Dylan?”
I stare at my toes. I really need to repaint them.
“Harley?”
Maybe something dark and bold, like candy apple red, or even something soft, like teal.
“Harley? Answer me. Where is Dylan?”
When I look up a tear falls from my cheek and lands on her hand-woven chair. “Afghanistan.”
She frowns. “Afghanistan? What is he doing there?”
I let them fall freely. Now that she knows I can’t hold it in. The sadness and anger I’ve been trying to forget wells up, crushing me all over again. That son of a bitch left me here with his choices. “He enlisted in the army before we even met. He didn’t tell me until it was time to deploy because of what happened to Dad.”
Her hand goes over her mouth as she puts the pieces together. “No.”
“Yes. He lied to me the entire time we were together. And come to find out he’s been cheating on me too. He didn’t go to the army for me. He went for her.” My tears are hot and silent. “He left me here just like Dad.”
“Oh, Harley.” She opens her arms and I get up and fall into them. She squeezes me so hard I imagine her squeezing the pieces back together, gluing them so I can continue to exist this way instead of struggling to drag the pieces around with me. “Your father didn’t leave you here. He didn’t leave me. He was a soldier, a brave man who dedicated his life for the betterment of his child, this country. I knew when he enlisted that this was going to be hard for us. I knew it was a sacrifice that I was willing to shoulder.”
“I miss him.”
“Me too.”
I let her hold me, rocking me as we cry. She doesn’t have the ability to glue the pieces though. No one can but Dad. There’s a hole over my heart, one in my back, and another one right in the middle of my chest. He took those pieces with him. I don’t even want them back. They’re his. I just want to learn how to live with the coldness that seeps in through the holes.
“You should stay here for the summer. It’s good for you to be around your family right now.”
“Yeah, because Grams is so frail.” I pull back to give her a look.
She laughs, unashamed. “Hey, a mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do.” Her smile fades and she touches her hand to my cheek. “Are you and Bach … ?”
I look away. “We’re just friends.”
“Hmm,” she says, doing what mom’s gotta do again. “I’ve never seen friends look at each other the way he looks at you.”
“How does he look at me?” I ask, because I really want to know.
“Like you’re water and his world is on fire.”
A rush of warmth traveled over me, chasing away my sadness. “He doesn’t think he’s good enough for me.”
“He’s right.”
I glare at her. “You thought Dylan was good enough for m
e. He wasn’t. Bach’s never lied to me, Mom. He would never do what Dylan did. Plus,” I keep going when she purses her lips. She doesn’t want to hear it anyway. “I’m still in love with Dylan. I can’t keep my hands off of Bach. I keep seeing Dylan in his uniform. I can’t get Bach out of my head. I want them both but can’t have either. I’m so damn confused.”
“There’s no need to swear, Harley.” She grasps my face. “Stay for the summer and think it over.”
“My apartment.” Bach …
“I’ll pay it up. You need your family right now. You haven’t even grieved. After you lost your father, you went to college and ran. And then you met Dylan. I thought he was the one who was going to bring you back to us.”
“Well he didn’t.” I step out of her hold. “Apologize to Bach.”
“I will.” She reaches over and smooth’s the hair away from my face. “Does Dylan know?”
“No.”
“You think you know someone.” She stands back and smiles, shoving her disappointment down with each inch she raises her lips, as if her smile is a balm to her unease. “Let’s go swimming. I had waterfalls and a slide installed for the kids. I set a bathing suit out for you. Go put it on. I’ll wait.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
I don’t feel better. She’s in denial. Dylan’s gone. We’re done. Why doesn’t she want to admit that she was wrong about him? People can be wrong. I was wrong about Bach. I was wrong and so is she.
When we finally step out on the back porch the sounds of splashing greet us. The sun is shining overhead, bathing the backyard in golden light. It reflects off the pool, sending shards of glimmering light into my eyes. The kids splash and shout in the water, creating a cacophonous noise I can hear in my brain.
“I love them,” Mom says under her breath, “but if they don’t stop being monsters for five minutes I’m kicking them all out.”
I smirk. “Stacey’s the only good one.”
“I know. Look at her. He’s actually kind of cute with her.”
“Who?” I ask, looking for Stacey.
She’s laying near the corner of the pool in her bathing suit with Bach. He sits on the towel next to her wearing a strange pair of blue swimming trunks. He’s smiling at something Stacey’s saying. They’re eating animal cookies covered in white frosting and sprinkles. I stop, Mom keeps going. I watch them together. His dark, sexy attitude sheds itself like a second skin until it no longer exists. His smile is easy, his shoulders are relaxed, and he actually looks less pained. He’s the man he was at dinner, the one I think someone beat and stole. A version of Bach I think he himself is afraid of. I decide to leave them there. If I go over I’ll just remind him of lunch.
I’ll remind him to run.
Instead I go over to the lounge area on the other side of the crystal blue swimming pool. The sun beats down on my bare shoulders. I take my towel off and sit down on the edge of my beach chair with my sunscreen. But I can’t help watching him. Stacey wipes her mouth off on her arm and gets up, her little pudgy legs running for the swimming pool. Bach lies down on his towel and stares up at the clear blue sky. His swimming trunks lower when he raises his arms behind his head and stretches. I blindly put some suntan lotion in my hand and miss, watching the way his abs radiate the sun.
“He’s hot.”
I glance at Carolyn as she takes the beach chair next to me, her perfectly enhanced double D breasts poking out of her red bikini top.
I don’t respond.
“Much hotter than that other one. This one has that edge about him. You can practically taste it when he walks by. Hell, I want to taste it.”
“Where’s your husband?”
She grins at me. “You’re really jealous over someone who’s just your friend?”
“I know how you are. That’s all.” I squeeze suntan lotion into my palm and start rubbing it on my arms and legs.
“It’s strange that Dylan would leave you with someone like that and go on vacation. You two okay?”
“We’re great, Carolyn. Thanks for asking. How’s your husband? You know, the father of your six children?”
“Still can’t keep his hands off me.”
I bet, I want to say, you bought every piece of it. If my body was hand-picked I’d feel the same way. “How sweet.” It isn’t sweet. I think Froy could do a whole lot better. “How’s Stacey doing at private school?”
Her face softens as she watches her daughter bob in and out of the water. “Academically she’s doing great. She’s having trouble with some of the kids though. You know how sweet she is.”
“Is she getting bullied?”
“Mhm.” She bites her lip the way she used to when my dad would yell at us for fighting. Other than her kids Carolyn’s never loved anyone more than my father. We put up with each other for him. “She’s so busy trying to be nice, you know? I tell her that it’s wonderful to be that way but sometimes you have to fight back. She came home crying from school on the last day because some of the kids spit in her lunch box. I’m so glad it’s summer time.”
I shake my head in sadness. “Maybe you should put her in some kind of class or something?”
“What? Like karate?”
“Maybe.” I watch her giggle when her brother swims around her like a shark. She’s too sweet for her own good. “Something to toughen her up.”
“Froy thinks so too. We asked her but she cried when she thought she had to hit the other kids. What would you do?” she asks, not teasing. She honestly wants to know how to help her daughter.
“You know Mom used to homeschool me, right? Sometimes it was easier to do that than enroll me in a school I’d just have to leave. Maybe she could teach Stacey. That way you won’t have to force her to do something she doesn’t want to do. I was never bullied, but I think parents underestimate the damage it does. We can only help them so much. They’re kids, but they don’t understand that right now is only temporary.”
Carolyn works her lip in her teeth. “I don’t want her to think she can run every time shit gets tough. Sometimes when it’s tough it’s tough, but you have to fight through it.”
I’m reminded of Bach. Shit’s tough right now, and yet he wants to run. For once Carolyn might be right. “That’s easy for us to say. We’re not the ones being bullied.”
“I know,” she grumbles, lying down in her beach chair.
I do the same.
What is Bach running from?
More importantly, how do I get him to stop?
Chapter Seven
Bach
As soon as I can I’m gone.
I can hear the wood chipper whirring in the background. It’s waiting for me, hungry to end the shit storm that I’ve become. Who I’ve always been. I’ve never been superior, but always on the bottom. I’m not someone everyone wants, but an asshole they decide to deal with. But the people who were supposed to want me gave me up a long time ago. I had to find things I liked about myself or there was nothing. Partying, booze, women, and drugs—these things were all I had. They were me. Without them I was someone my father could destroy and my mother refused to want. I never should’ve come here.
I put my shaking hands under my head to hide them.
The little bit of scotch I had with Harley’s grandpa wasn’t enough. He drinks because it tastes good. I drink because I can feel my skin crawling. I don’t smoke cigars so I mostly tried not to be a pathetic drunk and chug my drink. The fact that I wanted to pound it back made me feel even shittier.
What I want is to be okay with me again. I want Justine, my orange pills, and my hangovers. I know who I am with those things around me. With Harley who I am makes me sick to my stomach. Especially when I pulled up to this mansion. Of course Harley has money. Of course she comes from a huge happy family. Of course, of course, of fucking course.
I find her, shielding my eyes from the glare coming off the water. She’s stretched out on a beach chair next to her bitchy cousin who was feeling me up under the table with her fo
ot. Harley’s light orange bikini is tight, gripping her curves. Her flat stomach glistens from her suntan lotion. I tried not to watch her rub it into her soft skin. In the sun her skin glows. I want her good so much right now that my eyes burn. I blame it on the sun. I don’t have sunglasses because I didn’t know I’d be sitting by the pool of a mansion with Harley’s big happy family. But I know I don’t deserve her good anymore. I never did. Today proves it to me once and for all.
I am Bach Bachmen. I don’t do dinner, breakfast, or swimming pools. I don’t cry over women, I don’t fall apart during sex, and I don’t beg women to stay. I don’t fucking do it.
I sit up. The moment I do, Harley’s eyes shoot to me as if she was watching me the entire time. She knows I’m going to run. This time she’s not coming first. I am. I look at the water instead, avoiding the gaze I feel all over my body. Stacey’s struggling to keep up with her brothers.
“Bach!” she squeals. “Wanna play sharks and minnows?”
I smirk at her. “Let me guess. You’re the shark?”
“No. You are!”
Despite my mood I laugh. Stacey’s got big doe eyes that only see what she wants to see. No one has taken that from her yet. I push to my feet and stand at the edge of the water as all six kids gather around me. “Why do I have to be the shark?”
“Because you’re a grown up!” one of the boys insists.
“You’re eyes are like a shark’s!” another one screams.
“You’re big!”
“Are you calling me fat?” I demand.
All of them laugh raucously and splash me. “Count to ten!” Stacey orders. “And turn around. We have to get to the other side before the shark catches us.”
“Are there any more cookies in it for me?” After all, I’m not doing this for nothing.
Stacey nods seriously. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Her response makes me want to laugh, but I trump it down and turn around as I begin counting out loud. I lull them into a false sense of calm. I can hear them below me whispering about who’s going to go first. Before I even get to five I turn around a flash and jump into the water. They scream and try desperately to swim away. I reach for one foot but they scurry away, laughing so hard I’m kind of afraid they’re going to get hurt. I ease up and duck below the water. Beneath the surface, I can see their feet swimming to the other side. I swim below them. Just before they get to the other end of the pool I jump out of the water and block them, growling and snapping my teeth. They almost lose their minds. Two of them scream like I’m an axe murderer and the rest are laughing so hard they give up on swimming. I grab the boy closest to me and raise him out of the water.
Destroy Me (Crystal Gulf Book 1) Page 19