Sera turned down a really quiet street and stopped. I hurried to pull to the side of the road and turned off my truck to kill the lights. I watched her pull into a parking spot on the side of the street. It was well beyond all the campus houses and all that college bullshit life. This was a normal looking neighborhood. Where families would live.
Sera got out of the car and started to fix herself. Her hair. Her clothes. She even went as far as to crouch to look at herself in the side mirror of her car.
That’s when I realized it…
She had someone else in her life.
Chapter 23
Serafina
Max had this trick where he would hold two wine glasses at the same time with one hand. His right hand held out, a smile on his face, staring down at me as I sat on the edge of his couch. I felt as nervous as I did the first time I sat on it. He had scruff on his face, salt and pepper colored, an indication of his age.
He had a fire going in the gas fireplace and some kind of soft music playing. Amazing how a year ago this was so sexy to me. This was everything I wanted. It was in a sense wrong to do, but in a sense right. I wasn’t interested in the random one-night stand stuff and the wild parties. That moment came and went, but I could never get Hailey away from them. Not that it was my job to do so. She was loving her college life. I wasn’t. I never really had. My plan had been to go to college with…
“Ready?” Max asked.
He curled his lip and made an animal sound. He bit at the cork on the wine bottle and pulled. Then he spit the cork across the room.
“How’s that for talent with my mouth?” he asked.
I wasn’t sure if that was funny or sexual. Either way, it was weird.
“Strong jaw,” I said.
Strong jaw?
Heat rose to my cheeks, and not in the way it used to with Max. And certainly not in the way that Trev made it happen.
I should have sent Trev a text. There were a million easy lies to tell him, but silence was probably the easiest lie and closest to the truth without actually telling him it.
Being at Max’s was comforting. Hiding. Lying to myself that everything would be okay. A complete joke of who I was and who I wanted to be. But in some sick sense, this was my normal.
Max poured wine in each glass and twisted the wine bottle perfectly so not a single drop was wasted.
He sat down and handed me a glass.
“Confession?” he whispered.
“Sure,” I said.
“I took the cork out in the kitchen,” he said. “No way could I have done that with my teeth if it was a fresh bottle.”
I smiled. “I’m not judging you.”
“You never do,” he said. “That’s why I like you.”
Like me?
I swallowed hard.
Max sipped his wine. “Serafina, I think we should talk for a second. Cross the line of a little more serious than we’re used to.”
“Oh?” I asked.
“I haven’t really heard much from you lately. It seems like you’re distant.”
“No. I, uh… no…”
“Our arrangement was based on need,” he said. He offered that comforting grin of his. “But it was always based on want. The way we wanted each other. I think we can agree to that.”
I slowly nodded. I put the wine glass to my lips, but didn’t drink wine. I faked drinking.
Who am I? Is this what I’ve become? An affair with my professor? Lying and trying to hurt Trev? Fake drinking wine?
Max inched closer to me and reached for the table to put his wine glass down. He then touched my hand and stole the glass from me.
My body stiffened.
I knew this move of his.
He touched my jaw. “I need to know that our arrangement is safe.”
“Safe?” I whispered.
“You know exactly what I mean, Serafina,” Max said. “What we’re doing here. What it really means. I just don’t want the wrong feelings to get involved.”
“Wrong feelings?” I asked. I started to shake my head.
He stopped me. “The heart is weaker than the mind. But the mind can grow weaker than the heart when you fall in love.”
“Love… I’m…”
Did Max think I loved him?
Oh, crap.
There was a time that maybe I thought I could love him. But there was no way I loved him. Not even close. In fact, my heart started to race with a sense of fear. Not a fear of getting caught. Not a fear of doing something naughty. But a fear of… fear.
“I think I have to go,” I whispered.
“Go?”
“I don’t feel all that great right now,” I said. “I wasn’t feeling good and I wasn’t going to come over. But I didn’t want to leave you hanging again… so I came over to… but I don’t…”
My words weren’t coming out in full sentences.
Max traced a line across my chin. Studying me. Looking for anything he could pounce on and keep me under his wing. That’s what he had always done, wasn’t it? Kept me close and gave me what I wanted.
I felt like something had started to open up in my mind.
“We’re not in love, Max,” I whispered. “I know exactly what this is.”
“Good. I’m happy to hear that. Do you still feel ill?”
His breath hit my face and I quickly nodded. “I’d better go.”
“Right. So my night is wasted.”
“I’m sorry…?”
Max sighed and stood up. “I had a long day, Serafina. I didn’t want to play baby games. If you can’t handle a mature situation…”
“I said I don’t feel good,” I said. “I wasn’t even going to respond to your message.”
“Then you shouldn’t have,” he snapped. “I could have made other plans.”
“With another woman?”
Max turned his head. “You’d better go. You don’t look so great.”
I stood from the couch. “So am I just a person on a list?”
“Leave, Serafina,” Max ordered. He stared at the fire.
“So you have a contact list, don’t you? What place am I on it? Huh?”
He didn’t answer.
I looked down at the table. The two wine glasses. The bottle of wine. The stupid cork from the wine bottle on the floor. How many times had he done that wine cork biting trick to make someone else laugh?
He refused to look at me.
I thought about what I could say to him right then. Make a comment about exposing our affair. Make him nervous and think he’d lose his job. But I wasn’t even sure if he would lose his job. There was probably nothing I could say that would actually rattle him or hurt him.
The only thing I could do was leave.
So I did.
Walking away from Max’s house always left me with a sense of guilt and regret. But walking away with nothing physical happening and his creepy words flowing through my head, it made me shiver. I hugged myself.
I miss you, Karie. Okay? I fucking miss you. You should be here with me. We were supposed to do all of this stuff together. And now I’m even more lost. I wish you could meet Trev for one minute and tell me what you think…
I shut my eyes, thinking I could hide the tears.
Not that it mattered though, right?
I was alone.
Walking the sidewalk, alone.
I turned at the end of the sidewalk and looked for my car.
Through the blurry vision, I realized something.
Someone was sitting on the hood of my car.
* * *
Trev stood up from my car, arms folded. He slowly lowered them to his sides and just stared at me.
“Trev…”
“Serafina.”
“You followed me?”
“You left.”
I choked back on tears and reached for the car door handle. But Trev was right there, his fingertips touching my arm.
“Hey, what’s going on here?”
“None of
your business,” I said. “Get away from me. I can’t believe you followed me. You’re a fucking jerk.”
“I’m a jerk?” Trev asked. “I watched you pull into a parking spot, get a text, and then leave. Again. You keep leaving. You keep running. Yet you write me a letter, confessing that your best friend died. What is this? What are you doing here?”
“Stop it,” I said. “Don’t talk so loudly. You’ll attract attention.”
“Attention? You don’t want attention?”
“Trev, it’s not that simple.”
“Sounds simple to me,” he said. “You park here and walk how far? So you’re hiding your car. You don’t want anyone to see that you’re here. I watched you check your hair in the mirror. You’re worried about how you look? That’s not you.”
“You don’t know me, Trev,” I said.
He slipped in between me and my car.
I backed up and tossed my keys at him. “Here. Take them then. I’ll walk home.”
I turned and walked.
I had no idea what I was doing.
I was in a strange neighborhood. I’d never seen another person. I’d solely parked where I parked to hide my car and I had to creep down the block and around to Max’s house.
“You’re hiding,” Trev called out. “You’re fake and you’re hiding.”
I stopped dead in my tracks and turned.
Trev stood there with my keys in his hand.
“And who the hell do you think you are?” I asked.
Trev kept the distance between us. Too much distance because we were almost yelling at each other. But what did it matter now? Who cares if someone saw me? Or us? Whatever.
“I don’t know who I am, Sera,” Trev said. “But I know that when I’m near you I feel something. I feel a little more human. I feel a little more real. I didn’t want to follow you, but I didn’t want you to keep running.”
“Then this is on you,” I said. “You followed me. You think you can handle whatever this is?”
“Oh, I know what this is, sweetheart,” he said. “I see it clearly. Very fucking clearly. And I’m here just to let you know that I think you deserve more than this. Some hidden fling that’s going on. And I want you to know that you’re not the only one with a dark secret.”
Trev waited for me to respond, but I didn’t.
Finally, he nodded and grabbed my door. He opened it and tossed the keys onto the driver’s seat.
“Sorry to bother you,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
I watched as he started to cross the street.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“What?” Trev asked, standing in the middle of the street.
“What happened to you? Your letters. What do they mean?”
Trev looked at my car and nodded down the street. “What is this here? Are you being hurt or anything?”
“I already told you… the only person that hurts me… is me.”
“Right,” he said. “Cliché words to protect yourself. That’s fine.”
He went to his truck, climbed inside, and purposely sped away so that his tires squealed.
I realized that he never answered my questions.
I couldn’t believe what I was about to do.
Trev wanted a piece of my heart… he was going to get it.
Chapter 24
Trev
It took a lot out of me not to scream and go and find the road where Heath had been killed, and finally make history right. Give everyone what they had fucking wanted from me. My saving grace was a phone call from Nick, telling me to meet up with him for a drink on the south side of town. It was a little more rough and tough than the pansy college bars, like the one where Sera worked.
I pulled into a parking spot and walked through the all-black doors and was hit with the rumbling of rock music and smack of pool balls.
Nick saw me a second later and jumped up from his barstool. He tripped over his own two feet and dropped the beer bottle in his hand to the floor. It shattered and he laughed as he hugged me. He smelled like beer, whiskey, and whatever fruity body spray the woman next to him had sprayed herself with.
I threw an arm around him to keep us both balanced.
“Jesus, man, you’re tanked.”
“I’m feeling alright,” he said. “Needed to call you. I’ve got a lead on the two behind me.”
“A lead? What is this… a sales call?”
“That’s right. We’re selling our dicks for the night,” he said and laughed.
Nick backed away and stumbled to the bar. He threw an arm around the woman to his right and said something to her. She turned and looked at me. Glossy, drunk eyes and a flirty smile. She then threw an elbow into someone next to her. There, turned a tall and beautiful woman with dark hair, dark eyes, and a dark dress, holding a glass with a red drink and a skinny, white straw.
Nick snapped his fingers and reached across the bar, calling the bartender.
The beautiful woman had her eyes locked to mine.
It could have been that easy of a night for me. Throw back one too many, take her home, and forget about everything. Forget about the mess I’d created with Becca. Forget about everyone blaming me for Heath’s death. Forget about what my father did to me. And most of all, forget about Serafina and her mile high wall.
Nick ordered two beers and turned and waved one at me. I walked toward him and grabbed a bottle. I put it to my lips and stared at the woman. Nick grasped the other woman’s elbow and pulled her to her feet. I tilted my head back and felt the cold and perfect taste of the beer hit my lips. I took nothing more than a small sip before I stopped.
I thrust my hand out and nodded to Nick. “Take it.”
“What? You want something harder? Some whiskey? Oh, he’s a whiskey man here. Splash some of that on your girls, babe.” Nick pointed to the woman I guess was meant for me.
A mindless hookup. Hell, I’d probably do all I could to not even learn her name. That would be the smart thing to do.
I licked my lips and shook my head.
“I have to go,” I said. “I’ve just remembered, I have something else going on.”
“What the hell?” Nick called at me.
I backed up with a hand out. “I’m sorry.”
I turned and punched the door to open it. My knuckles began to throb as I rushed back to my truck.
This wasn’t like me. This world of regret. Doubt. Guilt. All those bullshit feelings that forever tried to creep in. My choices were narrowing themselves down. Whiskey. Women. Anything to cloud up my mind.
But there was one thing that wouldn’t go away.
That was Serafina.
* * *
The tables were turned as I pulled into the parking lot of my apartment.
Serafina was sitting on the hood of her car, waiting for me.
I stopped my truck and climbed out.
She just sat there, knees bent, hugging them, staring at me.
I tucked my keys into my pocket and stood there. She made my heart race in a way I didn’t like. She made me feel a way I’ve never felt before.
She had gotten to me. Officially gotten to me. She made me want to change everything about my life… whether that was good or bad, I wasn’t sure.
“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” Sera said. “Everything.”
“Then why are you here?” I asked.
“Because I have nowhere else to go, Trev. I don’t want to go to my apartment and sit there, thinking about you.”
“Thinking about me. What are you thinking about me for?”
“The things you say. What you write. What you make me feel.”
“You can be scared all you want, Sera,” I said. “You can run. I don’t care anymore.”
“That’s a lie,” she said.
I took two steps and she jumped off the hood of the car.
She hurried toward me and clutched my shirt.
“Where’d you go?” she whispered.<
br />
“To a bar,” I said. “To fuck some random woman.”
Sera’s eyes went really wide. “What…”
“Yeah, that’s what I went to do,” I said. “And that’s what I would normally do. That’s the easiest way to get rid of everything I’m feeling. It’s almost like a cheap drug.”
“Did you do that? Tonight?”
“No, sweetheart,” I said. “I didn’t. And neither did you. You walked away too. From your text message person. Didn’t you?”
Sera slowly nodded. “Yes.”
“Why? Why didn’t you do that tonight? I know you did it the night we met?”
“I don’t know why,” she said. “Because of you, I guess. I came here, Trev, and then I left because I thought if I could hurt you, it would be easier. We could just get rid of each other and be done with it all.”
“That’s what you want? To hurt me and run?”
“I tried and I can’t do it,” she whispered.
I gritted my teeth. “You know what the worst thing you can do is?”
“What?”
“Replace one addiction with another,” I said. I lowered down a little as she put her head back. “And that’s what I’m fucking doing right now. Replacing one addiction with another…”
My lips grazed hers. She tasted better than that cold beer. Or room temperature whiskey. Or anything that that woman could have promised me for the night.
Sera kissed me right back without hesitation.
I lifted her up and stepped forward to put her down on the hood of her car. Right there in the middle of the parking lot. She grabbed my shoulders and pushed, wanting me to break the kiss. So I did.
“What?” I growled.
“What are we doing, Trev? What we have to say to each other… it’s going to hurt…”
“That’s okay, sweetheart,” I said. I kissed her gently and whispered, “First comes pleasure… then comes pain…”
* * *
I wasn’t sure how we made it to my bedroom, but the trail of clothes along the hallway showed the wild need raging between us. The kisses were hot and sloppy. They were messy and noisy. I bit her lip and she bit mine. She clawed at my back when I kissed her chest. She forced her way down to kiss along my tattoo. She was obsessed with that fucking thing and I was perfectly okay with it.
EVERYTHING WRONG WITH US_a novel by: Page 14