The Last Word

by Everly Lucas

  Our lips meet again, and my hips flex when she strokes my cock. Just as I’m reaching for my wallet to grab the condom I keep there, the sounds of loud voices and revving engines break into my awareness.

  Prom is over…and so is any hope of making love to Erin right here and now.

  She and I can’t be seen from the parking lot, but people are bound to walk by our spot any second. I tuck my dick back in my pants and zip up. When she tries to shift off my lap, I grip her waist tight. “You and me—we’re doing this, right?”

  Erin’s eyes go wide. “Are you crazy? I’m all for adventurous sex, Van, and honestly, it’s a goddamn miracle I can hold myself back from riding the shit out of you right now, but putting on a show for people we’ll have to face at school every day doesn’t exactly flip my switch. You graduate in a few weeks, but I’d still have a whole year of being known as the chick who went to prom with one guy but ended up fucking another. In public. Can you imagine the number of people I’ll have to punch in the mouth for calling me a slut?”

  By the end of her rant, my chest hurts from holding back a laugh. “Erin, baby… I meant this,” I say, caressing her flushed cheek. “Us.”

  “Oh.” She bites her bottom lip and nods with conviction. “Hell yes.”

  “Good.” I hold out my hand. “Let me see your ring.”

  She unclenches her fisted right hand and drops the ring onto my palm. Even shaking like I am, I manage to slide it back onto her finger. With the heart facing her, I make it official.

  Erin’s in a relationship. With me.

  I was almost too nervous to ask her for a dance less than an hour ago, but now, somehow, I’ve claimed her as mine.

  Both our heads swivel in the direction of Danny’s booming laugh echoing through the parking lot, and Erin moves to sit next to me on the metal step. A second later, my phone vibrates in my jacket pocket. I pull it out to find a text from Danny.

  where the fuk u at

  Shit.

  This thing between me and Erin, it’s happening. We just have to let the rest of the world know, starting with her brother.

  Danny Kenny is my best friend, and my loyalty to him won’t let me keep seeing his sister like this without coming clean first, but that’s all he gets from me this time—honesty. If he tries to throw out ultimatums again, that’s on him. I’ve made my choice.

  I release a frustrated sigh. “We’re supposed to hit up Jimmy Crawley’s after-prom party.”

  “Blow it off. Please.” Her bright eyes beg me not to go, and I almost give in.

  A breeze blows one of her curls across her face, and I tuck it behind her ear. “I can’t, baby. We have to start this off right, which means I’ve gotta talk to him before anything else happens.”

  “Do you think he’ll take it well?”

  Not a fucking chance. But I don’t tell her that.

  “I’ll wait until he’s got a few drinks in him.” I’ll probably need a few, too. Loyalty is one thing; having the balls to risk losing my best friend is another. “We’re crashing there, but first thing tomorrow morning, no matter what Danny says, I’m coming for you. Got it?”

  “You swear?”

  “On my fucking life.”

  My phone vibrates again. Erin eyes the lit screen and, after a quick nod to herself, takes off her ring and places it back in my palm, curling my fingers around it. “Hold on to this. Once you’re through with whatever bro business you need to take care of, you come straight to me and put this back on my finger. Okay?”

  “Trust and believe, you’ll be wearing it by breakfast.”

  I steal one last kiss from her, tuck the ring in my jacket pocket, and leave my girl on the steps of the jungle gym.

  Two

  Four years later…

  I suck in a deep breath, flooding my brain with calming oxygen. Shifting into reverse, I back up another inch, then two, pumping the brakes of my ancient Honda CRV at least six times in the process. Almost there. When I feel the light tap of my rear bumper to the front of the blue sedan behind me, I know I’ve made it. I cut the steering wheel hard to the left, pull up a couple millimeters, and let out a triumphant “Woo!”

  Sure, it took fifteen minutes to parallel park, but I conquered this bitch.

  On a slightly less awesome note, the lengthy process has made me late to my first class. What’s worse, the closest spot I could find is on Silverwood Street, five blocks away from the school.

  Snatching my bag off the passenger seat, I sling it over my neck, hop down to the sidewalk, and take off running. Thank fuck I’m heading down the massive hill instead of up.

  At nine fifty, I push through the front door of Grape Street Bartending School, twenty minutes after class was scheduled to start. Sweat is clinging to my temples and plastering my white t-shirt to my back, but whatever. I’m here. I made it. Finally.

  I’ve waited months to take this course—months of stuffing loose change and whatever I could spare from my cater-waiter tips into an old makeup case…and doing everything in my power to keep that case hidden from my brother until I had enough to pay the course fee. And it’ll all be worth it if I can convince my boss to let me tend bar at events, instead of working as a server. The bump in tips won’t dig my family out of debt—not even close—but it could definitely help chip away at it.

  The teacher—Greg, if he’s the same guy listed on the paperwork—greets me with a genial grin and waves me in. “We just started. Come on in. There’s an open station by the window.”

  An L-shaped, classic wooden bar lines the back wall and the entire left side of the narrow room, with the only free space at the very end. Making my way around, I sneak behind the other students to claim my spot, drop my bag on the windowsill, and rub my damp palms on my shorts.

  Greg asks us to introduce ourselves, starting with the gangly kid with spiky red hair down at the other end of the bar. He says his name is Neville Cox, and he’s from Springfield, and blah, blah, blah. I have the attention span of a four-year-old hopped up on Pixy Stix.

  My bored gaze wanders out the window, to a fluffy black cat strolling along the sidewalk like he owns this neighborhood. He probably does. I’ll bet he disembowels all the mice and leaves them on the doorsteps of Manayunk as evidence of his mighty cat prowess.

  I dub him King Floof.

  His Majesty reaches a shady spot and flops onto his side. Summertime in Philadelphia must be a bitch with all that fur.

  The tall guy to my left shifts on his feet as he starts to speak, the motion capturing my attention. He has one of those voices that’s so deep, you almost can’t discern one word from the next. Oh, but I discern them. I discern the shit out of them.

  “I’m Van Woods.”

  No, he’s not. He can’t be. Not here. Not right next to me, smelling like delicious, spicy citrus. Fate isn’t that twisted. She wouldn’t do me dirty like that.

  Oh, who am I kidding? She totally would. That’s how she gets her kicks these days.

  My head snaps up—way up—to confirm what I already knew. My former best friend, my first love, and the person I hate most in this world is standing right next to me. The ugly tile floor vanishes from beneath my feet as the edges of my vision fade to black, until Van’s face is all I see. If he weren’t standing still as a statue, I’d swear the room was swirling, like one of those carnival rides that spins so fast, you end up plastered to the wall and in danger of losing your lunch. And that’s how I feel. Plastered to the wall by fate.

  The human brain wasn’t designed to handle so many conflicting thoughts and emotions at once, and I bet I’d feel a whole lot better if I could purge some of them—preferably all over Van’s tight, grey t-shirt.

  Two thoughts dominate the rest.

  First, this is the guy who, with one thoughtless, dangerous act, destroyed my family. He destroyed me, in so many ways. Whatever future I was supposed to have was ripped away from me that night four years ago. I should be getting ready for my senior year of college, excited abo
ut what my future holds. Instead, I’m still living at home and struggling to bring in money to keep my family afloat.

  Second… Ugh. How dare he look so damn good?

  Van was never scrawny. He was a linebacker on our high school’s football team and earned a scholarship to play at Penn State. He would’ve graduated two months ago if he didn’t go to prison instead of college.

  I wonder if that’s where he grew all these crazy muscles. If I’ve learned anything from TV, it’s that inmates lift a lot of weights. In the year he was locked up, before he got paroled, Van must’ve lifted all the weights. At once. And somehow grown a few inches in the process. With the addition of black tattoos covering his neck and those cannon-sized arms, and with his hair cropped super close to his head, he’s like a darker, scarier version of the guy I used to know.

  He’s also more attractive. Eighteen-year-old Van was hot. Grown-man Van is sexy. Like, danger-sexy.

  But his lips… His lips are exactly how I remember them. Full and soft and tempting as fuck. The night of his prom, they were so confident, the way they moved with mine. I’d never been kissed like that before. Or since. The ground could’ve given way beneath us, plummeting us to the center of the earth, and I wouldn’t have noticed. It almost felt that way—like being sucked into the gravitational pull of him, my stomach racked with violent flutters from the fall, the anticipation of impact, and the indisputable knowledge that Van would catch me. Always.

  I hate him so much.

  How dare he be here? How dare he reenter my life like this, without warning, without giving me a choice or time to prepare? How dare he even exist anymore?

  Forcing my mouth shut, I stare daggers at him, right in his heart. Right where he stabbed me four years ago, just hours after he told me he loved me.

  He, on the other hand, looks away from me like I’m nobody to him. His brush-off hurts more than it should.

  “I’m from Upper Darby, but I’ve been in Philly for a few years.” He grips the edge of the bar and leans against it. The stance is casual, but his muscles tense under his dark skin. “A bartender position opened up where I work. My boss sent me here to learn the basics.”

  And there goes my mouth again—gaping wide enough to catch flies and dust motes and small woodland creatures.

  He works at a bar? Like, with alcohol? Is he fucking kidding me right now? I wonder if his employer knows about the DUI conviction. Maybe some random, concerned citizen should inform them…

  Something taps the side of my low-top Converse, and my focus zaps to the floor as Van’s sneaker retreats from my side of the invisible line between us. He must know that boundary exists as much as I do, but the big jerk breached it anyway.

  Oh, wait. My turn to introduce myself.

  Clearing my throat, I force a smile on my face, like the world didn’t just flip on its axis, and wave. “Hi, I’m Erin Kenny. Also from Upper Darby.”

  Greg beams at me and Van. “What a coincidence! Do you two know each other?”

  My insides harden and turn to ice. I throw a pointed glare at Van. “No. We don’t.”

  I spend the first hour of class internally debating the pros and cons of walking out and never coming back. There are a shit-ton of cons: I saved up all year to take this class; I’ll make more tips bartending for the catering company I work for than I make as a server; my stubborn streak runs ten miles long; and why should I be the one to drop out, anyway?

  The only pro is that I wouldn’t have to keep breathing the same air as Van Woods. That’s a damn heavy pro, though, so when I plop it all on my mental scale, the outcome is almost even. The thing that tips my decision in favor of staying is my stupid pride. What a shocker.

  Next to me, Van’s presence is massive. I mean, yeah, he’s a big guy, but his Van-ness throbs out from him in palpable waves, buffeting me and making me seasick. I do my best to ignore him, to focus as the teacher goes over bar setup and the various tools and supplies. Important shit. But my brain doesn’t work like that. It latches on to the shiniest object, the biggest squirrel, the thing that demands the most attention. And that’s Van.

  Every part of me is tuned to him. My body buzzes like it always used to when he was around. On instinct, I want to be close to him, to pick up where we left off. Luckily, humans have evolved beyond acting solely on instinct. We can reason shit out. And there isn’t a single reason to pick anything back up with Van.

  Three hours pass, slow as molasses. As soon as Greg announces the lunch break, I bolt, doing my best to avoid touching Van as I slip past him. Outside, I suck in large quantities of air, attempting to dull my rage.

  I can handle this. I’m a fighter. Maybe I can switch places with someone….

  No. That would be the coward’s way out, and one thing I’ve never been is a coward. I’m not about to start now, just because ninety percent of the cells in my body want to be as far away from Van as possible. The other ten percent, well, I refuse to acknowledge what they want.

  “Hey, Erin,” one of the girls from class calls as she approaches me. She has the roundest hazel eyes I’ve ever seen. I’m instantly jealous, and I kind of also want to be her best friend.

  “Hi, um…” And this is where paying attention during introductions would’ve come in handy.

  Hm…I wonder where King Floof is.

  “Jazmyn. J-a-z-m-y-n.”

  That gets me to crack my first genuine smile of the day. And thank God, because I was ready to straight murder someone. Or rip out all my hair. Or release a scream so primal, every living thing in Manayunk would shit itself, including Van. Okay, now I’m rethinking the scream thing. “Do you spell your name every time you introduce yourself?”

  “I’ve learned to get it out of the way early.” She shrugs and nods in the direction of the two guys standing next to her. I recognize Neville, the redhead, and to his right is a tall, lean guy with glossy, shoulder-length black hair. “We’re walking down to Main Street to find a place to eat. Kwok says he’s never been.”

  “Me neither,” I say. The Manayunk neighborhood of Philly is only a fifteen-minute drive from my house, but I don’t get out much. Mostly because I don’t have the means or time or opportunity. Or friends.

  Behind Jazmyn, the door to the school swings open, and my stomach drops as Van steps through. I just spent all morning in close proximity to my mortal enemy, and I still have an entire afternoon of that same torture to look forward to. For this one hour, at least, I need to be as far from him as possible.

  Shifting my attention back to Jazmyn, I ask, “Mind if I tag along?”

  “It would be shitty of me to tell you we’re going to lunch and not invite you, don’t you think?” She cocks her head, causing her long, brown twists to fall over her shoulders. “Do I look like a shitty person to you?”

  With her curvy body, killer outfit, and flawless makeup, she looks a lot like all the fake friends who flipped on me in high school, after I dumped Rob Haney at his prom. And after my brother, well… Before that, they worshiped my ass like I was royalty. Flaky skanks.

  Hell yeah, I’m still bitter about it. I hold grudges like a boss.

  Jazmyn seems cool, though. Maybe it’s her eyes. Or those dimples. I’m a sucker for dimples. So I say, “Not even a little bit,” and set off in the direction of Main Street before the urge to look at Van one more time grows too strong to resist.

  Three

  My first six months in prison, I had hope—hope that Erin would visit me and tell me to stay strong, that something better waited for me on the other side if I could just keep my head up. Of course, that didn’t happen. When I got out, I had no one.

  My aunt Wanda had taken me in when I was eight, after I lost Mom to cancer. She’d been the only family I had left, and though I know the woman loved me in her own way, God never meant her to be a parent. My mom had a natural warmth—had it in spades—but that gene must've skipped her sister. Too bad the cancer gene didn't. Aunt Wanda lost her battle right after I turned eighteen.
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br />   Danny and Erin’s mom reminded me so much of my own, and I ended up spending most of my time with the Kennys, partly to be around that kind of love again. We had an unspoken understanding that I’d be at their house after school every day. I’d always linger, hoping they’d invite me to stay for dinner, which they usually did. Half the time, I’d sleep over, too.

  They were like family. Until they weren’t.

  By the time I got released, I’d written them all off. I started from scratch. Built a new life out of nothing. I forced myself to stop thinking about Erin, about any of them. I moved on, found work and ways to keep a roof over my head…and I’ve thought about Erin every fucking day. My willpower sucks when it comes to her.

  When she burst through the door this morning, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. But she was there—panting, red-faced, and glistening with sweat. I held my breath, waiting for her to look my way. Waiting to see disgust on her face. Waiting for her to storm right back out.

  Only, she didn’t. She stayed the whole morning.

  Now, standing in the doorway to the school as she walks off with a few other students, I wait a solid thirty seconds before following her, keeping my distance. Does this put me squarely in stalker territory? No doubt. But she might decide not to come back to class.

  Her body language said it all this morning; she was tight, tense, and as far from me as possible in the small amount of space we had. And she couldn’t escape fast enough. If she decides to bail, best believe I’m keeping my eyes on her until the last fucking second.