The Dare: A Stepbrother Bully Romance (North Woods University Book 2)

by J. L. Beck

  Shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans, I walk down the sidewalk, a nervous energy encompassing me. Will she talk to me? Push me away? Slap me? The way she acted toward me earlier, it killed me. She ripped my heart out and fed it to me like I was a fucking dog. I thought maybe, just maybe telling her I loved her would change things, but it didn’t. It only ignited the hate inside of her.

  Not that she shouldn’t hate me. I’m man enough to know I fucked up. I can admit that to myself, to her, but all I want is to make things right. There’s a sign up ahead in the shape of a pizza slice, flashing brightly into the night.

  Slice It is written across the piece. I slow, exhaling all the bad energy out of me. If she’s here, then I’ll owe Clark big time. If she’s not, then I’ll lose my fucking mind and bury myself in another bottle of Jack Daniels. As I pass the huge glass window while walking to the door, I gaze through it looking for her.

  There are three or four ladies in the place with dark brown hair, but they aren’t her. My hands balled into fists in my pocket. I’m seconds away from breaking something when I catch sight of her and Clark in a corner booth off to the right. Mousy brown hair, pretty green emerald eyes that sparkle with happiness that I can see, feel from here.

  She’s laughing at something Clark says and this strange thing happens as I stand there like an outsider watching them. He deserves her. He’s what she needs. I have no idea where the thought comes from, but it terrifies me, because deep down, I know it’s true. I don’t deserve her. She deserves better, someone that’s not a loose cannon with a shitload of baggage.

  For a split second, I actually consider walking away when I notice Clark leaning into her face. Lust fills his eyes, and something snaps inside me.

  He’ll never love her, not like I do. Maybe I don’t deserve her, but neither does he. He’s incapable of love. Unlovable as he says. The courage builds and I open the door, walking inside, the smell of tomato sauce and freshly grated cheese fills my nostrils.

  The place is a seat yourself one and so I do, I walk over to where Ava and Clark are sitting, soft laughter emitting from the booth. It feels like I’m intruding and probably because I guess I am? Clark’s face falls as soon as he sees me coming. Did he not expect me to show up? He’s the one that put this together. Maybe he didn’t think I was serious about winning her back? I know he’s got his own shit going on, so maybe it’s that?

  “Clark… what’s going on? Are you okay?” Ava’s concerned voice filters into my ears right as I make my appearance known to her. Sauntering up to the booth like a broken-hearted puppy, I gaze down at her. The air thickens. I can’t breathe. I’m suffocating. In my own misery, in the pain of my actions.

  Murder flickers in Ava’s green eyes and without warning, she reaches across the table with a closed fist and socks Clark right in the throat. Caught off guard, Clark lifts a hand to his throat and starts to cough like he smokes five packs of cigarettes a day. His coughs grow louder, and I can feel eyes on us, attention gathering.

  “You’re a liar! I asked you if he was going to come and you said no,” she growls, her pink lips curling in anger.

  I knew he wasn’t going to tell her I was coming, because if he did, she wouldn’t have shown up, but I didn’t expect her to punch like that.

  “You punched me…” he croaks, chugging his entire glass of soda, though he doesn’t sound shocked by her actions. I can’t help the smile that christens my lips. Ava’s gaze turns to me, anger, sadness, and hate, they all mingle in those beautiful eyes that are piercing mine like daggers.

  “What don’t you understand? I don’t want anything to do with you. You got your wish, Vance. You hurt me, you made me hate you. Or maybe that wasn’t enough for you? Have you come to deliver more hate, more cruel words? As if deleting three weeks’ worth of homework wasn’t enough for you?”

  Fuck. I’ve forgotten about doing that, and I’ll need to reach out to her professors so that I can get her some more time to complete the assignments, but right now I need to talk to her, even if the only reaction she’s going to give me is one of anger.

  “I wasn’t lying to you when I apologized, and I’m sorry about the homework. I’m an idiot, a fucking piece of shit, whatever you want to call me, I’m probably it.”

  “And how would I know that, that you’re sorry? I’m not touching the name calling. I’m trying to be the adult in this situation.”

  She blinks up at me in disbelief.

  “You… You wouldn’t know that. I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I have to try. I want to know everything, what happened that night. I want to explain myself to you, make you understand why I did what I did.”

  Bitter laughter emits from her throat and Clark’s gaze widens because just like me, he knows we’re drawing attention.

  Shoving up into a standing position, Ava wiggles out of the booth looking like she’s going to bolt. But she doesn’t, instead, she exits the booth and stands toe to toe with me, she blows out a frustrated breath, but all I can smell is her, all I crave is her.

  “I don’t care why you did it, Vance. And you’re right, you don’t deserve my forgiveness. Someone as cruel, as horrible as you, doesn’t deserve the love that I could give. All you deserve is to wallow in your own sorrows.”

  With a hard shove to the chest, she pushes past me and walks away. My throat tightens, what the fuck do I say to that?

  “Go to her, fix this shit,” Clark orders, rubbing at his throat with his hand. I have a million things I want to say to him, but it’s not him I need to talk to right now. It’s her. Turning, my feet move all on their own, slapping against the floor, and then the pavement when I get outside. What the fuck am I going to say to her that I haven’t already? I spot her up ahead, crossing the street and run right at her. My heart racing inside my chest. I have to fix this. I fucking have to.

  Reaching out for her, my fingers land on her shoulder, forcing her to turn around, and she does, she whirls around like a raging bull.

  “Leave me alone.” The molten lava in her words burns. It burns like I’ve actually been burnt by fucking fire.

  I stare and stare another second, beautiful, so fucking perfect. She’s an angry vixen and I have to have her, as selfish as it is, I need her. So I do the only thing I know I can do, the first thing that comes to mind. I kiss her.

  She tastes like pizza sauce, and my lips mold to her full ones in a way that makes me want to kiss her all day long, that makes my cock stiffen in my jeans. Her hands press against my chest, her tiny fingers gripping onto the fabric, pulling me closer.

  Yes! She still wants me.

  I feel like a firework igniting, getting ready to blast the sky with an array of colors. I have to have her… I have to consume her like she’s consumed me. Guiding us backward until she’s pressed against the nearest wall, giving her nowhere to escape I deepen the kiss, my tongue slipping into her mouth, my hands moving up her body and to her rosy red cheeks. With her lips on mine, there’s no talking, no chance of either of us saying something we can’t take back.

  “What the hell!?” she gasps, pushing me back, breaking the kiss.

  Her chest heaves, so does mine. My eyes drop down to her lips. I want to kiss her again, kiss those swollen lips of hers.

  “I told you to leave me alone, not kiss me. Leave. Me. Alone.”

  “You want this. You want me. Admit it.” I lick my lips, my insides burning for her, only her. No one can compare to the way she makes me feel. She brings out the worst in me, while I bring out the best in her, and together we can fix all the fucked up pieces of our life.

  Her eyes fill with sadness. “I wanted you. Past tense. Before you showed me that I’m nothing to you. That I’m just someone you can use for a good time, and disregard once the last aftershocks of pleasure have rippled through you. Before you called me a liar after I told you the truth.”

  My mouth snaps open, my response on the tip of my tongue, but she shakes her head, tears glistening in her eyes.<
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  “You only want me because you know you fucked up.”

  My brow furrows in confusion. “I love you, Ava. I’ve never loved anyone, not in the sense of actually loving them. You’re the first girl, outside of my mother, I’ve ever cared for.”

  She shakes her head in disbelief and places a hand to my chest, gently pushing me backward. The organ beneath her palm pulses, pumping blood, reminding me that it beats for her and only her.

  “Stop trying, stop caring, and stop apologizing. Just stop.” Cruel anguish coats her words. Her eyes squeeze shut, and when they open a moment later, I see tears streaking down her pale cheeks. “You don’t know what love is, because if you did, you wouldn’t have hurt me the way you did. I don’t want you, Vance. I. Don’t. Want. You.”

  The words sting, they hurt so badly my knees wobble as they pass her lips. She’s lying, she has to be. What we have doesn’t just disappear. I can’t be the only one feeling the magnetic pull between us.

  “Go find Sarah, tell her you love her, go be with any other girl at this school, but please, leave me alone. Seeing you, listening to you, it kills me, Vance. It kills me and I can’t do this with you anymore. I don’t want to play your sick little games anymore. I quit.”

  My nostrils flare, and my muscles tighten. “I don’t want Sarah, and I never have. She was always going to be a fill-in until I found the one person that mattered. I haven’t touched her since before we had sex.” And that’s the truth. I wanted to fuck someone that night at Clark’s when I was piss drunk, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  Ava rolls her eyes, swiping at the tears on her face. “That’s not what Clark told me, not that it matters anyway. It doesn’t change anything. I don’t want you. I won’t date or be with someone who treats me like garbage one second and tells me they love me the next. I’m worthy of more than that.”

  Clark. Fuck him. Of course he would say something stupid. The bastard doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. Frustrated, I sink my fingers into my hair. I can’t let her walk away from me. I can’t.

  “I can’t leave you alone. You mean too much to me. You’re fucking everything. You’re my universe, just please let me tell you what happened, what my father told me. Let me tell you the truth. Let me save us.” I’m begging now, close to dropping down to my knees and pleading with her. She looks skeptical and I await her response with bated breath.

  Her pink lips part and it looks like she’s going to say something, anything, when the sound of a cell phone ringing fills the space between us.

  No! Please, don’t answer it, please don’t answer it, I silently plead.

  Ava pats her jeans until she finds her phone pulling the device from her pocket. Panic flashes across her face and dread fills my gut.

  “What’s wrong?” I question, covering the space between us with one huge step. Her bottom lip wobbles and her eyes widen.

  “My father, he’s calling me…”

  “Okay?” The inky dread I was feeling moments ago dissipates a little.

  “He’s supposed to be in rehab, not using his cell phone.” Still, I don’t understand, but she doesn’t give me the opportunity to ask another question. Instead, she presses the green answer key and holds the phone to her ear, and I swear I can see her slipping right through my fingers.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ava

  “Dad?” My voice trembles through the speaker of the phone. Vance stares down at me, a frown on his lips.

  “Baby girl. It’s so good to hear your voice. God, it seems like it’s been forever since I’ve seen or heard from you.” I grip the phone tighter to my ear.

  “Where…where are you? You’re supposed to be—”

  “I know where I’m supposed to be,” he cuts me off, his voice raised in a tone that tells me he’s been drinking. When he drinks, he gets mad, and when he gets mad, shit goes to hell.

  “Dad,” I try and keep my voice calm, neutral, even though inside I feel like I’m a plane spiraling out of control, headed straight for the ground. “Dad, tell me where you are? I’ll come get you, help you.”

  “Ha, no can do, sweetie. I’m going to right my wrongs. I just wanted to let you know that I love you before everything ends. I know you blame yourself, think that it’s your fault, but it isn’t. You were always the best thing that ever came from your mother.”

  I blink, confused by his statement. Right his wrongs? What is he talking about?

  “Dad, what’s going on? Tell me. Please, just tell me,” I plead, the muscles in my stomach tightening painfully, so painfully that I lean against the nearest wall.

  “I love you, Ava,” he whispers, and then the line goes dead.

  I blink, pulling the phone away from my ear to look down at the screen. I stare at it, mouth gaping open for several seconds before I realize he just hung up on me.

  “Oh God…” I whisper into the air and redial his number, but it goes to voicemail. “Shit, shit, shit!!”

  I pull the phone away from my ear and look at the screen, waiting for something to happen that could make all of this go away. How did my life become such a mess? My father, Mom, Vance. It feels like I’m on a downward spiral. Damnit! I thought my dad was getting better at that facility, not worse, but he definitely sounded worse.

  He sounded like he was saying goodbye, almost as if he was going to… No! I shake my head as if it will make the thought disappear. He wouldn’t hurt himself, would he? Or worse, someone else?

  “What’s wrong?” Vance’s voice makes me look up from the screen, my eyes clash with his concerned ones. I almost forgot he was here.

  “I…I don’t know. I need to find my dad. Figure out where he is, if he’s okay,” I say, my feet already moving in the direction of the car.

  “Wait, where are you going? Where is your dad? What happened?” Vance asks, his voice tight as he follows me closely while I speed walk down the street.

  I can feel my lips trembling, I’m breathing but there isn’t any air filling my lungs.

  “Ava, where are you going?” He repeats his question, sounding even more nervous.

  His panic is making me panic, and… Where am I going?

  “I don’t know!” I yell, throwing my hands up in the air.

  “Okay, calm down. You look like you’re about to hyperventilate. Slow down for a sec and tell me what’s going on. Talk to me.”

  We reach the car then, but instead of getting into the driver’s seat like I had planned, I stop. As badly as I don’t want to listen to Vance, he’s right. I’m about to hyperventilate, the tightening in my chest getting worse. Leaning against the side of the car, I suck air into my lungs. In through my nose, and out my mouth, the air swishes until the tightening in my chest becomes bearable again.

  “I don’t know where my dad is, but he sounded like he was going to do something…like hurt himself, or someone else. He was drunk and he was telling me that he loved me and that he was going to right his wrongs…whatever that means. I don’t know. He sounded bad. I have a bad feeling. This is terrible, horrible, and I don’t know how this happened. How did this happen?” The panic is rising inside me, cresting against my sanity.

  Vance places his strong hands on my shoulders, and I don’t have the strength or willpower to shrug him off. Right now, his touch is a welcoming one, a healing balm on the pain.

  “Shhh, beautiful. It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure this out,” Vance assures, his green eyes soft, his lips smooth, full. I focus on those lips, imagining how they felt against mine, how I want to kiss him again now.

  Vance clears his throat, a gentle smile on his lips. “Why don’t we go home and see if we can get some more information. Maybe we can call the rehab facility he was at? Ask your mom if there’s anything we can do?”

  My chest stops heaving, and I feel less like I’m going to pass out now.

  “Good idea,” I quip.

  Truthfully, I know I need to keep a leveled head about this, driving around like a crazed perso
n looking for him isn’t going to fix this, even though it feels like losing my shit would be the easiest solution right now.

  “Why don’t you get in the passenger seat and I’ll drive us home?” Vance suggests while already guiding me to the other side of the car.

  I should push him away, tell him I can take care of myself, but when I reach up to swipe some loose strands of hair away from my face, I notice how much my hand is shaking. Even as stubborn as I am, I know it’s best to just let Vance do the driving.

  “What about your car? Didn’t you drive here?”

  “I can get it later, don’t worry about that,” he says, his voice oddly reassuring and calm, too calm. He opens the door for me and helps me inside before reaching over to buckle me in. Part of me wants to push him away and tell him to stop but the other part, the part that is winning right now, is taking comfort in him taking care of me.

  The drive home goes by in a blur, and I continue to dial my dad’s number in hopes that he turned his phone back on, but all I get is his voicemail. By the time Vance parks the car in the driveway, I must have called him at least thirty times.

  He kills the engine and I get out of the car, thankfully without his help. I’m weak enough as it is right now, anymore of his touch and I’ll be a melted piece of butter on the pavement.

  “I’m going to call the rehab facility my dad was staying at and see when he checked out and why,” I mutter out loud, more to myself than Vance who is walking up to the house beside me. I don’t want his help, not really. He’s done enough horrible shit to me, the last thing I need to do is make myself look even more fragile.

  As soon as I open the front door, I can hear my mother’s chatter coming from the kitchen. I follow her voice like it’s a beacon of light, my feet dragging across the floor.

  “Mom, something happened,” I blurt out when she looks up at me. My heart hammers inside my chest.

  “Susan, I’m going to have to call you back,” she tells her friend and hangs up, worry creasing her forehead. “What’s wrong?”