‘Tonight. Me. Pearl. Going. For. It. Wherein it equals her thighs spread and me between ’em.’ He flicked me a look when I didn’t reply. ‘What?’
I bit the ring in my lip, hating that I had to say what I had to say. Hating that I’d rather not say it – especially to my best friend. ‘Just – make sure it’s what she, you know –’
‘Landon, fuck, man.’ He pulled his baseball cap off, shook his head, and stuffed it back on backwards. Huffing a breath, his eyes never left the road. ‘Don’t you know me? Not that I have any real, ya’know, morals –’ he grinned – ‘but I mean, I hear you. I’ve heard you. I got it. I don’t know what your damage is and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to. But if and when I screw that superior, brainy little …’ He trailed off, unable to call Pearl something she wasn’t. ‘She’s gonna be beggin’ for it first or I won’t touch her. Okay?’
He slid a scowl my way and I nodded once, satisfied.
I wouldn’t have told him my damage if he’d asked. But he never had.
My mind shifted to Melody. If she begged for it now, would I?
The answer was a quiet, decisive whisper. No.
‘Hey, Wynn? Drop me back at the beach, man.’
He dialled the music down. ‘You don’t wanna go?’
I shook my head and he sighed. ‘Sure, man. Who needs a pool anyway when we’ve got the fuckin’ ocean?’
‘I’m not asking you to give up your final chance for a Pearl hook-up.’
The edge of his mouth curved into a sly smile and he arched a brow. ‘Oh, I’m not givin’ it up. If her parents left town today – they’ll be gone at least a week.’
‘Dude, we just graduated, and she’s going away to college in a couple months. You’ve had three years –’
‘Never say never, Maxfield. That’s the cool thing about being a pigheaded son of a bitch. I do not fuckin’ ever give up.’ We laughed as he U-turned at a wide-shouldered spot in the road and cranked the stereo back up, heading back to the beach.
LUCAS
Silence is never totally without sound. Something to do with the human ear, straining to hear. Even when there’s nothing, there’s a frequency, a hum. Like a satellite, searching for signs of life where there is none.
My father’s voice was gone. Take care of your mother. My mother’s voice was gone. Landon! My choked intakes of breath, grating and loud, had subsided. I inhaled. Let go a ragged lungful of air. Swallowed. Took another breath. Heard each of these actions inside my own head.
Then I heard a meow. Francis jumped on the bed and stalked straight to me. He bumped my bicep with the top of his head, and I let my hands fall from where they gripped the sides of my face. My forearms rested on my knees, elbows digging into my thighs. He bumped me again, hard, like he was trying to herd me, and I sat up.
Barefoot. Old jeans. No shirt. Bed.
Jacqueline.
I turned, but she was gone. The bedcovers were a sea of sheets, blankets and pillows that had weathered a storm. A very good storm. And then she’d told me what she’d done. Pain drilled through the centre of my chest and I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my fingers against it. I would not go there again.
Do you want me to go?
My eyes flashed open. Oh, God. I’d said yes.
I stood, found my T-shirt inside out on the floor. Righting it and jerking it over my head, I reached for socks and my boots and shoved my feet into them. Grabbed my jacket from the back of a kitchen chair and my keys from the counter.
I could fix this. I would fix this.
I shrugged into the jacket and headed out the door and down the stairs. Getting into her dorm wouldn’t be as easy this time – there were so few people around. Almost everyone had vacated campus as soon as finals were over. I would call her when I got there. I’d have to talk her into letting me into the building. Apologize. Beg if I had to. On my knees.
I hoped to God she answered. I would camp in the back of her truck if she didn’t.
I was about to swing a leg over my bike when I heard footsteps, pounding up the driveway. Jacqueline, running to me – but she didn’t see me. She was staring at the bottom of the steps to my apartment. Her name in my mouth, I moved to intercept her – and then she went down, and I saw Buck, his fist round her hair. Oh, fuck no.
He landed on top of her, but she shoved on to her side, unbalancing him. As she scrambled away from him, he followed.
I grabbed him just as he reached for her, pitched him, and installed myself between them. I glanced at Jacqueline and saw blood coating her chest. A huge, dark circle of it, like a gunshot wound, blooming, fatal. Fuck no fuck no fuck no – but she was scuttling backwards on her hands, and her eyes were wide. If she’d been shot or stabbed there, she wouldn’t be moving.
When he stood, I saw that his face was bloody under his nose. She had made him bleed.
I would make him bleed more.
My eyes had almost adjusted to the dark, but the Hellers had motion-detecting floodlights, and our movements activated one of them. It popped on – a dim little spotlight for our fight scene.
Buck’s dark eyes were focused and unswerving, no alcohol marring his coordination. He tried to circle round, as if I was going to let him anywhere near her ever again. I moved with him, facing him, aware of Jacqueline and her exact location. I felt her behind me as if she was part of my body. Flesh of my flesh. Blood of my blood.
‘I’m gonna bust that lip wide open, emo boy,’ he said. ‘I’m not fucked up this time. I’m stone-cold sober, and I’m gonna kick your ass before I fuck your little whore nine ways from Sunday – again.’
Weak words from a weak man. He didn’t know he was already dead. ‘You’re mistaken, Buck.’
I removed my jacket and shoved my sleeves up, and he took the first swing. I blocked it. He repeated the movement – because this asshole didn’t learn – and I blocked it again. Rushing me, he tried one of his predictable wrestling moves.
Jab to the kidney. Open-handed slap to the ear.
He reeled, pointing at Jacqueline. ‘Bitch. Think you’re too good for me – but you’re nothing but a whore.’
I held my temper by a hair. He wanted it to snap, because people forget what they’re doing when they allow their temper free rein. They make the stupid, critical mistakes that I didn’t intend to make. My temper would remain caged until I had him down and disorientated.
When he tried to grab me again, I snatched and twisted his arm, aiming to dislocate his shoulder. He turned into it, so I didn’t quite wrench it out of joint, but I landed my first satisfying, face-crunching fist to his jaw. As soon as his head swivelled back round, he got another to the mouth. He blinked, staring, seeking an exposed spot. Wasn’t gonna happen.