Chapter Fifteen
“Oh, God.” Everything in my head shut down for a millisecond. Those boys could have naked pictures of my sister. She was only seventeen. Seventeen with naked pictures. If they got posted on the Internet she’d never escape them.
“Sam, give us a sec.” Josh pulled his shirt over his head as she nodded and shut the door.
April didn’t have time for me to freak out. I pulled my bra up and tugged the neckline of my dress to where it belonged. Untangling from the covers, my heels fell to the floor, and I slid my dress down from my waist. “Where are my panties?” I panicked, throwing back the covers.
Josh held up the purple pair, and kneeled down so I could step into them. He slipped them over my thighs, and though I knew sex wasn’t on his mind, it was still pretty damn hot when he met my eyes.
“You okay?” I couldn’t believe I’d left him in this situation again.
He nodded. “Let’s help your sister.”
I rearranged my dress again, then flung open the door.
Sam leaned back against the wall. “This way.” I secured loose pieces of my hair as I followed her down the hall. Three, no, four doors down, she pounded on the door. “Open up!”
“Go away!” a gruff voice answered.
“April?” I called into the door, trying the knob anyway. It was locked. Too bad they hadn’t locked it in the first place. Then again, Josh and I hadn’t, either. I shoved the handle again, like my sheer determination to get my sister out of there would magically open the damn thing. “April!” I shouted, pounding on the door.
“Get the hell out of here!” The guy yelled again. I didn’t know Tyler Rozly, but if he had my sister in that room, he was on my shit list.
A pair of hands gently pushed me aside. Josh was here. He pounded once on the door. “Tyler, open the door now.”
“Hell no!” The giggle that accompanied the declaration was enough to tell me April was in there.
“Tyler, it’s Walker, and if you don’t open this goddamned door in twenty seconds, I will get your ass thrown out. Now. She’s a minor.” The veins in his neck pulsed.
A muffled curse made its way through the door, and I mentally counted each of the seconds Josh threatened Tyler with. In eighteen seconds, the lock clicked, and the door swung open to reveal a shirtless guy I assumed was Tyler. “What the hell are you cock-blocking me for, Walker?”
I slid between Tyler and the doorframe. “April?”
My sister sat up in the bed, clutching the sheet to her bare top. “Ember?”
All of my rage toward April turned on Tyler. “That’s my little sister!”
Tyler crossed his arms, but standing next to Josh he couldn’t pull off intimidating. Josh dwarfed him. “She didn’t seem too ‘little’ to me.”
Josh stepped in front of me before I could get my hand across Tyler’s smirking face. A*shole! “She’s seventeen, dude. Last time I checked, you’re twenty-one, which makes her jailbait.”
Tyler paled. “No, you’re wrong. She looked young so I asked to see her UCCS ID when she came in. Her name was on the list and everything.”
April sat silent in the bed, giving me a guilty look I knew all too well.
“You took my ID.”
“It’s not like you needed it.” She went from contrite to accusatory in a breath.
“You’re December?” Tyler blanched, all of his earlier bravado discarded on the floor with April’s underwear. Shit. Her underwear was on the floor!
“Apparently. And you’re an a*shole for sleeping with my seventeen-year-old sister.” Before I could launch any further, the foghorn sounded down the hall. I’d almost forgotten. “Josh?”
He nodded. “I got this.” He slid past Sam and took off.
April still hadn’t moved. “Put. Your. Clothes. On.” I seethed on each word. She grimaced like she was going to argue with me. “What? Do you want more naked pictures?”
“Naked pictures?”
My fingernails bit into my palms. “Those guys had a camera!”
That got her moving.
Tyler slid down the back of his door, defeated. I couldn’t blame him, not really. He’d questioned her, she’d given him my ID. She’d duped him.
“Hell no, Walker! The pics are ours!” The shouts came amid pounding feet in the hallway.
I stuck my head out of the door and saw the golf-clad freshmen racing around the banister and down the center steps. They were going to get away with those pictures. Josh slid around the corner, took one look at the distance, threw his legs over the banister, and jumped. He landed right in front of the freshmen.
My breath caught and couldn’t seem to catch back up.
“Give me the f*cking camera.” He snatched it away, ripped the SD card out of the side, and threw it back at them before they could sputter another protest. “If I ever catch you taking pictures of any females without their consent again, you won’t have to worry about making it as a brother. You won’t have to worry about taking another breath. No arguing. No second chances. Understood?”
The three nodded their heads, their eyes downcast. “Yeah.”
“Clean the damn kitchen.”
“Ah, man! Walker!”
“Now.” He didn’t have to shout, they got his meaning and scurried off. He glanced up at me and gave a tight-lipped half smile, holding up the SD card. I took my first full breath.
I couldn’t find my voice. How could I tell him what that meant to me? I mouthed the words, “Thank you.”
He nodded, his eyes softening.
April pushed past me, fully dressed and yanking on her coat. I stepped forward, catching her arm. “Oh no, you’re coming with me.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Or what?”
“Or I tell Mom.”
Her mouth snapped shut with a clicking sound. I led her around the banister and down the steps. Josh took point and led us out of the party, Sam in our wake. The music pounded and the crowd had grown, but the guys moved out of Josh’s way. The girls were another story. They all stepped into his path, touching his arm or calling his name to get his attention. He nodded politely and smiled at each one of them but didn’t slow our exit from the house.
The cold air hit me as we stepped onto the front porch. Josh threw his jacket around my shoulders. When had he picked that up? He kept his hand on the small of my back as we got to my car. I spotted April’s car a few spots over.
“I’m not going with you,” she argued.
Sam rolled her eyes. “I’m not sure you’re in a position to argue.”
“What, like you get to tell me what to do?”
“Sam saved your ass.” Josh’s tone said he’d had enough, but his eyes were soft when he looked down to me. “Do you want me to take you home?”
I shook my head. “I think I need a minute with my sister.”
He nodded and glared back at April. “Give your keys to Sam.”
April sputtered, and I nearly lost it. “Give them to her now, April.”
She cursed, but she did it.
Sam gave us a mock salute as she headed off toward April’s little coupe. “See you at home.”
April crossed her arms and leaned against my car.
Josh handed me the SD card. “I’m sorry about how tonight turned out.”
I shook my head with a small smile. “Not all of it.”
“Not all of it,” he agreed, a wicked glint catching his eye in the moonlight. “Do you want my help getting her home?”
April scoffed and raised her eyebrows.
“I’ve got this. Don’t worry.”
Something flashed across his eyes, like he was remembering my bitchy tirade last week. But he wasn’t one to bear a grudge, and the look passed with a sigh. He skimmed his hand over my cheek and slowly, giving me time to decline, brushed his lips over mine. “Tomorrow?”
“I’ll see you at practice,” I said against his lips, wanting to stay just a moment longer.
“I can’t wait.” He gave me a soft smile, and went back to the party.
I watched him walk away and felt a twinge of jealousy. We weren’t exclusive. Hell, we weren’t even dating, but something ripped apart in me at the thought of him finishing what we’d started upstairs with some other girl.
But I had to take care of April; I couldn’t follow him back into the party no matter how badly I craved being around him.
Freaking April.
“Pictures?” I held up the SD card for punctuation. “Do you know what these could have done to you? You can’t get away from crap like this once someone puts it on Facebook.”
She dropped her gaze. “I didn’t know they had a camera.”
“You shouldn’t have been here in the first place!” I threw the SD card to the pavement and crushed it beneath my shoe, breaking it into pieces under my heel.
“You’re not my mom!”
“You’re acting like you sure as hell need me to be.” I couldn’t escalate her temper tantrum. “You want to get drunk and laid?” I threw my arms out, palms up. “Be my guest! But you have a boyfriend, or did Brett just morph into Tyler? Is that who you are now?”
“I told Brett I needed some space, and he understood. It’s not like I’m a virgin, or like Tyler is the only guy I’ve been sleeping with!”
Horror nearly froze me. “What is going on with you, April? This isn’t you.”
“Like you’d even understand!”
It felt like she’d slapped me. “What do you mean?”
She tucked her red hair behind her ear, a nervous trait we both shared with our mother. “Dad died, Ember.”
If she’d wanted my defenses up, that was the way to do it. “Yeah, I remember.”
“You . . .” Tears welled in her eyes. “You just picked up and went along perfectly! Everyone else is falling apart and you’re just . . . perfect little Ember! I don’t expect you to understand how this feels or why I’m here because I’m not . . . perfect!”
A ball of frustration worked its way into my throat, nearly choking me. “You really don’t think I know what you’re doing, April? You’re here to forget.”
Her head snapped up, her gaze meeting mine, but she didn’t speak.
“You want to forget everything that hurts. You don’t want to think about the fact that Mom can’t seem to function, or that Gus doesn’t have a dad . . . that we don’t have Dad.” Now it was my eyes that were blurring. “You’re sick of crying, and worrying, and the f*cking pain! So you lose yourself in someone, and you give over to those feelings because for those few moments, there’s nothing in your head or your heart but the way he’s making you feel. Yeah, April, I get it.”
She shook her head, her mouth hanging open like a fish sucking air. “You do? How?”
I leaned back against the car next to her, freezing my skin where it met with metal. “Because I’ve done the same exact thing.”
“No way.”
I looked away, toward the frat house where Josh was doing God-knows-what with God-knows-who. “Not my finest moment, but Riley put me back into a tailspin, and Josh . . .”
“OMG! You slept with Josh Walker? Details!”
“No, I did not sleep with him!” A heavy sigh escaped me. I couldn’t blame her for what I’d done, too. “But that’s only because he is a really, really, exceptionally good guy. He knew what I was doing, and he . . . took care of me, watched out for me.”
“I’d like to take care of him,” she muttered.
I smacked the back of her head. “Knock it off. I’m just saying I know what you’re feeling, because I am, too. But you can’t sneak into a strange guy’s bed and sleep around. You’re giving away all these pieces of yourself, and if you don’t stop, there’s not going to be anything left of who you really are.”
She sniffed and rested her head on my shoulder. I leaned my head on top of hers. “April, I’m not perfect. I’m a train wreck, and I have been since long before Dad died. I only stepped up because I was the one who could. Mom wasn’t functioning, and Gus needed someone. You needed someone. I couldn’t let it in, I couldn’t let the pieces fall. I still can’t. Why do you think I’m here, going to this school we both know wasn’t even on my fallback list?”
“I thought you wanted to go to Vanderbilt? Whatever happened to that?”
“I clung to a plan because it made me feel better, a plan that had nothing to do with what I wanted. I let myself get sucked into someone else’s dream. What you call being perfect is actually me treading water with every ounce of strength I have so I don’t drown.”
We stood there quietly for a few moments, both staring up at the crystalline Colorado stars. They were clearer here than at any other duty station we’d been to, and definitely one of my favorite parts of living here. I made out the shape of Orion in the sky and waited for April to speak, content to stay as long as she needed me to.
“I’m kind of glad you’re as much of a mess as I am,” she whispered.
I closed my eyes and sighed. “I’m so much more screwed up than you could ever be, April. But it would really help my shit pile if you could keep yourself together just a little.”
She nodded against my shoulder. “Can we go home?”
“Sounds like a plan. I can’t feel my knees as it is.” We both burst into laughter for a moment before she grasped my hand.
“Thank you for getting the SD card.”
“It was all Josh.” Gus and hockey, April and the card, me and . . . whatever we were doing. One by one, he seemed to be saving every member of my family.
“He’s pretty amazing.”
“Yeah, tell me something I don’t already know.”
“I wouldn’t mind ‘forgetting’ for a while with him. As a matter of fact, for Josh Walker, I’d consider temporary amnesia.”
I gave her a light push and then hugged her back. “Ugh. No more talking about Josh.”
“Just sayin’, I’ve seen that picture of him on your wall at home. The newspaper clipping from when they won state when you were in high school. You had a huge thing for him.” She tilted her head back at me. “You still do. There’s nothing wrong with getting over Riley, Ember. Or Dad.”
“It’s too soon. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing with myself. I can’t bring someone else down with me.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“I don’t know.” Panic choked my voice as I realized I’d just shamelessly sent Josh more-than-mixed signals. What the hell was wrong with me?
Sunday afternoon, the doorbell chimed as I walked into my favorite creamery, ready for a fix. I hadn’t seen Josh since Friday, and as hard as I was trying to distance myself and take it slow, I missed him. I’d thought of a dozen reasons to go over to his apartment yesterday, from the mundane, “can I borrow a cup of sugar?” to “our garbage disposal broke.” I’d debated chucking a wrench into it just for the excuse. By this morning, I’d been jonesing for the taste of Josh, so strawberry ice cream, like the night I’d apologized in his apartment, would have to do.
If I hurried, I could grab Gus a cone and get it home before it melted. It was still early enough that Mom wouldn’t flip that I’d spoiled his dinner.
“Next!” the black-aproned attendant called out.
Two scoops of strawberry in a sugar cone and two scoops of mud pie in a waffle cone later, I paid the clerk. Strawberry ice cream filled my mouth, and I smiled. I could almost feel his hands on my face, and his voice in my ear. As I rounded the corner near the register, the rest of the store came into view, and I about choked on my ice cream.
I could hear him laughing from here and the smile that lit up Josh’s face was breathtaking. It was mirrored by the enormous grin on my little brother’s chocolate-covered face as he sat across from him, his arms waving in the air like mad.
“And then guess what? Mrs. Bluster said my volcano was the most awesome volcano she’d ever seen! And then I got to start it up! And then guess what? It exploded!” His hands went wild in animation. “And then everyone’s like, ‘cool!’ but I don’t think Mrs. Bluster thought so. I mean, there was red stuff all over the white board and the floor!”
I laughed out loud, imagining the scenario he painted so vividly.
“I’m sure she thought your volcano’s unpredictability was awesome. All the best ones are, you know,” Josh answered.
Gus waved when he saw me. “Ember!”
I crossed the room, keeping my eyes locked on Gus. “I was going to surprise you with this.” I handed him the cone. “But it appears you’ve already been kidnapped.”
He grinned up at me, sporting another lost tooth. “Cool! Double ice cream! Thanks!” Gus dug in, and I prayed I didn’t just cause him a huge bellyache.
I glanced at Josh, who looked as happy and surprised to see me as I was to see him.
“Hey.” He pulled out a chair, and I took it, sitting between them. “Gus, you lied,” Josh accused, mock shock on his face.
Gus’s brow furrowed. “No, she doesn’t like strawberry. She likes cookies ’n’ cream.”
I took another swipe at the ice cream so I wouldn’t have to talk. Josh wasn’t fooled. “Funny.” He laughed. “Strawberry’s my favorite.”
I knew I was turning shades way darker than the ice cream. “I just wanted to change it up,” I lied. No, I’d wanted to taste Josh, and he knew it.
“So, what am I supposed to do with this?” he asked playfully, pointing to the hand-packed quart of cookies ’n’ cream.
“Oh, I’ll eat that, too,” I promised. He’d bought me ice cream!
“Good to know you have a weakness besides coffee, Miss Howard.”
He didn’t know that he was my other vice, and he stared at me in a way that made me picture more Sunday afternoons and ice cream stores. “I have a ton of weak spots, Mr. Walker.”
“Done!” Gus shouted like he’d won a race.
“Gus, man. You’re a mess.”
He was right. Gus’s entire mouth was covered and most of his cheeks assaulted, too. He’d put away two scoops faster than I’d managed one. I pointed to the bathroom. “Clean it up, buddy.” He gave me a mile-wide grin and slipped into the bathroom.
“You really bought me ice cream?” I asked Josh.
“How else was I supposed to find an excuse to see you? Borrow fake sugar?” My cheeks burned. He leaned forward on his elbows. “Besides, you really bought my ice cream?” He dipped forward and took a mouthful of the strawberry, leaving some around his mouth.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “I missed you, I guess.”
He ran his tongue over his lower lip, catching the rest of the pink ice cream. “If your brother wasn’t with us, I’d kiss you.”
Yes, please. I was ready to crawl across the table, ice cream and all, for it. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“When are you going to put me out of my misery?” he asked with a smile, biting into my cone.
“You don’t look miserable to me.” I wiped away a drop of ice cream from his lip with my thumb, and licked it off.
He groaned. “Trust me, I am. When are you going to let me take you out?”
My eyebrows raised. “Like an actual date?”
“Yeah, you know, like pick you up, we go out, have a good time, I steal a good night kiss?” He leaned back across the table and whispered, “I get to tell people you’re mine?”
Could I do that? Was I ready? First dates weren’t exactly commitments, right? Gus saved me from answering by walking back in, clean face and all. We stood, tossed our trash, and headed for the parking lot.
“Want me to take you home, Gus?” I asked as we stood halfway between our cars.
“I’ve got a better idea,” Josh interrupted. “What do you say to laser tag?”
Gus lit up. “Heck yes!” He scrambled into Josh’s Jeep.
Josh turned back to me in question. “Ember? Want to shoot at each other in the dark?”
He was giving up his Sunday afternoon for ice cream and laser tag with my little brother. “Where is your flaw, Josh Walker?”
He laughed. “I keep it in the closet.”
I slid next to him as he told Gus to move to the backseat and reached on tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “If it’s dark in there, does it mean I get a kiss?”
He turned around so I was against his chest. “I have half a mind to tell you no more kisses until I get a date.”
“Oh?” I stepped back so Gus wouldn’t get the wrong . . . ahem, right . . . idea.
“Yeah, but you see, that’s my flaw, December Howard.” He helped me into the Jeep and reached across to buckle me in. He slid back, stopping to whisper in my ear. “I have no self-control when it comes to you.”
Problem was, I saw that as a virtue, not a flaw.