20
Landon
‘See, Standish, here’s the deal …’ Boyce sometimes sounded like a long-suffering parent, which in a way was just meaner. It made people think things weren’t as serious as they were. ‘You’ve gotten yourself into some deep shit, dude.’
I rolled my eyes? arms crossed over my chest, one hip braced against a chipped sink.
Eddie Standish faced Boyce but eyed me from the side without turning towards me, like a bird. The better to track where I was … without looking me in the eye. ‘I just need a little more time, you know?’
‘Ah,’ Boyce said, pursing his lips. ‘See, that’s the problem. Your time – it’s kinda run out.’
Standish blinked and his face went blotchy. Jesus, I hope he didn’t cry. I hated when they cried. ‘Run out? Whaddaya mean, run out? Y’all know me. Thompson knows me. Can’t I, like, have an extension?’ He turned away and ran both hands through his hair, tugging it – but when he turned back, it was like he’d put on a mask. ‘C’mon, Wynn. Don’t be a dick.’ A superior, better than thou, I’m about to get my ass handed to me mask.
Wynn looked at me. Is he doing what I think he’s doing?
I shrugged. Yeah, man.
A lowerclassman came through the bathroom door then, took one look at the three of us and backed straight out, eyes bulging.
Wynn angled his head and walked up to Standish. ‘So I’m the dick, eh? Not the guy who’s two hundred – is it two hundred, Maxfield?’
‘Yep.’
‘Two hundred bucks in debt for shit he traded for p-ssy.’ Boyce laughed, and Standish laughed, too. Idiot. ‘I could make a comment here about the fact that Maxfield and I don’t have to pay for p-ssy – ever. I could comment about how sad and pathetic it is that (a) you have to pay to get laid or that (b) doing so narrows the field to girls who’d do a guy for free shit in the first place, but I won’t.’
Boyce stared at his feet, fingers on his chin, tapping – which meant he was about to turn philosophical. F*ck. I had a class to get to.
‘Now, I’ve got nothing against a girl who enjoys her body in the same manner I do mine, though there is a difference between bein’ a slut – like me – and bein’ a prostitute.’ Boyce peered back at Standish. ‘I don’t judge them. A girl’s gotta do – et cetera, et cetera. But guys like you – who only get it when you pay for it? That is just tragic. In a really humorous sort of way, when you want to turn round and call me a dick.’
There was a pause as Standish absorbed this. ‘I don’t really give those bitches any of my shit, man,’ he said, laughing nervously, like we were all tight. ‘I just tell ’em I’m gonna, then go ahead and f*ck ’em. What are they gonna do? Cry rape? They’re addicts and whores.’ He looked between us, swallowing. ‘I – uh, I traded most of the shit for a carburettor.’
‘I really wish you hadn’t said that,’ I said, my voice low.
‘Standish, dude … First, tradin’ a substantial amount of shit for car parts? That’s dealing, dickwad. In Thompson’s territory.’ Boyce glanced at me. ‘And as for that other thing? You just f*cked yourself, man. My friend Maxfield, here – he’s got issues with the r-word.’
I watched Standish think hard to remember what r-word he’d said. ‘B-but, you can’t rape a junkie whore –’
He didn’t finish his sentence. I didn’t really mean to knock a tooth out – that was a bonus. I meant to motivate him to get creative with getting Thompson his two hundred dollars, and I meant to make it so he couldn’t speak or eat normally for a month. Done and done.
He paid up the next day. Boyce heard he pawned his dad’s Rolex, and he lost twenty pounds he was already too scrawny to lose with the forced-liquid diet he was on for six weeks.
The hitch came from the fact that we were on school property when Standish acquired his motivation. Though we preferred to keep these confrontations off campus, he’d made himself scarce for days. But school was compulsory, and it’s not hard to find someone when the whole student body is less than two hundred bodies. We figured out his schedule and set up an ambush – Boyce slinging an arm round his shoulders, laughing and smiling like they were bros, while steering him into the out-of-the-way bathroom.
Standish’s unfortunate accident put us back on Ingram’s radar. We were called to her office out of shop. Boyce guessed the lowerclassman snitched, because he was pretty sure Standish would shit himself before he’d rat us out as the guys who messed him up.
‘Except for that Jekyll and Hyde act of his – maybe he is dumb enough,’ I said.
‘Who and hide what?’ Boyce frowned. ‘That’s a book, right? Never mind. Just deny.’
‘Agreed.’
We were installed in the same chairs we’d occupied two years ago, after the infamous hallway brawl no one ever admitted witnessing. Ingram narrowed unblinking eyes. ‘I find it interesting that you two were seen with Edward Standish just before he left this school with his front tooth in his hand, a bloody mouth, and years of expensive orthodontia destroyed.’
Boyce staged an impromptu coughing fit to hide laughter. If there was one thing Boyce Wynn couldn’t do well – aside from reading for comprehension – it was pretending he wasn’t laughing when he was laughing. I concentrated on maintaining a blank expression. She couldn’t expel us for beating the shit out of a guy who swore we had nothing to do with it, and strangely, her eyewitness also retracted his story. I was sure Boyce was behind that, but I didn’t ask.
We’d been out on the water for two hours before the girl in the red-and-white-striped bikini deigned to speak to me. She made me think of a hot little peppermint stick. Snobby, but hot. I wasn’t particular about attitude, though, because a cute girl on the boat was rare. It made for a better view for the day than miles of water, coastline and fish, if nothing else.
‘Guys who are, like, emo or goth or whatever at my school are a lot … paler than you. And less muscled up. I thought that anaemic look was part of the lifestyle. Or whatever.’
I squinted one eye to peer at her. She’d sidled up next to me as I prepared to bait the rod on the starboard side. We were trolling deep today.
‘Lifestyle?’ I chuckled. ‘I don’t really have time to establish a philosophy,’ sweetheart, I would have added, if she wasn’t a client’s daughter. ‘I just am what I am.’
‘And what’s that?’ She had a wicked gleam in her eye I hadn’t noticed in the first two hours of this trip. Then again, she’d spent that time working on a tan behind the dark sunglasses now perched on her head while trying to ignore her parents, who were trading veiled and not-so-veiled insults at the back of the boat.
A smile hitched my mouth on one side. ‘What do you want me to be?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘That line work on the girls around here?’
I ran the tip of my tongue over my lip ring and squatted down to snap open a bait bucket, a movement that exhibited those muscles she’d noted. ‘Yep.’
She arched a brow. ‘What else works on them?’
I looked over my shoulder, where my dad was at the wheel and wasn’t, at the moment, giving me the evil eye. ‘Why don’t I teach you how to bait this hook and hold this rod while we talk about that further?’ I looked over the top of my sunglasses at her. ‘If you really want the answer to that question, it might take a little while to itemize the data.’
As I stood, she moved in front of me, bracing her feet apart to ride the gulf’s undulations on deck. It was choppy out today and would have been better to go into the bay, but her dad wanted to fish in open water.
‘I know all about bad boys and lures and baitin’ hooks …’ She put both hands together on the railing, staring out at the water. But from my position over her shoulder, she’d just pressed a perfect swell of cleavage together, almost up and out of her tiny bikini top. Lures indeed. ‘… and holdin’ rods – what was your name again?’
‘Landon.’
‘Nice to meet you, Landon. I’m Chastity.’
I knew her name, having paid attention to her parents introducing themselves and her before we all set out on this excursion. Before it became obvious that her parents were going to spend the day at each other’s throats, hissing comments or ignoring each other. Hell, her mom had even flirted with my dad. Not that he paid her any mind.
‘Chastity.’
We heard the words know about and whore and jackass over the waves and gulls. My dad was making himself as scarce as possible, considering we were all stuck on thirty-two feet of boat. Chastity and I were trapped in the middle.
‘Parents having issues?’ I asked.
‘Dad and step-monster. And yeah. She’s accused him of gettin’ some on the side. Knowing my dad … it’s possible. Let’s not talk about them. They’re boring as hell and I want to have some fun on this stupid vacation. And, Landon, you look like fun to me.’ She manoeuvred round the rod, gripping it, and pressed her hip into me.
‘So, Chastity – is that an accurate designation or a misnomer?’
She laughed softly and leaned a shoulder into my chest, both hands sliding over the rod. ‘That’s for me to know, and –’
‘Oh, no worries. I fully intend to find out.’
‘Cocky son of a bitch, aren’t you?’
I smiled down at her. ‘I prefer confident son of a bitch … but yeah. So what’d you say you’re doing tonight?’
‘Mmm, how ’bout you?’
Despite what I told Chastity about lines and local girls, I rarely screwed around with them. They wanted dates and school dances and relationships – and I couldn’t have been less interested. The vast majority of the girls I messed around with were here temporarily. I met them on the beach, or at the Bait & Tackle, or somewhere in town. We hooked up in their rental condos or hotel rooms or on the beach, if it was dark and they were willing.
Chastity was game to play – but not out in public, dark or not, and not anywhere near her parents. When I picked her up, she said she’d convinced them she’d run into some friends from her school in Fayetteville. ‘I told them they’d drop me off by midnight, after a fish fry and s’mores on the beach.’
I couldn’t believe they’d fallen for that.
‘Take me to your place,’ she urged, after we’d kissed and strolled around on the beach with a few dozen other people. ‘I can be real quiet. Promise.’
So I did something I never did – I snuck a girl into my house. It was only ten or so, but Dad was an early riser and went lights-out early, too. His room was down the hallway from my pantry. We meandered through the dark living room and into the kitchen, avoiding every squeaky board.
Once we made it into my room, I shut the door and she whispered, ‘Holy shit, this is tiny. Is this a … a pantry?’
I switched on a nightlight I’d stuck in the wall and turned off the overhead light. Kicked off my battered deck shoes next to hers.
‘You want to discuss my room, or …?’
‘I just thought everything was bigger in –’
I stripped off my T-shirt and her mouth fell open. I leaned to kiss her, drew her tank over her head and pulled the tie at her nape, unwrapping that peppermint bikini top and spilling her tits into my hands. She scooted back on to the bed and I followed.
‘You were saying?’ I said, and she shook her head, pulling me down on top of her.
We woke up around one a.m., which would have been bad enough on its own since she was an hour past curfew and had missed calls, voice mails and text messages out the ass on her phone – which she’d switched to silent.
But the reason we woke up was because of Dad. I have no idea why he decided to open the door to my room. If he’d done that before, I didn’t know about it. Maybe he was checking to see if I was home for some reason. But Christ, we were all wide-awake five seconds later.
‘Landon Lucas Maxfield – what in holy f*ck are you doing?’ he bellowed, and then turned fully round, because Chastity sat straight up, still topless. ‘Jesus f*cking Christ! Can I assume her parents don’t know she’s here?’
I cleared my throat as we grabbed our clothes and put them on, awkwardly, stuck on my twin bed with Dad blocking the door. ‘No, Dad, they don’t.’
‘Do they know she’s with you?’
I looked at her. She shook her head. ‘No, Dad, they don’t.’
‘Get her back to her hotel. Immediately. Goddammit, Landon. Goddammit.’
This was the most I’d heard him cuss at one time in forever. As we passed him, the muscles in his throat clenched and his face was pure fury.
I dropped her at the entrance to the hotel. She’d texted her dad that she’d accidentally turned her phone off. He was waiting just inside the lobby, scowling, when we pulled up.
‘Shit,’ I said.
‘I’ll handle it. He deserves whatever he gets from me. Trust me.’ She turned back and leaned to kiss me. ‘Thanks for making this trip way better than I thought it would be. There’s a broody guy in my lit class with a few piercings. I always thought he was kinda creepy, but I may have to give him a shot now.’ She grinned and hopped out.
LUCAS
Sunday evening, I sent the last worksheet to Jacqueline, along with my now-standard message: New worksheet attached, LM. I wanted to say so much more, but what I most wanted to tell her couldn’t be reduced to words.
Near ten p.m., my cell rang. Jacqueline’s face filled the screen – a pic I’d snapped of her on this sofa. She smirked up at me like she had a secret.
We’d not communicated – aside from the self-defence-class interactions yesterday – in over a week. More importantly, she’d never called me before.
When I answered, she said, ‘I need you.’
I stood, dropping my pen and textbook on the sofa next to Francis, and strode to my bedroom. ‘Where are you?’ I shoved my lace-up boots aside and grabbed the Nocona shitkickers I’d had since I was seventeen – the only footwear I bought new in high school.
‘In my room.’
I shoved my feet into the boots and grabbed my hoodie on the way out the door. ‘Be there in ten minutes.’
Her answer, before disconnecting, was a near whisper. ‘Thank you.’
I got into her dorm as easily as I had last time, took the stairs two at a time and thumped softly on her door. A tremor passed through me. I had no idea what waited on the other side of this door, but whatever she needed me to be, I was ready to be it.
She opened the door, but didn’t push it aside. Her eyes filled with tears when she looked up at me.
‘Jacqueline – what –’
‘He did it again, Lucas – and it’s my fault.’
‘WHAT?’
‘Shhh.’ She shook her head, laid a hand on my arm and scanned the empty hallway. I heard voices from inside her room in the same moment she said softly, ‘Another girl. At a party, last night. She’s here. Erin and I don’t know what to do next.’ She swallowed. ‘She’s a freshman. She’s so upset, and scared, and we didn’t know who else to call. I’m sorry.’
I cupped her face in one hand. ‘Don’t ever apologize for calling me for help. I’ll do whatever you need. Will she talk to me?’
She nodded. ‘I think so. Erin’s told her that you teach the self-defence class and you’re campus police. Little white lies, but she’s just so scared …’
‘I understand.’ I took a calming breath and composed my features. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Mindi.’
Jacqueline’s roommate sat on her bed, one arm tightly surrounding a girl who reminded me of Carlie – pale blonde hair, heart-shaped face – every feature small and delicate except for her huge eyes. But I’d never seen Carlie like this.
‘Hi, Mindi. I’m Lucas.’ I approached her slowly.
‘Y-you don’t look like a p-police officer,’ she stuttered, breaths shaky, speech broken from crying.
Lip ring, longish hair, hoodie – I didn’t look like the most trustworthy guy, and I certainly didn’t look official. I squatted in front of her, but not too close. ‘I’m actually a student. But I have a work-study job with the police department.’
She seemed to accept this.
‘So the thing is, we need to get you to the hospital so you can see a counsellor and a doctor, and see about filing a report.’ Her eyes filled with tears, and I continued. ‘You’ll need to be really brave to do that stuff, but Erin and Jacqueline think you can do it, and so do I.’
‘Absolutely,’ Erin said, holding her hand. ‘And I won’t leave you for a minute.’
Mindi sniffled and wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. ‘Okay.’ Her voice was high-pitched, like a child.
‘Do you have parents nearby?’ I asked, fighting to unclench my jaw. I could have ground glass between my teeth.
She shook her head. ‘They’re in Pennsylvania. But I can’t call them. I can’t.’ Her hysteria escalated with each word. ‘They’ll be so mad that I was drinking –’
‘You don’t have to call them yet,’ I said. ‘But there’s no way they’ll be angry with you.’ I hoped this was true. If this was Carlie, or Jacqueline … best not to go down that path just now. I took another calming breath. ‘You can talk to the counsellor about how to tell them, okay?’
She nodded, mimicking my deep breath with one of her own, shuddering and gripping Erin’s hand.
‘So we should go to the hospital, then, Lucas?’ Erin asked. ‘We can take my car.’
‘Will you be there?’ Mindi asked me then, her voice hoarse. She must have cried for most of the day. I recalled Jacqueline the night of the Halloween party. The tears in her eyes. Her shaking hands. If I knew where that a*shole lived, he’d be dead by the end of the night.
I glanced at Erin and she nodded. ‘If you want,’ I answered. Mindi nodded. Fifteen minutes later, the four of us entered the ER, and I found out how difficult it is to tell.
I fixed my poker expression in place when the details of last night’s party began coming out, before we even left the room. It had been a big deal event – a formal, multi-frat party, with both Buck and Kennedy Moore in attendance – and Jacqueline went. She’s not Greek, so there was no requirement for her to go, no expectations of her presence there.
‘Erin needed me as a buffer with her ex,’ she offered in the backseat on the way, her voice a murmur. I hadn’t asked her why she went.
Once we were alone in the waiting room, I had to know if Buck had approached her. ‘So did he talk to you? Last night?’ I didn’t look at her or tag the question with a name. I was certain she knew who I meant.
‘Yeah. He asked me to dance.’
I sat stock-still and couldn’t look at her. I wasn’t angry with her – I wasn’t. But the thought that she’d put herself that close to him without me there scared the unholy f*ck out of me. Finally, I raised my eyes to hers.
‘I said no,’ she said, as if she was at fault for any of this. As if she was placating jealousy, when all I felt was terror and an unconditional, all-encompassing need to protect her.
‘Jacqueline,’ I spoke low, forcing my jaw to release. ‘It’s taking everything I’ve got right now to sit here and wait for law-abiding justice to take care of this, instead of hunting him down myself and beating the f*cking shit out of him. I’m not blaming you – or her. Neither of you asked for what he did – there’s no such thing as asking for it. That’s a f*cking lie argued by psychopaths and dumbasses. Okay?’
She nodded, saying nothing, and I asked if he accepted her no. My temper was in danger of snapping. I felt it, twisting and stretching, striving to free itself, promising retribution and vengeance I had no right to mete out. I was just this side of containing it.
She told me her ex was with her, and he’d noticed her discomfort. She told him what happened that night. ‘He was angrier than I’ve ever seen him. He took Buck outside and talked to him, told him to stay away from me … which probably made Buck feel weak, and that’s why …’ Her words trailed off.
Jacqueline thought Buck’s resentment over Moore’s dressing-down was why he’d raped Mindi. The sad truth was, that was possible – guys like him are weaklings who act out when they feel powerless – but what Jacqueline couldn’t understand was that his actions were still no one’s fault but his.
‘What did I just say?’ I told her. ‘This is not your fault.’
I wished I could make her believe me.
Unless Francis had learned to make a fist, there was someone at my door at 1:15 in the morning. I glanced through the peephole with a baseball bat in my hand. And then I dropped the bat back into the corner, unlocking and yanking the door open.
‘Jacqueline? Why –?’ I pulled her inside and relocked the door. ‘What’s wrong?’
She stared up at me, her eyes wide and frightened, and my heart nearly quit beating.
‘I wanted to tell you that I just – I miss you,’ she blurted, her voice frantic, almost winded. ‘And maybe that sounds ridiculous – like we barely know each other, but between the emails and texts and … everything else, I felt like we did. Like we do. And I miss – I don’t know how else to say it – I miss both of you.’
The distress on her face was … because she missed me?
She shouldn’t be here. Heller was right on the other side of the yard. I’d promised him to be appropriate with her for the remainder of the semester, but the desire coiling through me was anything but appropriate. It was fire and possession, adoration and need, hunger and thirst and an impossible, unbearable hope. I couldn’t stand the thought of her leaving me for five minutes, let alone forever. I couldn’t have her, but I wanted her so, so badly.
Her bad-boy phase. Her rebound.
I felt it like a physical, internal malfunction – the split second my control snapped. When I no longer cared what I lost outside of this moment, because I couldn’t stand to lose what was right in front of me.
‘F*ck it,’ I said, shoving her to the door and caging her with my arms, prising her mouth open with mine and kissing her as if I could swallow her down and keep her from breaking me.
I pulled away long enough to strip her coat off and haul her to the sofa, to my lap, my hands behind her knees, spreading them into position on either side of my hips and tugging her to fit against me. My left hand pressing her closer, I cradled her beautiful face in my right and kissed her. I wanted to kiss her forever. Make love to her all night. F*ck her until she belonged to me and no one else, without care of consequences – and there were so many consequences to choose from.
I tossed the glasses I wore late at night, uncaring whether they hit the side table or flew across the room. I ripped off my T-shirt and then slowed to remove hers, my hands shaking with a gentleness I had to force. As I slid my hands to her sides, she huddled closer, slipped her arms round my neck and her hands into my hair. I kissed the side of her mouth, her sigh containing the softest little moan, and ducked below her chin to kiss and suck the fragile skin of her lovely throat – the origin of the passionate sounds and garbled words she uttered as her head fell back.
I paid particular attention to the singular freckle that drove me insane – it was like a tiny clue, put there for me to find – the start here on a treasure map. I lapped my tongue across it, and she pitched against me, hands gripping my hair. Fantasies exploded in my mind, too good, too perfect. I wanted her, like this – all of her.
Everything slowed.
I removed her bra, cupping her breasts and teasing them with my fingers – light circular trails round each nipple, thumbs sweeping underneath. She leaned down to kiss me, drawing my tongue into her mouth and sweeping hers across and round it, sliding her hand from my chest to my stomach to the still-tied strings on the front of my pyjama bottoms – thin, soft flannel that couldn’t conceal what my body wanted from her.
But I’d made a promise. I’d made a promise.
My hands slid into her hair at the nape and I pressed my forehead to her shoulder, eyes closed. ‘Tell me to stop,’ I breathed.
‘I don’t want you to stop,’ she whispered, her breath in my ear, temptation incarnate.
For a suspended minute, I let her honeyed words absolve me of the promise I wanted to break, the ethics I was trashing, the heart I was letting her slice open – mine. I rolled us to our sides, unzipped her jeans and slid my fingers down and into her, curling them up and pressing as she gasped my name and gripped my arm like she’d never let go.
I could make her love me. I could be that next man for her …
Ah, I knew better.
‘Jacqueline. Say stop.’ I was begging her, unable to make myself let her go.
‘Don’t stop,’ she repeated, kissing me, and I clawed for solid ground when I wanted nothing more than to sink into her. She opened her mouth, kissing me, hinting at what could be mine if I just let go.
I promised.
Five seconds. I would pull her jeans away and take her right here on the sofa. ‘Say stop, please.’ Three seconds. I would carry her to my room, drop her on my bed, and begin with my mouth on her thigh. ‘Please.’ One second. I would betray the trust of the one person who’d never given up on me.
‘Stop,’ she said.
Thank you, I said. Or wanted to say, before I fell asleep, holding her.