22
Landon
I woke to the smell of coffee. Weird, because Dad was almost always gone by the time I woke up. I couldn’t imagine he’d cancelled scheduled excursions to discuss my arrest – he never backed out on his clients.
I emerged to find Charles Heller sitting at the kitchen table, no Dad in sight. He had a legal pad in front of him, along with his laptop and a local phone directory. He sat back and glanced up at me as I walked out into the kitchen.
‘Landon – I’d like to talk to you, if you’re willing. I brought toasted bagels, and I just started a fresh pot of coffee. I’ll give you a few minutes to wake up, and then we’ll chat. All right?’
Frowning, I nodded and went to the bathroom, digging some OTC pain meds from the cabinet over the sink. I could barely get the childproof lid off. My hand was so swollen it looked like it belonged to a cartoon character, and it hurt like hell. Everything was awkward without the use of it, from brushing my teeth to getting clothes off or on. I pulled on a tank and board shorts – which I gave up and left untied.
After I slumped into the bench seat across from Heller, he scooted a bagel loaded with cream cheese and a mug of black coffee towards me. He removed his reading glasses and looked at me, his gaze open and persistent, searching my face, my eyes. I wasn’t used to such close examination from someone who gave a shit about me. I knew I’d disappointed him. The shame was a landslide, so quick and overwhelming that I was buried in it before I could run away.
Eyes dropping to the mug in my hands, I fought to keep from tearing up and waited for whatever he had to say.
‘I have a proposition, and you’re free to take it or not,’ he began. ‘What I’m about to offer you isn’t a gift. It’s a challenge. If you don’t want to take it on, no one can make you do it, and no one will try to. Understand?’
I didn’t understand, but I nodded, silent.
‘I’ve written a list of what I want from you. And next to it, I’ve written what I’ll do, if you do these things to the best of your ability.’ He pushed the legal pad towards me, and I stared at it as he narrated. ‘First: school. I want you to start going to class, every day, every class. I want you to do the best you can, because I want you to go to college. You’ll need to sign up for some challenging courses next year, to prepare, and you’ll have to work very hard at pulling your current GPA up, because you’ve dug yourself a big hole, Landon.’
I wondered if he had any idea how bad it was. I couldn’t tell him.
‘Second: get a job. Any job. Something that gives you a paycheck, not cash from your dad. Something that gives you experience working for someone else. Third: quit the drugs and drinking. Drugs, entirely. Drinking – well, I’d be a hypocrite if I said I was making you swear not to touch a beer again until you’re twenty-one. But I want you to try, and I want you to keep control of yourself. And finally, I want you to enrol in taekwondo. If you’re going to fight, you need to know how to do it right, and you’re going to learn the reasons to do it, and more importantly, the reasons not to.’
I swallowed, and my first thought was that I couldn’t possibly do all of this. This wasn’t a challenge. This was impossible.
But I wanted to do it. I wanted to.
‘If you agree to do these things, here’s what I’ll agree to do: I’ll pay for the martial arts classes. They saved my ass and centred me as a young man, and I think they’ll do the same for you. Second, I’ll pull every damned string I can pull to get you probationary enrolment at the university.’ My eyes snapped to his. He worked for the best school in the state. ‘Barring that,’ he continued, ‘there’s community college. We’ve got a great one. You make a year of top grades there, and you should be able to transfer in. Either way, Cindy and I want you to come live with us. There’s an apartment over the garage housing a bunch of junk we don’t need. You’ll need to get a job to pay for tuition, but your housing will be covered.
‘I made a few calls this morning. I found a reputable dojang about twenty minutes away. If you accept my challenge, we’ll get you signed up today. I’ll take your signature at the bottom of this list as acceptance.’ He set a pen on top of the pad and stood. ‘Eat your breakfast and think it over. I’m going to go see Cindy and the kids off – they’re going on home today. I’ll be back in a little while.’
Laying a hand on my shoulder, he said, ‘I’ve also got a call in to the detective about your assault case. Your dad and I are going to see what we can do about that, regardless of what you decide here.’
He couldn’t have known how scared I’d been, how desolate I’d felt, sitting in that cell. I looked up at him to acknowledge everything he’d said, and I couldn’t speak. I just nodded. He patted my shoulder and was gone.
I signed that piece of paper before he’d been gone a full minute.
LUCAS
When I arrived for econ Wednesday morning, Jacqueline was talking to Moore in the hallway. The stiff set of his shoulders radiated frustration, and his tone confirmed it. ‘It never occurred to me that he’d do that.’
Jacqueline spotted me over his shoulder as I moved to stand next to her. ‘You okay?’ I asked.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, nodding. I glared at Moore for a moment before turning to enter the classroom. He recognized me and was fitting pieces together before I was out of earshot. ‘That guy’s in our class? And what the hell was that look for?’
He did not want to know what that look was for, or that I was more than capable of backing it up.
Jacqueline didn’t glance my way as the two of them entered, five minutes later. Heller had begun lecturing. Moore passed me, his expression grim, and Jacqueline slipped into her seat, composed. I took an easy breath.
Jacqueline and Mindi planned to file temporary emergency restraining orders this afternoon. I offered to get my shift covered so I could accompany her, but she said Mindi’s parents were taking good care of both of them. ‘Erin says they may withdraw her permanently.’
I wished for the hundredth time that I’d killed that bastard when I had the chance.
I watched my breath puff out like smoke and craved a cigarette for the first time in forever. I’d only ever smoked while drinking – and maybe that’s what I really wanted. Some numbing of this. Watching what that girl – just two years older than Carlie – had to go through to report what happened to her was unbelievable. She had the support of her parents and the backing of her sorority – but the one time I’d seen her since then, she still looked hollowed out.
Jacqueline hadn’t told her parents. After their disappearing act over Thanksgiving break, I could well imagine why.
When we got to her building, she turned to face me. Despite my bleak thoughts thirty seconds before, I smiled down at her adorable face – barely peeking from a knitted cap, a hooded coat and a fuzzy scarf wound several times round her neck, so high that it covered her mouth.
I touched my cold finger to her face, caressing the line of her jaw and dipping into that ridiculous scarf, revealing her full lips. ‘I’d like to see you, before you go home,’ I said.
She reminded me of her solo performance tonight, the recital she had to attend Friday, and her ensemble performance Saturday evening. I was officially convinced that music students had more outside-of-class obligations than any other majors.
‘I can come over tomorrow night, if you want,’ she said.
Oh, I wanted, all right. I nodded, ‘I want.’
Her eyes were impossibly big and blue, her dark pink lips begging to be kissed. I want to kiss you, Jacqueline, I thought. Right here, right now, in front of God and everybody. She would let me. I could see it in her eyes. To save us both, I tugged her scarf back into place. ‘You look like a partial mummy. Like someone was interrupted while winding you into your shroud.’
‘Maybe I did a hammer-fist strike and bloodied his nose before he could do all that gruesome mummy stuff to me,’ she said, and I laughed. When she leaned towards me, I couldn’t resist kissing her forehead, carelessly inhaling. Damn.
‘Text me when you’re done this afternoon?’ I said, stepping back.
Jacqueline: All done. TROs filed. He can’t come within 1000 ft of either of us.
Me: Good.
Jacqueline: Heading to my solo performance. Wish me luck!
Me: You won’t need it. You have magical fingers, remember?
Jacqueline:
I always knocked on the back door of the Hellers’ place before entering. Charles and Cindy had never been as demonstrative as my parents were, but you could never be too sure. I didn’t want to traumatize all of us by walking in on them when their kids were out and they thought they were alone.
Heller answered the door. ‘Landon, everything okay?’
Landon. I sighed. ‘Yeah. Great. I wanted to talk to you about … Jacqueline.’
His eyebrows rose, and then he smirked. ‘Come on in. I’m just making up my final exams for next week. My graduate students will loathe me by the time they finish.’ He rubbed his palms together, far too entertained by that thought. Undergrads almost always loved Heller. Graduate students thought he was Satan – but the ones he mentored knew their shit.
We sat at the kitchen table with a couple of beers.
‘Two things. One, I need to fill you in on my relationship with her …’
He braced himself. ‘Okay.’
‘I told you I’d known her before I became her tutor, as Lucas. What I didn’t tell you was how we actually met.’ I took a breath. ‘She was assaulted, outside a frat party on campus. I … stopped it. She didn’t want to report it.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ He pushed his laptop aside and leaned his elbows on to the notebooks spread over the table. ‘She was assaulted by another student?’
I nodded.
‘Why wouldn’t she report it? He’s undoubtedly dangerous –’
‘I’m … not done.’
He fell silent, frowning.
‘Charles, I stopped it before – before it went to the level of anything she could prove, physically. No bruising and no –’ I ground my teeth – ‘no penetration. The guy is a member of her ex’s fraternity. You know how those guys can be – they’d either not believe he did it, or they’d smear-campaign the shit out of her regardless. I couldn’t make her do it, though honestly, I didn’t try all that hard. So maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I hoped that beating him bloody would deter him. It didn’t.’
‘Oh, God. He did it again.’ His words were a statement, not a question.
‘Yeah. He raped another girl.’
‘What the –’
‘She’s reported it, and so has Jacqueline. And so did I.’
‘Is he out on his ass?’ His eyes blazed. ‘I don’t want that little prick prowling around my school.’
My lips twisted. ‘Rumour in PD is that administration will let him remain through finals week, if he only comes on to campus for his finals, and a member of his frat is with him at all times when he’s there.’
‘That is bullshit –’
‘Innocent until proven guilty, Charles.’
‘I know. I know.’ He sighed heavily, as frustrated as I’d been. ‘I just – I think of Carlie, and it makes me so f*cking furious –’ He stopped.
I ran a finger over the scar inside my left wrist, and neither of us spoke for a moment.
‘Jacqueline and the other student filed temporary restraining orders today. He can’t come within a thousand feet of them, on or off campus, or contact them in any way.’
He nodded, and I knew he was thinking what I was thinking: Not good enough. But it was something.
‘You said there were two things?’ he prodded.
I sucked on the ring in my lip, and he noticed. I had an unforgiving tell. I couldn’t keep from worrying the damned thing when I was anxious. I took a deep breath. ‘I want to see if the … um, student/tutor separation can be lifted now? We want to hang out tomorrow night. After I give my review. At which point my tutoring duties are sort of done …’
He angled one brow. ‘Hmm. Does she live in the area, or will she be leaving campus during winter break?’
‘Leaving.’
‘Ah, well. I’d suggest that you not go fully public until after the exam next week. But a little covert hanging out –’ He aimed a devious grin my way. ‘I suppose you two are capable of that.’
He thought Jacqueline was about to become my girlfriend – or already was. Furthermore, he looked thrilled at the prospect. I didn’t have the heart to set him straight.
Jacqueline was jittery during dinner. I made pasta, which seemed to impress her, again – but I figured she was nervous about what had happened last time. There wouldn’t be a repeat, but I couldn’t exactly tell her that without sounding like a dick. Hey, remember how I wanted to stop last time? Well, this time, I’m not stopping until you’re done screaming my name.
Yeah, no.
After I loaded our plates into the dishwasher, I pulled her closer and pretended to give her an impromptu self-defence lesson – taking her hands and pinning them behind her back. ‘How would you get out of this hold, Jacqueline?’
She told me, softly, that she wouldn’t want to get out of it.
‘But if you did want to. How would you?’ I pressed. She closed her eyes and gave me real answers – groin strike, instep stomp.
‘And if I kissed you, and you didn’t want me to?’
I expected her to use something she’d learned in the class – a head butt, maybe. But no. She told me she’d bite me, and goddamn, I almost lost it.
I kissed her, carefully, halfway hoping she would bite me. Instead, she ran her tongue across the inside of my lip and over the ring, and I put her on the counter so she was above me. Wrapping her arms and legs round me, she pushed her small tongue into my mouth. I sucked her tongue in deeper, caressing it with mine, nipping at it as she withdrew.
‘Holy crap,’ she breathed. I swept her off the counter and carried her to my bed, laying her down in the centre and kissing her until she was breathless. I stripped off her sweater and she unbuttoned my shirt while I went back to kissing her. When I touched a finger to the zipper of her jeans, she said, ‘Yes.’
I told her I hadn’t tried this with anyone significant in a long time, and she misunderstood and thought I was telling her I hadn’t had sex with anyone. I almost laughed, but there was nothing funny. ‘Not with anyone I cared about or … knew,’ I amended. ‘One-time things. That’s all.’ I was worried she’d be disgusted by that. Three years with Kennedy Moore – pretty sure she’d been there with him. But I figured there was a good chance that he was it.
‘That’s all – ever?’
‘It’s not like there’ve been tons of them.’ I felt like I should cross my fingers behind my back. ‘There were more before, in high school, than there have been the past three years.’ That much was true.
Braced above her, I stared as she told me she wanted this. Wanted me. ‘Please don’t ask me to say stop,’ she added.
She didn’t need to worry about that. My only concern was taking this slow enough to please her. I wanted her to feel beautiful and desired and fully, intensely, thoroughly satisfied.
I tugged her jeans down her legs and off, allowing my eyes to graze over her lovely body while I stripped off my shirt and jeans. I swept my fingers over her, lightly – the swell of her breasts above a lacy pink bra, the tiny oval hollow of her navel above the matching pink lace – and not much more – below. She was so incredibly hot, reaching for me, tracing the lines of my biceps and shoulders, palms sliding across my abs – her tongue darting out to wet her lips.
I grabbed a condom from the night table drawer, but when I resettled over her, she was shaking. I knew it wasn’t from cold, even if that’s where she placed the blame when I asked. She was tense, almost panicked, and I wasn’t sure why. I prayed it had more to do with inexperience than it did with what happened to her that night. Inexperience I could remedy. Dread or fear that summoned echoes of something as distressing as what happened to her – I wasn’t sure how to combat that.
I could stop. I could hold her. If her fear didn’t abate, that’s what I would do.
I sat back and pulled the covers down beneath her. The sheets were cool, increasing her shivering until I pulled the comforter back up and over both of us, laying on top of her, kissing her softly and warming her with my body. I felt her muscles loosen below my fingertips, her breaths coming faster, but deeper. I took her mouth slowly, gently, my hands cradling her head, coaxing her back to the heated state we’d been in when we left the kitchen. She snuggled under me, trusting, warm, relaxed.
‘Better?’ I asked, and she answered yes. ‘You know you can say it. But I’m not asking you to, this time.’
I bent to kiss her again, and she opened for me, tangling her tongue with mine, licking my lip, sucking lightly on the ring and pushing her fingers into my hair – holding my head at the exact angle she wanted me. When she scraped her short little nails from my shoulder blades to my hips, fingers dipping below the elastic of my boxer briefs as we kissed, I knew she was ready, but I kept the pace slow, intent on appeasing every desire she had. I unfastened her bra and removed it, slid her panties down her legs, removed my boxers and fixed the condom in place, and we never stopped kissing.
One hand at her hip, I leaned into her, opening her mouth with a deep, penetrating kiss as I thrust into her and remained just long enough for us to both feel the connection fully. Warm and tight, she was a perfect fit. Of course she was. I kissed her chin, her jaw, the edge of her hairline right next to her ear. ‘Beautiful girl,’ I murmured, withdrawing and returning. Stroking the interior of her mouth, I told her without words how I loved her.
She gasped, fingers pushing into my hair and gripping, sucking my tongue, coiling one leg round mine and bracing her opposite foot flat on the mattress so she could arch up to meet my thrusts as I began rocking into her.
I shuddered above her – so good, so good, moving with her, sliding my hand over her soft body, kneading and stroking. When I took her breast in my hand and bent to suck her nipple into my mouth, she murmured my name, writhing and whimpering softly, needing this, needing me.
I rolled on to my back, taking her with me, hands at her waist, pressing her down as I surged up, guiding her until she took over and set the tempo she required, knees pressed to my hips, arms trembling. Her hair tumbled all around us as my hands slipped to her thighs, and beneath the curtain of her silky, honeysuckle hair, I mapped the curves of her breasts with my tongue, skimming the soft undersides, the full outer contours, the pectoral line down the centre. She hummed so deep in her throat that I felt it with my cheek pressed to her chest.
‘Come, Jacqueline,’ I whispered. ‘Come now, baby.’ She whimpered again, frustrated, like she wasn’t quite sure what to do, so I rolled her under me, flattened her hands to the mattress on either side of her head, and thrust back into her.
‘Oh, God,’ she gasped, her fingers curling over mine. ‘Lucas,’ she moaned, her eyes closed.
‘I’m right here.’ I said, leaning to kiss her as she tightened and convulsed.
I followed, never more satisfied in my life.
I couldn’t see anything of her below her bare shoulder, cuddled beneath the comforter – though I could certainly feel her. She was warm and soft, folded in my arms, our legs tangled. I attempted to focus on the parts I could see – features I knew as well as the patterns embedded under my skin. I decided her eyes were my favourite. They were also the most difficult to capture on paper. Impossible, to illustrate the multihued facets and the way she looked at me. Or maybe her mouth … I touched her lips and she stared, waiting.
So unfair, how much I wanted her. I kissed her and peeled the covers to her waist. Men are visual, as are artists, so I doubled-down on the desire to see her bare skin. Goddamn, she was so very beautiful. ‘I want to sketch you like this,’ I said, struggling not to laugh when she asked, jokingly, if it would go on the wall. I would never get to sleep if I did that. I’d either have her in my bed, repeating what we’d just done, or I’d be using my very vivid imagination to imagine her there.
‘I’ve done several sketches of you that aren’t on the wall,’ I said. Oops.
She wanted to see them, of course. I ran the tips of my fingers over her breast before pressing her closer. ‘Now?’ I asked. Please, not now.
She relented, curious, I think, and I moved over her and disappeared under the covers.
I pressed kisses from her sternum straight down, progressing slowly. Her breath caught and her fingers sank into my hair and tightened when I passed her navel and kept going. I veered to the side, sucking kisses on her upper, inner thigh, inhaling her sweet scent, blowing gently as if showing her the path my tongue intended to take. In her small hands, my long, dark hair transformed into something it had never been – reins.
Lead me, Jacqueline. Show me where you want me to go.
She did.
I pulled on my boxer briefs before letting Francis in and feeding him so he’d leave us alone. I poured a glass of milk and put a few brownie squares on a plate, handing them to Jacqueline when I came back into the dimly lit room.
She held the sheet over her breasts, which was both humorous and enticing, considering the last few hours. After switching on the desk lamp, I grabbed my sketchbook and got into bed behind her, urging her to lean back against my chest. Her bare hips were pressed against what would be, in the not-too-distant future, a solid, demanding erection. For the moment, I wanted to purr with contentment, or growl, or whatever guys did when every possible need has been met.
She nibbled at a brownie as I flipped through the sketches I’d done this semester – campus buildings with noteworthy architecture, mechanical sketches, landscapes and people I found interesting. By the time we turned to the sketch I’d done of her on the rainy day, she’d finished two brownies and was starting on a third.
I glanced towards my ceiling. Score, Grandpa. Now avert your eyes.
I asked if it bothered her that I was watching her before she knew me, but she seemed to think she was just another of the interesting strangers I’d drawn.
‘I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse,’ I said.
She leaned back against my arm. ‘I’m not mad any more that you didn’t tell me you were Landon. The only reason I was angry was because I thought you were playing me, but it was the opposite of that.’ She touched my face as the sheet drifted lower. ‘I could never be afraid of you,’ she whispered.
I transferred the brownie plate to the night table and turned her to face me, straddling my lap. As I touched, kissed and sucked her breasts, and she ran her magic fingers through my hair and over my skin, my body woke fully.
‘Should I get, um …’ she whispered, and I nodded. She leaned to the nightstand drawer and came back with a cellophane square. ‘Can I … or is that too –?’
‘God, yes – please.’ I’d never had a girl roll a condom on to me before. I assumed, as her cool little fingers pressed it on and down, expertly, that I was the inexperienced one in this moment. And oh, my God, I was okay with that.