BROKEN AND SCREWED(Broken_Part One)

CHAPTER TWELVE

My stomach was in knots the entire time in the plane, so when we landed in Vegas, I was barely able to stomach the idea of food. Angie and Justin suggested food, but I shook my head and they grabbed something on the way from a food cart. It didn’t take long to get our bags and then we were in the taxi and headed towards Marissa’s hotel. As we got closer to the Tropicana, my heart was pumping louder and louder. I couldn’t believe Angie or Justin hadn’t heard it.
When the taxi got to the hotel and we walked into the lobby, Marissa and Eric were waiting for us. She jumped up and down, waving her hand. As she lifted her arm each time, her white dress inched down a centimeter with each wave. As we started in their direction, she grabbed Eric’s hand and dragged him towards us. We were met halfway. Marissa kept bouncing up and down, hugging each of us. When all of us had been greeted, she repeated the process and repeated it again.
“You’re here! You’re here.” Marissa clapped. “Yay, yay!”
Eric looked green around his mouth. He held a hand to his stomach, but tried for a smile. “Hey, guys.”
Angie’s eyebrows went high. “And she’s drunk.”
Justin chuckled and clapped a hand on Eric’s shoulder. “Been drinking since you got here?”
He nodded, and gulped for breath. His cheeks swelled suddenly.
Justin’s laugh grew in volume. He swatted him once again. “Yep, sounds like Marissa’s influence has done its job. Good job.”
Eric jerked forward, clapped a hand over his mouth, paled, and then fled down a hallway.
“Honey!” Marissa followed after him, with clumsier movements.
“Hey!  What about us?”
“Oh.” She put the brakes on and skidded back. A key card was flung at us from her purse before she turned back around. “You’re all in room 5214, right next to us. You’re checked in and everything. I’ll come over in a bit.”
“All of us?”
A distracted wave was her response.            
Angie sighed in disgust. “I can’t believe she did that. We should’ve gotten a suite with three separate rooms. That would be less awkward then.”
“Uh…” Justin glanced at me from the corner of his eye. “Um, honey. We’ll be fine. It’s no problem.”
“No problem?” she seethed. “This is all Marissa’s fault. She called us at the last minute and demanded we all do this, and then she doesn’t think things through. Honey, we’re in Vegas and we can’t—”
Then she stopped and turned to me. Horrified.
The knots in my stomach had dropped like stones, but I swallowed my pride and shrugged. “It’s fine. I can get my own room somewhere.”
“Oh, my God. I am so sorry, Alex. I didn’t mean—” She balled up her fists and pressed them to her forehead. “None of this is going the right way. I can’t believe I said it like that. I’m really sorry, Alex. I really am. I’m mad at Marissa, not you, never you.”
But, I was the problem. And she knew that I knew that. A deep guilt started to settle in when Justin threw his arms around us both and pulled us tight. He squeezed us together and said in a cheerful tone, “No worries, Alex. Me and Ang can have daytime sex if you’re not around.”
“Justin!”
He grinned at me as he was swatted in the back of his head. “I prefer sex during the day anyway, so you’re kind of helping me out here.”
“Shut up, Justin.”
But he hugged us tighter and turned both of us towards the hallway. “Come on, ladies. Let’s go find our room.”
Angie glared at him. “I’m going to make you pay for this, you know.”
“Yeah, but that’s another reason why having Alex around is a good idea for me. You can’t fillet my ass.”
She opened her mouth, ready for another seething retort, but then she jerked in the air and gasped. She whirled around, red in the face and eyes, as a hand reached around to her butt. Her mouth opened and closed like a goldfish’s for a second and then the scathing look intensified. “You pinched my ass!”
Justin hooted before he burst ahead of us down the hallway.
“Justin!”
He waved the card in the air. “Good luck getting into the room. I’ve got the key.”
“AH!” And she took off after him.
I stayed back and watched as the two chased each other down the hallway. Justin was giggling, Angie was growling, but right before she turned the corner, I saw the smile on her face as well. I sighed on the inside. They were in love. They had been for such a long time.
I wanted that. I did, but then an old feeling inside of me triggered again.
People didn’t find the love they had. Not really. And if they did, they were lucky, incredibly so.
With that thought, I knew I had to get my own room. I was the fifth wheel on this trip. When I went back to the front desk, a worker told me that there were no empty rooms. I needed to have a reservation at least a few weeks in advance. After she told me all this, with a blank expression on her face, I wondered if Marissa had booked two rooms from the beginning.
“Street girl?”
And then I stopped wondering about it.
Cord Tatum stood behind me with his arm around a girl’s waist. He was dressed in Grant West University gear, with athletic pants and a sweatshirt that looked like it might’ve cost over a $200. Two other guys were with him, dressed the same. The girl wore a skimpy red top and jeans that were like a second skin.
He flashed me a grin. “Marissa’s friend, right? You bitched me out on the street by Benson’s house.”
I gave them a wry grin. For some reason, I was uncomfortable that he remembered that. “Yeah, I guess so.”
His gaze flicked past my shoulder to the front desk worker. “What are you doing? You getting a room?”
“That’s cute, thinking you can get a room here.” The girl flicked her red hair over her shoulder and laughed. She trailed a hand down his arm and rested it on his chest.
My eyes narrowed at her, but I responded to him, “My friends already got rooms, but they’re coupled up. It feels weird, you know?”
“Ah. Got it.”
One of the guys nudged him from behind. Cord’s eyes lit up. “Hey, we have a few empty beds with the team. You could bunk with one of us. We’d have to put you with a decent guy.”
“Or one that’s neutered,” a buddy snickered behind him.
My smile strained at the ends. “Uh…” But I remembered the front desk’s snippy words and my fingers let go of my bags. They dropped to the floor. “Sure.” I was desperate at that moment. But then I remembered all of his words. “Wait, you said your whole team? Your whole team is staying here?”
He nodded. “Yeah, we have a game tomorrow. I ran into Marissa at the airport and she badgered me for tickets.” He shrugged. “It’s no big deal. I figured I owed her for what a jackass I was before.”
I nodded. I had guessed that was how she’d gotten those tickets, but some excitement sparked in me at the idea of watching Jesse play again. It’d been too long. It’d been too long since I had felt him too.
Cord’s eyes were thoughtful on me. “I think Hunt got his own room.”
The same guy snickered again, “Golden Boy ain’t going to share a room, not unless he’s banging the chick.”
Cord turned on him and sneered, “The Golden Boy was best friends with her brother.”
His friend’s smirk vanished and his eyes widened. The girl straightened and reassessed me. I ignored both of their reactions. “I don’t want to bother Jesse. I’m sure he has other things to worry about.”
A third guy snorted from the back. “The only thing he’s got to worry about is if he gets enough sleep.”
Cord’s eyes grew hard. “Shut up, Kaseys. We’re damn lucky to have Hunt on our team and you know it. He’s our best damn player, so show some respect.”
The girl had detached herself from his side and migrated over as he had turned towards his buddies. She gave me an intense look now and her voice came out husky, “So you know Jesse Hunt?”
Cord snorted and hauled her back to him. A hand cemented her against his side. “No way, Mel. This girl is off limits.”
Her lips stuck out in a pout. “Come on.”
“No.”
And then one of the guys shouted, “Hunt!”
He was coming in from the sliding doors with a bag over his shoulder. As he looked up, a polite grin was on his face, but then Cord stepped aside and his eyes landed on me. He froze. I watched with a pounding heart as his hand tightened on his bag strap and his eyes went wide with some unnamed emotion. But then a mask came over him and he approached us. “Hey, guys.” His eyes zeroed in on me. “You’re here?”
I swallowed over a painful knot in my throat. “Yeah.”             
He frowned. “But your folks are—”
Cord clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, buddy. So this little beauty here is looking for a room to share. She’s here with friends, but they’re all coupled up and the front desk bitch made it clear that there aren’t any empty rooms available.”
The worker’s mouth flattened at her mention, but shedidn’t say a word.
Jesse’s eyes had narrowed on me. He didn’t wait a second. “Yeah, she can stay with me.”
My heart skipped a beat and I forgot to breathe for a second.
“Sweet. It’s all worked out. See you around, Street girl.” Cord winked at me as he led his friends to the elevator.
Jesse waited until they had gotten into one before he touched my arm. He asked quietly, “You’re not here with your parents?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t speak. Tears threatened to spill.
“They’re at The Four Seasons.” He had grown so quiet. “You don’t want them to know you’re here?”
My head wrenched from side to side. I couldn’t tell him they had left to escape me and now we were in the same city. It wouldn’t have been fair to them. So I choked out in a whisper, “They’re doing a second honeymoon thing.”
“Who did you come with?”
“Marissa and her boyfriend. Angie and Justin.”
He settled back. “Got it.” His lip twitched at the corner. “Marissa’s got another boyfriend? I pity that guy.”
“Eric Nathan.”
He went still. “What?”
“She’s dating Eric Nathan.”
His jaw clenched. And then he clipped out, “Good. He’s not your problem anymore then.”
“Jesse,” I sighed.
“Come on.” He reached down and grabbed my bag. “I’m tired. We had an early practice and the guys are going out for something to eat, if you want to come with.”
“You had a practice?” I checked my phone. “At six in the morning?”
He flashed me a grin. “Yeah. And it was at five this morning, but Coach is giving us the day off. We just have to show up for a team dinner tonight and promise that we’ll get eight hours of sleep tonight before the game tomorrow.” Then he stopped suddenly.             
My heart constricted. A flash of pain came over him. I knew this wasn’t going to be good.
The corners of his mouth turned down, briefly. “Your parents are coming to the game tomorrow.” He took a breath. “My coach knows about Ethan. I’ve talked to him about it and when he found out that your folks were here…they want to do a thing for them during the game.”
“What does that mean?” I swallowed tightly. My throat was burning in pain.
“There’ll be some footage of them, probably just where they are in their seats and they’ll dedicate a song in memory of Ethan. I know most people won’t care, I think it’ll be during half time or something and they’ll do it while other stuff is going on, but I thought you should know. Do you want to go with them? I can get you a ticket.”
I shook my head. Everything was so raw now, again. I spoke in a hoarse voice, “Marissa got tickets from Cord, but now I don’t know.”
His hand grasped my arm. He pulled me close. “I want you to come.”
Oh, God. The idea of my parents being there, of the announcer dedicating something to them… pain of a different level flared inside of me. I struggled to keep from buckling over and crumbling to the floor. They would announce Ethan’s name. He would be remembered by thousands of people. I pulled away from Jesse’s hand and shook my head. I was so tired of crying, so damn tired. As I swiped some of the cursed tears away, Jesse pulled me back to him. He made a soothing sound as he replaced my hands and wiped them away instead.
More slipped out.
He dried them too.
And then he glanced up, cursed under his breath, and ripped himself away.
I looked up, into Angie’s eyes. She seemed horrified and her mouth was open. A strange gurgling sound came out and she raised a pointing finger towards us. “You—you two—what?”
Jesse bent close and whispered in my ear, “Room 2612.” Something was pushed into my hand and he stalked away to the elevators.
I glanced down at the key card in my hand. Nothing was making sense again.
Then Angie was at my side and she whispered, “Oh my god.”
Oh my god indeed.
The elevator opened and he got on. I yelled out, “Wait!”
The door started to slide closed, but it opened again. He stepped halfway out of the elevator and did what I asked. He waited.
Then I turned to Angie. “I’m staying with him.”
“What? But—”
I rushed around and hurried to where he was holding the door for me. As I slipped past and he let go of the door, Angie followed. Shock was evident in her eyes as she merely watched us. Her mouth was still hanging open, but then the door slid closed.
I closed my eyes and braced myself. The cat was out of the bag now. Angie had suspected, she had approved at first, and then disapproved. Then she forgot, but she was fully reminded now. I knew she thought Jesse had moved on from us. He had left us behind, or left me behind, but when she saw the text message he had sent me yesterday, the same disapproval had come back. She hadn’t said a word on the airplane or in the taxi, or at any moment of the trip, but I knew it was only a matter of time. She was going to question me and she would say the same things I told myself every time.
Jesse was going to hurt me. He already had, but she didn’t know that he healed me as well. I needed him, even if it was only in the little increments that I got from him. Because every time, a part of me felt whole, a little more together before he would leave again.
He watched me now, a grave expression on his face, but neither of us said a word. The air was thick with tension, anticipation too.
I wanted to be in his arms. I wanted it so badly now. I could almost taste him.
Then my phone started buzzing. They were text messages from Angie, but I silenced it and put it away.
And then we were on his floor. We walked together to his room. My palms were starting to sweat again. I felt breathless. The door opened and we were inside. I placed my bag down, but then I was pulled back. Jesse pushed me against the wall. I had a second to glimpse the lust on his face. And then his mouth crashed down on mine and I wrapped myself around him.