Park Avenue Punk

by Aria Cole

  I opened the door to my bedroom a crack, poking my ear out so I could try to make out what he was saying. My parents getting divorced wasn’t the be all or end all. Most of my friends came from broken homes. It was almost fashionable in our circles. My parents were the few people who were still together. The Fairchilds were the exception, not the rule.

  “You can’t do that to me. I gave you twenty years of my life. That entitles me to half of everything. You wouldn’t risk that,” my mother yelled back. “What did you expect, Miller? You were always on those business trips, and if you were home, you would be locked up working in your office. The only person you gave a second of your time to was Deven. I just wanted to be seen.”

  “I saw you. I was working day and night to keep you accustomed to the life you were used to. Let me tell you something, sweetheart… That little piece of paper you signed before we got married, the prenup, it states that if you cheated, you would end up with nothing. You think I am going to give you a cent after what you did? It’s not like you have anything in your own name. You were a nobody from nowhere when I met you. I should have listened to my mother when she said all you were was a white trash whore. It’s not bad enough that you couldn’t close your legs, but you had to fuck my lawyer… our own daughter’s boyfriend’s father? What kind of piece of shit does that? So now I am going to leave you alone, penniless and miserable.”

  I heard a slap and then my father’s shoes on the marble floor, followed by my mother’s sobbing. My father’s last words hit me the hardest. My mother was not only having an affair, but she was having an affair with Jameson’s father. I felt my legs give in as my body collapsed onto the ground. I sat on the floor for hours in shock. Confused. Angry. Hurt. All I wanted was Jameson, and right now he wanted nothing to do with me, and I couldn’t blame him.

  I stammered to my phone and texted Jameson again.

  DEVEN: I know what happened. Please talk to me.

  I sat on my bed, staring at my phone, willing a message to pop up, but nothing. I crawled into a fetal position, cradling my cell phone in my hand. I didn’t want to miss Jameson in case he tried to contact me. I tried to sleep. I closed my eyes and willed it. But my whole world was crumbling around me, and the only person I wanted to see was avoiding me.

  At three in the morning, my phone finally pinged. My fingers stumbled trying to pick up the phone, making me drop it multiple times before I studied it in my hand.

  Jameson: I can’t do this. It’s over.

  Chapter 13

  Jameson

  “Hey, hands up, you little fucker!” I heard them draw their weapons at the same time as I heard the words.

  Two police officers with handguns, eyes on me.

  I broke into a sprint, tossing the near empty can of paint into the nearest trash can, and bolted down a slim alleyway. I slipped between two buildings, leaping on top of a garbage dumpster, and prepared to launch myself across the fence and out of sight, when a baton landed on my ankle. The sound of crushing bones filled my ears.

  Fuck. This is it.

  “Little fucking punk, you the guy we been lookin’ for?”

  I didn’t say a word, only trained my eyes on the ground as they handcuffed me and ducked me into the back of a cop car. My eyes were trained on the water-streaked windows outside, my heart sinking when the cops started the engine and turned toward uptown.

  I hadn’t seen Deven in a few days, not since I’d run into her on campus trying to bail on the class we shared. After I’d told her I was sick of denying how I felt about her.

  I hadn’t been back to that class since.

  I’d decided to give Deven her space, sort of.

  But that didn’t mean she wasn’t on my mind.

  I’d been tagging walls obsessively the last few nights, around the park, but off Fifth too. I’d spent some time in the East Village and around Washington Square, but tonight was my riskiest move. Tonight I’d tackled Wall Street.

  Wall Street…my dad… All the excess it’d come to represent had culminated in me attempting to tag a window of the New York Stock Exchange—an amateur move, but copping to the rest of my works of art around the city? I’d rather die first.

  By the time we reached the station and I was tagged and booked and offered my first call, I did the only thing I could think to do and called the woman who’d been there for me through everything.

  Mom.

  But then she didn’t answer, and the officer had cackled when I’d passed the phone back through the window, and then I’d waited. Annoyed at myself most of all. I curled up with the thin wool blanket, head on the painted concrete bench, and planned my next move.

  A cold voice rattled me from my sleep later. “Styles.”

  “Yeah?” I shot up, instantly on alert when I realized I was still behind bars. From Park Avenue prince to criminal.

  “Someone made bail. You’re out for tonight. Don’t miss your hearing tomorrow morning, or your ass will be right back here with me tomorrow night.”

  I huffed, nailing him with a glare when the door swung wide and he swept his fat arm to his side to gesture me out.

  “Nothing but a rich little punk,” he gritted as I passed him.

  “I’m not rich,” I seethed, feeling a twitch in my fist, the need to show him how wrong he was running through my veins as I pushed open the bulletproof doors and found myself at the front of the station.

  “Jameson?” I heard her voice before I saw her.

  “Deven?” My eyes cast around until I found her. Drops of rain soaked her hair and made it cling to her shoulders like a drowned rat. She held her wet coat in her arms, lips pressed together as she watched me with a concerned gaze.

  “Are you okay?” She launched herself at me then, and I had no choice but to hold her in my arms.

  “I’m fine. Why are you here?”

  “Your mom called me—she saw the caller ID when you called after booking and knew you were at the 5th Precinct. She said she couldn’t leave the house tonight. She apologized for interrupting my night but said I was the only one who could help you.”

  “Well, she was wrong.” I held her a little tighter. The feel of her against me was warmer than any blanket I’d had inside that concrete cell. “I don’t need anyone, but I’m glad you’re here anyway.”

  She held my face in her palms and shook her head as tears hovered at her eyes. “I couldn’t stop thinking there’d been some kind of accident or something horrible, but now that I’m here—” she assessed my dirty clothes “—I can smell you from a mile away.”

  I looped our fingers, bringing the underside of her wrist to my lips and breathing. “Caught red-handed.”

  “It was bound to happen.” A small smile twitched at her lips before the receptionist thrust a stack of paperwork at me along with my time to appear before the court tomorrow morning. “You should have a lawyer with you tomorrow.”

  “Not worried about it,” I answered honestly.

  I pushed the door of the police station open wide, and rain doused us in sheets before we lucked out and caught an empty cab passing by. We slipped inside the leathery cracked seat and huddled together closely for warmth as the Statue of Liberty and Battery Park passed outside of our window.

  “What’s it gonna take to get this out of your system, Styles?” Deven finally breathed, tucked into my shoulder, exactly where I fucking loved her.

  Where I’d always loved her—anywhere with me.

  “You.”

  She smiled softly, shaking her head. “You’re either an impossible romantic or an epic asshole, depending on the day.”

  I laughed. “Depending on the minute.”

  The silence lingered through the rest of our drive as we warmed up together, city nightlife flowing by us in technicolor rivers, the chaos of all of it dulled by her concern for me.

  I was still thinking about it when we got out of the cab at her building fifteen minutes later. The doorman, who I now knew as Sydney, nodded at us once and didn�
�t say a word when we tromped through the lobby in soaking wet clothes, leaving a path as we went.

  We dripped our way into the elevator.

  And by the time we were passing into the threshold of her apartment, my need for her was already obsessing me.

  “Why did you come for me tonight?” I asked, nearly accusatory.

  “I’ll always come for you, Jameson. I already told you that.”

  “But why? Your last name means something in this city. You risked tarnishing it when you hit Lower Manhattan just to bail a punk out of jail.”

  “You’re not a punk.” She advanced on me, hands cradling my jaw. “Don’t say that.”

  “Princess, I’m as no-good as they come.”

  “Don’t talk about the man I love like that.”

  “Love?”

  “I love you, you jackass. I never stopped.”

  “That explains some things,” I finally replied, and without thinking, I closed the distance between our lips, kissing her softly, with gentle touches and strokes before pushing my tongue past the barrier of her lips.

  Her arms went around my neck, body swaying against mine before I cupped my hands at her ass cheeks and pulled her into my arms. I carried her on heavy strides across the room, pulling her shoes off clumsily as I went and then kicking my own to the side, streaks of city dirt staining her pristine white fur rug. I felt guilt momentarily until soft little moans curled past her lips and I lost my fucking mind.

  “I love you too, princess. Fuck, I really missed your lips on mine.” I sucked at her bottom lip, dragging across the pink flesh with my teeth to tease her. “Your body pressed against my skin, begging for me to sink inside you.” I stroked my fingers down the line of her neck. “I can feel every shudder, every wave of pleasure… Your body betrays you when my hands are on you.”

  “Only with you, Jameson. Only ever with you. I couldn’t think straight without you. I hated you so much when you left, but after the pain wore off, missing you set in. I couldn't stand being without you some days.”

  I kissed along the edge of her lips, tracing my fingers on the skin of her waist and teasing under her thin sweater. “Then say it.”

  “Say what?” Her hips writhed and rocked against mine.

  “Say you’ll be mine. Forever.”

  Chapter 14

  Devin – Five Years Ago

  I hadn’t slept in two days.

  When I shut my eyes, I saw Jameson’s staring back at me, sparkling and full of love. And then the smile would twist and turn, sinister and laced with venom, causing me to wake up, my pillow drenched in tears.

  Every single night.

  I never in a million years thought that Jameson and I wouldn’t be together for the long haul. From the moment we met, there was a surge, a spark, an unexplainable pull that drew us to each other. He understood me on levels that I didn’t even know were possible.

  He got the real me, not the Barbie my mother had cultivated for show. With Jameson, I wasn’t an upper-class princess, a socialite. I was just Deven. The pain of not being with him was so overwhelming that I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I glanced at his name in my phone, almost willing him to text me back. To tell me that he didn’t mean it, that it was all a mistake. To let me know that the love he had for me could overcome anything. But I knew that this was too big. That our parents had ruined not just their lives but our chance of happiness. I also knew that at least for me, there would be no one else. Ever.

  Chapter 15

  Jameson – Five Years Ago

  The funeral was nice. A closed casket and a bunch of hypocrites who wouldn’t hire my father after what the Fairchilds did to him telling my mother how he was a great man and they would miss him very much. My mother just stood there, shaking their hands and saying thank you on repeat like a damn broken record player. Lori was the only one who really looked broken. She was holding on to her teddy bear, an old rumpled brown thing, completely disheveled and mangled. I hadn’t seen that thing in years, but the last week she had been holding it and crying herself to sleep every night. I’d started sleeping on the floor because I was so worried about her. Being an adult and suffering a loved one’s suicide wasn’t easy, but being twelve it was incomprehensible. I looked at her standing by the side of the casket, crouched on the floor, looking so small.

  “Hey, Lori, want to come with me and get a few snacks?” I asked, offering her my hand. Her eyes gazed up at me. They looked red and swollen as she tried to hold back the tears that were floating within them. She shook her head as I crouched down beside her.

  “It will be okay,” I whispered, putting my arm around her frail shoulders. It broke my heart the way she crawled into me and started sobbing uncontrollably.

  “We have to move,” she whispered into my chest, her small body shaking.

  “Moving isn’t bad. It’s a new adventure,” I lied. “New friends. New house. I am sure Mom will let you decorate your room any way you want.”

  “You know I’m twelve, right?” she said, looking up at me, her nose scrunched up in disgust. “I am not some baby who thinks everything will be okay. Our lives are about to change. Say good-bye to everything.”

  “Well, shit, if you aren’t a baby, why are you carrying that ugly old thing?” I pointed to her decrepit stuffed bear.

  “It doesn’t change. In my entire life, the one thing I have always been sure of is this bear.” Her eyes cast down as she mindlessly rubbed what was left of the stuffed animal’s nose.

  “Look at me,” I demanded. Her gaze moved from the bear to me. “No matter what, you will always have me.”

  “You’re gonna be too busy with Deven.”

  “I ended it with her.”

  “What? Why?” she asked, her eyes looking startled and wide.

  “Her mother is the reason our father is dead. Her father is the reason we have to move. I don’t want anything to do with her or her kind. Not anymore,” I lied again. The truth was I would always want something to do with Deven Fairchild, but I knew that to keep myself and my family safe, I had to walk away. Forever.

  Chapter 16

  Deven

  His eyes flashed before he hauled my body to him in an even tighter embrace, our bodies pressed against the windows of my apartment, drapes closed and his sweat already slicking my skin. His lips met mine, and our tongues tangled in an erotic dance. He tasted sinful and sweet, a combination I could die for. I melted instantly in his arms just like I always did.

  I pushed my hands into his hair, and our lips smashed together so tightly, I knew they'd be swollen in the morning. I didn't care. His hands caressed my back, my ribcage, my breasts, and my ass.

  He nipped at my ear almost painfully before lifting me off my feet. We stumbled, lips still connected, arms groping wildly at each other, moans echoing in the humid air, and fireworks shooting off in the distance. “I only want my scent on you.”

  He slammed me against the floor-to-ceiling windows and held me firmly against his lean body. The curtains were already pulled closed, but I could only imagine the city pulsing and alive with life just at my back.

  I pulled his shirt off, and a flood of arousal hit me between my thighs. My heart thudded in my ears as we stared at each other, lost in a momentary lust-filled gaze. “I could go insane thinking about anyone else's hands on you.”

  He claimed my lips with his, sliding his hands up my thighs and lifted me against the glass, a thigh in each hand. I sat suspended, his hips snugly between my legs, my arms around his neck. We kissed, and I tugged his hair, whimpering into his mouth and rocking into his arousal. I panted as he held my high on my hips, his cock pressed against the thin fabric of my panties. “Only I belong inside of you. Forever.”

  He angled his body into me and rubbed with deft strokes. Lust consumed me, causing my hips to move in rhythm with his of their own volition. My brain was foggy with need as I confessed, “You’re the only one who’s ever been there, Jameson.”

  “Baby,” he grunted, his
big, strong body sinking against mine with my admission. “You don’t know what that does to me. To know you haven’t been with anyone but me, that’s it’s only ever been us, even after all of these years…” He kissed me with determined strokes. “I couldn’t bring myself to even look at anyone else. I saw you everywhere. There’s never been anyone for me but you, even when I hated to admit it. Even when I was running from us, I was only running from me, princess. And I’m sick of running without you.”

  I wrapped an arm around his neck and kissed and nipped his ear before tugging with my teeth, his words sending me into another universe of pleasure and pride that we’d waited for each other, even after all of the time.

  Our fates had always been sealed.

  He heaved a noisy breath when I scraped along the sensitive flesh, and then he hooked a hand in my panties, tearing them from my body. I heard the zipper of his shorts come down, and he sank into me. Finally, he was there, and it was blissful. It felt like exactly what I needed it to feel like—not wrong but the best thing on earth. The thing I needed more than anything else.

  He held my thighs tightly, his fingers digging into the supple flesh as he rocked into me. His jaw clenched tight, and my moans echoed off the walls. “Fuck, you feel so warm and tight, Deven.”

  He grunted as his hips thrust against mine. He angled into me, hitting a new and delicious spot somewhere deep inside, every thrust hard and fast and erotic. Reckless, lustful abandon echoed off the four walls surrounding us. “I feel you everywhere. When you’re not with me, I feel you. I need you. I fucking need you so much,” he whispered between pants.

  I moaned and bent my neck, feeling his tongue travel the line of my throat before nipping at the flesh. He sucked at the base of my throat as he powered into my body, and an orgasm overtook my senses, traveling from my head to my toes. Fire burned through my system, and I shuddered and moaned his name, my breath heaving in my chest. Jameson slowed his assault as I came down from my release but kept pushing into me, a slow and gentle rhythm that prolonged the delicious sensations rolling through my body.