Our Shattered Pieces

by M. E. Clayton

First, I was a reader. Reading, writing, essays, all that shit has always been enjoyable for me. Where my sister, Rowan, had always been good with numbers, and while I was no slouch in the math department, I preferred my English classes to mathematics.

  Second, English Comp. seemed to be a difficult class for a lot of athletes. For whatever reason, it seemed as if that was always the one class that they struggled in. So, I figured if I could teach one and coach the other, I could help students on two levels instead of just one. And Boston University was going to make that happen for me.

  “I’m not loved-up,” I clarified. “I just happen to have a sister and mother, and don’t get off on talking about females like that.” They both had the decency to flush. Especially, since they both had mothers and sisters. Eric had two, for fuck’s sake. “I’m not a saint, but anyone talking about Rowan like that and it’s on.”

  Eric groaned. “Way to take the fun out of it,” he grumbled.

  I laughed. “I’m not trying to take the fun out of anything,” I told him. “I’m just stating my facts, gentlemen.”

  The problem with having Rowan for a sister was that she was…well, she was what you’d call a blonde bombshell. Taking after our mother, Lillian, she had inherited the blonde hair, blue eyes, and the figure you’d expect from that combination.

  And I ought to know.

  From her first training bra to her first zit to her first period, I’d been there for it all. Rowan and I had always been close, and it seemed as if I had always been the only one home when she’d find herself in an identity crisis.

  It hadn’t been fun.

  But I also knew that, as she grew older, guys had held off until I had gone off to college. Two years younger than me, Rowan’s junior and senior years in high school were ones I didn’t want to think about.

  For a few reasons.

  As for me, I had taken after both our parents. While I had mom’s blue eyes like Rowan, I had inherited my brown hair and tall stature from our father, Stanley. I was six-foot-one to Rowan’s five-foot-four. Mom was a petite little thing, too.

  “I’ll concede we shouldn’t talk about good girls like that,” Eric said. “But, c’mon, if a slut’s a slut…”

  “He’s got a point,” Travis agreed.

  I almost winced.

  There was also another reason I wasn’t particularly fond of this topic. I had my own issues with women, and ever since Rowan’s senior year of high school, I’ve been doing my best to be…better. While Rowan was doing great in her sophomore year at Georgetown, that still didn’t take away from what happened to her and how it had affected me.

  Like most people, I had specific tastes in bed, and these days, I struggled with those proclivities, and that’s something I wasn’t proud of. You’d think that after what happened to my sister it be an automatic thing for me to level back to missionary and making love, but it wasn’t that easy.

  Hell, my issues were one of the reasons I’ve been with Katy for so long. Katy was all about civility. She insisted on romance and respect in the bedroom and dating her has helped me work on those two things. There was no hair pulling going on in Katy’s bed. No spanking. No choking. No cumming anywhere other than inside a condom. I mean, seriously. The girl hardly looked fucked whenever we were done.

  But that was okay.

  That’s what I needed.

  “Well, now that all depends,” I said.

  “On what?” Travis wanted to know.

  “On whether she’s a slut by choice. Whether she’s a slut because that’s what she likes to do, or if she’s a slut just for you,” I answered.

  “What’s the difference?” Eric asked, and I really wanted to knock him upside his head sometimes.

  “Some girls are promiscuous because of trauma, and that’s not their fault. Some girls just like sex, and that’s okay. And some girls only do certain things with the guy they’re in love with,” I explained. “So, if you’re dating a girl and she does some way out shit just for you, and then you break up, calling her a slut isn’t fair. She did those things because she trusted you. Not because she’s a slut.”

  “This topic is getting too heavy,” Eric remarked. “All I was doing was trying to point out that Lydia Jackson had premium pussy.”

  I laughed because he was right. The topic was getting too heavy. “Duly noted.” Just then, my phone chimed, and looking down at it, I could see it was Katy, and I almost caught myself groaning.

  I liked Katy. I really did.

  But she was also a constant reminder of everything that was wrong with me, and I realized I was considering her therapy more than anything else these days.

  Good thing graduation was soon.

  Chapter 3

  Molly~

  Passing on another night of partying, I was dressed in my pajamas already, and done for the night.

  And it was only eight.

  However, the less I showed my face around town, the better. While my choices haven’t come back to haunt me yet, that didn’t mean they weren’t still lurking in the shadows, waiting for the right time.

  The awful part of it all was that, as hard as I tried, the only thing I regretted was trusting the wrong person. Had it been anyone else…Christ, I didn’t even know what. I just knew that as much as I tried to force shame and guilt into the picture, they wouldn’t come. And that’s what had me all messed up in the head.

  Determined to get out of my head, I opened my laptop to get a head start on some class assignments. I was only a freshman, but if I could get through only one more year, I’ll be in the clear. Ethan was a junior, and with the semester ending in a couple of months, next year he’ll be a senior and after that, I’ll never have to see him again.

  See any of them.

  An hour into my schoolwork, my phone rang, and I seriously considered not answering it, especially, since it was usually scam calls. But glancing at the name flashing across the screen, I immediately reached for it.

  “Hey,” I greeted.

  “Hey,” he greeted back. “Are you busy?”

  “I was studying, but nothing major.”

  Lorcan chuckled. “On a Friday night, my little sister is studying.”

  His words brought on an immediate sense of unworthiness. My brother thought I was tucked away, studying, being a good girl, when that was far from the truth.

  I was hiding.

  But how could I tell him that?

  Lorcan’s senior year of high school, he’d gotten caught up in a horrible scandal where his girlfriend of two years had been caught cheating with one of their high school teachers. He’d been married, and she’d gotten pregnant, and the entire thing had been a complete disaster.

  With Lorcan and I only being one year a part, I’d been a junior while he’d been a senior, so I had gotten a front row seat to everything that had gone down. I had even been there when the cops had come to arrest Lorcan for assault.

  Because our parents were wealthy and had the resources to hire the best, Lorcan had gotten off with probation, but the teacher’s predatory patterns had been exposed, and of course, that had helped his case. But after Vanessa letting Lorcan think the baby was his, and then getting an abortion to protect her lover, well…well, Lorcan didn’t have a high opinion of females. I was pretty sure me and Mom were the only two women on the planet he trusted.

  So, naturally, I couldn’t tell him the truth of what was really going on. I mean, how could I? Lorcan and I were as close as two siblings could be. He was my most favorite person in the world, and I was his. Twins were probably the only siblings to have a stronger bond. I loved my brother, and because I knew the truth would probably gut him, I haven’t said a word when, normally, I told him everything. This was the first time I’ve ever been scared to tell him something.

  “Well, what are you doing? Why are you calling me on a Friday night?” I returned the question. “Shouldn’t you be out…I don’t know, getting drunk and breaking hearts?” At six-foot-two and built like a machine with hi
s black hair and grey eyes, I knew Lorcan was considered a prize. Girls have been trying to use me for years for a chance at my brother.

  “While I don’t have any objections to getting drunk, you know I’m cool off breaking hearts,” he chuckled. “The only girls I hang out with these days are the ones who know the score.”

  See?

  “So, why aren’t you out getting drunk?”

  “I was thinking of you,” he replied. “I miss you Molly Doll.”

  My nose started to tickle, and I could feel pressure behind my eyes. “I miss you, too.”

  “Well, I was thinking of taking a trip to go see you next weekend,” he said, surprising me.

  “Oh, God,” I laughed. “I can only imagine.”

  “What?”

  “I can only imagine how many girls are going to hound me about you after you leave,” I told him truthfully. “Fresh meat.”

  I could hear his smile over the phone. “Hardly,” he disagreed. “I’ll be there to see you. I’m not visiting for the scenery.”

  I grinned. “But the California scenery is so beautiful.”

  “All scenery is beautiful if you take the time to appreciate it, Molly Doll,” he said, proving further what a bitch Vanessa was. Before her bullshit, Lorcan appreciated women as a whole. He wasn’t big on what society dictated as good-looking. If Lorcan liked a girl, he liked her. Period.

  Snapping myself out of my depressing thoughts, I said, “So, we have a date for next weekend?”

  “Yeah,” he confirmed. “I’ll fly out Thursday evening and fly back out Sunday afternoon.”

  “Does that give you enough time to recuperate before classes Monday?”

  “Yeah, it’s only a three-hour flight,” he said. “Hell, I’ve been up past one in the morning and still made an eight o’clock class.”

  “Yeah, been there, done that,” I sympathized. “So, I’ll see you next weekend.”

  “See you next weekend,” he said. “Love you, Molly Doll.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Hanging up, I questioned the wisdom of Lorcan coming here. As badly as I wanted to see him, paranoia was alive in my head, always there. And he’s only been off probation not even a full year. What if something were to happen while he was here? Lorcan had a vicious temper, and he wasn’t afraid to use it. Granted, he’s been working on trying to control it for years, but every now and again, it broke loose and that was never a good thing.

  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I should probably go visit him instead. However, I’d have to come up with a convincing reason why me visiting him was a better option than him coming to see me, and I couldn’t think of anything just yet.

  Glancing around at the books scattered around me and my opened laptop, I pushed back the impending doom I was feeling and got back to studying. My issues weren’t anything that I was going to solve tonight, so I opted productivity instead.

  When my phone chimed with an incoming text, I glanced at the screen and my stomach clenched.

  Unknown.

  I deleted it without even looking at it.

  Chapter 4

  Grayson~

  “Ouch, Grayson. Not so hard.” I stopped, relaxed my hands, and counted to ten. “And you know this isn’t my favorite.”

  The only thing I had going for me right now was that I was only twenty-two. The only thing capable of making me lose my erection was having my mother, father, or sister walk in on what I was doing with Katy.

  I rubbed a hand down her smooth back, and said, “Sorry. I just figured since we didn’t have a whole lot of time, this position would be best to keep your hair and makeup from getting messed up.”

  “Well, there is that,” she muttered.

  “I’ll be more careful.”

  “Okay.”

  With her permission, I resumed what I’d been doing, but this time, I made sure to keep my hands moving over her soft skin.

  Katy Oliver was every man’s dream when you looked at her. She was tall with dark auburn hair and radiant blue eyes. She stood out because she didn’t look like the millions of blondes, brunettes, and redheads you saw all over campus. Katy stood out because she didn’t look like the masses.

  Now, while I didn’t have a preference, if Katy walked into a room with a bunch of other girls, she’s the one you’d notice first. Not only because she was tall, but because there was no missing that body her parents bought for her. Whoever Katy’s plastic surgeon was, he was worth every penny, because that hour-glass figure on her was to die for.

  It wasn’t until you slept with her that the illusion was shattered. Looking at her, you’d think she was a dirty girl in bed, but she wasn’t. And as judgmental as it was, you’d think that someone who spent that kind of money on the body she had would be more adventurous in bed. But that wasn’t the case.

  A few weeks into our relationship, I realized Katy was so into looks and presentation that she couldn’t even loosen up in the bedroom. She wanted to look perfect at all times, and that included during sex. Katy wanted to be in those sex scenes in romantic comedies where the woman’s hair and makeup were still perfect after a bout of lovemaking.

  Seriously.

  However, her issues worked to combat my own. At first, I’d been a little put off by the manufactured way she wanted to have sex, but I soon realized that I probably needed that to balance out the struggle I fought with every day.

  Where Katy wanted to make love and for it to be slow, meaningful, and perfect, I was on the other side of the spectrum, unfortunately.

  I hadn’t always been this way. Once upon a time, I liked regular sex, and welcomed whatever adventure the woman wanted to bring to the bedroom. From the second I had lost my virginity at the tender age of fourteen, I’d had no complaints where sex was concerned. Missionary, doggy-style, against the wall, in the back seat of an uncomfortable-as-fuck car, cowgirl, all of it, any of it was fine by me. I was a young boy learning about sex, and every lesson had been spectacular in my mind.

  Even learning about foreplay had been explosive. A girl’s reaction whenever I had been doing something right had been a phenomenal feeling. The way she moaned when I sucked her tits or slid my fingers inside her. And let’s not forget the first time I ever tasted pussy. That had made such an impact, I’d have to say it was one of my favorite things to do to this day.

  Sex had been thrilling, fulfilling, and a different experience every goddamn time.

  Until my freshman year at Boston.

  Eight months into my freshman year here, I had been partying and hooked up with a girl in one of my classes, and I haven’t been the same ever since.

  “Oh…oh, oh, right there,” Katy cooed, and I made sure to keep my hands moving, not messing up her hair or makeup or leaving any marks behind.

  I bit my tongue with what I wanted to say and went with what she wanted to hear instead. “You’re so beautiful, Katy.”

  Katy started pushing her ass back, and signs of her arousal were starting to coat the condom I had on. Now, while I’ve never had sex without a condom before, you’d think after a year together, we’d have done the whole testing/birth control thing, but we haven’t. No condom equals an ugly mess, and we couldn’t have that.

  “Don’t stop, Grayson,” Katy moaned. “Oh, God…I’m going to cum…”

  Again, I bit my tongue with what I wanted to say and stuck to the script. “Okay, I won’t stop.”

  A few more thrusts in, Katy was finally cumming all over me and, admittedly, this was my favorite part of sex with her. As much as we held back for the sake of politeness, I could still make her cum, and that meant something for me. It meant I could still bring a woman pleasure without saddling her with my issues, and that was important to me.

  Very important.

  “Oh, God…Grayson, love…”

  Leaning forward to cover her back with my body, I grabbed the comforter in both hands, and unloaded inside the condom. Spasm, after spasm, after spasm, and when I was don
e, I made sure to secure the rim of the condom to my dick, lest anything leak out.

  When I returned from disposing the condom in the bathroom of Katy’s apartment, Katy was already dressed and ready to be presented to the world.

  She smiled over at me. “That was great, babe.”

  I smiled back. “It’s always great, Katy.” Her entire face beamed, and a small part of me felt like a bastard for lying to her.

  Our sex life was good, but it wasn’t great. However, it was satisfying, and that’s what I was going to focus on. I didn’t need fireworks every damn time. I didn’t need my mind to spin or my body to seize in unimaginable pleasure. I needed her to get off and that was it.

  “Presley Jones is having a party this weekend,” Katy said, as I started gathering my clothes to get dressed. “I thought we could make an appearance.”

  I paused in zipping up my pants. “I…I thought you didn’t care for her?”

  Katy rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s not that I don’t care for her, per se,” she hedged. “It’s just…she’s an attention whore, and it can get so annoying sometimes.”

  I went back to getting dressed. “Uh…yeah, sure. If you want to go, we can go.”

  She walked up to me, and as my shirt came back down over my body, her hands slid up underneath the fabric. “You’re so sexy,” she murmured, but it was hard to believe her. If I were that sexy, how could she control herself so primly around me?

  “Not as sexy as you are.” And that was the truth. I might not be a bad-looking dude, but Katy knew what her body did to men.

  She grinned. “Maybe.”

  Chapter 5

  Molly~

  The only excuse I had was that I was running late and wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. Usually, I was super vigilant, but I had slept through my alarm, nixing time for my usual cup of coffee, and I was a mess with my schedule thrown off like this.

  Coffee was nothing I had ever partaken in before college, but now I had grown a dependency on it to get me through the mornings. It was the only time I drank coffee, letting it do its job of getting me up and active for the day.