by Lane Hart
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, hating that she now sees me as an asshole. I should be glad since the more she despises me, the less tempting she’ll be. But that’s not the case at all. I can’t fucking stand hurting her, even if it’s what’s best for both of us.
“Why?” she asks through clenched teeth.
She wants to know why I didn’t give in to her when she got naked and waited for me but would sleep with a random stripper I barely know. There’s no way I can tell her the truth.
Hands on my hips, I tell Gabby, “This doesn’t change anything between us.” Which is as close to the truth as I can get without fucking Cass over. “I know it’s not what you want, but how I feel about you will never change.”
I love her. Always have and always will, even if she hates my guts.
“Screw you, Cain,” Gabby whispers before she turns around and leaves, taking my heart with her.
Completely deflated from the inside out, I slump back down on the edge of the bed. The front door opens and then slams shut, making me jump.
“Girlfriend?” Cass asks.
“No. She’s more than that,” I admit. “She’s my everything.”
“So why…” she trails off.
“Because I can’t be with her. And she thinks she knows me, but she doesn’t.”
“Then it sounds like it’s a good thing she thinks we fucked.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I mutter.
Losing Gabby, even as a friend, is what I fucking deserve. It’s the price karma apparently intends to take from me for my past. I deserve nothing less than a miserable existence, having the one person I love hate me, being forced to fight other men like an animal, and having the weight of her future resting on me. No matter how Gabby feels about me, I’ll never let her down where it counts.
From now on, I’ll spend every second of my days and nights training and fighting for her, and I’ll even tell myself lies to keep myself going. Lies like maybe one day, when this is all over, we could be together despite all the major obstacles in our way: I can’t even lose one fucking fight; her brother is holding a life prison sentence over my head, and now Gabby hates me.
Chapter Thirteen
Gabby
“You have a visitor,” Sandy, one of the younger girls at the house, says when she pokes her head into our room. I’ve been flopped out on my bed crying for hours after finding out it was true. Cain had sex with a whore! It’s time to face the fact that he doesn’t want me. I need to get over him, to forget him, but it’s not that easy.
“Tell him to go away. I never want to see him again,” I mumble.
“It’s not Cain. It’s your friend, Maylin,” she says.
“Oh, okay,” I reply in surprise. We’re friends at school, both of us quiet, shy and keeping to ourselves, but we rarely see each other outside of high school hell.
Pushing myself up into a sitting position and mopping up my face with tissues, I ask Sandy, “Will you tell her to come on up?” At the moment, from a lack of sleep and the exhaustion of crying for hours, I don’t have the energy to take the steps.
“Sure. Be right back,” the tall, skinny girl says before she disappears.
A moment later, Maylin appears, her bright red hair impossible to miss even in a crowd of people. She lifts her hand to wave from the doorway. “Hey. You okay?”
“Yeah, come on in,” I tell her, motioning her into the room. I don’t even tell her to shut the door. School just got out, so the boys are all training, Mrs. Engle can’t hear worth a shit, and I tell Sandy and Rebecca pretty much everything anyway.
“I thought you might be sick when you didn’t show up at school for the Calculus test.”
“Oh, shit. I forgot all about that,” I grumble, rubbing the sides of my temples that are pounding.
“So, you’re not sick?” she asks when she comes over and takes a seat on the foot of the bed.
“Heartsick, if there is such a thing,” I tell her honestly.
“That guy Cain that you’ve had a crush on for years?”
“Yeah. Him. I practically threw myself at him, and he turned me down. Then he went and slept with a stripper.”
“Ew,” Maylin says, wrinkling her nose. “That’s gross and you shouldn’t want a guy like that. The few times I’ve seen Cain he’s looked angry…like he could kill someone and enjoy it.”
“That’s not him at all, and no one knows him like I do,” I tell her in his defense. “He’s actually really sweet and considerate, at least when it comes to me. Came to me,” I correct, using the past tense. “But after he left here, I guess that changed.”
“You’re better off without him. There are plenty of guys at school who would go out with you,” she remarks.
“I don’t want them,” I say without hesitation. “God, is it possible that I only want Cain because he doesn’t want me? How pathetic, right?”
“You’re not pathetic, but it’s probably just puppy love. I bet you’ll get over him in no time.”
“I dunno about that,” I disagree.
“The least you can do is try,” she urges. “Anything has to be better than feeling miserable, right?”
“Yeah, maybe so,” I concede. “So how screwed am I going to be on that makeup test Monday?” I ask to change the subject.
Cain’s made it clear how he feels about me. I can keep pining away for him, or I can grow up, get over my teenage crush, and move on.
…
Cain
“Is Gabby here?” I ask Jake, one of the boys at the house, when I show up the week after the fallout with Gabby finding Cass in my bed.
Knowing that there was nothing I could say without giving away the secret that would screw over Cass, I left Gabby alone, hoping her anger would simmer down after a few days.
“She’s here, but don’t kill the messenger, Cain. She said that she doesn’t want to see you,” Jake replies with a wince, worried I’ll take my anger out on him. It’s not his fault that I can’t be with Gabby or that she thinks I fucked a stripper.
“Fine,” I concede. “Could you just give her this for me?” I ask, handing over the gift I brought her — an upside-down lightbulb on a hook filled with purple wildflowers and red roses. Since I haven’t been paid for my fight yet, it was the best I could do on a budget. Besides, I know how Gabby loves turning trash into treasure. She has flowers growing in tin cans, old teapots and other abandoned junk in her bedroom. Sometimes I’ve wondered if that’s the reason she clung to me — because I’m trash that she wants to try and salvage. She’s wasting her time since I can’t be saved. Now she’s apparently realized that.
“Yeah, sure,” Jake agrees before he gently takes the lightbulb from me and shuts the door in my face.
Trudging back to the apartment, I try to figure out if there’s anything I can possibly do to get Gabby back. At least her friendship. She’ll never forgive me for sleeping with Cass, but maybe I can come up with a way for us to be friends again.
I need to be close to Gabby. It’s the only way I can keep an eye on her, to make sure she’s safe, since she can’t depend on her brother to do it.
Back in the apartment, Ivan and Knox are fighting each other and blowing shit up on some video game in the living room.
“No luck with Gabby?” Knox asks when he looks up and sees me come in, before his eyes go back to the television screen.
“Nope.”
“For the best,” Ivan states. “You can focus on winning without her as a distraction.”
“Is that why you’re still a virgin?” Knox teases him.
“I’m not a virgin,” he grumbles.
“Celibate then,” Knox amends.
“If you grew up in a house that reeked of cum, constantly accompanied by the soundtrack of men’s grunts and groans as they used your mother and all the other girls for a few dollars, I bet you wouldn’t want to fuck every girl in sight either.”
Ivan’s gaze never leaves the screen in front of him, but Knox’s wide blue eyes
cut over to mine in shock. That’s the most Ivan’s ever said to us about his upbringing. Not that either of them knows how I ended up at the house as an orphan or why Knox had already been there years before us…
“Changing the subject,” I clear my throat and start. “How do the two of you feel about Gabby moving in with us?” I ask.
“Fine with me,” Ivan says. “She’s the one you’ll have to convince, though, not us.”
“Yeah, you know I don’t have a problem with Gabby,” Knox agrees as he quickly punches buttons on his controller.
“Who wants to volunteer to bunk with me then?” I ask.
“Not me!” Ivan says before Knox can comment.
“Aw, man,” Knox grumbles. “I get laid the most, so shouldn’t I be the one who gets his own damn room?”
“Ivan spoke up first,” I point out. “And I’ll stay out of the room when you bring home a girl.”
“Fine,” Knox mutters. “But I’m staying if you bring home a girl.”
“I’d like to see you try,” I tell him, crossing my arms over my chest.
“I’ll leave. Whatever. It’s not like you’re gonna fuck anyone but Gabby anyway, and she’ll have her own room.”
“Gabby hates me, so I’m pretty sure she won’t be inviting me into her bed,” I remind him. “Fuck, she has to forgive me before her birthday, otherwise I’ll drag her ass back here kicking and screaming.”
Gabby won’t have anywhere else to go when she has to leave the house, not until she works for Mario long enough to save some money. If she doesn’t move in with me and the guys, I’m sure that asshole would take her in for a price — her virginity with the stipulation he can get between her legs whenever he fucking wants.
That’s never gonna happen. Until she forgives me, I’ll just have to watch Gabby from afar, making sure Mario and every other asshole out there keep their hands off her.
Chapter Fourteen
Gabby
Months later…
I try my best to enjoy summer vacation, knowing that in a few weeks I’ll be heading into the last semester of my senior year. I should’ve graduated in June, but because Robbie and I moved around during my freshman year, I fell behind a semester. Even though I won’t graduate and walk across the stage until December, my eighteenth birthday is only a few weeks away. That’s when I’ll be forced to leave the house.
After the fallout with Cain back in January, I haven’t heard from him other than the few times he came by with gifts and tried to see me. Since the third occasion I ignored him, he hasn’t been back. I don’t blame him, and I’m still pissed at him, yet I didn’t want him to give up trying so easily.
Now, I have no idea where the hell I’m gonna live with my kick-out date coming up so soon.
That’s why this afternoon I’m on my way to see Mario at the club before it gets busy.
The bouncer at the front of Escapades barely gives me a once over in my jean shorts and a tank top. He just holds the door open and tells me to go on back to Mario’s office. Inside, I find him leaning back in his chair wearing his usual designer suit with his cell phone up to his ear and his shiny dress shoes crossed on the desk.
When Mario looks up and his brown eyes take me in, he smiles and waves a hand, gesturing for me to come in. There’s not much on the walls to look at while I wait and try to ignore his conversation that I’m pretty sure is about a drug deal.
“Sorry about that,” Mario says after he ends the call. “Have a seat. What can I do for you, Gabrielle?”
Slipping into one of the chairs in front of his desk, I tell him, “Oh, well, I was just wondering, um, with my birthday coming up soon, I guess I’ll be getting kicked out of the house…”
“Right,” he agrees as if that’s a given.
“I’ll need to find a job –”
“You’ll come work for me,” he interrupts, a statement not a question.
“Stripping?” I ask with my jaw gaping in shock.
“No. You’ll be a cocktail waitress and get to keep all of your clothes on,” he says with a chuckle. “The uniform is a short black dress, the less fabric the better for your tips.”
“Oh, okay,” I reply in relief. “I appreciate the job and all, but I’m not sure where I’ll be living…”
“Ah,” he says in understanding. “I’m sure we could work something out.”
“Really?” I ask.
“Sure. I love to accommodate my girls whenever I can,” he says. “You could stay with me as long as you like.”
“I could?” This all seems too easy.
“Absolutely. My bed is yours,” he tells me with a lecherous grin.
“Your…your bed?” I repeat.
“You’re a smart girl. Aren’t you familiar with quid pro quo?” he says as he gets up from his seat and comes around to the front of his desk to stand just inches from my seat. His belt buckle is now eye level with me.
“Ah, yeah, I think so,” I answer nervously as I lower my gaze to my hands in my lap.
“Well, in exchange for my generosity in giving you a place to stay, you’ll be expected to give me something in return.”
“I would have to…ah, you would want me to…”
“Fuck me,” he says crudely. “Whenever, however, as many times as I want.”
“I-I don’t think I could do that,” I tell him honestly.
“Aw, you’re still a virgin, aren’t you, little Gabrielle?” he asks, reaching for my chin to tilt it up to his face.
“Yes,” I answer, feeling my face heat up in embarrassment.
“Don’t worry, I promise we’ll go slow at first. I’ll take my time and make you feel good too,” he says, stroking his thumb over my jaw that’s still in his grasp. “Why don’t we get started right now?” His free hand goes to his zipper; and as he lowers it, panic begins to fill me.
I use my feet to push my chair backward and then jump up to put space between us and get his hand off me.
“No, thanks. That’s okay. I’ll make other arrangements,” I tell Mario as I start to flee.
“Suit yourself,” he says, but I don’t look back at him. My sights are set on the office door and then finding the building’s nearest exit. “But your ass better be here in a short black dress on your birthday!” he calls out.
“Yes, sir,” I agree, rushing down the hallway and out the back exit where another bouncer is standing guard. “Have a nice day,” I tell him before I practically jog home to try and figure out a better option for my housing needs that doesn’t involve sex.
Chapter Fifteen
Cain
Even after winning every fight for the past few months, I haven’t gotten used to having money in my pocket or being able to go into a store and buy whatever the hell I want. Not that I’ll ever be much of a shopper despite how much I earn.
Standing in front of the shelves of bedding, I try to figure which one Gabby would like best. The pessimist in me wants to say fuck it and walk right out the door without picking anything because he thinks it’s a complete waste. Gabby stopped talking to me back in January, so expecting her to come live with me in a few days is just ridiculous.
On the other hand, I still have this teeny thread of optimistic hope that she’ll agree to move in with me and the guys, even if it’s solely because we’re her only option.
Deciding to stick with pinks and purples like the girls’ room back at the house, I grab one of the bags that has a comforter, sheets, and all the other shit that matches, then take it up to the register to check out.
My old room has a full-size bed, dresser and bedside table in it already, so I just need to buy a twin to cram into Knox’s room for me to sleep on if Gabby agrees to stay with us.
Back at the apartment, I throw everything in the washer and dryer before I put it on the bed. I’m stretching the pink fitted sheet on the mattress when Knox finds me.
“Pizza’s here,” Knox says from the doorway. When I look over, he’s cramming a slice into his mouth.
“It’s supreme, so there are lots of veggies,” he replies. “And it’s delicious, so who gives a fuck?”
“I give a fuck,” I tell him. “If we’re all a bunch of pudgy bastards losing fights, Mario will kick our asses straight back to the dorms.”
“So I’ll run a few extra miles tomorrow,” Knox says when he takes another bite.
“Whatever,” I mutter, going around the bed to pull the sheet down on the other mattress corners.
“What if she says no on Friday?” he asks, making me freeze before I straighten from the bed.
“Then I’ll stay in this room, no biggie,” I finally respond, trying to sound casual about it when, in fact, getting Gabby to move in feels like the most important thing in my life.
“Good thing purple is your color,” he says.
“Fuck you,” I fire back while flipping him off.
“Why don’t you just apologize to Gabby for whatever happened with Cassandra?” Knox asks. “I bet she’ll forgive you, and then you two can both stop pretending you don’t give a shit about each other.”
“It’s not that easy,” I tell him with a sigh as I prop my hands on my hips. “Don’t you think I would’ve done that already if it was? I’m not an idiot.”
After taking another bite of pizza, Knox says, “Okay, so why isn’t it that easy?”
“Fucking Robbie’s holding shit over my head,” I admit.
“That bad, huh?” Knox asks in understanding.
“Twenty years to life bad,” I tell him.
“Then why would he ever let her move in here?”
“Because she doesn’t have anywhere else to go. It’s not like that asshole is gonna pay for her to have an apartment,” I explain. “And he said I could be in her life, just that I can’t fuck her.”
“But you want to fuck her?” he asks what’s likely the stupidest question of the century.
