Maybe when you’re ready to share yourself...
She leaned against me and the warm, soft weight of her penetrated the cold that wrapped me. I moved without any conscious thought on my part, wrapping my arm around her and pulling her snugly against me, burying my face in the curve where neck met shoulder. She reached up, stroking her fingers through my hair and waiting patiently.
After a few seconds, I pulled back and looked around. I grabbed her hand and pulled her over to the bed, sitting down. She went to sit next to me and I tugged her into my lap. She came, the expression in her eyes unreadable.
“He didn’t do anything. I mean, not that it matters. In the end,” I said, forcing the words out. “He would have. He tried. But...” Everything tangled in my throat, ugly memories a brand on my brain.
“Tell me how it started,” she said after a few seconds. “Tell it like a story if you have to. Like it happened to somebody else.”
“No.” I laughed and it was bitter and sharp and broken, and the very act hurt. “I don’t want to think about it happening to somebody else.”
“Okay. Then do what you need to, Luke. But tell me. I think that’s one thing you do need to do. This is poisoning you.”
She wasn’t kidding. It was a slow, insidious poison, something that had eaten away at me for years. Sometimes, it went inactive and didn’t bother me for months at a time, but then the nightmares would start up and it was like it was happening all over again.
“The beginning,” I muttered, sweat breaking out on my forehead. I could do that. It hadn’t been anything at the beginning. “He’d just be there at the house. He hung out with Chase, like I said. I was eleven, twelve when he started talking to me more...”
I talked. And talked. I lost track of how much time passed. My throat was dry and raw and at some point, Sabrina pressed a finger to my lips, then got up and left the room.
She came back in with two rocks glasses and a bottle of scotch tucked under her arm. I managed a faint smile. “You know me too well.”
“It’s for me as much as you.” She passed a glass to me and put the bottle on the floor. I tugged her back into my lap.
“Hey...watch it,” she chided as her scotch sloshed. “You might not care how much this stuff costs a bottle, but I do.”
A few drops had splashed onto her thigh. I stared at them, mesmerized. I was tempted to bend my head and lick them up, do anything but keep on talking. Carefully, I wiped them away with my thumb instead. After taking a sip of the scotch, I balanced the glass on her knee and continued.
“School was starting soon. I was going to be a freshman. He was already going to college by then but the school wasn’t far and he had a car, so he just drove back and forth, still hung out at the house a lot, invited Chase over. He had pool parties for the athletic teams.” I stared off into nothing, remembering. A chill washed over me. “There was one, right at the end of summer.
Sabrina leaned in closer, working her free arm underneath mine and curling it around me. “You were what...fourteen?”
“Yeah. Almost fifteen. Still skinny, lanky. Devin and I looked the same age. Chris had been shaving since he was fourteen. I didn’t even have peach fuzz yet.” Sick humiliation twisted in my gut. “I always avoided being around other people when I changed. Everybody else had already left the pool house and I’d been hiding in the bathroom until they were all gone. I’d planned to change in there, but my swim trunks were in Chase’s bag and I couldn’t get to them without making a big deal of it, so I went to get them and he comes in. Sees me and smiles. ‘You better hurry up and change...don’t want to miss all the fun.’ Then he goes into the bathroom. I felt stupid, standing there holding my trunks when I could hear everybody else outside screaming and laughing. So I turned around and started to change...”
Sabrina stroked my back and snuggled in.
“I turned around and he was there. Staring at me. It freaked me out, but I brushed it off, figuring it was just because I was so embarrassed about that kind of thing. He grinned at me like a second later. ‘Come on,’ he says. I go to head out and we’re like two feet from the door and he reaches down, touches my back, real low. I froze. He told me there was something on me, that he was brushing it off. But it felt...wrong.”
Even now, it all sounded so...stupid to me. Paranoia, maybe. And I could have been having the depression issues back then.
“Look at me.” Sabrina’s no-nonsense tone cut through the fog.
I jerked my head and met her eyes.
“Whatever you’re thinking...stop. We have instincts for a reason. Something told you that things were off. Did you listen?”
“Yeah. I got out of there. He acted like nothing happened and I thought maybe I imagined it.” I blew out a hard, rough sigh and took another of scotch—a bigger one. “A month goes by and the wrestling coach talked me into trying out for the team. Chase wrestled and ran track. Devin was wrestling, too, putting muscle on like crazy. Kid already had girls falling over him and he was two years younger than me.” Another drink—drained it that time. “I wasn’t very good. Try-outs were coming up and I was nervous as hell. I hated not doing well. He offers to help me and I go over to his house— Fuck, I need a drink.”
I shoved my glass into Sabrina’s hand without thinking about the fact that she was already holding her own, but she managed to balance it until she retracted her other arm from around me and steadied both glasses. My hand was shaking as I went to unscrew the cap.
“Whoa, big guy,” she said gently. “Here. Let me do this.”
She slid off my lap, pacing over to the built-in desk along the nearest wall to put the glasses down. She came back as I lifted the bottle to my lips, taking a deep gulp of the scotch. My eyes watered as I lowered it to meet her gaze, one smooth black brow cocked. She didn’t say anything, just tugged the bottle away. She filled my glass just over half-full.
I took it and banded my free arm around her waist, tugging her close until I could bury my face against her belly. “Sorry. Didn’t think it would be this hard.”
She shoved her hand into my hair and tugged lightly until I looked up.
She held my eyes as she sank down, straddling my lap. “You don’t apologize to me. Not for any of this. Okay? There’s no right or wrong to how you do this.”
I wanted to believe that.
It wasn’t happening. Shifting her around, I settled us more comfortably on the bed, her back against my front.
“We were in the basement. His dad had set up a full gym for him. Weights. Wrestling mats. The works. He goes over some of the basics with me, shows me a decent work out to help start building muscle. Things were fine. We were having fun. He was bigger than me—a lot bigger, but he would let me pin him and show me what I was doing wrong. That sort of thing. Then he’d make it harder and harder, have me work to get out of it. Until I couldn’t.” My throat locked up tight. I drained the entire glass of scotch. It fell from my hand to the floor and I didn’t even notice. “I was face down on the mat and he shoves up against me. He was panting. I got that feeling that everything was wrong again. Then he shoves his hand inside my shorts and grabs me.”
Sabrina reached down and gripped my hand, clutching it tightly. But she didn’t say anything.
“I froze and...” Shut the fuck up, my mind shouted. The words came anyway. Spilling out. “He was moving and talking to me. Telling me what he’d like to do, that I should let him. I tried to jerk away, but I couldn’t move more than an inch or two and I was too freaked out even to cry or scream. Then somebody did start shouting. I thought it was me. But he jerked away. I crawled over to the edge of the mat. My shorts were halfway to my knees. He was shouting at somebody. I didn’t realize it until she came over and grabbed me, jerked me up that it was his mom. She practically dragged me up the stairs, screaming the entire time. We got into the kitchen and she shoved me into a seat...”
Sabrina went rigid and slowly turned around. She held the glass of scotch, but she hadn’t to
uched it. I think she forgot she even had it. I took it away carefully, then lifted it to my lips and tossed it back.
Her eyes bore into mine, awful and dark. “What happened, Luke?”
“She slapped me and told me to get the hell out of her house.”
MY HEAD WAS SPINNING.
I’d need to move after telling her all of that so I nudged her off my lap and got up, only to stumble.
Seconds later, she was there, steadying me. “You didn’t eat anything today but a donut,” she said gently. “And the two of us just killed an entire bottle of scotch. Come on. Let me make you something to eat.”
“I’m not—”
“I don’t care,” she argued, pressing her fingers to my mouth. “You need to eat or you’re going to feel like shit tomorrow.”
Catching her wrist, I nuzzled her palm. Staring into her eyes, I asked, “Will you sleep with me tonight?”
Her lashes drifted down.
“Just sleep.”
She leaned forward and pressed her lips to mine. “As long as you eat.”
Thirty minutes later, after tucking away scrambled eggs and toast, I stared at her across the island. She cupped her hands around a mug of coffee and met my gaze levelly.
“There’s more you haven’t told me, isn’t there?”
“Your ability to read minds might impress some people, but I find it somewhat intimidating,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. When she didn’t respond, I held out a hand. “C’mere, Ina.”
She came around the island and I tugged her closer, pressing my face against the valley between her breasts. The pounding in my head receded to a near-tolerable level as she slid her hand up and curved it along the back of my scalp. “You going to tell me what else happened?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sabrina
THE MUSIC FROM MY PHONE started to play. I’d been awake for almost an hour, staring out the window as the lights from the walking bridge played softly over the curtains.
Luke lay sleeping behind me, and I didn’t want the alarm to wake him, so I grabbed my phone and silenced it.
It had been nearly a week since he’d told me what had happened to him when he was a kid...and the events that had taken place in the days before he’d finally left Ulysses the day after he turned eighteen.
He probably didn’t realize it, but he’d been...different since he told me. He moved lighter. The odd, sharp edge of his persona wasn’t gone, but it was blunted. Those jagged bits would never be completely gone, I didn’t think. Yet there was no denying that something had changed. Maybe it was just a sudden relief of the strain of keeping something that awful buried inside for so long. I didn’t know.
Luke shifted behind me and I took one more moment to take in the pleasure of having him so close. I had no idea how much longer this would last, but I’d hoard every single second, gobble up every moment for as long as I could.
But the clock kept turning and I had so much to get done. Luke did, too. There were things I needed to do, balls I had to get rolling, then I’d have to drag him out of bed and get him caffeinated so we could deal with the business aspects of his life. Later on, his mom was finally being discharged into a rehab facility so she could rebuild her strength. Chase, Luke and I would be the ones on hand for her discharge, as well as following along to see her settled into the rehab facility.
Although there were a couple of facilities closer to Ulysses, the family had ultimately settled on an inpatient rehab and physical therapy center in Louisville’s East End. It was still a drive for the rest of Luke’s siblings to get there, but it was the best in the area and everybody insisted that’s what their mother get—the best. The center, unlike some of the other facilities, was also accustomed to providing care for people who might be in need of special security needs. More than a few of Luke’s more...devoted...fans had already been removed from the hospital and it had been a point of concern when they were looking at facilities where she could focus on rebuilding her strength.
Curling my toes into the carpet, I drew in a deep breath and tried to clear my mind of everything but the few tasks I had to accomplish in the next hour. It wasn’t easy, but bit by bit, all the noise faded away and my focus sharpened.
All right, it was time to get to work.
“LOOK, I UNDERSTAND Luke’s got concerns about his mom’s recovery, but we’ve got concerns about how this movie is going to go,” Lenny Russell said, staring out at me from my tablet. Behind him, the windows of his California penthouse were still dark. He’d been the one to suggest this insane conference time—it was five-thirty a.m. EST time, so it was two-thirty in L.A. But he’d insisted we talk today, and once I told him that Luke’s mom was being transferred and I couldn’t promise that I’d be available at nine Pacific, he’d decided to be an ass and set this pre-dawn wake-up call.
The screen was spliced into four sections—Lenny taking up half the screen, with Kelly in the top right section, Harley Stein, director of the Sword movies, taking up the middle section, and the feed of my face staring up at me from the bottom.
Lenny continued to prattle on, and I wondered if he’d even notice if I flipped him off.
Kelly’s mouth tightened slightly as Lenny, the movie’s executive producer, finished saying, “I’m sure Luke’s mama would understand that her golden boy has a job to do, too. A lot of people are counting on him.”
I spoke before she could.
“This has nothing to do with Luke’s mama understanding that her son has a job to do,” I snapped. “This has to do with the fact that seven days ago, his mother died on the fucking table in surgery. What part about that do you not get?”
“She’s still alive,” Lenny said, frowning.
“Lenny,” Harley said, leaning forward so that her face took up more of the screen. “I know you’re looking at the PR angle, but I think you need to consider the negative press we could be drumming up if word gets out that your top star decided to leave his mother’s side to go jet setting around the world to attend opening night and give some on-camera interviews.”
“You’re being melodramatic—”
“You’re being a callous dick,” I fired back.
Kelly’s brows straight up into her hairline. Harley made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh, although she covered her mouth with her fist and gamely tried to turn it into a cough.
“Now, just a minute—”
“What’s the problem?” Luke appeared over my shoulder.
I silently groaned. I’d been so absorbed in the conversation, I hadn’t even heard him. So much for getting this mess squared away so he wouldn’t have to worry about it.
Lenny’s entire demeanor changed. “Luke...my man. I was hoping I’d be able to talk to you. Listen, kid, we’ve got to get you on a plane and at the premier in Vegas this Friday.”
“That ain’t happening.” Luke shook his head.
Lenny smiled and gamely tried again. “Listen, I know you’re worried about your mom. We all are. I’ll have the company jet on hand to fly you back every few days. Once a week, at least. But we need you visible for opening night. We need these interviews. We need—”
“I need to be with my mom,” Luke said, cutting him off. “In a few weeks, when I know she’s stable, then it will be different.”
“The movie is out this Friday!”
“Gee, I’m sorry my mom inconvenienced you with her life-threatening cardiac condition,” Luke said, his voice going cold.
“Luke,” Kelly interjected, her tone conciliatory. “Trust me, I know how you feel, okay? If it was my mother, I’d be doing exactly what you’re doing.”
I fought not to shiver as Luke skimmed his hand up and down my back, a restless, seeking touch. I shifted around a bit and took his free hand, lacing our fingers and pressing the back of his hand to my thigh, out of sight of the watchful eye of my tablet’s camera.
“Good to know, Kelly.” Luke’s tone had a little less of an edge to it.
&nbs
p; “The problem is, as Lenny mentioned to Sabrina earlier in the call, short of unavailable emergencies, you’re contractually required to participate in certain promotional activities,” Kelly said.
“I think Luke’s mom having a heart attack in the middle of a cardiac procedure counts,” I snapped.
“She’s stable now, isn’t she?” Lenny demanded.
Luke went rigid. “Watch how you talk to my fiancée, Lenny.”
“Ladies. Gentlemen.” Once more, Harley leaned in. “Can we stop the bickering? It’s solving nothing. Both Lenny and Luke have equally valid points—and unless we want to try and settle this in court—it would be more useful to find some middle ground.”
“It will take a while to settle it in court. I’m fine with that option,” Luke said, baring his teeth in a mockery of a smile.
I squeezed his hand. “Back down, big guy,” I told him, glancing at him. I met Harley’s gaze speculatively. “Louisville isn’t exactly New York, LA or Chicago. But they’ve got reporters and all here who can do interviews. They handle the Derby every year. It would take some doing, but why don’t we see if we can’t work out some sort of impromptu opening night here that Luke can attend? Then you’re getting PR from two venues—the main one and the one where the star of the franchise is in his local milieu, so to speak, so he can be with his family as his mother recovers from a heart attack. As far as special interest stories go, people will eat up that aspect of it.”
Lenny frowned, already shaking his head.
But both Harley and Kelly were grinning by the time I was done.
“I love that idea!” Harley clapped her hands.
Kelly chimed in her agreement and as the two of them started to talk, I slumped slightly.
Luke bent forward and pressed his lips to my temple.
“Hey, no. None of that,” Harley said. “We’re working here. Listen, Sabrina, a college friend of mine lives in Chicago. She’s worked with movie openings there. I’m sending her contact info.”
Cocksure (The Cochrans of Cocker County) Page 17
