“I’ll drive back tonight.” Kit offered. “I could always stay at your place.”
“No. I’ve got shit to do.”
Dan lifted Angel into the water, her giggling a poor effort of staving him off. This time, I wasn’t the only one who looked pissed. Jordan watched the two of them, either jealous or confused. He wasn’t giving too much away, but happy, he wasn’t.
“Whoa, scrappy, she’s taken.” It wasn’t for Dan’s benefit, Nicky was baiting me.
“Kit, get in here already,” said Katlyn. “Before I shrivel up.”
Kit took off her clothes as if it was her profession and then slid off her bra, her tits out for everyone to see. She caught me looking at her, a glimmer of triumph on her face.
She thought I was jealous.
I might have been, I had just had sex with her. Her body had been mine an hour ago, and now everyone was getting a piece.
She lowered herself into the water and when she was fully submerged she catapulted her thong at me. I was quick off the mark, catching them in my fist thanks to my footballing skills, even though I didn’t want them. It was a reflex I couldn’t ignore. I stuffed them into my back pocket. She’d need them later.
“Where’s the vodka?” Angel asked. Nicky passed her the bottle.
Jordan moved fast, sliding into the water the minute there was a break between Angel and Dan. He took the bottle out of her hands, taking a drink, and then pressed his mouth against hers. It wasn’t a kiss, she was swallowing the vodka.
“Get in, Jules.” Kit was safely covered by the water, but we all knew she was naked under there.
“I really need to pee.” Angel started for the edge of the lake. She hadn’t looked at me since I got back, not once. She still wasn’t looking at me.
“We’re in the lake,” said Dan. “Oh shit. There’s Dionne.” The redhead was farther along the lake, lounging in a blow-up dingy, her fingers trailing across the water.
“That’s gross. I’m not doing that.” Angel climbed out of the lake with a good push on her ass cheeks from Dan.
“Yeah, whatever. Go piss in the wild, then. I’ve got someone to see.” He swam away with brisk arm-strokes. There was nothing quite so motivating to Dan than a nice piece of ass.
“Want me to come with you?” Katlyn asked Angel, ready to get out and act as her piss-partner.
“Then who’ll keep my cock warm,” Nicky said, grinning.
“He’s joking,” said Kit when Angel gaped at him.
Christ, could she say naïve?
Angel insisted she was fine and hurried to the cover of the forest in a zig-zag line. Jordan got out the lake to go after her.
I sat on the grass with nothing else to do. I’d been in the lake once, and it was freezing. I wasn’t getting in again. Rixton came over, taking the space next to me. Out of all of us, he always kept his shit together. “I take it I’m the designated?”
“You’re probably the only one who’s sober,” I said. I was glad he was here, it would stop me looking back, searching for Angel. “You had enough?”
“I’m cool,” he said, eye-balling me. “You’re the one who looks like you’ve had enough.”
“Yeah, I have,” I admitted. The party showed no signs of dying down, and a few minutes later Jordan came back.
Alone.
Kit shouted him over and he obliged without a second thought. They got close enough that her nipples brushed his chest, and I’d bet he was flagging a boner under the water. They weren’t doing anything but talking—Kit probably nosing about Angel–but I was partly relieved Angel wasn’t here to see it. “Rix, you ready to leave this shitfest?”
“Sure.” He started to get up when I did.
“Here’s my keys. I promised Angel a ride back.”
He looked at Kit and Jordan getting too fucking cozy, then at me. He nodded his head. “Sure, man. Take your time. See you at the car.”
<>
Angel was too drunk, gripping to the trunk of a tree far enough from the lake that no one would know if she dropped dead from alcohol poisoning. Retching, she threw up a stream of vodka and beer, and fuck knows what else, but it was all liquid. I swept her loose strands of hair away from her face and splayed my fingers on the skin of her over-heated back to stop her from falling. It wasn’t that warm, but the vodka was like a furnace in her blood. I knew the feeling, I’d been close to her state many times when I was in my freshman year and when my dad fucked off. But Angel didn’t grab me as a huge drinker. She was too… innocent, and careful.
“Feel better?” I reached behind my back as she looked up, and pulled off my T-shirt. “Use this.”
She wiped her mouth with the top. “Thanks,” she said, her voice scratchy. “I shouldn’t drink.”
I fastened my hands to the skin of my hips, releasing a puff of air from my cheeks. I wasn’t fighting with her, but I had to say it. “How many times do I have to see those clowns put their hands on you?”
“What?”
“Dan. Don’t let them touch you, because one sample, Angel, and they’ll want the whole fucking plate. Those guys aren’t Jordan, they’ll fucking eat you up and spit you out.”
Me included. I still had to deliver.
“I wasn’t thinking like that. He was messing around, it was nothing.”
“You need someone to touch you?” I felt Angel’s heart accelerate when I clamped one hand on the tree bark, high above her head. “Or do you just prefer me jealous? ‘Cause I’m fucking jealous.”
“I’m not trying to make you jealous.”
“Then what the fuck are you doing?”
“Do you always have to curse?”
I hung my head, a bitter smile creeping onto my face. Angel flinched from my nearness and wild anger as I inched even closer. “I was this close to shoving Dan’s head so far up his fucking ass that he’d need a surgeon to get it back out, and you’re bothered about my cursing?”
“You swear too much,” she said, lamely. “It scares me.” It was true. I knew I could switch into a shit storm of aggression at the flip of a switch. “And you’ve got a nerve. I know what you and kit have been doing.”
I don’t know why that should bother me, but it did.
“Did you?”
I stayed silent.
She wacked her fists against my chest with her own wildness. “Did you!” she yelled.
I levelled her with a look that felt more like an apology than it should. “Angel—”
“Never mind. You already gave me my answer.”
The swell of tears strained against her lids. “I’m not mad,” she said, the tears escaping and dripping down her face. My gut twisted. “Because friends forgive, right? You got what you wanted out of me in the shower, pretended you cared.” She looked up through her tears, right into me. “You kissed me tonight. And then you had sex with kit.”
She carved out a second for thought, the dip of a frown weighing above her big brown eyes. “But that’s okay, because we’re friends. You might not believe this, but I don’t expect anything from you, Julian. Not. A. Thing.”
I let her have her five minutes, ranting like a fucking maniac. She didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. She stuck her hand in the pocket of my sweats, digging around. I didn’t stop her, she could get this build-up off her chest before I landed her with a few home truths.
She snatched her hand from my sweats, not finding what she wanted. “I’m taking this,” she said. I moved out of the way so she could bend down and pick up my shirt, almost falling face-first into the mud. It would be bullshit if I said I didn’t gain a slight satisfaction from that.
She straightened, pulling herself together. She was a clumsy drunk. “Because I’m going to throw up again and I’d hate it to ruin your leather interior. I’ll be in your car when you’re ready to take me home.”
My hand shot out, circling her wrist. Her eyes darted to mine, fixed wide-open. “Shut the fuck up, would you? First, I don’t pretend. And I know you’re no
t that mad with me because of Kit. You couldn’t give a fuck what Kit and I do, so what happened?”
Her chin jutted the other way, her chest sucking in from her deep breath. Wearing only a pair of white panties and a cropped tank top, and the party-high long gone, a sensitized shiver racked her body. The animosity fizzled out and she rubbed her hands over her arms, finding a source of heat. “Jordan,” she said, “It’s over. Over. Over. Over.”
Predictable.
The edge she had softened, her shoulders rounding. “But he won’t let me go. And I can’t fucking say no.” She was crying, and I felt an aching heaviness above my eyes. I was getting a fucking headache from this guy. “He can’t be with me, but I’m okay for the occasional kiss or grope. I can’t get him off my mind, he’s worse than a spreading disease.”
“You got the disease part right.”
“I’m sick, Julian. And what’s the cure? Tell me, cuz I’m dying here.” She was getting hysterical, shouting, and she didn’t care who heard. “I’m fucking dying. My heart has fucking stopped!” She rived at her top, clutching at her chest. My own breathing got quicker. “I can’t breathe. I can never breathe. I feel like I’m dead. He took everything with him, and I’ve got nothing. Nothing!”
I’d planned on telling her about him and Kit, but I could see now that she’d put up with enough of his games, long before I was ever in the picture. Adding to her pain wasn’t the way to go with this. And she was in pain, real fucking pain. She covered her face in her hands, her breathing loud and jaggedly-uneven. She might be drunk and dramatic, but she was sincere in how much she was hurting.
But it wasn’t love, I refused to believe it. She just needed to be shown something different, something better. Something real.
I wrapped my hand around the back of her head, guiding her toward me with no resistance, and pressed her face against my chest to shut her up. Causing a scene wasn’t going to make this any better. “You’re not dead,” I said. Her tears shone on my skin, her hand still covering her face. “It just feels like it. But you’re not, trust me.”
“He owns me. Every single part of me, and he took it all. How do I get through this?” She sobbed through her hands. “What am I supposed to do now? Tell me?”
“That’s easy,” I said, running my fingers over her arm. “Let me bring you back to life.”
18: Angel
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Fireworks were exploding everywhere. I had given into my weakness of Julian and now the show was really starting. Only the picture wasn’t so clear in the harsh daylight, and I was glad of it. Glad the distortion of my mental breakdown was foggy in my mind. I was too embarrassed to re-live it. I had inhaled enough vodka that my dreams were all black, but now I was conscious, patches of the night before working to stick themselves together again. It was not a night I wanted to go back to. And on top of that, I did not want to be awake this morning.
My mouth felt like it had been wiped down with sandpaper and my head hurt to touch. I cracked open one eye—squinting at that—and the first thing I noticed apart from it being far too bright, was that I wasn’t in my own room. The hardwood floor had a pile of dirty laundry overflowing from a hamper next to a desk with a TV on it and a stack of sports magazines. There were trophies lining the shelves, but the walls were mostly bare, apart from one oversized Sports Illustrated calendar.
I eased myself up into a sitting position, wary of my throbbing head. It was then I saw that I wasn’t wearing my own clothes. I stretched out the too-big football jersey I was wearing. Julian’s number was printed on the front. Idly, I brought the silken fabric up to my nose and inhaled the burst of fresh cotton and crisp cologne. Julian’s scent was stagnant, one hit and my pulse was sending my insides into overdrive. My heart couldn’t keep up. It was almost enough to make me forget my hangover. Or cure it. But it wasn’t enough to forget Jordan.
I was startled from my smelling-fest when the door opened and the man himself came in with a glass of orange. I took it with greedy fingers and I could have thanked God when Julian passed me two Tylenol. Two wouldn’t be enough, I needed a bottle.
“It’s all kind of fuzzy at the moment, but I’m sorry for you having to bring me here. I know it can’t have been good, the second pulse in my head can attest to that.”
I met Julian’s gaze head on. I could see his mind ticking over, his blue eyes sharp and contemplative. He didn’t want to fight and neither did I. I was sick of the fighting, it was making our contaminated relationship even more poisonous.
His legs were spread wide and he leaned forward on his elbows, dropping his head to drag his hands through his new short hair. Now I was sober, it was like seeing him for the first time.
“I can’t explain my relationship with Kit to you,” he said, looking at the floor. “We fuck, yeah. It’s been that way for nearly two years and I’d be lying if I told you that I didn’t have some feelings for her.”
“You don’t need to do this.”
I can’t handle it…
“I want you to understand. There are reasons we’re close and it’s not my place to tell you them, but she’s not my girl and she knows that. You made me feel like the biggest shit on the planet last night, and I’ve sat all night looking at the four walls in the living room thinking you’re right. I did sleep with Kit after I kissed you.”
I’d known that already, but to hear it out loud was a whole other wound to heal. But it didn’t need to be. I could stop this now. Stop using Julian to make myself feel better. Stop covering up what I was really feeling with a temporary fix that had the potential to make my brittle heart even weaker. Because when it came down to it, I was starting to like Julian. And not the way I should.
It was a recipe for disaster.
“I know you wish you could take back what happened in the locker room, but it was let Kit have it or I was coming after you, Angel.” He looked up with the shadow of a smile. “It’s habit for me to get what I want, and Kit filled that position. She always does. I don’t think any less of her for it, and I shouldn’t have kissed you. You’re hung up on Jordan, I get it. But you make it so fucking hard for me when I see other people all over you. It pisses me off. Especially those fucking scumbags off the team. They’ve had their dick in every hole at BU.”
“You’re making me sound like a whore,” I said, scowling.
“That’s the last thing I think you are. But you’re too innocent and those guys know that, so they’re taking advantage. Don’t play along with them, you’ll never win. Everything’s a joke in their world, but trust me, you won’t be laughing.”
“Are you warning me away from hanging out with them?”
“No, you can do what you want. Just try not to make me have to fucking kill them. I was playing with you at first, but I like hanging with you. I’d even go as far as calling you a friend and actually meaning it. So fuck it, yeah, I’m protective of shit that’s mine.”
“I’m not yours.”
“You know what I mean.”
I clutched a hand to the heartbeat in my head. I was too wary for all this friend transition crap. It hurt like hell. But he was my friend, too. His loyalty ran deeper than his looks, that was one thing I was certain about.
I glanced down at my shaking hands, weak from all the alcohol. It couldn’t come quick enough till it was flushed out of my system.
“Do you mind if I lie down?” I asked. If I sat up any longer I was going to be sick. I hadn’t even bothered my ass to go and buy a dress for my pop’s dinner tonight, so that was an unwanted chore that I was going to have to endure later with a raging hangover.
Julian nodded, then took my empty glass from the night stand.
“These sheets are okay, right?” I really would be sick if they had remnants of him and Kit’s exploits embedded on there.
“You’re the only other person to get in there, so unless you mind that I’ve slept in them, then yeah, they’re okay.”
<
>
I put on the sunglasses that Julian gave me and flipped down the visor. No sun was acceptable today or my sensitive eyes threatened to set on fire. I was acting as Dracula’s badly dressed cousin and I didn’t care what anybody thought about that. Julian had dried my clothes for me, but the jersey stayed on. I’d tied it in a knot just below my bellybutton and pulled my ponytail through the back of his ball cap.
Julian slipped me a sideways glance.
“What?” I said, looking at the duller version of him through my blackened lenses.
“I could get used to you wearing my number.”
“Good,” I said. “Because I am keeping this.”
He shifted the gear stick and we hit the highway in his Range Rover, speeding up. I turned in my seat to offer Taj a drink of my diet coke. It was a cure from the Gods when you had ingested too much flame-retardant liquid. I waved the bottle in front of his face, and he grabbed at it. He finished it off and had the nerve to hand me back the empty bottle.
Thanks, I signed, sarcastically. He grinned at me and then put all his attention back into his PSP.
I arched my back, lifting my butt off the seat when my phone vibrated in the back pocket of my sweats. It was Jordan, and I took a humble, triumphant step when I deleted his message without even reading it. Julian gave me a fleeting glace, sensing the dip in my emotion and I put my phone away, offering up a smile. I craved to see Jordan, I’d be lying if I said I never. At first, all roads in my life led to him. It was intense and blinding. I couldn’t see past him, he was an obstruction. Allowing Julian to get too close had brought me out at a fork in the road. But Julian would never happen. He was perfectly honest and upfront about his attitude to women and relationships so that solved that. And I could barely get over my addiction long enough to give Julian much more thought. There wasn’t enough space for two guys. Jordan took my whole heart and energy. What could I say? I was a glutton for punishment.
Falling for Seven Page 19
